Pancashikha speaks of the ultimate truth as being avyakta (a term applied in all Samkhya literature to prakriti) in the state of purusha (purusavasthamavyaktam). If man is the product of a mere combination of the different elements, then one may assume that all ceases with death.

Caraka in answer to such an objection introduces a discussion, in which he tries to establish the existence of a self as the postulate of all our duties and sense of moral responsibility. The same discussion occurs in Pancashikha also, and the proofs for the existence of the self are also the same. Like Caraka again Pancashikha also says that all consciousness is due to the conditions of the conglomeration of our physical body mind,–and the element of “cetas.” They are mutually independent, and by such independence carry on the process of life and work. None of the phenomena produced by such a conglomeration are self. All our suffering comes in because we think these to be the self. Moksha is realized when we can practise absolute renunciation of these phenomena. The gunas described by Pancashikha are the different kinds of good and bad qualities of the mind as Caraka has it. The state of the conglomeration is spoken of as the kshetra, as Caraka says, and there is no annihilation or eternality; and the last state is described as being like that when all rivers lose themselves in the ocean and it is called alinga (without any characteristic)–a term reserved for prakriti in later Samkhya. This state is attainable by the doctrine of ultimate renunciation which is also called the doctrine of complete destruction (samyagbadha).

Gunaratna (fourteenth century A.D.), a commentator of shaddarshanasamuccaya, mentions two schools of Samkhya, the Maulikya (original) and the Uttara or (later) (1). Of these the doctrine of the Maulikya Samkhya is said to be that which believed that there was a separate pradhana for each atman (maulikyasamkhya hyatmanamatmanam prati prithak pradhanam vadanti). This seems to be a reference to the Samkhya doctrine I have just sketched. I am therefore disposed to think that this represents the earliest systematic doctrine of Samkhya.

In Mahabharata XII. 318 three schools of Samkhya are mentioned, viz. those who admitted twenty-four categories (the school I have sketched above), those who admitted twenty-five (the well-known orthodox Samkhya system) and those who admitted twenty-six categories. This last school admitted a supreme being in addition to purusha and this was the twenty-sixth principle. This agrees with the orthodox Yoga system and the form of Samkhya advocated in the Mahabharata. The schools of Samkhya of twenty-four and twenty-five categories are here denounced as unsatisfactory. Doctrines similar to the school of Samkhya we have sketched above are referred to in some of other chapters of the Mahabharata (XII. 203, 204). The self apart from the body is described as the moon of the new moon day; it is said that as Rahu (the shadow on the sun during an eclipse) cannot be seen apart from the sun, so the self cannot be seen apart from the body. The selfs (sharirinah) are spoken of as manifesting from prakriti.

We do not know anything about Asuri the direct disciple of Kapila (2). But it seems probable that the system of Samkhya we have sketched here which appears in fundamentally the same form in the Mahabharata and has been attributed there to Pancashikha is probably the earliest form of Samkhya available to us in a systematic form. Not only does Gunaratna’s reference to the school of Maulikya Samkhya justify it, but the fact that Caraka (78 A.U.) does not refer to the Samkhya as described by Ishvarakrishna and referred to in other parts of Mahabharata is a definite proof that Ishvarakrishna’s Samkhya is a later modification, which was either non-existent in Caraka’s time or was not regarded as an authoritative old Samkhya view.

Wassilief says quoting Tibetan sources that Vindhyavasin altered the Samkhya according to his own views (3). Takakusu thinks that Vindhyavasin was a title of Ishvarakrishna (4) and Garbe holds that the date of Ishvarakrishna was about 100 A.D. It seems to be a very plausible view that Ishvarakrishna was indebted for his karikas to another work, which was probably written in a style different from what he employs. The seventh verse of his Karika seems to be in purport the same as a passage which is found quoted in the the Mahabhasya of Patanjali the grammarian (147 B.C.) (5).

The subject of the two passages are the enumeration of reasons which frustrate visual perception. This however is not a doctrine concerned with the strictly technical part of Samkhya, and it is just possible that the book from which Patanjali quoted the passage, and which was probably paraphrased in the Arya metre by Ishvarakrishna was not a Samkhya book at all. But though the subject of the verse is not one of the strictly technical parts of Samkhya, yet since such an enumeration is not seen in any other system of Indian philosophy, and as it has some special bearing as a safeguard against certain objections against the Samkhya doctrine of prakriti, the natural and plausible supposition is that it was the verse of a Samkhya book which was paraphrased by Ishvarakrishna.

1: Gunaratna’s Tarkarahasyadipika, p. 99.
2: A verse attributed to Asuri is quoted by Gunaratna (Tarkarahasyadipika, p. 104). The purport of this verse is that when buddhi is transformed in a particular manner, it (purusha) has experience. It is like the reflection of the moon in transparent water.
3: Vassilief’s Buddhismus, p. 240.
4: Takakusu’s “A study of Paramartha’s life of Vasubandhu,” J. R.A.S., 1905. This identification by Takakusu, however, appears to be extremely doubtful, for Gunaratna mentions Ishvarakrishna and Vindhyavasin as two different authorities (Tarkarahasyadipika, pp. 102 and 104). The verse quoted from Vindhyavasin (p. 104) in anushtubh metre cannot be traced as belonging to Ishvarakrishna. It appears that Ishvarakrishna wrote two books; one is the Samkhya karika and another an independent work on Samkhya, a line from which, quoted by Gunaratna, stands as follows:
“Pratiniyatadhyavasayah shrotradisamuttha adhyaksham” (p. 108).
If Vacaspati’s interpretation of the classification of anumana in his Tattvakaumudi be considered to be a correct explanation of Samkhya karika then Ishvarakrishna must be a different person from Vindhyavasin whose views on anumana as referred to in Shlokavarttika, p. 393, are altogether different. But Vacaspati’s own statement in the Tatparyyatika (pp. 109 and 131) shows that his treatment there was not faithful.
5: Patanjali’s Mahabhashya, IV. I. 3. Atisannikarshadativiprakarshat murttyantaravyavadhanat tamasavritatvat indriyadaurvalyadatipramadat, etc. (Benares edition.)

annihilation, atman, existence, gunas, moksha, moral responsibility, purusha, renunciation