A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s1.3

c33.s1.3

The Sūtras themselves were redacted at a time when the schools had been in contact, and for that reason we have no real chance of determining their dates even relatively, for it seems as if those of the Pūrvamīmāṅsā, the Vedānta, the Nyāya, and Vaiçeṣika cannot have been composed as they stand at any very great distance of time from one another. The investigations of Jacobi¹ resulted in the belief that the *Nyāya* and *Brahma Sūtras* were composed after the nihilistic school of Buddhism but before the appearance of the Vijñānavādin idealism, say between A. D. 200 and 450, while the *Pūrvamīmāṅsā* and *Vaiçeṣika* might be a little older. The *Yoga Sūtra*, on the other hand, he assigned to the period after the Vijñānavāda school and the *Sāṁkhya* to a late date. The last result is clearly sound, but the Vijñānavāda is dated too late, and must fall in the fourth century at latest, while the nihilistic school is also probably postdated by a century. Jacobi² also deduces from the mention in the *Arthaçāstra* under the style of Ānvīkṣikī of Lokāyata, Sāṁkhya and Yoga only, that these three branches of philosophy had definitely developed by 300 B. C., but not the others. This view, however, must be wrong, since the *Arthaçāstra*, as we have seen, is much later than the period proposed, and its groupings of philosophy must be explained by the tenets of that school. We must content ourselves with the belief that between the dates of the chief Upaniṣads and the third or fourth century A. D. there proceeded an active stream of investigation which we have only in its final form.