The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s7.t3.78

v2.c40.s7.t3.78

Stcherbatsky¹ suggests further that from the Sāṅkhya the Buddhists derived the incentive to the doctrine of the world as consisting of momentary elements of mind, matter, and force. The Guṇas of the Sāṅkhya on this view are interpreted as fundamental principles, matter, mind-stuff, and energy-stuff, acting as interdependent moments in every real and substantial existence; ‘the infinitesimals of energy, present everywhere, are semi-material; although different from the inertia of matter and the luminosity of mind, they are separate and substantial’. The Buddhist elements are a reply to the Sāṅkhya by an architect of greater skill. Ingenious as this theory is, it depends, even if we accept the suggested view of the Buddhist Dharmas as primitive—which seems impossible—on the belief that the interpretation of the Guṇas adopted is really that of the early Sāṅkhya. This seems frankly impossible in view of the silence of the Sāṅkhya texts and of the epic alike. The interpretation is based on the Yogabhāṣya of Vyāsa,² who is a comparatively late author,³ and who shows every sign of influence by the Buddhist schools.⁴ To substitute his views for those of the origin of the Sāṅkhya is as unwise as to adopt the doctrines of the Sarvāstivādins, as expounded by Vasubandhu, as representing the early doctrines of Buddhism from a philosophical point of view. The same error marks the suggestion⁵ that the name of Sāṅkhya is borrowed from Sāṅkhya in the sense of Prajñā, that intellectual insight which destroys the infections (*kleças*), through which the spirit is bound to continued existence. There can be no question that the epic⁶ explanation of the term as Parisaṅkhyāna, ‘enumeration (of principles)’, is to be preferred to this suggestion, though it is still more probable that in its earliest stage the term simply referred to reasoning.