Vier Philosophische Texte Des Mahâbhâratam

462 NOTICES OF BOOKS.

difficult and ohscure period will be as illuminating and full of interest as the pages that have gone before. A word must be added in praise of the frontispiece, which is an excellent reproduction of a miniature from a Persian manuscript in the India Office Library. The manuscript formerly belonged to Shah Isma'il the Safawid, and the scene depicted shows a Persian poet offering an ode to a Mongol prince or governor. The six Mongols with their broad stolid faces and broad-brimmed hats make a striking contrast to the refined and expressive countenance of the Persian, who is further distinguished by his turban and long beard. R. A. N.

VIKR PHILOSOPHISCHE TEXTE DES MAHABHARATAM. Trans- lated by Dr. P. DEDSSEN. (Leipzig, 1906.) This translationof the Sanatsujataparvan,the Bhagavadgita, the Moksadharma, and the Anugita is intended by Professor Deussen to serve as a basis for the third part of his great History of Philosophy, just as his translation of theUpanisads formed the groundwork of the second part of his History. The thanks of all students of Indian philosophy are due to Professor Deussen and to his pupils, Dr. Otto Strauss and Dr. P. E. Dumont, for their laborious work, which has rendered easily accessible these four great texts. The translation, so far as we have compared it with the original, is executed with great care and accuracy, and the number of passages in which a different rendering might be preferable is, considering the vague and ambiguous character of much, of the Sanski'it text, very small. None of the works translated, with the exception of some passages of the Bhagavadgita, have any claim to literary merit or other than philosophic interest. Dr. Deussen proposes for consideration the view that the Mahabharata contains a philosophic view which is not, as usually held, eclectic (a ' Mischphilosophie'), but a transitional stage of thought, the philosophy of the Epic age, midway between the Vedic and the classic epochs, in which there takes place

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the transition from the Idealism of the Vedanta to the realistic views of the classic Samkbya. This transition, for which the way is prepared in the later Upanisads, the Kathaka, Svetasvatara, Maitrayanlya, etc., finds its natural development in the philosophic texts of the Mahabharata and in Manu, and finally takes the definite form in which it appears in the Samkhyakarika. The apparent completeness of the system should not conceal the fact that it is the result of a long process of development, and from a philosophic standpoint a gradually increasing deterioration of the original Idealism of the older Upanisads. Those views, therefore, are to be rejected which consider that the philosophy of the Mahabharata is an amalgamation of the Vedantism of the Upanisads with an independently developed Samkhya system, or an induction of ideas from the Vedanta upon a system founded on the Samkhya. This is, of course, the view already put forward by Dr. Deussen in his History of Philosophy,1 but, attractive as is the proposal to regard the Epic as showing a definite stage in the development of Indian thought, it cannot be denied that there are serious difficulties in the way of accepting the proposed interpretation of the facts. It is no longer possible to regard the Epic as revealing to us the thoughts of an era intermediate in point of time between the Veda and the classic Sanskrit, nor can the Epic represent & transitional period. In its narrative the Epic is, on the whole, contemporaneous in origin with the later Brahmanic period; in its ethico-didactic and philosophic parts as they stand it must, probably, have been contemporaneous with the growth about the Christian era of the Kavya literature. These parts, like the corresponding portions of Manu, can hardly be regarded as more than popular versions of current ethical and philosophic views. In contrast with the Upanisads, with their abundance of individual conceptions and contradictory views, the Epic shows on the whole a surprising sameness of ideas; the different parts vary but mainly in regard to

1 Die l^hilosopltie der Upanishads, ch. x.

insignificant details of terminology, not in substantial matters. These characteristics of the Epic undoubtedly suit quite well an eclectic philosophy, adapted by Brahmins for popular use. Nor is there any substantial ground on which to argue that such an eclecticism was impossible. There does no doubt exist in the older Upanisads that Idealism which later developed into the Vedanta system of Sankara, although we may doubt whether it can be described as the original doctrine of those who busied themselves with the dlman.1 But there can be little doubt that the Samkhya system in its essence, that is, in its doctrine of duality and its enumeration of tattvas, is older than Buddhism, as both Garbe and Jacobi have maintained. It may well be that in its origin the Samkhya is later than the Vedanta, and represents a revolt from its monism, which explains nothing in favour of what is in comparison a more realistic conception of the universe, but it is most improbable that the Samkhya system ever passed through a stage of development such as meets us in the Moksadharma. The doctrine of the Moksadharma is full of reminiscences of the Samkhya-Yoga and of Buddhism. Stress is laid throughout on ahimsa (see e.g. pp. 117, 121, 436, 472, 765, 791), and the expression nirvana is not uncommon, and can only be regarded as used with a consciousness of its part in Buddhism (see pp. 130, 166, 174, 187, etc.). Samkhya and Yoga are repeatedly referred to by name, and details given of the teachers, Kapila, Asuri, and Pancasikha. The characteristic principles of the Samkhya, its three gunas and twenty-five tattvas, are time after time repeated (pp. 143,182, 200, 225, 287, 352, 386, 534, 592, 624, 642, 773, etc.), and it is formally compared with the Yoga. It cannot be doubted from these passages that the Yoga and Samkhya already existed in much their classical form. So in the Anugita, p. 983,2 the doctrine of the unity of ksetrajna (i.e. purusa) and sattva is emphatically and deliberately denied, and duality

