Sāṃkhya

Sāṃkhya (T. grangs can pa གྲངས་ཅན་པ་) is one of the six orthodox Hindu schools of ancient India. The followers of Sāṃkhya believe that things arise from their own intrinsic nature, the universal principle (prakriti), and are thereby self-producing. There are two divisions of the Sāṃkhya: one accepts a creator god, who works with the universal principle in creating things, and the other does not.

The name Sāṃkhya means "Enumerators." They are so called due to their belief that liberation can be gained through thoroughly understanding the enumeration of twenty-five categories of objects of knowledge which principally involves distinguishing between the mind and twenty-four categories of matter.

The Sāṃkhya school were also known as the followers of the sage Kapila (T. ser skya). The Sāṃkhya were regarded as "eternalists" by Buddhists.

Overview

Dan Lusthaus states:

Considered one of the oldest classical Hindu schools by Indian tradition, Sāṃkhya is most famous in Indian philosophy for its atheism, its dualist model of puruṣa (passive, individual consciousness) and prakṛti (nonconscious, cognitive-sentient body), and its theory that effects pre-exist in their cause. In its classical formulation the puruṣa/prakṛti model is analysed into twenty-five components (tattva) that are intended to encompass the entire metaphysical, cognitive, psychological, ethical and physical world in terms of their embodiment as individuals and the creative and interpretive projection of that world as experience by and for individuals. Both the world and the individual, in other words, are considered a phenomenological refraction and projection of the underlying and constitutive components of the conscious body. Falsely identifying with the cognitive and sensory components of prakṛti (which according to orthodox Sāṃkhya performs cognitive and sentient operations but is bereft of consciousness; puruṣa alone is conscious), one believes oneself to be the agent of one's actions, rather than recognizing that actions are processes lacking any selfhood. Sāṃkhyans claim that liberation from the suffering of repeated rebirths can only be achieved through a profound understanding of the distinction between puruṣa and prakṛti. The latter is not abandoned after liberation, but continues to operate, observed with detachment by puruṣa, though, according to some versions, prakṛti eventually becomes dormant. Puruṣa and prakṛti are both considered beginningless and eternal. Since liberation is achieved through knowledge, Sāṃkhya stresses the importance and efficacy of knowledge over ritual and other religious endeavors.

Sāṃkhya is cognate to the word saṃkhyā, meaning 'to count' or 'enumerate.' Thus Sāṃkhya seeks to enumerate the basic facts of reality so that people will understand them and find liberation. Basic Sāṃkhyan models and terms appear in some Upaniṣads and underlie important portions of the epic Mahābhārata, especially the Bhagavad Gītā and Mokṣadharma. No distinct Sāṃkhyan text prior to Īśvarakṛṣṇa's Sāṃkhya-kārikās (ca.350-450) is extant. It enumerates and explains the twenty-five components and a subsidiary list of sixty topics (ṣaṣtitantra) which are then subdivided into further enumerative lists. Most of the subsequent Sāṃkhyan literature consists of commentaries and expositions of the Sāṃkhya-kārikā and its ideas, which continued to be refined without major alterations well into the 18th century. Sāṃkhyan models strongly influenced numerous other Indian schools, including Yoga, Vedānta, Kashmir Shaivism and Buddhism.

Puruṣa and prakṛti

Dan Lusthaus states:

The term puruṣa originally meant 'person,' and is used in the Ṛg Veda to signify the primordial, cosmic Person from whom the universe is created (10.90, Puruṣa Sūkta). Ṛg Veda I.24.7 says, 'Two birds ... inseparable companions, have found refuge in the same sheltering tree. One incessantly eats from the peepal tree; the other, not eating, just looks on.' This image of an inseparable dyad, one part actively engaging its appetites and appropriational desires, and the other passively observing the activity of the first part, prefigures the notion of puruṣa and prakṛti.

In Sāṃkhya puruṣa signifies the observer, the 'witness'. Prakṛti includes all the cognitive, moral, psychological, emotional, sensorial and physical aspects of reality. It is often mistranslated as 'matter' or 'nature' - in non-Sāṃkhyan usage it does mean 'essential nature' - but that distracts from the heavy Sāṃkhyan stress on prakṛti's cognitive, mental, psychological and sensorial activities. Moreover, subtle and gross matter are its most derivative byproducts, not its core. Only prakṛti acts. Puruṣa and prakṛti are radically different from each other, though both are considered beginningless, eternal, and ultimately inseparable. Every person is constituted of conjoined puruṣa-prakṛti. Misunderstanding how these two function and interrelate is the root cause of all problems. Liberation arises from properly distinguishing between them - such that one ceases to falsely identify with the components of prakṛti as one's self and instead correctly understands that puruṣa is a dissociated watcher of the activities of one's prakṛti.

The three gunas

Dan Lusthaus states:

Primordially prakṛti is composed of three primary 'strands' or 'qualities' (guṇa):

1. sattva which is light, clear, tranquil, joyous, kind, etc.,
2. rajas which is passionate, moving, dynamic, agitated, angry, etc., and
3. tamas which is dull, inert, dark, depressed, stupid, etc.

