1. Sankhya Karika of Isvara Krishna John Davies 1854

TRÜBNER'S

ORIENTAL SERIES.

HINDÜ PHILOSOPHY.

THE SÁNKHYA KĀRIKĀ OF

ISWARA KRISHŅA.

AN EXPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM OF KAPILA.

WITH

AN APPENDIX ON THE NYAYA AND VAISESHIKA

SYSTEMS.

BY

JOHN DAVIES, M.A. (CANTAB.) MEMBER OP THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, OF THE CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY, ETC., AND (SOMETIME) RECTOR OF WALSOKEN, NORFOLK.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO. LTD PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD.

The rights of translation and of reproduction are. reserved.

PREFACE.

I WISH to present to my readers the philosophy of Kapila as it has been set forth by his Indian exponent, Iswara Krishna. The system of Kapila, called the Sankhya or Eationalistic, in its original form', and in its theistic development by Patanjali, contains nearly all that India has produced in the department of pure philosophy. Other systems, though classed as philosophic, are mainly devoted to logic and physical science, or to an exposition of the Vedas. The system of Kapila may be said to have only an historical value, but on this account alone it is interesting as a chapter in the history of the human mind. It is .the earliest attempt on record to give an answer, from reason alone, to the mysterious questions which arise in every thoughtful mind about the origin of the world, the nature and relations of man, and his future destiny. It is interesting, also, and instructive to note how often the human mind moves in a circle. The latest German philosophy, the system of Schopenhauer and Von Hart- mann, is mainly a reproduction of the philosophic system of Kapila in its materialistic part, presented in a more elaborate form, but on the same fundamental lines. In

vỉ PREFACE.

this respect the human intellect has gone over the same ground that it occupied more than two thousand years ago, but on a more important question it has taken a step in retreat, Kapila recognised fully the existence of a soul in man, forming indeed his proper nature-the absolute Ego of Fichte-distinct from matter and im- mortal; but our latest philosophy, both here and in Ger- many, can see in man only a highly developed physical organisation. " All external things," says Kapila, " were formed that the soul might know itself and be free." "The study of psychology is vain," says Schopenhauer, " for there is no Psyche."

CONTENTS.

PAGE OF KAPILA, THE AUTHOR OP THE SANKHYA SYSTEM 5

THE SANKHYA KARIKA, BY ISWARA KRISHŅA. 13

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE OP THE NYAYA AND VAISESH1KA

SYSTEMS. 119

NOTE S.

NOTE A.

ON THE ORGANS OF THE SOUL IN THE SYSTEM OF KAPILA '33

NOTE B.

ON THE MEANING OF " SAT " AND " ASAT " 135

NOTE C.

ON THE CONNECTION OF THE SANKHYA SYSTEM WITH THE

PHILOSOPHY O P SPINOZA 139

NOTE D.

ON THE CONNECTION OP THE SYSTEM OF KAPILA WITH

THAT OF SCHOPENHAUER AND VON HARTMANN 143 .

HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

PART I

THE Hindu schools of philosophy are usually classed in the following order :- 1. The Nyaya, founded by Gautama, 2. The Vaiseshika, by Kanada. 3. The Sānkhya, by Kapila. 4. The Yoga, by Patanjali. 5. The Mimānsa, by Jaimini. 6. The Vedanta, by Badarāyana, sometimes called Vyāsa, or Veda Vyāsa. They are called the six Sastras, or writings of autho- rity, and sometimes the six Darsanas, views or exposi- tions of doctrine. The term " philosophy " cannot be strictly applied to all these systems. The Nyaya is properly a system of logic, offering many points of resemblance to the methods of Aris-r totle. The Vaileshika treats of physics, of the categories oriifeneral attributes of things, and of the formation of A

2 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

the kosmos, which it attributes to the qualities and move- ments of primitive atoms. The Mlmansa and Vedahta systems are nearly related to each other. The Mlmansa, or Purva (Prior) Mlmāņsā, arose from a desire to maintain and illustrate the Vedas. Its object was to support the supreme authority of these books, to maintain their ritual, and to determine the true mean- ing of such passages as had been misunderstood, or wrested in support of error. The Vedanta, or Uttara (Posterior) Mlmānsā, as it is sometimes called, was formed at a later date on the base of the Upanishads, or treatises relating generally to the Vedas. It differs from the Pūrva Mlmansa chiefly in this, that its main object is to explain and enforce the religious doctrines of the Vedas. It teaches that there is in reality only one existence. It maintains the doctrine of a-dvaiia, or non-dualism, as decidedly as Schelling or Hegel. All things, visible and invisible, are only forms of the one eternal Essence (rò ev), The basis of the system is therefore a pure Pantheism. In its later development, this system denied the existence of matter or material forms as objective realities. Visible things are only appearances, a kind of mirage, called māya (illusion).1 These systems may be conveniently arranged in three divisions :- 1. The Sänkhya, including the. modification. of it by Patanjali. 2. The Nyaya, connecting with it the system of Kaņada. 1 Colebrooke's Essays, ii. 400, and note by Professor Cowell.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 3

3. The Mimansa, both divisions of it being devoted to the support and illustration of the Vedas. I purpose to treat only of the first of these divisions, adding, as an appendix, an outline of the methods and physical theories of the second. The Sankhya Karika of lswara Krishna is an exposi- tion of the pure Sankhya doctrine of Kapila.

OF KAPHA, THE AUTHOR OF THE SANKHYA SYSTEM.

THE imagination of the Hindus has thrown a veil of mystery and fable around Kapila, the traditional author of the Sankhya philosophy. So much reverence gradually attached to his name, that he was sometimes called " the divine Kapila," and was said to have been a son of Brahmā, the creative form of Brahma, an incarnation of Vishnu, or a form of Agni, though born as a son of Vitatha and Devahuti;3 one of the great rishis or ancient sages; a descendant of the great lawgiver Manu; and to have been endowed with knowledge, virtue, freedom from passion, and super- natural power at the time of his birth. We can only say that he was probably a Brahman, who, being dis- gusted with the prevailing beliefs and practices of his time, wrought out for himself a system by which he hoped to solve the mysteries connected with spirit and

1 See Gaudapāda's Commentary which had been lost through the on the S. Karika, Wilson's ed., p. lapse of time" (Bhag. Puraņa, i. 3, I . ; Colebrooke, ii. 242. 2 "In his (Vishnu's) fifth mani- 10; Muir, iii. 192; Vishņu Purāņa,

festation, he (in the form of) Kapila iii. 2, 18; Bhag.GitS, x. 26). 3 In the Bhag. Purana, however, and Lord of Saints, declared to Āsuri the Sankhya (doctrine), which Kapila is said to have had nine sisters, all born to Kardama by his Innes the series of principles, and wife Devahuti (ii. 7, 3 ; iii. 33, 1).

6 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

matter by reason alone. His memory survives only in his system; for of the details of his life or of the time when he lived we have no certain account. It is pro- bable that he lived in the seventh or eighth century before Christ. He is said to have been born at Pushkara, a sacred bathing-place near Ajmeer, and to have dwelt at Ganga Sagar; but there is no reliable evidence in support of either statement. It seems to be certain that he was born in Northern India, and at some time before the birth of the great reformer Gautama Buddha, the date of whose death has been generally assigned to 544 B.C .; for in the Pali Däthavarhsa, Buddha is said to have been born in the city of Kapila, and that this city, called Kapila-vastu, had been built by the sons of Ikshvaku, by the permission of the sage Kapila, and that it was near the Himalaya mountains (i. 20). An indefinite antiquity was sometimes assigned to the system. In the first book of the Mahabharata, Nārada is said to have taught the thousand sons of Daksha the doctrine of final deliverance (from matter), the sur- passing knowledge of the Sänkhya,2 and he is reckoned as one of the Prajapatis, or first progenitors of mankind. Tradition affirms that Kapila lived as a recluse -- he is called a' Muni in Bhag. G., x. 1. 52-r-and that he pos- sessed a supernatural power, not always used with philosophic calmness. In the Eamayana (i. 36-44) we are told, with true Oriental exaggeration, that the sixty thousand sons of Sagara, a king of Ayodhyā (Oude), were directed by their father to go in search of a horse

1 In the Padma Purftna he is said to have dwelt in the village of Indraprastha (F. Hall, Introduction to S. Sara, p. 20): 2 Ādi-parvan, 3131 ; Sans. Texts, i. 125.

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. j

that had been stolen by a Rakshasa (demon) at an adwa- medha (horse-sacrifice). Meeting with Kapila in their search, they accused him of the theft, and the charge so enraged him that he reduced them immediately to ashes.1 It does not appear that Kapila separated himself en- tirely from the Brahmanic system. It has been said that he " proclaimed the authority of revelation as para- mount to reasoning and experiellce."2 This, however, is contrary to the main principle of his system, which upholds a knowledge of philosophy as the only way of obtaining the deliverance of the soul from matter. He denies that such a result can be obtained from the Vedas; for they are impure, as ordaining sacrifice, and insufficient for the attainment of this great purpose. He allows " valid testimony" to be one method of proof; and his Vedantist expounders have interpreted this to be an acknowledgment of the divine origin and authority of the Vedas, but there is no ground for such a state- ment The common designation of his system as Nirlś- wara (godless or atheistical) is a sufficient indication that it did not acknowledge a Supreme Lord or a divine revelation. The eminent Vedantist commentator, San- kara, rightly estimated the position of the Sankhya system with regard to the Vedas. In his commentary on the Brahma Sutras he discusses this subject, and concludes: "Hence it is proved that Kapila's system is at variance with the Veda, and with the words of Mtou, w,ho follows the Veda, not only in supposing an independent Prakriti (Nature), but also in supposing a :. 1 Sankara says, however, that it mentary on the Brahma Sutras, ii. (was another Kapila, named also I, I; Bans. T., iii. 190). Vfisudeva [a name of Ķrishna], who aestroyed the sons of Sagara (Com- 2 Sanskrit Literature, p. 83,

8 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

diversity of souls" (Sans. T., iii. 190). The system of Kapilri, if it had been generally. adopted, would have been as fatal to the Vedantist ritual and doctrine as that of Gautama Buddha, which was the natural result or logical issue of the earlier system. In each, knowledge and meditation took the place of religious rites; but Kapila established no society and no hier- archy; he knew nothing of sympathy with mankind in general; he addressed himself to thinkers like himself, and to these alone. Hence his system remained only as a philosophical theory, affecting the whole course of Hindii thought in some respects, chiefly in its physical speculations, but never attaining to a practical supremacy over large masses of men. It was never embodied and crystallised in a concrete form, and as a complete system it has been preserved only as an intellectual product, or as an esoteric doctrine, understood and accepted by a small inner circle of free-thinking men. It has often been misunderstood. Professor Cousin asserted that it was a pure materialism, though the soul is represented in it as holding a kind of royal supremacy, and all material things are subservient to it .. Another writer states, on the contrary, that in this system " souls alone are regarded as substances, whatever affects the soul being ranged under the head of a quality: 1. pleas- ing; 2. displeasing; or 3. indifferent." The Gunas, how- ever, are not qualities, but constituent elements, of Prakriti, as real in their nature as the soul, and having like it an eternal existence.1 . 1 The Sankhya philosophy, what- Schliiter in describing it says, " Das ever may be its merits or demerits, Selbstbewusstsein (Ahankara) ist is rarely presented in a correct erzeugt und nicht zeugend" (Aris- form by Western writers. Professor 'totle's Metaph. eine Toch. de San-

HINDU PHİLOSOPHY, 9

The term sānkhya is from the noun sanJchyd, number, and also calculation, reasoning. In the Mahabharata it is said: " They (the Sankhyans) exercise reason (sankhya) and discuss Nature and the twenty-four principles, and are therefore called Sankhya." Vijnana Bhikshu, in his commentary, explains the noun sanJchyd as meaning " discrimination,' " the setting forth of spirit as distinct from matter (Pralcriti)" Sankara Acharya gives a similar interpretation (Comm, on the Vishnu-sahasra-naman; In- trod. to Sankhya Sara, by F. Hall). The course of ideas seems to be from number to discrimination, and then to a discriminating judgment, a result of reasoning. The doctrines of the Sankhya system have been set forth in many well-known treatises, and on these many commentaries have been written. 1. The Sankhya-Pravachana (Exposition of the Sankhya), or Sänkhya Sütras, a work which has been attributed, but erroneously, to Kapila. It appears to be compara- tively- modern, for it is not mentioned by Sankara Ächārya, who lived probably in the seventh or eighth century A.D .; by Vachaspati Misra; or even by the author of the Sarva-darsana-sangralia, who is supposed to have lived in the fourteenth century. The most important commentary on this work is the SdnJehya-pravachana- bhdshya, by Vijnāna Bhikshu, probably written in the sixteenth century. 2. The Tatiwa-Samdsa, or Compendium of Principles, a smaller work, also assigned by some, but incorrectly, to Kapila. khya-Lehre, p. il)- It is, on the proceed, and from these the gross, Contrary, from consciousness, or visible, manifold forms of sensuous cgggcioua mind-matter, that the ^Btle essences of material forms existence. 1 Introd. to Sank. Sara, p. 9.

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY,

3. The Sankhya-Sara, written by Vijnana Bhikshu. It has.been lately edited by Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall, who has prefixed to it a valuable introduction : 4, The Sankhya-Kdrika (Exposition of the Sankhya), by Iswara Krishna, This is a work of high authority on the subject, and appears to be the oldest exposition of Kapila's philosophy that has come down to the present, time. An edition of this work was published at Bonn in 1832 by Professor Lassen, with a Latin translation and notes. It was also translated by the late Sir H. T. Colebrooke, and this translation was adopted by Pro- fessor Wilson in an edition published by the Oriental Society, to which the commentary of Gaudapada, with explanations, was added. It has also been translated into German by Drs. Windischmann and Lorinser, and into French by Messrs. Pautier and St. Hilaire. The latter has added a very extensive commentary. It consists of seventy-two distichs or slokas, each expressing in general a distinct principle or dogma. The last three, however, are not connected with the exposition of the Sankhya system, and are probably a late addition. It is written in the Arya or Gatha metre,1 It is this work which is now presented to my reader in a new translation with notes, and also occasionally with references to other systems where they coincide with parts of the system of Kapila. It may seem hazardous to, attempt the translation of a work which is confessedly obscure and difficult, after the labours of such eminent Sanskrit scholars as Professor Lassen and Slir H. T. Colebrooke; but neither of them has, I think, interpreted the Hindū system, or this exposition of it, 1 Williams, Sans. Gram., p. 354, 2d ed.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. il

with perfect accuracy. I have had, however, the benefit of their labours, of the occasional remarks of Professor Wilson on Colebrooke's translation, and of the criticism of Dr. Fitż-Edward Hall on Professor Wilson's share of the work. Dr. Hall has criticised some parts of Professor Wilson's work with unnecessary harshness, forgetting that those who follow the footsteps of pioneers in a difficult country may be able to make the path somewhat more distinct than it was before, without possessing as much skill and energy as those who led the way. I have adopted Professor Wilson's translation of Gauda- päda's commentary, except in a few instances, where I think he has failed to apprehend its right meaning, or the real nature of Kapila's system, which he admits, in his preface, he had not previously studied.

THE SANKHYA KARIKA,

By IŚWAKA KRISHŅA.

1. "FROM the injurious effects of the threefold kinds of pain (arises) a desire to know the means of removing it (pain). If, from the visible (means of removing it), this (desire) should seem to be superfluous, it is not so, for these are neither abso -? lutely complete nor abiding."! 1 The first distich is obscure. I Lassen :- "E tergeminorum dolo- subjoin a transliteration of the text rum impetu (oritur) desiderium cog- (adopting Lassen's reading in the noscendse rationis qua ii depellantur. first line, apaghatake, which is found in the S. Tatwa Kaumudi and S. Quod (cognoscendi desiderium) licet in visibilibus rebus inf ructuose ver- Chandrika), with the translations of setur, non est (infructuosum) propter Colebrooke and others :- absentiam absoluti et omni sevo

du'khatrayābhighiitājjijñāsā tadapa- superstitis (remedii)."

ghātakS hētau St. Hilaire :- " La philosophic con-

drishtēsāpārthāchennaikāntâtyanta- siste à gue'rir les trois especes do

to' bhāvāt. douleurs. Si Ton pretend qu'ii ex- iste des moyens materiels de les Colebrooke :- " The inquiry is into guerir, et que, par consequent, la the means of precluding the three philosophie est inutile, on se trompe, sorts of pain, for pain is embarrass- car il n'est pas un seul de ces moyens ment. Nor is the inquiry super- qui soit absolu ni dennitiv." fluous because obvious means of Fitz-Edward Hall :- "Because of alleviation exist, for absolute and the discomposure that comes from final relief is not thereby accom- threefold pain there arises a desire plished." to learn the means of doing away

H HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

The first distich gives the chief, if not the sole, purpose of Kapila's philosophy. It is to relieve mankind from the suffering of pain. It is founded on the gloomy view of human life which is generally accepted by Hindū writers. They assert an absolute pessimism. Our pre- sent life is not a blessing; it is only a wearisome burden, which is finally cast off when the soul has become free from all contact with matter. The soul then gains, according to Kapila, an absolute independence, a self- existence, which is not affected by any subsequent changes in the outer material world; or it is absorbed, according to the theistic system of Pataftjali, into the essence of the One Supreme Being (Brahma). The three kinds of pain are explained by the commen- tators to be- i. The natural and intrinsic, both bodily and mental (adhyatmika). 2. The natural and extrinsic (adhibhautika). 3. The divine or supernatural (ddhidaivika) . The first includes bodily disease and mental infirmity or suffering. The second includes all pain derived from external causes of every kind. The third, as Gaudapada interprets it, may be either divine or at- mospheric; "ifi the latter case, it means pain which

therewith effectually. If it be ob- supports this rendering, and censures jected, that visible means to this end Lassen for translating it by the Latin being available, such desire is need- impetus. It is composed of abhi= less, I demur ; for that these means Or. au@l, and han, for ghan, to strike, do not entirely and for ever work to slay. In the Peters. Diet, it is immunity from discomposure" (In- explained as schtag, angriff, beschadi- trod. to S. Sara, p. 26). gung. Lassen was confessedly mis- Colebrooke's version of the first taken- in his version of the second part of the distich is hot very accu- part. Dr. Hall's is the truest ver- fafe, and abhighata is not " embar- Sion, but abhigkata is much more rassmeht," though Professor Wilson than "discomposure."

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 15

proceeds from cold, heat, wind, rain, thunderbolts, and -the like." This, however, belongs to the second division. According to Vachaspati Misra, the third kind is " from the influence of the planetary bodies, or by being possessed by impure spirits, such as Yakshas, Eakshasas, &c." But, in old time, the gods of a higher class, and not demons merely, were supposed to afflict men with disease and pain. In the Big-Veda (ii. 33, 7), Gpitsa- mada prays to Eudra that he - may be freed from his bodily pains, which he affirms to have been sent by the Devas or gods (daivya).1 The visible remedies for pain, such as medicine or earthly enjoyments, are not absolute or wholly complete, not are they eternal; for they do not procure that entire separation of the soul from matter which is an absolute condition of its perfect deliverance from pain.

2. "The revealed, (means) are like the visible (i.e., inefficient), for they are connected with im- purity, destruction, and excess. A contrary method is better, and this consists in a discriminative knowledge of the Manifested (forms of matter), the Unmanifested (Prakiti or primeval matter), and the knowing (Soul)."

By " revelation " the Vedas are meant, which were sup- posed to have been heard by wise men (rishis) as a divine communication, and hence were called Śmti

1 " O Rudra, who bearest away One ! to me." So Apollo sent the the disease (rapas) sent by the plague into the camp of the Greeks (other) gods, be gracious, O mighty (Iliad, i. 42).

• HINDU PHILOSOPHY,

(hearing.)1 In the judgment of Kapila the Vedic system was not perfectly efficient; for (i.) it was impure. It required sacrifice, and thus the blood of animals was shed, often to a great extent In the Afwamedha (horse* sacrifice) more than a hundred horses might be sacrificed at one time. According to the Brahmans, this would avail " to expiate all sin, even the murder of a Brahman/'2 and would confer supernatural power; but to Kapila all, such rites were impure. (2.) It was connected with destruction. The Vedic system could not give that final exemption from all material conditions without which there must still be a destruction and renewal of bodily life, (3.) It was excessive or unequal, for all men are not wealthy enough to offer costly sacrifices to the gods, and thus the rich man may have more and the poor man less than is due to his individual merit. The Vedas say indeed that there is "no return (to bodily life) for one who has attained to the state of Brahma;" but in the school of Kapila this blessedness is reserved for those who may attain in the heaven of Brahma to a discrimi- nating knowledge of soul and matter.3 This is the leading principle of Kapila's system. The complete and final blessedness of the soul, which consists of an absolute self-existence, cannot be gained by any religious rites. It is obtained by knowledge, and yet not by every kind of knowledge: it can only be gained by a knowledge of philosophy (which Kapila expounds), and

. 1 " By sruti is meant the Veda, exposition), for from them all law and by smriti (tradition, lit. remem- or duty (dharma) has proceeded " brance), the institutes of law (dharma- (Manu, ii. 10). sastra). These are not to be op- 2 Gaudapada's Commentary on pugned by heterodox arguments (con - this distich, trary to the Mimansa or Vedantist 3 Sank. Prav., i. 83, 84 ; vi. 58.

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. 17

this treats of existence in three forms-(1.) Manifested or developed matter (Vyakta); (2.) the Unmanifested or primal matter, called Prakriti or Pradhana (Avyahta);1 and (3.) the knowing Soul (Jna). This theory of being is unfolded in the following distich and the 22d, which may be brought together for a full exhibition of the system :-

3. " Nature (Prakriti), the root (of material forms), is not produced. The Great One (Mahat -- Buddhi or Intellect) and the rest (which spring from it) are seven (substances), producing and produced. Sixteen are productions2 (only). Sou] is neither producing nor produced."

Matter in its primal form (Prakriti) is eternal and self-existing. From it all things emanate, except Soul, which has an independent existence, and is eternal, both a parte ante and a 'parte post. Prom Prakriti proceed: (i.) Intellect (Mahat or Buddhi), the substance or essence by which the soul obtains a knowledge of external things. It is material,3 but

1 In the Institutes of Mann this ToUTur pfTE EE OU Taûra yéyorEy, is an appellation of the Supreme aAA' dvbparov cldos 71 kai duopoy Being. "Then the self - existent ravdexes " (Timgus, 24). Lord, un manifested (avyakta) caused 2 Properly "modifications" (vil- all this universe, with the great dra). They are only developments principles of being, and the rest, to from a primary form, and have no appear" (i. 6). developing power. Prakriti · resembles the one uni- Modern science, like the system versal invisible substance or being of Kapila, makes intellect a mere of the Platonists, from which all material forms have sprung. form of matter. "Mind, used in the

"Διδ δη την του γεγονότος όρατο sense of substance or essence, and brain, used in the sense of organ of kat warrws atoOnroo unrépa xat mental function, are at bottom names υποδοχήν μήτε γήν μήτε άέρα μήτε πθρ, μήτε όδως λεγωμεν, μήτε όσα έκ for the same substance ' (Maudsley's Physiology of Mind, 3d ed., p. 38). B

18 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

of the subtlest form of matter. la the system of Ka- pila, everything connected in function with sensuous objects is as material as the objects themselves, being equally an emanation from Prakriti. The soul exists as a pure inward light,without any instrumentation by which it can become cognisant of the external world. This instrumentation has been supplied, but it is as foreign to the soul, and as objective to it, as any other form of matter. From Intellect (Bitddhi) proceeds Consciousness2 or Egoism (Ahankara); a consequence resembling that of Descartes: " Cogito, ergo sum." Self-consciousness is not, however, in the system of Kapila, a corollary of thought, but inherent in it; or, as Sir W. Hamilton has expressed the same idea, " Consciousness and knowledge each involves the other."3 It is the same thing in another form, for cause and effect are identical according to Kapila, as water issuing from its source is still the same in reality though not in form. By Ahankāra Kapila means a substance or ens connected with thought (Buddhi), in which consciousness inheres. It is nearly equivalent to the "mind-stuff" which the late Professor Clifford assumed as the original ground of all being, i.e., of all formal being; a synthesis of mind and grosser matter in which consciousness was produced, by which

1 Comp. Hegel on Thought (Das Denken), in connection with the Ab- one another, but one world of nature, whereof human consciousness is an solute: "Es ist das Licht, welches evolution" (Maudsley, p. 57). A leuchtet; aber eben keinen andern dogmatic assertion, but only of a Inhalt hat, als eben dasLicht" (Phil, theory, as yet unproved, though der Rel., i. 117). 2 "There are not two worlds, a offered at first jnore than 2000 years ago. world of nature and a world of human 3 Metaphysics, i. 193. consciousness, standing over against

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 19

the existence of conscious and unconscious beings was made possible, and was finally developed. From Ahankara or Consciousness proceed the five subtle elements (tanmatra) which are the primary forms or essences of gross material things, i.e., of all formal life. This might seem to be as pure an idealism as that of Berkeley or Fichte; but there is no idealism in the system of Kapila. Both Consciousness and all existing external forms have a real objective being independent of the soul. In one respect he coincides with the views of Kant, for both agree that we have no knov/ledge of an external world, except as by the action of our faculties it is represented to the soul,2 and take as granted the objective reality of our sense-perceptions.3 In one re-

1 " There is room for the supposi- 2 " Bedenkt man dass diese Natur tion that even the ultimate particles an sich nichts als ein Inbegriff von of matter may be permeable to the Erscheinungen, mithin kein Ding an causes of attractions of various kinds, sich, sondern bios eine Menge von especially if those causes are im- Vorstellungen des Gemüth's sei, so material ; nor is there anything in wird man sich nicht wundern sie the unprejudiced study of physical bios in dem Radicalvermogen aller philosophy that can induce us to unser Erkenntniss, niimlich der der doubt the existence of immaterial transcendentalen Apperception in substances ; on the contrary, we see derjenigen Einheit zu sehen, urn analogies which lead us almost di- deren Willen allein sie Object aller rectly to such an opinion. The elec- trical fluid is supposed to be essen- möglichen Erfahrung, d. i. Natur

tially different from common matter; heissen kann " (Kant, Deduction of the Categories, p. 576), the general medium of light and heat, according to some, or the prin- "After all, what dp we know of

ciple of caloric, according to others, this terrible 'matter,* except as a name for the unknown and, hypo- is equally distinct from it" (Dr. thetical cause of states of our own Thomas Young, Unseen Universe, p. 160). The authors of this work consciousness" (Huxley, Lay Ser-

would substitute " not grossly mate- mons, p. 142).

rial" for "immaterial," and "gross 3 Cf. the Sānkhya Sāra (i, 41,42).

matter" for "matter" in the pas- The Vedantist objects that "since

sage* quoted. They correspond to nothing exists except thought, neither

the tanmatra and mahdbhuta of does bondage, for it has no cause."

