(or Hindu) Indian philosophies. Two millennia ago it was the
representative Hindu philosophy. Its classical formulation is found in
Īśvarakṛṣṇa's Sāṅkhya-Kārikā (ca. 350 CE), a condensed account in
seventy-two verses. It is a strong Indian example of metaphysical
dualism, but unlike many Western counterparts it is atheistic. The two
types of entities of Sāṅkhya are Prakṛti and puruṣa-s, namely Nature
and persons. Nature is singular, and persons are numerous. Both are
eternal and independent of each other. Persons (puruṣa-s) are
essentially unchangeable, inactive, conscious entities, who
nonetheless gain something from contact with Nature. Creation as we
know it comes about by a conjunction of Nature and persons. Prakṛti,
or Nature, is comprised of three guṇa-s or qualities. The highest of
the three is sattva (essence), the principle of light, goodness and
intelligence. Rajas (dust) is the principle of change, energy and
passion, while tamas (darkness) appears as inactivity, dullness,
heaviness and despair. Nature, though unconscious, is purposeful and
is said to function for the purpose of the individual puruṣa-s. Aside
from comprising the physical universe, it comprises the gross body and
"sign-body" of a puruṣa. The latter contains among other things the
epistemological apparati of embodied beings (such as the mind,
intellect, and senses). The sign body of a puruṣa transmigrates: after
the death of the gross body, the sign-body is reborn into another
gross body according to past merit, and the puruṣa continues to be a
witness through its various bodies. An escape from this endless circle
is possible only through the realization of the fundamental difference
between Nature and persons, whereby an individual puruṣa loses
interest in Nature and is thereby liberated forever from all bodies,
subtle and gross. Much of the Sāṅkhya system became widely accepted in
India: especially the theory of the three guṇa-s; and it was
incorporated into much latter Indian philosophy, especially Vedānta.
1. History
The word "Sāṅkhya" is derived from the Sanskrit noun sankhyā (number)
based on the verbal root khyā (make known, name) with the preverb
sam(together). "Sāṅkhya" thus denotes the system of enumeration or
taking account. The first meaning is acceptable, as Sāṅkhya is very
fond of sets, often naming them as "triad," "the group of eleven," and
so forth; but the second meaning is more fitting, as the aim of
Sāṅkhya is to take into account all the important factors of the whole
world, especially of the human condition.
Sāṅkhya has a very long history. Its roots go deeper than textual
traditions allow us to see. The last major figure in the tradition,
Vijñāna Bhikṣu, thrived as late as 1575 CE. Despite its long history,
Sāṅkhya is essentially a one-book school: the earliest extant complete
text, the Sāṅkhya-Kārikā, is the unquestioned classic of the
tradition. Not only are its formal statements accepted by all
subsequent representatives, but also its ordering of the topics and
its arguments are definitive – very little is added in the course of
the centuries.
Besides its own author, Īśvarakṛṣṇa, the Sāṅkhya-Kārikā itself names
several ancient adherents of the school plus a standard work, the
Ṣaṣṭi-Tantra (the book of sixty [topics]). The ancient Buddhist
Aśvaghoṣa (in his Buddha-Carita) describes Arāḍa Kālāma, the teacher
of the young Buddha (ca. 420 BCE) as following an archaic form of
Sāṅkhya. The great Indian epic, the Mahābhārata, represents the
Sāṅkhya system as already quite old at the time of the great war of
the Bharata clan , which occurred during the first half of the first
millennium BCE. Such textual evidence confirms that by the beginning
of our era, Indian common opinion considered Sāṅkhya as very ancient.
Moreover, Sāṅkhya concepts and terminology frequently appear in the
portion of the Vedas known as the Upaniṣads, notably in the Kaṭha and
the Śvetāśvatara. The older (6th cent. BCE?) Chāndogya Upaniṣad
presents an important forerunner of the guṇa-theory, although the
terminology is different. And before that, in the Creation-hymn of the
Ṛg-Veda (X. 129) we find ideas of the evolution of a material
principle and of cosmic dualism, in the company of words that later
became the names of the guṇa-s.
Sāṅkhya likely grew out of speculations rooted in cosmic dualism and
introspective meditational practice. The agriculturally-rooted concept
of the productive union of the sky-god (or sun-god or rain-god) and
the earth goddess appears in India typically as the connection of the
spiritual, immaterial, lordly, immobile fertilizer (represented as the
Śiva-liṅgam, or phallus) and of the active, fertile, powerful but
subservient material principle (Śakti or Power, often as the horrible
Dark Lady, Kālī). The ascetic and meditative yoga practice, in
contrast, aimed at overcoming the limitations of the natural body and
achieving perfect stillness of the mind. A combination of these views
may have resulted in the concept of the puruṣa, the unchanging
immaterial conscious essence, contrasted with Prakṛti, the material
principle that produces not only the external world and the body but
also the changing and externally determined aspects of the human mind
(such as the intellect, ego, internal and external perceptual organs).
