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Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19: Chapter XI. Sāṅkhya-Yoga

Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19

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Contents

Chapter XI. Sāṅkhya-Yoga

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THIS should once have been a widely influential school to judge from references to it in the Mahābhārata and kindred literature¹; but its vogue, especially on the Sāṅkhya side, is not very great now.² The surviving part of its literature also is relatively poor. Modern scholars, as we have already had occasion to notice (pp. 106, 132), are divided in their opinion as regards its origin. All agree that references to what appear as the Sāṅkhya-Yoga doctrine are found in the Upaniṣads, especially in the later ones among them. But while some are of opinion that the system is independent in origin and almost as old as the Upaniṣads, others maintain that it is an offshoot of the teaching of those ancient treatises. There is indeed a reference in one of the Upaniṣads³ to Kapila ṛṣi, the supposed founder of the Sāṅkhya according to tradition; but both old Indian thinkers⁴ and present-day scholars⁵ agree that it is only apparent. The expression there means the ‘red wizard,’ not ‘Kapila, the seer,’ as it may at first appear and denotes not a real person at all but Hiraṇyagarbha or some other mythical being. As the discussion of this question requires an acquaintance with the details of the doctrine, we cannot enter upon it now. We shall merely state in passing that whatever its true origin, there was one stage in the history of the system when its adherents traced it to the Upaniṣads. Bādarāyaṇa, as is well known, has systematized the teaching of the Upaniṣads in his Vedānta-sūtra, and one of the topics to which he recurs time and again is whether the Sāṅkhya is the teaching of the Upaniṣads.⁶ His conclusion is that it is not, and his repeated reference to it cannot be satisfactorily accounted for without assuming that there were Sāṅkhya thinkers in his time who contended that that was the teaching of the Upaniṣads. Even so late as the sixteenth century A.D. Vijñāna Bhikṣu, the author of the Sāṅkhya-pravacana-bhāṣya, which is a commentary on the Sāṅkhya-sūtra, maintained a similar view. This may of course be the result of later Sāṅkhya teachers trying to find support for their doctrine in the Upaniṣads, whose authority had come to prevail, but it may also indicate a desire on their part to trace it to its real source even when the modifications in it had changed its character so very much.

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¹ See SS. p. 227.

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² ERE. xi. p. 189.

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³ Śvet. Up. v. 2.

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⁴ Cf. Śaṃkara on VS. II. i. 1.

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⁵ See PU. p. 200; Prof. Keith: The Sāṃkhya System, pp. 8, 40-1.

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⁶ Cf. Śaṃkara on VS. I. i. 5-11; II. i. 1-3. This refutation is different from the one in VS. II. ii. 1-10, where the Sāṅkhya is criticized on rationalistic grounds.

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The relation between the Sāṅkhya and the Yoga again is difficult of settlement. It is not even clear that one of them is later than the other, for they may well have been due to differentiations in what was originally a single doctrine. In the form in which the two have come down to us, there is no doubt that the Yoga is later. If the view adopted here, viz. that the doctrine is derived from the Upaniṣads, be right, it appears probable that its starting-point should be sought in a primitive Sāṅkhya-Yoga with belief in a supreme God to whom the individual selves and prakṛti, the source of the physical universe, though distinct are yet subordinate; for such a doctrine is nearer to the teaching of the Upaniṣads than the atheistic Sāṅkhya or the theistic but dualistic Yoga of classical times.¹ We have to assume that under naturalistic influence such as that of the Svabhāva-vāda, the capacity to unfold the universe was transferred completely to prakṛti, rendering the idea of God superfluous; and on that was later grafted a belief in his existence by the exponents of the Yoga² probably as a matter of theological expediency—'to satisfy the theists and to facilitate the propagation of the theory of the universe expounded in Sāṅkhya.'³ This point will become clear when we trace the origin of the doctrine and point out its relation to the Vedānta.

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¹ Cf. Dr. Belvalkar: *Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume*, pp. 183-4

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² Vācaspati in his *Bhāmatī* (II. i. 3) seems to give support to two such stages in the history of the doctrine on its Yoga side.

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³ ERE. vol. xii. p. 831.

