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Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion

Article/ by David Reigle, Fohat Magazine, (2000, 2015)

The existence of the once universal Wisdom-Religion was
made known to the modern world by H. P. Blavatsky, who called
its modern form Theosophy. She early on described its original
form as “pre-Vedic Buddhism.”1
Today, no one knows of any
pre-Vedic Buddhism. Buddhism is thought to have originated
with Gautama Buddha around 500 B.C.E., while the Vedas are
much older than that. However, some intriguing indications
have been found for a “pre-canonical Buddhism.” This refers to
Buddhist teachings before their formulation into the known
Buddhist canons. Those who have postulated the existence of
pre-canonical Buddhism do not consider it to be pre-Vedic,
since they still trace it to Gautama Buddha. But Buddhist texts
speak of previous Buddhas, who when not taken as merely
mythological could well have been pre-Vedic. This promising
area of research is being pursued by my colleague Robert
Hūtwohl, and we may expect an article on it from him in due
course. There remains, however, a great question.
The Wisdom-Religion has been described as pre-Vedic
Buddhism. We have earlier reviewed the considerable evidence
linking its present custodians, Blavatsky’s teachers, with Tibetan
Buddhism.2
In other words, from earliest to latest, we find the
Wisdom-Religion aṣociated with Buddhism. Yet its most basic
teaching, presented to us as the first fundamental proposition
of the Secret Doctrine, is not the teaching of any known form
of Buddhism. Speaking generally, Southern Buddhism ignores
any such teaching as that of an “omnipresent, eternal, boundleṣ, and immutable principle,” while Northern Buddhism,
particularly Tibetan Gelugpa Buddhism, specifically refutes it.3
And a teaching this major will be hard to recover from the
fragmentary remains of pre-canonical Buddhism. So we must
ask if there are any other known systems that could poṣibly lay
2 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
claim to being pre-Vedic, and that preserve teachings we could
poṣibly consider as being pre-Vedic Buddhism. The answer is
yes, there are two such. These are the Jaina religion and the
Sāṃkhya philosophy.4
It is to Sāṃkhya that we must turn to find
the primary ramification of the first fundamental proposition of
the Secret Doctrine, namely, the teaching that the universe is
the result not of God or of spirit, but of matter.
“We Believe in Matter Alone”
The first fundamental proposition established by the
Secret Doctrine is “An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundleṣ, and
Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all speculation is impoṣible,
since it transcends the power of human conception.”5
Were we
to stop at this, our difficulties would be minimized, since such a
principle can be found in many of the Indian scriptures. It can
be extracted from the Southern Buddhist Pali canon,6
and can
be found in the Tathāgata-garbha texts of Northern Buddhism.7
But The Secret Doctrine goes on to explain that this one reality
is symbolized under two aspects: absolute abstract space, and
absolute abstract motion. It further describes these two aspects
as pre-cosmic substance and pre-cosmic ideation, the precursors of manifested matter and spirit (or consciousneṣ). We are
cautioned not to regard these as two independent realities, but
as the two facets or aspects of the one reality. Therefore when
the doctrine is later summed up, this omnipresent, eternal,
boundleṣ, and immutable principle, the one reality, is called
“the One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE.” Blavatsky
explains:
It is called “Substance-Principle,” for it becomes “substance” on
the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it
remains a “principle” in the beginningleṣ and endleṣ abstract,
visible and invisible SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains all and everything. . . . It is latent in
every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself.8
Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion 3
Six years earlier, in one of the clearest and most direct
statements we have of the doctrines of the Mahatmas, this was
summarized by Mahatma K.H. as: “we believe in matter alone.”
K.H. was explaining to A. O. Hume in a letter that they do not
believe in God, and here stated what they do believe in.
If people are willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE LIFE
immutable and unconscious in its eternity they may do so and
thus keep to one more gigantic misnomer.9
When we speak of our One Life we also say that it penetrates, nay
is the eṣence of every atom of matter; and that therefore it not
only has correspondence with matter but has all its properties
likewise, etc.—hence is material, is matter itself.
