A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 by Surendranath Dasgupta (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

Mahâbhârata; but we are pretty certain that the Sâ@mkhya of Caraka we have sketched here was known to Patañjali, for in Yoga sûtra I. 19 a reference is made to a view of Sâ@mkhya similar to this.

From the point of view of history of philosophy the Sâ@mkhya of Caraka and Pañcas'ikha is very important; for it shows a transitional stage of thought between the Upani@sad ideas and the orthodox Sâ@mkhya doctrine as represented by Îs'varak@r@s@na. On the one hand its doctrine that the senses are material, and that effects are produced only as a result of collocations, and that the puru@sa is unconscious, brings it in close relation with Nyâya, and on the other its connections with Buddhism seem to be nearer than the orthodox Sâ@mkhya.

We hear of a Sa@s@titantras'âstra as being one of the oldest Sâ@mkhya works. This is described in the Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ as containing two books of thirty-two and twenty-eight chapters [Footnote ref 2]. A quotation from Râjavârttika (a work about which there is no definite information) in Vâcaspati Mis'ra's commentary on the Sâ@mkhya kârika_(72) says that it was called the _@Sa@s@titantra because it dealt with the existence of prak@rti, its oneness, its difference from puru@sas, its purposefulness for puru@sas, the multiplicity of puru@sas, connection and separation from puru@sas, the evolution of

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[Footnote 1: Patañjali's Mahâbhâ@sya, IV. I. 3. Atisannikar@sâdativiprakar@sât mûrttyantaravyavadhânât tamasâv@rtatvât indriyadaurvalyâdatipramâdât, etc. (Benares edition.)]

[Footnote 2: Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ, pp. 108, 110.]

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the categories, the inactivity of the puru@sas and the five viparyyayas, nine tu@s@tis, the defects of organs of twenty-eight kinds, and the eight siddhis [Footnote ref 1].

But the content of the Sa@s@titantra as given in Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ is different from it, and it appears from it that the Sâ@mkhya of the Sa@s@titantra referred to in the Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ was of a theistic character resembling the doctrine of the Pañcarâtra Vai@snavas and the Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ says that Kapila's theory of Sâ@mkhya was a Vai@s@nava one. Vijñâna Bhiksu, the greatest expounder of Sâ@mkhya, says in many places of his work Vijñânâm@rta Bhâ@sya that Sâ@mkhya was originally theistic, and that the atheistic Sâ@mkhya is only a prau@dhivâda (an exaggerated attempt to show that no supposition of Îs'vara is necessary to explain the world process) though the Mahâbhârata points out that the difference between Sâ@mkhya and Yoga is this, that the former is atheistic, while the latter is theistic. The discrepancy between the two accounts of @Sa@s@titantra suggests that the original Sa@s@titantra as referred to in the Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ was subsequently revised and considerably changed. This supposition is corroborated by the fact that Gu@naratna does not mention among the important Sâ@mkhya works @Sa@s@titantra but @Sa@s@titantroddhâra

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[Footnote 1: The doctrine of the viparyyaya, tusti, defects of organs, and the siddhi are mentioned in the Karikâ of Is'varakr@sna, but I have omitted them in my account of Sâmkhya as these have little philosophical importance. The viparyyaya (false knowledge) are five, viz. avidyâ (ignorance), asmita (egoism), raga (attachment), dve@sa (antipathy), abhimives'a (self-love), which are also called tamo, moha, mahâmoha, tamisrâ, and andhatâmisra. These are of nine kinds of tusti, such as the idea that no exertion is necessary, since prak@rti will herself bring our salvation (ambhas), that it is not necessary to meditate, for it is enough if we renounce the householder's life (salila), that there is no hurry, salvation will come in time (megha), that salvation will be worked out by fate (bhâgya), and the contentment leading to renunciation proceeding from five kinds of causes, e.g. the troubles of earning (para), the troubles of protecting the earned money (supara), the natural waste of things earned by enjoyment (parâpara), increase of desires leading to greater disappointments (anuttamâmbhas), all gain leads to the injury of others (uttamâmbhas). This renunciation proceeds from external considerations with those who consider prak@rti and its evolutes as the self. The siddhis or ways of success are eight in number, viz. (1) reading of scriptures (târa), (2) enquiry into their meaning (sutâra), (3) proper reasoning (târatâra), (4) corroborating one's own ideas with the ideas of the teachers and other workers of the same field (ramyaka), (5) clearance of the mind by long-continued practice (sadâmudita). The three other siddhis called pramoda, mudita, and modamâna lead directly to the separation of the prak@rti from the purus'a. The twenty-eight sense defects are the eleven defects of the eleven senses and seventeen kinds of defects of the understanding corresponding to the absence of siddhis and the presence of tustis. The viparyyayas, tu@stis and the defects of the organs are hindrances in the way of the achievement of the Sâ@mkhya goal.]

