SAmkhya/Yoga question

[Edwin Bryant]

On Sat, 18 Dec 1999, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:

> Indeed, but it seems that no Samkhya philosopher ever defended their
> position using anirvacanIyatva. And nobody could have done so, for the
> notion of anirvacanIya-khyAti is inextricably linked with a position that
> does not hold the material world to be ultimately real.

That particular term, indeed, but a parallel term indicating that the
ultimate nature of causality is beyond human reason can be coined by
almost any school that runs into philosophical difficulties.

> Also, for Sankara himself, the question of the locus of avidyA does not
> arise. See gItAbhAshya 13.2. As he puts it here, he who sees avidyA also
> sees him who has avidyA. The apparent samyoga between purusha and prakRti in
> Samkhya is recast as mutual adhyAsa or adhyAropa of Atman and anAtman in
> Advaita Vedanta. And when one sees that this samyoga is logically
> indefensible, it follows, *from Samkhya principles*, that manifestation of
> the non-conscious world can only be said to be apparent, so that the
> ontological status of any independent non-conscious entity becomes suspect.
> Samkhya accepts that the manifested world is paratantra, but that it is
> nevertheless real. Sankara goes a step further and holds that the pradhAna
> or prakRti itself cannot be svatantra, and that it cannot be said to be
> ultimately real. In many ways, Sankara's formulation of Advaita Vedanta is
> one solution to the central problems that would have been bothering Samkhya
> philosophers in his day.

Yes.  But he has replaced one problem with another.  He has by-passed the
need for explaining samyoga between prakRti and puruSa by positing that
the former can only be apparent, but in so doing he has created a new
problem -- whence the 'samyoga' between Brahman and this apparency,
(Maya/avidhya)?  Sankara's detractors (Ramanuja, Madhva, Nimbarka,
Vallabh, Baladev and even Siva/Sakti monists), in turn, never cease to
point out what they consider to be the achilles heel of Sankara's own
solution to the Samkhyan dilemma.

> Regarding later commentators, I suggest that their invoking Vishnu as a
> catalyst to bring about the manifestation of the world is not something
> totally new. If one goes back to proto-Samkhya or "epic Samkhya", i.e. to
> texts like the mok.sadharma in MBh, there is an underlying unifying
> principle behind the dualism of prakRti and purusha. I would also venture to
> suggest that what is normally called proto-Samkhya in these texts can
> equally well be called proto-Vedanta.

I am curious to explore to what extent Ramanauja's arguments defending the
necessity of a divine being are borrowed from Nyaya.  I have a sense that
the same basic theistic arguments just keep resurfacing.

Edwin Bryant