Kapila. The reply is, "Not thought alone exists, because there is the intuition

20 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

spect there seems to be in the Hindu theory a germ of the system of Hegel, in which subject and object are made one by an absolute synthesis; for the substratum of thought and consciousness and of the external world is the same in kind, since elementary substances issue from consciousness, and consciousness proceeds from intellect (Buddhi). There would be some resemblance if the system of Kapila ended with Nature (PraJeriti). But there is still a dualism. The soul is different in kind from all material things, and will finally be severed from them by an eternal separation. When finally separated from matter, including intellect and all the forms or emanations of Prakriti, it will have no object, and no function, of thought. It will remain self-existent and isolated in a state of passive and eternal repose. To the five subtle principles are given the technical names of sound, tangiblcness or touch, odour, visibility 'or form, and taste. From these primary essences proceed the five gross elements (niahabhicta). These are : (i.) ether (ākclsa), from the subtle element called sound; this fills all space and envelops all things; (2.) air (vayu), from the element tangiblcness; (3.) earth, from the element odour; (4.) light or fire, from the element visibility; and (5.) water, from the element called taste.

of the external." The objector tator, Vijnana Bhikshu, adds, " i f replies, "From the example of in- the external does not exist, then tuitive perception in dreams, we find thought does not exist. It is intui- this (your supposed evidence of ob- tion that proves the objective, and jective reality) to exist even in the if the intuition of the external does absence of objects." The rejoinder not establish the objective, then the is, "Then if one does not exist, the intuition of thought cannot establish other does not exist, and there is it (thought)-" only a void ;" " for." the commen-

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 21

Prom Consciousness proceed also (6.) the five organs of sense (indriya)} which are the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the skin; and (7.) the five organs of action; the voice, the hands, the feet, the anus, and the organs of generation. Lastly, it produces the manas? which is the receptive and discriminating faculty. It receives and individualises the impressions made by out- ward objects on the senses. These it submits to Con- sciousness, by which an attribute of personality is given to them, and through which they pass on to the Intel- lect (Buddhi). By this last faculty the sense-perceptions are defined and represented in a full, distinct form. The soul beholds these presentations as objects are seen in a mirror, and thus has a knowledge of the external world. (ii.) The next object of inquiry (the first in point of ex- istence) is the primal source of these material existences, or the Unmanifested (Avyakta)? This is the primordial matter, from which all material things have emanated or

1 Kapila saw that consciousness of seeing" (Dean Mansel's Letters, was the base of the reality of all our Lectures, &c, p. 162). sense - perceptions. " Soil Etwas 2 "There exists, latent or poten- iiberhaupt etwas Reelles im Gegen- tial, in the sensory centres, some- satz gegen das bios Eingebildete thing that may be called a faculty, bezeichnen, so mus das Ich which which on the occasion of the appro- etwas Reelles sein, da es Princip priate impression, renders the sen- aller Realität ist" (Schelling, System sation clear and definite; in other des Transcen. Idealism us, p. 60). words, gives the interpretation " " Both sensation and reflection are thus original states of consciousness, (Maudsley, p. 237). This is the manas of Kapila. and exist only in so far as we are 3 "Here let us remind our conscious of them. Tor example, I readers of the argument by which see and I am conscious that I see. we were led to conclude that the These -two assertions, logically dis- visible system (the Vyakta of Ka- tinct, are really one and inseparable, pila) is not the whole universe, ... Sight is a state of consciousness, and. and that there must be an invisible I see only in so far as I am conscious order of things (Avyakta), which will

22 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

have been evolved. It is eternal, universal, single, i.e., without parts, invisible, and is inferred only by reasoning from present, actual existences, which must have a cause. It is not produced, but is productive, having within itself the potentiality of all being, except soul. The Vedan- tists incorporated it in their system, making it the Brahmi, or productive energy, of Brahmā. (iii.) The soul, which is uncompounded and eternal, neither a product nor producing. The system of Kapila only reeognises each individual soul, but the theistic Sänkhya asserts the existence of a supreme soul, the Lord (lswara) of all, the intelligent cause of the emanations from Prahriti (Nature). These form the twenty-five principles, or categories of being, laid down in the Sankhya system. They are the base of nearly all the philosophy of India. In the following distichs the methods by which all true knowledge is obtained are determined, according to the judgment of Kapila.

4. "Perception, inference, and fit testimony are the threefold (kinds of) accepted proof, because in them every mode of proof is fully contained. The complete determination or perfect knowledge (siddhi) of what is to be determined is by proof."1

remain and possess energy when the is from proof that belief of that present system has passed away ... . which is to be proven results," and It is, moreover, very closely connected with the present system, inasmuch this version is supported by Pro- fessor Wilson, on the ground that as this may be looked upon as having the Hindu commentators explain the come into being through its means " word siddhi (accomplishment, per- (The Unseen Universe, p. 157 ; see feet knowledge) by pratiti, "trust," also p. 158). "belief ;" but in the Peters- . 1 Colebrooke's translation is, "It burg- Dictionary this is explained as

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 23

5. " Perception is the application' (of the senses) to special objects of sense. Three kinds of infer- ence are declared : ifc (an inference or logical con- clusion) is preceded by a linga (mark or sign = major premiss) and a lihgi (the subject in which it inheres = minor premiss). Fit testimony is fit revelation ('smiti)." 6. " The knowledge of formal or generic exist- ence is by perception; of things beyond the senses by inference; that which cannot be determined by this (method) and cannot be perceived must be determined by fitting means."2

Perception results from the action of any of the organs of sense on its proper objects. Inference (anumāna) is the process of reasoning. The conclusion that is drawn from it is anumiti (Tarka Sangraha, p. 30). The Nyäya or Logical school admits four kinds of

meaning : (i.) a drawing near (hin- 1 Adhyavasdya, a word difficult zutreten, nahen); (2.) a clear insight of explanation. Colebrooke trans- into a matter, a full knowledge, lates it by "ascertainment," Lassen conviction (klare Einsicht in Et was, by "intentio (sensuum)," St. Hilaire volkommenes Verständniss, TJeber- by "application." In the Amera zeugung). Lassen's translation is, Kosha it is glossed by uteāha (force, " Nimirum demonstrandse rei con- effort, application). The authors summatio (oritur) e demonstra- of the Petersburg Dictionary only tione," adding in his commentary, quote from Hindu commentators · "Ultimam sententiam itạ accipio some untranslated glosses, adding ut dicatur id quod demonstrandum that some explain it as meaning sit, magis minusve absoluta evi- " a strong will or effort." dentia posse evinci secundum ge- 2 Aptagamat, from " revelation " nus demonstrations qua probetur." Proof, however, is here spoken of (Colebrooke); "revelatione" (Las-

absolutely. There is no question of sen) ; "par une information legitime " (St. Hilaire). degree.

24 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

proof: (i.) fratyaksha (perception); (2.) anumāna (in- ference) ; (3.) tipamāna (comparison or analogy); and (4.) salda (verbal testimony). To these the Vedantic school adds arthdpatti (presumption), an informal kind of inference; as, " Devadatta does not eat by day and yet is fat, it is presumed therefore that lie eats by night;" and alhava (non-existence), a method of proof from an impossibility, or a rcdudio ad dbsurditm, as, " There can be no flowers in the sky." By the latter part of Distich 4, Kapila limits all possible knowledge to his three methods of proof. He rejects all innate ideas, and all knowledge derived from pure consciousness. He does not admit any moral sense as inherent in the soul. This only knows or sees what Biuldhi (intellect) presents to it. He adopts the axiom, " Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu;" and as neither sensation nor intellect can present the form of an eternal self-existent Author of all things, the doctrine of a Supreme Deity was not admitted into his philosophy. Kant has contended that the idea of God cannot be derived from reason, but only from the facts of our moral consciousness, which have no place in Kapila's system. Goodness or virtue is an attribute of JSiuldhi, which is only a form of matter. The soul has no concern with it. The only real evil is pain, and this can only be destroyed by an eternal separation of the soul from matter, which is obtained by knowledge, not by moral or religious virtue. There is the same obscurity in the language of Distich 5 as in our use of the word " perception ;" for drishtam (thing seen) properly denotes not the application of the eye to objects of sense, but the result of that process. The use of the term " application " is, however, strictly in accord-

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 25

ance with the Hindu theory of the method of perception. The knowledge gained by the eye is not from rays of light proceeding from an object, but by a ray of light proceeding from the eye. An inference, according to the Nyaya school, is " know- ledge produced from a logical antecedent.1 This consists in the knowledge of a general principle combined with the knowledge that the case in question is one to which it is applicable." In the Nyaya Sutra Vritti inference is said to be threefold: (1.) "Prior, that is, cause, charac- terised by or having that (cause); as inference of rain from the gathering of clouds ; (2.) posterior, effect charac- terised by it; as inference of rain from the swelling of a river; analogous or generic, characterised as distinct from both effect and cause ; as the inference of anything being a substance from its being earthy." This is reasoning a priori, from cause to effect; a posteriori, from effect to cause ; and by analogy, or community of properties. The terms linga (character or mark) and lingī (the subject of the linga) answer nearly to the major and minor premisses of "Western logicians. In the syllogism, com- mońly given as an example- " Whatever smokes has fire; This hill smokes; Ergo, This hill has fire," 2 1 Tarka Sangraha, p. 29. The is always attended by fire, is a parā- word parāmarm, translated "logi- maria." cal antecedent" by Ballantyne, is 2 In the Tarka Sangraha (p. 32), translated by Wilson " observa- the knowledge that this " moun- tion," "experience;" prim, taking tain is characterised by smoke (the hold and then apprehension by the linga), which is invariably attended mind. In logic it means a fact or by fire;" is called a linga pardmarsa, truth apprehended by observation, "For example, the knowledge that which means " such recognition of a

this hill is marked by smoke, which sign as leads to inference."

26 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

the first proposition contains the linga, which here is smoke, and the second the lingi, or that in which the linga inheres. By "revelation " is meant either the teach- ing of the Yedas or of other works supposed to have a similar or equal authority. Kapila, who was doubtless a Brahman, did not wholly reject the Vedas, but he treats them with little respect, and makes their authority subordinate to that of reason. His Vedantist commen- tators draw conclusions from this passage which are incon- sistent with the first and second distichs, which express Kapila's fundamental principle. By " formal or generic existence" in Distich 6 {sām- änya') is meant all the related forms or genera of the material world. In the Tarka Sangraha (p. 56) it is thus explained : " Community (samanya) is eternal, one, belong- .ing to more than one, residing in substance, quality, and action. It is of two kinds, the highest and what is lower. The highest is existence (sattwa, primal matter ?); the lower is genus (jati, family or race), such as have the nature of substance (elementary substance), and the rest."2 It is used in the latter sense in the passage which we are now considering.

• 1 In the Sānkhya Bhashya it is by analogy, or a perception of it, is maintained that sāmānya here means " analogy," and that drishfdt is put not equivalent to the whole of the inferential process, but only a part in apposition with anumdndt. The ofit. I adopt, therefore, the conclu- passage must then be translated, sions of Colebrooke and Lassen; but " The knowledge of things beyond Colebrooke's translation of samanya the senses is obtained by inference, by "sensible things," and Lassen's by i.e., by the perception of analogy." " tequalitas," do not represent with Wilson and St. Hilaire adopt this sufficient exactness its meaning, view, but it is opposed by the 2 Dravyatwa, having the nature following considerations :- (r.) The of substance, from dravya, sub- word samanya is not used by Hindu stance, which sometimes means ele- logicians to denote analogy, but a mentary substance, as fire, earth, generic form of being; (2.) reasoning &c. See Burnouf, 8. v.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 27

Things beyond the senses are not only those which are too subtle for the organs of sense, but those which are imperceptible by accident, as the fire in a mountain that smokes. Whatever lies beyond perceived or inferred existence can only be known by testimony.

7. " (This want of perception may be) from ex- cessive distance, too great nearness, destruction of organs, inattention of the mind (manas), minute- ness, concealment (by other objects), predominance (of other things), and by intermixture with like objects." 8. "From the subtlety (of Nature), not from its non-existence, it is not apprehended (by the senses); it is apprehended (or perceived) by its effects. Intellect (Buddhi) and the rest (of the derived principles) are its effects, which have an unlike and a like form to Prakriti (Nature)." 9. "Existing things (sat) are (proved to be) effects from the non-existence of (formal) being by the non-existence of cause ; by the taking (by men) of a material cause (to produce anything); from the non-existence of universal production (by every cause); from the possible causality of an efficient agent (only) ; and from the nature of cause/'

Lassen has in the text swarupam the MSS. but one have sarupam (having its own form), from the (like), which the sense requires. In Sānkhya Kaumudi, which must be his translation he has " dissimile et referred to intellect (Mahat). All simile."

28 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

Kapila, or his expounder, contends in Distich 6, as the philosophers of the Eleatic school, against the assumption that the senses are the only sources of knowledge. Our senses are limited in their own nature, and their action is imperfect from many opposing circumstances. Hence many things exist which they cannot reveal, and they give imperfect information of things which lie within their range. The intellect (Buddhi) must arrange and j>resent our sense-conceptions, that there may be a true cognition. In this way we rise from the knowledge of the manifold to the conception of the one, in which all things were contained and from which they have issued. Kapila, however, confines this oneness to primordial matter, Prakriti. He does not refer the existence of souls to one supreme spiritual Being, as the theistic school of Patanjali.1 Herein he differs, too, from the Vedāntists, who maintain that all things are the one supreme Spirit; that the visible things of the outer world are only maya (illusion), the deceptive form with which the Invisible is veiled; and that, therefore, there is neither cause nor effect: all things inhere in, and indeed are, the One sole Existence. But the world, as it exists, was to Kapila an effect.

1 Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall says that are not the work of Purusha, from " alike in both the Sankhyas there is the non-existence of a Purusha (pu- acknowledgment of a being superior rushasyabhavat). Vijnana Bhikshu to the gods. He is made up of an immaterial part, purusha, or 'per- adds, " Supply, because we deny that there is a Lord " (v. 46). Some of son,' and of an anta'karana or the followers of this school asserted 'internal organ,' which is Prakriti the existence of a personified sum (Nature)" (Introd. Sank. Sāra, p. 2). This statement is not supported of existence, called Hiraņya-Garbha (Professor Cowell, Note in Elph. by anything in the Sank. Karika, India, p. 126) ; but Kapila did not and in the Sank. Pravachana it is ex- recognise such a being. His Pra- pressly stated that " they (the Vedas) kriti is impersonal matter.

HIND PHILOSOPHY. 29

He proceeds in Distich 9 to prove this proposition by arguments which have received very different interpreta- tions. Colebrooke translates the first part of the distich thus: " Effect subsists (antecedently to the operation of cause), for what exists not can by no operation of cause be brought into existence." The doctrine of Kapila is indeed that cause and effect are so far identical that an effect is only a developed cause, but this part of his argu- ment is contained in the sixth clause of the distich, where he argues from the nature of cause. The general argu- ment or the main proposition to be proved is, that formal existence is an effect, implying a cause, not that effect exists antecedently in its cause. Professor Wilson adopts Colebrooke's translation, and explains the passage as if in accordance with this view, but in reality he confounds two distinct ideas. "It is laid down," he says,, "as a general principle that cause and effect are in all cases co- existent, or that effect exists anteriorly to its manifestation : sat-kāryam, in the text, meaning existent effect prior to the exercise of the (efficient) cause; or, as the phrase also of the text, asadakaranat, is explained,' if effect prior to the exercise of (efficient) cause does not exist, its exist- ence cannot by any means be effected.' The expression sat-kāryam,. therefore, is to be understood throughout as meaning 'existent effect,' not the effect of that which exists, and the object of the stanza is to establish the existence of cause from its effects, and not of effects from the existence of cause, as Professor Lassen has explained it: 'Qusenam sint rationes docetur quibus evincatur nien- tem ceteraque principia effecta esse, a To ot4. Here the two propositions, that effect exists in its cause, and that formal existence is an "existent effect," are con-

50 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. 1 founded, and the last part of the sentence is not in harmony with the statement of the proposition as laid down in the beginning. The words sat-karyam express the proposition to be proved, which is that sat, manifest or formal existence, must be considered as wrought; or, in other words, is an effect implying an efficient cause. The phrase does not mean " an existent effect/' but that what is formally existent is necessarily an effect. Caus- ality is implied as an absolute condition of all formal being. Asadakarandt (literally from non-existence, non- cause) implies that there is an identity in the terms non- existence and non-cause, and that we cannot conceive of formal existence as uncaused: only the unformed Prakriti (Nature) is without a cause, having existed eternally. (See p. 17.) Lassen translates the first argument thus: " E nulla non entis efficacitate ... colligitur ilium effectum esse effectum rod ouros." Professor Wilson remarks, " It is here to be objected that the ens (sat) is the result, not the agent;" but Lassen here means by the TO'OP, not any simple or formal existence, but the unformed Praķriti, which is the true material cause of the whole series of existent things. The argument implies that the idea of cause is involved in the idea of formal existence, and that we can only conceive of any limited conditioned life as produced by something that preceded it, which is as truly existent as the effect, until we come to what is formless and unconditioned, i.e., Prakriti (Nature). M. Cousin has entirely mistaken the meaning of Ka- pila's argument He understands it as really denying the existence of cause, because cause and effect are, in the system of Kapila, of the same nature. "Selon Kapila

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 31

il n'y a pas de notion propve de cause, et ce que nous appelons une cause n'est qu'une cause apparente relative- ment a l'effet qui la suit, mais c'est aussi un effet par la meme raison, et toujours de meme, de maniere que tout est un enchainement neeessaire d'effets sans cause veri- table et independente." It is difficult to imagine how such a theory could be attributed to Kapila after reading any of the well-known expositions of his philosophy. Any link in the series of existent things may be a cause of that which follows and an effect of that which has preceded it; and hence, as Kapila argues, we must admit a primal material cause, itself uncaused, from which all existent things have ultimately proceeded. He did not admit a supreme spiritual Being, an liwara or Lord, either as the Author or Kuler of the visible world, but he argued for the existence of a primal material cause (Pra- kriti) as the necessary antecedent of every other existence. M. St. Hilaire translates the clause as follows: "Ce qui prouve bien que l'effet provient de Tetre, c'est que le non- être ne peut être cause de quoi que ce soit;" but this makes Kapila assume that the existing world is an effect spring- ing from a cause, but his proposition is to prove that it is an effect, and that therefore there must have been a primary cause. His standpoint is existence in the mani- fold conditioned forms of things as they are, and that such forms must have had a primary cause, i.e.,, that they are effects. The nature of cause forms the last clause of the distich. He rises finally at the end of the series, traced iu an ascending line, at a true cause, which is, however, identified in kind with the effects which have issued from it. Mr. Mill's definition of cause is more clearly expressed,

32 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

but is insufficient: " It is an universal truth," he says, " that every fact which has a beginning has a cause," and "an invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature [which Kapila calls sat] and some other fact which preceded it." 1So cause is defined, but more precisely, in the Tarka Sangraha: " That which invariably precedes an effect that cannot else he is a cause." It is this law of succession which Kapila declares to be invariable and necessary as to all the facts or formal existences in Nature. In the second clause he appeals to the common ob- servation of mankind that cause and effect mutually imply each other. If you wish to produce anything, you must use means for the accomplishment of your end. This cause must also bear a relation to the effect; it must be of the same nature, as stated in the third clause. If

1 Mill's theory of causation (which fixed constitution of their nature is that of Dr. Thomas Brown), that which determines the event-a con- it means only the idea of an invari- stitution which, while it lasts, makes able sequence, is insufficient, for we the event a necessary consequence" cannot think of cause without con- (Quot. in Hamilton's Metaph., ii. 3S3, ceiving a necessary and invariable 384). "It is a self-evident maxim power inherent in it by which the that every event must have a cause, effect is produced. The definition in After contemplating an event in life the Tarka Sangraha is more precise, or nature, I find myself going in It declares the necessity of a cause thought beyond it to consider how in relation to an effect. But the idea of power is not distinctly enunciated it came to pass ; by some instinctive law, some constitutional motion in- by either. It is well expressed by herent in my mind, I go in the the late Professor Wilson : " We do direction of a cause for that event ; not fear to say that when we speak something not merely antecedent of a power in one substance to pro- to it, but which stands in such a duce a change in another, and of a relation to it as that, in conse- susceptibility of such change in that quence of it, that event or thing .other, we express more than our be- lief that the change has taken and exists" (Professor Mozley's Essays, The Principle of Causation, i. 416). will take place .... There is, besides See Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions this, the conception included of a in Philosophy, App. I.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 33

you would have cheese, you must use milk and not water; for one cause is not equal to the production of every effect. An efficient cause is also necessary for the pro- duction of an effect as well as a material cause. A potter is necessary for the making of a jar; he is not competent to produce cloth. The last argument of Kapila is "from the nature of cause," or, as Vachaspati explains it, "the identity of cause and effect."This would have been more properly placed at the beginning of, the distich, for it shows what he meant by cause, which he explains as a material source from which an effect issues. As oil is extracted from sesamum seeds, we have in the latter the material cause or source of the oil which was in the seeds before it was extracted by pressure. His idea of cause and effect is of an antecedent form or substance, of which the effect is an emanation.2 Effect is a developed cause and cause is an undeveloped effect; both are the same in substance, and

1 Sir W. Hamilton also declares the identity of cause and effect, so cally denies that there is any differ- ence between cause and effect. " I far as that an effect . must have have endeavoured to show that the previously existed in the cause, "What is the law of causality ? supposed axiom of causes not being knowable when their effects are Simply this :... That all that we at known is a fallacy and a misappre- present come to know as an effect hension of the principle of causation ; must have previously existed in its it is plausible only through the meta- causes" (Metaph., ii. 400). Not ab- solutely so, for the effect may differ, physical postulate that the cause is something different from its effects " and, in truth, must always differ, in (Fort. Rev., April 1876). Kapila some respect from the cause. taught that the effect must be of 2 So, according to Aristotle, the the same hind as the cause, but he ancient Greek philosophers taught: "Τούτων δέ το μέν έκ μή όντων γίνεσθαι also taught that one may differ from

άδυνατον· περί γαρ ταύτης δμογνωμόν- the other in many ways. The potter (instrumental cause) and the clay QUOL TÂS BOETS AaUTEs ot TEp QUOEwS" (material cause) are not the same as (Phys., i. 4). Mr. G. H. Lewes goes the jar produced. further than Kapila, for he practi- C

34 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

hence, from the nature of cause, it involves the effect in itself, as that which is evolved implies the cause or material source from which it has been evolved. Now all formal life is a development, and implies that from which it has been developed. It seems, however, to be forgotten that the efficient cause, as the potter in making a jar, is something altogether different from the clay with which he works and the jar which he produces. The nature of visible or developed things is then dis- cussed, in contrast with the invisible or undeveloped source (Avyakta), which is Prakriti.

10. "That which is visible or developed has a cause; it is not eternal or universal; it is mobile (modifiable), multiform, dependent, attributive, con- junct, and subordinate. The undeveloped principle is the reverse."

The visible or developed universe contains the twenty- three principles (tattwa, existence, reality), which are emanations from Prakriti (Nature). It is caused, for it proceeds from Prakriti; it is there- fore not eternal as manifestation or form, but is eternal as being one with its source; for " destruction," says Kapila, "is a return to the producing cause." It is not universal or pervading (vyapi): each of these principles (tattwa) is not found in every form. It is mobile, admitting changes of position in different bodies. It is multiform, existing in various forms of aggrega- tion.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 35

It is dependent or conditioned;1 each of the grosser elements is dependent upon the more subtle, and these are dependent on consciousness, &c, up to Prakriti. It is attributive or predicative (lingam2), i.e., each sub- stance has a characteristic sign or quality which may be predicated of it. It is conjunct or conjunctible, for the elements combine with one another. It is subordinate or governed, each being subordi-

(intellect). nate to the other in an ascending series, up to Buddhi

Prakriti, however, is uncaused, eternal, universal, self- existing, and supreme.

11. "The manifested (Vyakta) has the three modes -(guna). It is indiscriminating, objective, generic,3 irrational,4 and productive. So also is Pradhana (Nature). Soul in these respects, as in those (previously mentioned), is the reverse." 12. "The modes have a joyous, grievous, and stupefying nature. They serve for manifestation, activity, and restraint: they mutually subdue and

1 Āhntam. Lassen translates it by or " characteristic " would be a pre- " innixum ;" Colebrooke by " sup- ferable translation. Lassen has " re- porting ;" St. Hilaire by " acci- ciprocal," but he adds "dubiae dentel." The Petersburg Diet, has inihi est significationis." See the " Halt und Schuta bei Jmd snehend," Tarka Sangraha, p. 38 (Ballan- lit. " going to one " (for protection tyne). or support). 3 Samanyam, translated by Lassen 2 Lingam. Colebrooke translates it and Colebrooke "common." See "mergent,"*i.e.,, subject to dissolu- p. 26. tion, after Gaudapada; but Professor 4 Achctanamt from a, neg. part, and Wilson remarks that " predicative " chit, to perceive, to know.

36 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

support each other, produce each other, consort together, and take each other's condition."] 13. " 'Goodness' (sattwa) is considered as light (or subtle), and enlightening (or manifesting); ' passion7 or 'foulness' as exciting and mobile; ' darkness' as heavy and enveloping (or obstruc- tive, varanaka). Their action, for the gaining of an end, is'like that of a lamp."2

These distichs introduce an element in the Sānkhya philosophy which plays an important part in its physical and moral teaching. It is that of the three gunas, or qualities, as the word is generally translated. They are not qualities, however, but the constituent elements of Nature (Prahriti). " These three qualities," says Cole- brooke, " are not mere accidents of Nature, but are of its essence and enter into its composition/' Nature, or primordial matter, is described in the system of Kapila as formed by the gunas, which were primarily in equili-

1 Vrittayas. Vachaspati interprets the word by kriya (act, operation), rajas (passion), and tamas (darkness) are the usual names of the three and connects it with each of the foregoing terms (Wilson, p. 51). gunas. In the preceding distich they

The Sank. Bhashya interprets this are named from "priti" (joy or love), apr'tti (aversion), and vishdda (stu- partby "parasparam varttante" (are pefaction or dulness). The first is reciprocally present). St. Hilaire said to include rectitude, gentleness, has " se suppléent reciproquement." modesty, faith, patience, clemency, Vritti means state, condition, or and wisdom ; the second produces manner of being, and the meaning hatred, violence, envy, abuse, and . is that each guna may, in some cir- wickedness ; and the last causes cumstances, assume the nature of tardiness, fear, infidelity, dishonesty, the others, or be the same in effect, avarice, and ignorance (S. Chandrikā, See p. 26. Wilson, p. 52). 2 Sattwa (goodness or reality),

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 37

brium, and so long as this state existed there was no emanation into separate forms of matter. This state of rest was destroyed when Nature began to act, though unconsciously, for the welfare of soul, and this move- ment, as motion or activity in general, is due to the influence of that guna, or constituent of Nature, which is called "passion" {rajas). This theory seems to be contrary to a previous statement that Nature is one; but it is conceived as we apprehend light to be a simple colourless substance, though formed by a perfect union of the coloured rays, whose individuality is lost or unde- veloped in that which we call light. The Gunas are a mere hypothesis, invented to account for the manifest differences in the conditions of formal existences. There is evidently a subtle or spiritual ele- ment, one of passion or force, and something which is contrary to both, an element of dulness or insensibility, in at least all human beings ;2 and these are assumed by Kapila to indicate a primary difference in the constituent elements of Nature {Prakriti) .. The same idea seems to have presented itself to some of, the earlier Greek philo- sophers, as Aristotle has described their doctrine.3

1 "The governorship thereof (of Nature brought soul into bondage soul over Nature) is from its proxi- by connecting it with matter. mity, as in the case of the gem" 2 In the system of Valentinus the (Sank. Silra, i. 96). The interpreta- tion is, " that as the gem (the load- Gnostic, all men and all substances are divided into three classes : (1.) stone) is attracted by iron merely by the spiritual, (2.) the vital, and (3.) proximity, without resolving (either the material (IIylic). This corre- to act or to be acted upon), so by the mere juxtaposition of the soul, sponds to the gunas of Kapila, and is

Nature (Prakriti) is changed into probably an importation from India. . 3 Cf. Aristotle: "Tộs pès ovolas the principle called the Great One ύπομενούσης τοίς δέ πάθεσι μεταβαλ. (Buddhi, intellect)." We are not told λόυσης τούτο στοχείον και ταύτην how this proximity was caused, by which soul acted upon Nature, and (Metaph., i. 3; Wilson, p. 53),

38 HINDŮ PHILOSOPHY.

These gunas are called by Kapila: (i.) sattwa, truth or goodness; (2.) rajas, properly passion, but sometimes in- terpreted as foulness; and (3.) tamas, darkness. Professor Lassen translates them as (1.) essentia, (2.) impetus, (3.) caligo. The first, however, is not more an essence than the second or third. The second, "passion," is rather the cause of an impetus than the impetus itself, the moving force rather than the motion. The terms have, however, only a relative meaning. The ginias' are the constituents . of Nature, which is only matter, and this is incapable of truth or goodness, according to our ideas of them. Sattwa means primarily existence or reality, the real essence of anything, and hence truth and also goodness or virtue; but as by the essence of a being we imply something more subtle than the gross form, the word is used to denote that constituent or formative element of Nature which is lighter and more subtle than the other two. The second constituent is termed " passion " or " foulness," because it is the exciting element, and all action is, to the Hindu mind, an evil, or at least a defect. The perfect state is an inactive repose. The third, " darkness," is the grossest of the elements. The gunas or modes are sometimes termed (1.) Prakasa,

1 In the notes to the Sankhya strictly correct. Guna means pri- Kārika which Lassen has given he marily a thread or cord, and Pra- explains the word guna thus: "Di' kriti, or Nature, is as a string com- versus sane est usus vocabuli, quum, posed of three varying strands ; not veluti per Manum, de peculiari properly energies, but constituent cujusvis elementi virtute dicatur. elements of different virtue. Ka- Atque est sane guna apud Sank- pila did not resolve matter into yicos materiae innata , per mere force, as some of our modern tres gradus ascendens atque consi- physicists. Force was only to him dens. Sunt tres materise cum arcu a condition of matter, or rather of . vel lyra comparatae tensiones, et one of its primary elements, i.e., of reddi possit guna haud inepte per potentiam" (p. 30). This is not the guna called " passion."

