The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c6.8

c6.8

The evidence of dependence is clearly somewhat lacking in cogency, even on the theory of the causal series adopted by Jacobi, as regards certain of the points. Moreover, the series is interpreted, on the basis of the oldest Buddhist texts very differently by Oldenberg.∗ He lays stress on the fact that Vijñāna is conceived as coming into existence at the time of conception as a result of the Saṃskāras, or impressions, which have been formed in the mind through ignorance in a former birth. With Vijñāna come into being name and form, the latter being definitely the corporeal side of the future being, while name hints at the personality. From name and form we are led from experience of the world through the senses to the desire, which leads to clinging to life, and thence to a further rebirth, the series thus illogically including a second rebirth, which is traced to different causes, but the main idea being merely to show the connection of misery with life. An attempt to save the theory from the grave error of bringing birth twice in is made by Oltramare,* who argues that the matter is confined to an explanation of the existence of misery, based on the arguments that man is miserable because he exists through being born: he is born because he belongs to the world of becoming: he belongs to that world because he nourishes existence in himself: this he does because he has desires: he has desires because he has sensations: he has sensations because he comes into contact with the external world: this he does because he has senses, which act: the senses act because he opposes himself as individual to the nonself; this again he does because his consciousness is imbued with the idea of individuality: this again comes from former experiences, which in their turn are derived from the lack of the correct knowledge. This is a tempting suggestion, but it is open to the serious objection that it goes a good deal beyond what is recorded, and introduces in all probability too refined a psychology. Deussen† goes so far as to hold that the system is the conglomeration of two quite different elements: the last group of members from desire onwards is a formulation of the ground of the origin of misery: the group from the second to the seventh explains psychologically the growth of the eighth, desire, while the conception of ignorance is borrowed from the Vedānta and placed at the head of the series.