Sankhya

“ Carried to its legitimate consequences, a wise scepticism might have contributed to the lasting benefit of Hindu progress. And yet the Sánkhya is as great a mass of errors as any other branch of Hindu philosophy—even inferior, perhaps, to the Nyáya and Vaiseshika in intrinsic worth. This was the result of its uniform display of a tendency to support the authority of the Vedas. God himself could be denied, but not the authority of the Vedas. There is every reason to believe that this veneration for the Vedas was by no means a very sincere feeling with the sceptical philosopher ”

“ If all the people in the world were to die, and there were no more human beings, and no animals with powers of perception and intelligence, all these manifestations would disappear. But these European philosophers do not know the psychology of it, although they know the principle; modern philosophy has got only a glimpse of it. This becomes easy of understanding when looked at from the Sankhya point of view. According to Sankhya, it is impossible for anything to be, which has not as its material, some portion of my mind. ”

“ According to the Sankhya this intelligence and will are entirely a part of the mechanical energy of Nature and are not properties of the soul ; they are the principle of Buddhi, one of the twenty-four tattwas, the twenty-four cosmic principles. Prakriti in the evolution of the world bases herself with her three gunas in her as the original substance of things, unmanifest, inconscient, out of which are evolved successively five elemental conditions of energy or matter—for Matter and Force are the same in the Sankhya philosophy. ”

“ It is the worship of one god, either Siva or Vishnu, but a monotheism adorned with a luxuriant mythology and delighting in the manifold shapes which the one deity assumes. It freely used the terminology of the Sânkhya but the first place in philosophy belonged to the severe pantheism of Śankara which, in contrast to this riotous exuberance of legend and sculpture, sees the highest truth in one Being to whom no epithets can be applied. ”

“ Men of great wisdom have thus expounded the Sankhya philosophy of Emancipation. When reasons are thus balanced on both sides, those that are assigned on that side which one is otherwise inclined to adopt as one's own, should be accepted. Indeed, those words that are said on that side should be regarded as beneficial. Good men may be found on both sides. Persons like thee may adopt either opinion. The evidences of Yoga are addressed to the direct ken of the senses; those of Sankhya are based on the scriptures. Both systems of philosophy are approved by me, O Yudhishthira. ”

“ It would seem that the existence of one Purusha and one Prakriti should be sufficient to account for the creation and procession of the universe. But the Sankhya was bound to evolve pluralism by its rigidly analytical observation of the principles of things. First, actually, we find that there are many conscious beings in the world and each regards the same world i his own way and has his independent experience of its subjective and objective things, his separate dealings with the same perceptive and reactive processes. ”

“ Au fond, son principe est celui du Sânkhya: seulement, il l’applique en grand. — C’est la science qui délivre l’homme: et le Bouddha ajoute — Pour que l’homme soit délivré à jamais, il faut qu’il arrive au Nirvâna, c’est à dire, qu’il soit absolument anéanti. ”

“ The most abstruse problems of matter and spirit, of creation and future existence, were considered by the Sankhya Philosophy, not as by the Upanishads in guesses and speculations, but with the strictest method and most relentless logic. ”

“ The purity of the Sānkhya notions are, however, everywhere in the Purāṇas obscured by Vedānta doctrines, especially that of cosmical illusion. A peculiarity of the Purāṇic Sānkhya is the conception of Spirit or Purusha as the male, and Matter or Prakṛiti as the female, principle in creation.
On the Sānkhya system are based the two philosophical religions of Buddhism and Jainism in all their main outlines. Their fundamental doctrine is that life is nothing but suffering. The cause of suffering is the desire, based on ignorance, to live and enjoy the world. ”

“ The sense seems to be that by practising the Sankhya doctrine men cease to have any regard for even their gross bodies. They succeed in realising their existence as independent of all earthly or heavenly objects. What is meant by the Sun bearing them in his rays and conveying to them all things from every part of the universe is that these men acquire great puissance. This is not the puissance of Yoga but of knowledge. Everything being regarded as unsubstantial and transitory, the position of Indra himself, or of Brahman, is looked upon as desirable and unworthy of acquisition. ”

