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SEPTEMBER, 1908.! THE NARAYANIYA AND THE BHAGAVATAS.
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As Professor Garbe has well remarked,16 in India there has always been manifest a strong tendency to combine religion with philosophy, and this being fostered by the speculative inclinations of the Kshattriya caste, it followed that as time went on, and as interest in philosophical questions spread among the people of India, this monotheism, as expressed in their Bh&gavata Religion, was given a philosophical basis. We have seen that the pantheistic Brabmaism was radically opposed to this monotheistic belief, and the professors of the latter naturally turned to those systems of philosophy which sprang up in the freer atmosphere of the less Brahmanized outer band of nationalities. These were the ancient Sâmkhya system, and its daughter tho Yoga.
Samkhya is a purely atheistical system of dualism. It recognises nothing but countless eternally existing souls (or males, purusha), and matter. It is the oldest pbilosopbical system of India, lo and had arisen in the eastern portion of our outer band where for centuries it had developed unregarded by the Brahmans to its west. It is not till after the time of the Buddha that we see traces of its influence upon Brahmaism.17 Besides that of the Bhagavatas, several other Indian Religions owe their philosophy to Sâmkhya or Yoga : such are the forms of belief founded by the Siva-worshipping Saktas and Påbupatas, 18 not to mention the far more important Buddhism and Jainism.
I bave above referred to the Yöga system of philosophy, as the “daughter" of Samkhya This is true only of the system, not of Yoga itself. According to Sân khya, the soul obtains release from personality and transmigration by contemplation on the nature of the soul and matter. The system does not trouble itself with the ethical side of life. This deficiency was supplied by the Yöga system. As Garbe points out,10 in the Bhagavad Gitd, which is largely influenced by both Sårkhya and Yoga, the word ynga is employed to mean the teaching in regard to duty, while sainkhya is, in contradistinction, used to mean the abstract theory of right knowledge. The conception of Yoga - the abstraction of the thought from the outer world, and the internal concentration of the mind, was very old in India. Originally a belief in the superhuman powers which could be gained by this concentration (a kind of Shamanism ), it became a branch of philosopby when this acquired power was intended to be utilized for the obtainment of the knowledge demanded by Samkhya. The interaction of the two currents of thought was certainly older than Buddhism,20 and, as we have it now, it was systematized in the second centary B. C., long after the rise of Buddhism, by Patanjali. Bat, as a branch of the Samkhya system,- Sân khya-yoga as it is called, it was then no new thing. The Bhagavata scriptures continually refer to Samkhya-yôga, but never to Patañjali. According to them the author of the system was Hiranyagarbha “and no other, "21 The teaching of yôga inculcates morality, a feature which was almost wanting in SÂmkhya; and the strong ethical tendency of the Bhagavata Religion led it to ally itself with the yoga development of Sâmkhya, rather than with the original system of philosophy
16 Bhagavad Gita, P. 28.
16 Hardly, howovor, 30 ancient as the unsystematised Brahmrimm of the older Upanishads ; Garbe, Sarikhya Philosophie, p. 7.
11 Garbe, sarkhya Philosophie, p. 15.
* It is worth noting that in the Narayanfya (19298) the close connexion between the Vaishnava Bhigaratas and the Baiva worshippers is strongly insisted upon. 19 Sankhya Philosophie, p. 44 and elsewhere.
** Soo Seart, Origines Buddhiques, pp. 17 t. ngeNardyantya, 19703. Manu Srdyabhuva was called Hiranyagarbhe, and his daughter, Deyahati, was the mother of Kapila. This tends to show that, traditionally, Yoga was older than Blankthy .