Both the agrarian theology of Śiva-Śakti/Sky-Earth and the tradition
of yoga (meditation) do not appear to be rooted in the Vedas. Not
surprisingly, classical Sāṅkhya is remarkably independent of orthodox
Brahmanic traditions, including the Vedas. Sāṅkhya is silent about the
Vedas, about their guardians (the Brahmins) and for that matter about
the whole caste system, and about the Vedic gods; and it is slightly
inimical towards the animal sacrifices that characterized the ancient
Vedic religion. But all our early sources for the history of Sāṅkhya
belong to the Vedic tradition, and it is thus reasonable to suppose
that we do not see in them the full development of the Sāṅkhya system,
but rather occasional glimpses of its development as it gained gradual
acceptance in the Brahmanic fold.
From these and also from some quotations in later literature
commenting on the tradition (first of all in the Yukti-dīpikā), a
variety of minor variations and differing opinions have been collected
that point to the existence of many branches of the school. The most
significant divergence is perhaps the development of a theistic school
of Orthodox Hindu philosophy, called Yoga, which absorbs the basic
dualism of Sāṅkhya, but is theistic, and thus regards one puruṣa as a
special puruṣa, called the Lord (Īśvara).
According to the Indian tradition, the first masters of Sāṅkhya are
Kapila and his disciple Āsuri. They belong to antiquity (and
sometimes, prehistory) and are known only through ancient legends.
Another putative ancient master of Sāṅkhya, Pañcaśikha, seems to be
more historical, and may have been the author of the original
Ṣaṣṭi-Tantra. Other important figures in the tradition, frequently
referred to and also quoted in the commentaries, include Vārṣagaṇya,
and Vindhyavāsin, who may have been an older contemporary of
Īśvarakṛṣṇa.
Around the beginning of our era, Sāṅkhya became the representative
philosophy of Hindu thought in Hindu circles, and this probably
explains why we find it everywhere – not only in the epics and the
Upaniṣads but also in other important texts of the Hindu tradition,
such as the dharmaśāstra-s (law-books), medical treatises (āyurveda)
and the basic texts of the meditational Yoga school. And in fact much
of the philosophy of Yoga (as formulated by Patañjali ca. 300 CE) is
considered by several modern scholars as a version of Sāṅkhya.
Of Īśvarakṛṣṇa we know nothing; he may have lived around 350 CE, in
any case after the composition of the foundational text of the Nyāya
school of Indian philosophy, known as the Nyāya-Sūtra, and before the
famous Buddhist philosopher, Vasubandhu. Īśvarakṛṣṇa's work, the
Sāṅkhya-Kārikā consists of 72 stanzas in the āryā meter. Perhaps some
of the verses were added by a student, but most of the work clearly
tells of a single, philosophically and poetically ingenious hand.
Unlike the (older) sūtras (aphorisms) of other systems, which are
often cryptic and ambiguous, the Sāṅkhya-Kārikā is a clear composition
that is well ordered and argued. It is stated in the last stanza that
it is a condensation of the whole Ṣaṣṭi-Tantra, leaving out only
stories and debates. And in fact Īśvarakṛṣṇa never refers to the
theses of other systems, nor to differences within the school. He
purposefully avoids all points of conflict: he is either silent about
them or uses ambivalent expressions. It is perfectly clear that he
wanted to write the common standard for the whole school, acceptable
to all adherents to the philosophy; and he succeeded. The Kārikā
ousted all previous Sāṅkhya writings, of which only stray quotations
remain. The presentation given below will thus follow this work very
closely.
Many commentaries were written on the Kārikā, mostly simple
explanations of the text, and very similar to each other (the better
known are Gauḍapāda's Bhāṣya, Māṭhara's Vṛttiand Śaṅkarācārya's
Jaya-Maṅgalā — this Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkarācārya are generally thought
to be different from the famous Advaitins of the same name). By far
the most important and also longest commentary is the Yukti-dīpikā,
"Light on the arguments" written perhaps by Rājan or Rājāna around 700
CE. This commentary discusses different positions within the school
(and is therefore our most important historical source for old
Sāṅkhya) and debates with other schools over many fundamental points
of doctrine. It follows the polemical style of writing in the early
classical schools, with heavy emphasis on epistemological issues.
Unfortunately this text received very little response in classical
times; in fact it was hardly known outside Kashmir. One of the reasons
for this may be the extreme popularity of another commentary,
Vācaspati Miśra's Sāṅkhya-Tattva-Kaumudī, or "Moonlight of the
Principles of Sāṅkhya," (circa 980 CE). This commentary, although
incomparably simpler, still follows mature classical philosophical
style, and was written by a master of all philosophies, respected for
his works on all major schools. It was the starting point of a
tradition of sub-comments continuing to the present day.
Besides the Kārikā there are two other important foundational texts of
Sāṅkhya. The cryptic, half page long Tattva-Samāsa-Sūtra (Summary of
the Principles) is very old at least in some parts, but no Sāṅkhya
author mentions it before the 14th century. It is only a list of
topics, but a list quite different from the categories of the Kārikā;
it has several commentaries, the best known is the Krama-Dīpikā,
"Light on the Succession." The other text is the well-known, longish
Sāṅkhya-Sūtra, which plainly follows the Kārikā in most respects but
adds many more illustrative stories and polemics with later
philosophic positions. It is markedly atheistic and makes arguments
against the existence of God. It appears first in the 15th century and
is probably not very much older. It has attracted a commentary by
Vijñāna Bhikṣu, the eminent Vedāntist of the 16th century,
entitledSāṅkhya-Pravacana-Bhāṣya or "Commentary expounding Sāṅkhya."
