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Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s24: II Antecedents

Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s24

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II Antecedents

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In the history of thought there is nothing altogether new. No system of thought issues forth in all its fulness from the head of any one man. There must have existed philosophical ideas and doctrines affording the necessary material for the founder to work upon. In our account of the cosmology of the Ṛg-Veda,¹ we referred to certain vague anticipations of the Sāṃkhya theory of puruṣa and prakṛti. When we pass to the Upaniṣads, we find, in their varied teachings, the leading conceptions of the Sāṃkhya philosophy.² The authors of the Upaniṣads did not all think alike. Some of them threw out suggestions capable of being worked into the Sāṃkhya system, though they did not themselves reach it. When the Sāṃkhya claims to be a system based on the Upaniṣads, there is some justification for it, though the main tendency of the Upaniṣads is radically opposed to its dualism. The realistic tendencies of the Upaniṣads receive emphasis in the Sāṃkhya conception of the universe. The first mention of the Sāṃkhya is in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad,³ though the elements co-ordinated into the system are to be met with in the earlier Upaniṣads. Not only the notions of rebirth and the unsatisfactoriness of the world, but also such central principles as that knowledge is the means to release, and puruṣa is the pure subject, are taken from the Upaniṣads.⁴ In the Kaṭha Upaniṣad,⁵ the unmanifested (avyakta) stands at the top of an evolution series on the plane of matter, from which the great self (mahān-ātmā), intellect, mind, objects and senses spring in succession. Self-sense (ahaṃkāra) is not mentioned and the supreme spirit is admitted. Yet this is the earliest account of cosmic evolution which seems to have been utilised by the Sāṃkhya thinkers. The first product of prakṛti is called mahat, the great one; and the natural source of this idea is the Upaniṣad conception that the supreme spirit reappears as the first-born of creation, after producing primitive matter.⁶ The classification of the psychical functions may have been suggested by the account of the Praśna Upaniṣad regarding the states of sleep, dream, etc.⁷ The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad ⁸ contains a more developed account of the Sāṃkhya principles of the cosmos, the three guṇas, though the Sāṃkhya elements are subordinated to its main doctrine of theism. It identifies pradhāna and māyā as well as Brahman and puruṣa.⁹ The Maitrāyaṇī Upaniṣad, which seems to be a post-Buddhist one,¹⁰ is familiar with a developed Sāṃkhya and refers to tanmātras,¹¹ the three guṇas,¹² and the distinction of spirit and nature.¹ The Upaniṣads make use in a general and indeterminate way of these terms, which later systems have stamped with a special significance.

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¹ I.P., pp. 100-105.

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² See I.P., pp. 259-260.

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³ vi. 13.

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⁴ Bṛh. Up., ii. 4. 14; iii. 4. 2; iv. 3. 15. See also Muṇḍaka, iii. 1. 1.

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⁵ iii. 10-11. See also vi. 7-11. Cp. Chān., vi. 8. 6.

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⁶ R.V., x. 12. 1. Cp. M.B., xii. 311. 3.

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⁷ iv. Cp. the subtle body of the Sāṃkhya with the being of sixteen elements of this Upaniṣad.

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⁸ I.P., 510-515. See Śvet. Up., i. 4; iv. 5.

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⁹ i. 10; iv. 10; iii. 12; and iv. 1.

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¹⁰ See I.P., p. 142 n.; Keith: Sāṃkhya, pp. 14-15. The Nṛsiṃhatāpanīya, Garbha, Cūlikā are much influenced by the Sāṃkhya doctrines.

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¹¹ iii. 2. See also Chān. Up., vi. 3.

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¹² ii. 5; v. 2. Some trace the conception of three guṇas to the three colours mentioned in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad and repeated in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad.

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¹ vi. 10. Cp. Keith: "There is, in detail, in the Sāṁkhya little that cannot be found in the Upaniṣads in some place or other" (Sāṁkhya, p. 60).

