By Jayaram V
Hinduism owes a great deal to the Samkhya school of thought. According
to Richard Garbe, Samkhy philosophy is "the most significant system of
philosophy that India has produced." It exerted profound influence
on many scholars in ancient India, China and, according to some, even
Greece. We find ample references to this school of thought in many
ancient religious scriptures including the Bhagavadgita and some
Upanishads such as the Svetasvatara Upanishad and the Maitrayani
Upanishad. Though it originally began with an atheistic note on the
nature of creation and existence of God, some of its notable concepts
and ideas were gradually absorbed into the main stream of Hinduism and
Buddhism with suitable modifications.
According to the Samkhya philosophy, the source all reality and
experiences is Prakriti or nature. In its pure original forma, it is the
unmanifest (avyaktam), primal resource, the sum total of the universal
energy. Prakriti is without a cause, but the cause and source of
all effects, "the ultimate basis of the empirical universe". Through a
process of continuous evolution, it gradually manifests its latent
potentials and effects into various forms, energies and elements in
different planes of reality. Though it is the cause of all causes, it
does not have any control on the Purusha or the individual soul without
qualities and movement. The creative process (Shristi) begins,
when Purusha, joins Prakriti and becomes established in it. Out of this
process evolve 24 principles, which are:
Mahat: the great principle (1)
Buddhi:the discriminating, reasoning and causative intelligence (2)
Ahamkara:the ego-principle (3)
Manas:the mind or the sixth sense (4)
Panchendiryas:the five sense organs (9)
Five karmendriyas: the five organs of action (14)
Five tanmatras: the five subtle elements (19)
Five Mahabhutas:the five gross elements (earth, water, air, fire and
ether)(24)
These are the evolutes. The Mahat (the Great One), is the first to
emerge in this process of evolution. The Mahat is Prakriti or the
primordial nature in its dynamic aspect. From the Mahat evolves buddhi
and Manas. Buddhi is the principle of intelligence or the discriminating
awareness and Manas is the mind stuff consisting of pure consciousness.
From Buddhi evolve ahmkara or the feeling of individuality and
separation and the five tanmatras of sound, touch smell, form or color
and taste.
The rest of the principles arise from from Manas, which are the five
senses, the five organs of actions and the five gross elements. These
are the 24 evolutes and together with the Purusha (individual soul) who
joins with Prakriti to initiate this process, the number becomes 25.
As one European commentator pointed out, Samkhya is "the most
significant system of philosophy that India has produced." Its
popularity in ancient India can be gauged from the fact the epic, the
Mahabharata, Manusmriti, the Puranas and the Bhagavad gita describe its
main features though with some variations and sometimes without making a
direct reference to this school.
The Samkhya school was founded by Kapila, who lived in very ancient
times, even before the composition of some of the principal Upanishads
such as the Svetavatara, Katha, Prashna and Maitrayani Upanishads. A
comprehensive treatment of the subject can be found in an ancient
scripture called the Samkhyakarika, ascribed historically to
Isvarakrishna, who probably lived in the third century A.D. This
scripture became more prominent with a commentary written on it by
Gaudapada, who is probably different from the Gaudapada of
Mandukyopanishad and who lived around 8th Century A.D.
The greatness of Samkyha lies in the fact that the evolution of life
on earth is depicted not as miracle work of God, but as a creative
process passing through different phases of change and transformation.
Infact the original Samkhya did not accept the idea of an Absolute
Principle or God behind creation. The individual soul or Purusha is the
eternal principle which joins with Prakriti, another eternal principle
to establish its presence in the material world. The individual soul is
immortal. It exists prior to the emergence of other principles and will
continue to exist even after the rest disappear.
The Bhagavad gita picks up the basic aspects of Samkhya, but adds
the principle of Supreme Self or Universal Purusha as the cause of all
creation.
According to the Bhagavad gita, the Purusha enters the Prakriti and
manifests the entire creation. At the human level, the purusha is
compared symbolically with a man and the Prakriti with a woman. At the
microcosmic level a union between the two indeed leads to the creation
of a new being, which can be compared to the Hiranyagarbha (the golden
embryo) at the microcosmic level.
The concept of Prakriti as the source of material evolution, probably
led to the popularity of the worship of Mother Goddess and led
subsequently to the emergence of Tantricism during the post Gupta perod.
Impact on Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism
In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism we find traces of Samkhya
philosophy. While we cannot say authoritatively, for we have no
evidence, that they derived these concepts from the Samkhya school,
we cannot fail to notice some striking similarities such as the Jain
and Buddhist concepts of the aggregates and the denial of an
efficient and primary cause as the source of creation. It is
possible that these divergent paths reflect the turmoil and
confusion of the times in which they took share and man's earliest
and intelligent effort to make sense out of an overwhelmingly
enigmatic nature of the material universe.
In some respects, the Yogasutras of Patanjali is both an
extension and an exposition of the Samkhya school. The Samkhya yoga
of the Bhagavadgita is but a subtle refutation of the basic premise
of the Samkhya philosophy with regard to Brahman or the supreme
Purusha as the primary and efficient cause of the creation. But
interestingly, it accepts many other concepts of the school such as
the division of the gunas, the bondage of the souls, relationship
between prakriti and individual souls, the release of the souls
through the practice of yoga and discipline and so on. It also
prescribes bhakti marga or the path of devotion as a more effective
means of salvation than the pure jnana marga (path of knowledge) of
the Samkhya type schools and the pure karma marga (path of action)
of the materialistic and atheistic schools. Several schools of
Saivism and Vaishnavism integrated many concepts of the Samkhya
school without compromising their stand on the principle of the
Absolute first cause. In one sentence we can say that Hinduism added
the principle of Brahman to the principles of Samkhya school and
made it an invaluable philosophy in our search for truth.
Suggested Further Reading
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