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Chapter 5 – Present State of Philosophy

The subject of philosophy is not one upon which Menu professes to treat. It is, however, incidentally mentioned in his first chapter, and it has occupied too great a portion of the attention of the Hindus of later days to be omitted in any account of their genius and character.

The first chapter of the Institutes is evidently an exposition of the belief of the compiler, and (unlike the laws which have been framed in various ages) probably represents the state of opinion as it stood in his time.

The topics on which it treats – the nature of God and the soul, the creation, and other subjects, physical and metaphysical – are too slightly touched on to show whether any of the present schools of philosophy were then in their present form; but the minute points alluded to as already known, and the use of the terms still employed, as if quite intelligible to its readers, prove that the discussions which have given rise to their different systems were already perfectly familiar to the Hindus.

Six principal schools

The present state of the science will be best shown by inquiring into the tenets of those schools.

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There are six ancient schools of philosophy recognised among the Hindus. Some of these are avowedly inconsistent with the religious doctrines of the Bramins; and others, though perfectly orthodox, advance opinions not stated in the Vedas.

These schools are enumerated in the following order by Mr. Colebrooke428.

1. The prior Mimansa, founded by Jaimani.

2. The latter Mimansa, or Vedanta, attributed to Vyasa.

3. The Niyaya, or logical school of Gotama.

4. The Atomic school of Collide.

5. The Atheistical school of Canade.

6. The Theistical school of Patanjali.

The two last schools agree in many points, and are included in the common name of Sankya.

This division does not give a complete idea of the present state of philosophy. The prior Mimansa, which teaches the art of reasoning with the express view of aiding the interpretation of the Vedas, is, so far, only a school of criticism; and its object, being to ascertain the duties enjoined in those scriptures, is purely religious, and gives it no claim to a place among the schools of philosophy. On the other hand, the remaining schools have branched into various subdivisions, each of which is entitled to be considered as a separate school, and to form an addition to the original number. It would be foreign to my object to enter on all the distinctions

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between those philosophical systems. An outline of the two most contrasted of the six principal schools, with a slight notice of the rest, will be sufficient to give an idea of the progress made by the nation in this department of science.

The two schools selected for this summary examination, are the Sankya and Vedanta. The first maintains the eternity of matter, and its principal branch denies the being of God. The other school derives all things from God, and one sect denies the reality of matter.

All the Indian systems, atheistical as well as theistical, agree in their object, which is, to teach the means of obtaining beatitude, or, in other words, exemption from metempsychosis, and deliverance from all corporeal incumbrances.

Sankya School, Atheistical and Theistical

Purpose of knowledge

This school is divided, as has been mentioned, into two branches, that of Capila, which is atheistical, and that of Patanjali, acknowledging God; but both agree in the following opinions429:–

Deliverance can only be gained by true and perfect knowledge430.

This knowledge consists in discriminating the principles, perceptible and imperceptible, of the material world, from the sensitive and cognitive principle, which is the immaterial soul431.

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Means of attaining knowledge

Principles

True knowledge is attained by three kinds of evidence: perception, inference, and affirmation (or testimony)432.

The principles of which a knowledge is thus derived, are twenty-five in number433, viz.:–

1. Nature, the root or plastic origin of all.; the universal material cause. It is eternal matter; undiscrete, destitute of parts; productive, but not produced.

2. Intelligence; the first production of nature, increate434, prolific; being itself productive of other principles.

8. Consciousness, which proceeds from intelligence, and the peculiar function of which is the sense of self-existence, the belief that “I am.”

4. to 8. From consciousness spring five particles, rudiments, or atoms, productive of the five elements435.

9. to 19. From consciousness also spring eleven organs of sense and action. Ten are external; five instruments of the senses (the eye, ear, &c.), and five instruments of action (the voice, the hands, the feet, &c.): The eleventh organ is internal,

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and is mind, which is equally an organ of sense and of action.

20. to 24. The five elements are derived from the five particles above mentioned (4 to 8). They are, space, air, fire, water, and earth.

