Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/312

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256
SANKHYA AND YOGA

a primary source. Fourthly, the existing world is an effect, and there must be a primary cause. And fifthly, there is an undividedness, a real unity in the whole universe, which argues a common origin.

Purusha, or Soul, however, has a separate existence, first, because matter is apparently collected and arranged with a design, which proves, according to Kapila, not a Designer, but the existence of soul, for which the things must have been arranged. Secondly, matter furnishes materials for pleasure and pain; hence sentient nature, which feels pleasure and pain, must be different from it. Thirdly, there must be a superintending force. Fourthly, there must be a nature that enjoys. And the fifth argument is that the yearning for a higher life points to the possibility of gaining it. These were Kapila's arguments for the existence of soul independent of matter, yet he did not believe in one soul, but held that the souls of different beings are distinct one from the other, thus diverging from the teaching of the Upanishads and the Vedantic school, which is based upon them.

We have already said that Kapila borrowed the doctrine of transmigration of souls from the Upanishads, and having borrowed this idea, he had to adapt it to his own system of philosophy. The soul, according to him, is so passive that the individuality of man is scarcely stamped on it, while the intellect, the consciousness, and the mind all belong to the material part of a man. Hence Kapila was constrained by his own rigid reasoning to assume that a subtle body,