s, and there is no annihilation or eternality; and the
last state is described as being like that when all rivers lose
themselves in the ocean and it is called ali@nga (without any
characteristic)--a term reserved for prak@rti in later Sa@mkhya.
This state is attainable by the doctrine of ultimate renunciation
which is also called the doctrine of complete destruction
(_samyagbadha_).

Gu@naratna (fourteenth century A.D.), a commentator of
_@Sa@ddars'anasamuccaya_, mentions two schools of Sa@mkhya, the
Maulikya (original) and the Uttara or (later) [Footnote ref 1]. Of these
the doctrine of the Maulikya Sa@mkhya is said to be that which
believed that there was a separate pradhana for each atman
(_maulikyasa@mkhya hyatmanamatmanam prati p@rthak pradhanam
vadanti_). This seems to be a reference to the Sa@mkhya doctrine
I have just sketched. I am therefore disposed to think that this
represents the earliest systematic doctrine of Sa@mkhya.

In _Mahabharata_ XII. 318 three schools of Sa@mkhya are
mentioned, viz. those who admitted twenty-four categories (the
school I have sketched above), those who admitted twenty-five
(the well-known orthodox Sa@mkhya system) and those who
admitted twenty-six categories. This last school admitted a
supreme being in addition to puru@sa and this was the twenty-sixth
principle. This agrees with the orthodox Yoga system and the
form of Sa@mkhya advocated in the _Mahabharata_. The schools of
Sa@mkhya of twenty-four and twenty-five categories are here
denounced as unsatisfactory. Doctrines similar to the school of
Sa@mkhya we have sketched above are referred to in some of the

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[Footnote 1: Gu@naratna's _Tarkarahasyadipika_, p. 99.]

218

other chapters of the _Mahabharata_ (XII. 203, 204). The self
apart from the body is described as the moon of the new moon
day; it is said that as Rahu (the shadow on the sun during an
eclipse) cannot be seen apart from the sun, so the self cannot be
seen apart from the body. The selfs (_s'ariri@na@h_) are spoken of as
manifesting from prak@rti.

We do not know anything about Asuri the direct disciple
of Kapila [Footnote ref 1]. But it seems probable that the system of
Sa@mkhya we have sketched here which appears in fundamentally the same
form in the _Mahabharata_ and has been attributed there to Pancas'ikha
is probably the earliest form of Sa@mkhya available to us
in a systematic form