25. The last principle is soul, which is neither produced nor productive. It is multitudinous, individual, sensitive, unalterable, immaterial.

Constitution of animated corporeal beings

It is for the contemplation of nature, and for abstraction from it, that the union between the soul and nature takes place. By that union, creation, consisting in the development of intellect, and the rest of the principles, is effected. The soul’s wish is fruition, or liberation. For either purpose it is invested with a subtile person, composed of intellect, consciousness, mind, the organs of sense and action, and the five principles of the elements. This person is unconfined, free from all hindrance, affected by sentiments; but incapable of enjoyment, until invested with a grosser frame, composed of the elements; which is the body, and is perishable.

The subtile person is more durable, and accompanies the soul in its transmigrations436.

The corporeal creation, consisting of souls invested with gross bodies, comprises fourteen orders of beings; eight above, and five inferior to man.

The superior orders are composed of the gods and other spirits recognised by the Hindus; the inferior, of animals, plants, and inorganic substances437.

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Intellectual creation

Besides the grosser corporeal creation, and the subtile or personal, (all belonging to the material world,) the Sankya distinguishes an intellectual creation, consisting of the affections of the intellect, its sentiments and faculties.

These are enumerated in four classes, as obstructing, disabling, contenting, or perfecting the understanding438.

The Sankya, like all the Indian schools, pays much attention to three essential qualities or modifications of nature. These are, 1. Goodness. 2. Passion. 3. Darkness. They appear to affect all beings, animate and inanimate. Through goodness, for instance, fire ascends, and virtue and happiness are produced in man; it is passion which causes tempests in the air, and vice among mankind; darkness gives their downward tendency

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to earth and water, and in man produces stolidity, as well as sorrow.

Eight modes appertaining to intellect are derived from these qualities; on the one hand, virtue, knowledge, dispassion, and power; and on the other, sin, error, incontinency, and powerlessness. Each of these is subdivided: power, for instance, is eightfold.

The opinions which have above been enumerated, as mere dogmas of the Sankya philosophers, are demonstrated and explained at great length in their works. Mr. Colebrooke gives some specimens of their arguments and discussions; the fault of which, as is usual in such cases, seems to be a disposition to run into over refinement439.

General view of the Sankya doctrine

In endeavouring to find out the scope of the Sankya system, which is somewhat obscured by the artificial form in which it is presented by its inventors, we are led at first to think that this school, though atheistical, and, in the main, material, does not differ very widely from that which derives all things from spirit. From nature comes intelligence; from intelligence, consciousness; from consciousness, the senses and the subtile principles of the elements; from these principles, the grosser elements themselves. From the order of this procession it would appear that, although matter be eternal, its forms are derived from spirit, and have no existence independent of perception.

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But this is not the real doctrine of the school. It is a property inherent in nature to put forth those principles in their order; and a property in soul to use them as the means of obtaining a knowledge of nature; but these operations, though coinciding in their object, are independent in their origin. Nature and the whole multitude of individual souls are eternal; and though each soul is united with intellect and the other productions of nature, it exercises no control over their development. Its union, indeed, is not with the general intellect, which is the first production of nature, but with an individual intellect derived from that primary production.

At birth, each soul is invested with a subtile body440, which again is clad in a grosser body. The connection between soul and matter being thus established, the organs communicate the sensations occasioned by external nature: mind combines them: consciousness gives them a reference to the individual: intellect draws inferences, and attains to knowledge not within the reach of the senses441: soul stands by as a spectator, and not an actor; perceiving all, but affected by nothing; as a mirror which receives all images, without itself undergoing any change442. When the soul has completely seen and understood nature, its task is performed: it is released, and the connection between nature

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and that individual soul is dissolved. Nature (to use an illustration from the text-book) exhibits herself like an actress: she desists when she has been perfectly seen; and the soul attains to the great object of liberation.

