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

‘Succession or tradition of pupils,’ sishyaparampard: each pupil becoming teacher in his turn, as is the case with the Pandits to the present day. It rarely, if ever, happens that any branch of Sanscrit literature is acquired by independent study: every science is studied under some teacher of eminence, who can, not unfrequently, trace his traditionary instruction upwards for several generations. The interval between Pancuasixna and Iswara Keisuna is not particularized, but was probably considerable, as no allusion to the author of the Karikd occurs in the older writings. If his commentator GaurarApa be, as is not unlikely, the preceptor of SaANKARA Acuirya, Iswara Krisuna must date anterior to the eighth century.

LXXII.

Tue subjects which are treated in seventy couplets are those of the whole science, comprising sixty topics, exclusive of illustrative tales, and omitting controversial questions.

COMMENT.

We have here in the text reference to seventy stanzas, as comprising the doctrinal part of the Sankhya. In fact, however, there are but sixtynine, unless the verse containing the notice of Kariva be included in the enumeration; and in that case it might be asked, why should not the next stanza at least, making mention of the reputed author, be also comprehended, when there would be seventy-one verses. The Scholiasts offer no explanation of this difficulty.

The sixty topics alluded to in the text are, according to the Rdja Varttika, as cited by Vacuespati, 1. the existence of soul; 2. the existence of nature; 3. the singleness, 4. the objectiveness, and 5. the subservience, of nature ; and 6. the multifariousness, 7. the distinctness, and 8. the inertness, of soul; 9. the duration of subtile, and 10. that of gross,

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body. These are the ten radical categories. To them are to be added, the five kinds of obstruction, nine of acquiescence, twenty-eight of disability, and eight of perfectness; making altogether sixty. Another enumeration specifies the sixty categories or objects: 1. soul; 2. nature ; 3. intellect ; 4. egotism ; 5—7. the three qualities; 8. the class of the five rudiments; 9. that of the eleven senses or organs; 10. that of the five elements. These are the ten radical paddrthas, or categories. The remaining fifty are the same as those previously enumerated. In consequence of comprehending all these topics, the Kadrikd is a system, a sdstra; not a partial tract or treatise, or prakarana®; although it omits the illustrative anecdotes and controversial arguments. The Kdrika must consequently refer to the collection of Karita‘s aphorisms, called Sdnkhya Pravachana. This work is divided into six chapters, or adhydyas; in the three first of which are contained all the dogmas of the system furnishing the materials of the Adrikd; the fourth chapter is made up of short tales or anecdotes, dkhydyikas, illustrative of the Sankhya tenets ; and the fifth is appropriated to the refutation, paravdda, of the doctrines of different schools. Exclusive of these two subjects, Iswara Kaisuxa professes, therefore, to give the substance of the S. Pravachana, or of the Satras of Kapiza assembled in that collection.

The Akhydyikds are in general very brief and uninteresting. The Sdtras, in fact, supply only a subject for a story, which the Scholiasts may expand much after their own fancies. Thus the Satra, + From instruction in truth, like the king's sont.’ On which Vissana Baixsnu narrates, that ‘there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and growing up to maturity in that state imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. So soul, fromp. 193 the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme*.’

The controversial portion of the original Sitras is as brief as the narrative, and, from the nature of the subject, much more obscure. The