10
Matter we know to be eternal, i.e., having had no beginning
(a) because matter is Nature herself (b) because that which
cannot annihilate itself and is indestructible exists neceṣarily—
and therefore it could not begin to be, nor can it cease to be
(c) because the accumulated experience of countleṣ ages, and
that of exact science show to us matter (or nature) acting by her
own peculiar energy, of which not an atom is ever in an absolute
state of rest, and therefore it must have always existed, i.e., its
materials ever changing form, combinations and properties, but
its principles or elements being absolutely indestructible.11
In other words we believe in MATTER alone, in matter as visible
nature and matter in its invisibility as the invisible omnipresent
omnipotent Proteus with its unceasing motion which is its life,
and which nature draws from herself since she is the great whole
outside of which nothing can exist.12
The existence of matter then is a fact; the existence of motion is
another fact, their self existence and eternity or indestructibility
is a third fact. And the idea of pure spirit as a Being or an Existence—give it whatever name you will—is a chimera, a gigantic
absurdity.13
4 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
An important article by the same author written just
previously and published at that same time, “What Is Matter
and What Is Force?,” concludes with the same idea:
Therefore, whether it is called Force or Matter, it will ever
remain the Omnipresent Proteus of the Universe, the one
element—LIFE—Spirit or Force at its negative, Matter at its positive
pole; the former the MATERIO-SPIRITUAL, the latter, the MATERIOPHYSICAL Universe—Nature, Svabhavat or INDESTRUCTIBLE MATTER.
14
Most people aṣume that it is spirit that generates matter,
not vice versa. A correspondent to The Theosophist magazine,
where the above-quoted article was published, did so in a letter
a few months later. Blavatsky replied:
Nor do we believe that “Spirit breathed out Matter;” but that, on
the contrary, it is Matter which manifests Spirit.
15
In the following months she would return to this topic:
. . . the Arhat esoteric doctrine teaches that (1) “‘Matter and Life
are equally eternal and indestructible,’ for—they are one and
identical; the purely subjective—hence (for physical science)
unprovable and unverifiable—matter becoming the ONE life or
what is generally termed ‘Spirit.’16
And again:
. . . the Eastern Occultists hold that there is but one element in
the universe—infinite, uncreated and indestructible—MATTER;
which element manifests itself in seven states. . . . Spirit is the
highest state of that matter, they say, since that which is neither
matter nor any of its attributes is—NOTHING.
17
By the time she wrote The Secret Doctrine a few years later,
she had come to prefer the term “substance” as being more
accurate and leṣ misleading than “matter.”
Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion 5
In strict accuracy—to avoid confusion and misconception—the
term “Matter” ought to be applied to the aggregate of objects of
poṣible perception, and “Substance” to noumena; . . .18
The Occultists, who do not say—if they would expreṣ themselves correctly—that matter, but only the substance or eṣence of
matter, is indestructible and eternal (i.e., the Root of all,
Mūlaprakṛiti), . . .19
As just seen, she also used the Sanskrit equivalent “mūlaprakṛti,” since this Sāṃkhya term was familiar to many readers,
and was more precise than either “matter” or “substance.” Her
teachers had also used the term “mūlaprakṛti” in their letters:
The One reality is Mulaprakriti (undifferentiated Substance)—
the “Rootleṣ root,” . . .20
So when she gave the first fundamental proposition of the
Secret Doctrine, she explained its aspects using the terms “precosmic substance” and “mūlaprakṛti” rather than “matter.” She
also used the Vedānta term “parabrahman” to refer to the omnipresent, eternal, boundleṣ, and immutable principle as such.21
It is important to keep in mind that these are not two different
things, but that parabrahman only refers to mūlaprakṛti or cosmic
substance in its primary state of abstract potential objectivity.
During the period of Universal Pralaya [the diṣolution of the
universe], Cosmic Ideation is non-existent; and the variously
differentiated states of Cosmic Substance are resolved back
again into the primary state of abstract potential objectivity.22
Thus a casual reader, not knowing this, could easily take
the following paṣage of The Secret Doctrine as teaching that spirit
manifests as matter, which as we have seen above is not the case.
At the commencement of a great Manvantara [manifestation],
Parabrahman manifests as Mūlaprakṛiti and then as the Logos.23
6 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
Blavatsky goes on in the same paṣage to again reiterate that
matter precedes spirit, here termed force, at the same time
pointing out that it is unneceṣary to weave too fine a cobweb of
subtleties when speaking of the order of succeṣion of cosmic
ultimates. This explains why she has not streṣed this point in
The Secret Doctrine, although she had spoken of it earlier.
Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from
Parabrahmic Latency. . . . Force thus is not synchronous with the
first objectivation of Mūlaprakṛiti. But as, apart from it, the latter
is absolutely and necesarily inert—a mere abstraction—it is
unneceṣary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the
order of succeṣion of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force succeeds
Mūlaprakṛiti; but, minus Force, Mūlaprakṛiti is for all practical
intents and purposes non-existent.24
As we have seen, parabrahman is the one substance-principle as
a principle, and mūlaprakṛti is the same substance-principle as
substance.
The first fundamental proposition of the Secret Doctrine,
an omnipresent, eternal, boundleṣ, and immutable principle,
the one reality, and the one homogeneous divine substanceprinciple, remains a principle in beginningleṣ and endleṣ
abstract space, and becomes substance on the plane of the
manifested universe. Thus for us, it is “matter alone.” In the
plain words of a hitherto secret commentary:
It is Substance to OUR spiritual sight. It cannot be called so by
men in their WAKING STATE; therefore they have named it in their
ignorance ‘God-Spirit.’25
The Fundamental Doctrine of Sāṃkhya
This distinctive teaching from the Wisdom-Religion once
called pre-Vedic Buddhism and now called Theosophy, that the
universe is matter alone, is the fundamental doctrine of the
Sāṃkhya system. Of all known systems, only Sāṃkhya teaches
Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion 7
this. It is not taught by any school of Buddhism, nor is it taught
by other Hindu schools. Indeed, all these schools have found in
Sāṃkhya a favored target for their criticisms. Sāṃkhya has been
around for so long that, except the system it is paired with, yoga,
it has been refuted by practically all other Indian systems. For
centuries now it has had no adherents of its own to defend it.
So what is Sāṃkhya? Sāṃkhya is now found in Hinduism as
one of the six darśanas, worldviews, or systems of philosophical
thought. It is studied along with the other five darśanas, but as
just mentioned, for centuries it has had virtually no followers of
its own. However, things were not always this way. It was once
the prevailing worldview throughout ancient India. It is taken
for granted in the epic, Mahābhārata, including the Bhagavadgītā, and in the Purāṇas. It is found in the ancient medical work
of Caraka. It is shown in the Buddha-carita being taught to the
young Gautama in his quest for enlightenment. It is considered
to be the original darśana, and its propounder, the sage Kapila,
to be the first knower (ādi-vidvān). Although it is not normally
considered to be pre-Vedic, its mythological origins could easily
place it there. Indeed, the Yukti-dīpikā Sāṃkhya commentary,
when giving the traditional lineage of the teaching,
boldly declares in this connection that the Śāstra [Sāṃkhya] was
promulgated by Kapila at the beginning (of creation), hence it is
not poṣible like [in] other systems of thought, to enumerate its
lineage of teachers even in [a] hundred years.26
It has become customary to refer to Sāṃkhya as dualism,
since it posits two eternal principles: prakṛti or matter, and
puruṣa or spirit. However, it does not refer to itself as dualism,
nor was it called dualism in the fourteenth-century summary of
various systems, the Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha by Mādhavācārya.
Further, Sāṃkhya scholar Gerald Larson points out that it is
not dualism in any normal sense of the word, since the whole
universe, including intelligence (buddhi), self-consciousneṣ
(ahaṃkāra), and mind (manas), all derive solely from prakṛti or
matter.27 The role of puruṣa or spirit, which he terms pure
contentleṣ consciousneṣ, is mere paṣive presence (sākṣitva),
8 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
since it cannot think or act. Finally, it is well-recognized that we
do not have the Sāṃkhya system in its completeneṣ. Its original
works such as the Íaṣ†itantra are referred to in extant texts, but
are no longer available. Certain of the extant texts attribute to
Sāṃkhya the teaching of brahman, which could refer to the
unity of prakṛti and puruṣa.