Thus it appears that the soul takes no part in the operations of nature, and is necessary to none of them: sensation, consciousness, reasoning, judgment, would all go on equally if it were away. Again: it is for the purpose of the liberation of the soul that all these operations are performed; yet the soul was free at first, and remains unchanged at the end. The whole phenomena of mind and matter have therefore been without a purpose. In each view, the soul is entirely superfluous; and we are tempted to surmise that its existence and liberation have been admitted, in terms, by Capila, as the gods were by Epicurus, to avoid shocking the prejudices of his countrymen by a direct denial of their religion.

Separate doctrines of the atheistical and theistical branches

The tenets hitherto explained are common to both schools; but Capila, admitting, as has been seen, the separate existence of souls, and allowing that intellect is employed in the evolution of matter, which answers to creation, denies that there is any Supreme Being, ether material or spiritual, by whose volition the universe was produced443.

Patanjali, on the other hand, asserts that, distinct from other souls, there is a soul or spirit unaffected by the ills with which the others are beset; unconcerned

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with good or bad deeds or their consequences, and with fancies or passing thoughts; omniscient, infinite, unlimited by time. This being is God, the Supreme Ruler444.

The practice of the two sects takes its colour from these peculiar opinions. The object of all knowledge with both is liberation from matter; and it is by contemplation that the great work is to be accomplished.

To this the theistical sects add devotion; and the subjects of their meditation are suggested by this sentiment. While the followers of the other sect are occupied in abstruse reasonings on the nature of mind and matter, the deistical Sankya spends his time in devotional exercises, or gives himself up to mental abstraction. The mystical and fanatical spirit thus engendered appears in other shapes, and has influenced this branch of the Sankya in a manner which has ultimately tended to degrade its character.

The work of Patanjali, which is the text-book of the theistical sect, contains full directions for bodily and mental exercises, consisting of intensely profound meditation on certain topics, accompanied by suppression of the breath, and restraint of the senses, while steadily maintaining prescribed positions. By such exercises, the adept acquires the knowledge of everything past and future, hidden or remote: he divines the thoughts of others, gains the strength of an elephant, the courage of

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a lion, and the swiftness of the wind; flies in air, floats in water; dives into the earth; contemplates all worlds at a glance, and indulges in the enjoyment of a power that scarcely knows any bounds.

To the attainment of these miraculous faculties, some ascetics divert the efforts which ought to be confined to the acquisition of beatitude; and others have had recourse to imposture for the power to surprise their admirers with wonders which they possessed no other means of exhibiting.

Yogis

The first description of these aspirants to supernatural powers are still found among the monastic orders, and the second among the lowest classes of the same body; both are called Yogi, – a name assigned to the original sect, from a word meaning. “abstracted meditation445.”

Vedanta, or Uttara Miniansa School

The foundation of this school is ascribed to Vyasa, the supposed compiler of the Vedas, who lived about 1400 B. C.; and it does not seem improbable that the author of that compilation, whoever he

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was, should have written a treatise on the scope and essential doctrines of the compositions which he had brought together: but Mr. Colebrooke is of opinion that, in its present form, the school is more modern than any of the other five, and even than the Jains and Baudhas; and that the work in which its system is first explained could not, therefore, have been written earlier446 than the sixth century before Christ.

Though the system of this school is supported by arguments drawn from reason, it professes to be founded on the authority of the Vedas, and appeals for proofs to texts from those Scriptures. It has given rise to an enormous mass of treatises, with commentaries, and commentaries on commentaries, almost all written during the last nine centuries. From a selection of these expositions, Mr. Colebrooke has formed his account of the school; but, owing to the controversial matter introduced, as well as to the appeals to texts instead of to human reason, it is more confused and obscure than the systems of the other schools.

God the sole existence

Its principal doctrines are, that “God is the omniscient and omnipotent cause of the existence, continuance, and dissolution of the universe. Creation is an act of his will; he is both the efficient and the material cause of the world.” At the

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consummation of all things, all are resolved into him. He is the “sole existent” and the “universal soul447.”

Individual souls are portions of his substance: from him they issue like sparks from a flame, and to him they return.

The soul (as a portion of the Divinity) is “infinite, immortal, intelligent, sentient, true.”

It is capable of activity, though its natural state is repose.