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Jacobi’s attempt to regard the Sāṁkhya as the development of an early materialist school has little to support it. By its insistence on the absolute reality and independence of spirit, the Sāṁkhya set itself against all materialist views of mental phenomena. We do not come across any stage of the development of the Sāṁkhya at which it can be identified with materialism.

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The relation of the Sāṁkhya to early Buddhism has given rise to much speculation as to mutual borrowing.² Though the Sāṁkhya works, which have come down to us, are later than the origin of Buddhism, and may have been influenced by Buddhist theories, the Sāṁkhya ideas themselves preceded Buddha,³ and it is impossible to regard Buddhism as the source of the Sāṁkhya. Insistence on suffering, the subordination of Vedic sacrifices and denunciation of ascetic extravagances, indifference to theism and the belief in the constant becoming of the world (pariṇāminityatva) are common to Buddhism and the Sāṁkhya. These casual coincidences are not enough to justify the theory of mutual borrowing, especially in view of the marked divergences between the two. Buddhism does not accept any of the central principles of the Sāṁkhya, an inactive puruṣa, an ultimate prakṛti and the theory of the guṇas. If the Buddhist chain of causation resembles, in some respects, the Sāṁkhya theory of evolution, it is because both of them have for their common source the Upaniṣads. Whether the Sāṁkhya at the time of Buddha was atheistic in character is more than we can say.

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² See I.P., pp. 472-473.

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³ "There is abundant evidence, both in Hindu and Buddhist works, of unquestionable antiquity and authenticity of the Sāṁkhya and the Yoga systems having been current before the time of Buddha" (Rājendra Lāl Mitra: Y.S., p. xvi). Buddhistic legends mention Kapila as one of the predecessors of Buddha. See Garbe's S.P.S., Vṛtti, p. 3. Cp. Brahmajāla Sūtra: "There are brethren, some recluses and Brahmins who are eternalists, and who on four grounds proclaim that both the soul and the world are. They are addicted to logic and reasoning, and give utterance to the following conclusions of their own, beaten out by their arguments and based on their sophistry. Eternal is the soul; and the world, giving birth to nothing new, is steadfast as a mountain peak, as a pillar firmly fixed; and these living creatures, though they pass from birth to birth, fall from one state of existence and spring up in another, yet they are for ever and ever."

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In the Mahābhārata evidently we find a definite movement of thought identical with the Sāṁkhya.⁴ Anugītā explains the distinction of puruṣa and prakṛti.⁵ The puruṣa is the subject of knowledge, the twenty-fifth principle set over against the other twenty-four principles of nature which are the objects of knowledge.¹ Final release is effected by a recognition of the fundamental distinction between spirit and nature.² The plurality of spirits is empirical. The souls are many—so long as they are in union with nature; but when they realise their distinction from it they return to the twenty-sixth principle of God.³ The Epic philosophy is decidedly theistic in character and whatever elements of the Sāṃkhya are present in it are pressed into the service of theism. The self is said to send out from itself the guṇas even as a spider emits a web.⁴ Prakṛti works under the control of puruṣa.⁵ It is said to be a product of puruṣa into which it is resolved from time to time.⁶ Mahat, ahaṃhāra and manas are cosmic functions of the supreme spirit. Kapila, the founder of the system according to the tradition, is referred to as a great sage of revered memory. It is clear that the Sāṃkhya did not assume its later distinctive shape even in the Epics, which, for one thing, do not mention tanmātras. Different views of the order and development of the principles are to be met with. The nearest approach on this point to the classical Sāṃkhya is found in the Anugītā.⁷ The views of Pañcaśikha,⁸ and Asita Devala⁹ are mentioned. Āsuri is said to have taught the Sāṃkhya to Pañcaśikha, and the Sāṃkhya Kārikā repeats this suggestion of the Epic. Both Āsuri and Pañcaśikha adhere to a theistic Sāṃkhya and believe in the supremacy of Brahman. The independence of the individual soul is only relative. There are important differences in details between the Sāṃkhya views and those of Pañcaśikha.¹⁰

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⁴ I.P., pp. 501-504.

