The History of Buddhist Thought c14.31

c14.31

An extensive influence of Sāṅkhya on Buddhism was held by Jacobi, who derived the Chain of Causation from the series found in the Sāṅkhya system in its classical form.² This system, as is well known, explains the evolution of the universe from a primitive undifferentiated matter called prakṛti (nature). This Nature has three constituents (guṇa) in perfect equilibrium, and it is the upsetting of this equilibrium and the consequent elaboration of the constituents in different proportions which constitute the actual world both material and spiritual. The constituents, which appear in matter as lightness, movement, and heaviness, appear in mental phenomena as goodness, passion, and dullness. Behind all this is the purusha, the permanent ātman.