RECENT PROGRESS OF SANSKRIT STUDIES. . 277 



happiness of paradise itself he considers (as I have ah'eady intimated) as transient, 

 since, however long its duration, it must at last come to an end when the 

 merit by which it has been earned is exhausted. This happiness is also essen- 

 tially unsatisfactory in its nature, as the pleasure with which it is attended 

 (even if unqualified by pain) is in itself inconsistent with the perfect tranquillity 

 of the soul. The gods themselves are regarded as transitorj' beings. Thus it is 

 said, in a verse quoted in a Sankhya treatise : — '• Many thousands of Indras, and 

 of other deities, have passed away in every yuga (or great mundane period), for 

 time is hard to be overcome." 



The object, then, which these systems seek to effect, is to liberate the soul 

 from every variety of embodied condition, whether earthly or celestial, so that 

 it (the soul) may either, according to the Sankhya and Nyaya, regain a state of 

 perfect isolation and tranquillity, or, according to the doctrine of the Vedanta, be 

 reabsorbed in, or rather become again conscious of its oneness with, the Divine 

 Spirit, with which it is in reality identical. The Sankhya, which is ascribed to 

 the sage Kapila as its author, acknowledges two primary principles, matter 

 and spirit, both eternal, and consequently independent of each other. The spirit 

 which it recognises is not, however, one supreme Soul, the existence of which it 

 appears to deny, but a multitude of individual souls, by which the different orders 

 of living beings are animated. Prakriti, or Pradhana (nature, or matter),* the 

 other principle affirmed by this system, is conceived to have originally existed in a 

 rudimentary and imperceptible state, and, although unintelligent, to have become 

 developed without the action of any external force, by a gradual process of spon- 

 taneous self-evolution, into all the actual forms of the phenomenal universe. The 

 French Orientalist Burnouf (Buddhisme Indien, 520), is of opinion that this athe- 

 istic philosophy of Kapila was anterior to the time of 'Sakya Muni (commonly 



* In the text, following the example of Mr Colebrooke and Professor H. H. Wilson, I have 

 spoken of Prakriti as matter (see Colebrooke's Essays, i. 242 ; Wilson's Sankhya Karika, 

 pp. 17 f-, 82 f. ; and also Professor FitzEdward Hall's translation of Pandit Nehemiah Gore's 

 " Rational Refutation of the Hindu Philosophical Systems," pp. 80, 81. But compare the preface 

 to the same work, where the translator says, that if he had " departed from ' nature ' as representing 

 •prakriti, he would hardly have done amiss." "' Originant' might answer, or ' evolvant."') I find, 

 however, that the propriety of rendering prakriti by " matter " is disputed. In a note which he 

 supplied to page 221 of an article on " Indian Literature," which I furnished to the North British 

 Review for May 1856, Professor Eraser thus expresses himself in regard to the principles of the 

 Sankhya philosophy : — " The Sankhya of Kapila is the most independent and comprehensive of 

 all the attempts of the Indian mind to form a cosmological system on grounds of reason. In its fun- 

 damental principles and method, it anticipates (after its own fashion) modern European efforts to 

 bridge the gulf that separates the Absolute from the Relative, by means of the relation of cause 

 and etfect. The Pracriti thus corresponds with Kapila to the ' Absolute' of modern speculation. 

 In his method Spinoza approaches Kapila, but differs somewhat in his results. The Sankhya in 

 many respects resembles the theory of Schelling, and it has some points of analogy with 

 FiCHTE. It has throughout, however, an individuality of its own, which marks its indigenous 

 growth, and forbids us to measure all its doctrines in the forms of European speculation." It is to 

 be remembered, however, that the "Absolute" embraces all being, whilst (as stated in the text) 

 the Sankhya acknowledges a second primary principle, viz., Puritsha, or Spirit, in addition to Prakriti. 



VOL. XXin. PART II. 4 G 