He also authored a small systematic treatise, the Sāṅkhya-Sāra (The
Essence of Sāṅkhya). He introduced several innovations into the
system, notably the idea that the number of the qualities is not three
but infinite and that the guṇa-s are substances, not qualities.
2. Sāṅkhya's Existential Quandary and Solution
The first premise of Sāṅkhya is the universal fact of suffering. There
are many practical ways to ward off the darker side of life: such as
self-defense, pleasures, medicine, and meditation. But, according to
Sāṅkhya, all of them are of limited efficacy and at best can offer
only temporary relief. The refuge offered by traditional Vedic
religion is similarly unsatisfactory—it does not lead to complete
purification (mainly because it involves bloody animal sacrifices),
and the rewards it promises are all temporary: even after a happy and
prolonged stay in heaven one will be reborn on Earth for more
suffering.
Therefore the solution offered by Sāṅkhya is arguably superior: it
analyzes the fundamental metaphysical structure of the world and the
human condition, and finds the ultimate source of suffering, thereby
making it possible to fight it effectively. Cutting the root of
rebirth is the only way to final emancipation from suffering,
according to Sāṅkhya.
Sāṅkhya analyzes the cosmos into a dualistic, and atheistic scheme.
The two types of entities that exist, on Sāṅkhya's account, are
Prakṛti or Nature and puruṣa-s or persons. Nature is singular, but
persons are numerous. Both are eternal and independent of each other.
Creation as we know it comes about by a conjunction of these two
categories. Nature, though unconscious, is purposeful and is said to
function for the purpose of the individual puruṣa-s. Aside from
comprising the physical universe, it comprises the gross body and
"sign body" (or "subtle body") of a puruṣa. The sign body of a
puruṣatransmigrates: after the death of the gross body, the sign body
is reborn in another gross body according to past merit. An escape
from this endless circle is possible only through the realization of
the fundamental difference between Nature and persons, whereby an
individual puruṣa loses interest in Nature and is thereby liberated
forever from all bodies, subtle and gross. Characteristic of Sāṅkhya
is a metaphorical but consistent presentation of the puruṣa as a
conscious, unchangeable, male principle that is inactive, while Nature
is the unconscious, forever changing, female principle that is active,
yet subservient to the ends of the puruṣa. This is reminiscent of the
cosmic dualism in Indian religions such as Tantrism, where the
spiritual supreme male God mates with his female Śakti (Power)
resulting in creation.
Prakṛti, or Nature, is comprised of three guṇa-s or qualities. The
highest of the three issattva (essence), the principle of light,
goodness and intelligence. Rajas (dust) is the principle of change,
energy and passion, while tamas (darkness) appears as inactivity,
dullness, heaviness and despair. Prakṛti as unmanifest, pure
potentiality is the substrate of the whole world, while in her
manifest form she has twenty-three interdependent structures
(tattva-s). Of the latter the highest is intellect or buddhi: it is
not conscious, but through its closeness to puruṣa it appears to be
so. The others are egoism, mind, senses, biological abilities, the
sensibilia like color and the elements (earth etc).
3. Epistemology
Sāṅkhya recognizes only three valid sources of information:
perception, inference and reliable tradition. The ordering is
important: we use inference only when perception is impossible, and
only if both are silent do we accept tradition. A valid source of
information (pramāṇa) is veridical, yielding knowledge of its object.
Perception is the direct cognition of sensible qualities (such as
color and sound), which mediate cognition of the elements (such as
earth and water). Perception, on the Sāṅkhya account, is a complex
process: the senses (such as sight) cognize their respective objects
(color and shape) through the physical organs (such as the eye). And
these senses are themselves the objects of cognition of the psyche
(which in turn is comprised of three faculties—the mind (manas), the
intellect (buddhi), and the ego (ahaṁkāra). The mind for its part
internally constructs a representation of objects of the external
world with the data supplied by the senses. The ego contributes
personal perspective to knowledge claims. The intellect contributes
understanding to knowledge. The puruṣa adds consciousness to the
result: it is the mere witness of the intellectual processes.
According to a simile, thepuruṣa is the lord of the house, the
tripartite psyche is the door-keeper and the senses are the doors.
For Sāṅkhya , perception is reliable and supplies most of the
practical information needed in everyday life, but for this very
reason it cannot supply philosophically interesting data. Things that
can be seen are not objects of philosophical inquiry. There are many
possible reasons why an existent material object is not (or cannot be)
perceived: it may be too far (or near), or it is too minute or subtle;
there may be something that obstructs perception; it may be
indistinguishable from other surrounding objects or the sensation
produced by another object may be so strong as to overweigh it. A
fault of the sense-organs or an inattentive mind can also cause a
failure of perception.