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⁵ xiv. 50. 8 ff.

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¹ M.B., xii. 306. 39-40. ² xii. 307. 20. ³ xii. 350. 25-26; xii. 351. 2-4. ⁴ xii. 285. 40. ⁵ xii. 314. 12; xii. 315. 8. ⁶ xii. 303. 31 ff. ⁷ xiv. 40-42. ⁸ xii. 219; xii. 321. 96-112. ⁹ xii. 274. ¹⁰ Corresponding to mind, which he regards as the sixth organ of perception, Pañcaśikha looks upon power as the sixth organ of action. The account of xii. 219 differs from that in xii. 321. 96-112, where Pañcaśikha is said to have recognised thirty principles. It is sometimes said that this latter view is an early form of the Pañcaśikha cult. It is difficult to decide whether the Pañcaśikha of the school tradition is the same as the Pañcaśikha referred to in the Epic, since there is a divergence between the views attributed to him in the M.B. and those to be gathered from the Sāṃkhya and the Yoga works. Professor Dās Gupta gives a long summary of a more or less similar view from Caraka’s medical treatise, History of Indian Philosophy, pp. 213 ff., but there is no mention of the tanmātras, and puruṣa and prakṛti are both regarded as avyakta; nor is the puruṣa regarded as passive and passionless. Release is said to be the attainment of the state of Brahman. The account is influenced by the views of the Vedānta, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Buddhism as much as the Sāṃkhya. ¹¹ I.P., pp. 516-517. ¹² xii. 105.

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Though Manu¹¹ does not mention the Sāṃkhya by name, the account of creation given in the first chapter, the acceptance of the three sources of knowledge,¹² the detailed description of the three guṇas,¹ show the strong influence of the Sāṁkhya. The Purāṇas ² and the later Vedānta writings use Sāṁkhya theories, though they give no quarter to its atheistic metaphysics, and are of little use in deciding the question of the antiquity of the system.

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¹ xii, 24-52.

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² See Bhāgavata, iii. 5; Matsya, iii; Agni, xvii; Mārkaṇḍeya, xlv.

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The Sāṁkhya views, as we meet with them in the Upaniṣads, the Mahābhārata, including the Bhagavadgītā and Manu, lean to theism.³ Puruṣa and prakṛti were not independent realities but only the modes of God. In Aśvaghoṣa's Buddhacarita we have an account of a meeting between Buddha and his former teacher Arāḍa, who holds the Sāṁkhya views, though in the theistic setting. It seems to be very probable that the earliest form of the Sāṁkhya was a sort of realistic theism, approaching the Viśiṣṭādvaita view of the Upaniṣads. While this type of Sāṁkhya may be regarded as a legitimate development of the teaching of the Upaniṣads, the dualistic Sāṁkhya, which insists on the plurality of puruṣas and the independence of prakṛti and drops all account of the Absolute, can hardly be said to be in line with the teaching of the Upaniṣads. The question, how did it happen that the Sāṁkhya rejected the idea of the Absolute which alone could make the system satisfactory? The Sāṁkhya did not become a well co-ordinated system until after the rise of Buddhism. When Buddhism offered a challenge to realism, the Sāṁkhya accepted the challenge and argued on strictly rational grounds for the reality of selves and objects. When it developed on a purely rationalistic soil, it was obliged to concede that there was no proof for the existence of God.

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³ "A study of the Epic and other early materials has convinced me that there is not a single passage in which disbelief in Brahman or God is attributed to the Sāṁkhya" (Franklin Edgerton: American Journal of Philology, xlv. 1. p. 8). M.B., xii. 11039, is usually regarded as emphasising the vital distinction between the Sāṁkhya, which denies God, and the Yoga, which does not. Edgerton combats this opinion, but it is difficult to explain away those passages of the M.B. which distinguish the Sāṁkhya of twenty-six principles from that of twenty-five principles. The latter type of Sāṁkhya is indifferent to the Absolute or God (xii. 300). It is, however, true that the M.B. does not support the latter view.

Cites (14)