Conclusion

Saṃkhya and Saṃkhyayoga were mainly textual and historical realities. The categories of thought of much of the Hindu tradition come from Saṃkhya. Araṇya learned Saṃkhyayoga from books by experimenting with its yoga instructions while living in isolation in a cave, but he probably never encountered another Saṃkhyayogin except his own disciples. When Araṇya became a saṃnyasin, there was an emerging interest among intellectuals in the Saṃkhyayoga texts as part of the growing interest in ancient India and ancient Indian intellectual traditions, as well as the institution of saṃnyasa. The yoga tradition of Hariharananda Araṇya and Kapil Maṭh, however, is named Saṃkhyayoga and builds on the Saṃkhyayoga philosophy promoted in the Patañjalayogasastra. Araṇya's project has a modern dimension to it. It is an attempt to purify the traditions of yoga and promote the Yogasutra's original Saṃkhyayoga philosophical framework and to recover the institution of saṃnyasa.