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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c12.s2: 2. Buddhism and the Beginnings of the Sāmkhya

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c12.s2

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2. Buddhism and the Beginnings of the Sāmkhya

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Clear as is the position adopted by the Buddha towards these aspects of thought, it is much less easy to determine the nature of his relation to the great philosophical systems then in the making, the metaphysics of the Vedānta and the Sāmkhya. There can be no serious doubt as to the priority of the older Upaniṣads, the Aitareya, Bṛhadāraṇyaka, or Chāndogya to our Buddhist texts, nor need we exaggerate¹ their dates to accept this result, since we have seen no ground to place our Pali Canon in the fourth century B. C. But it is not easy precisely to determine the doctrine of the Upaniṣads; there are traces in it of an insight which gives us later the famous distinction of two forms of knowledge, the empiric, and the real, corresponding to the world of phenomena and the absolute, whose relations to the former are beyond all possibility of knowledge or expression by empirical determinations. But to accept² this as the oldest and fundamental Upaniṣad doctrine, of which other views are later corruptions is impossible. The main doctrine of the Upaniṣads is clearly the belief in the existence of an absolute; in the main this absolute is admitted to exist pantheistically in the world, while the destiny of the seeming individual is to be reabsorbed in release through the attainment of the saving knowledge in this absolute. It is only in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, which is probably older than any Buddhist text we have, that we find a real attempt to think out the existence of the world and the self in relation to the absolute. The absolute, conceived as the person or spirit, a conception closely connected with the idea of the Rigveda that the world is created by the sacrifice of the primeval person (puruṣa) gives rise to the unevolved (avyakta), into which it enters as the great self (mahān *ātmā*), and thus individualized, in a manner common in the Brahmanical speculation, develops as intellect (*buddhi*), mind, senses, and objects of sense. Beyond this speculation, elaborated in the later *Çvetāçvatara* and *Maitrāyaṇī Upanisads*, no progress is made in the Upanisads.¹

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¹ As does Oldenberg, LUAB., p. 357, n. 185. A reference to the Aitareya Upaniṣad, Chāndogya and Taittirīya in Tevijja Sutta (Walleser, PGAB., p. 67) is most improbable.

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² As do Deussen, Philosophy of the Upaniṣads and Schrader, JPTS. 1904-05, pp 161 f.

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¹ Keith, *Sāṃkhya System*, chs. i and ii; Oldenberg, *LUAB*. ch. iii.

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In the classical form of the Sāṃkhya revealed in the *Sāṃkhya Kārikā* of Īçvarakṛṣṇa we find a system which differs vitally from the plan of the *Katha Upanisad* by abolishing the universal person or spirit, and opposing to the unmanifested or nature (*prakṛti*) an infinite number of individual spirits, which, it is essential to note, are no longer conceived as in any sense enveloped in matter; from primitive matter intellect, individuation, unknown to the *Katha*, mind, the senses and objects arise, but all is unconscious save through reflection in some degree² in the spirit, which nonetheless is a mere idle spectator of a process which concerns it not, and which will cease to be such a spectator for good, when it is realized that there is an eternal distinction and separateness (*viveka*) between spirit and matter. So artificial a structure cannot possibly be an outcome of primitive thought, and a bridge is provided in the Sāṃkhya known to the epic, where, though the later form of the doctrine begins to appear, we find also the spirit as universal, an attitude whose priority to the later idea is shown effectively by its harmony with the conception of nature as one.

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² cf. Garbe, *Sāṃkhya-Philosophie*,² pp. 368 f., 374 ff. with Dasgupta, *Ind. Phil.* i. 224 f.

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That this was a form of thought existing in the period of early Buddhism cannot seriously be questioned; the precise view of the Buddha himself we cannot hope to gather, but it is interesting to examine how far the growth of the school was affected by these doctrines. There would, of course, be proof positive of influence of the Sāṃkhya on Buddhism did we take seriously the account in the *Buddhacarita* of the meeting of the Buddha with the teacher Arāḍa Kālāma and the Sāṃkhya doctrines—which have epic parallels—attributed by Açvaghoṣa to the latter.³ But the Canon is silent and Aṣvaghoṣa a poet who would have us believe the Vaiçeṣika pre-Buddhist, so we may leave the argument aside. Less plausible still is the conjecture that the name of the Buddha’s town, Kapilavatthu, retains a record of the sage Kapila, founder of the classical Sāṃkhya. The only proof available must be internal evidence.

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³ Jacobi, *ZDMG*. lii. 4 f.; Oldenberg, ibid. 681 ff.; *GN*. 1917, pp. 241 f.; Strauss, *VOJ*. xxvii. 257 ff. Garbe's views (*SP*., pp. 6 ff.) are clearly untenable; Keith, *SS*., pp. 22 f. (His views on Pythagoras' borrowings in Greek

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The matter is complicated by the aversion of the Buddha to metaphysical speculations on topics deemed by him unnecessary, which explains why we have no examination of the conception of the Aupaniṣada absolute. The schematic handling of all possible theories of the continuance of consciousness after death is too formal to help, but in the Majjhima Nikāya¹ we do meet a passage which denounces in set terms as folly the conception of the existence of the self after death as identical with the absolute, the nearest approach—and that not in the earliest part of the Canon—to a formal attack on the absolute. This does not, however, take us necessarily to any connexion with the Sāṃkhya, and it is doubtful whether any aid is given by the attack² on philosophers who assert the eternity of the self and the world, bringing forth nothing new, steadfast as a mountain peak, firmly fixed as a pillar; the metaphor of the mountain top is found in epic and classical Sāṃkhya, but it applies to the spirit alone. Equally unconvincing is a Sāṃkhya origin for the distinction made by some teachers between the impermanent eye, ear, nose, tongue and body and the permanent consciousness, for the Sāṃkhya regards consciousness as equally impermanent.

