The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c12.2

c12.2

SPECIAL attention has been drawn to the short tract, called the *Tattvasamāsa*, by reason of the fact that Max Müller* considered that it was the real text-book of the Sāmkhya system anterior to the *Sāmkhya Kārikā*. The argument in its favour is, that where it agrees with the *Kārikā* it appears to be the older: this view is not, however, supported by any detailed argument, and certainly does not seem conclusive. All that can be said of it with certainty is that Vijñānabhikṣu in his commentary on the Sūtra attributed it apparently to the same author as the Sūtra, being a brief exposition of what is said at length in the Sūtra, and that the text has, in comparatively recent times, at least in some parts of India, as at Benares, attained a popularity which is much greater than that of the *Kārikā*. The language is not marked by any special sign of date, and Max Müller thought that the different order of categories and the numerous names not elsewhere used were rather a sign of primitive and orginal character than of lateness. On the other hand, it must be said that the relegation to the end of the category of pain is certainly curious and artificial in appearance, as contrasted with the position which pain occupies at the beginning of the *Kārikā* as giving the tone to the whole system, and the fact that the term *Tattvasamāsa* shows that the work is a compendium is surely evidence against the text representing the original Sūtras of the school.