and the second constantly changing.  Matter is often personified as a woman.  Her motives are unselfish and she works for the liberation of the soul.  “As a dancer after showing herself on the stage ceases to dance, so does Prakriti cease when she has made herself manifest to the soul.”  That is to say, when a soul once understands that it is distinct from the material world, that world ceases to exist for that particular soul, though of course the play continues for others.  “Generous Prakriti, endowed with Gunas, causes by manifold means without benefit to herself, the benefit of the soul, which is devoid of Gunas and makes no return."[751] The condition of the liberated soul, corresponding to the mokska and nirvana of other systems, is described as Kaivalya, that is, complete separation from the material world, but, as among Buddhists and Vedantists, he who has learnt the truth is liberated even before death, and can teach others.  He goes on living, just as the wheel continues to revolve for some time after the potter has ceased to turn it.  After death, complete liberation without the possibility of rebirth is attained.  The Sankhya manuals do not dwell further on the character of this liberation:  we only know that the eternal soul is then completely isolated and aloof from all suffering and material things.  Liberation is compared to profound sleep, the difference being that in dreamless sleep there is a seed, that is, the possibility of return to ordinary life, whereas when liberation is once attained there is no such return.

Both in its account of the world process and in its scheme of salvation the Sankhya ignores theism in the same way as did the Buddha.  Indeed the text-books go beyond this and practically deny the existence of a personal supreme deity.  We are told[752] that the existence of God cannot be proved, for whatever exists must be either bound or free and God can be neither.  We cannot think of him as bound and yet he cannot be free like an emancipated soul, for freedom implies the absence of desire and hence of the impulse to create.  Similarly[753] the consequences of good and evil deeds are due to Karma and not to the government of God.  Such a ruler is inconceivable, for if he governs the world according to the action of Karma his existence is superfluous, and if he is affected by selfish motives or desire, then he cannot be free.  It is true that these passages speak of there being no proof of God’s existence and hence commentators both Indian and European who shrink from atheism represent the Sankhya as suspending judgment.  But if a republican constitution duly describes the President and other authorities in whom the powers of government are vested, can we argue that it is not unmonarchical because it does not expressly say there is no king?  In the Sankhya there is no more place for a deity than for a king in a republican constitution.  Moreover, the Sutras endeavour to prove that the idea