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PROLEGOMENA TO PRAKRITICA et JAINICA
We find thus that Iśvara and puruşa have been synonymously used in the same way as the Upanişads establish the identity of Brahman and the ātman.
III. ĀTMASASTHA-VĀDA According to one school there are five elements and the soul is a sixth substance; the soul and the world of five elements are eternal; these six substances do not perish either with or without a cause; the non-existent does not come into existence, and all things are eternal by their very nature.69 This is known as the “Doctrine of the soul as the sixth substance.” Parşakula includes the Sāṁkhyas and Vaiseşikas amongst its adherents, and Sīlāńka includes the Sāṁkhyas and Saivādhikārins who accept the authority of the Vedas." Silānka quotes many verses of the Bhagavadgitā to illustrate the philosophy of the indestructibility of the soul and the non-coming into existence of the non-existent. "If the non-existent came into existence,” remarks Sīlāňka, “it would make the growth of a horn possible to an ass." This doctrine of the eternal existence of the soul and the five elements, viz., earth, water, fire, air, and sky is a criticism of the Buddhist view that things are changing every moment without any cause, and of the Vaiseşika view that things are destructible just as a pitcher is destroyed if struck with a staff. The reply of this school is that a thing is not destroyed either with or without a cause, a pitcher smashed with a staff exists, lives and continues in the broken pieces, for out of that lump came its existence.
We have to compare in this connection the doctrine of Pakudha Kaccāyana stated in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta (Digha, II, p. 56). Pakudha held that seven things, viz.,
69. Sat.S. I.i.li 15-16. 70. In the Samkhya system there are other elements besides
these five.