28
If Sāṃkhya is indeed a direct teaching from the WisdomReligion, as it appears to be, we know that it cannot ultimately
be dualistic. The oneneṣ of all life is streṣed repeatedly as a
basic Theosophical teaching. The Mahatma K.H. specifically
refers to the unity of matter and spirit, prakṛti and puruṣa:
The conception of matter and spirit as entirely distinct, and both
eternal, could certainly never have entered my head, however
little I may know of them, for it is one of the elementary and
fundamental doctrines of Occultism that the two are one, and
are distinct but in their respective manifestations, and only in
the limited perceptions of the world of senses.29
It is entirely poṣible to write a treatise on Sāṃkhya, which deals
with prakṛti and puruṣa, completely taking for granted the fact
that they are ultimately one, and therefore never mentioning
that fact separately. We would aṣume that this is exactly what
Īśvara-kṛṣṇa did in his Sāṃkhya-kārikā, the basic textbook of the
Sāṃkhya system.30 As stated in Blavatsky’s explanations of the
first fundamental proposition of the Secret Doctrine, once we
paṣ in thought from this absolute principle, duality supervenes
in the contrast of spirit and matter. It is therefore only to be
expected that a system would arise to deal with reality from this
standpoint, just as we have another system to deal with reality
from the standpoint of ultimate unity.31
The Sāṃkhya teaching of puruṣa, or spirit, is of course
analogous to the Theosophical teaching of cosmic ideation, the
other aspect of the one reality. Sāṃkhya posits a plurality of
puruṣas, spirits or souls. However, in a few places puruṣa is said to
be one.32 Modern scholars have considered these to be wrong or
unreliable readings. But The Secret Doctrine explains that spirit is
a compound unity; that is, both one and many:
Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion 9
. . . Īśvara or Logos is Spirit; or, as Occultism explains, it is a
compound unity of manifested living Spirits, the parent-source
and nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial monads, plus
their divine reflection, which emanate from, and return into,
the Logos, each in the culmination of its time.33
This teaching of spirit as both one and many reaches its
logical conclusion in the important doctrine of the WisdomReligion: the teaching of the preservation of individuality even
when merged in unity.
. . . I maintain as an occultist, on the authority of the Secret
Doctrine, that though merged entirely into Parabrahm, man’s
spirit while not individual per se, yet preserves its distinct
individuality in Parinirvana, . . .34
The fundamental doctrine of Sāṃkhya is the universe as
prakṛti or matter. It posits the evolution of the universe from the
principle (tattva) of prakṛti, when in proximity with the inactive
puruṣa or spirit (as if this were mere polarity). Prakṛti then
evolves into twenty-three other principles of matter, together
comprising the universe. This, the system of Kapila, founder of
Sāṃkhya, and the system of Manu, are specifically stated to be
the basis of the Theosophical teachings on evolution:
It has been repeatedly stated that evolution as taught by Manu
and Kapila was the groundwork of the modern teachings [of
Esoteric Buddhism, as opposed to Darwinism], . . .35
Both Occult and Eastern philosophies believe in evolution,
which Manu and Kapila give with far more clearneṣ than any
scientist does at present.36
Although these teachings on matter and on evolution are
not found in Buddhism, there do exist similarities between
Sāṃkhya and Buddhism. In fact, some of these are so marked
that earlier Western scholars long discuṣed the question of
Sāṃkhya influence on Buddhism. For example, the first verse
10 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
of the Sāṃkhya-kārikā states that the reason for undertaking this
inquiry, that is, the rationale of the Sāṃkhya system, is suffering
(du˙kha). This, of course, is the first Noble Truth of Buddhism.
The text also indicates that scriptural means are insufficient to
get rid of suffering, so it proceeds to use reasoning rather than
scriptural authority to determine how to do this. Again, this
emphasis on use of reasoning is a distinctive characteristic of
Buddhism. It has also been noticed that Gautama Buddha’s
birthplace is named Kapila-vastu, the place of Kapila (founder
of Sāṃkhya). More recently, research on Sāṃkhya has moved
away from comparisons with Buddhism. At about the same time
that research on pre-canonical Buddhism began, an important
book on early or pre-claṣical Sāṃkhya was published,37 though
it did not attempt to link Sāṃkhya and Buddhism. Sāṃkhya and
Buddhism as we now know them are thus seen to have both
significant similarities and significant differences.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we do not say that Sāṃkhya is pre-Vedic
Buddhism, but we do say that Sāṃkhya is a major piece of the
ancient Wisdom-Religion now found nowhere else. It is the only
place we find the universe described as matter alone. In accord
with the first fundamental proposition of the Secret Doctrine,
an omnipresent, eternal, boundleṣ, and immutable principle,
the one reality, the one substance-principle, Sāṃkhya teaches
the manifested universe as substance. The only way to get this
teaching in Buddhism is to understand śūnyatā, emptineṣ, as
substance. There is reason for a student of The Secret Doctrine to
do this,38 but we do not expect any Buddhists to accept this.
