ABSTRACT
The imagination of the Hindūs has thrown a veil of mystery and fable around Kapila, the traditional author of the Sānkhya philosophy. So much reverence gradually attached to his name, that he was sometimes called “the divine Kapila,” and was said to have been a son of Brahmā, the creative form of Brahmă, 1 an incarnation of Vishṇu, 2 or a form of Agni, though born as a son of Vitatha and Devahutī; 3 one of the great rishis or ancient sages; a descendant of the great lawgiver Manu; and to have been endowed with knowledge, virtue, freedom from passion, and supernatural power at the time of his birth. We can only say that he was probably a Brāhman, who, being disgusted with the prevailing beliefs and practices of his time, wrought out for himself a system by which he hoped to solve the mysteries connected with spirit and matter by reason alone. His memory survives only in his system; for of the details of his life or of the time when he lived we have no certain account. It is probable that he lived in the seventh or eighth century before Christ. He is said to have been born at Pushkara, a sacred bathing-place near Ajmeer, and to have dwelt at Ganga Sagar; 1 but there is no reliable evidence in support of either statement. It seems to be certain that he was born in Northern India, and at some time before the birth of the great reformer Gautama Buddha, the date of whose death has been generally assigned to 544 b.c.; for in the Pali Dāṭhavaṁsa, Buddha is said to have been born in the city of Kapila, and that this city, called Kapila-vastu, had been built by the sons of Ikshvāku, by the permission of the sage Kapila, and that it was near the Himalaya mountains (i. 20). An indefinite antiquity was sometimes assigned to the system. In the first book of the Mahābhārata, Nārada is said to have taught the thousand sons of Daksha the doctrine of final deliverance (from matter), the surpassing knowledge of the Sānkhya, 2 and he is reckoned as one of the Prajāpatis, or first progenitors of mankind.
