San-Jasiis, one of the three classes of Jar/ins, which latter are Brahmanic anchorets. They affect great abstinence, and refrain from marriage, betel, and, indeed, pleasure in general. They are allowed to make but one meal a day, and to live on alms, carrying with them a cup of earthenware only. Their clothes are dyed ■with red earth, and they have a long bamboo cane in their hands. They are forbidden to touch either gold or silver, much less to carry any about them. They are not allowed to have any fixed residence, nor to lie two nights together in the same place, once a year ex- cepted, when they are suffered to continue two months in the same place : they then select such a spot as is thought to be holy, and there they may remain for life if they wish. They are bound to be always ready to oppose six enemies, viz. Cama, hist; Croota, anger; Lopa, avarice; Mudda. pride ; the love of things of this world ; and Matsara, thirst for revenge. — Buriler, Hist. of all Religions, p. 747.
Sankara, or Sankaracharya, the name of one of the most renowned theologians of India. The time in which he flourished is unknown, tradition placing him at about B.C. 200, but H. H. Wilson assigns him to the 8th or 9th century after Christ. Most accounts agree in making him a native of Kerala or INIalabar, and a meml)er of the caste of the Namburi Bralimans. In Malabar he is said to have divided the four original castes into seventy-two, or eighteen subdivisions each. Towards the close of his life he repaired to Cashmere, and tinally to Kedarnnth, in the Himalaya, where he died at the early age of thirty-two years. In the course of his career he founded the sects of the Dasnami- Dandins. His principal works, which are of consid- erable merit, and exercised a great influence on the re- ligious history of India, are his commentary on the Veddnta. Sutras, on the Bhaga-vadgita, and the prin- cipal Upanishads. A number of works are current in the south of India relating to his life, among them the Sankara-dig-vijaya, or the conquest of the world by
Sankara. See Wilson, Sketch of Religious Seels of the Hindus ; Chambers's Encyclop. s. v.
Sankhar, an evil spirit mentioned in the Jewish Talmud as having taken possession of the throne of
Solomon.
Sankhya (Sanscrit, synthetic reasnvivg'). the name of one of the three great systems of orthodox Hiiidfl philosophy. Like the other systems, it professes to teach the means by which eternal beatitude, or the complete and perpetual exemption from every sort of ill, may be attained. This means is the discriminative acquaintance with tatica, or the true ])rin(iiilcs of all existence. Such principles are, according to the Sankhya system, twenty-five in number, as follows: (1) Prahriti or Pradhana, substance or nature; it is the universal and material cause, eternal, productive but unproduced. Its first production is (2) Mahut (lit- erally the great), or Buddhi (literally intellect). From it devolves (3) Ahanlara (literally the assertion if "/"), the function of which consists in referring the ob- jects of the world to one's self. It produces (4-8) five tanmdtra, or subtle elements, which produce the five gross elements [see (20-24)]. Ahankara further pro- duces (9-13) five instruments of sensation, viz. the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and skin; (14-18) five instruments of action, viz. the organ of speech, the hands, the feet, the excretorj- termination of the intestines, and the or- gan of generation ; lastly (19), manas, or the organ of volition and imagination. The five subtle elements (4-8) produce (20-24) the five gross elements, viz. alcisa, space or ether, derived from the so7wrous tan- matra; air, derived from the aerial tanmatra; fire, from the igneous tanmatra; water, from the aqueous tanmatra; lastly, earth, derived from the terrene tan- matra. The 25th principle is Pvrusha, or soul, which is neither produced nor productive; it is multitudinous, individual, sensitive, eternal, unalterable, and immate- rial.
Creation results from the union of Prakriti (1) and Purusha (25), and is either material or intellectual. Besides the twenty-five principles, the Sankhya also teaches that nature has three essential gunas, or qual- ities, viz. satva, the quality of goodness or purity ; rajas (literally coloredness), the quality of passion ; and, tamas, the quality of sin or darkness; and it classifies accordingly material and intellectual creation. From the foregoing summary it will be seen that the San- khya proper does not teach the existence of a Supreme Being, by whom nature and soul were created, and by whom the world is ruled. Its opponents have therefore accused it of being atheistical; and it is the special ob- ject of the Yoga system to remove this reproach by asserting his existence and defining his essence. Its final object is not absorption in God, whether personal or impersonal, but "Moksha," deliverance of the soul from all pain and illusion, and recovery by the soul of its true nature. The Sankhya system inidcrwent a mythological development in the PurAnas ((]. v.) ; thus Prakriti, or nature, is identified with Miiya, or the en- ergy of Brahma; and the Matsya-Purnna affirms that Buddhi, or Mahat, the intellectual principle, through the three qualities goodness, passion, and sin, becomes the three gods — Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. The most important development, however, of the Sankhya is that by the Buddhistic doctrine, which is mainly based on it. i