For philosophy, the central source of information is inference, and
this is clearly emphasized in Sāṅkhya. Īśvarakṛṣṇa appears to
recognize three kinds of inference (SK 5b) (as evidenced by his clear
reference to the Nyāya-Sūtra 1.1.5): cause to effect, effect to cause
and analogical reasoning. The first two types are based on the
previous observation of causal connections. Therefore they cannot lead
us to the sphere of the essentially imperceptible. Thus all
metaphysical statements are based on analogical inference—such as: the
body is a complex structure; complex structures, like a bed, serve
somebody else's purpose; so there must be somebody else (the puruṣa)
that the body serves. Of course the analogies utilized are themselves
analogies of the causal relation; so it would be a little more
appropriate to say that they are analogical reasonings from the effect
to the cause, but traditionally the three classes of inference are
considered mutually exclusive.
The two members of an inference are the liṅga, 'sign' (the given or
premise) and theliṅgin, 'having the sign', i.e. the thing of which the
liṅga is the sign (the inferred or conclusion).
The last valid source of information, āpta-vacana, literally means
reliable speech, but in the context of Sāṅkhya it is understood as
referring to scriptures (the Vedas) only. While the validity of
scriptural authority is affirmed, its importance is downplayed: they
are never used to derive or confirm philosophical theses.
4. Metaphysics
Sāṅkhya is very fond of numbers, and in its classical form it is the
system of 25 realities (tattva-s). In standard categories it is a
dualism of puruṣa (person) and Prakṛti (nature); but Prakṛti has two
basic forms, vyakta, "manifest," and avyakta, "unmanifest," so there
are three basic principles. Puruṣa and the avyakta are the first two
tattva-s; the remaining twenty-three from intellect to the elements
belong to the manifest nature.
The relation of the unmanifest and manifest nature is somewhat vague,
perhaps because there were conflicting opinions on this question.
Later authors understand it as a cosmogonical relation: the unmanifest
was the initial state of Prakṛti, where the guṇa-s were in
equilibrium. Due to the effect of the puruṣa-s this changed and
evolved the manifold universe that we see, the manifest. This view
nicely conforms to the standard Hindu image of cosmic cycles of
creation and destruction; but it is problematic logically (without
supposing God) and Īśvarakṛṣṇa – without directly opposing it – does
not seem to accept it. He says that we do not grasp the unmanifest
because it is subtle, not because it does not exist; and that implies
that it exists also at present, as an imperceptible homogenous
substrate of the world.
It is a notable feature of Sāṅkhya that its dualism is somewhat
unbalanced: if we droppedpuruṣa from the picture, we would still have
a fairly complete picture of the world, asPrakṛti is not inert,
mechanical matter but is a living, creative principle that has all the
resources to produce from itself the human mind and intellect. Sāṅkhya
thus looks like a full materialist account of the world, with the
passive, unchanging principle of consciousness added almost as an
afterthought.
a. Causality
According to Sāṅkhya, causality is the external, objective counterpart
of the intellectual process of inference. As Sāṅkhya understands
itself as the school of thought that understands reality through
inference, causality plays a central role in the Sāṅkhya philosophy.
According to Sāṅkhya, the world as we see it is the effect of its
fundamental causes, which are only known through their effects and in
conjunction with a proper understanding of causation.
The Indian tradition conceives of causality differently from the
recent European tradition, where it is typically regarded as a
relation between events. In the Indian tradition it rather consists in
the origin of a thing. The standard example of the causal relationship
is that of the potter making a pot from clay, where the cause par
excellence is taken to be the clay. The Sāṅkhya analysis of causation
is called sat-kārya-vāda, or literally the "existent effect theory,"
which opposes the view taken by the Nyāya philosophy. Perhaps
sat-kārya is better rendered as "the effect of existent [causes]"; it
stands for a moderate form of determinism. In the commentaries it is
normally explained as the view that the effect already exists in its
cause prior to its production. Understood literally, this is not
tenable—if the cause existed, why was it not perceived prior to the
point called its production? Rather the theory states that there is
nothing absolutely new in the product: everything in it was determined
by its causes.
The following five considerations are used in an argument for the
sat-kārya-vāda: (a) the nonexistent cannot produce anything (given the
assumed definition of "existence" as the ability to have some effect);
(b) when producing a specific thing, we always need a specific
substance as material cause (such as the clay for a pot, or milk for
curds); (c) otherwise everything (or at least anything) would come
into being from anything; (d) the creative agent (the efficient cause)
produces only what it can, not anything (a potter cannot make
jewelry); (e) the effect is essentially identical with its material
cause, and so it has many of its qualities (a pot is still clay, and
thus consists of the primary attributes of clay). This last argument
is utilized to determine the basic attributes of the imperceptible
metaphysical causes of the empirical world: the substrate must have
the same fundamental attributes and abilities as the manifest world.
b. Prakṛti and the three guṇa-s
The term "prakṛti" (meaning nature and productive substance) is
actually used in three related but different senses. (1) Sometimes it
is a synonym for the second tattva, called"mūla-prakṛti"
(root-nature), "avyakta" (the unmanifest) or "pradhāna" (the
principal). (2) Sometimes it is paired with "vikṛti" (modification);
"prakṛti" in this sense could be rendered as "source." Then the
unmanifest is prakṛti-only; and the intellect, the ego and the five
sense qualities are both prakṛti-s and vikṛti-s – thus producing the
set of eight prakṛti-s. (The remaining sixteen tattva-s are
vikṛtis-only, while the first tattva, the unchanging, eternal puruṣa
is neither prakṛti nor vikṛti.) (3) And in most cases, "prakṛti" means
both the manifest and the unmanifest nature (which consists of the
twenty-fourtattva-s starting from the second).