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The earliest book of authority on classical Sāṅkhya we now have is the *Sāṅkhya-kārikā*, which is a work of about the fifth century A.D. Roughly speaking, we may take its author Īśvarakṛṣṇa to have been a contemporary of Kālidāsa. It consists of seventy stanzas and is on that account sometimes designated as the *Sāṅkhya-saptati*. It contains a brief but exceedingly lucid exposition of the theoretical teaching of the system and has been described as ‘the pearl of the whole scholastic literature of India.’ It has been commented upon by several, including Vācaspati—the well-known advaitic scholar of the ninth century A.D. This book, with a commentary whose identity is not quite certain, was translated into Chinese under the name of ‘the Golden Seventy Discourse’ by one Paramārtha, a Brahmin of Ujjain who went to China in A.D. 546 on the invitation of its then Emperor and spent the rest of his life there. Another work of note on the system is the *Tattva-samāsa*, which, as its name indicates, is very brief—hardly more than a table of contents, as it has been characterized. It was regarded by Max Müller as the oldest work on the subject,¹ but that view is not generally accepted now.² A third work of importance on the system is the *Sāṅkhya-sūtra*, ascribed to Kapila himself; but the work, though much of its material may be really old, is clearly a very late production and cannot be assigned to a date earlier than the fourteenth century A.D. It is in six chapters of which four are concerned with the elucidation of the doctrine, one criticizes the rival systems and one gives the parables (ākhyāyikā) illustrating the chief points of the doctrine—rather a novel feature in a Sūtra work. It has been commented upon, among others, by Vijñāna Bhikṣu, to whom reference has already been made. In this commentary the Sāṅkhya appears considerably modified, the general effect of the modification being to bring it nearer to the Vedānta. We may regard it as *later* Sāṅkhya. We shall refer to its divergences from the earlier where they are of importance. As regards the Yoga system, Patañjali’s *Yoga-sūtra* is the recognized text-book. It has been assigned to about the end of the fifth century A.D.¹; and if this date be correct, the traditional identification of its author with Patañjali, the grammarian who is known to have lived in the second century B.C., must fall to the ground. It consists of four chapters which deal respectively with the nature of mental concentration (samādhi), the pathway to it (sādhana), the supernatural powers that may be acquired through it (vibhūti), and the nature of the goal of life which consists in the isolation of the self (kaivalya). It has been commented upon by Vyāsa² (A.D. 500) and King Bhoja (A.D. 1000) among others. The former’s commentary has a splendid gloss by Vācaspati and another by Vijñāna Bhikṣu.

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¹ SS. p. 242.

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² Prof. Keith: *op. cit.*, p. 89. But see *Journal of Oriental Research* (Madras) for April 1928, pp. 145-7.

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¹ Prof. Jacobi: Dates of Philosophical Sūtras, JAOS. (1911).

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² It is difficult to say who this Vyāsa was. Tradition identifies him with the well-known author of that name.

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The Sāṅkhya-Yoga like the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika admits a plurality of selves, called puruṣas, and is likewise realistic since it regards objects as existing independently of the mind that cognizes them. But while the latter traces the physical universe to a multiplicity of sources, the former derives it from a single one, viz. prakṛti. In other words, the Sāṅkhya-Yoga, unlike the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, is—if we overlook for the moment the plurality of selves—dualistic, prakṛti and puruṣa or nature and spirit being the only two ultimate entities recognized. We shall now consider in some detail how each of these is conceived:—

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(1) Prakṛti.—This is the first cause of the universe—of everything excepting only spirit which is uncaused, and accounts for whatever is physical, both matter and force. Out of it, the whole variety of the universe evolves. Hence the doctrine is known as pariṇāma-vāda or a ‘theory of change.’ Even space and time are represented as aspects of prakṛti and do not, therefore, exist apart from it³ as independent entities. This is a point which is worthy of note, for it shows that the system does not, like the generality of philosophic doctrines including much of Western thought till quite recent times, start by positing matter in space and time, but looks upon the primordial physical entity as including and explaining them both. The nature of prakṛti is deduced from the nature of the common things of experience by the aid of reason alone. As the material cause of these things, it should consist of what is common to all of them; for the effect, according to a fundamental postulate of the system, must be essentially the same as the material cause. By a process of analysis, the essential characteristics of the physical universe are reduced to three—named sattva, rajas and tamas; and prakṛti is conceived as constituted of them. It is thus complex in its nature, though single. These three factors are termed guṇas, whose conception is of the utmost importance in the system. The chief point about them is that they are not what their name might suggest, viz. qualities of prakṛti. That would be admitting the distinction between substance and attribute as the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika does, but the Sāṅkhya-Yoga regards it as a pure abstraction. The guṇas are to be understood here as the components of prakṛti. They might be described as substances, if that again did not suggest the same artificial distinction. They are still termed guṇas because, it is said,¹ they by intertwining make a rope (guṇa) or forge a chain for binding the self. This explanation is somewhat inconsistent with the spirit of the Sāṅkhya-Yoga teaching, for prakṛti not only binds but also liberates the self from bondage. Indeed puruṣa’s liberation, as we shall see, is the ultimate purpose for which it evolves. There is another explanation, which again seems to run counter to the dominant thought of the doctrine. It is stated that the guṇas are so called because they form a category subordinate to the puruṣa, which implies that spirit here is more important and that prakṛti is only something that ministers to it. The explanation, though supported by certain statements of old authorities,² would destroy the avowed dualistic character of the teaching by making one ultimate entity depend upon another. As regards the nature of the guṇas: sattva represents whatever is fine or light; tamas whatever is coarse or heavy; and rajas whatever is active. It is clear from this description that the conception is arrived at as a hypothesis in accounting for the diversity of the world in its material as well as its mechanical aspects. Their triple character merely signifies that three is the minimum number of elements necessary for such an explanation.¹ If only one guṇa is postulated, it would not explain variety at all; if two, they would either cancel each other’s effect, thus leading to no transformation whatever, or one would dominate over the other always, thus leading to a monotonous movement in a single direction. In later Sāṅkhya is found the important development that each of the three guṇas is manifold and that the infinity of prakṛti is due to their indefinite number. In this case the triple division would be the result of grouping together like guṇas. Such a view undoubtedly explains better the discord and diversity of the world of experience; but at the same time it makes the doctrine more like the Vaiśeṣika² with its belief in an infinity of atomic reals with qualitative distinctions.

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³ STK. st. 33; SPB. ii. 12.

