Knowra Samkhya Samkhya Samkhya is an ancient Indian philosophical school that explains experience through the interaction of conscious selves (puruṣas) and material nature (prakṛti). It analyzes reality into distinct principles and links liberation to discerning their difference.
Puruṣa : In Samkhya, a conscious, witnessing self that is distinct from material nature and its transformations. The conscious pole of the dualism that structures Samkhya’s account of experience.
Satkāryavāda : The Samkhya theory that an effect exists in potential within its cause before becoming manifest. It explains transformation as the manifestation of what prakṛti already contains.
Sāṃkhyakārikā : Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s concise classical exposition of Samkhya, composed around the fourth century CE. This text is the clearest surviving systematic presentation of classical Samkhya.
Advaita Vedānta : A nondual Vedānta school that teaches that ātman and Brahman are ultimately one reality. It rejects the plurality of puruṣas and the independent reality assigned to prakṛti in Samkhya.
Prakṛti : In Samkhya, primordial material nature, whose transformations produce mind, senses, and the physical world. The material pole whose activity explains change without making consciousness itself change.
Evolution (Samkhya) : The Samkhya sequence in which prakṛti unfolds into intellect, ego, subtle elements, senses, and gross elements. This sequence describes how material nature becomes the experienced world.
Kapila : A legendary sage traditionally regarded as the founder of Samkhya. Later tradition associates Samkhya’s beginnings with this figure, though his historicity is uncertain.
Buddhist philosophy : A diverse set of philosophical traditions rooted in Buddhist teachings, including the denial of a permanent self. Its rejection of an enduring self conflicts with Samkhya’s account of puruṣa.
Guṇa : A constituent quality of prakṛti; sattva, rajas, and tamas combine in changing proportions. Their shifting balance accounts for nature’s varied states and transformations.
Viveka : Discriminative knowledge that distinguishes what is real or enduring from what is mistaken or transient. In Samkhya, discerning puruṣa from prakṛti is the decisive liberating insight.
Show all 22