Sūtra 3.13

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of Sūtra 3.13:

एतेन भूतेन्द्रियेषु धर्मलक्षणावस्थापरिणामा व्याख्याताः ॥ ३.१३ ॥

etena bhūtendriyeṣu dharmalakṣaṇāvasthāpariṇāmā vyākhyātāḥ || 3.13 ||

13. By this the modifications of property, time, and relation in elements and organs have been described.

The Rajamartanda commentary by King Bhoja:

[English translation of the 11th century commentary by Bhoja called the Rājamārtaṇḍa]

[Sanskrit text for commentary available]

Having described the forms of the modification of the thinking principle, he assigns them to Other subjects.

[Read Sūtra 3.13]

“By this,” i.e., by the threefold exposition of the modifications of the thinking principle (A. IX, XI, XII.). “In elements,” (bhūteṣu,) both the gross and the subtile. “In the organs” existing severally as Intellect, organs of function, and internal organ. It is to be understood that the three modifications of property, time, and relation have been described (by the above aphorisms).

When, on the cessation of a former property, the subject undergoes the modification of another property, even as the subject clay, forsaking the form of an undefined mass, assumes another property, that of a jar, it is called the modification of property (Dharmapariṇāma). The “modification of time” (Lakṣaṇa-pariṇāma) (is thus indicated)—when that jar, giving up its antecedent condition, assumes its present condition, or forsaking it, takes up its postcedent condition. The modification of relation (Avasthāpariṇāma) is the correlation of the jars, in the first and the second conditions, for the train of the functions of qualities is always moving, and does not remain unchanging for even a moment.

Notes and Extracts

[Notes and comparative extracts from other commentaries on the Yogasūtra]

[This aphorism applies the theory of eternity of ideas enunciated in the three preceding aphorisms to things in general. The object is to show that even as in ideas, latency, manifestation, and disappearance follow successively, so in the thinking principle ideas appear and disappear under particular circumstances without radically changing its original nature. Change in matter is not absolute, nor radical conversion of one thing into another, but a modification of property, or of time, or of relation. A mass of clay converted into a jar is a change of property, and not of the radical elements of clay. This change is next altered by time, as the breaking of a jar into potsherds; and there is a further change going on in its condition, and the new jar of yesterday is not the same with the jar we see to day, for there has been some change in it since yesterday, for change is constant and cannot be retarded for a moment. The first change is called Dharmapariṇāma, the modification of property. The second is Lakṣaṇapariṇāma, the modification of time. The word lakṣaṇa ordinarily means a sign or character, but it has been explained by commentators to mean time (kālabheda). The third is Avasthāpariṇāma or change of relation.]

Now, a doubt arising as to what the property is, he defines the nature of the propertied, ie., the subject.