“ Coming to later centuries, we find indications that the Neo-Platonist philosophy may have been influenced by the Sānkhya system, which flourished in the first centuries of our era, and could easily have become known at Alexandria owing to the lively intercourse between that city and India at the time. ”

“ These systems are considered as orthodox inasmuch as they recognize the Veda as the revealed source of religious belief, and never fail to claim the authority of the ancient seers for their own teachings, even though—as in the case of Kapila, the founder of the materialistic Sānkhya system—they involve the denial of so essential a dogmatic point as the existence of a personal creator of the world. ”

“ At the same time this eternal being is conceived as the all-embracing world-soul from which emanates the hierarchy of individual souls. In the later system of emanation of Sankhya there is a more marked approach to a materialistic doctrine of evolution. If, we are told, we follow the chain of causes far enough back we reach unlimited eternal creative nature or matter. Out of this “principal thing” or “original nature” all material and spiritual existence issues, and into it will return. Yet this primordial creative nature is endowed with volition with regard to its own development. ”

“ Such a ruler is inconceivable, for if he governs the world according to the action of Karma his existence is superfluous, and if he is affected by selfish motives or desire, then he cannot be free. It is true that these passages speak of there being no proof of God's existence and hence commentators both Indian and European who shrink from atheism represent the Sâṅkhya as suspending judgment. ”

“ Even his giving of consent is passive and his withdrawing of consent is only another passivity. All action subjective or objective is foreign to the Soul; it has neither an active will nor an active intelligence. It cannot therefore be the sole cause of the cosmos and the affirmation of a second cause becomes necessary. Not Soul alone by its nature of conscious knowledge, will and delight is the cause of the universe, but Soul and Nature are the dual cause, a passive Consciousness and an active Energy. So the Sankhya explains the existence of the cosmos. ”

“ In answering the first question, the Vedanta, or Mimansa doctrine, proceeds from a single eternal and uncreated Principle; declaring that there is only ONE being in the universe, God or Brahm, and that all else is Maya, or illusion. The Sankhya accepts TWO eternal and uncreated substances, Soul and Nature. The Nyaya assumes THREE eternal and uncreated substances,—Atoms, Souls, and God.
The solution of the second problem is the same in all three systems. It is by knowledge that the soul is emancipated from body or matter or nature. Worship is inadequate, though not to be despised. ”

“ The supposition of immaterial, unlimited, absolutely unalterable being the scholastic ens sine qualitate answers to the descriptions of it much more satisfactorily than the idea of unqualified nothingness does. "Nirwana is real; all else is phenomenal." The Sankhyas, who do not hold to the nonentity nor to the annihilation of the soul, but to its eternal identification with the Infinite One, use nevertheless nearly the same phrases in describing it that the Buddhists do. ”

“ Supervisor and permitter, supporter, enjoyer, the great Lord, and also the supreme Self; thus is styled in this body the supreme Spirit. [10] (23)
य एवं वेत्ति पुरुषं प्रकृतिं च गुणैः सह ।
सर्वथा वर्तमानोऽपि न स भूयोऽभिजायते ॥ २४ ॥ He who thus knoweth Spirit [11] and Matter [10] with its qualities, [12] in whatsoever condition he may be, he shall not be born again. (24)
ध्यानेनात्मनि पश्यन्ति केचिदात्मानमात्मना ।
अन्ये साङ्ख्येन योगेन कर्मयोगेन चापरे ॥ २५ ॥ Some by meditation behold the Self in the self by the Self; others by the Sânkhya Yoga, and others by the Yoga of Action ”

“ All nature, in fact, was vocal of Sanchia by day; and at night, presently, she stole white-footed down the slant rays of the moon and fed his soul upon exhalations of her own. Idle as he might have appeared to one who did not know the man—for beyond the routine of his handiwork he did nothing visible—he was really intensely busy. Out of the stores reaped and garnered in those meditative years was to come the substance of his after-life.
But no man in England may live three years in a grass valley unreported; his fame will spread abroad, scattered as birds sow seeds. ”

