Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 73

INTRODUCTION
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number of devotees professing the Sámkhya faith. Therefore it is not quite accurate to state that Ka pila "Left no traditions and found no school." (David's "Samkhya Karikās.") In Gunaratna's commentary we find the following introductory note to the chapters on Samkhya. "In order to distinguish who the Samkhyas are I mean to describe certain of their characteristic marks and habits of dress. They carry three sticks but some of them carry only one. They all had red-coloured clothes and carried with them deerskins, as their asanas. Whenever they met each other they saluted nomo narayana which would be returned nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. These were called Parivrājakas." From this description we have to admit that at one time there were a large number of s mkhya ascetics in the country, which belied obita dicta of the Orientalists who believe that there were no school of the Samkhyas. Most probably these Parivrajakas were absorbed into the general Hindu fold as was suggested. From the characteristic salutation referred to by Guparatna we can infer that Samkhya Parivrajakas had something to do with the growth of modern Vaişpavism which is a result of several tendencies of Thought.
1. The Upanişadic doctrine of Brahman which is closely allied to the Samkhya doctrine of Puruşa or Ātman. (2) The Vasudeva cult and the traditions which have grown around the Yadava prince Krsoa (3) The traditions associated with the Pre-Ramanuja period represented by the aļvārs of the South. From Tamil literature two things are quite evident. (1) The great aļvārs—the religious devotees of the Dravidian country were worshippers of Nārāyana. (2) The earliest Tamil reference Tolka pyam speaking about the religious faiths. It is impossible for us to say with any. amount of exactitude when the Krşpa cult came to the South. This much we can assert that it must be several centuries before the Christian era much earlier than the introduction of Buddhism. This suggestion is borne out by the fact that some of the founders of Vedic schools Apastamba and Katyayana are spoken of as Dravidian and the Tamil work already referred to also speaks of the prevalent Indra worship in the South. Taking all these facts we have to assign the Aryan migration somewhere about the 7th Century B.C. The migration of Aryans with their characteristic Indra worship must certainly have been associated with the Samkhya school which was mainly opposed to Indra worship and animal sacrifice, that is the two schools of thought must have come down to the south almost simultaneously. Another thing we may notice in this connection is this. The school of revolt against Brahminical ritualism must generally be more liberal in its social aspect. This is clearly borne out in the case of Jaina and Buddhistic schools. The Sámkhya school was evidently at one with these two schools in removing the social barriers against religious devotees. Such an assumption well borne out by sister schools of thought would explain the fact that among the aļvārs of the south we find representatives from among all strata of society irrespec