The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s7.t2.1.1

v2.c40.s7.t2.1.1

While, however, one side of the teaching of the Upaniṣads develops in this brilliant manner, and in the hands of Gauḍapāda and Çaṅkara emerges as the *chef d’œuvre* of the Indian philosophical intellect, another and important scheme of philosophy was growing up, and was destined to exhibit itself, at a period not far distant from the close of the great Upaniṣads, in a living and effective form. The existence of this system as the definite Sāṁkhya of the classical period is not attested until comparatively late: the oldest text-book, the Sāṁkhya Kārikā, may be assigned to about the fourth century A.D.,⁷ and for the earlier form of the system we are reduced to conjectures built on that text, the history of the parallel system of Yoga, and the indications of the epic, which knows well the Sāṁkhya and Yoga systems, but which in regard to its date is so uncertain, that it does not necessarily afford us any information older than that contained in, and to be inferred from, the Sāṁkhya Kārikā itself. Very briefly put,¹ the classical Sāṁkhya system discards entirely the idea of an absolute: it reduces the universe to a multitude of individual subjects, which have nothing true about them save their subjectivity, a subjectivity which has no creative power and is not properly realized at all by having an objective content. On the contrary, it is only by error in any way connected with the existing world, through its fancied connexion with Prakṛti, ‘nature’.