of God is inconceivable and self-contradictory and some commentaries speak plainly on this subject.[754] Thus the Sankhya-tattva-kaumudi commenting on Karika 57 argues that the world cannot have been created by God, whether we suppose him to have been impelled by selfishness or kindness.  For if God is perfect he can have no need to create a world.  And if his motive is kindness, is it reasonable to call into existence beings who while non-existent had no suffering, simply in order to show kindness in relieving them from suffering?  A benevolent deity ought to create only happy creatures, not a mixed world like the one we see.[755]

Arguments like this were not condemned by the Brahmans so strongly as we should expect, but they did not like them and though they did not excommunicate the Sankhya in the same way as Buddhism, they greatly preferred a theistic variety of it called Yoga.

The Yoga and Sankhya are mentioned together in the Svetasvatara Upanishad,[756] and the Bhagavad-gita[757] says that he sees truly who sees them as one.  The difference lies in treatment rather than in substance.  Whereas the Sankhya is mainly theoretical, the principal topic of the Yoga is the cultivation of that frame of mind which leads to emancipation and the methods and exercises proper to this end.  Further, the Yoga recognizes a deity.  This distinction may seem of capital importance but the god of the Yoga (called Isvara or the Lord) is not its foundation and essence as Brahman is of the Vedanta.[758] Devotion to God is recognized as one among other methods for attaining emancipation and if this particular procedure, which is mentioned in relatively few passages, were omitted, the rest of the system would be unaffected.  It is therefore probable that the theistic portions of the Yoga are an addition made under Brahmanic influence.  But taking the existing Sutras of the two philosophies, together with their commentaries, it may be said that the Yoga implies most of the Sankhya theory and the Sankhya most of the Yoga practice, for though it does not go into details it prescribes meditation which is to be perfected by regulating the breathing and by adopting certain postures.  I have already spoken of the methods and discipline prescribed by the Yoga and need not dwell further on the topic now.

That Buddhism has some connection with the Sankhya and Yoga has often been noticed.[759] Some of the ideas found in the Sankhya and some of the practices prescribed by the Yoga are clearly anterior to Gotama and may have contributed to his mental development, but circumspection is necessary in the use of words like Yoga, Sankhya and Vedanta.  If we take them to mean the doctrinal systems contained in certain sutras, they are clearly all later than Buddhism.  But if we assume, as we may safely do, that the doctrine is much older than the manuals in which we now study it, we must also remember that when we leave the texts we are not justified in thinking of a system but merely