The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c12.10.4

c12.10.4

The Sāmkhya also rejects, in its sister system of Yoga, the doctrine of a personal deity and of the eternity of the Sphoṭa, the concept expressed in the complex of letters of the alphabet which make up a word.* But in rejecting many of the theories of the other schools the Sāmkhya Sūtra shows itself not uninfluenced by one at least of them: the work makes remarkable efforts to prove that its views are in full accord with scripture, to which it attributes conclusive value, and endeavours to show as accordant with the Sāmkhya itself the statements in scripture regarding the personality of God, the unity in the absolute, the joy which is asserted to be part of the nature of the absolute, and the heavenly bliss acknowledged in the Vedānta as a step on the way to final release. Indeed, the text goes so far as to hold that obedience to the traditional rules of action has a good effect towards securing final release, and to talk of the attainment of the nature of the absolute.