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¹ SPB. i. 61.

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² YS. ii. 23; YSB. i. 4.

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¹ The idea of guṇas here, if not derived from the medical theory of the three dhātus, has at least a parallel in it. Cf. STK. st. 13.

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² SPB. i. 127–8. As regards the antiquity of the guṇa-doctrine, see OST. vol. v. p. 377. The conception occurs as early as AV., and the Mbh. is full of references to it.

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The guṇas form the substratum of change which as in Buddhism is taken to be perpetual (p. 211). But change is not total here and the guṇas persist while only their modes appear and disappear. This solution of the problem of change leads to the postulating of a two-fold condition for all things—one, latent or potential and the other, potent or actual. When all the modes of prakṛti are latent, we have the state of dissolution (pralaya); at other times, evolution (sarga). Even in the state of dissolution, prakṛti is supposed to maintain its dynamic character; only then, instead of producing unlike forms, it reproduces itself (sajātīya-pariṇāma) so that perpetual motion is a fundamental postulate of the system so far as the physical world is concerned (p. 233).³ The ground for the conclusion that there is perpetual movement in prakṛti is to be found in the conviction that if it ceased to be dynamic at any stage, it would be impossible to account for the reappearance of motion in it again. Here we see a realization of the truth of Newton's First Law of Motion that a body in motion or at rest continues to be so unless it is disturbed from outside. There is no such external agency recognized in the doctrine to interfere with its movement. No doubt the change from the state of dissolution to that of evolution is accounted for by introducing an outside influence, viz. the presence of spirit (puruṣa-samnidhi)¹; but the explanation is given only in a half-hearted manner and is, as we shall see, one of the unsatisfactory features of the system, so far at least as the Sāṅkhya part of it is concerned.

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³ Pratikṣaṇa-pariṇāmino hi sarva eva bhāvā ṛte citi-śakteḥ: STK. st. 5.

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¹ SP. i. 96.

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There are certain special features of evolution as conceived here which deserve notice. First, it is based on a belief in the indestructibility of matter and the persistence of force. Something cannot come out of nothing; and whatever is, has always been. Production is only the manifestation (abhivyakti) of what is already in a latent form, and is not a new creation (ārambha). The so-called beginning of an object is only an event in its history; the object itself is not, and cannot be, made. Similarly, destruction means only change of form, for there can be nothing like absolute annihilation. Secondly, evolution is conceived as cyclic or periodical. That is, there are periods of evolution and dissolution alternating so that it is not a process of continuous progress in one direction only. It would seem also that dissolution is the normal state, for there is a persistent tendency in prakṛti when in evolution, to revert to that state. Next, evolution is here regarded as teleological; but, as prakṛti is by hypothesis not sentient, we cannot take it wholly so. We may characterize it as quasi-teleological, however hard it may be to understand that term. What is meant is that the whole process serves a purpose, though it cannot be described as consciously pursued. Lastly evolution, so far as it is teleological at all, has reference to the individual and not to the species. Its object is not the elevation or improvement of the latter, even at the expense of the former, but securing worldly experience (bhoga) for the individual or bringing about his liberation (apavarga) from the ties of saṃsāra. We shall later explain the probable meaning of this double aim involved in the evolution of prakṛti.

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The order of evolution of the twenty-four principles (tattvas) known to the system, if we exclude the puruṣas which stand outside the realm of change, will be seen from the following scheme:—

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1. Prakṛti.

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2. Mahat.

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3. Ahaṃ-kāra.

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| . . . . .
| | | |

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4. Manas. 5-9. Sensory 10-14. Motor 15-19. Tanmātras. organs. organs. | 20-24. Bhūtas.

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The complete significance of this scheme and of the various terms used in it will become clear as we proceed. For the present it will suffice to refer to only a few points in it:—

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(i) The evolutionary series includes in addition to what are clearly physical, viz. the five subtle (tanmātras) and the five gross elements (bhūtas), certain others like the manas which appear to be psychical in character; and it may seem a contradiction to make prakṛti, which by hypothesis is non-sentient, their source. Really, however, there is no contradiction, for the latter are not themselves psychical, but owe that character to the influence of the self, the sole principle of consciousness acknowledged in the doctrine. An illustration may make the Sāṅkhya-Yoga position clear in this respect. A mirror can reflect our features, but the surface of the wall, upon which it hangs, cannot; and yet both are alike material. Similar is the case of the two sets of entities above referred to which, though originating from the same prakṛti, behave differently towards the self—one responding to its influence readily and the other not doing so. The difference between them is therefore one of degree, not of essence. The ‘psychical’ factors have in fact been compared to the nervous system on its physical side.¹

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¹ ERE. xi. p. 190.

