soul (Brahman without qualities), and recommends the surrender of good works, and complete indifference towards this world and the next.

Kapila's Real Arguments.

But it is but fair that we should hear what Kapila himself has to say. And here it is important again to observe that Kapila does not make a point of vehemently denying the existence of an Îsvara, but seems likewise to have been brought to discuss the subject, as it were by the way only, while engaged in discussing the nature of sensuous perception (I, 89). He had been explaining perception as cognition arising from actual contact between the senses and their respective objects. And here he is stopped by the inevitable opponent who demurs to this definition of perception, because it would not include, as he says, the perceptions of the Yogins. Kapila replies that these visions of the Yogins do not refer to external objects, and that, without denying their reality, he is dealing with the perceptions of ordinary mortals only. But the controversy does not end here. Another opponent starts up and maintains that Kapila's definition of perception is faulty, or at all events not wide enough because it does not include the perception of the Îsvara or Lord. It is then that Kapila turns round on his opponent, and says that this Îsvara, this, as it is pretended, perceptible Îsvara, has never been proved to exist at all, has never been established by any of the three legitimate instruments of knowledge or Pramânas. This may seem to us to amount to a denial of an Îsvara, but VigñânaBhikshu remarks with a great deal of truth, that

if Kapila had wished to deny the existence of God, he would have said Îsvarâbhâvât, and not Îsvarâsiddheh, that is, because Îsvara does not exist, and not, as he says, because Îsvara has not been proved to exist. Anyhow this is not the tone of a philosopher who wants to preach atheism, and in what follows we shall see that it is the manner rather than the matter of the proof of an Îsvara which is challenged by Kapila and defended by his antagonist. Taking his stand on the ground that the highest blessedness or freedom consists in having renounced all activity, because every activity presupposes some kind of desire, which is of evil, he says that every proof in support of an Îsvara as a maker or Lord, a Sat-kara, would break down. For if he were supposed to be above all variance and free, he could not have willed to create the world; if he were not so, he would be distracted and deluded and unfit for the supreme task of an Îsvara.' Then follows a more powerful objection, based on the fact that the Veda speaks of an Îsvara or Lord, and therefore he must exist. Kapila does not spurn that argument, but, as he has recognised once for all the Veda as a legitimate source of information, he endeavours to prove that the Vedic passages relied on in support of the existence of a maker of the world, have a different purpose, namely the glorification of a liberated Self or Purusha, or of one who by devotion has attained supernatural power (I, 95). This is explained by Aniruddha as referring either to a Self which is almost, though not altogether, free, because if altogether free, it could have no desire, nor even the desire of creation; or to a Yogin who by devotion has obtained super

natural powers. Vigñâna-Bhikshu goes a step further, and declares that it refers either to a Self that has obtained freedom from all variance and disturbance, or to the Self that is and has remained free from

all eternity, that is, to the Adi-purusha, the First Self, who in the theistic Yoga-philosophy takes the place of the Creator, and who may, for all we know, have been the origin of the later Purushottama.

Aniruddha thereupon continues that it might be said that without the superintendence of some such intelligent being, unintelligent Prakriti would never have acted. But this also he rejects, if it is meant to prove the existence of an active creator, because the superintendence of the Purusha of the Sâmkhyas over Prakriti is not an active one, but arises simply from proximity, as in the case of a crystal (I, 96). What he means is that in the Sâmkhya the Purusha is never a real maker or an agent. He simply reflects on Prakriti, or the products of Prakriti are reflected on him; and as anything reflected in a crystal or a mirror seems to move when the mirror is moved, though it remains all the time quite unmoved, thus the Purusha also seems to move and to be an agent, while what is really moving, changing, or being created is Prakriti. The Purusha therefore cannot be called superintendent, as if exercising an active influence over Prakriti, but Prakriti is evolved up to the point of Manas under the eyes of Purusha, and the Purusha does. no more than witness all this, wrongly imagining all the time that he is himself the creator or ruler of the world. In support of this Aniruddha quotes a passage from the Bhagavad-gîtâ (III, 27): 'All emanations of Prakriti are operated by the Gunas ;

but the Self deluded by Ahamkâra imagines that he is the operator.'

Another objection is urged against the Sâmkhya view that the Purusha is not a doer or creator, namely that, in that case, a dead body also might be supposed to perform the act of eating. But no, he says, such acts are performed not by a dead or inactive Âtman, as little as a dead body eats. It is the individual Purusha (Giva) that performs such acts, when under the influence of Prakriti (Buddhi, Ahamkâra, and Manas), while the Atman or Purusha remains for ever unchanged.

A last attempt is made to disprove the neutrality or non-activity of the Âtman, that is, the impossibility of his being a creator, namely the uselessness of teaching anything, supposing the Self to be altogether without cognition. To this the answer is that though the Atman is not cognitive, yet the Manas is. The Âtman reflects on the Manas, and hence the illusion that he himself cognises, while in reality he does no more than witness the apprehension of the Manas. Thus when it is said, 'He is omniscient and omnipotent,' he (in spite of the gender) is meant for Prakriti, as developed into Manas, and not for the Purusha who in reality is a mere witness of such omniscience and omnipotence (III, 56), deluded, for a time, by Prakriti.

The Theory of Karman.

In another place where the existence of an Îsvara, or active ruler of the world, is once more discussed in the Sâmkhya-Sûtras, the subject is again treated not so much for its own sake, as in order to settle the old question of the continuous effectiveness of

works (Karman). The reward of every work done, according to Kapila, does not depend on any ruler of the world; the works themselves are working on for evermore. If it were otherwise, we should have to ascribe the creation of the world, with all its suffering, to a Lord who is nevertheless supposed to be loving and gracious.

Madhava in his Sarva-darsana-samgraha (translated by Cowell and Gough, p. 228) uses the same argument, saying: 'As for the doctrine of “a Supreme Being who acts from compassion," what has been proclaimed by beat of drum by the advocates of His existence, this has wellnigh passed away out of hearing, since the hypothesis fails to meet either of the two alternatives. For does He act thus before or after creation? If you say before, we reply that as pain cannot arise in the absence of bodies, &c., there will be no need, as long as there is no creation, for any desire to free living beings from pain (which is the main characteristic of compassion); and if you adopt the second alternative, you will be reasoning in a circle, as on the one hand you will hold that God created the world through compassion, and on the other hand that He compassionated it after He had created it.'

And again, as every activity presupposes desire, the Lord, whether working for Himself or for others, would ipso facto cease to be free from desires. This argument is examined from different points of view, but always leads to the same result in the end; that is to say, to the conviction that the highest state of perfection and freedom from all conditions is really far higher than the ordinary conception of the status of the popular Hindu deities,

F f