The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c10.2

c10.2

FOR the age of the Sāmkhya important information might be obtained if it were possible to trace definite borrowings of Sāmkhya ideas from the side of Greek philosophy. The ’ἄπειρον of Anaximander has been compared with the nature of the Sāmkhya, and the doctrines of the constant flow of things and of the innumerable destructions and renewals of the world found in Heraclitus are no doubt similar to tenets of the Indian system. Empedocles, like the Sāmkhya, asserts the doctrine of the pre-existence of the product in the cause. Anaxagoras is a dualist, Democritus agrees with Empedocles in his doctrine of causality and believes in the purely temporary existence and mortality of the gods. Epicurus uses in support of his atheism the argument of the Sāmkhya, that otherwise the divine nature must be accorded attributes which are inconsistent with its supposed character, and often emphasizes the doctrine of infinite possibilities of production.