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 39

luminousness; this is prevalent in fire. (2.) Prayritti, activity; this predominates in air. (3.) Moha, delusion; this resides in earth, which, being heavy, is supposed to be formed by, and to represent, the gross, stupefying element. Every kind of existence except soul is formed by the gunas, but in an infinite variety of conditions, as the dif- ferent kinds of these elements are blended together in varying degrees." Kapila, or his disciple, liwara Krishna, proceeds to define more fully the qualities which belong to every one of the twenty-three principles or forms of material existence. · Each is indiscriminative, i.e., it has not the power of discerning the differences of things and deciding upon them. The manas (" mind") receives the sensations which are caused by the action of external things on the organs of sense; these it transmits to the consciousness (ahahkara), which presents them to the intellect (buddhi). There the soul beholds them as in a mirror. The soul alone discriminates and uses them. Thus only is a true cognition formed. It is objective. The only proper subject is the soul. A1l other things, from intellect to the grossest form of matter, lie without the soul and are its objects. It is generic (samdnyd), i.e., it produces generic or

1 Even the gods are represented equality in the gunas arises, then in the Vayu Puran a as springing they (the gods) -who preside over from the three gunas. " From Prad- them are generated. . . . The rajas hana (Nature), when agitated, the quality was corn as Brahma; the quality of passion (rajas) arose, which tamas (darkness) as Agni; the sattwa was there a stimulating cause, as (goodness) as Vishnu" (Muir, Sans, water is to seeds. When an in- Texts, i. 75).

40 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

specific forms. Colebrooke translates the word " Common," and Gaudapada says'that it is so called " from being the common possession of all, as a harlot." This is not true, as an exposition of Kapila's system, for buddhi is not common to all things. The meaning is, that each may form, with others, things that have common properties. It is irrational (cichctana, unthinking). Even" intellect" cannot think, for it is material. It is only a passive re- ceptacle for arranged and individualised ideas. Cognition is a property of the soul alone. It is productive. Intellect produces Consciousness, and this produces the five subtle elements, from which the grosser elements proceed. Nature (Prakriti) is the same in these respects as each of its developments. Soul, however, is the opposite of Nature. It discriminates; it exists by and for itself alone; it knows, and is not productive. In Distich 12 the gunas are classed as pleasant, un- pleasant, and stupefying. " Goodness " serves for mani- festation, for it is light and elastic; " passion " leads to activity, and " darkness " to restraint or inertness. Each may subdue or support the other; they are capable of producing each other, and have a mutual existence, i.e., · they pass into one another, or produce the effects of each in different conditions; as a good king rewards a good and punishes a bad subject, and clouds which may be heavy and inert may cause fertility and gladness. In their mutual co-operation they are compared to a lamp, whose light is produced by the application of flame to the wick and the oil

14. " The absence of discrimination and the rest

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. 41'

(the other conditions of material forms) are a con- clusion from the three modes, and by the absence of the reverse of this (the modal existence). The Unmanifested (Nature) is also to be determined by the cause having the same qualities as. the effect."

In Distich 8 it is affirmed that the productions (emana- tions) of Nature are in some respects like, and in others unlike, their original source. In Distich 10 the points of disagreement are mentioned, and the points of agreement in Distich 11. The first-named of the common properties is the presence of the three modes, and in Distichs 12 and 13 the nature of these modes is defined. As they affect the constitution of all Nature's productions, the faculty of discrimination cannot belong to any, for this does not belong to the modes. In like manner they are all, from intellect downward, objective, and have other properties of the modes. Also, as they are objective, i.e., external to soul, they must be material. The latter part of the first line of the distich-tad- viparyayābhāvfit-is obscure., Colcbrooke translates it, "and by the absence thereof in the reverse;" that is, as Vfichaspati and others interpret it, in the soul; soul and matter being opposite in their nature. Gaudapäda con- * fines the passage to the undeveloped Nature (avijaJrta) and the developed principles (vyakta), and explains it to mean that the absence of the reverse of these quali- ties in the developed establishes its absence in the un- developed, for they are not contrary to each other. Vāchaspati says, also, that " it may be understood as taking for its own two subjects, vyalda and avyajcta, and asserting by the inverted proposition (negatively) that

42 HIND PHILOSOPHY.

there is no reason (to the contrary) from one being exempt from the three modes."1 Lassen connects " this " with " the three modes," and after examining other trans- lations, interprets the passage thus: " Quseritur, quomodo interpreter hrec verba; vertenda sunt Latine, quia non est contrariuni hujus (i.e., trium qualitatum). Kefero autem ad Evolutum et Involutum, de quibus hie potissimum est sermo. Sensus ijitur ex mea opinione est: quia in eis (Involuto et Evoluto) non sunt proprietates tribus quali- tatibus contrapositre. Ha3 enim si essent, falsa esset enunciatio dist. 11 proposita." I adopt Lassen's explana- tion, as best suited to the Grammar of the language and to the sequence of ideas, the 14th distich being thus linked to the preceding. After arguing that the undeveloped (Prakriti or Nature), assuming it to exist, must be essentially the same as the developed (forms), five arguments are offered to prove the existence of Prakriti.

15. "From the finite nature of specific objects; from the homogeneous nature (of genera and species); from the active energy of evolution (the constant progressive development of finite forms) ;2 from the separateness of cause and effect; and from the undividedness (or real unity) of the whole universe."3

1 Wilson, p. 59. 2 " Propter manifestationem per of production or development (pra- vritti). potestatem" (Lassen); "since effects 3 "Since there is a reunion of the exist through energy " (Colebrooke); "de l'activité de tout ce qui a universe" (Coleb.); "propter insepa- rabilitatem omnes formas induentis puissance d'agir" (St. Hilaire), lit. from the energetic action {iakti) (Involuti)" (Lassen). Vaiswarupa is the entirety of formal existence.

HINDU PHIĻOSOPHY. 43

16. "(It is proved that) there is a primary cause, the Unmanifested (Avyakta), which acts (or develops itself) by the three modes; by blending and modification, like water, from the difference of the receptacle or seat of the modes as they are variously distributed." 1

i. From the finite nature (parimāna, measure) of specific objects. On this account they must have a cause, for otherwise they would have no limit in space or time. That which is conditioned must be dependent on some- thing external to itself, and be limited by it. 2. From the common properties (samanvaya) in diffe- rent things. Hence species and genera exist, from which we rise to the conception of one primary genus. 3. From the active or living energy (4akti) shown in production (emanation) of things. All things are in a state of progression, but their active, progressive life is not due, according to Kapila, to any " potentiality " which they possess in their separate nature.2 Development implies a developing principle or energy, and this must be from an external source. The arrangement of parts can no more create a living energy than a machine can supply its own motive power. 4. From the separate existence of cause and effect.

1 "Per diversitatem cujusvis,quam is certainly correct. This is Gauda- amplectitur qualitatis " (Lassen). pada's explanation. " For different objects are diversified 2 As Lassen explains it: "Evol- by the influence of the several quali- ties respectively " (Coleb.). Wilson's vuntur evoluta non per suam ip- sorum facultatem, sed per potentiam suggested correction, " by modifica- tion, like water, according to the quandam, quae est causa poteatate ea evolvendi instructa " (p. 33). receptacle or subject of the qualities,"

44 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

This is closely connected with the former argument. A living energy is at work in production. This is the producing cause, and we can only conceive of cause and effect as different things, though each is enfolded in the other. The existing world of finite forms is an effect, and must therefore have a cause beyond itself. 5. From the inseparable unity of all (material) forms (vaisvarupa), or of the whole universe in its manifold forms. No part, of Nature can exist independently of the rest. There is an unbroken chain or' abso- lute continuity from the lowest to the highest. At the end of the existing Jcalpa (period of creation) they will all' become one again. Gaudapāda assumes this fact as a proof or illustration of the argument. Kapila, however, more logically, refers only to the actual connection of all the several parts of Nature as a proof that they have sprung from a common origin. Some important questions are suggested by this theory of a primordial matter, from which all things, except soul, have emanated. How does this universal Nature, being one, produce different effects ? How doe's it act at all, since it is not acted 'upon by anything' external to itself? The answer of Kapila is, that it acts by virtue of its internal formation. It is composed of the three gunas or modes, and is inert when these are in equilibrium. It acts through a disturbance of this state. The modes are endowed with a power of motion,1 like the atoms of Lucretius, and from their restless action combination may be effected in different proportions, as.

1 Motion, however, is primarily due to the mode or constituent element of Nature (Prakriti), called " passion " or " foulness."

. HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 45

one or another may be predominant. This is the mix- ture or blending mentioned in Distich 16. It is also modified, as water or moisture, by different conditions, caused by the nature of its receptacle or seat. " As simple water coming from the clouds is modified as sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, in the nature of the juice of the cocoa-nut, palm, bel-karanja,1 and wood- apple." "Modified condition," says Vachaspati, " is the cha- racter of the three modes, which are never for a moment stationary.". This constant motion produces different effects by the ever-varying proportion of their action. In the gods, the quality of "goodness" predominates, and they are happy; in mankind, that of " passion" or "foulness," and they are miserable; in animals, and lower substances, " darkness " prevails, and they are in- sensible or indifferent. Kapila having endeavoured to prove the existence of Nature (Prakriti), now attempts to prove the existence of soul.

17. "Because an assemblage (of things) is for the sake of another;2 because the opposite of the three modes and the rest (their modifications) must exist; because there must be a superintending power; because there must be a nature that en- joys; and because of (the existence of) active

1 The hcl-karanja is a leguminous 2 This is stated a little more fully plant, whose seed produces an oil in the Sankhya Pravachana: "Every used for the cure of scabies (Asiat. assemblage, every combination, has Kes., iv. 310). A Sanskrit name of always for its object another being " the plant is chiravilwa. (i. 133).

46 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

exertion for the sake of abstraction or isolation (from material contact);1 therefore soul exists."

I. The first argument is from design; not of a de- signing mind from evidences of design, but objectively of another nature for which the arrangement (sam- ghata, collocation) of material things is made. " In like manner," says Gaudapada, "as a bed, which is an assemblage of bedding, props, cotton, coverlet, and pil- lows, is for another's use, not for its own, and its several component parts render no mutual service; thence it is concluded that there is a man who sleeps upon the bed, and for whose sake it was made: so this world, which is an assemblage of the five elements, is for another's use; or there is a soul, for whose enjoyment this enjoy- able body, consisting of intellect and the rest, has been produced."2 2. Because there must be something different from Prahriti (Nature) formed of the three modes -; for this is the material source of pleasure or pain, and the sentient nature, which feels the pleasure or the pain, must be diverse from it.3 This argument is based upon

1 Colebrooke translates the last chana (vi. 11): "Though it (pain) clause, "since there is a tendency to abstraction;" St. Hilaire by is the property or function of some thing else, yet it is effected (in the " parcequ'enfin il y a une activite" soul) by non-distinction (of soul qui tend a la liberation absolue des and matter)," or, as the passage trois espèces de douleurs;" Lassen has " ex actione propter abstractions is explained by Vijniina Bhikshit, " though the qualities pleasure, causam." 2 Wilson, p. 66. pain, &c, belong only to the mind

3 Wilson, p. 67. ' The soul, how- [which is material], they exist in the shape of a reflection in it (the ever, in the Sänkhya system, is not soul), through 'non-distinction' as properly sentient, and the difficulty the cause." is thu3 explained in the S.' Prava~

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. 47

our consciousness. We are conscious of a nature within us, which feels joy or woe; and this we infer is some- thing different from matter, for we cannot conceive of mere matter as feeling or thinking. 3. There must be a superintending or directing force. As a charioteer guides a chariot drawn by horses," says Gaudapada, " so the soul guides the body." The idea of Kapila seems to be that the power of self-control cannot be predicated of matter, which must be directed and con- trolled for the accomplishment of any purpose, and this controlling power must be something external to matter and diverse from it. The soul, however, never acts. It only seems to act; and it is difficult to reconcile this part of the system with that which gives to the soul a con- trolling force. If the soul is a charioteer, it must be an ' active agent. 4. " Because there must be a nature that enjoys/' This is substantially the same as the first proposition.1 Gaudapada has practically joined them together by a common interpretation. The difference seems to be merely this: That the first refers to an arrangement of utility, and implies that it has been made for some one's use. The fourth indicates ownership or possession, and therefore a possessor, as an estate implies an owner. The idea that underlies both is expressed in the S. Tattwa Kaumudl: "Intellect and the rest are things to.

1 The first or teleological argu- in their nature, an appanage; they ment appears to be of an universal kind. Every arrangement of ma- have no raison d'Hre except as the

terial things is for a purpose, and adjuncts of another nature, whose ministers they are. They are inter- therefore for one in whom that pur- mediaries, implying the existence of pose is fulfilled; or, in other words, the two extremes, the objective world the use implies an user. Some things, < however, as intellect, are evidently, and soul.

48 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

be enjoyed (bhogya, what is eaten, enjoyed, possessed) or perceived (drisya), and therefore these imply one that perceives."1 Each has a separate function, which can only be brought into action by the influence of soul. 5. It is assumed here that the yearning which all sometimes feel for a higher life than we can have in our present bodily state points to the possibility of gaining it. This pure isolation or abstraction (kaivalya) from matter cannot be obtained by any material means. These can only work by some kind of material contact, and this is the very condition that makes such a life impossible. The agent, therefore, which must set us free from matter must be something that is not of a material nature. It is knowledge, which the soul gains by its own powers, when brought into proximity to matter. Kapila, or his expositor Iswara Krishna, proceeds to establish the plurality or separate existence of souls.

18. "From the separate allotment of birth, death, and the organs; from the diversity of oc- cupations at the same time, and also from the different conditions (or modifications) of the three modes, it is proved that there is a plurality of souls."2

1 S. Tattwa Kaumudi, Wilson, opposition to the Vedilntist doctrine p. 67. that all souls are only portions of the 2 Neither Hindu nor European one, an infinitely extended monad ? commentators explain clearly the Kapila's argument seems to be that meaning of this distich; they merely every soul is accompanied by its repeat it. There is, however, the difficulty that the soul is not af- linga, a subtle body formed of the finer principles of matter, in which fected by the three modes. How, lie the dispositions (bhdvds) of the then, can their various modifications individual. Now the linga is vari- prove the individuality of souls, in ously affected by the three modes,

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 49.

As birth is only the entrance of the soul into another body, and death the departure of the soul from it, then, it is argued, if soul were absolutely one (as the Vedāntists teach), it would enter into bodies or leave them at the same time. It is not very clear why the organs of sense or of action must be alike in all if soul were absolutely one. The course of thought in the mind of Kapila was possibly this: As defects in the organs, such as blindness or deafness, are due to the actions of a previous life, and oneness of soul must produce an uniformity of conditions, such an effect happening to one must happen to all. But all actions are not alike, nor are they the same at the same time, as they would be if all souls (and there is a directing force in the soul) were absolutely one. Men are differently affected, too, by the modes or constituent elements of Nature : one has more affinity to, or is more easily affected by, the mode called "goodness;" another by the mode called "passion;" and another by the " darkness" mode. But if all souls were absolutely one, each person would be the same in his mental and moral state. Each soul has, therefore, a distinct per- sonality, for men are not the same in these respects. This line of argument makes the soul less passive than it is represented to be in other parts of the system, for a certain responsibility is given to it which is inconsistent with, the idea of a perfect abstinence from all action. In the Silnkhya Sutras (i. 154), Ivapila is repre- sented as arguing that his doctrine is not different from that of the Vedas, because the latter are said to teach

and hence arise the different mental ever, is very like saying that men and moral conditions of persons, and are differentiated from each other, by this difference each soul is sepa- not by their self-consciousness, but rated from other souls. This, how- by the clothes which they wear D

50 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

only a generic oneness of soul. The sutra is probably a late interpolation, due to some one who wished to reconcile the system of Kapila with that of the Vediintist school.1 Kapila himself seems to have been too honest and too bold a thinker to make such an attempt. The teaching of the Vedanta system is that all souls are one, not because they belong to the same genus or class of being, but because they are portions of the One Spirit, who is indeed the All. Kapila thought that each soul is a separate ens or existence,- limited by its union with a body, though soul, in the abstract idea of it, seems to be unlimited. But this abstract soul is not the Supreme Spirit, the Iswara or Lord of the Pantajali system. If an absolute Supreme Spirit exists, he main- tained (it seems) that such a nature lies outside the domain of philosophy; humanity being with him, as with Fielite and the Comtists, the highest point of philosophic research.

19. "And from that contrariety (of soul) it is concluded that the witnessing soul is isolated,

neutral, perceptive, and inactive by nature."

1 The Vediintist leaning of the of the soul distinguished by per- Siink. Pravachana shows not only sonality, not of pure soul (which is that Kapila was not the author of unconditioned)." There is some the work, but that it is later in time confusion here. In the system of than the Sank. Karika. Kapila the vital airs belong to the 2 Cf. Sānk. Pravachana (vi. 63), body and do not affect the soul. In where it is said that the separate the next Sutra all action is separated life of a soul (jivatwa, the property from the soul and from any super- of living) is from a distinction as of intending influence. "The accom- race, i.e., by attendant qualities; or, plishment of works depends on the as Vijnana Bhikshu interprets the agent, self-consciousness (see p. 18), passage, " to be a living soul means not on a Lord (Iswara), from the the being possessed of the vital airs absence of proof (that such a Lord (see p. 66), and this is the character exists)."

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 5?

20. " It is thus, from this union, that the unin- telligent body (the lingo)' appears to be intelligent, and from the activity of the modes the stranger (the soul) appears to be an agent." 21. "It is that the soul may be able to con- template Nature, and to become entirely separated from it, that the union of both is made, as of the halt and the blind, and through that (union) the universe is formed."

The soul beholds as an eye-witness (sakshin), for in- sight or cognition does not belong to matter. " That which is irrational cannot observe, and that to which an object is apparent is a witness." It is solitary or perfectly distinct from matter, and therefore from the modifications which the modes produce. It is neutral (mādliyastha, lit. standing between), "as a wandering ascetic is lonely and unconcerned while the villagers are busily engaged in agriculture."2 It is perceptive. This appears to differ from the first quality in this, that as a witness the soul only observes, and then by seeing that which is presented to it by the buddhi (intellect), it perceives and understands the phenomena of the material world. It is still, however, passive or inert. All action, in the judgment of a Hindu, is in- ferior to a contemplative state, and the soul in its regal

1 Prof. Wilson says: " The term subtle vehicle of the soul is formed linga in the first line is explained from the substance of the three in- to denote mahat [intellect] and the ternal organs and the finer elements subtle products of pradhdna, [Na- ture]." This is a mistake. of matter (tanmatra). The 3 Gaudapāda's Commentary. linga does not denote them. This

52 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

grandeur has no part in the inferior life of action. It directs as a sovereign, but it does not work. In the system of Kapila, all action, even mental effort or appli- cation, is due to the influence of the three modes, of which Nature (Prakriti) is formed, and the soul is not subject to their influence. It is, therefore, completely passive.1 In every form of earthly life the soul is united to its own peculiar vehicle or body, but is not blended with it; it is only in a state of juxtaposition, or rather it is enveloped by the body. By this is meant, not the gross material body, which perishes at each migration of the soul, but the linga, which is formed out of the subtler elements of Nature. This attends the soul until finally a complete separation from matter is obtained. It is from the proximity of " intellect" (buddhi) to the soul that the former seems to think and the latter to act. " Thence," says the S. Chandrika, " that which is an effect of pradhdna (Nature), the category, buddhi, though it is unintelligent, is as if it were intelligent: says, ' I know,' and is endowed with knowledge." But there is no true cognition until the soul has seen the individualised and complete sensations, now elaborated into form, in the buddhi. It is from this effect that the soul seems to act, the motive power of the "intellect" being in close ap- proximation to it. It has, indeed, a kind of action in itself, so far as observation and the formation of thought are action, but it is not an agent upon anything external to itself. Kapila insists upon this distinction, which is

1 "To fools the spirit seems to be are passing" (Atma Bodha Prakft active, when the senses alone are sika, by Sankara-ftcharya, i. 19, really active; just as the moon ap- quoted in Ind. Ant., May 1876) pears to move when the clouds only

HIND PHILOSOPHY, 53

essential to his system, from a strong conviction of the absolute and essential distinction of soul and matter. They are in their very nature subject and object, and can never coalesce. As "idea" and "thing" they are eter- nally separate, and their properties or functions can never be interchanged. The doctrine of Fichte-that material things exist, at least to us, only as a result of the laws of the inward subjective nature-is wholly contrary to that of Kapila. Both are absolute entities, having distinct functions, but it is only by the juxtaposition of the two that knowledge can be gained. This is a result of the synthesis of the discerning faculty and the thing to be discerned. Hence there are no innate ideas, and the soul, when freed from the contact of matter, has neither know- ledge nor self-consciousness. The soul can only see what buddhi (intellect) presents to its view, and it is of the essence of his system that " nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius in sensu." In making the soul absolutely dependent on the senses for its ideas; in refusing to admit that there is anything higher than the individual soul which may enlighten or act upon it, he laid the foundation for a philosophical atheism, or what is now called agnos- ticism. Like Fichte, in making the individual self, i.e., the soul, the highest form of knowable being, he rejected the idea of a supreme, personal Deity, as a truth de- termined by logical inference, though it is not certain that he absolutely denied it. We cannot know God, because he cannot be presented as an object to be seen in the buddhi, and the soul has no virtue or moral conscious- ness, for this is a property of our material nature. He seems to magnify philosophy, as an outcome of human reason, as some of our modern teachers, but in reality

54 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

degrades it, both in its mental and moral aspects, by making the thinking faculty completely dependent on the sensations that come from material things for the whole of its knowledge, and even its self-consciousness. Kapila teaches (Dist. 21) that the material universe was formed, or, in Hindu phrase, the various forms of matter were evolved, by the unconscious Prakriti (Nature), for the use of the soul, i.e., that the soul may gain a know- ledge of material things, and thus by contrast know itself as the means of a final liberation from matter. This is illustrated by the well-known tale of a blind man meeting in a forest with one that was lame, when, agreeing to help each other, the blind man bore the lame on his shoulders, and by the union of their powers they were able to escape from the jungle. Nature {Prakriti) is the blind man, for it cannot see, and the soul is the lame one, for it cannot act. The order in which the various emanations from Nature were produced is then set forth

22. " From Nature {Prakriti) issues the great principle (mahat, intellect), and from this the Ego or Consciousness; from this (consciousness) the whole assemblage of the sixteen (principles or entities), and from five of the sixteen the five gross elements."

The categories, or separate entities, of the Sankhya system have been assumed in the previous distichs, and their mutual relations determined. Here the order of their production is given. This has been stated in p. 17 ff., but it may be useful to present it in a tabular form.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 55

' 1. Prakriti or primordial matter, the of the Greek philosophy. 2. Mahat or Buddhi (intellect). 3. Ahankara, the Ego or Consciousness. 4. The five subtle elements (Tanmatra). 5. The five grosser elements, ether, air, earth, light or fire, and water. 6. The five senses. 7. The five organs of action. 8. The Manas (mind), which is the first of the internal organs, receiving the impressions made upon the senses. It ought to be numbered with buddhi and ahankara, mak- ing with them the three internal organs. 9. The soul (Atman, Puvusha), which is totally dis- tinct from Prakriti (Nature), forms, with Nature and its emanations, the twenty-five lailwas (categories) in the Sankhya philosophy. He who understands them thoroughly has attained to the highest state of man in the present life, and in laying aside the body in death shall know birth no more: he is for ever freed from any contact with matter, and therefore from pain. " He who knows the twenty-five principles, whatever order of life he may enter, and whether he wear braided hair, or a top- knot only, or be shaven, he is free; of this there is no doubt"1

23. " Intellect is the distinguishing principle (adhyavasdya). Virtue, knowledge, freedom from passion, and power denote it when affected by (the

1 Quoted in Gaudapada's Comm, matted hair worn by Siva and (Wilson, p. 79). The meaning is, ascetics, or be a Brahman, or has the whether he has the braided or shaven head (munda) of a Buddhist.

56 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

mode) 'goodness;' when affected by 'darkness" it is the reverse of these."

The word by which huddhi (intellect) is defined or explained is unfortunately of doubtful meaning. In the Amara Kosha it is a synonym of utsaha, strenuous effort.1 The Peters. Dict, interprets it by " fester wille," " fester bestreben." Professor Lassen translates it by " intentio," and Colebrooke by " ascertainment." St. Hilaire writes, " L'intelligence, c'est la determination distincte des choses," and with this interpretation the comment of Gaudapada agrees.2 " This is a jar, this is cloth; that which marks or designates thus is huddhi!' The word is, however, more commonly used in the sense of " determination," " re- solve ;" but this appears to be a secondary meaning, the primary being a defining or distinguishing act. " In- tellect" (buddhi) is then, in the system of Kapila, the faculty or organ by which outward objects are presented to the view of the soul in their proper and definite form. Some of the commentators suppose that here is the seat of will, or that by buddhi we say, "This must be done." But this assignment is probably due to the modern sense of the word; for it does not appear that Kapila attributed volition to any form of matter, though as subtle as that of buddhi. He assigns to it, however, other properties which are equally strange as attributes of matter. Having defined the soul as that which contemplates but never acts, he is

1 It has this meaning in the is interpreted by Dr. Ballantyne as Hitopadesa, "effort," "determined "judgment." "Intellect is judg- application " (see Voc. by Johnson), ment, and judgment, called also The same word is used to denote ascertainment, is its peculiar inodi- buddhi in the S. Parv. Bhashna, and fication " (ii. 13).

