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6
The Doctrines of Jainism
As has already been pointed out, some basic concepts of Jain philosophy bear the stamp of primitive religious and metaphysical speculations. General agreement between Jainism, on the one hand, and Samkhya, Yoga and Buddhism, on the other, on some basic principles, such as negation of a spiritual entity as primordial cause, transmigration, pessimism and liberation (mokṣa or nirvāņa), presuppose the existence of a substratum of philosophical speculation from which these schools sprang. But they devised their systems on different lines. For instance, the Jain and Samkhya both acknowledge the duality of spirit and matter, the plurality of spirits or souls, the efficacy of matter in influencing deeply and shaping the spirit or soul and, finally, that soul may be salvaged from the havoc of matter only by resorting to ascetic practices, but both of them have built up their respective philosophical systems on different lines owing mainly to the age old dichotomy of Brāhmaṇism and Śramanism. Buddhism, though having allegiance with Śramanism developed a philosophy which radically differed from Jainism though some of its features are common with the latter. The Buddha appears to have constructed his philosophical system synthesising some Upanisadic and Śramanic ideas.