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(revised edition of @Sa@s@titantra) [Footnote ref 1]. Probably the earlier @Sa@s@titantra was lost even before Vâcaspati's time.

If we believe the @Sa@s@titantra referred to in the Ahirbudhnya Sa@mhitâ to be in all essential parts the same work which was composed by Kapila and based faithfully on his teachings, then it has to be assumed that Kapila's Sâ@mkhya was theistic [Footnote ref 2]. It seems probable that his disciple Âsuri tried to popularise it. But it seems that a great change occurred when Pañcas'ikha the disciple of Âsuri came to deal with it. For we know that his doctrine differed from the traditional one in many important respects. It is said in Sâ@mkhya kârikâ (70) that the literature was divided by him into many parts (tena bahudhâk@rtam tantram). The exact meaning of this reference is difficult to guess. It might mean that the original @Sa@s@titantra was rewritten by him in various treatises. It is a well-known fact that most of the schools of Vai@s@navas accepted the form of cosmology which is the same in most essential parts as the Sâ@mkhya cosmology. This justifies the assumption that Kapila's doctrine was probably theistic. But there are a few other points of difference between the Kapila and the Pâtañjala Sâ@mkhya (Yoga). The only supposition that may be ventured is that Pañcas'ikha probably modified Kapila's work in an atheistic way and passed it as Kapila's work. If this supposition is held reasonable, then we have three strata of Sâ@mkhya, first a theistic one, the details of which are lost, but which is kept in a modified form by the Pâtañjala school of Sâ@mkhya, second an atheistic one as represented by Pañcas'ikha, and a third atheistic modification as the orthodox Sâ@mkhya system. An important change in the Sâ@mkhya doctrine seems to have been introduced by Vijñâna Bhik@su (sixteenth century A.D.) by his treatment of gu@nas as types of reals. I have myself accepted this interpretation of Sâ@mkhya as the most rational and philosophical one, and have therefore followed it in giving a connected system of the accepted Kapila and the Pâtañjala school of Sâ@mkhya. But it must be pointed out that originally the notion of gu@nas was applied to different types of good and bad mental states, and then they were supposed in some mysterious way by mutual increase and decrease to form the objective world on the one hand and the

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[Footnote 1: Tarkarahasyadîpikâ, p. 109.]

[Footnote 2: eva@m sa@dvims'akam prâhah s'arîramth mânavâh sâ@mkhyam sa@mkhyâtmakatvâcca kapilâdibhirucyate. Matsyapurâna, IV. 28.]

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totality of human psychosis on the other. A systematic explanation of the gunas was attempted in two different lines by Vijñâna Bhik@su and the Vai@s@nava writer Ve@nka@ta [Footnote ref l]. As the Yoga philosophy compiled by Patañjali and commented on by Vyâsa, Vâcaspati and Vijñ@ana Bhik@su, agree with the Sâ@mkhya doctrine as explained by Vâcaspati and Vijñana Bhik@su in most points I have preferred to call them the Kapila and the Pâtañjala schools of Sâ@mkhya and have treated them together—a principle which was followed by Haribhadra in his @Sa@ddars'anasamuaccaya.

The other important Sâ@mkhya teachers mentioned by Gaudapâda are Sanaka, Sananda, Sanâtana and Vo@dhu. Nothing is known about their historicity or doctrines.

Sâ@mkhya kârikâ, Sâ@mkhya sûtra, Vâcaspati Mis'ra and
Vijñâna Bhik@su.

