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In the second part, the pantheism of the Vedanta is inculcated, and Krishna identifies himself with the universal Spirit and claims adoration as such. In the third part, an effort is made to blend the Sankya and the Vedanta conceptions, an effort which largely permeates the whole book.

The Sankya philosophy here came in conflict with the orthodox doctrine of the Brahmins, and prepared the way for Buddhism. d. Buddhism. Against Brahminism Buddhism arose as a reaction. The tendency of the new doctrine was to break up the system of caste, and free the people from the galling yoke of the Brahminical hierarchy and dogmas.

The three great schools of Brahmanical thought and philosophy the Sankya, the Yoga, and the Vedanta were founded more than twenty-five centuries ago and have wielded resistless power in the shaping of religious thought in India. And perhaps this power was never more manifest than at the present time. But these schools are, in their main issues, mutually antagonistic.

The eternal existence of the soul is posited by every school of Hindu thought. In the Sankya philosophy, the human self, as we have seen, is a separate, uncreated entity; and the teaching of the Divine Lay concerning it is in harmony with this.

These and many other similar expressions represent an evident effort to graft the materialistic conceptions of the Sankya upon the Vedanta, which is in nothing more emphatic than in denying the existence of all that is phenomenal and material.

On the other hand, the Sankya philosophy inculcates action as the embodiment of the duty of man, through which alone he can attain unto absorption. Even to the present time these different schools of thought not only prevail; they have also begotten and are nourishing different schools of religious life and practice which present different ideals and enforce different methods.

When one begins to compare the picture of the Christian Incarnation with that of any and of all those that occupy the Hindu mind, and fill many volumes of Hindu literature, we pass from noon-day light into Egyptian darkness. The doctrine of âtma, or the human self, or soul, is more in accordance with the Sankya than the Vedantic school.

The Sankya philosophy is severely dualistic and even has little use, if indeed it has any place, for the Divine Being. On the other hand, the Vedanta is uncompromisingly monistic. Its pantheism is of the highest spiritualistic type and is radically opposed to the materialism of the Sankya school.

It is foreign to Vedantism, whose God is the Impersonal and the Ineffable One; foreign also to the Sankya school, where God is neither known nor needed. It is essentially a new teaching, and is a peculiar feature of the worship of the incarnations of Vishnu.

For, in those days, the deep spirituality of the Brahman had overflowed its banks and had created a multitudinous pantheon which repelled this man of stern mind. It was to him only a short step from a disbelief in the many gods to a doubt as to the existence of any god. And in this agnosticism he was doubtless aided by his fondness for the Sankya school of thought, which is Indian Agnosticism.