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(ii) In the state of dissolution, the three guṇas of prakṛti, though perpetually active, are in perfect equilibrium. At the beginning of a period of evolution, this state ceases and is followed by one in which sattva predominates. It marks the starting-point of heterogeneous evolution and is called mahat (‘the great’), or buddhi. The initial stimulus for this alteration, according to the Yoga, comes from God or Īśvara.² According to the Sāṅkhya on the other hand which acknowledges no such supreme Being, the change is ascribed to the ‘mere presence’ (sāmnidhya-mātra),³ as it is termed, of the puruṣa; and the possibility of its influencing prakṛti, though continuing to be passive, is illustrated by a magnet attracting iron. This is a point which is far from satisfactory. In the first place, the puruṣa is eternal and omnipresent like prakṛti so that the condition determining the evolution of the latter is ever fulfilled while its course is supposed to be interrupted at intervals by dissolution. To explain the break in the course of evolution by the past karma of beings will not do, for the puruṣa, being really untouched by good or evil, karma and its effects should be taken to characterize the buddhi and therefore as internal to prakṛti.⁴ There is again the difficulty due to the admission of many selves in understanding what exactly is meant by the presence of puruṣa—whether it is of one or of all. To assume, as Vijñāna Bhikṣu does,⁵ that it refers to the influence of a chief Puruṣa in each kalpa or cycle of creation would virtually be to abandon the atheistic position and side with the Yoga.

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² See Bhoja-vṛtti on YS. i. 24.

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³ SPB. i. 96.

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⁴ SP. i. 16.

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⁵ SPB. i. 96.

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(iii) Now as regards the last group in the evolution, viz. the elements: When we remember that the ultimate reals out of which the produced part of the universe is constituted according to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika are these elements, it will be seen that the Sāṅkhya-Yoga carries its investigation farther back than that system until it arrives at a single principle. How are these elements derived and what are their characteristics? Their immediate causes are the five tanmātras; and they are named after the distinguishing features of the five elements as śabda-tanmātra ('essence of sound'), sparśa-tanmātra ('essence of touch'), etc. The gross elements which spring from them show greater and greater differentiation. Their mode of origin is as follows: From śabda-tanmātra emerges ākāśa with sound as its manifest quality. From śabdatanmātra and sparśa-tanmātra combined emerges air, which therefore has the two qualities of sound and touch; from these two and rūpa-tanmātra springs fire, which has the three qualities of sound, touch and colour; from these three and rasa-tanmātra emerges water with four qualities, viz. sound, touch, colour and taste; and last, earth comes into being from all the five tanmātras and is therefore characterized by all the five qualities of sound, touch, colour, flavour and odour. The elements beginning with ākāśa are consequently more and more concrete. Each element is conceived as manifold, and consists of finite and disparate particles termed paramāṇus,¹ though the expression does not signify here precisely what it does in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. It is out of these atoms that the whole of the physical universe as known to us is produced.

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¹ Cf. YSB. i. 40, 45; iii. 44, 52.

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(iv) The scheme indicates only what we may describe as primary evolution. Evolution does not stop at it. It goes further on as is shown, for example, when pṛthivī is transformed into a tree² or a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. This secondary evolution is in fact what we are familiar with and what takes place within any single period of evolution. When an object that has evolved in this sense breaks up, it is reduced to the form of the gross elements and the process of dissolution does not extend beyond except when the evolutionary period in question itself comes to an end. Primary evolution is described as the differentiation into distinct principles (tattvāntara-pariṇāma)¹; but what constitutes distinctness is not well defined. It is clear, however, that this amounts to a recognition of grades or degrees in change.

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² As in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, no distinction is made here between mechanical and organic products. See p. 239 ante.

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¹ STK. st. 3.

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An attempt is made in the system to deduce the being of prakṛti, not merely its nature, with the aid of reason. The deduction depends upon two principles which the system takes as its postulates. The first of them to which we have already alluded is described as the sat-kārya-vāda. According to it, nothing new can come into being which is in clear opposition to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika doctrine of asat-kārya-vāda. The totality of what exists now is given from the very beginning. But what is, may be implicit or explicit—the two forms being respectively termed 'cause' and 'effect.' The jar is ever there and is so really eternal; but it is not perceivable when in a subtle or latent form. In other words, a thing always is *in itself* though it may not be *for us*.² It subsists always although it may exist only for a while, and existence necessarily signifies subsistence. The bearing of this postulate on the present question is that the physical world which is now explicit must once have been implicit; and it is just that implicit state which is prakṛti. That is indeed the literal meaning of the term pradhāna ('what is put before or presupposed'),³ which is sometimes used for prakṛti. The second postulate is that the finite always implies the infinite, which reminds one of the dictum of Hegel that the finite transcends itself. The notion of finitude here requires a word of explanation.

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Things as understood in the Sāṅkhya-Yoga cannot be said to be limited by time or space, for neither of them is recognized as a separate entity. So the word 'finite' is taken to mean 'not self-sustaining' or, as it is otherwise expressed, 'not pervasive' (avyāpi).⁴ For example, ākāśa is finite in this sense because it sustains all that is derived from it in the process of evolution, it itself is sustained by its cause, viz. śabda-tanmātra. This tanmātra again reveals another element more fundamental by which it is sustained; and so forth backwards until we reach an entity which is all-pervasive and self-sustaining. That is prakṛti. In prakṛti itself or, what amounts to the same, in the three guṇas, we may think that there is mutual exclusion, none being caused by the others, and that they are all therefore finite. But the theory is that, though not causally related, they are absolutely dependent upon one another (anyo-nyāśraya-vṛtti),¹ and that none of them is self-sustaining. In other words, prakṛti is not a mere unity of aggregation, but a systematic unity of parts each of which has its special place and function in the whole. This, by the way, shows the existence of a limit to the investigation of the cause for the physical world; for, if we proceed farther back, we do not get anything different from prakṛti. It is therefore regarded as paramāvyakta ‘the final unmanifest’² or the first cause whose being is unconditioned and necessary.