Everything in the universe (except puruṣa) is composed of varying proportions of these three qualities. Physical objects, mental and emotional states, moral qualities, types of food, personality types, etc., are all definable according to which quality predominates. Rajas and tamas signify the inertia of motion and rest, respectively. Sattva signifies the clarity and tranquillity that comes from 'rising above' the negative properties of the other two qualities. For instance, by shaking up or moving (rajas) something sedimented, depressed, stuck (tamas), it may either return to tamas (resediment), or remain dynamic (rajas), or it may purify and become sattvic. A clear and peaceful condition, if disturbed by passion or violent activity, can transform into reciprocal anger and violence, or produce stupidity, depression and stubbornness. Such dynamics can be applied to psychology, politics, physics, soteriology, or any other field. The three qualities undergo perpetual transformation, those transformations being the empirical universe. The essence of the three qualities remains unmanifest, acting as the cause of the empirical world (manifest prakṛti) which, as effect, shares the same nature as its cause. Sāṃkhya-kārikā characterizes their function thus: sattva is 'illuminating', rajas is activating or unfolding, and tamas imposes limitations and restrictions. They are inseparable, like the wick, oil and flame of a lamp (tamas, rajas and sattva, respectively). Sattva and tamas are comparable to the Chinese principles of yang and yin, respectively, with rajas acting as the catalyst and dynamic agent that keeps the other two active.

The twenty-five fundamental components

Dan Lusthaus states:

Orthodox Sāṃkhya analyses puruṣa-prakṛti into twenty-five fundamental components. One is puruṣa; the remaining twenty-four are aspects of prakṛti, each a further development or transformation of the three qualities. These twenty-five components account for the totality of the universe as well as the components of each individual:

2. The three qualities, also called 'fundamental prakṛti' and the 'unmanifest'. The remaining components, lumped together as the 'manifest', are all formed from combinations of these three.

3. Buddhi, reflective discernment and discrimination. Puruṣa is most directly connected to buddhi, through which it is aware of the activities of prakṛti. It is buddhi's task to effectively distinguish between puruṣa and prakṛti.

4. Ahaṃkāra, literally 'I-maker' or 'the constructor of the "I am".' The 'I'-maker refracts the three qualities to generate the sensorium which it then appropriates for itself, thus constructing a sense of subjective selfhood. That is, it interprets the activities of the three qualities in such a way that it sees itself as the agent or origin of the experience (or theory) and experiences the results as 'my experience'. The intensity of its sense of self-concern disrupts and obscures buddhi's understanding of its relation with puruṣa.

5. The empirical mind (manas) interprets the sensorium, coordinating the discrete sense fields (audition, vision, etc.) into coherent experience.

6-10. The five sense capacities, viz. hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling.

11-15, the five activity capacities, viz. speaking, grasping, mobility, excreting and procreating.

16-20. the five subtle elements, viz. sound, tactility, color/form, taste and smell.

21-25. the five gross elements, viz. ether, air, fire, water and earth.

Epistemology

Transcending duhkha through knowledge

Dan Lusthaus states:

[The] Sāṃkhya-kārikā, like Buddhism and many other Indian schools, claims that the root problem as experienced is a profound sense of dis-ease and dissatisfaction (duḥkha) that can only be cured by knowledge. Some commentaries say this 'knowledge' concerns the difference between puruṣa and buddhi; some say it is knowing the twenty-five components and/or the list of sixty topics. Sacrifice, ritual and scriptural remedies - the usual methods for an orthodox Hindu - are declared ineffective for anything except temporary rebirth in a heaven; moreover those methods cannot guarantee success (e.g., even authentic prayer and religious observance may not cure barrenness), and often involve 'impurity' (the killing during sacrifice, the caste requirements to have intercourse with one's mate, etc.). Heavenly births and impurities both perpetuate the cycle of life and death rather than resolving it. Like Buddhists, Sāṃkhyans consider existence in any realm into which one is reborn, whether the human realm or another, including the heavens, to be transitory.

Three instruments of knowledge (pramana)

Dan Lusthaus states:

Sāṃkhya accepts three valid means of knowledge (pramāṇa): perception, inference and reliable testimony. Descriptions of all three vary from commentary to commentary. Among Īśvarakṛṣṇa's predecessors, Vārṣagaṇya (ca.100-300) reportedly defined perception as the function of sense organs; Vindhyavāsin (ca.300-400) added that 'valid' perception was devoid of mental or linguistic construction; and Īśvarakṛṣṇa added that it ascertains specific and definite objects. Interestingly, Buddhism later mirrors this progression, going from the early Abhidharma definitions of perception in terms of sensory functions, to Dignāga's stipulation that it be without mental construction, to Dharmakīrti and Dharmottara's claim that perception attains specific, definite objects. The Yuktidīpikā, one of the fullest and most sophisticated of the commentaries on Sāṃkhya-kārikā, further asserts that the instrumentality of perception (i.e., the pramāṇa) is located in buddhi, but its results occur in puruṣa.

Sources

• Chim Jampaiyang (2019), Jinpa, Thupten, ed., Ornament of Abhidharma: A Commentary on Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosa, translated by Coghlan, Ian James (Apple Books ed.), Library of Tibetan Classics 

Further reading

• Dan Lusthaus, Samkhya, acmuller.net
• Ferenc Ruzsa, Sankya, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Samkhya, Wikipedia
• Samkhya, Rigpa Shedra Wiki