400 Review of " A Lecture on the Sankhya Philosophy" [No. 5. 



First, we find in the Upanishads the seeds of these three systems. 

 The Sankhya and Vedanta are the theoretical expositions of the doc- 

 trine contained in the Upanishads. The Vedanta system, especially, 

 in its essential parts, is already met with in those works, which are 

 only distinguished from the compositions of a later time by a less 

 strict arrangement and method. And already at the time of the com- 

 position of the Upanishads the science of Brahma or the supreme 

 being, had been taught by a succession of teachers ; and although the 

 form in which it was represented, was not that of a regular system, 

 yet all the materials for it were present, and it did not require any- 

 great effort or a further development to give a methodical form to 

 those doctrines. 



These general considerations are confirmed by historical data. In 

 the Mahabharata the Vedanta is mentioned as a distinct system ;* in 

 Manu also a certain doctrine is denoted by this name, and Manu is, 

 in all probability, more ancient than the Buddhist era.f It appears, 

 therefore, right to assume, that the doctrine of Brahma as the abso- 

 lute substance, the source of all creation, was produced previous to 

 Buddha. 



The Sankhya also must have preceded his period. It is evidently 

 the philosophical theory of the author of Manu, as we find therein for 

 instance the name of Avyakta for the creative principle, the name of 

 Mahat (the great one) for its first production (intellect), which terms 

 in this sense are only used by the Sankhya. % 



Further the Sankhya appears to have been the foundation of Bud- 

 dhism by its assuming knowledge alone as the cause of liberation from 

 pain, by its tenet of the three qualities (goodness, passion and darkness) 

 as constituting the real being of nature, and by a resemblance of opinion 

 in many minor points which this is not the place to state. § 



* M. B. xii. 312, IIT. p. 771. This quotation I owe to Lassen, I. A. Vol. I. 

 p. 834. 



f L. I. A. Vol. I. p. 800. " As S'iva is mentioned in the most ancient Buddhist 

 Sutras, but not yet in Manu, where, of the three great gods, Brahma alone is men- 

 tioned, we may assume Manu's Code to have existed in the age before Buddha." 



% Vid. Manu. S. 1st. Adh. 7 and 15. 



§ L. I. A. Vol. I. p. 530. " Buddha's doctrine is an amplification and realization 

 of the Sankhya. Kapila rejected the merit of the pious works prescribed by the 



