The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c8.10

c8.10

Now great importance attaches to the date of the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali, in view of the fact that if it could be placed in the second century B.C., there would be attained a very definite date for the growth of the Sāṃkhya school with which in all essentials except atheism the Yoga agrees. Unfortunately, this view rests only on the theory that Patañjali is the same as the author of the *Mahābhāṣya*, whose date is now usually admitted to be the middle of the second century B.C. This view, however, cannot stand examination. It is clear that in his philosophic views as to the nature of substance and quality, the grammarian stands on a lower plane of development than the philosopher, and on the other hand the philosopher violates one at least of the grammarian's laws of grammar. Further, the Sūtra contains some doctrines which are probably late borrowings: thus in i, 40 the theory of atoms which belongs to the Vaiśeṣika is clearly referred to, nor less clearly in iii, 52 is the doctrine of the Buddhist Sautrāntika school that time consists of moments, Kṣaṇas, which are themselves forms of development of ever restless nature. This doctrine is found also in the Vaiśeṣika school, as it accords with the Atomic theory, but not until the Praśastapādabhāṣya. It is less certain if we can attribute to the Sūtra the doctrines of Sphoṭa, which belonged to the school of grammarians, and which is supposed by the commentator, Vyāsa, to be referred to in iii, 17, or that of the infinite size of the inner organ, which is seen by him in iv, 10, and which is supposed by Jacobi* to have been borrowed from the Vaiśeṣika school, in opposition to the view that this organ was of mean size, which is asserted by Vijñānabhikṣu to have been the view of the Sāṃkhya school, though this has been questioned.† More decisive is, perhaps, the fact that the Yoga Sūtra seems to attack the doctrine of the Vijñānavādins, and that therefore it is probably not older than the third century A.D., and probably is younger. The great supporters of that school, Vasubandhu and Asaṅga, lived in all probability about A.D. 300, but the school itself may, of course, have existed earlier, so that no absolutely certain result can be attained. It is, however, not at all unlikely that the production of the Yoga Sūtra was more or less directly motived by the revival of the Sāṃkhya and its definite setting out in the Sāṃkhya Kārikā of Īśvarakṛṣṇa, who was an earlier contemporary, according to Chinese evidence, of Vasubandhu. The attack on the idealism of Vasubandhu thus found in the Yoga Sūtra would be extremely natural.