Even this would still not give us the doctrine of the evolution
of the universe taught in the Wisdom-Religion, and taught in
Sāṃkhya. Only in Sāṃkhya do we find the doctrine of prakṛti,
matter or substance, and its evolution as the universe. So it is
to Sāṃkhya that we must turn to trace this distinctive teaching
of the Wisdom-Religion, the outcome of its first fundamental
proposition.
Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion 11
NOTES
1. Isis Unveiled, by H. P. Blavatsky, 1st ed., 1877; rev. ed. [by Boris de
Zirkoff] (pagination unchanged), Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1972, vol. 2, pp. 123, 169, 639.
2. “Theosophy and Buddhism,” by David Reigle, Fohat, vol. 4, no. 1,
Spring 2000, pp. 14-17, 22-23.
3. There is in Buddhism a famous group of questions pertaining
to teachings such as this, that the Buddha refused to answer. These
begin, as found in the Pali canon: (1) Is the universe eternal, or (2) is
it not eternal? (3) Is the universe finite, or (4) infinite? While a similar
group is also found in Northern Buddhism, it seems that the Southern
Buddhists took them to heart. They frequently cite the story from the
Cūla Māluṅkya Sutta of a person wounded by an arrow, who wanted to
know what kind of arrow it was, where it came from, who shot it, etc.,
before being treated for the wound. For the Tibetan Gelugpa direct
refutation of an absolute principle or eṣence, see by Tsong-kha-pa:
Emptineṣ in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism: Dynamic Responses to
Dzong-ka-ba’s The Eṣence of Eloquence: I, by Jeffrey Hopkins, Berkeley,
Los Angeles, London: University of California Preṣ, 1999;
The Nature of Things: Emptineṣ and Eṣence in the Geluk World, by William
Magee, Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1999.
4. On Jainism, see: Isis Unveiled, vol. 2, pp. 322-323.
5. The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky, 1st ed., 1888; [ed. by Boris
de Zirkoff] (pagination unchanged), Adyar, Madras: Theosophical
Publishing House, 1978, vol. 1, p. 14.
6. For example, Khuddaka Nikāya, Udāna, 81: O monks, there is
an unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, uncompounded; and if there
were not this unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, uncompounded, no
escape would be poṣible from what is born, is originated, is created,
is compounded.
7. For example, Ratna-gotra-vibhāga, 80: It is not born, does not die,
is not afflicted, and does not grow old, because it is permanent, stable,
quiescent, and eternal.
8. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 273.
9. The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, compiled by A. T. Barker,
1st ed., 1923; 3rd rev. ed., Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1962, p. 53; arranged in chronological sequence by Vicente
Hao Chin, Jr., Quezon City, Metro Manila: Theosophical Publishing
House, 1993, p. 270.
10. The Mahatma Letters, 3rd. ed. p. 53; chron. ed. p. 271.
12 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
11. The Mahatma Letters, 3rd. ed. p. 55; chron. ed. p. 272.
12. The Mahatma Letters, 3rd. ed. p. 56; chron. ed. p. 273.
13. The Mahatma Letters, 3rd. ed. p. 56; chron. ed. p. 273.
14. H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 4, Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1969, p. 226.
15. H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 4, p. 298.
16. H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 4, p. 452.
17. H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 4, p. 602.
18. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 329.
19. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 147.
20. The Mahatma Letters, 3rd. ed. p. 341; chron. ed. p. 379.
21. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, pp. 15, 16. See also: Blavatsky Collected
Writings, vol. 7, pp. 347-348, where she clearly states that she gives
the esoteric philosophy of the trans-Himalayan Occultists or Tibetan
Arhats in Hindu Brahmanical terms obtained by consulting Brahmans
around her, and that therefore these may not always be used correctly.
Her use of the Vedānta term parabrahman in juxtaposition with the
Sāṃkhya term mūlaprakṛti is taken from T. Subba Row’s lectures on
the Bhagavad-Gītā, published in The Theosophist, 1886-1887. These have
been reprinted in book form several times; e.g., Notes on the Bhagavad
Gita, Pasadena: Theosophical University Preṣ, 1934, 1978.
22. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 328.
23. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, p. 24.
24. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, pp. 24-25.
25. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 289.
