of the BIHAR AND ORISSA RESEARCH SOCIETY For the year 1923 Patron. His Excellency the Governor of Bihar and Orissa. Vice-Patrons. The Hon'ble Maharajadhiraja Sir Rameshwara Singh, G.C.I.E., K.B.E., of Darbhanga. Maharaja Bahadur Sir Ravaneshwar Prasad Singh, K.C.I.E., of Gidhaur. His Highness Maharaja Bahadur Si Bir Mitrodaya Singh Deo, K.C.I.E., of Sonepur State. The Hon'ble Sir Thomas Frederick Dawson Miller, Kt. K.C. Sir Edward Albert Gait, K.C.S.I., C.I.E., PH.D., I.C.S., (Retd.) I.-Chronology of the Samkhya By Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri, C.I.E. Samkhya is the oldest system of Philosophy in India. I purposely use the word 'System' for there might have been philosophical¡ speculations before Samkhya, as we often find in the Brahmanas, in which term, I include, according to the tradition of the Vedic pandits of India, both the Aranyakas and the Vedic Upanisads. But this is the first system of philosophy. The author Kapila is termed in classical Sanskrit as Adividvän, the first learned man, the first philosopher, i.e. he was the first writer on philosophy after the Vedic Rsis, just as Vālmiki is termed as the Adikavi, the first poet, though there were innumerable poets in the Vedic literature before him. In the Śvetasvatara Upanisad he is called Paramarși. Some scholars think that the Svetasvatara is a work of unknown date and of unknown origin. But this is not the case; it is not one of the non-descript Upanisads which generally go by the name of Atharvana Upanisads (though some think that the Śvetasvatara belongs to the Atharvana Class), it really belongs to the Śvetāśvatara Śākhā of the Yajurveda. Yajur veda has 88 Sakhās of which Svetasvatara is one, and an Upanisad belonging to a Śākhā of Yajurveda cannot be termed as non-descript; and it is not of so uncertain a date as some scholars think. It belongs to the end of the Vedic Age and must therefore be Pre-Buddhistic. The word "Paramarṣi" is also an indication of the antiquity of the author. Latterly there was a hierarchy of Rsis, namely, Ṛsi Maharṣi, Rajarṣi, Devarși, and Bhahmarși. But Paramarsi does not belong to this hierarchy and the term seems to have been used as an epithet of Kapila before the idea of the hierarchy was started; and it is a peculiar word rarely met with in Sanskrit literature except in connexion with Kapila. His followers used to be called "Paramārṣāḥ." There are other reasons to think that the Samkhya belonged to high antiquity, for instance, Kautilya, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, speaks of three systems of philosophy only, Samkhya, Yoga, and Lokāyata. Yoga, as all of us know, depends on the Samkhya System. called "Parivrajakas The followers of Samkhya are (Saddarśana Samuccaya, page 95) and the Parivrājakas belonged to a period of Indian History before Buddha. Buddha's principal disciple, Śariputra, in his early life was the disciple of a Parivrajaka (Mahāvastu Avadana III 59) and the LalitaVistara often mentions (page 3 for instance) the Parivrājakas as coming in contact with Buddha. Patanjali in his Mahābhāṣya mentions the Samkhyas. The Lankavatārasútra, one of the Pre-Mahāyāna sútras of the Buddhists, mentions the Samkhya by name, and Asvaghosa, one of the precursors of Mahāyāna, bases the whole Buddhist system of thought on the influence of the Samkhya. He says that both the teachers to whom Buddha applied for the solution of the problem of life, were followers of Kapila. The first teacher, Aḍāra Kālāma, explained to him the system of Kapila and pointed out to him how the human soul in its upward march can reach Infinity of Space wthout losing Individuality. The second teacher, Uddaka Rāmaputra, ed him still. He contended that if further. But Buddha was not satisfied. Individuality remained, one cannot attain absolute Nirvāṇa. So he studied and meditated for six years under the Bo-tree at Gaya and at last succeeded in destroying Individuality. He came to a state in which there would be no Samjña and no Samjñi. Thus he supplied, as it were, the coping-stone to the arch of the Samkhya system, and brought it to a transcendental height never contemplated by the founder of the system, Kapila himself. It may be argued that this is the idea of Asvaghosa. But Asvaghosa was one of the patriarchs of Buddhism. He was the Guru of Kāṇişka and as such flourished in the first or second century A.D. His opinion on a matter like this carry a good deal of weight. Śankarācāryya in the first pada of the second adhyāya of his Brahmasuttra refutes at length the doctrine of the Samkhyas. He considers them heterodox; but he is obliged to refute them because some great men, such as Manu, accepted them. S Sankarācāryya considered the Samkhyas to be very ancient, flourishing even before Manu. All this is quite enough to establish the high antiquity of the Samkbya system. But this sort of vague idea will not satisfy the students of the present day. They want definite information. and it is definite information that I purpose to give within my limitations, It is a well-known fact that the original sutras of Kapila are lost with their bhāṣyas, commentaries, nay the whole literature based on them. What authentic literature remains, is confined to the seventy Kārikās of Isvarakṛṣṇa, called in the Chinese Tripitaka, the Golden Seventy. The Chinese Tripitaka is mainly, nay exclusively, Buddhistic. But it contains a few important Hindu works too, one of them is the "Golden Seventy." Ganḍapada, the precursor of Sankara, writes a commentary on them, and to these Sankara is indebted for all his ideas and quotations of the Samkhya system of philosophy. Śankara belonged to the early years of the ninth century and Gauḍapada one generation earlier. But what is the age of Isvarakṛṣṇa ? The question has been solved in a Chinese 'work entitled the life of Vasubandhu written by an Indian monk named Paramartha, who migrated to China at the end of the fifth century A.D. and there wrote the book. He informs us that Iévarakṛṣṇa was a contemporary and rival of Vasubandhu, a Buddhist monk born in Peshawar and lived at the city of Oudh. He and his brother Asanga were the two pillars of the Mahāyāna faith in that century. They found a tough antagonist in Isvarakṛṣṇa and it is said that Isvarakṛṣṇa gained a reward of three lakhs of rupees by refuting the Buddhists, from the then reigning king, Bāladitya. So the work, entitled Isvarakṛṣṇa-Karika is the sheet anchor of the chronology of the Samkhya Literature. Isvarakṛṣṇa belonged to the fifth century A.D. and we have to go backwards and forwards ino ur quest of the dates of the Samkhya works. At the end of his work he gives us some information about the previous history of his system. The history is very meagre. But still it is authentic as coming from a man of Isvarakṛṣṇa's stamp. He says this system of philosophy was taught by the. founder, Paramarși to Asuri and he gave it to Pañcasikha who wrote many works. The names of Asuri and Pañcasikha are well known to every Brahmin, who cares to perform his daily ablutions, for he has to pour water every day for the benefit of certain Rṣis and these are,--Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana, Kapila, Āsuri, Boḍhu and Pancasikha. But are they really historical persons ? Sanaka, Sananda and Sanatana are mythical. Are the rest also mythical? The historicity of Kapila is never doubted. He is the founder of the Samkhya system and is called Paramarși. Asuri and Pancasikha are both mentioned in the Mahabharata and in that part of it which is really historical, commencing with such expressions as-- Tatrapyudāharantīmam itihasam purātanam There is a dialogue in the Śantiparvau between Janaka and Pañcasikha. Asuri also is mentioned there. But we have more tangible proofs of their existence as authors, Gunaratna, in his |