16:25 The successive series of rudiments and elements, and their respectively engendering the rudiments and elements next in order, occur in most of the Puráńas, in nearly the same words. The Vrihannáradiya P. observes, 'They (the elements) in successive order acquire the property of causality one to the other.' The order is also the same; or, ether (ákás), wind or air (váyu), fire or light (tejas), water and earth; except in one passage of the Mahábhárata (Moksha Dherma, C. 9), where it is ether, water, fire, air, earth. The order of Empedocles was ether, fire, earth, water, air. Cudworth, I. 97. The investment (ávarańa) of each element by its own rudiment, and of each rudiment by its preceding gross and rudimental elements, is also met with in most of the chief Puráńas, as the Váyu, Padma, Linga, and Bhágavata; and traces p. 17 of it are found amongst the ancient cosmogonists; for Anaximander supposed, that when the world was made, a certain sphere or flame of fire, separated from matter (the Infinite), encompassed the air, which invested the earth as the bark does a tree:' Κατὰ τὴν γένεσιν τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου ἀποκριθῆναι, καί τινα ἑκ τούτου φλογὸς σπαῖραν περιφυῆναι τῷ περὶ τὴν γῆν ἄερι, ὡς τῷ δένδρῳ φλοιόν. Euseb. Pr, I. 15. Some of the Puráńas, as the Matsya, Váyu, Linga, Bhágavata, and Márkańd́eya, add a description of a participation of properties amongst the elements, which is rather Vedánta than Sánkhya. According to this notion, the elements add to their characteristic properties those of the elements which precede them. Ákas has the single property of sound: air has those of touch and sound: fire has colour, touch, and sound: water has taste, colour, touch, and sound: and earth has smell and the rest, thus having five properties: or, as the Linga P. describes the series, ###.

17:26 Tanmátra, 'rudiment' or 'type,' from Tad, 'that,' for Tasmin, 'in that' gross element, and mátrá, 'subtile or rudimental form'. The rudiments are also the characteristic properties of the elements: as the Bhágavata; 'The rudiment of it (ether) is also its quality, sound; as a common designation may denote both a person who sees an object, and the object which is to be seen: that is, according to the commentator, suppose a person behind a wall called aloud, "An elephant! an elephant!" the term would equally indicate that an elephant was visible, and that somebody saw it. Bhag. II. 5.

17:27 The properties here alluded to are not those of goodness &c., but other properties assigned to perceptible objects by the Sánkhya doctrines, or Śánti, 'placidity;' Ghoratá, 'terror;' and Moha, 'dulness' or 'stupefaction.' S. Káriká, V.38. p, 119.