 The translation of Paramartha into Chinese together with a commentary was composed over 557-569 CE, has survived in China, and it constitutes the oldest surviving version of Samkhya karika.Several manuscripts, with slightly variant verses are known, but these do not challenge the basic thesis or the overall meaning of the text.While the Samkhya ideas developed in second half of 1st millennium BCE through the Gupta period, the analysis of evidence shows, states Gerald Larson, that Samkhya is rooted in the speculations of the Vedic era Brahmanas and the oldest Upanishads of Hinduism on the nature of man, and that it is generally agreed that Samkhya's formulation took place at the earliest after the oldest Upanishads had been composed (~800 BCE).