Dvivedi, Manilal Nabhubhai [Komm.]: The Yoga-sūtra of Patanjali: (translation, with introduction, appendix, and notes based upon several authentic commentaries) (Bombay, 1890)

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dormant so long will manifest themselves when and where the
human conditions are again fulfilled. It may still he argued
how this can be ? It is answered, by the unity of i.'■pressions
and memory. Every act leaves some impression which produces
memory. Memory in its turn leads to action and fresh im-
pressions. If a child is led by instinct, for example, to act in
a particular way, that instinct is proof of a memory which
must be the resitlt of its corresponding and inseparable im-
pression left by some act in a previous incarnation, never
mind when and where.

X. Besides they are without beginning, on account
of the eternity of desire.

They, i. e., the v&sanas. This aphorism solves a difficulty.
If the continuity of zasana be admitted, previous incarnation
must of necessity be regarded as a fact. And if previous in-
carnation is a fact, there must be a point where actual ex-
perience began, and produced the tasanas. The fact, however,
is that vasam has no beginning and no end, just like the uni-
verse which has no beginning and no end. Vdsand is con-
comittant with desire or chitta, i. e., the mind, generally
speaking. Every being has the spontaneous wish ' to be,'
and it is this instinctive function of the mind which makes
v&sani inseparable from mind. The mind again is not atomic
as the Naiyayikas hold, but all-pervading like Aka*a (ether).*
Hence vasana is everywhere and manifests itself in acts,
through memory, wherever the necessary conditions are ful-
filled. In fact if there is no vasana or desire there is no

* Hence the theory tbat the dkdsa retains attenuated impres-
sions of all our acts, mental or physical, which can at any time be
called to life. A'faiia is, therefore, not merely ether, a form of
dead matter, but something more than that.