The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c10.5

c10.5

It is further not necessary seriously to consider the possibilities of borrowing on the part of Plato or of Aristotle, though the influence of the Sāṃkhya has been seen in the case of both. More plausible is the effort to find proof of Sāṃkhya doctrines in Gnosticism, an attempt to which there is not *a priori* any reason to take exception. The actual proofs of such influence adduced are not important: the comparison of soul or spirit to light, which does not occur in the oldest Sāṃkhya authorities, is anticipated by Aristotle, and is Platonic in essence; the contrast of spirit and matter is Platonic. Perhaps more value attaches to such minor points as the Gnostic division of men into three classes, which may be compared with the classification of men according to the predominance in them of the three Guṇas of the Sāṃkhya, and the assigning of personal existence to such functions as intellect and will. But such parallels, whatever they are worth, do not help definitely as to the date of a real Sāṃkhya.