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36
The Bhāgavata-purāņa
[CH. taijasa-ahamkāra the ten conative and cognitive senses were produced, and manas was produced out of the vaikārika-ahamkāra. The five tanmātras are called the unspecialized modifications (avišeşa), and the senses and the gross elements are regarded as fully specialized modifications (višeșa)".
It will appear from the above and also from what has already been said in the chapter on the Kapila and Patañjala school of Sāmkhya in the first volume of the present work that the system of Sāmkhya had undergone many changes in the hands of various writers at different times. But it is difficult to guess which of these can be genuinely attributed to Kapila. In the absence of any proof to the contrary it may be assumed that the account of Sāmkhya attributed to Kapila in the Bhāgavata may generally be believed to be true. But I'śvarakrsna also gives us an account of what can be called the classical Sāmkhya in his Sāmkhya-kärikā, which he says was first taught by Kapila to Asuri and by him to Pañcaśikha, and that his account of Samkhya was a summary of what was contained in the Şaşți-tantra with the exception of the polemical portions and fables; also that he himself was instructed in the traditional school of Sāmkhya as carried down from Asuri through generations of teachers and pupils. But the Bhāgavata account of Kapila's Sāmkhya materially differs from the Sāmkhya of the Sāmkhyakārikā, for, while the former is definitely theistic, the latter is at least tacitly atheistic, for it is absolutely silent about God; apparently God has no place in this system. But the theistic Sāmkhya as described in the Bhāgavata, which is of course quite different and distinct from the theistic Sāmkhya of Patañjali and Vyāsa-bhāsya, is not an isolated instance which can easily be ignored; for most of the Purāņas which have a Vaişnava tradition behind them generally agree in all essential features with the theistic element of the Kapila Sāmkhya of the Bhāgavata, and some of the important Pañcarātra āgamas also in some ways support it. Thus the Ahirbudhnya-samhitā describes the Sāmkhya system as that which believes the praksti to be the cause of the manifold world and that this prakyti is moved into creative transformations through the
1 Visnu-purāna, I. 2. See also Dr Sir B. N. Seal's interpretation of this passage in P. C. Ray's Hindu Chemistry, Vol. 11, pp. 90-5.
The same verses occur in the Padma-purāņa (Svarga-khanda) regarding the evolution of the Samkhya categories.
