An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c9.9

c9.9

No definite date can yet be assigned for any one of these six books: we must be content to recognize that they arose within certain rather wide limits.¹ Yet the following points seem clear: (a) They were edited with reference to each other. There are so many cross-references from each to the others that scholars are satisfied that all six arose in a single period. At the time there must have been a great deal of public discussion, in the course of which the characteristic conceptions of each system were chiselled to the utmost perfection of form. (b) All six are clearly later than the didactic epic and Nāgārjuna. On the other hand, the lowest possible limit seems to be A.D. 450; for the oldest surviving commentary² comes from about that date. A.D. 200 to 450 would thus seem to be the extremest limits that can be allowed. (c) The wealth and intellectual activity of the Gupta Empire would provide the natural atmosphere and environment for the mutual intercourse and public discussion which lie behind the books. (d) Scholars are now inclined to believe, on the basis of Chinese evidence, that the author of the Sāṅkhya Kārikā flourished about the beginning of the fourth century.³ Asaṅga, the exponent of the Vijñānavādin school of Buddhism, which in all probability is the idealistic system attacked in the Yoga-sūtras, lived about the same time. Thus two out of the six treatises would stand related to the first half of the fourth century. (e) If, then, all six were edited with reference to each other, there would seem to be a number of lines of evidence converging to the fourth century as the most probable period for their emergence.