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230
YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
V. The evidence of Devasena and Somadeva points to the fact that there may have been some degeneration in the moral tone of the Samkhyas in their time, but the ethical ideal of the Samkhya school is manifest from the conception of the Sattvika from of Buddhi, as propounded in Samkhyakärikā (23). As regards the charge that the Samkhyas are devoid of compassion for living creatures, it is belied by their view that animal slaughter in Vedic sacrifices is productive of sin, a point elaborated in the Matharavṛtti. It is noteworthy that the Jaina Gunaratna Sūri tells us in his commentary on Haribhadra's Saddarsanasamuccaya (chap. 3) that the Samkhyas are spiritualists averse to the Vedic cult involving killing of animals, and he mentions in this connection certain devices adopted by them to avoid injury to living creatures, similar to those used by the Jaina monks. Somadeva, on the other hand, classes the Samkhyas with the Buddhists, the Cārvākas, and the adherents of the Vedic, Śaiva, and medical systems, and advises people to abstain from flesh-eating by rejecting the views of all these schools (Yasastilaka VII. 24. Vol. II, p. 331):
तच्छाक्यसांख्यचार्वाकवेदवैद्यकपर्दिनाम् । मतं विहाय हातव्यं मांसं श्रेयोऽर्थिभिः सदा ॥
Obviously the systems mentioned above permitted the eating of animal food; and the Samkhya attitude towards flesh-eating may have been similar to that of the Buddhists, in spite of the repugnance to the slaughter of animals, common to both schools. Somadeva, as we shall see, condemns the Buddhists for eating flesh, and this is probably the reason why Devasena likewise describes the Samkhyas as devoid of compassion for living
creatures.
BARHASPATYAS
The Barhaspatyas, as we have seen, are called Nästikas by Somadeva; and in Yasastilaka, Book V, Caṇḍakarman who expounds their views is described as an exponent of Lokayata doctrines.3 Siddharṣi says in his Upamiti-bhava-prapañcā katha that the Barhaspatyas are the inhabitants of the Lokayata City. That the Lokayata was a prominent system in the tenth century and thereabouts is certain. Siddharși includes it among the principal non-Jaina systems described by him in his allegorical romance (Book IV); and in the Kudlur Plates of the Ganga king Marasimha, dated 963 a. D., a famous Jaina teacher is described as Lokayata-loka-sammata-matiḥ, 'one whose talents are appreciated by the adherents of the Lokayata system.' The
1
See Chap. VIII.
2 See Chap. XIII. The Pasupata views on the subject are very similar. See below. 3 'प्रयुक्त लोकायतमतधर्मा' Vol. II, p. 259.
4 लोकायतमिति प्रोक्तं पुरमत्र तथापरम् । नाईस्पत्याश्च ते लोका ये वास्तव्याः पुरेऽत्र भोः ॥ Bool: TV.
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