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It will be seen that the reasoning is based upon the observation of common things emerging from their respective material causes and disappearing into them again. A jar is made out of clay; and, when destroyed, it turns into clay again. Emergence and absorption thus have a terminus, viz. clay here. This process of reasoning is only extended beyond the visible material world to arrive at prakṛti; or, to state the same differently, primary evolution is postulated on the analogy of the secondary. Even supposing that a principle which has a basis in experience may be extended to what transcends experience, it may well be asked what warrant there is for assuming the very principles—mahat, ahaṃ-kāra and tanmātras—and only so many, to account for the bhūtas which alone are given in experience; and it is significant that the basis for this part of the doctrine is stated to be not inference but verbal testimony (āptāgama) or the ipse dixit of the Sāṅkhya-Yoga teachers.³ That the physical world has evolved out of a certain number of elemental principles given in our experience, or perhaps from one, is a doctrine of the Svabhāva-vāda (p. 105); but the further reference to mahat, etc., as intermediate stages in the evolution, which distinguishes the Sāṅkhya-Yoga, suggests that it is to be traced to a different source. We shall see in the sequel what reasons there are for concluding that source to be the Upaniṣads.

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² Cf. YS. iii. 13.

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³ SPB. i. 125.

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⁴ STK. st. 15-16.

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¹ STK. st. 12; YB. ii. 15. Such a view, of course, is open to criticism with reference to spirit which neither pervades nor is pervaded by the guṇas, leading to the conclusion that both prakṛti and puruṣa are finite. See Bhāmatī II. ii. 1.

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² STK. st. 15–16.

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³ STK. st. 6.

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(2) Puruṣa.—Puruṣa is mere sentience. It is changeless, eternal and omnipresent. It is also entirely passive, all activity being restricted to prakṛti. It may accordingly be said to represent the affective or receptive side of the mind and is consequently described as an enjoyer or experient (bhoktā) without being a doer or agent (kartā). Like prakṛti, the self also is here sought to be established with the help of reason alone. Various arguments are adduced to prove why such a psychic entity should be supposed to exist.¹ First of all it is stated that the physical universe, being insentient, requires a sentient principle to experience it or that objects suggest a subject, although such an argument by recognizing a necessary relation between the two militates against the fundamental dualism of the system. Equally inconsistent with the same aspect of the doctrine is the second argument that prakṛti, which is complex, implies by contrast the existence of something which is simple, viz. the self. Again the design² that is found in nature, particularly in the living body, it is argued, leads to the same conclusion. A noteworthy point here is the manner in which the ‘design argument’ is utilized. It is explained as pointing not to the designer but to one that profits by the design. The Sāṅkhya concludes from the presence in nature of means adapted to the accomplishment of particular ends, not to God as their author, but to the self for whom it supposes them to exist. This conclusion may be taken as being on a par with the other, for any contriver must necessarily have in view one whose need his contrivance meets. No watches for example would be made if there was none to use them. But it may be asked why it should not equally well imply God as the contriving mind whom the Sāṅkhya, as an atheistic doctrine, declines to accept. Here is a point of much importance in the doctrine, especially in contrast to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. In the latter, the material out of which the visible universe is made possesses no spontaneity of its own. Its various parts have accordingly to be brought together and also kept together by some external factor—God or karma or both. But here there is a great advance in the conception of prakṛti in that it is of an organic entity.¹ It is able to develop of itself. Such an entity has no need for an external manipulator. This is at the bottom of the atheism of the Sāṅkhya and shows the futility of attempts like that of Vijñāna Bhikṣu to read theism into the doctrine.² But prakṛti, though its conception is different from that of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika atoms, does not evolve for itself and therefore points to sentient puruṣa. It is this teleology implicit in prakṛti that the design argument here makes use of. It serves as the point of departure from the Svabhāva-vāda with which the doctrine has much in common, and tells us by the way that spirit is the only true ultimate in the Sāṅkhya-Yoga. Unlike prakṛti, it is not a unity of parts; nor is it non-sentient like it. So it does not in its turn refer to anything beyond itself. A fourth argument is drawn from man's longing for escape from saṃsāra or the spiritual instinct to be free. What strives to escape must be other than what it is to escape from, viz. prakṛti. The puruṣas are conceived as many; and various arguments are put forward in support of that view,³ such as the divergent histories of men and the differences in their endowment—physical, moral and intellectual. But such reasoning only shows the plurality of the empirical selves. In themselves, it is hard to see how the puruṣas can differ from one another. There is not even a semblance of explanation here as in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, where each self is stated to be inherently characterized by its own viśeṣa (p. 235).

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¹ SK. st. 17.

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² This argument is foreshadowed already in the Upaniṣads. See p. 66 ante.

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¹ SK. st. 57.

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² SPB. i. 92-8.

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³ SK. st. 18.

