The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s5.t5.4

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.