गणितसारसंग्रह (महावीराचार्य - प्रो. लक्ष्मीचन्द्र जैन सविस्तार हिन्दी अनुवाद सटीक)

प्रस्तावना 31
( १ ) एक ओर जहाँ यूनान में पौधों में जीव का अस्तित्व माना गया है, वहाँ चीन में भी इससे
सम्बन्धित सिद्धान्त पर जोज़ेफ़ नीडेम द्वारा प्रकाश डाल गया है :
"Another case which seems to me comparable is the Aristotelian
doctrine of the 'ladder of souls' in which plants were regarded
as possessing a vegetative soul, animals a vegetative and a sensitive
soul, and man a vegetative, a sensitive and a rational soulᶜ. I shall
later show (sect. 9 e) that a very similar doctrine was taught by
Hsun Tzu (Hsun Chhing).² Aristotle lived from —384 to —322,
Hsün Chhing from — 298 to —238."*
उपर्युक्त का सम्बन्ध प्राकृत ग्रंथों में वर्णित जीवों के गुणस्थान और मार्गणास्थानों से अनुरेखित
करना उपयोगी प्रतीत होता है । इस ओर आकृष्ट करने वाले तथ्य निम्नलिखित हैं :—
"In the realm of philosophical theory and practice, determined
efforts have been made to show that early Taoism owed much both
to the Indian Upanishad literature for its theoryᵃ, and to Indian
yogism for some of its practices;ᵇ further, that Chinese Chhan
Buddhism was an importation from Indiaᶜ. These views, however,
as Creel says,ᵈ have never been really convincing. The Upanishadsᵉ
are metaphysical commentaries on the Vedas, and date from the
—8th to the —4th centuries,ᶠ so that they are little earlier than the
first period of elaboration of Taoist doctrine. Their strongly marked
metaphysical idealism, with its conception of the unity of the
brahman and the atman, the absolute and the self, is not at all
characteristic of the Taoists; though the latter, as we shall see,
greatly emphasised the unity of nature, and the incorporation of the
individual within it. For the influence of Yoga practices,ᵍ especially
the breathing exercises, which are certainly very ancient in India,
upon early Taoism, a better case can be made out (Filliozat, 3).
Some Taoist schools, at any rate, practised self-hypnosis by
concentration on the inhaling and exhaling processes (Waleyʰ),
butit was not universal as Chuang Tzu has a passage condemning
it. In any case the aims of this samādhi or dhyāna among the Taoists
were entirely different from those of the Indian rishis. Both wished
to master organic life and to attain 'supernatural' powers, but while

• J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, p. 155, vol. I,
  Cambridge (1954).