pila or Kapila from Buddha, and thus
determine the real chronology of the philosophical literature of India, as
either prior or subsequent to the Buddhist era. There are certain notions
which Buddha shares in common not only with Kapila, but with every Hindu
philosopher. The idea of transmigration, the belief in the continuing
effects of our good and bad actions, extending from our former to our
present and from our present to our future lives, the sense that life is a
dream or a burden, the admission of the uselessness of religious
observances after the attainment of the highest knowledge, all these
belong, so to say, to the national philosophy of India. We meet with these
ideas everywhere, in the poetry, the philosophy, the religion of the
Hindus. They cannot be claimed as the exclusive property of any system in
particular. But if we look for more special coincidences between Buddha's
doctrines and those of Kapila or other Indian philosophers, we look in
vain. At first it might seem as if the very first aphorism of Kapila,
namely, 'the complete cessation of pain, which is of three kinds, is the
highest aim of man,' was merely a philosophical paraphrase of the events
which, as we saw, determined Buddha to renounce the world in search of the
true road to salvation. But though the starting-point of Kapila and Buddha
is the same, a keen sense of human misery and a yearning after a better
state, their roads diverge so completely and their goals are so far apart,
that it is difficult to understand how, almost by common consent, Buddha is
supposed either to have followed in the footsteps of Kapila, or to have
changed Kapila's philosophy into a religion. Some scholars imagine that
there was a more simple and primitive philosophy which was taught by
Kapila, and that the Sutras which are now ascribed to him, are of later
date. It is impossible either to prove or to disprove such a view. At
present we know Kapila's philosophy from his Sutras only,[64] and these
Sutras seem to us posterior, not anterior, to Buddha. Though the name of
Buddha is not mentioned in the Sutras, his doctrines are clearly alluded to
and controverted in several parts of them.

[Footnote 64: Of Kapila's Sutras, together with the commentary of
Vi_g_nana Bhikshu, a new edition was published in 1856, by Dr.
Fitz-Edward Hall, in the 'Bibliotheca Indica.' An excellent
translation of the Aphorisms, with illustrative extracts from the
commentaries, was printed for