The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s5.t5: 5. Origin of the Doctrine of Emancipation

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s5.t5

Language: English

5. Origin of the Doctrine of Emancipation

c10.s5.t5.1

Both Vedânta and Sâṅkhya proclaim as their fundamental view the proposition:—Deliverance is gained by knowledge. This proposition is in harmony throughout with the assumptions of the Vedânta teaching, but not with those of the Sâṅkhya.

c10.s5.t5.2

According to the doctrine of the Upanishads, the âtman alone is real. The manifold universe is an illusion. This illusion is penetrated by the awakening of knowledge, and it is in this that deliverance consists. Here all is perfectly consistent.

c10.s5.t5.3

It is otherwise in the Sânkhya. Here matter is as truly real as the soul, and therefore cannot be recognised by the latter as an illusion, as in the Vedânta. The illusion, which has to be penetrated, is concerned in this case solely with the union between prakṛiti and purusha. This thought however cannot be sustained from a philosophical point of view. For a union either really subsists, or it does not. If it is real no advance of knowledge can lead to a dissolution of the union, but at the most to a clear consciousness of it, whereby however it is still far from being dissolved. The keen sword of knowledge can cleave the mist of an illusion, but cannot sever an actually existing union. If, on the other hand, the union between the two realities purusha and prakṛiti is not real, it has no existence at all. It is then not true that purusha “enlightens” prakṛiti, not true that prakṛiti “is reflected” in purusha; and this illumination or reflection may not be employed to explain the phenomenon of suffering, for it does not itself exist.

c10.s5.t5.4

The pessimism also by which the Sânkhya system is dominated testifies to the derivative character of its theory of emancipation. Even the ancient Upanishads occasionally refer to the painful nature of existence,¹ and according to them too with the illusion of empirical existence the possibility of the suffering involved in it disappears.² This however is still only an indirect result, and the chief stress is laid on the deliverance from natural avidyâ by the knowledge of the âtman. It is otherwise in the further course of development. The pessimistic view comes increasingly to the front. It occupies a greater space already in Kâṭh. 1, a still greater in the speech of Bṛihadratha in Maitr. 1. The climax of this pessimistic movement is reached in the Sâṅkhya system, which regards philosophy as a whole as no more than a search for means to avert the threefold suffering.¹ Such a standpoint, where it makes its appearance in philosophy, is everywhere a symptom of exhaustion. Philosophy is originally based on a pure desire for knowledge, and knows no other aim than the search for truth. Only when this desire is weakened does philosophy become a mere means to an end, a *remedium* for the suffering of existence. This was the case in Greece in the schools that succeeded Aristotle; it was so also in India in the Sâṅkhya system and in Buddhism.

Cites (3)

Chāndogyopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad — Sanskrit
Sāṃkhyakārikā — Īśvarakṛṣṇa, Sanskrit