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The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c9: V. The Ṣaṣṭitantra

The Sāṃkhya System: A History of the Sāṃkhya Philosophy c9

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V. The Ṣaṣṭitantra

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In the last verse of the *Sāṃkhya Kārikā* it is expressly stated that that compendium of the Sāṃkhya system contains the substance of the whole Ṣaṣṭitantra, omitting only the illustrative stories and the discussions of the views of other philosophies. The verse is not original, it being agreed that the text of Īśvarakṛṣṇa terminated at verse 69, but there is no reason to doubt the correctness of the version of fact given in it. It is, however, not clear that the term Ṣaṣṭitantra represents, as has been suggested by Garbe* a special work: on the contrary the context and the wording of the verse suggest that Ṣaṣṭitantra is a term for the Sāṃkhya philosophy as a system of sixty principles. This, moreover, is the sense in which the expression was taken by the *Rājavārttika* as cited by Vācaspati. According to this account the sixty referred to are the fifty Bhāvas of the Sāṃkhya system, together with a set of ten fundamental principles, stated as the reality, unity, and purposefulness of Prakṛti, its difference from spirit and its action for the sake of spirit, the plurality of spirits, their distinction from and connection with Prakṛti, the evolution of the other principles, and the inactivity of spirit, an order of topics which may have been rendered incoherent by the exigencies of the verse. The explanation is older than the *Rājavārttika*, for it is found in the Chinese version of the commentary on the *Sāṃkhya Kārikā* made by Paramārtha in the sixth century A.D. But despite its antiquity, the explanation of the number is open to the criticism that it confounds two different principles of division: the Bhāvas should be included under the Mūlikārthas. This seems to have been realized even in the tradition of the school, for Nārāyaṇatīrtha in his commentary on the Sāṃkhya Kārikā gives as the ten required to make up the sixty not the fundamental principles, but spirit, Prakṛti, intelligence, individuation, the three Guṇas, the Tanmātras, senses, and gross matter, an enumeration which is clearly arbitrary and unjustifiable.

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∗ *Sāṃkhya Philosophie*, pp. 58, 59. On the *Rājavārttika* see J. H. Woods, *Yoga System of Patañjali*, p. xxii.

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Some further light on the Ṣaṣṭitantra is thrown by the mention of that system along with the system of Kapila in the Anuyogadvāra Sūtra of the Jains as Kāvilam and Saṭṭhitantam, which has a parallel in the mention of the same systems as Kāvilā and Sāṃkhajogi in the Aupapātika Sūtra.[*] The commentator, Abhayadeva, on the latter passage explains the system of Kapila as the atheistic Sāṃkhya, and the Sāṃkhya as the theistic Sāṃkhya, treating Yoga as a separate head, but the parallelism with the first passage and the fact that only one representative of Sāṃkhya-Yoga is given, show that but one system is meant, which united the two sides of Sāṃkhya and Yoga.

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More light on this system is perhaps to be obtained from the Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā, a text of the Pāñcarātra school, of uncertain date, but apparently with some claim to antiquity. In its twelfth Adhyāya are described the five systems, the Vedas, the Yoga, the Pāśupata, the Sātvata, and the Sāṃkhya. The latter is described as a Tantra with sixty divisions, which are set out in detail, in two series or Maṇḍalas, the first consisting of thirty-two and the second of twenty-eight. Of these the first are Prakṛtis, while the second are Vikṛtis. These terms, however, are used in a manner which differs essentially from that of the orthodox Sāṃkhya: in the first series are included all the principles of the Sāṃkhya and some other conceptions, while the second list contains the chief concepts of a practical physiology and ethics, these affections of the soul being termed Vikṛtis or modifications, because they come into existence only as a result of the activity of the creative principles. The first of the principles is Brahman, the second Puruṣa, and the third Śakti, terms which point clearly to a form of the Yoga philosophy with express recognition of a God, beside spirit and matter. The following principles are fate, time, the three Guṇas, the Akṣara, probably meaning the doctrine of the imperishable character of sound, the Prāṇas, which in the Sāṃkhya are given a wholly dependent position, the Kartṛ and Svāmin Tantras, which may refer to intelligence with individuation, and mind, the five organs of perception, the five organs of action, the five fine elements and the five gross elements. The similarities of this system to the classic Sāṃkhya are not unimportant, but the differences are also great: there is in the interpretation given to Kartṛ and Svāmin no separate place whatever for the principle of individuation; the ideas of time and fate as principles are new; the place of the Prāṇas is contrary to the view of the Sāṃkhya; and the ideas of God and the Sphoṭa are not accepted by the Sāṃkhya.

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∗ See F. O. Schrader, Z.D.M.G., lxviii, 101-110.

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Of the second series the first, the Kṛtya Kāṇḍa, appears to correspond with the doctrine of sources of action in the Tattvasamāsa (11). The second category, Bhoga, must refer to the fruit of works, the third, Vṛtta, perhaps alludes to the circle of becoming and passing away, the Saṃcara and Pratisamcara of the Tattvasamāsa. The fourth, the five Kleśas, are in this form specifically Yoga conceptions: the corresponding Sāṃkhya idea is the five forms of ignorance. The next head, the three forms of proof, is common to both systems. Khyāti, which follows, is an old term, denoting the distinction of spirit and being. It is followed by Vairāgya, freedom from desire, just as the two terms are mentioned in connection in the Yoga Sūtra (iii, 49 and 50). Then come Dharma, righteousness, and Aiśvarya, the possession of divine powers which with the preceding two categories form the characteristics of intelligence in its Sattva form, according to the classic Sāṃkhya. The next category, Guṇa, must clearly be confined to some such topic as the internal relations of the three constituents in the individual. The next head is that of the fine body, the following, Dṛṣṭi and Ānuśrāvika, presumably handled the questions alluded to in Sāmkhya Kārikā 2, in which the insufficiency of empiricism and Vedic practices for the removal of misery is expounded. The categories of misery, Siddhi and Kashāya, have parallels in the Sāmkhya in the three-fold forms of misery, the Siddhis and the Asiddhis, Viparyayas, Aśaktis and Tuṣṭis. The Samaya may have dealt with opposing views, and the last head is that of Moksha, final release.

