Description

The imagination of the Hindūs has thrown a veil of mystery and fable around Kapila, the traditional author of the Sankhya philosophy. So much reverence
gradually attached to his name, that he was sometimes called “the divine Kapila,” and was said to have been & son of Brahmā, the creative form of Brabmă, an
incarnation of Vishņu, or a form of Agni, though born as a son of Vitatha and Devabuti;: one of the great fishis or ancient sages; a descendant of the
great lawgiver Manu; and to have been endowed with knowledge, virtue, freedom from passion, and super-natural 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 Dāthavamsa, Buddha is said
to have been born in the city of Kapila, and that this city, called Kapila-vastu, had been built by the song 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 sur-
passing knowledge of the Sānkhya, and he is reckoned as one of the Prajāpatis, or first progenitors of mankind.Tradition affirms that Kapila lived as a recluse-he
is called a Muni in Bhag. G., . 1. 52-and that he pogsessed & supernatural power, not always used with philosophic calmness. In the Rāmāyana (i. 36-44) we
are told, with true Oriental exaggeration, that the thousand sons of Sagara, a king of Ayodhya were directed by their father to go in search of horse that had been stolen by a Rakshasa(demon) at an aswamedha(horse sacrifice).