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 57

obliged to assign every quality or state that is connected with our active life to buddhi, the first emanation of Prakriti (Nature), as its primary seat. When it is under the influence of that mode or constituent of Nature called "goodness," it is (i.) virtue (dharma), (2.) knowledge (jndna), (3.) absence of passion or passivity (virāgo), and (4.) supernatural power (aiśwarya). When affected by the mode called " darkness/' it is then vice, ignorance, passion, and weakness. The commentators, who are gene- rally under a Vedantist influence, explain virtue (dharma) as including humanity, benevolence, acts of restraint (yama) and of obligation (niyama). Gaudapāda explains acts of restraint as restraint of cruelty, falsehood, dis- honesty, incontinence, and avarice; acts of obligation are purification, contentment, religious austerities, sacred study and divine worship; but he expressly refers this interpretation to the Patanjala, or theistic branch of the Sankhya school. Knowledge according to the same commentator, is of two kinds, external and internal. The former includes knowledge of the Vedas and the six branches of study connected with them-recitation, ritual, grammar, interpretation of words, prosody, and astronomy; also of the Puranas, and of logic, theology, and law. Internal knowledge is the knowledge of Nature (Prakriti) and soul, or the discrimination that "This is Nature," the equipoised condition of the modes; and "This is Soul," devoid of modes, pervading, and intelligent. By external knowledge worldly distinction or admiration is obtained;

1 Gaudapada gives this attribute supernatural power to the soul in to the soul, the power of pervading certain states, but he does not assign (vyapl); but this is properly a Ved- antist idea. Kapila attributes much the power of pervading matter as its constant attribute.

58 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

by internal knowledge, liberation, i.e., from the bondage of matter. Kapila, however, placed a knowledge of the Vedas, at a very low point, if he did not discard it altogether. Religious austerities and divine worship found no place in his system. The soul of man is the highest exist- ence which his philosophy contemplates, recognising, as Comtism, only the supremacy of humanity, but rising above M. Comte in admitting the soul to be its only true representative. Dispassion is also of two kinds-one which is indif- ference to all external things, either on account of their defects, or the trouble of acquiring them, or their in- juriousness and wrong; and another which seeks only to be delivered from matter, accounted as "illusion,"1 that the soul may be free. By " power " or " mastery " is meant (we are told) super- natural or magical power. A devotee who shall attain, by knowledge, to a complete abstraction from anything external to himself, can accomplish what he pleases: he may traverse all things by subtlety of Nature; may rise to colossal dimensions; may stand on the tops of the filaments of a flower; may rise to the solar sphere on a sunbeam, and may command the three worlds. What- ever the person having this faculty intends or proposes must be complied with by that which is the subject of his purpose; the elements themselves must conform to his designs. " The ordinary laws that govern material

1 This is Gaudapada's interpreta- ing from the rays of the sun (Indra). tion. " Illusion" (indrajala, Indra's Here, as elsewhere, there is a Ved- net) means a kind of magic, pro- bably at first a kind of mirage aris- antist colouring. Wilson renders it "witchcraft."

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 59

things," says Hemachandra, " cannot impede the move- ments of one who has attained to this etherealised state."

24. " Egoism is self-consciousness. From this proceeds a double creation (sarga, emanation), the series of the eleven (principles) and the five (subtle) elements." 25. "From consciousness modified (by 'good- ness') proceed the eleven good principles;1 from this origin2 of being as ' darkness ' come the subtle · elements. Both emanations are caused by the 'foul' or 'active' mode." 3

The term used in Distich 24 as the definition of the ego (ahankdra) is abhimdna. The ordinary meaning of this word is "pride." 4 As Vachaspati interprets it, " The pride or conceit of individuality, self-sufficiency, the notion that ' I do, I feel, I think, I am, I alone preside, and have

1 In the Comm, on the S. Prava- better expressed perhaps by le moi, chana by Vijnana Bhikshu, ekadasaka as it adds to the simple conception is explained as " eleventh," i.e., the of individuality the notion of self- eleventh organ, manas, which pro- ceeds from consciousness when modi- property, the concentration of all objects and interests and feelings in fied by goodness. 2 Mutddi, rightly translated by the individual " (Wilson, p. 91). The meaning of pride is a secondary Lassen "elementorum generator," one. It is not contained in the the elements being what we call " matter " in its subtler forms. St. philosophical use of the word, which

Hilaire has, incorrectly, " elément expresses only the perception, not the exaltation, of self; though very primitif." 3 Taijaaa, having the nature of the naturally this perception led to a sense of superiority over outward tejaSt or active mode. 4 The ordinary sense of both words things. Lassen gives an explanation of abhimdna from a native scholiast: (ahankdra and abhimdna) is pride. " Abhimana est persuasio hominis in The principle is therefore something omnibus rebus semetipsum respici, more in Hindu metaphysics than omniaque ad se spectare " (p. 36). mere consciousness. "It might be

60 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

power over all that is perceived or known, and all these objects of sense for my use: there is no other Supreme, except this ego, I am.' This pride, from its exclusive application, is egotism." We cannot suppose that Kapila meant to imply all this by the term abhimdna, but pro- bably he did mean by it that egoism is not merely a consciousness of our individual life, but that which forms the relation we bear to the outer world. The eleven principles are the organs or faculties of sense and action, together with the manas (see p. 21). For the five subtle elements see p. 19. The physical substratum of consciousness is affected by the modes, as every other emanation of Prakriti. From the influence of " goodness," it produces the ten organs and the manas which are called " good" because of their utility; but it is only when affected by that mode or constituent of Nature called " darkness" that it produces inanimate matter. The element called "passion," which is here described as ardent or glowing (taijasa), must co-operate in the production of all, because it is the exciting mode. The Egoism of Kapila has a threefold name, according to the various actions of the modes. When the mode called "goodness" affects it, and it produces the eleven good principles-the ten organs and the manas-it is

1 A real darkness is assumed in a splendid hymn of the Rig-Veda (x. 129)- " Nor aught nor naught existed ; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. The only One breathed breathless in itself; Other than it there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound, an ocean without light." -M. Mailer's Translation. In the old Greek cosmogonies, Erebus or Night was the primordial state from which all things arose.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 61

then called modified (vaikrita) Consciousness. When it is under the influence of the mode "darkness" and produces inanimate matter, it is then called hhufadi, source of elemental being. The influence of the mode called "passion" excites the others to action, for the giving of activity or impetus is its especial office. The three modes therefore act upon, or rather within, egoism or consciousness (for this, as a part of Prakriti, or an emanation of it, is itself formed of the modes), and their various action lias the effect of producing different results; the first and second' modes in union causing the first issue, and the second and third in their joint action the inferior class of existences.

26. "The eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the skin are termed the organs of intellect (baddhi) ; the voice, the hands, the feet, (the organs of) excretion and generation are called the organs of action." 27. " The manas (mind) in this respect has the nature of both (classes). It is formative (or determinative), and a sense-organ from having cognate functions (with the other organs). It is multifarious from the specific modifications of the modes and the diversity of external things." 2 . 28. " The function of the five (senses), with

1 Gaudapada, whom Wilson fol- 2 Colebrooke adopts the reading lows, has spartanalca, that which bahyabhedascha and translates the touches or has contact; the skin, passage : " They (the organs) are as a sensitive organ. The MSS., numerous by specific modification however, have twach, the skin, and this is Lassen's reading. of qualities, and so are external diversities." Following the explana-'

:62. ·HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

regard to sound and other (sense-objects), is that of observation only. Speech, handling, walking, excretion, and generation are the functions of the five (organs)."

The eye, the ear, &c, are organs of the intellect . (buddhi), because they receive sensations which are transmitted through the manas to the intellect. In this division the tongue is considered only as the seat of the sensation of taste. The other organs are those of action. The organisation by which speech is produced is classed under this head, and the power or faculty of speech is evidently referred to mere sensation, as handling and walking. Probably Kapila meant to im- ply that language, at least in its primary form, only expresses what Locke calls " sensible " ideas ; i.e., ideas of material things formed by the senses. The action of mind upon language he does not allude to, and as the soul, in the system of Kapila, can only contemplate, it does not appear how language has passed from the ex- pression of material objects to an abstract or spiritual meaning. The manas belongs to both classes. It is both an organ of the intellect and an instrument of action. The word by which its proper function is defined (saiikal- paJca) is explained in an uncertain manner by the

tion of Viichaspati and Caudapilda, Lassen has bahyabhedachcha (bhedat) as to the reading. As the distich is devoted to an explanation of the and translates the line thus : " Mul- tifidum est (the manas) propter manas, I prefer, of the two, Lassen's interpretation and the reading on diversam per qualitatea mutationem which it is founded, but have given et propter divUionem per res exter- nas." The MSS. are equally divided a slightly different version.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 63

Hindu commentators. It is compounded of sam (Lat .= cum) and kalpa, " form," from klip, to dispose, to prepare. It may be translated as " formative " or ".plastic;" the faculty of the manas being to collect together and arrange in an idealised form the manifold impressions of the senses. It is the sensorium commune in the system of Kapila. The Latin mens and our mind corre- spond to it in origin but not in meaning. In our Western philosophy, mind is usually considered as an expression for the rational faculties of the soul, and as opposed to matter; but in the view of Kapila, it is not a part of the soul, but is itself a form of matter from a material source (Prakriti). Its functions are thus explained by Vachaspati: " It gives form in a collective manner to that which is perceived by an organ of sense, and says 'This is a thing;' 'This is com- pounded and that is not so/ and it discriminates or defines (a thing) by its specific or unspecific nature." The manas then is the first agent between the outer world and the soul, collecting and shaping the scattered, indefinite sensations of the different organs of sense.

1 Colebrooke renders the passage thus: " It (the manas) ponders, and est animus (manas), et imaginans est." St. Hilaire : "Le cceur it is an organ as being cognate with (manas) est a la foia ... et un the rest;" but the manas never organe d'action et an organ d'in- ponders; it is an unconscious agent, telligence : sa fonction est de re- whose office is merely to transmit unir." The Hindu commentators our sense-impressions, when col- seem to have been perplexed by the lected and united, through con- secondary meaning of sankalpa, "'dt sciousness to the intellect (buddhi). It is an organ, not from being cog- sign," in its twofold sense of a "formed plan" or "project" and 'nate merely with the other organs "resolve." Hence, too, thèy have in its origin, but from having cog- assigned the faculty of will to the nate duties or functions (sadharma) manas, which in Kapila's system is to fulfil. Lassen translates thus : " Gemmnae indolis inter hosce senaus unconscious and subordinate.

64 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

It-belongs, however, to that mode or constituent element of Nature (Prakriti) which is called " goodness." It is, therefore, not dull, inanimate matter, for this proceeds from the mode called " darkness," but matter of a subtle, elastic, animate nature. The multifariousness mentioned in Distich 27, is often -

understood to refer to the diversified natures of the ten organs. It is so applied by Colebrooke and Professor Wilson after Gaudapada. But the distich is evidently- devoted to a description of the manas, and the multiform action is assigned in the Sankhya Pravachana Ehashya more correctly to this organ alone, on which it is im- posed by the varying actions of the modes and the variety of external things: "as the same individual assumes different characters according to the influence of his associations, becoming a lover with his beloved, a sage with sages, and a different person with others; so mind (memos) becomes various from its connection with the eye or any other organ, being identified with it, and being diversified by the modification of the function of sight and the rest of the organs." If, then, the manas is not in action, the sensation received from an object is lost, or, in the language of Locke, "perception is only when the mind receives the impression." It is thus that the manas is both an organ of perception and action; for it receives an impression from the senses and then actively forms this impression, which before "was only as the knowledge of a child or a dumb man," into a definite form according to its properties or its species. The function of the five organs of the intellect is that of observation only (ālochana, seeing, observing ;. This

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 65

cannot be applied literally to all the senses. The meaning: appears to be that each organ acts passively in receiving only the sensations which affect it, as the eye receives- impressions of form and colour. In the Sankhya Pra- vachana it is said that the senses are the instruments of the soul. It is through the action of the manas and buddhi that the impressions made on the senses become real perceptions, if such a term can be applied to the' action of unconscious matter.

: 29. "The function (or action) of the three (in- ternal organs) is the distinguishing mark (specific nature 1) of each, and it is not common (to the three). The common (combined) function of these organs is (the production of) the five vital airs, breathing and the rest." 30, "The function (or action) of the four (the internal organs and an organ of sense) is declared to be either instantaneous or consecutive with re- gard to visible objects; the function of the three (internal organs) with regard to an invisible object is preceded by that of the fourth, "2

· In Distich 29 the distinct individuality of the three internal organs is affirmed, i.e., their functions in the formation of ideas are never interchanged; but they have a common physiological function assigned to them,

1 Swdlakikmyam, "specifische un- prior function," but the function of térschiedenbeit" (Petersburg Diet.), the three. (internal organs) is pre- 2 Tatpurvinka vrittih, not, as Pro- ceded by that (the action of a sense- fessor Wilson translates it, "their organ): ...

66: HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

and that is the maintenance of the five vital " airs."1 The word employed here (vayu, air or wind) does not mean the elemental air, but a subtle inward force or action, necessary to vitality and independent of sensation. Ac- cording to Gauçlapada they are- 1. Prdna, breath, the ordinary inspiration and expiration, 2. Apana, downward breath, the air or vital force acting in the lower parts of the body. 3. Samana, collective breath; " so named from conduct- ing equally the food, &c, through the body." 4. Udāna, ascending breath, the vital force that causes the pulsations of the arteries in the upper portions of the body from the navel to the head. 5. Vyana, separate breath, " by which internal division and diffusion through the body are effected."2 This is not very intelligible, but as vyana is connected in the S. Tattwa Kaumudl with the skin, the subtle nerve-force by which sensibility is given to the skin or outer surface of the body is probably meant. It is also connected with the circulation of the blood along the surface, the great arteries being under the action of itddna? In the absence of a precise definition of these " airs," a variety of fanciful explanations is furnished by native

1 The maintenance of the five vital of the soul), a Vedāntic poem as- airs is attributed by Gaudapada to signed to the great commentator all the organs, but by the Hindu Sankaracharya, the soul is said to commentators generally to the three internal organs exclusively. Vij- be enwrapped "in five investing sheaths or coverings " (kosha, cf. Fr. nana Bhikhsu, in his commentary cosse; Ir. Gaol, coch-al, a pod or on the Sankhya Pravachana, ex- husk). The third of these is called pressly limits the production and continuance of the vital airs to the prana-maya, i.e., "the sheath corn-

three internal organs (ii. 31). posed of breath, and the other vital

• Gaudapada, Wilson, p. 105. airs associated with the organs of

3 In the Atma-bodha (knowledge action" (Indian Wisdom, p. 123).

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 67.

commentators. It is evident that they denote Some subtle forces which cause respiration, excretion, digestion, the circulation of the blood, and the sensibility of the skin -an unsatisfactory kind of physiology; but here is the first germ of the science, and the "airs" of Kapila are as scientific as the "vapours " which in the opinion of our forefathers caused melancholy and other diseases. They indicate a dim perception of what we call " nerve-force/' something more subtle than the elements of inanimate matter; for it is caused by the action of the internal organs, which are due to the agency of the mode called "goodness," i.e., matter of an etherealised and animate kind. .The action of the internal organs and sensation may be either instantaneous, like a flash of lightning, or gradual; " as," says Gaudapada, " a person going along a road sees an object at a distance, and is in doubt whether it be a post or a man; he then observes some characteristic marks upon it, or a bird perched there, and doubt being thus dissipated by the reflection of the mind, the under- standing (puddhi) discriminates that it is a post;1 and then egotism interposes for the sake of certainty, as "Verily (or I am certain) it is a post." In this way the functions of intellect, egotism, mind (manas), and the eye are (successively) fulfilled. The doctrine of the Vaiseshikas was that, in all cases, the formation of ideas is' a gradual process. This observation will apply to objects that are within

1 This is Professor Wilson's trans- comes discriminative." The manaa lation of the passage. I venture to does not reflect; it only forms a translate it: "A doubt (or doubtful saiikalpa, or collected form of an impression) having been formed by object from the sensory iinpres- the manas, the intellect (buddhi) be- sions.

68 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

the range of the senses at a given time. If the object be: not present, then the reproduction of an idea is dependent on memory, for which a previous sensation is necessary: Memory is therefore a revived sensation; it is assumed. that this has been, by some means, unconsciously retained .: Kapila seems to teach herein that " nihil est in intellects quod non prius in sensu;" but not wholly so. He also would add, " Nisi intellectus ipse." The soul has a distinct faculty, which belongs to its own nature and is indepen- dent of the inner or outer organs. It sees and understands the forms of external things presented by its ministers, the internal organs. The soul alone is the seat of all real cognition; it alone knows and decides; it is therefore something more than a name for a generalisation of the nerve-processes of the brain, as some of our modern physiologists affirm " mind " to be.

31. " They (the internal organs) perform each his own separate function, which is caused to act by a mutual impulse. The advantage of the soul is their cause of action. An organ is not caused to act by any one."

The organs are defined and separate in their functions., but act upon each other by a mutual impulse (akuta1).

1 A lata is glossed in the Petersb. Lexicon by absickt, antricb. Cole- autres " (St. Hilaire). It is composed

brooke's translation is " incited by of a, to, towards, and ku, to cry. Gaudapftda says that it means adara- mutual invitation." Lassen has "ad quam cietur unum ratione al- sambhrama (respectful eagerness in action). terms." The meaning of " incite- Colebrooke and Wilson suppose inent to activity," mentioned by Wilson, expresses mere nearly the that in this distich all the organs are

sense of dluta. " L'hiflucnce spon- referred to, but Gaudapada, more correctly, I think, connects it with tance qu'ils exercent les uus sur les the three internal organs only.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 69

This word generally implies a conscious purpose or resolve; but as the organs are not intelligent; the term is explained to mean an unconscious activity which is produced by: the action of one organ upon another for the fulfilment of a design which is common to them all, and this is the final liberation of the soul from matter. For this purpose they act · spontaneously but unconsciously, as the milk of a cow is formed unconsciously in the udder and yet serves to nourish the calf* They act, however, by an impulse- derived from their own nature, and cannot be directed by any external agent.

. 32. " Instrument (or organ) is of thirteen kinds, and has the property :of seizing, retaining, and manifesting : the effect to be produced is of tea kinds, and is that which is to be seized, retained, or manifested." 33. " The internal organs are three; the exter- nal ten,and these are to make known external objects to the three (internal organs). The exter- nal organs act only at the time present; the, internal (or intermediate) at the three divisions of time."

Gaudapada refers the property of manifestation to the organs of the intellect only, and those of seizing and holding to the organs of action. Professor Wilson adopts this view; but the author of the " Kārika " appears to

1 St. Hilaire translates this part The text is dasadha vahyam, "the "Texterieur [organe] est simple," external (set of organs) is in ten but for what reasons he does not say. divisions."

70 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

attribute these properties to all the organs alike. The organ of sight seizes and holds the impression conveytsl by an external object and manifests it to the manas; this organ does the same to consciousness, and the latter to the intellect (buddhi), which, as a mirror, receives, retains, and reflects the impression, which has now become a definite ideal form, that the soul may see it. The ten external organs are the means of making external objects known to the internal, but they are limited in their action to the present time, the eye receiving an impression only from an object then present; but the internal organs have relation to time past, present, and future. This would seem to imply that they possess. within themselves a power of volition, and that they are the seat of memory. The manas and the other internal organs appear to have impressions stamped, or (so to speak) photographed upon them; and these may be re- produced without reference to time. But Kapila has not attempted to determine where the power of willing resides, nor has he treated of memory or imagination as a dis- tinct faculty. If the soul really directs, " as a charioteer directs a chariot," then it acts, though not as a mechanical force, and the faculty of volition must belong to it. But the action of the internal organs in reproducing a pre- vious impression is not expressly referred to the soul, but rather to the organs themselves, which, though material, are thus endowed with a kind of volition.1

. i In the Snnkhya Pravachana the manas. Gaudapada, however, (ii. 39-41) the manas is called the attributes to each of the three inter- chief of the organs, and the pos- nal organs the power of acting ac- session of memory is assigned as a cording to its own nature without reason for the distinction. Memory reference to time, and to buddhi is therefore a quality or function of (intellect) is attributed the power

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 71 The results of the action of the organs are tenfold, according to the nature of the five organs of sensation, and the five of action,

34. "Of these, the five intellectual organs (or organs of sensation) are the domain * of specific and' non-specific objects.2 Speech is connected with sound. The rest are connected with the five objects of sense/' 35. " Since the intellect (buddhi), with the other internal organs, allies itself3 with all objects of sense, these three organs are the gatekeepers and the rest are gates." 36. "These having different characteristic (speci- fic) differences from each other, and being variously affected by the modes, present the whole (of being4) i,n the ' intellect' (buddhi) for the sake of the soul,, enlightening it, having a likeness to a lamp." 37. "As it is 'intellect' which accomplishes, ajl

of forming an idea not only of- a "perlustrat" (L.);" embrasse " (St. present object, but of one past or H.); lit. "dives down to," and thence, future; so also consciousness and " has business with, apprehends." the manas can act, and memory, or 4 " Present to the intellect the imagination, in its complete form, soul's whole purpose" (Colebrooke must be a product of the three. 1. Vishaya, gebiet, wirkungskreis and Gaudapada). "Universitatem

deters. Diet.). The meaning is, the genii causa menti tradunt" (Las-

five intellectual organs have specific sen). St. Hilaire has, after Cole- brooke, "presentent a Tintelli- and non-specific objects as their pro- vince or domain. "Sensuum perfi- gence l'objet entier de Fame." I

ciendiinterhosquinumprovinciæsunt prefer Lassen's version. The organs bring all things in a definite form distinctaatqueindistincta'(Lassen). 2 See Note A. before the soul, as a lamp reveals objects, that the soul may know . 3 Avagdhate, "adverts to (C.); both them and itself.

72; HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY:

the fruition of the soul, so also it is that which dis- criminates the subtle difference between the chief principle (Pradhdna = Prakriți) and the 'soul."

There is nnich uncertainty about the meaning of the " specific " and "non-specific " objects mentioned in Distich 34. Gaudapāda, whose explanation is quoted by Professor Wilson, affirms that. specific objects are those which are perceived by men, and those which are non-specific are seen only by the gods. This is nothing more than a guess, which proves that the original meaning of the words had been lost. In the 38th distich those objects which have no specific marks are the subtle elements of matter, and Kapila's meaning appears to be (as M. St. Hilaire has suggested), that the organs of sensation (or of " intellect") have a relation to these as well as to the gross elements. For example, the gross element ether is produced from a subtle element called "sound." The doctrine of Kapila 'seems to be, that in hearing, the ear has a relation not only to the ether, but to the subtler principle that underlies it; a dim appre- hension of the truth that hearing depends not only on some channel of communication between the ear and the source of sound, but on some modification of the material element through which the sound is conducted. This explanation is supported by the S. Tattwa Kaumudl, which identifies specific with corporeal objects, and non- specific with subtle, rudimental objects, the latter being seen only by holy men and gods. This clause Kapila would reject, for he set knowledge and philosophers above virtue and holy men, and is silent about the gods. He appears to have supposed that a high power of physical

HINDỮ PHILOSOPHY. 73

discernthent is possible to those who åre sufficiently en- lightened by knowledge. · Speech has reference only to sound, i.e., We can only hear it; but the remaining four organs of action may be connected with all the five kinds of sensation; "as in the combination of. sound, touch; colour, smell, taste in objects like a water-jar and others, which may be taken hold of by the hand."x A 1l the organs are affected by the modes or constityents of Nature; they are only modifications of these three kinds of matter. They may, therefore, cause pleasure, pain, and insensibility. The succession of the agencies by which the soul is reached is thus stated by Vächaspati: "As the headmen of the village collect the taxes from the villagers and pay them to the governor of the district; as the local governor pays the amount to the minister, and the minister receives it for the use of the king; so the manas having received ideas from the external organs transfers them to consciousness, and cousciousness de- livers them to intellect (buddhi), the general superin -. tendent, who takes charge of them for the use of the sovereign, soul."2 The intellect is, therefore, the soul's chief officer, its direct agent, and presents all that it receives, as in a mirror, to, the gaze, of the soul; not for the purpose, however, Of adding to its. treasures, but simply to free it by knowledge from contact with matter.3· It has thus the means of discriminating be-

1 S. Tattwa Kaumudi, Wilson, (buddhi) merely represents sensa- p. 115. 2 Wilson, p. 117. -tional ideas in a complete form to the gatze of the soul, and the soul 3 The mental physiology of Ka- never acts. It does not appear, pila is imperfect. The "intellect" therefore, how abstract :ideas 'are

74 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

tween matter and itself in aider to discern its own higher nature. This knowledge does not lead to virtue or piety. Gaudapācla says that it is gained only by those who practise religious austerities; but here, as in other places, he misinterprets Kapila, to whom re- ligion was neither a means nor an end. It has an inferior place in his system. Virtue and religion may do something, by causing the attainment of a happier birth, but by knowledge only can the soul attain to its final liberation.

38. "From these five subtle elements, which are non-specific, proceed the five gross elements (bhutdni), which are called ' specific.' They are (in their nature) tranquil, violent, and stupefying."

The five gross elements and the five subtle elements which underlie them have been explained in page 20. The subtle elements are said to be non-specific. This is explained to mean that "they have only one quality or mode, which is not affected by change, and by which no feeling of pleasure, pain, or stupidity can be pro- duced." But it belongs to the nature of any mode or. constituent of Nature to produce some effect of this kind; Vijnana Bhikshu explains the term "non-specific" by saying that "the subtle elements are not affected by the modes; that they have an unchanging nature; but the gross elements change in their nature and effects according to circumstances. Thus the wind is agree-

formed, or by what means, a course called chitta, the thinking or rea- of reasoning can be carried on. The soning faculty. Vedantfetp add a fourjbh faculty.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 75

able to a person oppressed by heat, disagreeable to one that is cold, and when tempestuous or loaded with clouds of sand or dust, it is stupefying." As the subtle elements never come into contact with the bodily organs, they cannot cause any sensations, of whatever kind, though the gods, and sometimes even sages, may perceive them and receive pleasure from them. They must also be affected by the modes, for these form every development of Nature, as they are from Nature itself. We may best translate these terms by "diversified" and "non- diversified." The subtle elements have each only one nature and one effect. The gross elements may have various effects, and become changed in kind by com- mingling in various degrees.

39. " Subtle (bodies), those which are born of father and mother, with the gross forms of exist- ence,2 are the threefold species (of bodies). Of these, the subtle are permanent; those which are born of father and mother perish." 40. "The subtle (body) linga, formed primevally, unconfined, permanent, composed of intellect' and the rest, down to the subtle elements, migrates,

1 Lassen supposes that three kinds 2 Sfoha prabMtmà. Prdbhitta, that of gross elemental bodies are here defined, the subtle being only subtle which is brought into being, often used with an idea of multitude con- relatively, or in comparison with nected with it; "in grossem Maase uterine and other bodies or sub- vorhanden" (St. Peters. Lex.). Cole- stances j but the tinga is not formed brooke has " together with the great of the gross elements; it is a com- pound of the substance of the three elements;" Lassen, "crassa" simply, The reference is not to the gross ele- internal organs and of the finer ele- ments, but to the substances formed ments called tenmatrani. All are from them, bodies or developed forms, but not of the same materials.

