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Sam't haya-Yoga and Jain-A Comparison
The denial of Pariņāma in the Purusas has made it highly difficult for the Samkhya to relate them to the changing Prakṛti and has prevented them to play any substantial role in the world -phenomena. In fact, Prakṛti, having the inherent power to change, could very well function in the absence of such Purusas whose existence, however, makes the natural movement of Prakṛti teleological. This is difficult to grasp because we are accustomed to associate purposive activity, with sentient beings.
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Another consequence of this assumption is that jñāna, bhoga, bandha, mokṣa etc. which appear as of Puruşa become really so many transformations of Prakṛti. Puruşa is never bound and therefore has never to be free. He merely witnesses all the transformations of Prakṛti. Thus, in Samkhya, truly speaking, bandha and mokṣa are the transformations of Prakyti.
The above difficulties do not confront the Jain. The application of Pariņāma to Jivas enables him to smoothly relate the two, viz., Jiva and Pudgala, and explain their mutual influence and inter-action. The Jain theory of Pariṇāma which in the case of Jiva takes the form of bhāva-karma and in the case of Pudgala, dravya-karma, makes it possible to attribute jñāna, bhoga, bandha, mokṣa etc. to Jivas directly. Thus the infinite variety of phenomena and their significance to Jives as objects of knowledge, enjoyment and as objects from which Jivas have to be free are consistently explained by the Jain theory of Pariṇāma.
The only difficulty that the Jain will have to face is that, if by definition, Jiva and Pudgala are fundamentally different from each other, how the transformations (pariņāmas) of the one can ever be related to those of the other. In the case of the Samkhya there is no such difficulty because the Purusas and Prakṛti are always distinct from each other and never come in real contact. The bhoga and mokşa in the Puruşa are always aupacārika (i. e. only a way of speaking).
The Samkhya is thus metaphysically in a stronger position while the Jain's position is empirically more comprehensible.
