The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c6.4

c6.4

The only means, therefore, of proving that Buddhism is really depended on the Sāmkhya is to find the existence in some important Buddhist doctrine of characteristics which, are very definitely connected with the Sāmkhya and which, if not necessarily in themselves peculiarities of the Sāmkhya school, are nevertheless treated by it in a special manner. The attempt to bring this really conclusive form of argument to bear has been made by Jacobi,* who has sought to find in the series of twelve principles, which are used in the Buddhist view to explain the causation of misery, clear traces of their derivation from the evolution series of the Sāmkhya. The elements of the evolution series of the Sāmkhya are not by any means peculiar to that system, but the order of evolution and the stress laid on the evolution are matters of great importance. Jacobi further strengthens his position by the argument that the reference in the epic to the two systems of Sāmkhya and Yoga as two and eternal is a clear indication that at the time of the epic, which he sets not later than the beginning of the Christian era, the systems were of great antiquity, that the atmosphere of thought in the time of the Buddha was filled with Sāmkhya ideas, and that the Buddha was influenced by these ideas, and strove in his own system to produce some formula of causation which would be suitable to serve as an explanation of the origin of the misery which the Sāmkhya and his own system so strongly affirmed. He also points out that in Aśvaghoṣa's *Buddhacarita* we have an account of a meeting between the Buddha and his former teacher, Arāḍa, in which are ascribed to the latter views which resemble those of the Sāmkhya, as modified by the belief in the personal supreme divinity of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. The importance of this episode, if we are to credit the account in Aśvaghoṣa, would be that it would remove the most serious difficulty in the attempt to connect with the Sāmkhya the system of Buddhism. The latter has no trace of the doctrine of the three Guṇas, or constituents, which are present in nature and all its products according to the Sāmkhya, and therefore if it is to be derived from the Sāmkhya it must be traced to a Sāmkhya which did not accept the doctrine of the Guṇas. Now the account given of Arāḍa's teachings does not mention the Guṇas, and in it might perhaps be seen evidence of the existence of a Sāmkhya which did not know the Guṇas.[*] It is clear, however, that this argument cannot safely be pressed: the historical accuracy of the views of Aśvaghoṣa is not confirmed by the information we have. Arāḍa is known to the sacred books of Buddhism, but his doctrines are never set out in any way corresponding to the picture of him in Aśvaghoṣa, and we cannot therefore say that the account in Aśvaghoṣa has any value at all, not merely for the actual teaching of Arāḍa, but for the existence at any time of a school of Sāmkhya, which denies the existence of the Guṇas. It may be doubted if any such school of Sāmkhya ever was known.