“ Its pantheism is of the highest spiritualistic type and is radically opposed to the materialism of the Sankya school. In one school the Divine Being is nothing and materialism has full sway; while in the other Brâhm is everything, and all that appears to men—the phenomenal—is false and illusive.
Again, as to the method of redemption, the Yoga philosophy advocates renunciation, self-effacement, and all the forms of asceticism. On the other hand, the Sankya philosophy inculcates action as the embodiment of the duty of man, through which alone he can attain unto absorption. ”

“ The real presence of Sanchia was always with him, to intensify, accentuate, and make reasonable the perceptions of his quickened senses. Sense blended with sense—as when the sharp fragrance of the thyme which his feet crushed gave him the vision of her immortal beauty, or when, in the rustle of the wind-swept grasses, he had a consciousness of her thrilled heart beating near by. ”

“ To his simple soul a fine day, a fine-fettled river demanded, as of right, a happy mood in man, for whom all things were made. And a fine girl by his side, a good, a brave, a splendid girl—down on her luck—on such a day! What could one do? If, when you began, she choked you off! Wouldn't meet you half-way—bottled it up! And here he was, geared for fishing, and without the heart to wet a line, because of all this misery. Sanchia, sharply in profile to him, from cheek to chin, from shoulder to low breast, all one sinuous, lax, beautiful line, broke in on his rueful meditations. ”

“ Then Sanchia saw Chevenix, and waited for him.
“Philosophy—what?” the cheerful youth hailed them. “Plain living, hard thinking, what? Upon my soul, you are a pair! Now, Miss Sancie, I can expect the truth from you. What's Glyde preaching? Heresy? Schism? Sudden death?”
“He was talking about women,” Sanchia told him.
“Ah,” the youth mused aloud. “He was, was he? Glyde on Woman. He ought to wait for his beard to grow; then you might listen to him.”
Glyde, who was dumb in company, was hacking into the clods, while Chevenix, to whom he was negligible, pursued his own affair. ”

“ Unlimited will be her sufferings during your absence. Leave the garland of shells with me, or you will lose it to your subsequent undoing."
Shankha would not part with it as it was very dear to him as his wife's gift, and the bird, instead of pressing him further, reached the ships, and placing him in one of those, his own ship, left him with the assurance that as soon as he should utter the name "Manik," the bearer of it would appear before him, no matter how far away he might be. The ships were launched the next morning, and prosperous gales drove them onwards. ”

“ Her great eyes loomed in her hot face like beacons. Her colour was high, her lips vivid. She looked as beautiful as an Indian flower. She was fighting for her own like a cat. An absent, shadowy, icily-pure Sanchia could never contend with this quivering reality of scarlet and burning brown; and the man stood disarmed before her, watching her every movement and sensible of every call of her body. ”

“ He had far rather deal mentally with the lovely image of Sanchia, as he saw it, than actually with the breathing, palpitating flesh. To picture her longing, straining, trembling—to keep her always so, always holding out her arms, never obtaining what she sought: his bliss lay in that. He knew himself, after much experience of the sort; he had missed so often by blundering in, that now he dared not risk a wreck. Here at last, he told himself, was perfection: let him look to it that he kept it at its perfect poise. He must poise himself to do that, balance himself upon a knife-edge. ”

“ They were submitted to our inspection and proved highly satisfactory. Sangyea has graying hair, a gray beard, and a patriarchal aspect; he wears [Pg 68] great hoop earrings and a well embroidered ceremonial garment. Santukno, his wife, is charmingly ugly, with a broad and heavy lower face, prominent jaws, and a fine tattooing on face and arms. She is a kind soul and suffers from a curious nervous trouble, which they call imu and which seems somewhat mysterious. Those who are imu are terribly afraid of snakes, and the sight of one, or even mention of one, throws them into a state of rigidity. ”