Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c12.s2.5

c12.s2.5

In the classical form of the Sāṃkhya revealed in the *Sāṃkhya Kārikā* of Īçvarakṛṣṇa we find a system which differs vitally from the plan of the *Katha Upanisad* by abolishing the universal person or spirit, and opposing to the unmanifested or nature (*prakṛti*) an infinite number of individual spirits, which, it is essential to note, are no longer conceived as in any sense enveloped in matter; from primitive matter intellect, individuation, unknown to the *Katha*, mind, the senses and objects arise, but all is unconscious save through reflection in some degree² in the spirit, which nonetheless is a mere idle spectator of a process which concerns it not, and which will cease to be such a spectator for good, when it is realized that there is an eternal distinction and separateness (*viveka*) between spirit and matter. So artificial a structure cannot possibly be an outcome of primitive thought, and a bridge is provided in the Sāṃkhya known to the epic, where, though the later form of the doctrine begins to appear, we find also the spirit as universal, an attitude whose priority to the later idea is shown effectively by its harmony with the conception of nature as one.