It is made to act by the Supreme Being, but in conformity to its previous resolutions; and those again have been produced by a chain of causes extending backwards, apparently to infinity448.

The soul is incased in body as in a sheath, or rather a succession of sheaths. In the first, the intellect is associated with the five senses; in the second, the mind is added; in the third, the organs of sense and the vital faculties. These three constitute the subtile body, which accompanies the soul through all its transmigrations.

The fourth sheath is the gross body449.

The states of the soul in reference to the body are these: – When awake, it is active, and has to do with a real and practical creation: in dreams, there is an illusive and unreal creation: in profound sleep, it is enfolded, but not blended, in the divine essence: on death, it has quitted the corporeal

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frame450. It then goes to the moon, is clothed in an aqueous body, falls in rain, is absorbed by some vegetable, and thence through nourishment into an animal embryo451.

After finishing its transmigrations, the number of which depends on its deeds, it receives liberation.

Liberation is of three sorts: one incorporeal and complete, when the soul is absorbed in Brahma; another imperfect, when it only reaches the abode of Brahma; and a third far short of the others, by which, while yet in life, it acquires many of the powers of the Divinity, and its faculties are transcendant for enjoyment, but not for action. These two last are attainable by sacrifice and devout meditation in prescribed modes.

The discussions of this school extend to the questions of free will, divine grace, efficacy of works, of faith, and many others of the most abstracted nature.

Faith is not mentioned in their early works, and is a tenet of the branch of the Vedanta school which follows the Bhagwat Gita. The most regular of the school, however, maintain the doctrine of divine grace, and restrict free will, as has been shown, by an infinite succession of influencing motives, extending back through the various worlds in the past eternity of the universe.

It is obvious that this school differs entirely from that first mentioned, in denying the eternity of

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matter, and ascribing the existence of the universe to the energy and volition of God. But its original teachers, or their European interpreters, appear to disagree as to the manner in which that existence is produced. One party maintains that God created matter out of his own essence, and will resume it into his essence at the consummation of all things; and that from matter thus produced, he formed the world, and left it to make its own impressions on the soul of man. The other party says that God did not create matter, nor does matter exist; but that he did, and continually does, produce directly on the soul a series of impressions such as the other party supposes to be produced by the material world. One party says that all that exists arises from God; the other, that nothing does exist except God. This last appears to be the prevailing doctrine among the modern Vedantis, though probably not of the founders and early followers of the school.

Both parties agree in supposing the impression produced on the mind to be regular and systematic, so that the ideal sect reasons about cause and effect exactly in the same manner as those who believe in the reality of the apparent world.

Both allow volition to God, and do not conceive that there is anything in the nature of matter, or in his own relations, to fetter his will.

Both agree in asserting that the soul was originally part of God, and is again to return to him; but neither explains how the separation is effected: the

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idealists, in particular, fail entirely in explaining how God can delude a part of himself into a belief of its own separate existence, and of its being acted on by an external world, when, in fact, it is an integral part of the only existing being452.

Logical Schools

Logic is a favourite study of the Bramins, and an infinity of volumes have been produced by them on this subject. Some of them have been by eminent authors, and various schools have sprung up in consequence; all, however, are supposed to originate in those of Gotama and Canade. The first of these has attended to the metaphysics of logic; the second to physics, or to sensible objects. Though these schools differ in some particulars, they generally agree on the points treated on by both, and may be considered as parts of one system, each supplying the other’s deficiencies.

Points of resemblance to Aristotle

The school thus formed has been compared to that of Aristotle453. It resembles it in its attention to classification, method, and arrangement, and it furnishes a rude form of the syllogism, consisting

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of five propositions, two of which are obviously superfluous454.

In the logic of Canade’s school there is also an enumeration of what is translated “predicaments,” which are six:– substance, quality, action, community, particularity, and aggregation or intimate relation: some add a seventh, privation. The three first are among the predicaments of Aristotle, the others are not, and seven of Aristotle’s are omitted455.

