The History of Buddhist Thought c14.48

c14.48

Comparison with Yoga does not appear to throw any more light on the origin of the Causal Formula. While there are resemblances in Buddhist terminology to Yoga terms, the Formula remains with striking unlikenesses both in terminology and purpose to either Sānkhya or Yoga. The one explains the genesis of the individual, and the other is an emanation formula explaining the genesis of the universe. However much the Formula as a scheme of individual genesis shows weaknesses, it shows still more when interpreted as an emanation formula. That the Buddhists ever understood it in this sense is a gratuitous assumption.