"Prakṛti" is female gendered in Sanskrit, and its anaphora in Sāṅkhya
is "she," but this usage seems to be consistently metaphorical only.
Prakṛti, in its various forms, contrasts with puruṣa in being
productive, unconscious, objective (knowable as an object), not
irreducibly atomic, and comprised of three guṇa-s.
The unmanifest form of Prakṛti contrasts with the manifest form in
being single, uncaused, eternal, all-pervasive, partless,
self-sustaining, independent and inactive; it is aliṅgin (known from
inference only). Ironically, all these attributes with the exception
of singleness also characterize the puruṣa, thus some ancient Sāṅkhya
masters did call thepuruṣa also avyakta (unmanifest).
Sāṅkhya analyzes manifest Prakṛti—the world, both physical and
mental—into three omnipresent aspects, the guṇa-s. This is one of
Sāṅkhya's main contributions to Indian thought. "Guṇa" variously means
'a thread, subordinate component, quality or virtue. Here it is not
just any simple quality but rather a quite complex side or aspect of
anything materially existent. (The puruṣa has no guṇa-s.) The guṇa-s
cannot be understood as ordinary qualities: their names are nouns, not
adjectives; they are not simple, and they don't have degrees; they
themselves have qualities and activity; they interact with each other;
they do not have a substrate or a substance distinct from themselves
to inhere in. But neither are they substances: they cannot exist
separately (in every phenomenon all the three guṇa-s are present),
they are not spatially or temporally delimited, they do not have
separate individuality, and they can increase or decrease gradually in
an object.
They are generally characterized as the real actors, even in mental
phenomena such as cognition; they are the substrata for each other and
they are interrelated in various ways. They "subdue, give birth to and
copulate with" each other. In other words, they compete but also
combine with each other, and they can even produce each other. They
cooperate for an external purpose (the puruṣa's aim) like the parts of
a lamp – the wick, the oil and the flame.
Their names are quite obscure, perhaps intentionally: they resist any
facile simplistic interpretation, forcing us to understand them from
their description instead of the literal meaning. The name of the
first guṇa, "sattva," means sat-ness, where the participle "sat" means
being, existent, real, proper, good. "Sattva" is additionally often
used for entity, existence, essence and intelligence. Sattva is light
(not heavy). Its essence is affection, its purpose and activity is
illuminating. "Rajas," the name of the second guṇa, means atmosphere,
mist, and dust. Rajas is supportive like a column but also mobile like
water. Its essence is aversion, its purpose is bringing into motion
and its activity is seizing. The name of the third guṇa, "tamas,"
means darkness. Tamas is heavy and covering. Its essence is despair,
its purpose is holding back, and its activity is preservation.
In more modern terms, these three guṇa-s may be paraphrased as
coherence / structure / information / intelligence (sattva); energy /
movement / impulse / change (rajas); and inertia / mass / passivity /
conservation (tamas). The depth of this analysis is the extent to
which it grasps the structure of both the external and the internal
world.
c. Puruṣa
"Puruṣa," the name of the first tattva (reality) literally means "man"
in Sanskrit (though it often is used for the wider concept of person
in Sanskrit and the Sāṅkhya system, as the Sāṅkhya system holds that
all sentient beings are embodied puruṣa-s: not simply male humans). In
the Sāṅkhya philosophy, "puruṣa" is metaphorically considered to be
masculine, but unlike our concept of virility it is absolutely
inactive. It is pure consciousness: it enjoys and witnesses Prakṛti's
activities, but does not cause them. It is characterized as the
conscious subject: it is uncaused, eternal, all-pervasive, partless,
self-sustaining, independent. It is devoid of the guṇa-s, and
therefore inactive and sterile (unable to produce). It can be known
from inference only. As puruṣa is essentially private for every
sentient being, being their true self, there are many irreducibly
distinct puruṣa-s. If Prakṛti is equated with Matter, puruṣa may be
equated with the soul. If Prakṛti is equated with the World, puruṣa
may be equated with the (true) self. If Prakṛti is understood as
Nature, puruṣa can be understood as the person.
As the immaterial soul, puruṣa is not known through direct perception.
Five arguments are given to prove its existence. (1) All complex
structures serve an external purpose, for instance, a bed is for
somebody to lie on; so the whole of nature, or more specifically the
body – a very complex system – must also serve something different
from it, which is thepuruṣa. (2) The three guṇa-s give an exhaustive
explanation of material phenomena, but in sentient beings we find
features that are the direct opposites of the guṇa-s (such as
consciousness or being strictly private), and thus they need a
non-material cause, which is the Puruṣa. (3) The coordinated activity
of all the parts of a human being prove that there is something
supervising it; without it, it would fall apart, as we see in a dead
body, hence the puruṣa must exist. (4) Although we cannot perceive
ourselves as puruṣa-s with the senses, we have immediate awareness of
ourselves as conscious beings: the "enjoyer," the experiencing self is
the puruṣa. (5) Liberation, or the separation of soul and matter,
would be impossible without their being separate puruṣa-s to be
liberated, thus puruṣa-s must exist.
