(rebirth) cycle in connection with sorrow, origination, decease, rebirth, etc. is described with a remarkable degree of similarity with the cycle of causes as described in early Buddhism.  Avidya is placed at the head of the group; yet this avidya should not be confused with the Vedanta avidya of S’a@nkara, as it is an avidya of the Buddhist type; it is not a cosmic power of illusion nor anything like a mysterious original sin, but it is within the range of earthly tangible reality.  Yoga avidya is the ignorance of the four sacred truths, as we have in the sutra “anityas’ucidu@hkhanatmasu nityas’ucidu@hkhatmakhyatiravidya” (II. 5).

The ground of our existing is our will to live (abhinives’a).  “This is our besetting sin that we will to be, that we will to be ourselves, that we fondly will our being to blend with other kinds of existence and extend.  The negation of the will to be, cuts off being for us at least [Footnote ref 2].”  This is true as much of Buddhism as of the Yoga abhinives’a, which is a term coined and used in the Yoga for the first time to suit the Buddhist idea, and which has never been accepted, so far as I know, in any other Hindu literature in this sense.  My sole aim in pointing out these things in this section is to show that the Yoga sutras proper (first three chapters) were composed at a time when the later forms of Buddhism had not developed, and when the quarrels between the Hindus and the Buddhists and Jains had not reached such

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[Footnote 1:  Yoga sutra, II. 15, 16. 17. Yathacikitsas’astra@m caturvyuha@m rogo rogahetuh arogya@m bhais’ajyamiti evamidamapi s’astram caturvyuhameva; tadyatha sa@msara@h, sa@msarahetu@h mok@sa@h mok@sopaya@h; duhkhabahula@h sa@msaro heya@h, pradhanapuru@sayo@h sa@myogo heyahetu@h, sa@myogasyatyantiki niv@rttirhana@m hanopaya@h samyagdar`sanam, Vyasabha@sya, II. 15]

[Footnote 2:  Oldenberg’s Buddhism [Footnote ref 1].]

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a stage that they would not like to borrow from one another.  As this can only be held true of earlier Buddhism I am disposed to think that the date of the first three chapters of the Yoga sutras must be placed about the second century B.C.  Since there is no evidence which can stand in the way of identifying the grammarian Patanjali with the Yoga writer, I believe we may take them as being identical [Footnote ref 1].

The Sa@mkhya and the Yoga Doctrine of Soul or Puru@sa.

The Sa@mkhya philosophy as we have it now admits two principles, souls and prak@rti, the root principle of matter.  Souls are many, like the Jaina souls, but they are without parts and qualities.  They do not contract or expand according as they occupy a smaller or a larger body, but are always all-pervasive, and are not contained in the bodies in which they are manifested.  But the relation between body or rather the mind associated with it and soul is such that whatever mental phenomena happen in the mind are interpreted as the experience of its soul.  The souls are many, and had it not been so (the Sa@mkhya argues) with the birth of one all would have been born and with the death of one all would have died [Footnote ref 2].