26. Origin and Development of the Sāṃkhya System of Thought, by
Pulinbihari Chakravarti, Calcutta: Metropolitan Printing and Publishing House, 1951; reprint, New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1975; p. 130.
27. Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies/Sāṃkhya: A Dualist Tradition
in Indian Philosophy, ed. Gerald James Larson and Ram Shankar
Bhattacharya, Princeton: Princeton University Preṣ, 1987, pp. 75-77.
28. Origin and Development of the Sāṃkhya System of Thought, pp. 25-28,
cites Mahābhārata 12.218.14, 12.221.18 (Southern recension); Buddhacarita 12.65; Caraka-saṃhitā 1.99, 5.19, 5.34; Yoga-sūtra-bhāṣya 4.22; etc.,
giving the teaching of brahman in Sāṃkhya. Although Gauḍapāda and
others give brahman as a synonym of prakṛti in their commentaries on
Sāṃkhya-kārikā 22, we know that these are not always full synonyms.
The Yukti-dīpikā commentary, like the other texts just cited, explains
brahman in terms referring to the ultimate stage of unity.
29. The Mahatma Letters, 3rd ed. p. 138; chron. ed. p. 282.
Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion 13
30. The claṣic Sāṃkhya-kārikā has for many centuries been the basic
textbook of the Sāṃkhya darśana, even though we would expect the
Sāṃkhya-sūtras of Kapila to be. The now extant Sāṃkhya-sūtras clearly
contain late interpolations. Most scholars have despaired of trying to
sort out the undeniably old sūtras from this modern collection. It may
therefore be useful for readers to know that, according to Udayavira
Shastri, there are (besides some small sections) two large sections of
interpolated sūtras: 1.20-54 and 5.84-115. See his “Antiquity of the
Sāṅkhya Sūtras,” ‰tambharā: Studies in Indology, Ghaziabad: Society for
Indic Studies, 1986, pp. 31-43.
31. This is, of course, the Vedānta system, specifically Advaita
Vedānta. We are fully aware of the extensive critique of Sāṃkhya in
Śaṅkarācārya’s commentary on the Vedānta-sūtras, but this is a subject
for another paper.
32. For example, Caraka-saṃhitā 1.14, 1.84, and 1.155, say puruṣa is
one. See: “The Sāṃkhya Philosophy in the Carakasaṃhitā,” by K. B.
Ramakrishna Rao, Adyar Library Bulletin, vol. 26, parts 3-4, Dec. 1962,
pp. 193-205, especially p. 200. We know that Sāṃkhya-kārikā 18 teaches
the plurality of puruṣas. Gauḍapāda’s commentary on Sāṃkhya-kārikā
11, even though first using the plural phrase “of all the puruṣas” (sarvapuruṣānāṃ), says later that: “the manifest is manifold; the unmanifest
is one; so also is spirit one” (. . . tathā pumān apy eka˙). Here the old
commentary translated into Chinese by Paramārtha and now found in
the Chinese Buddhist canon has that spirit is plural, as does the later
commentary of Vācaspati-miśra. But what looks like a mistake and a
contradiction by Gauḍapāda may in fact be an intentional statement,
in agreement with Caraka-saṃhitā, that spirit is both one and many.
33. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 573.
34. H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings, vol. 7, p. 51.
35. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 1, p. 186.
36. The Secret Doctrine, vol. 2, p. 259.
37. Early Sāṃkhya, by E. H. Johnston, London: Royal Asiatic Society,
1937; reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidaṣ, 1974. This book includes a
discuṣion of svabhāva in Sāṃkhya, pp. 67-72. Note, however, that his
reading of Gauḍapāda on Sāṃkhya-kārikā 27 seems faulty (p. 68). The
idea of pre-canonical Buddhism was introduced by Stanislaw Schayer
in 1935: “Precanonical Buddhism,” Archiv Orientalni, vol. 7, pp. 121-132.
38. Blavatsky’s Secret Books, by David Reigle and Nancy Reigle, San
Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1999, p. 120; quoting The Secret Doctrine,
vol. 1, p. 289.
14 Sāṃkhya and the Wisdom-Religion
[The foregoing article was written by David Reigle, and published in
Fohat, A Quarterly Publication of Edmonton Theosophical Society,
vol. 4, no. 4, Winter 2000, pp. 84-86, 92-94. This online edition is
published by Eastern Tradition Research Institute, copyright 2004.]