76 HINDU PHILOSOPHY ..

never enjoys, awl is endowed with dispositions" (bhavas). -

After dividing the elements into two classes-those which have no specific marks and those which have such marks-the Sänkhya philosophy divides the latter into three divisions: (i.) Subtle bodies; (2.) those which are born of father and mother; and (3.) gross substances or inorganic matter. By the first is meant the subtle or rudimental body called linga, which forms a curious element in the Sankhya philosophy. It is a kind of "spiritual" body formed from "intellect" (bucldhi), egoism, the manas, and the subtle elements. It always accompanies the soul as an outward covering or form in migrating to another body. It becomes " specific" by the aggregation of the subtle elements, which in themselves are "non-specific" or undiversified. Each linga is inseparably connected with its appropriate soul, whose minister it is, until it is no longer required. It has a separate existence from the body which is pro- duced in the womb of the mother. The latter dies and has no more distinct existence, but the linga never dies; it migrates with the soul. It is endowed with a separate Vitality of a subtle kind, but still material, for it is formed from elements which proceed from Prakriti, but not of the later or grosser development.1 It is capable, therefore, of

1 " Let us begin by supposing that some way stored up in that organ we possess a frame, or the rudiments so as to produce what may be termed of a frame, connecting us with the invisible universal, which we may our material or physical memory, Other parts of these motions are, call the spiritual body." " Now, each thought that we think is accom- however, communicated to the spi- ritual or invisible body, and are panied by certain molecular motions there stored up, forming a memory and displacements in the brain, and which may be made use of when, part of these, let us allow, are in that body is. free to exercise its

HINDŪ PHILOSQPHY. 77

rising to the Jieaven.pf Ijidra or to other celestial abodes, though it may descend to.the vilest human farms, or even to the bodies of beasts and reptiles. Kapila does not appear to recognise the possibility of the soul existing independent of material conditions until it has been pre- pared for its solitary but perfect state by a knowledge of the nature of the outer world'and its own higher nature. The lihga was created primevally, or with the first emanations of Nature (Prakriti). Its period is there- fore indefinite. It is unconfincd, i.e., it is not confined to one body; it is capable of passing into any number of bodies of to any region: It is permanent, continuing to be the attendant of the soul until the latter lias attained by knowledge to a perfect liberation from all matter. The linga is theti resolved into Nature again; It does not enjoy or possess, for it is only the hand- maid or minister of the true sovereign, the soul. It is of a subtle nature, being formed from the primary emanations of Nature, " intellect (buddhi) and the rest:" Hence it lias dispositions or forms of being (bhavas); as virtue and other faculties or powers. As the S. Tattwa Kaumudl explains its nature, it is "through the influence of intellect {buddhi) that the whole of the subtle body is affected by dispositions or conditions, in the same manner as a garment is perfumed by con- tact with a fragrant champa flower."1

functions" (The Unseen Universe, 1 The Bauhinia imnepata of Lin- p. 159.) This "spiritual body" næus. It is called kovidara in the answers to the linga, which carries Asiat. Res. (iv. 285) ; a leguminous into another state of being the feel- ings and habits of a previous state. plant; " flowers chiefly purplish and rose-coloured, fragrant."

7« . HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

41. "As a painting does not stand without a support or receptacle, nor a shadow without a stake, &c, so the linga does not exist unsupported, without specific elements." 42. " Formed for the sake of the soul, the linga, by the connection of means and their re- sults, and by union with the predominant power of Nature, plays its part like a dramatic actor."

It is affirmed in Distich 41 that the linga cannot exist alone. It needs a support or receptacle, but what kind of support is not clearly defined. Gaudapada reads aviseshairvina, "without unspecific elements," i.e., the subtle elements of material things (tanmalra). The usual reading is " without specific elements," i.e., "with- out the grosser elements," as the word is usually trans- lated, but here it means, I think, as in Distich 38, specific forms, which are usually of the gross elements. The linga alone cannot perform any functions; it must be joined to or enveloped in the linga-sarira (linga-body,2) by which it acts. And this body, when

1 Nirasrayam, without a receptacle, Self-consciousness or egoism is in- i.e., the linga-sarira. The support cluded in the latter." He explains or receptacle for a picture seems to the support which the Hugo, requires mean-a frame in which it may be to be that of the gross body. fixed ; but Colebrooke translates the 3 The linga and the linga-sarlra word by " ground," and the authors (liiiga-body) are sometimes con- of the Peters. Diet, interpret the founded ; but the linga is a rudi- passage by " wie ein Biid ohne Un- mental substance, sometimes com- terlage" (s. v. avraya). Vijnana Bihkshu (Com. Sank. Pravachana pared to light, and the ltnga-kirlra

iii. 9) makes the linga to be formed is its vehicle. " When a dead body is burnt by one who knows and can of seventeen principles or factors, repeat these verses (Smarta-satra, the " eleven organs, the five subtle x. 18, II, and x. 14, 7-11) properly, elements and buddki (intellect). then it is certain the soul (invested

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 79

deposited in the maternal womb, is connected with another body produced in the womb of the mother from gross elements. This distinction between gross and subtle bodies runs through the whole of Hindu philosophy. It is trans- ferred to other worlds. According to the Institutes of Manu, a subtle body envelops the souls of the wicked, that they may suffer the torments of hell.1 This subtle body plays many parts as an actor, in order that the destinies of the soul may be fulfilled, either in successive forms of an united existence, or in a final deliverance from matter. Sometimes it dwells in noble, and at other times ignoble forms, according to the virtues or vices. of a former life. These vicissi- tudes are undergone by the agency of a peculiar energy or attribute (yibhuti) of Nature, to whom here a pre- siding power is given. The linga is the receptacle of the soul, giving it a kind of attributive or conditioned nature by contact, and it bears the soul, which never

with a kind of subtle body) rises The Hindu commentators are along with the smoke to heaven " much perplexed by the word " spe- (Indian Wisdom, p. 206). Professor cific" being applied to the subtle Williams adds, "The eighth Sutra body of the linga. There is, how- of chap. iv. states that a hole ought ever, no real inconsistency in the to be dug north-eastward of the Ähavaniya fire and strewn with the language of IsVara Krishna. The subtle body which is the envelope of plants Avaka and Sipala; and the the linga is specific or diversified commentator adds that the soul of the dead man, invested with its by being formed of diverse elements,

vehicular subtle body (called ātivd- though each element is unspecific.

hika and sometimes adhtihthdna, and On this is based the personality of each individual, for these elements distinct from the linga or xulcshma, may be combined in various degrees, being angushtha-matra, 'of the size 1 Manu, xii. 16. This body is of a thumb'), waits in this hole until said to be formed of the five gross the gross body is burnt, and then elements (mdtrdni), not " (nerves emerging, is carried with the smoke of) five sensations," as Sir C. Haugh- to heaven." ton translates the word.

80 HINDU PHILOSOPHY:

acts; frbm one body to another. It forms the personality; of each individual.

.. 43. " Conditions or states of being are trans- cendental, natural, and modified. These (last); are virtue and the rest. They must be considered as including cause (lit. cause-receptacle), and those which belong to the uterine germ and the rest of the gross body as including (or belonging to) effect."1 44. " By virtue an ascent to a higher region is obtained; by vice a descent into a lower. Delir verance is gained by knowledge, and bondage by, the contrary." 45. "By the absence (or destruction) of passion there is a dissolution of Nature (Prakriti) or (the power of Nature is destroyed). Transmi-

1 Colebrooke's translation is, " Es- not hereby gained. So says Vijnāna sential dispositions are innate. In- Bhikshu : " In the absence of know* cidental, as virtue and the rest, ledge of the distinction (between are considered appurtenant to the Soul and Nature), when indifference instrument." The meaning of the towards Mind, &c, has resulted distich is that there are conditions from devotion to Nature, then ab- or states of being in every specific sorption into Nature takes place ; existence, but that they differ in for it is declared, * Through dispas- their nature and their source. sion there is absorption into Nature.' 2 Lassen's translation is, "placi- Even through this, i.e., absorption tlitatedeletur potentianaturae." The original is vairagyāt prakritilayah into the cause, the end is not gained, because there is a rising again as in (from the absence of passion is the case of one who has div^d" nature - dissolution). The Hinda (Comm, on Slink. Prav., Ballantyne, commentators interpret the words p. 92). This statement is made to mean that by dispassion an ab- because it is a cardinal doctrine of sorption into Nature is gained, i.e.t the Sankhya philosophy that the of the subtle body as well as the final liberation of the soul from gross, but that final deliverance is matter can only be gained by know.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY, 81

gration is from disorderly passion. By power we gain destruction of obstacles, and the reverse by." the contrary."

These conditions or states of being are either innate or constructive (modified). To the former class belong :. (1.) The transcendental state (sansiddhika), obtained only by sages, or, as Gaudapāda supposes, by the great sage Kapila; (2.) that which is natural (prakritika), or the state at birth caused by virtue or vice in a previous, existence. The constructive or modified condition (yaik- ritika) is gained by other means, as by knowledge ob- tained from a tutor. The modified conditions are: (1.) Intellectual, as virtue and the rest, i.e., virtue, knowledge, absence of passion, power and their contraries. These conditions have the nature of cause or instrument, for they produce a higher or lower state in a subsequent life, or even final deliver-, ance' from matter. (2.) Other superadded conditions belong to the generated body and the progress from infancy to old age. These have only the nature of effect. They are due to external circumstances, and do not produce anything. . By virtue (dharma), as a cause, the soul and its subtle body, the linga-iaflra, may rise to a higher state, either upon earth, or in one of the eight heavens, or supra- mundane abodes. These are :-

ledge. It does not, however, recog- the meaning is, " By the destruction nise any absorption of the subtle of passion the influence of the ma- body into Nature until the soul is entirely free ; and hence, notwith- terial world (Prakriti) is destroyed, and the soul is independent, though standing the general consensus of Hindu commentators, I think. Las- not yet finally liberated." See Dis- tich 67. sen's translation is correct, and that

82 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

I. The region of the Pisächas, who are genii of the lowest class. 2 and 3. The regions of the Eakshasas and the Yak- shas, of a higher class. 4. That of the Gandharvas, a kind of demigods, the musicians of the higher class of deities. 5. The heaven of Indra (the Sun). 6. That of Soma (the moon). 7. That of the Prajapatis, the abode of the Pitris, or early fathers of mankind, and of the Rishis (holy sages). 8. That of Brahma, the highest heaven. If, however, the soul is degraded by vice, it may descend to the form of an animal, or it may dwell for a time in the lower regions. Virtue and vice, though not clearly defined, have therefore an influence on the soul's future state, but the final deliverance from matter, when the soul attains to an eternal state of isolated self-existence, can only be obtained by a knowledge of Soul as distinct from Matter. Bondage * is the union of the soul with matter, though the matter may be only the subtle body of the linga, and the place of abode may be the heaven of Brahmā. By attaining to a complete suppression of passion, it is possible to gain a perfect freedom from the dominion of 'Nature or the external world, an absolute loosening of the bonds by which the soul is bound to material con- 1 The bondage that comes from by an union with a bodily form for ignorance, according to Vachaspati, various periods. The state of the has three degrees: (1.) The bondage first is almost hopeless, but the of the Materialists, who assume that period of bondage for the second matter is the whole of being; (2.) of class is said to be ten manwantaras those who consider the soul to be one or 3,084,480,000 years (Wilson, p. of the products of Nature (Prakriti); 145 ; St. Hilaire, p. 180). The time (3.) of those who, not knowing the of this penance is not, however, quite nature of the soul, practise moral and religious observances from the hope so long. The manwantara is a period of 4,320,000 years. of gain. 'These errors confine the soul

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 83

ditions. The common Hindu interpretation of the pas- sage is, that for a time all the elements which form any envelopment of the soul are absorbed into Nature (Pra- kriti), but they are re-formed again until the soul has gained the knowledge by which alone it can be finally liberated from matter. Supernatural power may also be gained, and then matter, in all its varied forms, can offer no impediment to the movements of the spiritualised body, which is no longer subject to the laws of the material world; but, on the other hand, there may be a contrary state, in which every obstacle may bar its course*

46. "This is an intellectual production (or evolved state) which is distinguished by the names of obstruction, incapacity, acquiescence (or content- ment), and perfection. By the hostile influence (vimarda, destruction, ravage, hostile attack) of modal inequalities (or specific differences) the different kinds are fifty." 47. "There are five kinds of obstruction, and, from the imperfection of instruments or organs, twenty-eight of incapacity; acquiescence has nine divisions, and perfection eight." 48. "There are eight divisions of obscurity, and also of illusion; those of extreme illusion are ten ; those of gloom and utter darkness are eighteen in each case." " 49. "The destructive injuries of the eleven senses, with those of the intellect (buddhi), are

84 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

accounted as' incapacity.' The seventeen (in- juries) of the intellect are from the opposites of acquiescence and perfection.' 50. "Nine varieties of. aqquiescence are set forth; four internal, named from Nature, means, time, and fortune; five external, relating to absti- nence from objects of sense."

The 46th and following distichs form the outline of a Hindu system for " the conduct of the human understand-, ing ;" but as they stand,- they are too indefinite to have any practical value, and the commentators are not agreed in all points as to the right meaning. In the phrase " intellectual production " (pratyaya sarga), the first part represents buddhi, the faculty by which modi- fied sensations are presented' as ideas to the gaze of the soul. " By intellectual production," says Professor Wilson, " are to be understood the various accidents of human life occasioned by the operations of the intellect or the exer- cise of its faculties, virtue, knowledge, impassiveness, and power, or their contraries." It denotes rather new condi- tions or modifications of the intellect itself, which by the varied action of the modes may be differently formed or modified.1 "Obstruction" is explained by Vachaspati as "igno- rance;" by Gaudapāda as "doubt." It is whatever is opposed to the souTs purpose of final liberation from contact with matter. Incapacity (asakti) arises from the imperfection of the senses. Acquiescence or contentment (tushti) is. a passive

1 Lassen calls the results " mentis conditiones speciales," p. 46 ..

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 85

State of the intellect Perfection (siddhi) means perfect knowledge, not completeness in moral virtue. The fifty different varieties of these states are defined in the following distichs. The five kinds of obstruction, according to Gaudapāda, are obscurity, illusion; extreme illusion, gloom, and utter darkness, which are explained below. The school of Patanjali defines them as ignorance, self-love, love, hatred, and fear. The eight varieties of obscurity correspond, it is saidy to the first eight forms of matter. A person may think, for instance, that the soul merges into Nature, intellect, consciousness, or the five rudimental elements, and each of these obscurities or errors obstructs the soul in its efforts for final liberation. Illusion is defined to be the error which induces men to seek for the eight degrees of supernatural power (see p. 58). The soul is thus drawn aside from its proper aim. Extreme illusion is the error of seeking happiness in sensual objects, and is interpreted as being tenfold, be- cause gods and men may seek happiness in the pleasures of the senses, and thus there may be a double series of errors arising from the five senses. Thus say all the com- mentators; but more probably, as M. St. Hilaire has suggested, reference is here made to the five organs of sense and the five organs of action. Gloom (famisra) is interpreted " hate," and the explana- tion is, that a man may hate the ten senses or organs, and the eight degrees of supernatural power. He may thus be as much disturbed and drawn away from his proper aim as by the influence of love. The highest state to which he can attain next to Nirvāna is one of pure contempla- tion, in which nothing is hated or loved.

i'6 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

Utter darkness (andhatamisra, lit, the darkness of the blind) is terror. It may be the fear of death in mep, and in gods the fear of being expelled from heaven by the Asuras; in each case it is the loss of pleasure or power -which is feared; and as their sources are eighteen in num- ber,1 there are so many varieties of " utter darkness." The destructive.injuries of the eleven organs, i.e., of the organs of sense and action with the manas, are deafness, blindness, paralysis, loss of taste and smell, dumbness, mutilation, lameness, constipation, impotence, and in- sanity. The injuries of the intellect are the inversed or evil forms of acquiescence, of which there are nine varieties, and of perfection, of which there are eight. These states of acquiescence are both internal and ex- ternal. The internal kind is fourfold. A man may believe, for instance, that Nature does everything and will in time procure the liberation of the soul; he remains, therefore, passive. Or he may rest satisfied with the efficacy of some religious or ascetic observances, or in the idea that liberation will necessarily come in time, or by an accident of fortune. The five external inversions of acquiescence are abstin- ence from the five kinds of sensuous pleasure, not from a right idea of their obstructive nature, but merely from a desire to avoid the trouble and anxiety which they may cause by the indulgence of them.

51. " The eight perfections (or means of acquir-

1 They are, according to Gauda- He explains "utter darkness" as pada, the eight sources of super- profound grief, such as might be natural power and the ten objects of felt by one who dies in the midst of perception, or the five objects of all sensual delights, sense, twice told, to gods and men.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 87

ing perfection) are reasoning (uha), word or oral instruction (sabda), study or reading (adhyayana), the suppression of the three kinds of pain, ac- quisition of friends and liberality (dana). The three fore-mentioned (conditions) are checks to perfection."

The fore-mentioned conditions are the several varieties of obstruction, incapacity, and acquiescence. They are all checks or hindrances in the pursuit of perfect know- ledge. Kapila now defines the eight methods or means of attaining it. Vächaspati interprets the first source of perfect know- ledge, "reasoning," to be "investigation of scriptural authority by dialectics which are not contrary to the scriptures;"1 but this gloss is evidently due to the Vedantist views of the commentator. In placing reason as the first source of perfection, Kapila meant to ignore the Vedas, or to place them on a lower scale. Human reason is the highest power which his system acknow- ledges. It is sufficient to determine what is truth, or at least it is the supreme judge of truth and error, in all that can be known. But its capacity has no defined limits. Such questions as "What am I?" "Whence have'I come ?" " What is the true purpose of my existence and of all existence ? " might be answered, he supposed, by the reason, if not alone, yet as para- mount over all other means. But the knowledge gained by reason, though far above virtue, is not man's highest state: it is only a means to the final deliverance of

1 Wilson, p. 158.

88 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

the soul, which will then exist in a state wholly independent, without motion, or consciousness, or know- ledge ; a state of eternal calmness and repose. Word (sabda) is receiving instruction from a teacher. The suppression of the three kinds of pain (see Distich 1), forms one of the means of acquiring perfection by taking away an obstacle to thought or meditation. Intercourse with friends is sometimes limited to philo- sophical discussions with a teacher or fellow-student. Liberality (dana) is explained as giving money or other offerings to a teacher or to religious devotees; a Brah- manic gloss. Vachaspati and Nārāyana, however, explain the word as meaning purity (suddhi), deriving it from the root daip,' to purify, and not from dã, to give. M. St. Hilaire approves of this interpretation. Professor Wilson does not reject it. It is, however, contrary both to sound philology and to all we know of Kapila's views of morality. It is due to Patanjali, the author or expounder of the theistic branch of the Sankhya school. He, however, defines purity to be " undisturbedness of discriminative knowledge through long - continued and uninterrupted practice of veneration/' Kapila would have admitted the ultimate point in this definition, but he nowhere speaks of veneration as a means of gaining it, nor did he admit a Supreme Spirit as the. object of veneration!

52. "Without dispositions or states of being there would be no linga, and without the linga no development or manifestation of conditions (dis- 'positions) ; whence comes a double creation-one

1 This root seems to be coined for the occasion. I have not been able to find it in any dictionary, Indian or European.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 89

called personal (of the linga), and the other condi- tional (of the dispositions, bhavas)"

In Distichs 40 and 43 it is stated that the linga migrates, invested with dispositions, according to the conditions of the intellect (buddhi), but the effect of these conditions or states of a former being cannot be made manifest except in or by a bodily form, and hence the necessity of the linga .. The second clause is translated by Colebrooke and Wilson, "Without person there would be no pause (nirvritti) of dispositions." Wilson explains the passage in his comment on Gaudapada's exposition thus: This creation of the linga is not " indispensable for the exist- ence or exercise of the intellectual conditions or senti- ments alone, but is equally necessary for their occasional cessation; thus virtue and vice and the rest necessarily imply and occasion bodily condition; bodily condition is productive of acts of vice and virtue."1 But here there is no cessation, but production of intellectual conditions. Lassen's translation of the passage is," Nee sine corpusculo conditionum manifestatio;" and in his notes he remarks

1 Professor Wilson, having failed . there would be no beginning of to perceive the meaning of the pas- virtue and the rest without a com- sage, has translated incorrectly, I plete formation of subtle and gross think, the comment of Gaudapada: "Without person, without rudi- body" (na sthulasukshmadehasād- hyatwaddharmaderanaditwāchcha). .mental creation, there would be no The soul per se .knows nothing of pause of dispositions, from the in- virtue or vice. Each is possible only dispensability of virtue and vice for by its union with the subtle body the attainment of either subtle or the linga, and the grosser uterine gross body." I translate the pas- body. On the other hand, but for sage thus: "Without the linga, which the necessity of these conditions is formed of the finer elements there would be no occasion for the (tanmatrani), there is no develop- linga. ment of dispositions (bhavas), and

90 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

" Nirvritti est manifestatio, evolutio, originario vocabuli sensu," referring to Manu i. 31. The translation of the word in the Petersburg Lex. is " fertigwerden," " ausbil- dung." The meaning of the distich then becomes evident. There is a continual action and reaction of intellectual and personal states, the first causing the latter, and the latter giving manifestation to the former. There is there- fore a constant double creation, the bhavākhya (or disposi- tional) and the lingakya (of the subtle body, linga). Some commentators make the linga itself to be buddhi (intellect) and bhāvās to be its conditions. The former interpretation is preferable, for the linga, though formed of the intellect and other internal organs, is yet something different from them. It is, moreover, conditioned by the state of a former life, which is due to "intellect."

53. "The divine class has eight varieties; the animal, five. Mankind is single in its class. This is, in summary, the world (sarga, emanation) of living things." 54. "In the higher world, the quality (or mode) called 'goodness' prevails; below, the creation abounds in darkness ;' in the midst, 'foulness' or passion' abounds. Brahma and the rest (of the gods) and a stock form the limits."2

1 Tairyagyonas, "grovelling" (Cole- in Beziehung stehend), from tiryaga brooke); "inhumana" (Lassen); "no's (beast) and yoni (womb), de la matrice" (St. Hilaire). The 2 last is certainly wrong, for it would Colebrooke's translation is, "In the

include mankind. The Petersburg midst is the predominance of foul- ness, from Brahma to a stock;" and Diet, translates it, "standing in Professor Wilson translates Gauda- relation to beasts " (zu den Thieren pada's commentary thus : " In the

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 91

The gods are only a created order (sarga, emanation). The genii or superhuman beings, such as the Yakshas and Käkshasas, are included in this class. For the eight grades up to BrahmH, see p. 53. The low or grovelling class has five genera or divisions : (1.) domestic animals (pasu); (2.) wild animals, such as deer (mriya) and the rest; (3.) birds; (4.) reptiles, includ- ing fishes (sartsripa); and (5.) fixed things (sthdvara), vegetables and minerals. Man stands alone between these two classes, forming an order by himself. The mode or. quality of " good- ness " is only, it must be remembered, a light, elastic, etherealised kind of matter, favourable to virtue, but not of a moral nature in itself. Some of the supposed superhuman beings are neither virtuous nor beneficent; on the contrary, they are often evil and malignant. Man is under the influence of the active mode, " passion/' and therefore he is miserable. Animals and inanimate things are formed from the mode " darkness;" they are therefore stupid or insensate.

55. "There (in the world of men) the sentient (or intelligent) soul experiences pain arising from old age and death until the linga has ceased to be; wherefore pain is from the nature of the (lingo)."

midst, in man, foulness predominates, to it, but to the region " above." although goodness and darkness exist, Gaudapada's comment is, "This, i.e., and hence men for the most part from Brahma to a stock, is equivalent suffer pain. Such is the world, to from Brahma to immovable (in- from Brahma to a stock, from Brahma animate) things." In the S. Prava- to immovable things." "Inthemidst" chana (iii. 50) it is said, "In the certainly means in the earth, which midst " passion " abounds," i.e., as is between heaven and the lower Vijn&na Bhikshu interprets the pas- regions, and Brahma does not belong sage, "in the world of mortals."

92 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

Here is the climax of the Sankhya philosophy, the liberation of" the soul from every kind or form of matter, even that of its. subtle vehicle the linga. It is from contact with matter that,pain arises. The soul knows nothing of decay or pain in itself, but the linga is so closely connected with it that it becomes sensible of the imperfections and pains that belong to bodily condi- tions by this union. But when at length, by full know- ledge, the soul escapes from " the body of this death," it knows pain no more; the linga is then absorbed again in Nature (Prakriti). Kapila, however, does not say where the soul exists after its final severance from matter.

56. " Thus this (development of being), formed from Nature (Prakriti), from the great principle (Baddhi, intellect) clown to specific beings, is for the deliverance of each individual soul. This action (drambha, effort) is for another, as if for itself (Nature)." 57. "As the production of milk, which is un- intélligent (unknowing), causes the growth of the calf, so the development2 of Nature causes the liberation of the soul." 58. " As people engage in acts that they make desires to cease, so does the undeveloped principle (Prakrriti) for the liberation of the soul."

1 " So long as we are entangled the diseases which fall upon it are and oppressed by the body, we shall constant interruptions. It fills us never arrive at the point which we with desires, cravings, fears, delu- aim at, namely, at truth. The body is sions, follies " (Plato, Phaedo, c. 28). a constant enemy to us. The neces- 2 Pravfitti (flowing forth, emana- sity of providing for its wants and tion) is used in each line.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 93

Kapila here maintains that a purpose or design may be formed and completed unconsciously, without a de- signing mind. He feels, however, the difficulty of con- necting design with unintelligent matter, and adduces as an argument in his favour the fact that in the udder of a cow the milk by which the calf is nourished is secreted without the action of intelligence. This is a favourite illustration ainong his disciples, and is generally put forward as conclusive on the subject. But the question still remains, is this adaptation the work of an intelligent designer, or the result of blind chance, a fortuitous 'concourse of atoms only? Kapila does not enter upon an examination of this question. He is content to assume the non-existence of a designer, because the milk is produced, and there is no evidence of a designing mind in the course of its production. He does not ask if the arrangement of the several parts or functions for the attainment of this end were for- tuitous or not. In India, however, as in other parts of the world, the idea of a design without an intelligent de- signer is held to be an impossible assumption. " Whether this (evolution)," says Vächaspati, "be for its own pur- pose or that of another, it is a rational principle that acts. Nature cannot act thus without rationality, and therefore there must be a reason which directs Nature. Embodied souls, though rational, cannot direct Nature, as they are ignorant of its character; therefore there is an omniscient Being, the director of Nature, who is Iswara (Lord1)." This is sound reasoning, but it was not adopted by Kapila. He saw that there was an adapta- tion of means to an end in the supply of a suitably 1' Wilson, p. 168.

94 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

nourishment for the calf; but as the cow supplies it without bringing an intelligent agency to bear upon the production, so Nature works in providing what is for the benefit of the soul. She is not acted upon by any ex- ternal force or necessity, nor is she directed by a superior power, nor does she produce by the necessary action of some internal mechanism, but by a blind instiiict, as men act to gratify some desire that rises within them without volition,

59. "As a dancer, having exhibited herself on the stage ceases to dance, so does Nature (Praknti) cease (to produce) when she lias made herself manifest to soul." 60. " Generous Nature, endowed with modes, causes by manifold means, without benefit to her- self, the benefit of Soul, which is devoid of modes, and makes no return." 61. " Nothing is more modest than Nature; that is my judgment. Saying ' I have been seen/ she does not expose herself again to the view of Soul."i 62. " Wherefore not any Soul is bound, or is liberated, or migrates. It is Nature, which has many receptacles (or bodily forms of being), which is bound, or is liberated, or migrates."