An important difference between schools of Indian philosophy that
recognize mokṣa(liberation) as an end is the accepted number of souls.
In Buddhism there is no separate soul to be liberated. In Advaita
Vedānta, there is one common world-soul, and individuality is a
function of the material world only. Sāṅkhya adduces three arguments
to prove that there is a separate puruṣa for each individual: (1)
Birth, death and the personal history of everybody is different (it is
determined by the law of karma, according to our merits collected in
previous lives). If there were one puruṣa only, all bodies should be
identical or at least indistinguishable for the function of the self
orpuruṣa is to be a supervisor of the body. But this is clearly not
so. Hence, there must be a plurality of distinct puruṣa-s. (2) If
there were only one puruṣa, everyone would act simultaneously alike,
for the puruṣa is the supervisor of the body. But this is clearly not
so. Hence, there must be a plurality of distinct puruṣa-s. (3) If
there were only onepuruṣa, we would all experience the same things.
However, it is evident that the opposite is true: our experiences are
inherently diverse and private, and they cannot be directly shared.
Hence, there must be a separate puruṣa for us all.
In time, it became difficult to follow most of the arguments given
above: if puruṣa is really inactive, it cannot supervise anything, and
cannot be the source of our individual actions. Also if puruṣa has no
guṇa-s (qualities), one puruṣa cannot be specifically different from
another. These problems perhaps grew under the influence of the
concept of the absolutely unchanging and quality-less spiritual
essence elaborated in Vedānta philosophy and were thus, arguably, not
part of the original Sāṅkhya philosophy. The influence of Advaita
Vedanta on Sāṅkhya seems to involve a reinterpretation of two
attributes of puruṣa: inactivty came to be understood as
unchangingness, while having no guṇa-s was taken to mean that it has
no qualities at all.
The problem appears to have been first formulated by opponents in the
Nyāya and Vedānta schools, and the author of the Yukti-dīpikā is also
aware of it. The answer emerging, first in Vācaspati Miśra and then
more elaborately in Vijñāna Bhikṣu, involves the innovation of the
theory of "reflection": as the image in the mirror has no effect on
the object reflected and the mirror remains unchanged, but the image
can be seen – so the unchanging puruṣa can reflect the external world,
and the material psyche can react to this reflection. In responding to
the problems brought about by the influence of Advaita Vedanta on
Sāṅkhya, these authors appear to have responded by formulating a
version of Sāṅkhya that comes fairly close to the superimposition
theory of Advaita Vedānta, according to which an individual person is
a cognitive construction that comes about by the error of mixing up
the qualities of objects upon the quality of pure subjectivity. (For
more on this issue, see Shiv Kumar pp. 39–43, 102–109, 250–253 and
Shikan Murakami in Asiatische Studien 53, pp.645–665, who give
insightful analyses of the problem in the classical schools.)
In Īśvarakṛṣṇa's Sāṅkhya-Kārikā, however, the inactivity of the puruṣa
does not seem to involve absolute incapability for change: the same
word (a-kriya, "without activity") is used also for the unmanifest
nature, the substrate of all material manifestations. Arguably, it
means only inability to move in space or to have mechanical effect. As
it is clear from the above arguments, puruṣa is the determinative
factor of our actions – and that presupposes that it changes in time
(otherwise we would always do the same thing). So it must be the locus
either of volition or of some hidden motivation underlying it. And
although it is "a lonely, uninterested spectator, a witness unable to
act," it does like or dislike what it sees: it can suffer (this is,
after all, the existential starting point for Sāṅkhya). It cannot be
the locus of our whole emotional life (passions are explicitly said to
reside in the intellect), but it must be considered the final source
of our conscious feelings.
This is a controversial issue. Many modern scholars understand puruṣa
as strictly unchanging; some of them (for example, A.B. Keith) are led
by the inconsistencies following from this to consider Sāṅkhya as a
hopeless bundle of contradictions. Larson (in Larson and Bhattacharya,
pp. 79–83) translates "puruṣa" as "contentless consciousness;" it is
not only unchanging but also timeless and outside the realm of
causality (a somewhat Kantian concept). He tries to solve some of the
difficulties by proposing that the multiplicity of puruṣa-s be
understood as essentially epistemological in nature— and ontologically
irrelevant.
d. Evolution, Humanity and the World
For Sāṅkhya, creation consists in the conjunction of the two
categories of Prakṛti andpuruṣa(s). How this comes about is left
somewhat of a mystery. As a result of this conjunction, the puruṣa is
embodied in the world and appears to be the agent, and moreover
Prakṛti seems to be conscious as it is animated by puruṣa-s. The
relation between a puruṣa and Prakṛti, according to the Sāṅkhya-Kārika
are like two men, a lame man and a blind man, lost in the wilderness;
the one without the power of sight (activePrakṛti) carrying the
cripple (conscious puruṣa) that can navigate the wild. Their purpose
is twofold: the puruṣa desires experience—without blind nature, it
would be unable to have experiences; and both Prakṛti and puruṣa
desire liberation (in keeping with the simile, both nature and the
person, the blind and the lame, desire to make their way home and part
ways). Liberation is forestalled, on the Sāṅkhya account, because
puruṣabecomes enamored with the beautiful woman, Prakṛti, and refuses
to part ways with her.
