Chapter 10 The Significance of the Idea of Buddha’s Dependence on Kapila for the Rebirth of Sāṃkhyayoga in Nineteenth Century Bengal

Knut A. Jacobsen

One issue that was debated in the nineteenth century both in Western Indology and in intellectual culture in Bengal was the idea that Buddhism was based on the Sāṃkhya system of religious thought and that the Buddha built his teaching on that of Kapila, the founder of Sāṃkhya, and that the Buddha even might have been a disciple of Kapila. In this article, I look at the circulation between East and West of this nineteenth century idea and the role of this idea for the reemer- gence of Sāṃkhyayoga as a living tradition in late nineteenth century Bengal.

What is Sāṃkhyayoga?

Sāṃkhyayoga is a name of a textual tradition of Indian philosophy, one of India’s six classical philosophical systems (darśanas), and has the Yogasūtra and its auto-commentary, the so-called Vyāsabhāṣya or Yogabhāṣya, as its foundation text. The Yogasūtra is a short text, in length only a few pages. The text consists of short notes, which just introduce topics, in the Sanskrit sūtra style. The Vyāsabhāṣya explains what the sūtra-text means. There is, in addi- tion, a limited tradition of philosophical commentaries on the texts, the most important being Vācaspatimiśra’s Tattvavaiśāradī (c. 950 CE). Sāṃkhyayoga is a school of Sāṃkhya philosophy. Among the six schools of Hindu philosophy, two promote Sāṃkhya philosophy: the Sāṃkhya school based on Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikā and the Sāṃkhyayoga school based on the Yogasūtra and the Vyāsabhāṣya. Their methods of attaining the salvific goal differ; in Sāṃkhya, the method is rational discerning (jñāna, adhyavasāya) and in Sāṃkhyayoga, the method is concentration (asaṃprajñāta samādhi, con- centration without object). The analysis of the world of these two Sāṃkhya schools is not very different. The foundational idea is the dualism between consciousness (puruṣa) and matter (prakṛti). Puruṣa as a principle of con- sciousness is contentless and unchanging and is multiple as it is separate for

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004350717_012 The Significance of the Idea of Buddha’s Dependence 219 each living being. Prakṛti as the principle of matter is the object of conscious- ness and is constituted by the three components (guṇas) sattva (lightness), rajas (energy) and tamas (darkness), and is always changing (for a study of prakrṭi, see Jacobsen 1999). Prakṛti is singular as it is the material foundation of all the objects of puruṣa, but puruṣas are many.

Kapila as the Founder of Sāṃkhya and Yoga

Sāṃkhyayoga seems to have been primarily a textual tradition. There are no elaborate textual descriptions of ancient communities of Sāṃkhyayogins comparable to, for instance, that of ancient Buddhism or Jainism. No an- cient Sāṃkhyayoga monasteries have been identified. Some names of Sāṃkhyayoga persons are known, but hardly anything is known about them. About the author of the Yogasūtra, the foundation text of Sāṃkhyayoga, nothing is known except the name Patañjali, who is supposed to have composed the Yogasūtra around 400 CE. The author of the Vyāsabhāṣya is also not known. He might be identical with the author of the Yogasūtra, but no biographical information is available. Likewise, little is known about the life of Īśvarakṛṣṇa (ca 450 CE), the author of the Sāṃkhyakārikā. The only figure in the history of Sāṃkhya that is associated with narratives and rituals is Kapila, who is the mythical founder of Sāṃkhya, but there is no evidence to prove that he was an actual historical figure. Kapila is in Hinduism recog- nized as an avatāra of Viṣṇu and thus considered a divine ascetic and is part of the mythology of gods more than the history of humans (see Jacobsen 2008). Of the founders of the six systems of Hindu philosophy, only Kapila is thought of as a divinity. The others are mostly just names. This divine Kapila is associated with a number of narratives and also with a sacred geography in India (see Jacobsen 2013). But it is highly unlikely that this mythology is based on the memory of a historical sage who was supposed to be the founder of a Sāṃkhya philosophy. Sāṃkhya seems to have had a pluralistic origin, with different schools working with similar concepts. Several Hindu schools of thought have claimed to know the teaching of Kapila, but no an- cient text composed by Kapila is known. According to the Sāṃkhyakārikā tradition, Kapila taught the Sāṃkhya teaching to a disciple called Āsuri. The Bhāgavatapurāṇa (c. 800 CE) presents a child philosopher called Kapila who taught the salvfic knowledge of Vaiṣṇava Sāṃkhya to his mother Devahūti and who is different from the teacher of Āsuri of the Sāṃkhyakārikā tradition. The text Kapilāsurisaṃvāda, which is a conversation between Kapila and