The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c7.23

c7.23

The question arises whether we can, on the strength of these notices, attribute any serious value to the tradition preserved in the Sāmkhya Kārikā. The answer as regards Kapila and Āsuri can hardly be in the affirmative, in the sense that the notice of the Kārikā receives any support from the epic. If there was ever a sage, Kapila, who expounded philosophy, he had disappeared into a mass of obscure tradition at an early date. Moreover, there is grave doubt to suspect his real existence at all, in view of the fact that he may owe his name merely to the use of Kapila in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (v, 2) as a description of Hiranyagarbha. The likelihood is that the name Kapila is merely that of a divinity which has, for whatever reason, been associated closely with the Sāmkhya philosophy in its atheistic form, though it is essential to note that the association is not epic, in which Kapila is by no means exclusively an expounder of the Sāmkhya, and where there prevails the vague idea that the Sāmkhya is at bottom quite consistent with belief in the Brahman. Āsuri is a mere name, and we cannot possibly accept him as a historical philosopher without more proof. The epic asserts that he taught Pañcaśikha, whence no doubt comes the statement in the Kārikā.