Tanmatras (Sanskrit: तन्मात्र = tanmātra) are rudimentary, undifferentiated, subtle elements from which gross elements are produced. There are five sense perceptions – hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell – and there are five tanmatras corresponding to those five sense perceptions and the five sense-organs. The tanmatras combine and re-combine in different ways to produce the gross elements – ether, air, fire, water, and earth – which make up the gross universe perceived by the senses. The senses come into contact with the objects and carry impressions of them to the manas (mind), which receives and arranges them into precepts. Overview The Samkhya school of philosophy, propounded by Rishi Kapila, holds the five tanmatras, or principle ideas, as the essential, primordial causes of the five substantial elements of physical manifestation: akasha (ether), vayu (air), agni or taijasa (fire), ap (water), and prithvi (earth), in the order of their creation. These substantial elements are the five bhutas from whose unlimited combination comes all material forms in space and time, including living bodies. This is in accordance with the Vedic theory of creation. Theories of evolution Upanishads Sankara and Ramanuja, theological commentators on the Upanishads, have understood the elements as meaning deities and not the elements proper. The Upanishads hold the impossibility of the generation of anything from out of nothingness, or not-being, explain the genesis from life-force or cosmic-force, but finally aver that all creation is only an illusion or appearance. The first-created rayi and prana, mentioned by the philosopher Pippalada, refer to matter and spirit. That Brahman is the non-dual reality can only be known by the process of differentiation from the five elements, differentiation is necessary to separate Brahman from the elements that make up the perceived world. As creation means the appearance of names and forms, names and forms cannot exist before creation. Also, the difference between objects of the same class can have no reference to sat, for nothing else exists; and to speak of difference from a thing which does not exist conveys no meaning. Vidyaranya explains, in Panchadasi III.27, that: अक्षाणां विषयस्तवीदृक्परोक्षस्तादृगुच्यते विषयी नाक्षविषयीः स्वत्वान्नास्य परोक्षता (an object which the senses can perceive can be compared, but an object which is beyond perception can only be imagined, and the object which is the subject of perception cannot be an object of the senses.) Buddhism The Buddhist gandharva Pancasikha calls the ultimate truth avyakta in the state