1 Lassen's translation of Diatich 61 sen assumes, but prakrtch. Cole- is this : " Procreatrix, pudibunda brooke's translation is : " Nothing, instar puellae, non iterum invisit in my opinion, is more gentle than presentiam Genii, dicens ne hilum Nature." It is not, however, gentle- quidem est; haec mihi nascitur per- ness, but modesty, that is attributed suasio, postquam sum conspecta." It is certainly wrong. The true to Nature, by. which she withdraws from the gaze of the soul, reading is not prakritih, which Las-

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 95

Beautiful as poetry, but not very philosophic, nor in strict harmony with other parts of the Sankhya philo- sophy. Kapila, or Iswara Krishna, forgets that Nature (Prakriti) has no personality, no power of volition, and no consciousness. But the instincts of the soul (if I may use the term) are often too strong for mere reason. Kapila, like others, discards the idea of unconscious matter when . he breaks away from the meshes of his false logic, and Nature is endowed with all the qualities that belong to a thinking and self-conscious mind. Nature is called generous, or not seeking return, be- cause she acts for the benefit of Soul, which, having no modes, cannot act, and therefore can give nothing in return. She exhibits herself to Soul in the forms of gods, men, and animals, and by the properties of sensuous objects, and by showing thus to Soul its own separate nature, provides for its liberation from Matter. When this has been gained, the result is eternal. Soul is never again joined to Matter; and Nature, having shown herself once, retires from the scene, " as a modest matron who may be surprised in dishabille by a strange man, but takes good heed that another shall not behold her off her guard."1 It is not the soul, therefore, which is liberated or bound, or which migrates, i.e., it is not liberated or bound in and by itself, nor does it migrate by any act of its own. It is the linga which migrates, &c .; the soul is merely passive. "These circumstances," says Vächaspati, "are ascribed to and affect Soul, as the superior, in the same manner that victory. and defeat are attributed to and relate to a king, though actually occurring to his generals; for they are his servants, and the gain or loss is his, not 1 S. Tattwa Kaumudi, Wilson, p. 173.

96 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

theirs." The distinction is more than this. Kapila has .a, lofty idea of the soul. It is incomparably sup- erior to matter. All outward things minister to,it; as. the servants of a king minister to his desires. But the servants and the king are both of a Hindu type., The servants are mere slaves, without reflection or power of self-action; and the king dwells in solitary grandeur, shutting himself up in his palace, and refusing to share in the ordinary pursuits of mankind, from whom he is separate, living in aimless and unchanging inaction.'

63. "Nature by herself binds herself by seven forms; she causes deliverance for the benefit of soul by one form/'

The seven forms are virtue, passiveness, power, vice, ignorance, passion, and weakness. The one source of deliverance is knowledge, which when Nature has given? she has accomplished her object and retires.

64. " It is thus that by the study of principles (tattwa) the knowledge is obtained which is com- plete, incontrovertible, and absolute;2 by which it is said.,' am not,' 'Nothing is mine,' and 'There is no ego,'.

The meaning of this distich has been variously under- stood. To. M .. Cousin it seems to teach " an absolute nihilism, the last' fruit of scepticism;" but this idea is contrary to.the fundamental principles of the Sankhya

1 Apartteiha, which leaves nothing 2 Kevala, abstract, the only one remaining, including everything in science, itself.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY, 97

philosophy. To Kapila the soul was the most real of all things-self-existent, never born, and never dying. It becomes, by knowledge of the doctrines of Kapila, wholly separate from matter, and this separation is the soul's highest achievement. This is distinctly expressed in the S. Pravachana: " By renunciation through study of prin- ciples (it is said), ' It is not thus; it is not thus,' " i.e., the soul is different from all the emanations of Prakriti. The Sānkhya Pravachana Bhashya gives this interpretation: "'Neither I am' denies the agency of soul; 'nor is aught mine' denies attachment (to any objects); 'nor do I exist' denies its appropriation (of faculties);"' or, as the Chand- rikā explains the last clause, " By this, difference from egotism is expressed." We learn, then, by these testi- monies, confirmed by other parts of the Sankhya system, that the phrase " I am not" (nasmi) denies only life in its ordinary form, existence of a moving, acting kind; " naught is mine" implies that the soul has now no adjuncts to itself, it is wholly self-contained; "nor is there an ego" affirms that the soul exists without con- sciousness or sense of personality. The final and supreme state of the soul is then an abstract, passionless, uncon- scious state, which is the nearest possible approach to the Buddhist idea of Nirvana? which, in its full completeness, is simple annihilation. The last stage of the wise man, according to Buddhism, before absolute extinction of being is gained, is very nearly the final state of the soul in the system of Kapila. But the Sankhya doctrine main- tains the continued existence of soul, though in a perfectly unconditioned and passive state, as an eternal entity.

1 Wilson, p. 180. 2 See Professor Childers' Pali Diet., s. v. Nirvana. G

98 HINDU PHILOSOPHY,

65. "By this (knowledge), Soul, as a. spectator, unmoved and at ease, beholds Nature, which has now reverted from the seven forms (to its primitive state), because the capacity (or desire) of producing has now ceased." 66. " It has been seen by me,' says the one, ceasing to regard; ' I have been seen,' says the other, and ceases to act. In the (mere) conjunction of the two there is no motive for production. " 1

The soul having gained the supreme knowledge, beholds Nature as a spectator looks upon an actress. The seven forms are described at page 96. There is no longer any occasion for virtue, or for any condition of ordinary life, because the soul has now become entirely independent of Nature. The latter has now also no capacity (vasa) of producing. In the language of Vachespati, " The two objects of soul, fruition and discrimination, are the excite- ments to the activity of Nature: if they do not exist, Nature is not stimulated (to production). In the text, the term 'motive' implies that by which Nature is ex- cited to creation (to evolve the existing world), which cannot be in the non-existence of the objects of Soul." Creation, or the development of Nature, does not arise from the union of Soul and Matter, as some other philo- sophers have taught, but solely from Nature acting to satisfy the needs or the desires of Soul. A11 things, however, return to unconsciousness. Con-

1 St. Hilaire's translation is " Et be reunited, according to Kapila, bien que l'union de tous deux puisse when the soul has been liberated Bubsister encore," &c. This is in- from it. An assertion or theory of correct. Soul and matter can never others is here denied.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 99

sciousness, or the ego, is a development from buddhi (intellect), which proceeds directly from Nature (Prakriti); but in the consummation of all things this element retires within buddhi, and the latter is absorbed again into Prakriti. Soul and Matter continue to exist, but each in an isolated, independent state. But if the liberation of the soul is gained by know- ledge, how then does the soul remain connected with matter when the requisite knowledge has been obtained ? This inquiry is answered in the following distich :-

67. " By the attainment of complete knowledge, virtue and the rest have become no longer a real cause ; yet a body continues to be held, as a potter's wheel continues to revolve from the force of the previous impulse." 68. " This separation from body being obtained, when Nature ceases to act because her purpose has been accomplished, then the soul obtains an abstraction from matter2 which is both complete and eternal."

By perfect knowledge the soul is freed from the influ- ence of virtue and the rest, which are the cause of bodily

'Dist. 67. Lassen translates the first line thus : " Postquam consuin- sacrifice), a false or hypocritical sacri- fice. Colebrooke has " Virtue and matse scientise acquisitione invenit the rest become causeless," which is genius nullum esse pietatis ceter- ambiguous. St. Hilaire, " La vertu -arumque conditionum usum." The et les autres facultds cessent aussitot lit. translation is, "By the attain- d'être des causes." ment of complete knowledge, virtue 2 Kaivalya, the state of complete and the rest have become a name- abstraction or isolation from mat- cause (namakarana)," i.c, a cause ter. only in name. Cf. ndmayajna (name-

100 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

existence in a higher or lower form. But for a time their influence may be felt, as a wheel will continue to revolve after the impulse which caused it to move has ceased. There is no longer any need of the activities of Nature when knowledge has freed the soul from all material conditions, and all things connected with this activity, such as virtue or love, will be known no more. The sours perfect and final deliverance from the bondage of matter has been gained. No new character can be assumed; no birth into any kind of bodily state, even that of the gods, can follow. The drama of life is ended, and the actors retire from the stage for ever.

69. " This abstruse knowledge, which is for the benefit of the soul, wherein the origin, production (or development)2 and dissolution of beings are described, has been thoroughly expounded by the great rishi (Kapila)," 70. " This supreme purifying doctrine the sage compassionately imparted to Asuri; Asuri taught it to Panchasikha, by whom it was extensively made known." 71. " Handed down by disciples in succession, it has been compendiously written in Aryd, metre by the noble-minded Is'wara Krishna, having fully learned the demonstrated truth." 72. "The subjects treated in seventy distichs are those of the complete science, containing sixty

1 Sthiti is here, I think, the German daseirt. comms into formal being (see Peters. Diet, s.v.); prim, fixity, place. · 2 Utpatti, going forth.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 101

topics, excluding' illustrative tales, and omitting also controversial questions."1 "Thus is completed the book of the Sankhya (philosophy), uttered by the venerable, great- minded, and divine Kapila."

" May prosperity attend it"

We have in the preceding distichs an outline, and it is no more than an outline, of the philosophic system taught by Kapila. In what manner or to what extent it was explained by its author we do not know. The comments upon it by Gaudapāda and others are com- paratively modern. It is not certain that they offer an accurate tradition of the manner in which it was expounded by Kapila himself, for some of them are evidently influenced by a desire to make its doctrines accord with the dogmas of the prevalent Vedantist system. But even as an outline, it is interesting as the first recorded system of philosophy, the first attempt to answer, from human perception and reason alone, the mysterious questions, " What am I ?" " From what source have I sprung ?" and " For what purpose do I exist ?" The system of Kapila is essentially a philosophy. Practically, as some of our modern philosophers, he had no theology. He admitted, indeed, the existence of gods, but they were only emanations from Prakriti

1 The reference is here to such Sankhya system, the fourth con- works as the Sankhya Pravachana, tains some short illustrative tales which consists of six chapters or (dkhydyikas), and the fifth offers readings, of which the first three are some arguments against the objec- devoted to an exposition of the tions of opposite schools of thought.

102 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

(Nature), and are to be absorbed hereafter into this all-comprehending source, as all other forms of material life. He rejects, with evident scorn, the rites which the Vedas assumed or commanded. In his view they were both impure and inefficient. They enjoined sacrifice, which he rejected because it required the shedding of blood, and it could not procure the final liberation of the soul from the bondage of a material connection. Neither religion nor morality could avail to procure this supreme state. It could only be gained by knowledge, nor yet by every kind of knowledge; but only by the Sankhya philosophy, whereby the soul gains-a knowledge of the external world and of its own higher nature. This was the sole purpose of Kapila's philosophy. He had no desire to raise mankind to a higher degree of moral excellence or a more perfect civilisation, either as a means to provide more amply for the uses or the pleasures of his kind, or to gratify a love of know- ledge for its own sake. To him, the world of matter, enfolding and producing so much pain, is to be regarded only as an enemy. Our present physical life is a mere bondage; it is full of pain; it can never be the source of anything but sorrow and degradation. The aim of philosophy is simply to free the soul from this, and

1 Compare the language of Jeremy have no meaning " (Introduction to Bentham: "Nature has placed man- kind under the governance of two Principles of Morals, i. I, and x. 9). sovereign masters, pleasure and pain. Kapila, like Schopenhauer, goes, ... On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other, however, farther than Bentham ; for his is a system of Pessimism, though the chain of causes and effects, are older than the German by more than fastened to their throne." "Pain is in itself an evil, and in- two thousand years. Life, i.e., con-

deed, without exception, the only scious life, not merely contains evil: it is an unmixed evil. The better evil, or the words good and evil state, nay, the best of all, is the un-

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 103

every other connection with matter for ever. We must seek to cast it away, as men cast off a vile and loath- some garment; and this emancipation must be gained by the soul itself, without the aid-if such aid can be obtained-of any external power or influence. Kapila saw the necessity, in any system of philosophy, of an examination into the sources of our knowledge. If these cannot be defined accurately, or if their information cannot be relied upon, it is evident that there cannot be any philosophy, for there can be no certain knowledge. He admitted three such sources: (1.) The perceptions of outward tilings gained from the senses; (2.) the logical faculty or reason of man, by which inferences may be drawn from that which is directly known to other truths which are enfolded in this knowledge, but are not perceptible in themselves; (3.) valid testimony. The senses can only inform us of specific objects, but he accepted our sense-perceptions as representing a real external world, which exists in itself, and not merely as a projection of our sensations or thoughts. The Vedantist doctrine, that the material world is only maya, or illusion, was not held by him; it was, in fact, a speculation of a much later date. Kapila admitted the truth of the perceptions which we reqeive from the senses, but he saw that their extent is limited by various causes, and that many things do and must exist of which they cannot give us any direct information. Here then the logical faculty begins to work. We may reason either a priori from cause

conscious impassive life, in which all sacrifice, but self-svppremon, the things were before the evil birth of annihilation of the conscious self, reason and consciousness. The high- which is the cardinal principle of est aim of both systems is not self- Buddhism.

104 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

to effect, or a posteriori from effect to cause, or by analogy. The relation of cause and effect is real and necessary; but causation is not properly a creation of anything-it is only an emanating force: the effect existed fully beforehand in the cause, of which it is only a development or issue, as a stream emanates from, and is thus created by, the fountain from which it springs. In the system of Kapila, a pure creation is impossible. Each individual soul and every particle of matter has existed from all eternity. Nor can either perish. They must exist for ever; the soul in an unconditioned, un- changing, isolated state; and matter, including therein intellect and consciousness, will be absorbed for ever in Nature (Praķriti). We may also reason by analogy, or, as Sir. W. Hamilton terms it, "philosophical presumption/'2 which Kapila per- ceived to be " a natural or ultimate principle of intelli- gence." How Kapila explained and defended this method of proof we do not know. The opinions of his commen- tators have been already explained (see page 22). Beyond this range some things are known by "valid testimony." Under what conditions or for what purposes testimony is " valid " we are not informed. Nor do we know whether Kapila admitted what is called Sruti, or revelation, as coming within this definition. His followers

1 " When we are aware of some- is seen to arise under a new appear- thing that begins to be, we are, by ance had previously an existence the necessity Of our intelligence, under a prior form. ... We think constrained to believe that it has a the causes to contain all that is con- cause. But what does the expres- tained in the effect ; the effect to sion that it has a cause signify ? If contain nothing which was not con- we analyse our thought, we shall find that it simply means, that as we tained in the causes" (Hamilton, Lect. on Metaph., ii. 377). cannot conceive any new existence 2 Lectures on Logic, ii. 166. to commence, therefore all that now

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 105

gave a modified assent to the Vedas (sruti),and also to the teaching of tradition (smriti), that is, of the ancient sages as handed down to posterity orally or by writings; but the highest position, the sole emancipating power, was given to Kapila's system of philosophy, which could work out deliverance for the soul without the aid of the Vedas,1 either in their dogmatic or ritual teaching. It is by the logical faculty we attain to the knowledge of Nature (Prakriti) ; the oneness from which all material forms have been developed.2 It is itself the Undeveloped (avyakta); eternal, and, in its essence, unalterable. A1l material existences are only developed modes of the One. In like manner, some of the Greek philosophers inferred, as a necessity of thought, that the many forms of sensible objects must be referred to one primeval substance as their source. They affirmed, as Kapila, that this was not one of the gross elements, as fire or water, but an invisible, universal, and formless substance (aropaTor eldos TL kal αμορφον πανδεχές.) 3 αμορφον πανδεχές. But they maintained either that

1 " The Vedanta maintained that to the Wille of Schopenhauer. It is the acquisition of truth is indepen- a blind unconscious force, or rather dent of caste or any other distinction, a primal substance, with a potenti- and that the highest knowledge, which is the chief end of man, can- ality of force through the constituent called passion or foulness, out of not be imparted by the Vedas (vide Katha, ii. 23) ; yet it insisted that a which conscious life was an unhappy development. knowledge of the Vedas was neces- 3 Plato, Timaeus: "This mother and sary to prepare the mind for the highest knowledge. ThistheSankhya receptacle of all visible and sensible

denied altogether, and though it things we do not call earth, nor air,

referred to the Vedas, and especially nor fire, nor water, nor anything produced from them, or from which to the Upanishads, still it did so .only these are produced. It is an invisible when they accorded with its own and formless thing, the recipient of doctrines, and it rejected their autho- rity in a case of discrepancy " (Dr. everything (all-embracing), partici-

Roer, Introd. to Svetasvatara Upani- pating in a certain way of the inteili- gible, but in a way very difficult to shad, p. 36). 2 The Prakriti of Kapila answers seize."

106 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

this first principle was God, as the Eleatics, or that it was fashioned by an Intelligence superior to this primeval substance, and independent of it. In the system of Kapila no place is found for the plastic hand of an intellectual Power in the formation of the world. The one primeval source was simply Matter, and in all its developments was wholly unconnected with the working of Mind. It wrought, and for a distinct purpose, but unconsciously, and by a "potentiality" which dwelt en- tirely within itself. How then did Nature (Prakriti) begin to work ? Be- cause, says Kapila, though formless, it has modes or constituents of its being. When these are in a state of equipose, Nature is at rest. When the equipose is dis- turbed, then Nature begins to work. The impelling influence was an unconscious purpose to free the souls of men from all contact with matter, which is the source of pain. For this purpose it first sent forth intellect (buddhi), the first-born of all created things. But the nature and functions of this first product are not clearly defined. It has a faculty of ascertainment; and by this Kapila means a determinant power by which the percep- tions of sense-objects are defined in an ultimate form, that the soul may look upon them and gain a knowledge of their nature. From intellect (buddhi) consciousness or, egoism is evolved. It is from this product of thought that a knowledge of the difference between subject and object is gained. But consciousness, in emanating from intellect, becomes a separate entity, and the intellect works without any consciousness of its working or of its effects. From egoism or consciousness, i.e., conscious

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 107

mind-mutter, spring the manas (mind), the ten organs of sense and action, and the five subtle elements (see page 18). The manas is an internal faculty, the doorkeeper of the senses, which are the doors through which the soul gains a knowledge of Nature. It receives the sensations which the senses give from outward things, and has a formative power. Our sensations hereby become percep- tions, and these, passed on to consciousness, become individualised as "mine;" then by the intellect these individualised perceptions become, in the language of Sir W. Hamilton, " concepts or judgments," and are fit to be presented to the soul.2 This is as near an approximation to the ideology of Kapila as we can offer in terms derived from another system. It is not an exact representation,

1 "Mind is the one -ultimate reality; universe has been developed. But not mind, as we know it, in the com- Kapila supposed ahan̄kdra to be plex forms of conscious feeling and developed from Prakriti (primal thought, but the simpler elements matter), and taught the existence of out of which thought and feeling are Soul as the true cognitive power. built up. The hypothetical ultimate 2 The process in the formation of element of mind, or atom of mind- ideas and of the resulting action, as stuff, precisely corresponds to the taught by Kapila, is not very different hypothetical atom of matter, being from the conclusions of our modem the ultimate fact of which the savants. Wundt thus defines the material atom is the phenomenon. several steps of the process :- " 1. The Matter and the sensible universe transition from the organ of sense to are the relations between particular the brain (the manas of Kapila); 2. organisms, that is, mind organised . The entrance into the field of view of into consciousness and the rest of consciousness or perception (egotism); the world. This leads to results 3. The entrance into the point of which would, in a loose and popular view of attention or apperception sense, be called Materialist. But (buddhi or intellect); 4. The action the theory must, as a metaphysical of the will in giving the necessary theory, be reckoned on the Idealist impetus to the motor nerves ; 5. The side. To speak technically, it is an transmission of this motor excita- Idealist monism" (Art. on Prof. Clifford,Fort.Rev.,May 1879). This tion to the muscles " (the action of the soul in directing by volition). mind-stuff of Professor Clifford's (Grundzuge, der physiol. Psychologie, theory corresponds to the dhankdra of Kapila, from which the visible Leipsic, 1873-74.)

I08 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

nor have we a phraseology which will suffice for this purpose; for, in Kapila's system, the "mind" (manas), consciousness, and " intellect" (buddhi) are all only forms of developed matter. The "intellect" has no proper cogni- tion, though from its proximity to soul this is sometimes ascribed to it. Hence the common Hindū saying, "Agency from affection, intelligence from proximity," i.e., the apparent agency of the soul, which never acts, is from the affection or influence of buddhi, and the apparent intelligence of buddhi is from its proximity to soul. The manas is classed with the ten organs of sense and action from its immediate connection with them. These organs and the manas, together with the five subtle elements out of which the five gross elements are formed, sprang directly from consciousness. Here we seem to have a glimpse of the Hegelian theory that Thought and Being are one absolutely; subject and object, which appear to be contradictory to each other, being really one, and existence the relation of the two. Perhaps we may say that it is nearer the doctrine of Schelling, that subject and object are really distinct from each other, but yet only the manifestation of the absolute essence in dif- ferent stages of development. This absolute essence may be supposed to be thought or matter, and thus we have the system of the Idealists and that of the Materialistic school. " If the subject be taken as the original and genetic, and the object evolved from it as its product, the theory of Idealism is established. On the other hand, if the object be assumed as the original and genetic, and the-subject evolved from it as its product, the theory of Materialism 1 Moreil, Hist, of Mod. Phil., ii. 168.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 109

is established."! The system of Kapila does not, how- ever, quite accord with this definition. Here the sub- jective element is genetic, but it is not ideal or spiritual. It is itself only a development of a material nature. As far, then, as the outward world and the inner life of con- sciousness are concerned, Kapila is a Materialist; but not wholly so. The soul exists apart from both, but it never creates, nay, it never acts. It exists simply as light, self-contained and eternally distinct. In the evolution of the five gross elements from the five subtle forms or elements of matter, and in the general process by which all existing forms have been produced, we have, in a crude form, the doctrine of development; but it is a development, not from a lower to a higher state of being, but from a higher or more subtle state to one more gross, and, therefore, more adapted to the senses. Kapila seems to have had a dim apprehension of the fact that the gross elements or forms of matter are not ulti-

1 Hamilton, Metaphysics, i. 297. itself perfectly by that contrast." So There are some points of contact between the system of Fichte and Kapila taught that soul only knows

that of Kapila which deserve notice. itself by knowing Prakriti (Nature). Further, Fichte maintained that we Fichte contends that the absolute Ego, the I by myself I, must be have no knowledge-and his work is the "Doctrine of Science "-of the something different from conscious- ness, for this is only a certain state non-Ego except by concepts or re-

of the real Ego. It is the Ego presentations which are due, in part,

" affirming itself." With this abso- to the mind, and, so far, are created

lute Ego, distinct from consciousness, by it. The mind or Absolute Ego,

the Purusha (person) or soul of Ka- which is an intuitive principle, as with Kapila, thus sees only what in pila agrees. But the Ego, in affirm- part it has formed. Kapila expressed ing itself, is also eonscious of the a similar thought by teaching that non-Ego, or is determined by the from consciousness all the subtle necessary law of its nature, and and gro&s forms of matter emanate, "distinguishes between itself as a definite representation and every- but this consciousness is clumsily

thing else .which is not that repre- represented as distinct from soul, because the latter cannot act. sentation; it only come* to know

110 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

mate forms, as the Greek philosophers generally supposed them to be; but as a scientific analysis had not yet showed how to resolve any of these forms into more primitive elements, no more can be claimed for Kapila than the invention of a fanciful hypothesis which modern science has shown to have a limited substratum of truth. All these productions are only mode-developments of Nature (Prahriti). They vary in their kind, as these several modes or constituent elements of Nature are compounded in them, or as one or the other may be the predominant quality. But all these effects are one in their source, in which they were virtually contained, for an effect is only the cause in a state of development. " Ex nihilo nihil fit" was an axiom in Hindu philosophy long before it was expressed in the schools of Europe. Hence Nature, the all-embracing, never had an origin. It is, like the soul, eternal and self-subsisting.1 The psychology of Kapila is entirely Oriental in the base of its conception. The soul is a monarch superior to Nature, which ministers to it, but a monarch of an Eastern kind. It dwells apart in a lofty but barren isolation. The soul alone sees, i.e., has a true cognition

1 It is curious that the latest philo- of the first principle, and must re- sophy-Von Hartmaim's Philosophy main as long as the present system of the Unconscious-should accord continues. 5. The ideal state, for in many points with its earliest de- which we are to labour and wait, is velopment in the system of Kapila. an unconditioned, unconscious state, I. In each system the source of all . the nirvana of the Buddhist school. existing forms is an unconscious 6. Virtue and vice are only acci- Monism, which is self-existent. 2. dents of material' conditions. The The unconscious first principle de- great aim of life is not to attain to velops consciousness. 3. In this goodness or even a high intellectual conscious life only misery can pre- state, but only deliverance from vail. 4. Pain is a necessary conse- pain, which is the chief, if not the quence of the normal development only evil. (See Note D.)

