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Shinkan Murakami, Sankuya Tetsugaku Kenkyu - Indo Tetsugaku ni okeru Jiga-kan - (A Study of the Samkhya Philosophy - Concepts of the Self and Liberation in Indian Philosophy -). Tokyo, Shunjüsha, 1978. xxii, 794, 23, 144 pp.
Recent studies of classical Samkhya have been greatly facilitated by the publication of the Yuktidipikā (Abbrev. YD), an anonymous commentary on the Samkhyakarika (Abbrev. SK), which has amply provided us with new materials for investigation. It often refers to views maintained by some Samkhya teachers before Isvarakṛṣṇa, and sarcely known from any other commentary. In many places it records at length a controversy between the Samkhyas and their opponents, through which many problems not discussed in other commentaries are clarified. A study of YD by P. Chakravarti, who first edited this newly discovered text, was published in 1951 under the title: Origin and Development of the Samkhya System of Thought (Calcutta Sanskrit Ser., XXX. Reprint: New Delhi 1975). E. Frauwallner derived much benefit from YD when he treated the development of Samkhya thought in his Geschichte der indischen Philosophie, Bd. I (Salzburg 1953). G. Oberhammer identified the śastra, from which some passages are quoted in YD, as the Saṣṭitantra of Varṣaganya.2 The isvara-doctrines referred to in YD were examined by G. Chemparathy.3 A. Wezler directed his attention to the stylistic peculiarities of YD, and set forth the view that YD was a commentary on a Varttika of SK.4 The author of the book under review, viz., S. Murakami, has fully utilized YD along with other sources for the scrutiny of the philosophical thought crystalized in SK.
Murakami's book is a comprehensive study of Samkhya philosophy in the classical period. Instead of giving an all-round treatment of various subjects that are found in this system of philosophy, Murakami takes up the concept of the soul or self (purusa, atman) as the central