Unit 3 SAMKHYA PHILOSOPHY Structure 3.0 Objectives 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Metaphysics 3.3 Theory of Causation 3.4 Epistemology 3.5 Bondage and Liberation 3.6 Let Us Sum Up 3.7 Key Words 3.8 Further Readings and References 3.9 Answers to Check Your Progress 3.0 OBJECTIVES Although purua and Prakti are physically as much in contact as beforeboth seem to be all-pervading in extensionthere is no purpose of a new start: purua has experienced all that it wanted. The spirit is liberated when the discriminate knowledge of the difference between conscious Purusha and unconscious Prakriti is realized.Originally the three gunas were in complete balance. Here, the word ego is used not to mean the actual qualities such brother or sister, or loving or cruel, but the capacity itself to take on the countless identities. The strands of Sankhyan thought can be traced back to the Vedic speculation of creation. Panch karma indriya or five organs of action - The organs of action are hands, legs, vocal apparatus, urino-genital organ and anus. The ordering is important: we use inference only when perception is impossible, and only if both are silent do we accept tradition. They subdue, give birth to and copulate with each other. 420 B.C.E.) Samkhya The word Samkhya means number. 300 C.E.) According to Satkaryavada, the effect pre-exists in the cause. 1: Fundamental Principles of Ayurveda1st Edition by Dr. Vasant Lad From ahamkara there is a four-fold unfolding into mind (manas), sense organs (jnanendriyas), the organs of action (karmendriyas), and the subtle elements (tanmatras).. Of these the mind and senses are predominantly sattva, the organs of action rajas, and the subtle elements tamas. (4) Although we cannot perceive ourselves as purua-s with the senses, we have immediate awareness of ourselves as conscious beings: the enjoyer, the experiencing self is the purua. This is how the cycles of evolution and dissolution follow each other.Sankhya theorizes that Prakriti is the source of the world of becoming. Manas or instinctive mind - evolves from the sattva aspect of ahamkara. There are no purely Samkhya schools existing today in Hinduism, but its influence is felt in Yoga and Vedanta schools of philosophy. Weve updated our privacy policy so that we are compliant with changing global privacy regulations and to provide you with insight into the limited ways in which we use your data. Rajas (dust) is the principle of change, energy and passion, while tamas (darkness) appears as inactivity, dullness, heaviness and despair. By accepting, you agree to the updated privacy policy. 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. Activate your 30 day free trialto unlock unlimited reading. Because of that, it is probably more correct to understand the Samkhyan theory of creation in terms of an evolution or unfolding rather than an emanation. Panchjnanaindriya or five sense organs - also evolves from the sattva aspect of Ahamkara. The Krik ousted all previous Skhya writings, of which only stray quotations remain. Perception, on the Skhya 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). Email: ferenc.ruzsa@elte.hu How can there be countless individual purushas, each one all-knowing and infinite, without each purusha running afoul of all the other purushas. What does the mind sense? According to Skhya, causality is the external, objective counterpart of the intellectual process of inference. Prakriti manifests as the three gunas and the other evolutes. The sign body of a purua transmigrates: after the death of the gross body, the sign-body is reborn into another gross body according to past merit, and the purua continues to be a witness through its various bodies. In dissolution the physical existence, all the worldly objects mingle back into Prakriti, which now remains as the undifferentiated, primordial substance. It is only a list of topics, but a list quite different from the categories of the Krik; it has several commentaries, the best known is the Krama-Dpik, Light on the Succession. The other text is the well-known, longish Skhya-Stra, which plainly follows the Krik in most respects but adds many more illustrative stories and polemics with later philosophic positions. The nature of the puruaPrakti connection is prima facie problematic. The requirement of God is not perceived in Samkhya for epistemic clarity concerning the interaction between the greater self, the individual self, and the surrounding universe. Uploaded by mohityadav1307. It follows the polemical style of writing in the early classical schools, with heavy emphasis on epistemological issues. In later texts, illumination and reflection are the standard models for this connection (purua is said to illuminate Prakti, and Prakti reflects the nature of purua), thus solving the problem of how Prakti and purua can seemingly borrow eachothers properties without affecting eachothers essential state. In Classical Samkhya, the one Conscious Spirit or Purusha is re-placed by a multiplicity of pure Consciousness souls or purushas, possibly due to Jain influence - the Jainist idea of a multiplicity of souls or jivas [Larson, Classical Samkhya, p.93]. But this is clearly not so. Proto-Samkhya speculation also appears in the Katha Upanishad (about 4th century b.c.e. 3 0 obj But this is clearly not so. Click here to review the details. The philosophy of Samkhya is the Universe is consisting of two realities; purusha and prakrti. Both are eternal and independent of each other. In evolution, Prakriti is transformed and differentiated into multiplicity of objects. Indian philosophy -Vaisesika School of thought, Vedanta Philosophy - Metaphysics, Epistemology & Axiology. The tanmtra-s seem to be uncompounded sensibilia; perhaps subtle elements or substances, each having only one sensible quality: sound, touch, visibility, taste and smell. Purua, 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 Skhya system, as the Skhya system holds that all sentient beings are embodied purua-s: not simply male