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. IIT

of things. It can behold aiad understand Nature. By this knowledge the soul knows itself, and in knowing itself it gains an eternal liberation from Nature, and therefore from pain. The soul then gains its supreme state of unmoving, unconscious self-existence, which it never afterwards loses. Until this state has been gained, it is enveloped in a body formed from the subtle elements of Nature, the linga or linga. sarira, which is affected by the modes of Nature, and is fated to migrate into bodies of a higher or lower state until the soul becomes entirely free. The linga enters into the womb, and forms the inner frame over which the bodily form derived from the mother is gradually wrought. This latter body perishes entirely in death, but the linga survives until the soul, by knowledge, becomes prepared for a separate life, and then it is absorbed into the universal Nature from which it sprung. This theory of the linga deserves more consideration than it has received from either ancient or modern ex- pounders of the Sänkhya philosophy. It plays an im- portant part in what we must call, though improperly, the moral element of the system. It is the seat of those dispositions, whether moral or physical, which in the Western systems are generally referred, so far as they are moral, to the soul. But Kapila attributes to the soul only a passive state, and to the linga, which is formed from the substance of the internal organs and the subtle forms of matter, is assigned the congeries of states or affections which form the individuality of each separate being. "The commentators agree,1 says ProfessoV Wilson (page 130), "that subtle body (the linga) is subject to enjoyment -or suffering .only through its connection with

112 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY)

generated body, understanding apparently thereby, not its abstract capability of either, but the actual condition in which it partakes of them; for it is repeatedly declared that the seat of enjoyment or suffering is buddhi or 'intel- lect,' through the presence of which, as an ingredient in subtle body, it is immediately added, the latter is invested with dispositions (bhavas), that" is, with the properties of intellect enumerated in v. 43, virtue, vice, knowledge, ignorance, &c." This is not strictly correct. The "intel- lect" (buddhi) cannot properly be said to enjoy or suffer. The linga may be called the "acting soul;" it is the "annexe" of the soul, in the language of M. St. Hilaire, and the seat of those qualities by which an individual is formed, and thinks and feels according to his nature. In being compounded of buddhi and other substances, it shows what Professor Jowett has called " the interpenetra- tion of the intellectual and moral faculties" (Plato, i. 464). The grandeur of the soul, in Kapila's system, is unreal and useless. It has no moral elevation. It knows nothing of virtue and vice as connected with itself. It has no purpose beyond itself. It directs in some unde- fined degree, but it never condescends to work, either for itself or for others. It has no sympathy. Its highest state is one of perfect abstraction from matter and from other souls; a self-contained life, wherein no breath of emotion ever breaks in on the placid surface. The system of Kapila tends then to destroy morality as an active agency against evil; nay, more, it levels so nearly the barrier between virtue and vice, that the difference becomes unimportant except as a matter- of sensation. They are, in fact, pleasure and pain, which are both to be

HIND U PHILOSOPHY. 113

avoided; for both imply action, and all action, if not an evil, is at least an imperfection. The true philosopher rises above virtue or vice by his knowledge. He has reached a higher region in which all voluntary action has ceased, and only contemplation remains. But the soul not only rises above all moral influences; it is never in itself either virtuous or wicked. Virtue and vice are conditions of the linga or spiritual body, as it may be affected by the three modes of Nature. They do not belong to the soul, but are only the results of material conditions. The modes of Nature, which are called "goodness," "foulness,"' and "darkness," are only the formative elements of Nature, differing indeed in kind, but not good or bad in our European estimate of goodness and badness. They do not affect the soul. The mode or constituent element called " goodness " is the most subtle of all. It is elastic, and has an enlightening or alleviating influence. It is prevalent, therefore, in fire. The mode called " foulness " or " passion " is the emotional element, causing work, and is the source of all pain. The mode called "darkness" is heavy and destructive. It is the cause of stupidity and illusion. Such theories are only the subjective devices of a man who, having observed the manifold differences in the things around him, endeavours to account for them by the assumption of a difference in the constituent elements of the Nature from which, in his opinion, all had primarily issued. There is no place for duty, or a sense of sin in failing to fulfil it, in the system of Kapila. These are impossible except in connection with a law which proceeds from a source higher than man, and which he is bound to obey. It is singular that Kapila stands so far apart.from the

114 HINDŰ PHILOSOPHY.

rest of his countrymen in ignoring that sense of moral evil which has so deep a root in the Hindu mind. But he is not alone in this. Our modern philosophers decry or ignore those deep, irrepressible instincts of the human heart which in all ages have led to many austere rites for the putting away this sense of moral guilt which presses so heavily on the conscience. They ignore what they do not understand, and for which their systems afford no remedy. But logically Kapila was consistent in rejecting both the idea of duty and of guilt from his system. He did not admit that any Power existed that was of right the ruler of the world, or of any superintending Provi- dence. The soul is sufficient for itself. There is no real, absolute duty, except perhaps that of acquiring knowledge and of gaining thus deliverance from all con- tact with matter. But this is rather a privilege of the few than a duty incumbent on all. By not obtaining it the soul is doomed to reappear in some new bodily form, but there is no guilt incurred. All actions are not indeed alike; they differ in their power of affecting the conditions of the new life, and may, in this sense, be called good or bad;2 but the highest degree of virtue is

1 As Fichte maintained that since merely a name for a collective sense the soul can know nothinghigher than, during many generations of what is or beyond, its own concepts, and useful to mankind. A virtuous ac- therefore the being of a God cannot tion and a fountain of water do not be proved as a part of science, so differ in kind. But the latest theory Kapila taught that the soul can only makes it to denote only a healthy know what is presented to it by and vigorous organisation. "If I buddhi (intellect), and therefore can- have evolved myself out of some- not know absolutely that there is an thing like an amphioxus, it is clear Iwara or Supreme Lord of all that I have become letter by the things, for this idea cannot be thus change. I have risen in the organic presented. scale ; I have become more organic. 2 Our modern philosophers go Of all the changes which I have further. Some make virtue to be undergone, the greater' part 'must

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 115

in itself unable to procure full deliverance for the soul. Virtue and vice are only conditions of the material envelope of the soul, which knows nothing of either in itself, for it never acts. Knowledge is the only ark by which it can attain to its final position of pure abstraction; but by this ark even the worst might pass over the ocean of this restless world to the haven of perfect and eternal rest. As the system of Kapila ignored a Supreme Being, it sought only to guide and strengthen man by his own unaided power. . It did not, however, address itself to all classes of men alike, though it did not leave the lowest wholly without hope. Even Sudras and women might possibly hear some one explain this philosophic system, and might receive some benefit from the knowledge thus gained, but it was not addressed primarily to them. It was essentially an esoteric system, designed chiefly for those more instructed or more intelligent classes who could rise to so great a height of philosophic knowledge as the system of Kapila, when perfectly understood, would enable them to reach. It was practically opposed to religious observances, and prayer became a superfluous

have been changes in the organic that definition of them which must, direction; some in the opposite on the whole, cause those people direction, some perhaps neutral, who act Upon it to be selected for But if I could only find.out which, survival. The good action, then, is I' should say that those changes ' a mode of action which distinguishes which have tended in the direction organic from inorganic things, and of greater organisation were good, which makes an organic thing more and those which tended in the op- organic " (Prof. Clifford, Nineteenth posite direction bad. Here there Century, October 1877). So Kapila is no room for proof; the words taught that goodness was only a ' good ' and ' bad' belong to the material condition, and led only to a practical reason, and if they are happier bodily life, defined, it is by pure choice. I choose

n6 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

act, because knowledge could alone accomplish more for the soul than these religious rites ; but on this account it did not commend itself to the people of India. It was therefore supplemented and made more popular by Pataft- jali, of whom, however, little is known. He probably lived about 200 years B.C .; but almost all that we know of him is that he is reputed to be the author of a book called the "Yoga Sutra," in which the theistic form or modification of Kapila's system is expounded. The modifications which Patanjali made in this system are not many in number, but they are important both in themselves and in their bearing upon the inner and outer life of mankind. They were mainly (1.) the doctrine of a Supreme Spirit, who directed and presided over the workings of Nature (Prakriti); and (2.) the enjoining of yoga, i.e., the concentration of the soul on the Supreme Being by abstract meditation as the means of obtaining finally Nirvana, or absorption into the Divine Essence.1 Hence this system is called the Seswara or Theistical Sankhya, and Kapila's the Niriswara or Atheistical; a term which may also be applied to Buddhism, which apparently owed its origin to the system of Kapila. "God" (Iswara, the supreme Kuler), according to Patan- jali, "is a soul or spirit distinct from other souls, unaffected by the ills with which all men are beset, unconnected with good or bad deeds and their consequences. In him is an absolute omniscience. He is the instructor of the earliest beings that have a beginning (the deities of the Hindu mythology), himself infinite, unlimited by

1 In the full attainment of yoga, are either wholly overcome and or a mystic union with the Deity, destroyed, or they act only as far all the affections and the senses as necessity requires.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 117

'time."1 Here is an essential difference between the master and his pupil; for Kapila taught that the existence of thought or instruction is dependent on Consciousness, not upon Iswara, and Consciousness is from the great principle, Buddhi (Intellect). The means of attaining to Yoga are (i.) Yama, self- restraint; (2.) Niyama, necessary religious duties; (3.) Asana, postures;2 (4.) Prdnd-ydma, restraint of breath; (5.) Pratyahdra, subjugation of the senses; (6.) Dhdrdņa, fixed control; (7.) Dhyana, contemplation; (8.) Samadhi, pious meditation. The aim of the Yogi or devotee under this system is to destroy all movement and all thought, that the soul may be absorbed in passive meditation. But as all cannot rise to this elevation, various means of subduing the senses by severe ascetic rites are set forth and commended, and a frequent repetition of the mystic syllable OM is enjoined. By these means the Yogi might attain to a state called vidiha (incorporeal) or kevala (abstracted or purely spiritual). In such condi- tions he is endowed with supernatural wisdom and power. He can enter into the body of another, and even into his mind, and thus may read his thoughts. The attracting power of the earth cannot bind him. He can soar in the air as if carried up by a balloon. He can understand all mysteries of this world and of other worlds. Both the past and the future may lie distinctly before his view. In short, there is no marvel of modern spiritualism that was not equalled, and even surpassed, in India, according to the Yoga system and the popular belief, two thousand years ago.

1 Yoga-Sastra, i. 23, 24, 26-29; Colebrooke, i 264. 2 Bhagavad Gita, vi. 13.

118 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

Practically the system of fatanjali, though setting forth a very sublime aim, has resulted in the practice of cruel and degrading rites, of almost incredible devices for self-torture, which have no high or purifying purpose, but, on the contrary, often conceal a base and even sensual life. The Yogi is frequently regarded as a mere sorcerer, and in this character he appears in many an Indian drama and popular tale.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE

OF THE

NYAŸA AND VAISESHIKA SYSTEMS.

THESE systems are generally classed together, for they agree upon the subjects of which they treat in common, but are distinct in their chief purpose. The Nyāya is not properly a system of philosophy, but an introduction to all such systems, for it treats mainly of the objects and the laws of thought, The Vaiseshika system is a system of physical science as taught by Kan ada, the reputed author of the Vaiseshika-Sutra, in which this system is explained. From the singular absence or deficiency of historical data in India, little is known of Gotama or Gautama, the author of the Nyaya, or of Kanāda. The former has become the subject of fanciful legend almost to the same degree as Kapila, the author of the Sankhya system. He is said to have been born in Northern India at the beginning of the Treta Yuga, or second age of the world, and to have married Ahalya, the daughter of Brahmā. We can only infer from these statements that he was pro- bably a Brahman, and may have been of noble descent. He is the Aristotle of India, and his Sutras have always been a popular study among the Hindūs, whose acuteness finds a suitable field in the discussion of dialectic subtleties. A large number of commentators have explained and com-

120 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

mented on the system of Gotama, in order to adapt it to popular use. It is set- forth in a treatise called the Nyāya Sutra, which comprises five divisions or readings, eacli containing two lessons. These are divided into sections or pmka- ranas, relating to distinct topics. In practice, this system is commonly combined with that of Kaņāda, as in the Bkdshd-parichcliheda, the popular text-book in India. It is not always easy to distinguish, in the modern schools, what belongs to each system. Both Gotama and Kaņāda observe the following order in discussion: (i.) enunciation (udde4a); (2.) definition (lahshana); and (3.) investigation (partJcshà). Enunciation declares by name the subject to be discussed. Definition is the defining of the subject by its peculiar properties or differentiae. Investigation is an examination of the subject with regard to its peculiar properties. The first reading or division of the Nyāya Sūtra con- sists of sixty aphorisms, and the first Sūtra gives a list of the subjects to be discussed. These are sixteen in number: (1.) Pramdna, or the means by which a right knowledge may be gained; (2.) Prameya, or the objects of thought; (3.) Doubt; (4.) Motive; (5.) Instance, or example; (6.) Dogma, or determinate truth; (7.) Argument, or syllogism; (8.) Confutation; (9.) Ascertainment; (10.) Controversy; (11.) Jangling; (12.) Objection, or cavilling; (13.) Fallacy; (14.) Perversion; (15.) Futility; and (16.) Conclusion, or the confounding of an adversary. Of these, the first two are the chief; the others being only subsidiary, as indicating the course which a discussion may take, from the setting forth of a doubt to the final confutation of the doubter. Proof or evidence (pramdva) is of four kinds: (1.)

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 121

Pratyaksha, or perception by the senses; (2.) Anumana, inference, which is of three kinds ;- from cause to effect, from effect to cause, and by analogy; (3.) Upamāna; or comparison; and (4.) Sahda, word or verbal authority, including revelation and tradition. Cause (Kāraną) is defined as that which necessarily precedes an effect, which without the cause could not be ; for the relation of cause and effect, connection (sam- handha), must be considered. This is twofold, implying either simple conjunction (samyoga), or intimate and con- stant relation (samavdya),1 wherein two things must always be joined, as cloth and the threads of yarn which form it. Hence cause is considered as (1.) intimate or direct, as clay is the material cause of pottery, and yam of cloth; (2.) mediate or indirect, proximate to the intimate cause, as the weaving of yarn in forming cloth; and (3.) instru- mental or concomitant, as the loom. In desire, the soul is the direct or intimate cause; the mediate is the conjunc- tion of the soul and its internal organ, the manas; the instrumental is knowledge. We may rather call them the aggregate of conditions necessary for the forming either of a material product or a psychical state. The objects of which a right knowledge may be gained are (1.) soul; (2.) body; (3.) the senses; (4.) the objects ·of sense; (5.) intellect (buddhi); (6.) mind {manas) ; (7.) production, oral, mental, or corporeal; (8.) fault or wrong (dosha); (9.) transmigration; (10.) fruit or retribution; (11.) pain; (12.) deliverance, or emancipation. · The soul is different, or individual, in each person, separate from the body and the senses, the seat of know- ledge and feeling. It is eternal in duration. Knowledge, 1 Tarka Sangraha, p. 22 ; Colebrooke, 1. 287.

122 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

desire, aversion, volition, pain, and pleasure, imply the' existence of soul, which is called a substance, as being the substratum or entity in which these several qualities reside. The soul experiences the fruit or retribution of deeds, good or bad. The Supreme Soul (Paramatman) is One, the seat of eternal knowledge, the maker or former of all things. Body is the seat of effort and of the organs of sensation. By association with it the soul has fruition, or the feeling of pleasure and pain. It is earthly, for the properties of earth are perceived in it, as solidity, smell, &c. Some supposed the body to be formed of three elements-earth, water, and light or heat; others that it was formed of four, adding air to the former elements. But Gotama rejects these suppositions, mainly on the ground that there is no intimate, absolute union of heterogeneous substances; an argument which Kapila had employed, The distinct kinds, as classified by Vaiseshika writers are (1.) un- generated, as those of gods and demigods; (2.) uterine or viviparous; (3.) oviparous; (4.) engendered in filth; and (5.) vegetative or germinating. The five external organs are not modifications of con- sciousness, as the Sankhya philosophy teaches, but are formed of gross matter, earth, water, light, air, and ether, corresponding to the senses of smell, taste, sight, touch, and hearing. There is a sixth sense, an internal organ, .manas or " mind," which is the organ of the bodily sense .. By union with the external senses it produces knowledge of exterior objects. Its office is to separate the sensations, and to present them singly to the soul; and hence it is that the soul does not receive more than one sensation, or rather perception, at the same instant. The manas is

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 123

minutely small, as an atom; for otherwise it might come into connection with many things or many sensations at one time. It is eternal, and distinct from both soul and body. The objects of sense are odour, taste, colour, feeling, and sound. Under this head are placed the six categories (padartha) of Kanada, which are substance, quality, action, generality or community of properties, particularity or specific quality, and co-inherence or perpetual and intimate relation. Later writers added a seventh, privation or negation. Intellect is twofold, including notion and remembrance. It is defined as that which manifests or makes khown. Its relation to the manas is not clearly explained. A notion or concept is either right or wrong. A right notion is that which is derived from a clear proof, and is fourfold: (1.) From perception, as a jar perceived by the bodily organs ; (2.) from inference, as fire is inferred from smoke; (3.) from comparison, by which we have a know- ledge of genera; and (4.) from revelation, as the notion of celestial happiness, which we have from the Vedas. A wrong notion is one which is not derived from proof, and is threefold in origin: (1.) From doubt; (2.) false premisses; and (3.) error, as the mistaking of mother-of- pearl for silver. Remembrance is also either right or wrong. A waking remembrance may be either, but in sleep it is wrong. Production is the cause of virtue and vice, of merit and demerit. It is oral, mental, or corporeal; speech being considered to be of a compound nature, but does not include unconscious vital functions. It is the result of the three faults-passion or extreme desire, aversion or

124 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

loathing, 'and error or delusion. The wise man, according to Gotama, is one that avoids these faults, and is pro- foundly indifferent to all action. The only motive to action is the desire "of attaining pleasure or of avoiding pain. Transmigration is the passing of the soul to successive bodies. Blessedness is deliverance from pain. Pain is the primary evil, but there are twenty-one varieties of evil which are the causes of pain, and these are in the organs of sense, the objects of sense, the mental apprehensions, and even in pleasure, for this may be evil and a source of pain, as honey drugged with poison is fatal. The soul attains to this deliverance by knowledge, by meditating on itself, by not earning fresh merit or demerit through actions sprung from desire, and by becoming free from passion through knowledge of the evil inherent in objects. It is knowledge, as in the Sankhya system; and not vir- tue, which obtains final deliverance from the body.2 The latter can only procure a better state of bodily connection; it cannot destroy it. 1 " A motive is substantially no- under the governance of two sove- tjhing more than pleasure or pain reign masters, pain and pleasure. It operating in a certain manner. ". " Now, pleasure is in itself a good is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to deter- -nay, even setting aside immunity from pain,, the only good. Pain is mine what we shall do " (Jeremy

in itself an evil; and indeed, with- Bentham, Introd. to Prin. of Morals; &c, c. x. ss. 9, 10, c. i. s. 1). out exception, the only evil, or else' 2 In the system of Bentham the words good and evil have no there is no more room for vir- meaning. And this is alike true of tue, goodness, justice, or unselfish every sort of pain and every sort of liberality than in the system of pleasure. It follows, therefore, im- Gotama. 'The base of what is called mediately and incontestably, there in these systems morality (a real is no such thing as any, sort of morality in such systems is impos- motive that is in itself a bad one." "Nature has placed mankind sible) is only the gratifying of desire.

HINDU PHILOSOPHY. 125

: The other subjects mentioned are only the possible suc- cessive stages of a discussion. The development of inference as a method of proof, by the construction of a true syllogism, is the most interest- ing part of these systems. The right methods of reasoning have been discussed with as much subtlety as by any of the Western logicians. A complete syllogism, in the Hindu system, consists of five members or parts (ava- yava) : (1.) The proposition (pratijnā), (2.) the reason (hetu or apadesa), (3.) the instance or example (udaharana or nidarsana), (4.) the application of the reason (upanaya), and (5.) the conclusion (nigamana).

Ex. (1.) This hill is fiery, (2.) For it smokes. (3.) Whatever smokes is fiery, as a kitchen-hearth, &c. (4.) This hill is smoking, (5.) Therefore it is fiery. Or, (1.) Sound is non-eternal, (2.) Because it is produced. (3.) Whatever is produced is non-eternal, as pots, &c. (4.) Sound is produced, (5.) Therefore it is not eternal.

Some confine the syllogism to three members, either the first three or the last: in the latter form it is the same as the syllogism of Aristotle. The term vyāpti (pervasion or invariable concomitance) is used to express the connection in the major premiss of the Aristotelian syllogism. Inference is defined as the know- ledge which is caused by the knowledge of vyapti1 or a knowledge "generable by a mediate judgment" (parā-

1 Vyaptijnana-karanakam jnanam.

126 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

marsa).1 "This mediate judgment is a recognition that there is in.the subject of the question (paksha) an attribute characterised by a pervasion (or universal concomitance, ryapti). In other words, the subject of the question has a property universally accompanied by something else, viz., by that which is to be proved or disproved of it by the sād- hya or predicate of the conclusion." 2 The meaning of this term, vyapti, is fully explained by Sankara Mistra. " It may be asked, What is this invariable concomitance ? It is not merely a relation of co-extension. Nor is it the relation of totality. For if you say that invariable concomitance is the connection of the middle term with the whole of the major term, such connection does not exist in the case of smoke [for smoke does not always exist where there is fire]. Nor is it natural conjunction, for the nature of a thing is the thing's proper mode of being. . . . Nor is it the possession of a form determined by the same connec- tion as something else ; as, for instance, the being fiery is not determined by connection with smoke, for the being fiery is more extensive. We proceed, then, to state that invariable concomitance is a connection requiring no qualifying term or limitation. It is an extensiveness co- extensive with the predicate. In other words, invariable concomitance is invariable co-inherence of the predicate." 3 The qualifying term or limitation is called upadhi. Fire always underlies smoke, but smoke does not always accompany fire; and the proposition that smoke accom- panies fire requires a qualifying condition (upadhi)-that there must be moist fuel-which may not be present. An universal proposition is not"therefore simply conver- 1 Paramaraa-janyam jnanam. 2 Professor Gough Calcutta; Review, January 1876. 3 Mr. Gough's translation (Indian Wisdom), p. 73.

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. 127

tible, but only convertible by limitation per accidens. The upadhi is the limitation or qualifying condition which is necessary for the conversion of the proposition. The process by which the vyäpti is determined is called vyaptigraaha, and is a generalisation by experience or induction. Induction is defined as " the determination of unconditional and of conditional concomitances." The Hindū logicians are quite aware of the necessity of a sound induction for the establishment of an universal proposition. From a passage in "Muktavall" (p. 122) we learn that such a proposition must be proved by affirmative and negative induction, which correspond to the methods of Agreement and Difference in Mill's "Logic" (i. 454), the object being to discover a certain relation of cause and effect in the two phenomena. " The two suggestors of the relation of cause and effect are (1.) this concomitancy of affirmatives-that whenever the product exists the material cause thereof exists; and (2.) this concomitancy of negatives-that when the material cause no longer exists the product no longer exists." 1 The system of Kanäda (the Vaiseshika) is supplementary to that of Gotama, coinciding with it in the main, but differing from it in allowing only two methods of proof, perception and inference, and in its arrangement of the objects of knowledge. It is expounded in the "Vaile- shika Sūtra, which contains about 550 aphorisms. There are in this system six categories or predicaments (paddrtJia): (1.) things or substance; (2.) quality; (3.) ac- tion; (4.) community or genus; (5.) particularity; (6.) the co-inherence or intimate connection of constituent. parts,

1 Comm, on the Sankhya Sutras, Professor Cowell's note to Colebrooke, i 314.

128 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

to which later writers added a seventh, non-existence or negation (abhava). The first category, substance (dravya) is subdivided into nine divisions: (1.) earth (prithivi); (2.) water (apas); (3.) light (tejas); (4.) air (vayu); (5.) ether (akasa); (6.) time (kata); (7.) space (dis); (8.) soul (atman); and (9.) the internal organ, mind (manas). Of these, the first four and the ninth are affirmed to be formed of atoms. These atoms are round, extremely minute, invisible, incapable of division, eternal in them- selves but not in their aggregate forms. They have individually a specific difference (visesha). Light, for example, is formed by the aggregation of luminous atoms. Other substances are formed in a similar manner. These atoms combine by twos in an aggregate called dwy-anuka, or by threes, forming an aggregate called trasa-renu, which comes within the range of our sight, as a mote in a sun- beam. They also combine by fours, &c. They are in- numerable in extent, and are perpetually united, disinte- grated, and redintegrated by an unseen peculiar virtue or force (adrishta). What idea Kanāda intended to convey by the term adrishta, the Unseen, it is not possible to say. The term Iswara=God, as ruler, is not found in the Sutras ascribed to him. He may mean a force or " potentiality " inherent in the atoms themselves. His disciples, however, who. were affected by the teaching of Gotama, or the popular Vedanta system, explain this unseen force to be the Supreme Spirit, who is declared to be the framer of all things. They argue for the existence of a controlling. Mind from the existence of effects; from the combinations of the atoms; from the support of the earth in the sky ;

HINDU PHILOSOPHY .. 129

from traditional arts, and from the. Vedas. As Kanada dif -. fered from Gotama in not admitting speech or tradition as a- source of knowledge, if may be doubted whether he would. have admitted an argument founded on the Vedas. They appeal, however, chiefly to the evidence of design. "The earth must have had a Maker," says Haridasa, " because, it is an effect, like a jar."1 This is the argument which Paley has so largely developed, now often rejected, but yet gaining assent from the common sense of mankind. The traditional arts are those which have been handed down from father to son, which, it is argued, must have been first taught or inspired by a superintending Mind. It is implied that the inventive, creative mind of man must have been created by a power possessing like qualities, but. of an infinitely higher kind, Kaņādą certainly taught that the soul is distinct from matter. He appeals, in proof, to our feelings of desire and aversion, which are excited by a perception , of the good or evil connected with certain things; affirming that this perception of good and bad results is an attri- bute of spirit. He combats the assertion of an objector that the soul might be diffused in matter, and not be separate from .it, :by asserting that the nature of the cause is always : seen in. the effect, and that if soul were diffused through matter,, all matter would be animate. : In tire second category, "quality," Kanada recognised seventeen varieties in the nine substances, of which soul is one. These qualities are colour, savour, odour, tangibility, number, extension* individuality, conjunction, disjunction, priority, posteriority, intellections (buddhayas), .. 1 Indian Wisdom, p. 88,

130 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and volition. To these his followers added the seven following: gravity, fluidity, viscidity, self-reproduction (including motion, elasticity, and memory), sound, with merit and demerit. Light and heat are considered as only different forms of the same substance. The direct instrument of vision is a ray of light pro- ceeding from the pupil of the eye to the object seen. This ray of light is not ordinarily visible, as the brightness of a torch is not seen in the meridian light, but may be seen at night in the eye of a cat or other animal watch- ing for its prey. Ether (akasa) is uncompounded, infinite, and eternal. It is not atomic. It is known only by inference. It has the quality of sound, and hearing is formed by means of a portion of ether confined in the hollow of the ear and endowed with an occult virtue. The mind (manas) is considered to) be, as in the. system of Gotama, extremely small, as an atom, and thus only one sensation is conveyed to the soul at one time. It is eternal, distinct from both soul and body, with which it is only conjoined. Gravity is the peculiar cause of a body falling to the ground. It affects earth and water. Lightness is not a di'stinct quality, but only the negation of gravity. Time is inferred from the relation of priority and sub- sequence, other than that of place. It is marked by associations of objects, with the sun's revolutions. Space is inferred from the relation of priority and sub- sequence other than that of time. It is deduced from the notion of liere and there. The third category, action (karman), is divided into five

HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY. 131

kinds, upward and downward movement, contraction, dilatation, and going, or motion in general. The fourth category, community (samanya), is the source of our notion of genus. In its highest degree it expresses only existence, a property common to all, but it usually . denotes qualities common to many objects. It denotes species also, as indicating a class. These genera and species have a real, objective existence. The Baud- dhas deny this, affirming that individuals only have existence, and that abstractions are false conceptions. It is the quarrel revived in the Eealist and Nominalist theories of the mediaeval schoolmen. The fifth category, particularity (visesha), denotes simple objects, devoid of community. These are soul, mind, time, place, the ethereal element, and also atoms in their ultimate form. The sixth category, co-inherence or inseparable connec- tion (samavāya), denotes the connection of things that in their nature must be connected so long as they exist, as yarn and the cloth of which it is formed ; for so long as the yarn subsists the cloth remains. The seventh category, subsequently added, negation or privation (abhava), is of two kinds, universal and mutual. Universal negation includes three species: (1) antecedent, a present negation of what will be at some future time, as in yarn before the production of cloth; (2.) emergent, which is destruction or cessation of an effect, as in a broken jar; (3.) absolute, implying that which never existed, as fire in a lake. Mutual privation is essential difference, a reciprocal negation of identity, as in cloth and ajar. The system of Kapāda, in its modern form at least, is

132 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

essentially a,dualism; eternal atoms: existing together with eternal soul, whether the, latter terih be confined to individual souls or includes the Supreme Soul (Para- mätman). In every Hindü system of philosophy, Matter is supposed to be eternal, generally as a real and distinct entity in itself, except in the school of the Vedāntists, by whom it is regarded as maya, the illusive manifestation of the One Supreme Brahma, who is himself the All. Gotama and Kapada, like Kapila, could see no'higher aim or blessing for mankind than a complete deliverance from pain. .They agree with him in maintaining: that this deliverance must be wrought out by knowledge; mean- ing thereby a knowledge of philosophy, and that the state to which the soul may rise by knowledge, its best and final state, is that of a tranquil unconscious passivity, in which all thought and emotion and the sense of per- sonality have passed away for ever.

NOTES

NOTE A.

ON THE ORGANS OF THE SOUL IN THE SYSTEM OF KAPILA.

Disiichs 22, 24, 26, 34.