The nature of the puruṣa–Prakṛti connection is prima facie
problematic. How can the inactive soul influence matter, and how could
an unintelligent substance, nature, serve anybody's purpose? Puruṣa is
unable to move Prakṛti, but Prakṛti is able to respond topuruṣa's
presence and intentions. Prakṛti, although unconscious, possesses the
capability to respond in a specific, structured way because of its
sattva guṇa, the information–intelligence aspect of nature. The
standard simile in the early Sāṅkhya tradition explains that as milk
(an unconscious substance) starts to flow in order to nurture the
calf, Prakṛtiflows to nurture puruṣa. In later texts, illumination and
reflection are the standard models for this connection (puruṣa is said
to illuminate Prakṛti, and Prakṛti reflects the nature of puruṣa),
thus solving the problem of how Prakṛti and puruṣa can seemingly
borrow eachothers properties without affecting eachothers essential
state.
In consequence of Prakṛti's connection with the soul, Prakṛti evolves
many forms: the twenty-three tattva-s (realities) of manifest Prakṛti.
The character of this evolution (pariṇāma) is somewhat vague. Is this
an account of the origin of the cosmos, or of a single being? The
cosmogenic understanding is probably older, and it seems to
predominate in later accounts as well. In a pantheistic account the
two accounts could be harmonized, but pantheism is alien from
classical Sāṅkhya. Īśvarakṛṣṇa is again probably intentionally silent
on this conflicting issue, but he seems to be inclined to the
microcosmic interpretation: otherwise either a single super-puruṣa's
influence would be needed (that is, God's influence) to account for
how the universe on the whole comes about, or a coordinated effect of
all the puruṣa-s together would be required—and there seems to be no
foundation for either of these views Sāṅkhya.
The central mechanism of evolution is the complicated interaction of
the guṇa-s, which is sensitive to the environment, the substrate or
locus of the current process. Just as water in different places
behaves differently (on the top of the Himalaya mountain as ice, in a
hill creek, in the ocean, or as the juice of a fruit) so do the
guṇa-s. In the various manifestations of nature the dominance of the
guṇa-s varies—in the highest forms sattvarules, in the lowest tamas
covers everything.
The actual order of evolution is as follows: from root-nature first
appears intellect (buddhi); from it, ego (ahaṁkāra); from it the
eleven powers (indriya) and the five sensibilia (tanmātra); and from
the tanmātras the elements (bhūta).
The function of the buddhi (intellect) is specified as adhyavasāya
(determination); it can be understood as definite conceptual
knowledge. It has eight forms: virtue, knowledge, dispassion and
command, and their opposites. So it seems that on the material
plane,buddhi is the locus of cognition, emotion, moral judgment and
volition. All these may be thought to belong also to consciousness, or
the puruṣa. However, on the Sāṅkhya account, puruṣa is connected
directly only to the intellect, and the latter does all cognitions,
mediates all experiences for it. The view of Sāṅkhya appears to be
that whensattva (quality of goodness, or illumination) predominates in
buddhi (the intellect), it can act acceptably for puruṣa, when there
is a predominance of tamas, it will be weak and insufficient.
The ego or ahaṁkāra (making the I) is explained as abhimāna—thinking
of as [mine]. It delineates that part of the world that we consider to
be or to belong to ourselves: mind, body, perhaps family, property,
rank… It individuates and identifies parts of Prakṛti: by itself
nature is one, continuous and unseparated. It communicates the
individuality inherent in the puruṣa-s to the essentially common
Prakṛti that comprises the psyche of the individual. So it has a
purely cognitive and a material function as well—like so many
principles of Sāṅkhya.
The eleven powers (indriya) are mind (manas), the senses and the
"powers of action" (karmendriya), the biological faculties. The senses
(powers of cognition, buddhīndriya) are sight, hearing, smelling,
tasting, and touching—they are the abilities, not the physical organs
themselves through which they operate. The crude names of the powers
of action are speech, hand, foot, anus and lap. They symbolize the
fundamental biological abilities to communicate, to take in or
consume, to move, to excrete and to generate.
"Manas" (often translated as "mind," though this may be misleading),
designates the lowest, almost vegetative part of the central
information-processing structure. Its function is saṁkalpa—arranging
(literally 'fitting together') or coordinating the indriya-s. It
functions partly to make a unified picture from sense data, provided
by the senses, and partly to translate the commands from the intellect
to actual, separate actions of the organs. So, it is both a cognitive
power and a power of action. (Later authors take "manas" to also
designate the will, for saṁkalpa also has this meaning.)