1 See J.E.A.S., 1906, pp. 490 seq. 3 Cf Molc$adharma, p. 184.

is asserted. But beside these views, there is another element. In the Samkhya system the result of knowledge is merely the freedom of the pur ma, since there is nothing else open to it, but in the Moksadharma, as in the Vedanta, the soul becomes merged in Brahman, pp. 116, 191, 216, etc. Or again, p. 155, prdna is identified with purusa, manas, buddhi, and ahamkara, and with, objects. At p. 226 it is said that all goes back to Brahman, and prakrti is not recognised as a final element of reality. There follows, p. 266, on an assertion of the eternal duality of purusa and prakrti, a declaration that there is something greater than both. It is also said, p. 606, that the ksetrajna attains to the highest atman, and at p. 610 the creation of the whole world is ascribed to Brahman ; while at p. 634 the purusa is contrasted with the prakrWand recognised as identical, when emancipated, with the twenty-sixth principle, the Brahman. So at p. 786 the atman is the source of the avyakta, which again developes into the mahdn dtmd. In other passages, again, the highest element is definitely identified with Visnu, e.g. pp. 230, 269, 491. At p. 773 it is asserted that the avyakta is resolved into Vasudeva, and the fiva, manas, and ahamkara are identified with Samkarsana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha respectively. Of this matter some may be explained by a mingling of Samkhya and Idealistic Vedanta, but some points undoubtedly to that other view of the Vedanta which is manifested in Ramanuja's version of the Brahma Sutra and in parts of the Bhagavadglta, according to which a real deity, rules over a real world and real souls, though both the world and souls are dependent on him. It is significant in this connection to note that in the Moksadharma, pp. 755, 762, 780, 848, 855, reference is made to the Paficaratra doctrine, at pp. 783, 823 to the Bhagavatas, and elsewhere to the Ekantins and Satvatas, in passages which prove clearly the existence of sects practising bhakti. A similar sect of Pasupatas is referred to at p. 855. On the other hand, the peculiarly Vedantic conception of mdyd hardly appears in the Moksa- dharma, though the word itself is known, e.g. pp. 140, 744. It would sepm, therefore, that the doctrine of these texts

of the Mahabharata is a Samkhya-Yoga system mingled with the Vedantic views seen in the great systems of bhakti. Nor is this combination remarkable. The Samkhya system has much in it, especially when connected as throughout in the Mahabharata with the Yoga, that is attractive to Indian thought; while for a popular exposition of philosophy, as in its essence is the philosophic doctrine of the Epic, it was essential to accept what appears to have been the really popular doctrine of bhakti, which would appeal to castes other than the Brahmins with special force. No Samkhya, no pure Vedanta, teaching would really satisfy any class outside the priests, and some substitute for jnana had to be accepted if popular religion and philosophy were to find expression in the Epic. The slight influence of the Idealistic Vedanta, as we find it in the teaching of Yajnavalkya in the Brhadaran- yaka Upanisad and as developed by Sankara, need not surprise us, for, despite its philosophic merits or perhaps in consequence of them, it is essentially a system unlikely to be popular outside a narrow circle. The pure Samkhya doctrine, though in its essence equally abstruse and remote from ordinary consciousness, readily lent itself to adaption by being fitted into a system which recognised the existence of a deity standing beside but above the individual souls and matter, as is seen from the history of the Yoga. For, in deference to popular opinion, the Samkhya doctrine was altered, quite illogically, by the addition to prakrti and purusa of Isvava, a conception probably borrowed from the Bhagavatas.1 Such a conception of God as we find in the doctrine of bhakti is, after all, the most natural development of the religious thought of the Rgveda, with its growing tendency to pantheism. The theory that the only Vedanta doctrine is one which denies the reality of either the individual soul or the world is due to Sankara, and leads to such ingenious efforts as those of Garbe, in his translation of the Bhaga- vadgita,2 to show that on Krsna worship was engrafted

1 Garbe : Samkhya und Yoga, p. 50. 3 Cf. Hopkins' review, J.R.A.S., 1905, p. 384.

Vedantism and pantheism. Such speculations are needless if it is realised that the Uvara of one theory of the Vedanta, while pantheistic, yet stood over against real Jlvas, thus permitting the conception of bhakti, and that only a few chosen spirits accepted the theory of the impersonal Brahman and mdya. Among the other points worthy of notice it must suffice to refer to the not inconsiderable number of passages in which Dr. Deussen's references show that reference is made to the Upanisads, especially the Brhadaranyaka, Chandogya, Svetasvatara, Maitrayanlya, Kathaka, and Mundaka, while the Atharvasiras is actually referred to by name (p. 769), as in Gautama Dharmasutra, xix, 12.l The similarity of part of Adhyaya 178 of the Moksadharma to Samkhyasutra, iv, 11-14, is another piece of evidence that the sutra, although in its present form late, derives its material from ancient sources, as Jacobi has argued. A. BERRIEDALE KEITH.

J^OTIZIA B SAGGI DI OPERE E DOCUMENTI INEDITI RIGUARDANTI LA STORIA DI ETIOPIA DURANTE I SECOLI XVI, XVII, E XVIII, con otto facsimioi e due carte geografiche. CAMILLO BECCARI, S.I. (Rome, 1903.) Few articles in learned journals have been so successful in starting a line of research as the studies on the history of Ethiopia, published many years ago in the Journal Asiatique by R. Basset, now an honorary member of our Society. The contribution to the same subject by Father Beccari, which is to cover a number of quarto volumes, promises to eclipse the others in magnitude, if not in importance. The first volume contains (1) a list of the documents which the editor proposes to include in the series (of which the general character is sufficiently elucidated by the title given above); (2) a brief analysis of the principal MSS.; (3) some specimens of the documents. These last consist of instructions to missionaries (in Portuguese),

1 Biihler, S.B.E., ii, hi.