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Sarkhya-Yoga and Jain-A Comparison
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discriminative knowledge (viveka-jñana, bheda-jñana). Their outlook of life that it is nothing but suffering in the last analysis, is also common.
The fundamental difference, however, lies in the concept of the nature of Puruşa and Jiva. The Samkhya purusas are, as seen above, kūtastha-nitya i e, not undergoing any change, whercas the Jivas, in Jain philosophy, undergo Pariņāma.
From these similarities and differences, we cannot say whether one was derived from the other. Historically, if we place the rise of Samkhya in 800 B.C, as some scholars To do, we have also to take into consideration the historicity of Pārsva (800 B,C.) which is now generally accepted. Thus the question of derivation of one from the other must remain unsolved till some pew evidence comes forth.
However, one consideration may be put forward. Jainism might represent the more primitive outlook, which regarded the Jivas also as changing like other material things. The Samkhya view of relegating all change to one entity, viz. Prakrti and regarding the Purvşas as absolutely unchanging is philosophically more advanced and, therefore, might have been a later view.
However that may be, it appears that earlicr than Yaska, there must have been a school of Parināmists, whose concept has been explained in the Nirukia. This school of Pariņāma-thinkers might have been the original inspirers both of the Proto-Samkhya and Proto-Jain thinkers-Jaina thinkers who were in the habit of looking at things as the Paryāyas of some original entities, especially of one and the same Jiva becoming manuşya, tiryanca. Dāraka etc.
The attempt to find out whether these Proto-Sāmkhya and Proto-Jain Pariņāma-thinkers were śramaņas or Vedic Brahmaņas is again bound to be futile for the simple reason that there is no evidence whatsoever to decide this issue. 15 Jacobi, Studies in Jainism, p. 80.