THE Intellect (buddhi), the first emanation of Nature (Pfakriti) is an organ or instrument of the Soul, for by it all material things are brought within the view of the Soul, which is imma- terial. From it Consciousness or Mind-stuff emanates, and from Consciousness, affected by the mode of Nature called " good- ness," issue the eleven organs (indriyani), which are the Mind (manas), the five organs of sensation and the organs of action. From it also emanate the five subtle elements of matter when it is affected by the mode called " darkness," and from the subtle elements the grosser elements .are evolved. The five organs' of sensation are called. "intellect-organs" (buddhi- indriydni), and in Distich 34 they 'are said to be the domain of specific and non-specific elements (as Lassen translates the passage), or to concern objects specific and unspecific (as Colebrooke translates it). The meaning is obscure, and, as usual, the Hindu commentators throw no light on the dark- nesa. Gaudapāda assumes that by non-specific objects : are meant such as are apprehended by the gods. If so, they would have no place in the system of Kapila. His meaning

134 HINDŪ PHILOSOPHY.

may probably be ascertained by noting that he regards these organs as a direct emanation from Consciousness, affected by "goodness," and therefore as being more subtle productions than even the subtle elements of what are usually called material things or gross existences. But the eye, for instance, as an organ of sight belongs to this last class. It is formed entirely of gross matter. It seems then that Kapila meant by "intellect-organs" something of a very different nature. The organ of sight is, in his theory, twofold: (i.) a subtle organisation in which the faculty of seeing dwells; and (2.) an instrument, the eye, which is formed of grosser elements. The faculty by which we see was connected by Kapila directly with Consciousness, and by it a sense-percep- tion, which is defined by the mams, is gained. Without it the eye could no more see than in the case of a dead body. Sometimes the faculty and its instrument are united in one expression. Hence, I.think, we may explain Distich 34 as meaning that the «'intellect-organs " are composed of non- specific substances, i.e., of the more subtle or ethereal forms of matter in the faculty of seeing, and of specific or the grosser elements in the instrument, i.e., the eye. This distinction seems to have partly suggested itself to the author of the "S. Tattwa Kaumud!," for he supposes that by " non-specific " are meant such objects as are too subtle in their nature to be seen by ordinary men. Whether Kapila meant farther to say that this finer element or organisation could be known through the huddhi to Soul, is an inquiry that we may lay aside as having no practical importance. If this interpretation is correct, the theory of Kapila has. some resemblance to the conclusions of modern science. " Sensation proper is not purely a passive state, but implies a certain amount of mental activity. It may be described, on the psychological side, as resulting directly from the attention which the mind gives to the affections of its own organism."

NOTES. 135

" Numerous facts prove demonstrably that a certain applica- tion and exercise of mind on one side is as necessary to the existence of sensation as the occurrence of a physical impulse on the other " (Morell, Elements of Psychology, pp. 107, 108).

NOTE B.

ON THE MEANING OF Sat AND Asat.

There is a general misunderstanding of these terms as used in the philosophy of the Hindūs, especially in the system of Kapila. Sat is supposed to mean existence per se, and asat is therefore represented as its logical opposite, or rather contra- dictory ; the negation of being, or non-existence. Thus Dr. Muir writes: "These ideas of entity and nonentity seem to have been familiar to the Vedic poets, and we find it thus declared (R-V. x. 72, 2, 3), that in the beginning nonentity was the source of entity. 'In the earliest age of the gods entity sprang from nonentity ; in the first age of the gods entity sprang from nonentity [asat].' In the Atharva-Veda (x. 7, 10) it is said that ' both nonentity and entity exist within the god Skambha;' and in v. 25 of the same hymn, ' Powerful indeed are those gods who sprang from nonentity. Men say that that nonentity is one, the highest member of Skambha.' The Taittiriya Upanishad also (p. 99) quotes a verse to the effect: 'This was at first nonentity. From that sprang entity [sat]'" And in a note he adds : " This phrase is also applied to Agni in E .- V. x. 5, 7, where it is said that that god, being 'a thing both asat, non-existent (Le., unmani- fested), and sat, existent (le., in a latent state or in essence), in the highest heaven, in the creation of Daksha, and in the womb of Aditi,.became in a former age the first-born of our ceremonial, and is both a bult and a cow '" (Progress of the Vedic Religion, Journal A. S., 1865, p. 347). So also Pro-

136 HINDU . PHILOSOPHY.

fessor Max Miiller writes : "Some of the ancient sages, after having arrived at the idea of Avyakrita, Undeveloped, went even beyond, and instead of the sat or to b, they postulated an asat, rò mi or, as the beginning of all things. Thus we read in the Chandogya Upanishad, 'And some say in the beginning there was asat (not being) alone, without a second ; and from this asat might, the sat be: born'" (Sans. Literature, p. 324). There is occasionally some confusion in the minds of Hindu writers, especially the later ones, about the meaning of sat and asat; but, with Kapila and his exponents, sat denotes the existence of things in the manifold forms of the external world, the Daseyn of Hegel, the Natura naturata of Spinoza, and asat is the opposite of this, or the formless Prakriti, the Mind-matter from which all formal existence has sprung. Sat corresponds in each separate form to the "being-this" of Hegel, and' Kapila argues, as the German philosopher, that "by virtue of its predicate of merely being- this, every something is a finite/' and therefore it is an: effect, because otherwise we could only conceive it as absolute being, and therefore unlimited. Soul was something different from both. So in the Satapatha Brahmana (x. 5, 3, 1) it is said, "In the beginning this universe was, as it were, and was not, as it were. Then it was only that mind. Wherefore it has been declared by the rishi, ' There was then neither nonentity (asat) nor entity (sat); for mind was, as it were, neither entity nor nonentity.'" The . meaning is that mind is neither the primal matter (Prakriti) (which Kapila assumed to be the source of all formal existence), nor the sum of existing things. The Vedantists taught .that this primal matter was the saJcti, or productive energy. of Brahma. So says Sankara Acharya, " We (Vedantists) consider that this primordial state of the world is dependent upon the Supreme Deity (Parameswara), and not self-dependent. And this state to which we refer must of necessity be assumed, as it is essen-

NOTES .. 137

tial; for Without it the creative action of the Supreme'Deity could "not be accomplished, since if he were destitute of his sakti, any activity on his part would be inconceivable" (Comm, on the Brahma Sutras, Muir's Sans. Texts, iii. 164). The full development of the Vedantist doctrine made the external world to be only maya, illusion. There is really neither sat nor asat,, but the. Supreme Spirit is absolutely the All. Nature is only the projection of the One, or, as Hegel thought (for he was essentially a Vedantist), " the idea in its externality, in having fallen from itself.into a without in/time and space ;" but this is only a manifestation of the Absolute. "The Absolute, the being thinking [the. ultimate synthesis of exis- tence and thought, of object and subject] passes through the three periods, and manifests itself as idea, in and for itself [thinking]; secondly, in its being otherwise, or in, objective- ness and externality [nature]; thirdly, as the idea which from its externality has returned into itself [miņd]" (Chalybäus, Hist, of Spec. Phil.,.Eng. ed., p. 362). As Mr .. Morrell has expounded his views, and correctly, I may add, "With him God is not a person,, but personality itself, i.e., the universal personality which realises itself in every human consciousness as so many separate thoughts of one eternal mind. : .. God is with him the whole process of thought, combining in itself the objective movement as 'seen in Nature, with the subjective as seen in logic, and fully realising itself only in the universal spirit of humanity" (Mod. Phil., ii. 189). Pure Vedantism! though Hegel, if he were alive, would protest against such a statement. But Kapila was not a Vedantist. With him the aggregate of existing things and each separate existence (sat), and the formless Prakriti from which they issued (asat)f were objectively real and eternally distinct from Soul, though both Soul and Prakriti are eternal and uncaused. Dr. Muir, however, refers to the commentators on the Rig- Veda who explain asat as meaning " an undeveloped state," -

138 HINDU PHILOSOPHY,

and adds that if we accept this statement there will be no cont tradiction. Asat does not mean simply an undeveloped state, but the state of pure or formless existence of the primal sub- stance from which all forms have sprung. It is clear, however, that if asat means an undeveloped state, then sat must mean, not the essence of anything, but a developed state, the develop- ment of the existing world, as Kapila uses it The writer of the Vedic hymn (R-V: x. 57) meant to say that Agni was asat) but became sat in the birth (janman) of Daksha and in the womb of Aditi. It is clear, also, that Kapila, in this part of his system, incorporated an older theory, in which asat denoted at least the undeveloped state from which existing things have been developed. Sat was the whole of existent things. In Rig-Veda, i. 96, 7, Agni is called satas gopa, the guardian of that which has a present being. There is also the germ of another part of his system in a hymn of this Veda (x, 129): " There was then neither asat nor sat" There was only the one Supreme Spirit dwelling in self-existence. " Desire, then, in the beginning (agrl) arose in It, which was the earliest germ of mind, and wise men have beheld in their heart, not being ignorant, that this is the bond between asat and sat" In the system of Kapila it is an unconscious impulse on the part of Prakriti, or instinctive desire to set the soul free from matter which causes the emanation of Prakriti into the manifold forms of developed life (sat). This ·latter was, in Kapila's view, an effect, because developed, and implying therefore a developing cause.

NOTES. *39

NOTE C ..

ON THE CONNECTION OF THE SANKHYA SYSTEM WITH THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA.

The teaching of Spinoza has been unjustly described as a pure Atheism or as a system based on Materialism. This error has apparently arisen from his use of the word " sub- stantia," which he is supposed to use to denote mere matter or gross body, in opposition to mind or spirit. He uses it, however, to denote absolute or infinite Being with infinite attributes, manifesting itself by modes or accidents (affec- tiones) in the manifold forms, of the universe, and to this absolute substance or Being he gives the name of God. . TQ God he sometimes gives the name of Nature, as Kapila called his primal substance Prakriti. "Infinitum ens, quod Deum sive naturam, appellamus, eadem, qua existit, necessitate agit" (Eth. iv.). But he made a distinction between God as the source of formal existence and these existences themselves, calling the one Natura naturans and the other Natura, naturata. God is the cause of all things, not of their existence merely, but of their essence, and this not transiently but immanently. God is the only substance, whether as Natura naturans or Natura naturata .. Whatever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be conceived, for as the Infinite Substance he is the source of all things, and they are contained in Him. Thus, as others who have attempted to solve the mysterious : problem of the relation of the Infinite to the Finite, he forms only a kind of Pantheism. It has been said that" Spinoza does not confound God with the material universe," but this is, in his system, a part of God ; " Natura naturans et natura naturata in identitate Deus est" God has, indeed, two attri- butes, thought and expansion, " Cogitatio attributum Dei est, sive Deus est res cogitans. Extensio attributum Dei est, .

140 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

sive Deus est res extensa " (Eth. 2). But here are not two distinct entities. God .is the All. Extension is visible thought and thought is invisible extension, but He is the living whole. "Res particulars nihil sunt nisi Dei attri- butorum affectiones, sive modi, quibus Dei attributa certo et de terminate modo exprimuntur'" (Eth. i.). God, however, is not corporeal. The universe is only a manifestation of his being. Body is only a mode of his attribute of extension, a passing form of his existence. All formal existence changes and dies ; it is.but a visible aspect of him who is unchange- able and eternal. He, the Infinite, exists in himself, and that which is finite exists in another, and cannot therefore be a representation of his nature. As Cousin has interpreted thes idea: .the universe is "the Deity passing into activity, but not exhausted by the act" (Cours de Phil. Intro.). In his psychology Spinoza taught that the mind does not know itself, except so far as it receives ideas of sensation by the bodily organs; but these perceptions, which are primarily confused, become clear by the action of the mind in internal reflection. It is not, however, free in its action. It is determined by a cause, which is itself determined ad infinitum by some other cause. All things issue and are carried on by an eternal necessity. Even God does not act for some volun- tary purpose, for this would indicate desire .. He acts only from the necessity of his nature. ' As there is no free will and no really free action, for man is but a part of the general order whose laws.cannot be disturbed, there is no absolute goodness'or its opposite, and men have invented the names of goodness or virtue to denote such actions as tend to their. benefit. God is really the cause of all things, even, of our thoughts; of the latter by his attribute of thought, and" of outward actions by his attribute of extension. Men, attribute their actions to the determination of the mind; hot knowing, in their ignorance, that the mind cannot think till it :is

NOTES. 141

impelled by the bodily organs, and our volitions are only our appetites which are connected with the body. Spinoza taught that truth, i.e., the just correlation of idea and fact, might be obtained. Ideas are obtained (1.) by the action of the bodily senses; (2.) in their generic form by imagination, i.e., the remembrance of sensational ideas, which are classified by words; (3.) by the logical faculty or reason; and (4.) by intuition, as Schelling afterwards taught, Error arises from the confused and imperfect results of the first source of knowledge. There is no faculty of thought or of desire, as distinguished from the act, and both mind and body "are but one thing considered under different attributes." There is ultimately an identity, as in the system of Hegel, of subject and object, and this oneness is in God, . It is not made evident how Spinoza reconciled the apparently opposite ideas of the spirituality of the Divine nature and the real existence of material forms. . If the latter are only his visible aspect, a realisation of himself in the material world, and particular things are only modes of his attribute of extension, we have a near approach to the Vedantist doctriné of māya (illusion); which represents the whole of formal, material existence' to be :only an illusive manifestation of the One Supreme Spirit, who is himself the All; 4 It will be unnecessary to say to those who have read the "Sankhya Karikā" that the system of Kapila is not the same as that of Spinoza; but the latter, as an exposition of God and Nature, lias.a close resemblance to the theistic form of the Sankhya as set forth by Patanjali, and especially to this, form of "it as represented in the "Bhagavad Gita .. " In that .work the ; One .Supreme Being has .a dual nature, a higher which is apiritualj and; a lower which answers to the Prakriti of Kapila, and corresponds to the. attributes of God-thought and expansion-r-rin the .. system .of Spinoza. The world of existing. things is. a manifestation of the Supreme Spirit in

W HINDU . PHILOSOPHY.

this lower attribute, coming forth at the will of the spiritual nature and again at the end of an age called a kaipa, dissolving into his all-containing self. All individual or formal existence is but the modål form in which the one spiritual essence makes itself manifest. A1l things issue from this source and are con- tained in it As the ether pervades and encompasses all things, so the One pervades and encompasses all. Spinoza might have employed the language of the " Bhagavad Gita," and the author of this work might have taught, in the words of Spinoza, " Deum esse noti tantum causam, ut res incipiant existere, sed etiam, ut in existendo perseverent; sive (ut termino scholas- tico utar), Deum esse causam essendi rerum " (Eth. i.). Both taught that the universe was an evolution, but not such an evolution as Darwin has endeavoured to prove-from the lowest point of being to its highest state-but from the one highest or sole being to its lowest depths, there being a gradation from buddhi (intellect) down to inanimate matter. The one, in this gradation, ends where 'the other begins. The Hindu and the German philosopher moved, in other respects, in 'precisely the same lines of thought Both taught that the mind or the soul knows itself only by the action of the ideas of sensation or sense-perceptions that originate in the bodily organs. There is no absolute self-consciousness. In' another conclusion the two systems agree. The fatalism which Spinoza asserted, though supported by & more im- posing array of argument and more absolute in its kind, is maintained by his Hindu predecessor. According to the latter, the universe is only a. vast machine, which is caused to revolve by. the action of the One Being, in whom all existence is contained. All things are but the agents of his power; and though virtue and vice have an essential difference. from each other, yet a fatal. necessity destroys, in fact; the barriers that, in the conscience of mankind, are placed between good and evil. Conscience has no part in

NOTES. 143

èither system. Man seeks only his own advantage, though in the system of Patanjali the highest good is obtained by an absorption into the divine essence by yoga (lit. union), the blending of the human with the divine, even in this life, by the force of constant meditation. The Deity has no concern with human actions, whether good or bad. The perfect man has no sympathy with his fellows. He lives in a state of complete isolation, in which all necessity for action 'and all sense of duty are entirely lost. The system of Spinoza leads to the same selfish exclusiveness; for if men ought to seek only what is profitable or agreeable to them, or rather, must do so from the very necessity of their nature, there is no possibility of self-sacrifice or the abandonment of a per- sonal gain for the benefit of others, either in their personal or national capacity. There is virtually no law, or no law but that of an unchangeable necessity, and all rightfulness and the sense of right or wrong are absolutely destroyed.

NOTE D.

ON THE CONNECTION OF THE SYSTEM OF KAPILA WITH THAT OF SCHOPENHAUER AND VON HARTMANN.

The philosophical system of Spinoza has many points in common with the theory of Patanjali, but the teaching of Kapila is more closely allied with the latest philosophy of Germany, as set forth by Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, in "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" ("The World as Will and Idea") of the first, and the " Philosophie des -Unbe- wussten" ("Philosophy of the Unconscious") of the latter] If we leave out of view Hartmanu's poetical illustrations of his subject, by which he gives an unnatural brightness to à gloomy system, we shall find only a " philosophy of despair," an inarticulate cry, a wail of lamentation in which there is

144 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

no hope. There is absolutely none for man in his present conscious life. Its pleasures are chiefly a mere absence of pain, and pain meets us at every step. : Riches bring with them many cares, together with much toil; and labour-a thoroughly Hindu sentiment-is itself an evil. Love- brings upon us embarrassments and disappointment; it requires immense sacrifices; it causes more pain than pleasure; it is an " evil," or at best an " illusion/' Nor can sympathy, as some falsely suppose, bring pleasure to the man who offers it: it is only another form of pain., Ambition is a mere delusion, a vain striving-which is itself an evil- for that which will only mock us if attained, and cause bitter sorrow if, as the course of affairs usually runs, we are left to pine in solitude for the unattained object of our dréams, The.pleasures of science and.art are rarely obtained, and if they are won, they are only, gained by much toil anc. continual sacrifice. The end, if gained, is not a compensation for the substantial evils of the method of our success; and our intellectual elevation makes us only more sensitive of pain. A dog or an ox is happier, or rather less miserable, than man, for it has a lower sensibility in proportion as it has a duller intellect. Hope, indeed, remains, and might give a real enjoyment, but we have learned by. experience that. our hopes are deceptive: they-only make our miserable state more sad and despairing from the false light which they throw around us for a while, leaving us, in their departure, immersed in a deeper darkness and at a lower depth, "Human Iife," says Schopenhauer, " oscillates be- tween pain, and ennui, which two states are indeed the ultimate elements of life." Hartmann says of love that "the sorrow of disappointment and the bitterness of betrayal continue infinitely longer than the happiness ,of the illusion," Kapila. taught, also, that our present life is occupied and

· MOTES. 145

made miserable by pain, which comes upon mankind from three different sources. In the Sutras attributed to him it is declared that "the complete destruction of pain is the highest object of man" (i. i). Pain is, therefore, the chief . evil, if not, as Jeremy Bentham maintained, the only evil in the world, and the sole purpose of the wise is to learn how it may be put away for ever. Virtue and vice are determined only by the tendency of actions to produce pleasure or pain. There is no absolute or moral difference ; in fact, morality may be discarded from our thoughts : the soul, in the system of Kapila-for he believed in the existence of souls-having no direct connection with virtue or vice, which are only material conditions. To strive for inward purity, or to contend for a noble purpose in our own lives or for the benefit of others, was not indeed to him, as to some modern philosophers, a work of folly or delusion, but it was not held to be man's highest or most necessary pur- pose .. This is found only in the attainment of the knowledge by which the soul may be freed from all contact with matter, that by such means pain may be destroyed. There is no greatness in the suffering of pain, no moral elevation m sharing the pains or the sorrows of others. Philosophy began, as it ends, by seeking only to obtain a painless, un- troubled life. If now the question be put, How was this state of misery produced ? the answer in the two systems is substantially the same. The nature of the kosmos is explained in different terms, but in each the sum of existent things has been developed from a primary unconscious substance or force, which Schopenhauer describes as Will, of which the world is an objective manifestation, and which Hartmann calls "the Unconscious." This is the all-containing principal or primal source of all formal existence, the of the Greeks. "The Unconscious is the ultimate principle of all existence ; it enters K

146 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

into all organic forces, into all our bodily movements and our mental processes; it guides man through all the stages of his life, and without man's knowledge it directs his steps so as to realise its plans; it lies at the root and forms the essence of both matter and spirit; they are therefore identical, and only different aspects of the self-same substance."1 If we substitute mind as the formative power or faculty of ideas for spirit, this would serve for a description of the Prakriti of Kapila. This is the universal primordial monad, from which have emanated all the different states of mind and matter. It enfolds and animates all things, and all things will be finally absorbed and lost in it. In its primary state it was in a con- dition of equilibrium, and there was no development of formal existence while it continued in that state. How then was this passive state brought to an end and the beginning of the existing kosmos produced 1 The answer of Kapila is that the proximity of Prakriti (Nature) to Soul gave rise to an un- conscious movement of Nature's constitutent elements, that by their consequent unfolding into the forms of material life the Soul might know the existence of matter and be sub- sequently free from all contact with it. The Soul thus knows itself and gains its natural state of isolation. Ali existing things have been formed for this purpose. So says Hegel: "Everything in heaven and earth aims only at this-that the soul may know itself, may make itself its object, and close together with itself." The doctrine of Schopenhauer is that everything, physical or mental, is an emanation of that mysterious force called Will, which has thus changed itself from subject to object, and that this includes all things and all beings, so that the idea of self or individuality is an illusion. Hartmann represents the Unconscious as the unity of Will and Idea, the latter being the object which the Will unconsciously

1 See an able article on the " Philosophy of Pessimism " in the " West- minster Review," January 1876.

NOTES. 147

seeks to realise. The Idea has no separate existence per se, and here we come very near the Vedantist doctrine of mayd (illusion). Schopenhauer, however, says that " absence of end belongs to the nature of Will per se, which is an endless striv- ing " (Die Welt als Wille, &c.). From neither do we learn how the world of existent things came to be developed from this unknown power called Will, but the German philosophers agree with Kapila in maintaining that the primary essence or substance was unconscious, and that the conscious life has been developed from it. Hartmann speaks of the Unconscious as being properly that which is above consciousness (das Ueberbe- wusste), and that an individual consciousness is a limitation and defect. Its birth is explained in language which is pro- bably as strange as any that the science of mental physiology has ever known : "Before the rise of consciousness, mind can, in its own nature, have no other presentations and ideas than those which are called into being through Will and form its content. Suddenly organised matter breaks in upon this peace of the Unconscious with itself"-as in the system of Kapila the external world is presented to the soul by Buddhi (Intellect)-" and impresses on the astonished individual mind, in the necessary reaction of the sensation, a conception which falls upon it as it were from heaven, because it finds within itself no Will for this idea; for the first time the content of intuition is given it from outside" (Phil. d. Unb., p. 394). Consciousness is, therefore, the surprise of the unconscious Will in an individual mind at the presence of an idea which the senses present. Kapila has not ventured upon such flights of fancy, but he preceded Schopenhauer and Hartmann in asserting that the misery of our present state is due to the fact of our conscious life, for this has arisen from material developments which cause pain, and this can be put away only when consciousness has ceased to exist. When the soul has gained a complete

148 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

isolation, then all conscious life is absorbed into the un- conscious Prakriti. Freedom from pain can only be obtained by the destruction of this conscious life, and the aim of the wise is to obtain by knowledge the primitive state of unconsciousness. Schopenhauer and Hartmann teach the same doctrine. There is no remedy for the misery of the world in anything that belongs to our present life. It has its root in consciousness, which is found in every kind of formal existence, even the lowest, but has its highest development in man, and hence he is supremely wretched. But the remedy for the evil is not suicide : this affects only the individual; it cannot benefit the race. " The basis of all man's being is want, defect, and pain. Since he is the most complete ob- jective form of will, he is by that same fact the most defective of all beings. His life is only a continual struggle for exist- ence, with the certainty of being beaten " (Die Welt als Wille). How, then, is the world to be delivered from this state of wretchedness? The answer is : (i.) By a knowledge of the fact that the world in its present form is wholly and un- * alterably bad. This answers to Kapila's statement that our deliverance from pain can only be gained by knowledge. (2.) By the abandonment of desire, the renunciation of will, the absolute surrender of personal existence, that all things may be absorbed into the unconscious. Thus the whole of present formal existence will pass away for ever. The world, as it now is, was an irrational development of will. "As man becomes penetrated with the idea of the misery of existence, and the feeling gains strength through heredity; as people become more capable of co-operation, the greater portion of the active spirit in the world will adopt the resolution to destroy the act of will, and the world will have vanished into nothingness. The unconscious will return to that passive state of pure self-satisfied intelligence from which it never should have passed ; and the possibility of another world,

NOT&S. 149

with all the miseries of this, will be for ever exhausted and exterminated" (West. Rev., p. 159). In the system of Kapila this state of unconsciousness, of calm and eternal repose, is gained by the soul when absolutely freed from contact with matter, and the whole of formal or developed existence will be absorbed into the formless, unconscious Prakriti. Hartmann, too, asserts a true Nirvana, the extinction of all conscious personal life as the final goal which the wise will seek to obtain. The Hindu and the German philosopher alike maintain that there is no hope for the world by any process of amendment. The labours of statesmen and philan- thropists are in vain. The only sufficient and abiding cure of its woes is the annihilation of all individual life. The last act of the great drama, which we are to expect eagerly, ends in the universal destruction of the present order, and the world, with all its miseries, will pass away for ever. The German philosopher has a more Vedantist leaning than Kapila. The unconscious that will reabsorb all existence in itself bears a close resemblance to the supreme Brahma, who is the efficient and material cause of all created things, or rather they are, as the Vedäntists say, himself in certain deceptive forms, which shall finally disappear, and all life, as at the beginning, shall be absorbed and contained in him. M. Renan anticipates a similar result as the conclusion of the existing world. " We imagine a state of the world in which everything would end alike in a single conscious centre in which the universe would be reduced to a single existence, in which the idea of a per- sonal monotheism would be a truth. A Being omniscient and omnipotent might be the last term of the deific evolution, whether we conceive him as rejoicing in all (all also rejoicing in him), according to the dream of the Christian mysticism, or as an individuality attaining to a supreme force, or as the resultant of tens of thousands of beings, as the harmony, the total voice of the universe. The universe would be thus

150 HINDU PHILOSOPHY.

consummated in a single organised being, in whose infinitude would be resumed millions of millions of lives, past and pre- sent, at the same time." This sole Being is further described in language which, from its united grandeur and grotesqueness, might have been written in the East, and will remind the Sanskrit scholar of the description of the Supreme Being in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita : " Only a small part of matter is now organised, and that which is organised is organised feebly; but we may admit an age in which all matter may be organised, in which thousands of suns joined together would serve to form a single being, sen- tient, rejoicing, absorbing by his burning throat a river of pleasure which would flow from him in a torrent of life. This living universe would present the two poles which every ner- vous mass presents, the pole which feels and the pole which enjoys. Now, the universe thinks and rejoices by millions of individuals. One day a colossal mouth would give a sense of the infinite (savourerait Vinfini), an ocean of intoxicating delight (un ocean d'ivresse) would flow into it; an inexhaustible emission of life, knowing neither repose nor fatigue, would spring up throughout eternity. To coagulate this divine mass the earth will probably have been taken and spoiled as a clod that one crushes without care of the ant or the worm which conceals itself there."1 Is this philosophy or a dream ? Kapila and Hartmann had substantially the same theory, but the exercise of their imagination was less bold and vivid than that of the Frenchman. But, however expressed, whether in the obscure brevity of IsVara Krishna, or in the subtle but flowing arguments and illustrations of Hartmann, or the im- aginative flights of Kenan, the theory is substantially the same. All existent things have issued from the One; this emanation into separate and conscious forms of being has been the cause of unnumbered woes; and this state of misery can 1 Dialogues Philosophiques, trois. dial. (Reves), pp. 125-128.

NOTES. 151

only be put away by the absorption of all personal, conscious life in its primal source. The oldest and the latest system of philosophy, though severed in time by more than two thou- sand years, speak with the same voice; but they give no hope to man, for his highest ambition or his only refuge from misery lies in his personality being destroyed for ever.

THE END.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE. HANSON AND CO- EDINBURGH AND LONDON.