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Updated: June 8, 2025
The Sankhyas blessed with sight of the Soul say that from Consciousness flow the five subtile essences of sound, form, touch, taste, and scent. All these eight they call by the name of Prakriti. The modifications of these eight are sixteen in number. They are the five gross essences of space, light, earth, water, and wind, and the ten senses of action and of knowledge including the mind.
Now, as men having only an imperfect knowledge of the Veda, and moreover naturally slow-minded, can hardly ascertain the sense of the Vedanta-texts without the assistance of such a Smriti, and as to be satisfied with that sense of the Vedanta which discloses itself on a mere superficial study of the text would imply the admission that the whole Sankhya Smriti, although composed by an able and trustworthy person, really is useless; we see ourselves driven to acknowledge that the doctrine of the Vedanta-texts cannot differ from the one established by the Sankhyas.
'inference, in the sense of 'object of inference, or else anumanam, 'object of inference'; what is meant being in both cases the Pradhana inferred to exist by the Sankhyas. On account of the declaration of difference. Up. This, and similar texts, speak of that one, i.e. the one previously described as the abode of heaven, earth, &c., as different from the individual soul.
The Sankhyas further teach that Prakriti, on being seen by any soul in her true nature, at once retires from that soul 'As a dancer having exhibited herself on the stage withdraws from the soul, so Prakriti withdraws from the soul when she has manifested herself to it' ; 'My opinion is that there exists nothing more sensitive than Prakriti, who knowing "I have been seen" does not again show itself to the soul' . But this doctrine also is inappropriate.
Thou wilt also attain to that end which is desirable and which is coveted by both Sankhyas and Yogins!" Having said these words unto me, the divine Surya proceeded to the Asta hills. Hearing his last words, and after he had departed from the spot where I was, I came home in joy and then remembered the goddess Saraswati.
Thinking, with the aid of his penances, of Him who is the supreme Soul and who is immutable and undeteriorating, Tandi became filled with wonder, and said these words, "I seek the protection of Him whom the Sankhyas describe and the Yogins think of as the Supreme, the Foremost, the Purusha, the pervader of all things, and the Master of all existent objects, of him who, the learned say, is the cause of both the creation and the destruction of the universe; of him who is superior to all the celestials, the Asuras, and the Munis, of him who has nothing higher, who is unborn, who is the Lord of all things, who has neither beginning nor end, and who is endued with supreme puissance, who is possessed of the highest felicity, and who is effulgent and sinless."
These two ordain the same practices, and both are regarded as capable of leading to Emancipation. Those men that are not blest with intelligence regard the Sankhya and the Yoga systems to be different from each other. That which the Yogins have in view is the very same which the Sankhyas also have in view.
Now our text does not refer to the Un-evolved as an object of knowledge, and it cannot therefore be the Pradhana assumed by the Sankhyas. Up. Not so, we reply. For it is the latter who forms the general subject-matter, as we infer from two preceding passages, viz.
To this the Sutra replies that from the mention of the number twenty-five supposed to be implied in the expression 'the five five-people, it does not follow that the categories of the Sankhyas are meant. 'On account of the diversity, i.e. on account of the five-people further qualified by the number five being different from the categories of the Sankhyas.
If the text meant the Non-evolved as understood by the Sankhyas it would refer to it as something to be known; for the Sankhyas, who hold the theory of Release resulting from the discriminative knowledge of the Evolved, the Non-evolved, and the soul, admit that all these are objects of knowledge.
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