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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 tanmantras: 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 tanmantras 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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