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¹ i. 138; cf. KV. i. 1. 242.

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² DN. i. 14, 21; cf. Garbe, Sāṃkhya-Philosophie pp. 15 ff. That the idea of matter in Buddhism is borrowed from the Sāṃkhya, it is clearly (despite Geiger, PB., p. 81) wholly needless to assume. On materialistic tendencies in the Upaniṣad period cf. Jacobi, KF., pp. 37 ff. with Oldenberg’s corrections (GN. 1917, pp. 268 ff.).

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It remains, therefore, to consider whether indirectly we can trace Sāṃkhya influence in its pre-classical form. More fruitful results here present themselves. There is an unmistakable similarity between the Sāṃkhya conception of the constant process of nature and the general Buddhist conception of the world as in

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philosophy (pp. 126 ff.) are vitiated inter alia by his having overlooked Kaye, JRAS. 1910, pp. 753 ff. and are refuted by Oldenberg, GN. 1917, p. 253.)

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a perpetual condition of becoming. There is, moreover, a clear similarity in both systems in regard to the idea that the process is ruled by causality. True, the comparison of the Sāṃkhya system of the development of the twenty-four principles from nature downwards is a metaphysical explanation of empirical being, and therefore differs seriously from the Buddhist chain of causation of misery; hence the efforts of Professor Jacobi¹ and Pischel to work out a parallelism between the two has led to untenable comparisons, such as that of name and form with the individuation of the Sāṃkhya or of grasping with good and evil (*dharmādharmau*). But there is a real element of truth in the comparison; the idea of orderly development, which is already in the *Katha*, is the source of the seeking of causal order in the Buddhist formula. But the connexion goes further than that; the vital element in the chain is the conception that ignorance of truth in the individual—not a cosmic force—produces in the substitute for a self impressions which until counteracted by knowledge, result in producing ignorance in a future birth and so on *ad infinitum*, and in the Sāṃkhya and Yoga, where the doctrine is more fully expounded, we have the same idea of ignorance—here of the non-connexion of spirit and matter—producing impressions; both systems likewise recognize the importance of the factor of desire. In both systems of thought, therefore, we have the same picture of a world of process as in a sense a self-contained and closed system; there are two differences of importance, which we may judge Buddhist innovations. The first is the disappearance of nature as an ultimate reality when evolution takes place; this obviously would have countered too violently Buddhist insistence on becoming. With it fall the Guṇas,² or constituents of being; indeed, the inclusion among them of the element of goodness (*sattva*) would have prevented Buddhism incorporating the conception in a system which asserted the misery of empirical reality as a ground for seeking release. Secondly, to the Sāṃkhya the whole process is unconscious save through reflection or other contact with spirit;

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¹ GN. 1896, pp. 43 ff; ZDMG. lii. 1 ff.; Pischel, *Buddha*,² pp. 65 ff.

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² A Sāṃkhya without Guṇas is very dubious; Keith, SS., p. 23; Oldenberg, GN. 1917, p. 242, n. 4.

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this is impossible for a doctrine which denies the implication of a self in empirical reality, so that phenomena themselves appear as psychic no less than material.

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There is some evidence also that Buddhism developed under the influence of the early Sāmkhya conception of the spirit as indeed one, but not as intimately concerned with empiric reality. The doctrine expounded in the sermon on the characteristics of the not-self implies, as we have seen, the idea of a self as something utterly remote from experience, and a similar motive is seen in the sermon of Gayā on the world as enveloped in flames;¹ we seem here at the standpoint of a self which stands apart as a mere spectator of the misery of psychic existence, and the struggle for release takes the form, not of an effort within the causal series of the psychic happenings to stay its course of pain, but to realize the distinction between the self and this psychic complex. This idea, akin to the Sāmkhya recurs quite clearly in the doctrine which makes the enlightened Buddhist say that nature is not his, he is not it, it is not his self, in terms which are a precise parallel of the recognition in the Sāmkhya by the spirit of its distinction from nature which is the source of release from connexion with it.² The conclusion of borrowing is aided by a verbal similarity—rare otherwise as between Sāmkhya and Buddhism; the conception of Nirvāṇa without residue of support (*upadhi*) is inexplicable, unless we remember the doctrine of both Vedānta and Sāmkhya by which the spirit appears to belong to the world of becoming because of Upādhis; the transcendental in some way obtains a support and becomes transmuted into the empiric reality.

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¹ MV. i. 6. 38 ff.; i. 21.

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² Oldenberg's suggestion (LUAB., p. 319), based on MU. vi. 30, that in this proto-Sāmkhya the spirit itself was regarded as really bound and suffering does not accord well with the Buddhist evidence, as he himself indeed admits, and is in itself improbable.

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The proof of Sāmkhya influence is obviously indirect, and not in itself complete. It is possible to argue that it is enough to assume influence of the doctrine of the absolute without the Sāmkhya developments or to assign these developments to early Buddhism, though neither suggestion is perfectly satisfactory. But the case for influence is enormously strengthened by the consideration that the Yoga shows with Buddhism remarkable similarities, not merely in doctrine but also in terminology, which suggest irresistibly borrowing, and render indebtedness to the kindred Sāṃkhya system extremely probable. The alternative, of Yoga borrowing from Buddhism, need not, as a factor of early development, be seriously considered; it is enough to note that Buddhists make no claim to originality in the trances which they employed, and these trances, though a popular and important feature of the discipline, favoured personally by the Buddha himself, do not in the oldest doctrine as well as later claim to be the absolutely essential elements of the process of salvation.

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