The subjects treated of in the two Hindu systems are naturally often the same as those of Aristotle, – the senses, the elements, the soul and its different faculties, time, space, &c.; but many that are of the first importance in Aristotle’s system are omitted by the Hindus, and vice versa. The definitions of the subjects often differ, and the general arrangement is entirely dissimilar.

One of the most remarkable coincidences is, that all the Hindu schools constantly join to the five senses a sixth internal sense (which they call mind) which connects the other five, and answers

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exactly to the common, or internal, sense of Aristotle.

General classification according to Gotama’s school

The arrangement of Gotama’s school is much more complete and comprehensive than that of Canade, and some specimens of it may serve to give an idea of the minuteness to which their classification is attempted to be carried.

Heads or topics

The first distribution of subjects is into sixteen heads or topics. I can discover no principle on which it is made, except that it comprises the instruments, modes, and some of the subjects, of disputation. It is as follows:–

1. Proof. 2. That which is to be known and proven. 3. Doubt. 4. Motive. 5. Instance. 6. Demonstrated truth. 7. Member of a regular argument or syllogism; 8. Reasoning by reduction to absurdity. 9. Determination or ascertainment. 10. Thesis or disquisition. 11. Controversy. 12. Objection. 18. Fallacious reason. 14. Perversion. 15. Futility. 16. Confutation.

The subdivisions are more natural and systematic.

1st Head – Proof

Proof (or evidence) is of four kinds: perception, inference, comparison, and affirmation (or testimony).

Inference is again subdivided into antecedent, which discovers an effect from its cause; consequent, which deduces a cause from its effect; and analogous.

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2d Head – Objects of Proof; its subdivisions

Objects of proof are twelve in number:– 1. Soul. 2. Body. 8. The organs of sensation. 4. The objects of sense. 5. Intellect. 6. Mind. 7. Activity. 8. Fault. 9. Transmigration. 10. Fruit of deeds. 11. Pain, or physical evil. 12. Liberation.

1. Soul

The first object of proof is soul; and a full exposition is given or its nature and faculties, and of the proofs of its existence. It has fourteen qualities: – number, quantity, severalty, conjunction, disjunction, intellect, pain, pleasure, desire, aversion, volition, merit, demerit, and the faculty of imagination.

2. Body

The second object of proof is body; which is still more fully discussed and analysed; not without some mixture of what belongs more properly to, physical science.

3. Organs of sense

Next follow the organs of sense, which are said not to spring from consciousness, as is advanced by the Sankya school; but which are conjoined with the sixth internal sense, as in that school; while the five organs of action (which make up the eleven brought together by the Sankyas) are not separately recognised here.

4. Objects of sense

The next of the subdivisions of the second head consists of the objects of sense, among which are the terms which form the predicaments of Canade.

The first of these is substance, and is divided into nine sorts:– earth, water, light, air, ether, time, place, soul, mind. The qualities of each of

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these substances are fully examined; after which the author passes on to the second predicament, quality. There are twenty-four qualities. Sixteen are qualities of body; namely, – colour, savour, odour, feel, number, quantity, individuality, conjunction, disjunction, priority, posteriority, gravity, fluidity, viscidity, and sound: and eight of soul; namely, – pain, desire, aversion, volition, virtue, vice, and faculty. Every one of these is examined at great length; and, sometimes, as well as by the Grecian schools456.

The remaining five predicaments are then defined, which completes the objects of sense. Each of the six remaining objects of proof are then examined in the same manner, which exhausts the second head or topic.

3d Head –Doubt

The third head or topic, doubt, is then taken in hand, and so on to the end of the sixteenth; but enough has already been said to show the method of proceeding, and much detail would be required to afford any information beyond that.

Metaphysical opinions

The discussion of the above topics involves many opinions, both on physical and metaphysical subjects; thus the immateriality, independent existence, and eternity of the soul are asserted: God is considered as the supreme soul, the seat of eternal knowledge, the maker of all things, &c.

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Doctrine of atoms

The school of Canade, or, as it is also called, the atomic school, supposes a transient world composed of aggregations of eternal atoms. It does not seem settled whether their temporary arrangement depends on their natural affinities, or on the creative power of God457.