humans). The Samkhyan thesis of evolution has been widely adopted by other schools, usually witha strong theistic interpretation, in which God is both the source of consciousness and the material world. In more modern terms, these three gua-s may be paraphrased as coherence / structure / information / intelligence (sattva); energy / movement / impulse / change (rajas); and inertia / mass / passivity / conservation (tamas). To debate or not debate: Some intellectuals will also debate furiously and endlessly about whether the ultimate nature of reality is dualistic or non-dualistic. However, understanding the simplicity sure is a nice place to start! The two types of entities of Skhya are Prakti and purua-s, namely Nature and persons. They reveal no knowledge of the form or the name of the object. It is that simplicity that is in the whole concept of Prakriti manifesting outward, and the process of meditation retracing that process inward. In the commentaries it is normally explained as the view that the effect already exists in its cause prior to its production. Prakti, in its various forms, contrasts with purua in being productive, unconscious, objective (knowable as an object), not irreducibly atomic, and comprised of three gua-s. There is also a clear distinction between right and wrong, birth and death, and bondage and liberation. 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 gua-s. M.Ed 2nd Semister Year 2014-2015 Samkhya and Western DualismThe radical dualism between the sentient and insentient entities as postulated by Samkhya is comparable with Cartesian mind and body dualism of the West. Here we have a parallel with the Chinese Yin-Yang cosmology and the emergence of the universe through the manifestation of the polar opposites of Yin and Yang from the originally unmanifest Tao. The name of the first gua, sattva, means sat-ness, where the participle sat means being, existent, real, proper, good. What happens to your senses, your ability to perceive through those senses? The spirit who is always free is only a witness to the evolution, even though due to the absence of discriminate knowledge, he misidentifies himself with it.The evolution obeys causality relationships, with primal Nature itself being the material cause of all physical creation. The evolution ceases when the spirit realises that it is distinct from primal Nature and thus cannot evolve. The latter contains among other things the epistemological apparati of embodied beings (such as the mind, intellect, and senses). Skhya is very fond of numbers, and in its classical form it is the system of 25 realities (tattva-s). Perception is the direct cognition of sensible qualities (such as color and sound), which mediate cognition of the elements (such as earth and water). Is this an account of the origin of the cosmos, or of a single being? The ego or ahakra (making the I) is explained as abhimnathinking of as [mine]. Its classical formulation is found in varaka's Skhya-Krik (ca. Evolution is followed by dissolution. According to Skhya, 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. Download Free PDF Related Papers 2005 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. The great Indian epic, the Mahbhrata, represents the Skhya 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. The function of the buddhi (intellect) is specified as adhyavasya (determination); it can be understood as definite conceptual knowledge. The mind for its part internally constructs a representation of objects of the external world with the data supplied by the senses. Many commentaries were written on the Krik, mostly simple explanations of the text, and very similar to each other (the better known are Gauapdas Bhya, Mharas Vttiand akarcryas Jaya-Magal this Gauapda and akarcrya are generally thought to be different from the famous Advaitins of the same name). The origin of the name 'sarikhya' is shrouded in mystery. Clipping is a handy way to collect important slides you want to go back to later. If Prakti is equated with Matter, purua may be equated with the soul. A valid source of information (prama) is veridical, yielding knowledge of its object. Larson, Gerald James, and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya, eds. Buddhi is the word, which applies to the individual person, while mahat refers to the universal aspect of this process. For Skhya , 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. Five arguments are given to prove its existence. Purusha is neither produced nor does it produce.PrakritiPrakriti is matter. Elements: A further outpouring of Prakriti is when it bursts forth as the equivalent of space, as experienced in the subtle (non-physical) realm. the thing of which the liga is the sign (the inferred or conclusion). Here Purusha stands for the Supreme Self and Prakriti stands for Matter. 4 0 obj In a pantheistic account the two accounts could be harmonized, but pantheism is alien from classical Skhya. Persons (purua-s) are essentially unchangeable, inactive, conscious entities, who nonetheless gain something from contact with Nature. From prakrti emerges mahat ("the great one"), which has as its psychological counterpart the subtlest form of mental activity (buddhi). xn6=@v1V($3YfwE/rey=l(+;_Ij.,^Lt9?.cdqr}~vqKIE_Q?J=J_|q~$?}y+^2'5.=:Ui^rBYb06FrC. Mahat is also considered to be the principle responsible for the rise of buddhi or intelligence in living beings. Where did they go? Not surprisingly, classical Skhya is remarkably independent of orthodox Brahmanic traditions, including the Vedas. Manas here is the lower mind, which we have seen in the kosha model. Tattva-S ) and senses ) including the Vedas clipping is a handy way to collect important slides want. ( intellect ) is veridical, yielding knowledge of its object a representation objects. Into multiplicity of objects of the object tattva-s ) organs - also evolves from the sattva of... Stands for Matter or of a single being, conscious entities, who gain! 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