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The view of causation in the system is the very reverse of that in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. It is described as sat-kārya-vāda, for the product, according to it, is supposed to be there in the material cause always in a latent form. But sat-kārya-vāda like asat-kārya-vāda, it must be remembered, refers only to the material cause. The system recognizes two other kinds of cause—the efficient and the final. The latter points to something outside the sphere of prakṛti, it being always either worldly experience (bhoga) or release (apavarga), both of which have reference to the self. This statement, however, does not seem to signify that the final aim of evolution is twofold. Apavarga or escape means, as in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, the restoration of the self once for all to its natural condition. Prakṛti evolves for bringing about its release in this sense, and it ceases to do so for a self when that particular self becomes free. When we take this along with the point already noticed, viz. that the state of pralaya or world-absorption and not that of evolution is normal to prakṛti, apavarga will be seen to be the only true aim. We may look upon the other aim of bhoga as its necessary antecedent. If the two aims be considered as independent or external to each other, it will not be possible to explain how blind prakṛti, albeit that it is omnipotent, can exercise a choice between them and decide which is to be secured for which puruṣa and when. The introduction of karma, as already indicated, will not help the argument, for the traces which past karma leaves behind abide not in the self but in the buddhi and are therefore of prakṛti. Such an interpretation saves the doctrine to some extent from the charge of self-contradiction in the conception of prakṛti, viz. that while it is stated to be non-sentient, it is supposed to be endowed with activity which implies conscious choice. The final cause is the most important of the causes and in one sense it may be said to be the only cause,¹ for in its absence there would be no progressive movement at all in prakṛti. Its recognition signifies what we have already pointed out, that the conception of prakṛti is that of a systematized unity of parts or a teleological whole. The efficient cause is conceived as negative in its nature. It is useful only in removing obstacles and not in making any positive contribution towards the product, for by hypothesis whatever manifests itself is already there in the material cause. Prakṛti is characterized by universal potency, and holds in itself the possibility of all forms. It can become anything and the efficient cause is required only to determine the direction in which it is to exhibit movement by removing the obstacle in that direction. As analogous to this, we may think of water stored up in a reservoir which at every point of its sides is trying to find an outlet and flows out only where the resistance to its effort is removed.¹ Finally, we must point out that this view of causation holds solely within the sphere of prakṛti and its transformations. The self, in reality, remains untouched by it. It is neither a cause nor an effect of anything.

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¹ Cf. SK. st. 31: Puruṣārtha eva hetuḥ.

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¹ YS. iv. 3.

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The most important distinction between the Sāṅkhya and the Yoga is the belief of the latter in God. Some scholars, old as well as new,² have tried to maintain that there was no intention on the part of Kapila to deny God and that all that he meant to assert was the impossibility of rationally establishing his existence. But this seems to be contrary to the spirit of classical Sāṅkhya as already observed; and it may here be added that the attempt to give a theistic colour to the doctrine appears quite late in its history. Vijñāna Bhikṣu is anxious to find a place for God in the Sāṅkhya scheme, but the support for it even in the late Sūtra is slender. We have already indicated how the notion of God or Īśvara as he is termed here came to be included in the Yoga; and it is therefore only loosely related to the doctrine. The very sūtras in which it is postulated in Patañjali’s work stand disconnected with the rest of the work.³ As conceived here, he is a puruṣa like others, though a perfect one. He is omniscient and omnipresent; but, unlike the Vedāntic Īśvara, he is external to matter (prakṛti) as well as to the individual selves (puruṣas). In other words, he is not the Absolute and in this he resembles the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika God (p. 242), the chief difference being in the part they play in shaping the world owing to the difference in the conception in the two doctrines of the material out of which it is shaped. The only argument adduced by Patañjali in support of his theistic position is the existence in our experience of a graded scale of knowledge, wisdom, etc., which, he supposes, points to infinite knowledge, wisdom, etc., as their limit. He to whom these latter belong is God. But it may be asked how these super-excellences can belong to God if he also, being a puruṣa, is bare spirit and stands aloof from prakṛti. To ward off such an objection the doctrine views God as endowed with a sort of personality implying actual contact with a physical adjunct which consists mainly of sattva and does not bind him. Besides affording the initial impetus for the evolution of prakṛti, he in his mercy helps his devotees in finding release from empirical existence. But God's help is not the only means of securing it, the successful practice of yoga, as we shall see, being another.

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² See SPB. i. 92-8; v. 2-12; SS. pp. 302-4.

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³ YS. i. 23-9. Cf. ERE. vol. xii. p. 831.

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Before concluding this section, we may bring together the several postulates of the Sāṅkhya-Yoga to which we had occasion to refer. They are:—

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(i) Whatever is, always is; and whatever is not, never is.
(ii) Change implies something that changes.
(iii) The effect is essentially the same as its material cause.
(iv) All variety can eventually be traced to three sources, which are not, however, independent but interdependent.
(v) Matter is characterized by perpetual motion.
(vi) Neither mind is derived from matter, nor matter from mind.