Resemblance to some of the Greek schools, especially to Pythagoras

It is impossible not to be struck with the identity of the topics discussed by the Hindu philosophers with those which engaged the attention of the same class in ancient Greece, and with the similarity between the doctrines of schools subsisting in regions of the earth so remote from each other. The first cause, the relation of mind to matter, creation, fate, and many similar subjects, are mixed by the Hindus with questions that have arisen in modern metaphysics, without having been known to the ancients. Their various doctrines of the eternity of matter, or its emanation from the Divinity; of the separate existence of the Supreme Being, or his arising from the arrangements of nature; the supposed derivation of all souls from God, and return to him; the doctrine of atoms; the successive revolutions of worlds; have all likewise been maintained by one or other of the Grecian schools458. These doctrines may, however, have occurred independently to speculative men in

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unconnected countries, and each single coincidence may perhaps have been accidental; but when we find a whole system so similar to that of the Hindus as the Pythagorean, – while the doctrines of both are so unlike the natural suggestions of human reason, – it requires no faith in the traditions of the eastern journeys of Pythagoras to be persuaded that the two schools have originated in a common source.

The end of all philosophy, according to Pythagoras, is to free the mind from incumbrances which hinder its progress towards perfection459; to raise it above the dominion of the passions, and the influence of corporeal impressions, so as to assimilate it to the Divinity, and qualify it to join the gods460. The soul is a portion of the Divinity461, and returns, after various transmigrations and successive intermediate states of purgation in the region of the dead, to the eternal source from which it first proceeded. The mind (θυμος) is distinct from the soul (φρην)462. God is the universal soul diffused through all things, the first principle of the universe; invisible, incorruptible, only to be comprehended by the mind463. Intermediate between God and mankind are a host of aerial beings, formed into classes, and exercising different influences on the affairs of the world464.

These are precisely the metaphysical doctrines

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of India; and when to them we join the aversion of Pythagoras for animal food, and his prohibition of it unless when offered in sacrifices465, his injunctions to his disciples not to kill or hurt plants466, the long probation of his disciples, and their mysterious initiation, it is difficult to conceive that so remarkable an agreement can be produced by any thing short of direct imitation.

Further coincidences might be mentioned, equally striking, though less important than those already adduced: such are the affinity between God and light, the arbitrary importance assigned to the sphere of the moon as the limit of earthly changes, &c.: and all derive additional importance from their dissimilarity to the opinions of all the Grecian schools that subsisted in the time of Pythagoras467.

Some of the tenets of both schools are said to have existed among the ancient Egyptians, and may be supposed to have been derived from that source both by Pythagoras and the Bramins. But

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our accounts of these doctrines in Egypt are only found in books written long after they had reached Greece through other channels. The only early authority is Herodotus, who lived after the philosophy of Pythagoras had been universally diffused. If, however, these doctrines existed among the Egyptians, they were scattered opinions in the midst of an independent system; and in Greece they are obviously adscititious, and not received in their integrity by any other of the philosophers except by the Pythagoreans. In India, on the contrary, they are the main principles on which the religion of the people is founded, to which all the schools of philosophy refer, and on which every theory in physics and every maxim in morality depends.

It is well argued by Mr. Colebrooke, that the Indian philosophy resembles that of the earlier rather than of the later Greeks; and that, if the Hindus had been capable of learning the first doctrines from a foreign nation, there was no reason why they should not in like manner have acquired a knowledge of the subsequent improvements. From which he infers thatthe Hindus were, in this instance, the teachers, and not the learners468.”

Footnotes

428. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 19.

429. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 31.

430. Ibid. p. 26.

431. Ibid. p. 27.

432. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 28.

433. Ibid. p. 29–31.

434. The contradiction between the two first terms might be explained by supposing that intelligence, though depending on nature for its existence, is co-eternal with the principle from which it is derived.

435. Rather, rudiments of the perceptions by which the elements are made known to the mind; as sound, the rudiment of ether; touch, of air; smell, of earth, &c. – WILSON’S Sankhya Carika, p. 17.

436. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 32.

437. Ibid. p. 33.

438. The catalogue is very extensive; for, though the principal heads are stated at fifty, there appear to be numerous subdivisions.

The following may serve as a specimen, selected from that given by Mr. Colebrooke, which is itself very much condensed.

1. Obstructions of the intellect are – error, conceit, passion, hatred, fear. These are severally explained, and comprise sixty-two subdivisions.

2. Disabilities are of twenty-eight sorts, arising from defect or injury of organs, &c.

3. Content, or acquiescence, involves nine divisions; all appear to relate to total or partial omission of exertion, to procure deliverance or beatitude.

4. Perfecting the intellect is of eight sorts; three consist in ways of preventing evil, and the remaining five are reasoning, oral instruction, study, amicable intercourse, and purity, internal and external.

439. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. pp. 33–37.

440. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 40.

441. Ibid. pp. 31. 88.

442. Ibid. p. 42.

443. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 37.

444. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 37.

445. The above account of the Sankya school is chiefly taken from Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. pp. 19–43. A translation of the text-book of the followers of Capila (the atheistic sect), originally prepared by Mr. Colebrooke, has appeared since it was first written, accompanied by a translation of a gloss from the Shanscrit, and a very valuable commentary by Professor Wilson. A more general view of the Sankya doctrines has also appeared in the Oxford Lectures of the last author, pp. 49. 54. I have endeavoured to profit by those publications in correcting my first account.

446. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. pp. 3, 4.

447. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 34.

448. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 22.

449. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 35.

450. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 37.

451. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 25.

452. On the question regarding the ideal or material existence of the world, besides Mr. Colebrooke’s paper in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39., see that of Colonel Kennedy, in vol. iii. p. 414., with the remarks of Sir Graves Haughton.

453. Mr. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 19.; Edinburgh Review for July, 1834, p. 363.

454. As, 1. The hill is fiery;

2. For it smokes.

3. What smokes is fiery, as a culinary hearth;

4. Accordingly, the hill is smoking;

5. Therefore, it is fiery.

The Hindus had also the regular syllogism, which seems a very natural step from the above; but as it was at a later period, the improvement might have been borrowed from the Greeks.

455. Viz. passion, relation, quantity, when, where, situation, and habit.

456. Levity, for instance, is merely noticed as the absence of gravity; while in Aristotle it is held to be a separate principle, having a tendency to rise as gravity has to descend. Sound is said to be propagated by undulation, wave after wave, proceeding from a centre.

457. Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 105. For a full account of the logical school, see Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 92., and Gladwin’s Ayeen Acbery, vol. ii. p. 385.; also, Ward on the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 224.

458. See Ward on the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 114.

459. Enfield’s History of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 382.

460. Ibid. p. 389.

461. Ibid. p. 393.

462. Ibid. p. 397.

463. Ibid. p. 393.

464. Ibid. p. 395. See also Stanley’s History of Philosophy.

465. Enfield, vol. i. p. 377., and Stanley’s School of Philosophy, p. 520.

466. Stanley, p. 520.

467. See, for the Hindu notions on light, the various interpretations of, and comments on, the Gayatri, especially Sir W. Jones’s Works, vol. vi. pp. 417. 421.; Colebrooke, Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. p. 400. and note; Ram Mohun Roy’s translation of the Vedas, p. 114.; Colebrooke, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. ii. p. 26., and other places. For Pythagoras, see Enfield, vol. i. p. 394., and Stanley, p. 547.; in both of which places he is said to have learned his doctrine from the magi or oriental philosophers. The opinions of both the Hindus and Pythagoras about the moon and aerial regions, are stated by Mr. Colebrooke, in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 578.; for those of Pythagoras, see Stanley, p. 551.

468. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 579. It may, perhaps, be observed, that the doctrines of Pythagoras appear to belong to a period later than Menu. The formation of a society living in common, and receiving common initiation, together with the practice of burying the dead instead of burning them, seem to refer to the rules of the monastic orders; while the strictness regarding animal food has also a resemblance to the tendency of later times.

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