A word of explanation is necessary as regards my interpretation of the Sâ@mkhya-Yoga system. The Sâ@mkhya kârikâ is the oldest Sâ@mkhya text on which we have commentaries by later writers. The Sâ@mkhya sûtra was not referred to by any writer until it was commented upon by Aniruddha (fifteenth century A.D.). Even Gu@naratna of the fourteenth century A D. who made allusions to a number of Sâ@mkhya works, did not make any reference to the Sâ@mkhya sûtra, and no other writer who is known to have flourished before Gu@naratna seems to have made any reference to the Sâ@mkhya sûtra. The natural conclusion therefore is that these sûtras were probably written some time after the fourteenth century. But there is no positive evidence to prove that it was so late a work as the fifteenth century. It is said at the end of the Sâ@mkhya kârikâ of Îs'varak@r@s@na that the kârikâs give an exposition of the Sâ@mkhya doctrine excluding the refutations of the doctrines of other people and excluding the parables attached to the original Sâ@mkhya works—the @Sa@s@titantras'âstra. The Sâ@mkhya sûtras contain refutations of other doctrines and also a number of parables. It is not improbable that these were collected from some earlier Sâ@mkhya work which is now lost to us. It may be that it was done from some later edition of the @Sa@s@titantras'âstra (@Sa@s@titantroddhâra as mentioned by

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[Footnote 1: Venka@ta's philosophy will be dealt with in the second volume of the present work.]

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Gû@naratna), but this is a mere conjecture. There is no reason to suppose that the Sâ@mkhya doctrine found in the sûtras differs in any important way from the Sâ@mkhya doctrine as found in the Sâ@mkhya kârikâ. The only point of importance is this, that the Sâ@mkhya sûtras hold that when the Upani@sads spoke of one absolute pure intelligence they meant to speak of unity as involved in the class of intelligent puru@sas as distinct from the class of the gu@nas. As all puru@sas were of the nature of pure intelligence, they were spoken of in the Upani@sads as one, for they all form the category or class of pure intelligence, and hence may in some sense be regarded as one. This compromise cannot be found in the Sâ@mkhya kârikâ. This is, however, a case of omission and not of difference. Vijñâna Bhik@su, the commentator of the Sâ@mkhya sûtra, was more inclined to theistic Sâ@mkhya or Yoga than to atheistic Sâ@mkhya. This is proved by his own remarks in his Sâmkhyapravacanabhâ@sya, Yogavârttika, and Vijñânâm@rtabhasya (an independent commentary on the Brahmasûtras of Bâdarâyana on theistic Sâ@mkhya lines). Vijñâna Bhiksu's own view could not properly be called a thorough Yoga view, for he agreed more with the views of the Sâ@mkhya doctrine of the Pura@nas, where both the diverse puru@sas and the prak@rti are said to be merged in the end in Îs'vara, by whose will the creative process again began in the prakrti at the end of each pralaya. He could not avoid the distinctively atheistic arguments of the Sâ@mkhya sûtras, but he remarked that these were used only with a view to showing that the Sâ@mkhya system gave such a rational explanation that even without the intervention of an Îs'vara it could explain all facts. Vijñâna Bhik@su in his interpretation of Sâ@mkhya differed on many points from those of Vâcaspati, and it is difficult to say who is right. Vijñâna Bhik@su has this advantage that he has boldly tried to give interpretations on some difficult points on which Vâcaspati remained silent. I refer principally to the nature of the conception of the gu@nas, which I believe is the most important thing in Sâ@mkhya. Vijñâna Bhik@su described the gu@nas as reals or super-subtle substances, but Vâcaspati and Gau@dapâda (the other commentator of the Sâ@mkhya kârikâ) remained silent on the point. There is nothing, however, in their interpretations which would militate against the interpretation of Vijñâna Bhik@su, but yet while they were silent as to any definite explanations regarding the nature of the gu@nas, Bhik@su definitely

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came forward with a very satisfactory and rational interpretation of their nature.

Since no definite explanation of the gu@nas is found in any other work before Bhik@su, it is quite probable that this matter may not have been definitely worked out before. Neither Caraka nor the Mahâbhârata explains the nature of the gu@nas. But Bhik@su's interpretation suits exceedingly well all that is known of the manifestations and the workings of the gu@nas in all early documents. I have therefore accepted the interpretation of Bhik@su in giving my account of the nature of the gu@nas. The Kârikâ speaks of the gu@nas as being of the nature of pleasure, pain, and dullness (sattva, rajas and tamas). It also describes sattva as being light and illuminating, rajas as of the nature of energy and causing motion, and tamas as heavy and obstructing. Vâcaspati merely paraphrases this statement of the Kârikâ but does not enter into any further explanations. Bhik@su's interpretation fits in well with all that is known of the gu@nas, though it is quite possible that this view might not have been known before, and when the original Sâ@mkhya doctrine was formulated there was a real vagueness as to the conception of the gu@nas.

There are some other points in which Bhik@su's interpretation differs from that of Vâcaspati. The most important of these may be mentioned here. The