The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c6.3

c6.3

On the other hand, the question whether the Sāmkhya is the source of Buddhism is one of peculiar difficulty, since the classical Sāmkhya is only attested by works of a much later date than the origin of Buddhism and, even admitting that we cannot assign the doctrines which make up the philosophy of Buddhism to the Buddha himself, nevertheless there is a considerable space of time between the records of the two doctrines. There is, indeed, in the epic evidence of the existence of the Sāmkhya at an earlier period than in the Sāmkhya Kārikā, but the doctrine there cannot be definitely ascribed to the same age as the Buddhist metaphysics, such as they are. Nor can it be denied that there is the possiblity that the Sāmkhya and Buddhism are both products of the older faith of the Upaniṣads, derived from it without the direct influence of the other, by the laying of stress on one or other of the elements which are contained in that collection of various points of view. There is certainly no difficulty in deriving Buddhism from the earlier doctrines of the Upaniṣads. The absolute which is produced as the ultimate ground of existence is clearly very far remote from knowledge, and the possibility of knowing anything of it is denied. The self which is the chief object of interest is much more immediately real, and the essential thing about the self is the fact that it suffers transmigration according to the law of action. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at if there can arise a philosophy which is largely indifferent to theoretic questions, as first enunciated by its founder, which is concerned with the essential fact of the transmigration of the actor, and which indeed goes so far as to deny the existence of any soul proper, though it substitutes for it a fairly adequate counterpart.