“Janaka said, ‘Whence, O great Rishi, does this difference of colourarise among men belonging to the different orders? I desire to know this.Tell me this, O foremost of speakers! The Srutis say that the offspringone begets are one’s own self.
“Parasara said, ‘The sires, the friends, the preceptor, and the spousesof the preceptors of men that are destitute of devotion are unable togive to those men the merits that attach to devotion.
“Bhishma said, ‘Once again Janaka, the ruler of Mithila, questioned thehigh-souled Parasara endued with certain knowledge in respect of allduties.’
“Yudhishthira said, ‘O grandsire, learned men praise truth,self-restraint, forgiveness, and wisdom. What is thy opinion of thesevirtues?’
“Yudhishthira said, ‘It behoveth thee to explain to me, O sire, what thedifference is between the Sankhya and the Yoga system of philosophy. Oforemost one of Kuru’s race, everything is known to thee, O thou that artconversant with all duties!’
YUDHISHTHIRA SAID, ‘O king thou hast duly propounded unto me, in the wayin which it should be, the path of Yoga which is approved by the wise,after the manner of a loving preceptor unto his pupil. I ask now aboutthe principles of the Sankhya philosophy.
“Yudhishthira said, ‘What is that which is called Undeteriorating and byattaining to which no one has to come back?
“‘Vasishtha said, ‘Thus in consequence of his forgetfulness the Soulfollows ignorance and obtains thousands of bodies one after another.
“‘Vasishtha said, ‘It is thus, in consequence of his Ignorance and hisassociation with others that are invested with Ignorance, that Jiva hasrecourse to millions and millions of births every one of which hasdissolution in the end.
‘”Janaka said, O holy one, it has been said that the relation betweenmale and female is like that which subsists between the Indestructibleand the destructible (or Purusha and Prakriti). Without a male, a femalecan never conceive. Without a female a male also can never create form.
