The Sānkhya Kārikā, with the Bhāshya of Gauḍapāda — trans. H. T. Colebrooke and H. H. Wilson (1837)

PREFACE. xiii

be exempted. Nature is said to labour also for soul's liberation, and to supply the means, in the display which it makes of its products, until soul, fully possessed of their real character and tendency, is represented as casting away all notions of individuality and self, and is no more condemned to bodily incarceration. The work closes with stating that these truths were taught originally by Kariva to Asuri, and by him to Pancuastkna, from whom it descended, through repeated generations of disciples, to Iswara Krisuna, the author of the Karikds. The date of this writer is not known, but Mr. Colebrooke considers GaurarApa, the scholiast on the Kdrikd, to be the same as the preceptor of the celebrated teacher Sankara AcnArya, whom there is reason to place in the eighth century. How long anterior to this the Kdrikds existed in their present form, we have no means of knowing, but they were avowedly subsequent to other standard compositions of the school, and evidently represent doctrines of high antiquity, doctrines exhibiting profound reflection and subtle reasoning; although, like all the efforts of human intellect to penetrate unaided the mysteries of existence, wholly unavailing, and too often ending, as Cicero complains, in doubt and impiety: “Cogimur dissensione sapientum Dominum nostrum ignorare.”

Some excuse is perhaps necessary for having delayed to publish the present work so long after the Committee of the Oriental Translation Fund had sanctioned its publication. The work, as it is now offered to the public, was ready for press in the course of the year following that in which it was undertaken. Being desirous, however, of printing it at Oxford, where the University had liberally resolved to provide its Press with two new founts of Devanagari letters, 1 was under the necessity of awaiting the completion of the types. As soon as one fount was supplied, the text was printed. It was my wish to have employed the other and smaller fount for the citations which accompany my Comment; but that fount being not yet cast, d xiv PREFACE.

I have thought it preferable to incur no further delay. It is scarcely doing justice to types of the size here employed to place them in juxtaposition with characters so much smaller as those of the English alphabet ; but looking at them by themselves, in the pages of the text, I think they will be found to wear a more genuinely Oriental aspect than any that have yet been fabricated in Europe.

Oxrorp,
July 1, 1837.

SANKHYA KARIKA

SANKHYA KARIKA.

IL.

THE inquiry is into the means of precluding the three sorts of pain; for pain is embarrassment: nor is the inquiry superfluous because obvious means of alleviation exist, for absolute and final relief is not thereby accomplished.

BHASHYA.

Salutation to that Karita by whom the Sénkhya philosophy was compassionately imparted, to serve as a boat for the purpose of crossing the ocean of ignorance in which the world was immersed.

I will declare compendiously the doctrine, for the benefit of students ; a short easy work, resting on authority, and establishing certain results.

Three sorts of pain.—The explanation of this Arya stanza is as follows :

The divine Kapiva, the son of Branmd indeed : as it is said,“ Sanaxa, Sananpana, and SanAtana the third ; Asurt, Kapiza, Bornv, and Pay- CHASIKHA: these seven sons of Brahma were termed great sages.” Together with Kapita were born Virtue, Knowledge, Dispassion, and Power: for he being born, and observing the world plunged in profound darkness by the succeeding series of worldly revolutions, was filled with compassion ; and to his kinsman, the Brahman Asuni, he communicated a knowledge of the TWENTY-FIVE PRINCIPLES ; from which knowledge the destruction of pain proceeds. As it is said ; ‘‘ He who knows the twenty- “ five principles, whatever order of life he may have entered, and whether “he wear braided hair, a top-knot only, or be shaven, he is liberated “(from existence): of this there is no doubt.”

The inquiry is in consequence of the embarrassment of the three sorts

B

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