 That a whole arises out of smaller parts and that atoms are the material causes of the world—these mainstays of atomism have been contested by other schools of Indian philosophy. There are two important cosmological theories in the anti-atomic camp—Prakṛti-pariṇāma-vāda and Brahma-kāraṇa-vāda. Of these two, the first, a Sāṃkhya view that the world evolves from Ur-Nature or prakṛti, is more relevant in the discussion of naturalism. Ur-Nature is an ever-dynamic whole of all-pervasive magnitude having three constituent principles or guṇas, viz. sattva, rajas and tamas. Sattva has the power to illuminate, rajas to activate and tamas to restraint. B.N. Seal (1958), therefore, thinks that these principles are three aspects of matter, viz., form, energy and mass. K.C. Bhattacharya (1956), on the other hand, has offered a psychological interpretation which appears to have a closer fit with the text. Bhattacharya maintains that the Sāṃkhya considers things of nature as contents of affective experience. Mohanty (1992) also concurs that ‘the guṇas are the substantial, but dynamic, being of the elementary feelings that constitute, in their interconnections, all experience.’ The guṇas as affective absolutes constitute the object. In the process of evolution, the Sāṃkhya gives the central role to rajas, which is said to be an ever-active principle of pain. Mohanty explains, following Bhattacharya, that ‘since pain implies the active wish to be free from pain, pain is a freeing activity: it is restless willing to be free. Pleasure is restful freedom from pain; indifference is not only want of freedom but is also not actively willing freedom.’ So these three constituents of Ur-nature are present in all objects of the world in different proportions and are responsible for our varied experience. This theory of nature is complemented by a theory of causation, viz. satkāryavāda, which states that an effect exists in its cause prior to its production in a latent or non-manifest form.