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778
Presidential Address
Vadānta. Another possible hypothesis, which I put forward somewhat hesitatingly, for explaining the atheistic character of mediaeval Sāmkhya is that the atheistic Sāmkhya was not a descendant of the Sāņkhya of the Svetāsvatara Upanishad, but of one of those systems which have been referred to and rejected in its introductory stanza. "कालः स्वभावी fra faseGT". Similarly, such particular doctrines as those of you and gepfa have undergone evolution in the course of ages. green was originally the thinking substance, and it was therefore absurd to deny that he was essentially qarat. This view is held by Vyāsa, the commentator of Pātanjala Sūtras. But it was felt that this was inconsistent with the transcendental nature of get, the basic doctrine of the Samkhya philosophy, and it was consequently discarded in later times and पुरुष was made mere साक्षी instead of qatar,a view still later rejected or modified by Vijnānabhikshu in the Samkhya-Pravacana-Bhāshya. Similarly, PrakȚti was at first only the power of God from which had emanated the manifold universe like a tree from a seed. Afterwards it came to be regarded as an independent energy which was another name for the potential unmanifested world. Later, the character of this Praksti or Avyakta came to be defined in a way which shows that the problem of philosophy had shifted from cosmogony to psychology and ethics. Praksti comes to be conceived as a complex of F7E, THe and are, the three principles which represent respectively सुख, दुःख and मोह in our life. Here is a unique form of idealism which is not cognitive, or conative, or imaginative, but
