A History of Sanskrit Literature c18.23

c18.23

The Sāṅkhya philosophy, with the addition of a peculiar form of mental asceticism as the most effective means of acquiring saving knowledge, appears to have assumed definite shape in a manual at an earlier period than any of the other orthodox systems. This is the Yoga philosophy founded by PATANJALI and expounded in the *Yoga Sūtras*. The priority of this textbook is rendered highly probable by the fact that it is the only philosophical Sūtra work which contains no polemics against the others. There seems, moreover, to be no sufficient ground to doubt the correctness of the native tradition identifying the founder of the Yoga system with the grammarian Patañjali. The *Yoga Sūtras* therefore probably date from the second century B.C. This work also goes by the name of *Sāṅkhya-pravachana*, the same as that given to the later *Sāṅkhya Sūtras*, a sufficiently clear proof of its close connection with Kapila's philosophy. In the *Mahābhārata* the two systems are actually spoken of as one and the same.