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The Third Lesson: The Sankhya System.1159
universe. Had Kapila attempted to discard the universal conception of that
he would have certainly attacked the doctrine, and have set up arguments
against it, accompanied by illustrations, parables, and analogous proofs,
with which the Hindu philosophers always have been so well supplied and
which they have used so freely. But Kapila does not mention the matter, but
calmly proceeds to elaborate his system explaining the phenomena of the
universe. To those who have penetrated beneath the surface of the Sankhya
System, and who are familiar with the Hindu methods of thought and
teachings, it readily will be seen that there is nothing atheistic or materialistic
in the conceptions of the Sankhya System. Among the Hindus, the charge
of atheism made against the Sankhyas comes principally from the followers
of Patanjali, the Yogi, who hold to the existence of a Supreme Purusha or
Universal Over-Soul, and who, consequently, resent the Sankhyas’ failure to
recognize their favourite conceptions. And the charge of materialism comes
from the Vedantists, who deny the existence of matter, considering it as
Maya or Delusion. In fact, Prakriti is rather the Source of Matter, rather than
Matter itself, as we shall see a little later on.
ii. The second conception of the nature of Purusha and Prakriti is in the
nature of a half-truth which is also a half-error. It holds that Purusha and
Prakriti must be regarded as “aspects” of that or Brahman, and which
aspects are eternal and constant, and which cannot be withdrawn into
that or Brahman as emanations may be, but which are fixed aspects or
“natures” of that, which always have been, and always will be, in periods
of activity and periods of non-activity between the cycles of activity. The
error of this conception consists in ascribing eternal and real existence to
these two principles, thus ascribing a duality to that instead of a Oneness.
This conception, while much nearer the truth than the first mentioned, still
contains the fatal error just noted which condemns it in the minds of the
most logical of the Hindu thinkers, who see the Truth of Kapila’s idea in the
third conception, which we shall now consider.