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Here as elsewhere in Indian philosophy generally the term 'psychology' is to be understood in its etymological sense as the science of the soul. But what is the soul that can be thought of as the subject of experience in this system? We have the puruṣa, no doubt, but it really remains external to everything and cannot therefore stand for the subject of experience. There is another element that serves as an important aid in the process of knowing, viz. mahat or buddhi; but that is equally unsuited to the subject though for quite a different reason. It is non-sentient (jaḍa) being derived from prakṛti, and experience cannot therefore be ascribed to it. Though neither by itself can serve as the subject, it is stated, they do so together, the buddhi contributing all the activity involved in it and the puruṣa the element of awareness (caitanya). The puruṣa illumines or is reflected in the buddhi, which though physical is fine enough to receive the reflection; and, thus illumined, it serves as the conscious subject. The buddhi may therefore be viewed as the physical medium for the manifestation of spirit. We may call their unity in this sense the empirical self to distinguish it from the puruṣa or the transcendental self. Owing to such association, each of the two elements in the empirical self appears completely transmuted—non-sentient buddhi becoming sentient, as it were, and passive puruṣa, active.¹ The illustration commonly given in this connection is the ‘red-hot iron ball’ where the formless glow of fire appears spherical and cold iron, hot. Every jñāna is a state of this blend. When we consider its two parts separately, the modification of the buddhi which such a state involves is called a vṛtti and the reflection of the puruṣa in it jñāna. Owing to the felt identity of the two elements, the vṛtti also is sometimes designated jñāna.²

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¹ SK. st. 20.

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² YSB. ii. 20; iv. 22.

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It will be noticed that in the evolutionary scheme are included the eleven indriyas or sense organs (including manas), ahaṃ-kāra and buddhi; but there they represent successive stages in the evolution of the universe from prakṛti. These thirteen factors have also another aspect with which we are at present more particularly concerned. In this aspect they assist the individual in acquiring experience, and together constitute the psychic apparatus with which every puruṣa is endowed in the empirical state. The exact relation between these two aspects, viz. the cosmic and the individual, is a matter which shall immediately engage our attention. For the present it will suffice to recall the explanation already given of ‘psychic’ as applied to these factors. They are psychic in the sense that they lend themselves to be lighted up by the puruṣa unlike the other products of prakṛti, viz. the elements whether subtle or gross. It is this that distinguishes the two series, the subjective and the objective as we may call them. They are the result on the part of prakṛti to adapt itself to the requirements of the puruṣa.¹ In other words, the functions that we describe as mental are really mechanical processes of physical organs, which assume a psychical character only when illumined by spirit. The senses are here derived from the ahaṃ-kāra, and not from the elements (bhūtas) as in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (p. 248). Though traceable to one and the same source, each sense functions differently—the eye apprehending colour; the ear, sound; and so forth—owing to the difference in the collocation of the guṇas in them.

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¹ Instead of saying, as we ordinarily do, that we adjust ourselves to our environment, we should here say that prakṛti adjusts itself to our needs.

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The Sāṅkhya-Yoga, like the Sautrāntika but unlike the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, believes that perception is effected by means of a psychic sign, viz. an image or idea (ākāra) of the object in question. The image is not transferred to the buddhi and found in it as may be supposed, but the buddhi itself assumes the form of the object, when a suitable stimulus is received from outside. The modification of the evolvent buddhi, viz. vṛtti, is a characteristic not only of perception but also of all forms of consciousness, and when it is inspired by spirit, experience results. The psychic apparatus as a whole mediates between the puruṣa and the outside world thereby securing for the former the experiences of life (bhoga) or, if the time for it is ripe, final freedom (apavarga) through right knowledge (viveka). The details of the process of knowing are as follows: The object first impresses one or other of the senses, and the jñāna that arises then is quite vague and general. It is ‘bare awareness’ (ālocana-mātra) and marks the nirvikalpaka stage. The first stage in perception does not accordingly refer, as in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (p. 251), to the isolated and discriminate particular. It becomes properly explicated later when interpreted by the manas, and is therefore termed ‘determinate’ or savikalpaka. Pratyakṣa does not accordingly start here from detached elements and synthesize them, but from an indistinguishable whole into which it introduces order afterwards.² This completes the process from the objective standpoint; but there follow two other stages before perception is psychologically fully explained. The first is the appropriation of the experience by the ahaṃ-kāra or the reference of it to the self in question. If now the perception is to lead to any action the buddhi intervenes and decides upon what action has to follow and issues instructions, so to say, to the proper motor organ (karmendriya), the result being either some action or desistence from it. The buddhi thus corresponds to the will-aspect of conscious life. If we use a single term—antaḥ-karaṇa—for the last three elements of the psychic apparatus, we see how the internal organ in one or other of its phases is engaged, when once the senses have been stimulated, in reacting to the stimulus. The order in which the psychic organs function, it will be seen, is the reverse of that in which they appear in the evolutionary scheme given above. In internal perception such as that of pain or pleasure, as also in mediate knowledge, the process is exactly the same; only the co-operation of the external senses (jñānendriya) is not required and they do not therefore function then. This analysis of the psychic process, which takes perception as an increasing differentiation in a presented whole, is very much sounder than that of the Nyāya Vaiśeṣika; but owing to the denial in the doctrine of direct interaction between the buddhi and spirit, there is even here a difficulty in understanding how experience emerges all at once out of a purely physical or physiological process. The illustration of a glowing iron ball is not apt, for the iron ball and fire are actually in relation there unlike the buddhi and the puruṣa here.

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² SK. st. 27, 28 and 30. Vijñāna Bhikṣu somewhat modifies this view which is based upon STK. See SPB. ii. 32.

