Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/305



SANKHYA AND YOGA

HT true glory of the Philosophic Period consists in the philosophy of Kapila and the religion of Buddha. Both worked to some extent on the same lines; both began with the great object of affording humanity a relief from the suffering which is the lot of all living beings; both rejected the remedies which the Vedic rites offered; both declared knowledge and meditation to be the means of salvation; both adopted the doctrine of transmigration from the Upanishads; both aimed at Nirvana; and both professed an agnostic creed.

But here the parallel ends. Kapila, who probably lived a century before Buddha, started the system of philosophy, but meant it only as philosophy addressed to high thinkers and speculative scholars, and not to the masses. Buddha, on the other hand, who was probably born in the very town sanctified by the memory of the great philosopher, and was well versed in the philosophy of Kapila, possessed a deep and all-embracing sympathy, a feeling for the poor, a tear for the Rh