Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/235

 VII] lsvarakrrJ;ta's Sii1?Zkhya 21 9 Mahiibhiilj'a of Patafijali the grammarian (147 B.C.)I. The subject of the two passages are the enumeration of reasons which frustrate visual perception. This however is not a doctrine concerned with the strictly technical part of Saq1khya, and it is just possible that the book from which Patafijali quoted the passage, and which was probably paraphrased in the A.rya metre by Isvarakr1).a was not a Saq1khya book at all. But though the subject of the verse is not one of the strictly technical parts of Saq1khya, yet since such an enumeration is not seen in any other system of Indian philosophy, and as it has some special bearing as a safe- guard against certain objections against the Saq1khya doctrine of prakrti, the natural and plausible supposition is that it was the verse of a Saq1khya book which was paraphrased by Isvarakr1).a. The earliest descriptions of a Saq1khya which agrees with Isvarakr1).a's Saq1khya (but with an addition of ISvara) are to be found in Patafijali's Yoga siitras and in the lV[ ahiibhiirata; but we are pretty certain that the Saq1khya of Caraka we have sketched here was known to Patafijali, for in Yoga sii.tra I. 19 a reference is made to a view of Saq1khya similar to this. From the point of view of history of philosophy the Saq1khya of Caraka and Pancasikha is very important; for it shows a transitional stage of thought between the U paniad ideas and the orthodox Saq1khya doctrine as represented by Isvarakr1).a. On the one hand its doctrine that the senses are material, and that effects are produced only as a result of collocations, and that the purua is unconscious, brings it in close relation with Nyaya, and on the other its connections with Buddhism seem to be nearer than the orthodox Saq1khya. We hear of a $atitalztraSi1stra as being one of the oldest Saq1- khya works. This is described in the Ahirbudhllya Sal!z/zita as containing two books of thirty-two and twenty-eight chapters 2. A quotation from Rajaviirttika (a work about which there is no definite information) in Vacaspati Misra's commentary on the Sii1!zkhya kiirika(72) says that it was called the $!itantra because it dealt with the existence of prakrti, its oneness, its difference from puruas, its purposefulness for puruas, the multiplicity of puruas, connection and separation from puruas, the evolution of 1 Pataiijali's Mahiibhii!iiya, IV. I. 3- At;sallnikm'ftidativipmkm'fiit murttyalltam- vyavadhiilliit tamasiivrtatviit i1Zdriyadaurvalyiidatzjwamiidat, etc. (Benares edition.) 2 Ahirbudhnya Sal!,hita, pp. 108, 110.