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The enumeration of topics is enough to show that there did exist some system of philosophy of the nature indicated, one which must have been closely allied with the epic Yoga system. But there is also evidence regarding the author of a work bearing the name Ṣaṣṭitantra, from which probably enough the term as a designation of the Sāmkhya system may have been derived. That work is stated in a Chinese tradition* to have been composed in 60,000 Ślokas and to have been written by Pañcaśikha. The statement seems, however, to lack probability, and its origin can easily be accounted for by the fact that Pañcaśikha is mentioned as the third in the order of tradition of the doctines of the school in the Sāmkhya Kārikā (70), and it is said that the doctrine was widely extended by him, words which may have been understood in the literal sense as denoting that an extensive text book was composed by him. On the other hand, there is the express testimony of the commentator Bālārāma that the author of the Ṣaṣṭitantra was Vārṣagaṇya, and this testimony receives some support from the fact that in his commentary on the Yoga Sūtra (iv, 13) Vyāsa cites a passage from the Śāstra which is expressly attributed by Vācaspatimiśra in his commentary on the Brahma Sūtra (ii, 1, 3) to Vārṣagaṇya, and which he seems† to have believed to be taken from the Ṣaṣṭitantra. This evidence, in itself far from clear, is strongly supported by the further Chinese tradition, which ascribes to Vindhyavāsa, who is in

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[^ *]: Takakusu, Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrême Orient, iv, 59. [^ †]: In his commentary on Yoga Sūtra, 1. c. S. K. Belvarkar (Bhandarkar Memorial Volume, pp. 179, 180) incorrectly ascribes to Vyāsa the mention of the Ṣaṣṭitantra.

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all likelihood to be identified with Īśvarakṛṣṇa,* the re-writing of a work attributed to Vṛṣagaṇa or Varṣagaṇa. The term “re-writing” seems to have been actually justified, in view of the contents of the Ṣaṣṭitantra as sketched in the *Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā*, and of the fact that the Ṣaṣṭitantra was evidently a manual of the Sāṃkhya-Yoga, and not of the Sāṃkhya in its atheistical form, and it is a reasonable conjecture that the origin of the Sāṃkhya Kārikā was due to an effort to set out in an authoritative form, in order to confute the doctrine of the Buddhists, a Brahmanical system which equally dispensed with the conception of God, but which avoided the difficulties attending the Buddhist denial of the reality both of an external world and of the soul.

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There is nothing to contradict this hypothesis, though also nothing to establish it, in the four or five citations known of Vārṣagaṇya:† it has been suggested,‡ on the ground that one of these citations is in verse and the rest in prose, that we must distinguish two Ṣaṣṭitantras, of which the one sets out the doctrine of Sāṃkhya-Yoga and the other that of the Sāṃkhya, the former being composed in verse and the latter in prose. In favour of this hypothesis, however, there is no evidence of any kind available, unless it be considered that the assumption of two different texts would best explain the claim made that the Sāṃkhya Kārikā includes the whole meaning of the Ṣaṣṭitantra, but it is unnecessary to press this point. The claim is not made by Īśvarakṛṣṇa himself, and it was open for a later hand to hold that the essential doctrines of the Sāṃkhya were fully set out by Īśvarakṛṣṇa, even if he omitted those portions of the doctrines of the Sāṃkhya-Yoga school which were definitely theistic. This view is confirmed by the fact that the succession of the doctrine is asserted in the first of the verses added to the text* to have been from Kapila to Āsuri and then to Pañcaśikha, for the evidence available regarding that teacher shows him, as we have seen, to have represented the Sāmkhya-Yoga, not the atheistic Sāmkhya school.†

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∗ As proved by Takakusu, l. c. Cf. Tuxen, *Yoga*, p. 14; Charpentier, Z.D.M.G., lxv, 845, 846; below, p. 68.

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† In the *Yoga Sūtra Bhāṣya* (iii, 53) he is cited as opposing the atomic theory of the Vaiśeṣikas; in Vācaspatimiśra’s commentary on Kārikā, 47, as dealing with the fourfold character of ignorance; the Ṣaṣṭitantra citations in the *Yoga Bhāṣya*, iv, 13 and in Gauḍapāda’s commentary on Kārikā 17 (and perhaps on 70) are neither specifically Sāṃkhya or Yoga. But the citation on Kārikā 17 looks like a verse fragment.

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‡ Schrader, Z.D.M.G., lxviii, 110.

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∗ There is no real possibility of doubt that the Kārikā originally consisted of 70 verses, omitting 70-72 of the recorded text, and probably inserting another verse (cf. Sanskrit Research, I, 107-117).

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† This fact invalidates the argument of S. K. Belvarkar (*Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume*, p. 181) that the Ṣaṣṭitantra must have arrived at a negative conclusion on the existence of God, which is in itself wholly incompatible with the contents of the text. It is also impossible to accept his views that the Ṣaṣṭitantra represents a stage prior to the severance of Sāmkhya and Yoga, and is prior to the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali (circa 150 B.C.); a decisive proof of the incorrectness of this dating of Patañjali is given by J. H. Woods, *Yoga System of Patañjali*, pp. xv-xix.

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