Wilson's preface takes a side against continental colleagues who "speak slightingly of native" commentators. Pandits, he answers, have "the advantage of traditional tuition", instruction handed down from a system's founder, and he will not rate European industry above "the Sanscrit learning of learned Brahmans". The warrant he gives for trusting the scholiasts is the one the Kārikā gives for itself: its closing stanzas trace the doctrine from Kapila through Asuri and Panchasikha by a succession of pupils, and Wilson's comment there adds that every Sanskrit science is still learnt under a teacher. His own Comment is built on that principle, from Vachaspati Misra, Narayana Tirtha and Vijnana Bhikshu, with their words printed beneath. In the same paragraph he admits he met only one Brahman who professed to know this school.
The Sānkhya Kārikā, with the Bhāshya of Gauḍapāda — trans. H. T. Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson (1837)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed (H. T. Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
The scholia which have been used for this purpose are the
* Gymnovphista; sive Indica Philosophia documenta. Vol. I. Iswara Crishow Sankhya-Caricam tenens. Bonne ad Rhenum, 1832.
+ Essais sur la Philosophie des Hindous, traduits de l'Anglais, et augmentés de textes Sanskrits, &c.; par G. Pauthier, Paris, 1833.
PREFACE. vii
Sinkhya Tatwa Kaumudi of Vacursrati Misra, and the Séukhya Chandrikd of NAvayaxa Tirtna. The Sdnkhya Kaumudi of Rama Krisuna has been also consulted, but it is almost word for word the same as the 8, Chandrikd, and is therefore in most instances superfluous. I have occasionally referred to the Sdukhya Stra, a separate tract on the doctrines of this school by Visxana Burxsne; but another work by the same scholiast, the Séukhya Pravachana Bhdshya, acommentary on the Sivtras or aphorisms of Karta, the first teacher of the Sinkhya, according to tradition, has been of particular service, and will be found often cited. Copies of these different commentaries, as well as of the text, exist in the library of the East India Company, and the Sdénkhya Pravachana Bhishya was printed at Serampore in 1821. I have, however, followed a manuscript copy, as I did not obtain a copy of the printed work until my translation was finished.
There was little need of the labour of collation, after the very accurate text of Professor Lassen. I have not failed, however, to compare the reading of the different copies, and have noticed a few of the variations: none of them are of any great importance. Where collation was most wanted, it was unfortunately not practicable. there being but a single copy of the Bhdshya of Gavrarava in my possession. The manuscript was luckily tolerably correct, but it was doubtful in some places, and clearly faulty in others; and I may not have always succeeded in rightly correcting, or in accurately interpreting it. With regard to typographical errors in the present edition of text and comment, I trust they will not be found very inexcusable, especially when it is known that the work was for the greater part necessarily carried on at a distance from me, during my absence in London, and that it is the first publication in Sanscrit printed at the Press of the University of Oxford.
Not having made the Sankhya philosophy a subject of study in India, | have executed my task without the advantage of previous vill PREFACE.
preparation. The subject indeed is but little cultivated by the Pandits, and during the whole of my intercourse with learned natives Tinet with but one Brahman who professed to be acquainted with the writings of this school. Opportunity was wanting to benefit by his instructions, and I cannot therefore venture to claim exemption from those liabilities to error to which the unassisted study of Sanscrit literature in Europe is exposed, especially when directed to topics sufficiently obscure and difficult in themselves, and rendered still more so by the sententions and elliptical style in which they are treated. Itis the fashion with some of the most distinguished Sanscrit scholars on the continent to speak slightingly of native scholiasts and Pandits, but this is the consequence of measuring their merits by a wrong scale, and censuring them for venial inaccuracies which often proceed from too eutire a familiarity with their subject. In all studies which native scholars professedly pursue, they have the advantage of traditional tuition, of a course of instruction, coming down, through successive generations, from the founder of a system, or the author of a book, to the individual who explains the one or illustrates the other, and from whose interpretation we may therefore reasonably expect to learn what it was originally meant to teach. There are also in all philosophical works, especially, brief hints and conventional allusions, which without such aid it is not possible to decipher, and for the proper understanding of which a native explanation is indispensable. Without therefore in the least degree undervaluing European industry and ability, I cannot consent to hold in less esteem the attainments of my former masters and friends, the Sanscrit learning of learned Brahmans.