“The Sankhya Karika”
Manuscript by Henry David Thoreau
This manuscript from Thoreau was acquired in the late 80’s or early 90’s when Dr. John Belew (Provost at the time) was diligently expanding the ABL’s Nineteenth Century Collection. The manuscript had been inserted by the publisher into the first volume of the set of The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, 1906. This set–called a “Manuscript Edition”– was limited to six hundred copies, and this is number 214.
“The Sankhya Karika” manuscript was removed from the set and placed in the ABL’s Victorian Manuscripts file in the vault, but not reclassified until recently. See the Baylor library record for a description of this process.
Thoreau mentions Sankhya Karika in his journals, and in 1850 he borrowed it and the Vishnu Purana from the Harvard library as he pursued his interest in Indian philosophy.