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Now as regards the double sense in which the principles from mahat onwards, excluding the elements in their twofold form, are to be understood in the system. It is not difficult to understand their significance from the standpoint of individual experience. The process of perception, as just set forth, makes it quite clear. But the same cannot be said of their cosmic aspect, and it is impossible from the premises of the system to discover why these psychical terms should be applied to the ontological entities in question. The only way of explaining this obscure point is to assume a cosmic Puruṣa and regard the whole process of evolution as an ideal presentation to him. That will give us at once a rendering in psychical terms of these ontological principles. If we identify the mahat—as cosmic buddhi illumined by spirit—with this Puruṣa, the next stage in evolution, viz. the ahaṁ-kāra will stand for the sense of self-hood which arises in him, positing on the one hand what we have described as the objective series or not-self; and on the other the subjective series, or more strictly, the apparatus of thought adapted to cognize it.¹ Since in the case of such a cosmic subject the order of psychological presentation coincides with that of actual evolution,² the above assumption also accounts for the order in which the several principles occur in the evolutionary scheme which, as observed already, is the reverse of that in which they function in individual mental life. When we remember that this is exactly the position of the Upaniṣads and that they mention more or less the same stages³ in describing the creation of the world by the personal Brahman (mahān ātmā), it will be clear that the inclusion by the Sāṅkhya of these principles in its scheme is to be traced to the teaching of those treatises. But in its reaction against Absolutism, the doctrine has discarded the idea of a universal soul and by sundering it into two—prakṛti and puruṣa—has reduced each to a mere abstraction. For the activity of prakṛti is meaningless with puruṣa; and puruṣa, were it not for its association with prakṛti, would be hardly distinguishable from nothing. The result is that while the system professes to be dualistic, its implication is quite the reverse.⁴

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¹ According to YSB. ii. 19, it would seem, the tanmātras are derived from mahat and not from ahaṁ-kāra. Such a view would give us the notion of the not-self at the same level at which the notion of the self is given. But see YSB. i. 45.

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² See IP. vol. ii, p. 277; Prof. Keith: *Religion and Philosophy of the Veda*, pp. 535 ff.

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³ Cf. *Kaṭha Up.* I. iii. 10–13, II. iii. 7–11; *Praśna Up.* iv. 8; *Bṛ. Up.* I. iv. 1.

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⁴ In connection with the early history of Sāṅkhya, reference may be made to Prof. Dasgupta's *History of Indian Philosophy*, vol. i. pp. 213–22.

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The view that knowledge arises through a psychic medium (buddhi-vṛtti) may easily lead to subjective idealism as it does in the Yogācāra school; but the Sāṅkhya-Yoga lays down a postulate at the very outset that all knowledge necessarily points to some object outside it. Belief in the plurality of selves which is an essential part of the doctrine furnishes a support for the postulate, since the agreement between what different people experience may be taken to vouch for the existence of a common or trans-subjective basis for it all.¹ The psychic medium accordingly is here but a connecting link between the knower and the known and does not displace the latter (p. 206). A natural corollary to this view is the correspondence theory of truth. That knowledge is true in which the form assumed by the buddhi rightly represents the object perceived. This is the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika view as well; only the theory of representative ideas (vṛttis) is not accepted there. A more important difference between the two is that whereas in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika which makes the manas merely the pathway of knowledge, knowledge is supposed ordinarily to show objects as they are, there is here no guarantee that it does so.

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The buddhi, which so far as our present purpose is concerned may be taken as the equivalent of the manas of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika,² is conceived here not as passive but as endowed with self-activity and as the abode of numberless impressions acquired through experience during a beginningless past. Owing to this circumstance, every buddhi has its own special bent and different persons may not therefore be impressed in the same manner by the same object. Though one, the object becomes ‘severalized,’ as it were, in the act of being apprehended on account of the bias of individual percipients. These two factors, viz. the objects and the particular bent of the percipient, co-operate in all knowledge and the resulting image may not, and generally is not, an exact copy of the former. It is in this power of meddling with the object which the buddhi possesses that we have to seek for the source of error. But the power only emphasizes one aspect rather than another of what is given and does not add any new feature to it. In other words, the activity which the buddhi exercises is selective, the theory being that only so much of the nature of an object is known as is in kinship with the perceiver's mood at the time. Like only appeals to like.¹ This alters very much the complexion of the resulting error. It is one of omission and not of commission as in the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. It is right so far as it goes; only it does not go sufficiently far.

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To get at the true nature of the object, we have accordingly to supplement our personal view by taking into consideration all other possible views of it. The doctrine admits, like Jainism (p. 159), that such comprehensive knowledge² is possible, but it can be attained only when the buddhi is purified by continuous self-discipline, so that generally speaking what we perceive is only partially true. Incompleteness is a common deficiency of our knowledge, and much of the evil in life is to be traced to viewing it as complete. Two people may disagree about an object though both may be right in part, because each is obsessed by the idea that he is in possession of the whole truth about it. There is also another deficiency characterizing all knowledge excepting only that of a 'freed man' or jīvan-mukta. As neither the buddhi by itself, nor the self by itself can, according to the system, be the conscious subject, we have to seek for it, as has already been pointed out, in the two together; and no experience is possible until we mistake them for one, or to be more correct, we fail to notice that there are two factors constituting it. This failure, termed aviveka or non-discrimination,³ which again is an error only in a negative sense, is a pre-condition of all experience. It leads to a fatal confusion between the puruṣa and the buddhi in which the characteristics of each are ascribed to the other and we talk of the buddhi as knowing and of the puruṣa as acting.

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