Sarvadarshanasangraha 15.1

15.1

sāṃprataṃ seśvarasāṃkhyapravartakapatañjaliprabhṛtimunimatam anuvartamānānāṃ matam upanyasyate/

We now set forth the doctrine of that school which professes the opinions of such Munis as Patañjali and others, who originated the system of the Theistic Sāṅkhya philosophy. This school follows the so-called Yoga Śāstra promulgated by Patañjali, and consisting of four chapters, which also bears the name of the "Sāṅkhya Pravacana," or detailed explanation of the Sāṅkhya.[1] In the first chapter thereof the venerable Patañjali, having in the opening aphorism, "Now is the exposition of Concentration" (yoga), avowed his commencement of the Yoga Śāstra, proceeds in the second aphorism to give a definition of his subject, "Concentration is the hindering of the modifications of the thinking principle," and then he expounds at length the nature of Meditation (samādhi). In the second chapter, in the series of aphorisms commencing, "The practical part of Concentration is mortification, muttering, and resignation to the Supreme," he expounds the practical part of yoga proper to him whose mind is not yet thoroughly abstracted (iii. 9), viz., the five external subservients or means, "forbearance," and the rest. In the third chapter, in the series commencing "Attention is the fastening [of the mind] on some spot," he expounds the three internal subservients—attention, contemplation, and meditation, collectively called by the name "subjugation" (saṃyama), and also the various superhuman powers which are their subordinate fruit. In the fourth chapter, in the series commencing, "Perfections spring from birth, plants, spells, mortification, and meditation," he expounds the highest end, Emancipation, together with a detailed account of the five so-called "perfections" (siddhis). This school accepts the old twenty-five principles [of the Sāṅkhya], "Nature," &c.; only adding the Supreme Being as the twenty-sixth—a Soul untouched by affliction, action, fruit, or stock of desert, who of His own will assumed a body in order to create, and originated all secular or Vaidic traditions,[2] and is gracious towards those living beings who are burned in the charcoal of mundane existence.