Indian Antiquary Vol 47

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 109

APRIL, 1918 ]
THE EARLY HISTORY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
105
have evidently to do with the same repudiator of the Revelation as is known to be the founder of this Materialism. And that this Brihaspati was known to be the teacher of gods can be seen from the fact that a School, 12 which was a rival to the Barhaspatyas, that of the Ausanasas, is traced back to Uśanas, i.e., fukra or Kavya Usanas, the teacher of the Asuras. The Bârhaspatyas were not merely a school of philosophy but also a school of Smriti, like the Mânavas, the Pârâsaras and Ausanasas, whom also Kautilya mentions.
We thus understand how he comes to place the Lokâyata in the same line with Sânkhya and Yoga. Because these systems are also considered to be Smritis. Samkara expressly designates them as Smritis in Brahma Sûtra, II. 1, 1-3 and Bâdarâyana was of the same view, as can be seen from the wording of the sûtras, 13 even though he mentions only the Yoga by name. 14 That the old Sankhya had the character of Smriti is seen also from its method of teaching, of which it was so characteristic to expound its principles through similes and parables, that the Sankhya Sutra, which is certainly a pretty modern work, devotes to them the whole of its fourth chapter, the Akhyayikadhyaya. İsvarakṛṣṇa similarly testifies that the Akhyâyikâs were an integral part of the old Sankhya; Kârikâ 72 runs:
saptatyâm kila ye 'rthâs te 'rthâḥ krtsnasya şaṣṭitantrasya | âkhyâyikâvirahitâḥ paravâdavivarjitâ's câpi ||
Sankhya Yoga and Lokayata thus belong to the same stratum of ancient Indian Literature and hence Kautilya could mention them together. We knew, indeed, that Sâikhya and Yoga are two ancient systems-sanâtane dve (matê). The Mahabharata says of them, XII, 349.72 nevertheless the positive testimony of Kautilya is not to be under-estimated. We now know for certain that Sânkhya and Yoga existed at least 300 B.C. and indeed as philosophical systems which were based on logical demonstration (ânviksikî), and not only in the form of intuitive speculation, as the so-called "Epic Sânkhya", which is only a popularized variety of the real Sankhya,15
All the same we cannot assert that the Sankhya and Yoga of Kautilya's time are identical in the details of their teaching with these systems as they are known to us in the Sankhya Kârikâ and the Yoga Sûtra. These are rather the last stages of their development and as there intervened between the beginning and the end of this development from seven to eight centuries, if not more, changes in detail cannot but occur, as indeed we can see from the fact that the teachings characteristic of Sânkhya and Yoga (pratitantrasiddhânta)
12 The notorious Sukrantti, from which once G. Oppert proved that the ancient Indians possessed guns, is certainly a later fabrication.
13 Smṛty anavakasa-dosaprasanga iti cen nå 'nyasmṛty-anavakasa-dosaprasangat (1); itâreshâm câ'nupalabdheḥ (2); etena yogah pratyuktaḥ (3).
14 He did not need to mention the Sankhya as the whole of the first Adhyaya in its polemical part is directed against it. Thibaut explains (SBE., Vol. XXXIV p. XLVI): "It is perhaps not saying too much if we maintain that the entire 1st Adhyâya is due to the wish, on the part of the Sûtrakara, to guard his doctrine against Sankhya attacks." Only on this supposition can the beginning of the 2nd Adhyaya be understood:-in the 1st Adhyaya the attempts of the Sankhyas to interpret individual passages from the Scriptures as a proof of their teachings, were rejected. The first Satra of the 2nd Adhyaya rejects the claim of the Sankhya to be considered authoritative as Smriti, and the 2nd Sûtra says that the rest of its teachings found no support in the Holy Scriptures.
15 Compare W. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India, p. 97 ff.