Intellect, ego and mind together constitute the antaḥ-karaṇa (internal
organ), or the material psyche, while the other indriya-s (powers)
collectively are called the external organ. The internal organ as an
inseparable unit is the principle of life (prāṇa). In cognition the
internal organ's activity follows upon that of the external, but they
are continuously active, so their activity is also simultaneous. The
external organ is strictly bound to the present tense, while the
psyche is active in the past and future as well (memory, planning, and
the grasping of timeless truths).
The material elements are derived from the gross, tamas-ic aspect of
the ego, which yields what Sāṅkhya calls tanmātra-s (only-that, that
is, unmixed). These in turn yield the elements (bhūta, mahā-bhūta).
The elements are ether (ākāśa), air, fire, water and earth. The
tanmātra-s seem to be uncompounded sensibilia; perhaps subtle elements
or substances, each having only one sensible quality: sound, touch,
visibility, taste and smell. The gross elements are probably fixed
compounds of the tanmātra-s: ether has only sound, air also touch,
fire is also visible, water has in addition taste and earth has all
the five qualities.
Human beings are a compound of all these. At death we lose the body
made up of the five gross elements; the rest (from intellect down to
the tanmātra-s) make up the transmigrating entity, called liṅga or
liṅga-śarīra (sign-body), often known in English translations as the
"subtle body." The puruṣa itself does not transmigrate; it only
watches. Transmigration is compared to an actor putting on different
clothes and taking up many roles; it is determined by the law of
(efficient) cause and effect, known also as the law of karma (action).
The world, "from the creator god Brahmā down to a blade of glass" is
just a compound of such embodied liṅga-śarīra-s. The gods are of eight
kinds; animals are of five kinds – and humans, significantly, belongs
to one group only (suggesting an egalitarianism with respect to
humans). Of course, the gods of Sāṅkhya are not classical
Judeo-Christian-Muslim God; they are just extra-long-lived, perhaps
very powerful beings within the empirical world, themselves compounds
of matter and soul.
5. Liberation
Because Prakṛti is essentially changing, nothing is constant in the
material world: everything decays and meets its destruction in the
end. Therefore as long as the transmigrating entity persists, the
suffering of old age and death is unavoidable.
The only way to fight suffering is to leave the circle of
transmigration (saṁsāra) for ever. This is the liberation of puruṣa,
in Sāṅkhya, normally called kaivalya (isolation). It comes about
through loosening the bond between puruṣa and Prakṛti. This bond was
originally produced by the curiosity of the soul, and it is extremely
strong because the ego identifies our selves with our empirical state:
the body and the more subtle organs, including the material psyche.
Although puruṣa is not actually bound by any external force, it is an
enchanted observer that cannot take his eyes off from the performance.
As all cognition is performed by the intellect for the soul, it is
also the intellect that can recognize the very subtle distinction
between Prakṛti and puruṣa. But first the effect of the ego must be
neutralized, and this is done by a special kid of meditational praxis.
Step by step, starting from the lowest tattva-s, the material
elements, and gradually reaching the intellect itself, the follower of
Sāṅkhya must practice as follows: "this constituent is not me; it is
not mine; I am not this." When this has been fully interiorized with
regard to all forms of Prakṛti, then arises the absolutely pure
knowledge of the metaphysical solitude of puruṣa: it is kevala,
(alone), without anything external-material belonging to it.
And as a dancer, after having performed, stops dancing, so does
Prakṛti cease to perform for an individual puruṣa when its task is
accomplished. She has always acted for thepuruṣa, and as he is no
longer interested in her ("I have seen her"), she stops forever ("I
have already been seen")—the given subtle body gets dissolved into the
root-Prakṛti. This happens only at death, for the gross body (like a
potter's wheel still turning although no longer impelled) due to
causally determined karmic tendencies (saṁskāra-s) goes on to operate
for a little while.
Puruṣa enters into liberation, forever. Although puruṣa and Prakṛti
are physically as much in contact as before—both seem to be
all-pervading in extension—there is no purpose of a new start: puruṣa
has experienced all that it wanted.
6. References and Further Reading
* Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 53 (1999): 457–798.
o Papers of an 1998 conference; allows a glimpse at the
state of current researches.
* Chakravarti, Pulinbihari: Origin and Development of the Sāmkhya
System of Thought. Calcutta: Metropolitan Printing and Publishing
House, 1951.
o A detailed account giving due weight to the Yukti-dīpikā.
* Chattopadhyaya, Debiprasad: Lokāyata. A Study in Ancient Indian
Materialism. Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1959.
o A highly unorthodox approach utilizing anthropological and
even archeological sources to understand the origins of philosophical
thought.
* Kumar, Shiv: Sāmkhya Thought in the Brahmanical Systems of
Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Eastern Book Linkers, 1983.
o Looks at Sāṅkhya tradition from the outside, especially as
it appears in Nyāya and Vedānta.
* Larson, Gerald James. Classical Sāmkhya. An Interpretation of
its History and Meaning.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979.
o The standard book on the Kārikā and a useful summary of
its antecedents.
* Larson, Gerald James, and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, eds.
Sāmkhya. A Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987. (Vol. IV. inEncyclopedia of Indian
Philosophies.)
o A good description of Sāṅkhya followed by summaries of
practically all surviving works.
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