Basics Of Indian Philosophy – Samkhya Darsana
All Darsanas — schools of Indian philosophy- except Carvaka share the common core belief of the cyclicality of time. On the cosmic level, the cyclical view of time translates that the world is never definitely created or destroyed. It goes through cycles of creation, destruction and recreation. This cycle of creation, destruction and recreation is called ‘Samsara’. And that what holds an individual within Samsara is ‘Karma’. Also, the elemental philosophical thoughts of Astika Darsanas — Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta- have origins in the Vedas, the sacred texts of Vedic religion. The Vedas primarily tell us about Vedic culture and religion and religious practices and rituals; besides, they contain philosophical speculations on the universe’s origin.
The philosophical traditions in India, unlike western philosophy, have a soteriological concern. That is concern about the ultimate liberation from rebirth. This concern has not led to the dilution of the practice of philosophising. Philosophers in classical India believed that finding the correct answer to the following two questions through the philosophical tradition of the shared framework of public debate, logic and arguments, and reason and knowledge would bring freedom from rebirth. The questions were
1. What is the fundamental nature of reality?
2. What is the true self?
The Vedas also speculated on these questions. Their speculations on the origin of the universe and life are varied. The oldest of four Vedas, Rg Veda in Purusa Sukhta, speculates that the world originated from the sacrifice of a God-like being named Purusa. At the core of this myth is the image of a primal cosmic person, the Purusa, pulled apart to generate all that now exist. It claimed four varnas of the human society were derived from the mouth (Brahmin), arms ( Kshatriya), thighs ( Vaisya) and feet ( Sudra) of the Purusa. The order in society reflects the order of the cosmos. This myth of cosmic person Purusa leads to a philosophical thought that, at the fundamental level, the universe is reducible to one thing. Again, Rg Veda in Nasadiya Sukhta ( Hymn of creations) speculates a non-deterministic origin of the cosmos; paras 6&7 of the Sukhta read
को अद्धा वेद क इह प्र वोचत्कुत आजाता कुत इयं विसृष्टिः |
अर्वाग्देवा अस्य विसर्जनेनाथा को वेद यत आबभूव ॥६॥
इयं विसृष्टिर्यत आबभूव यदि वा दधे यदि वा न |
यो अस्याध्यक्षः परमे व्योमन्त्सो अङ्ग वेद यदि वा न वेद ॥७॥.’
The translation of original Sanskrit into English by historian and Indologist AL Basham reads as:
But, after all, who knows, and who can say
Whence, it all came, and how creation happened?
the Devas (minor gods) themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?” (6)
Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether
he did not,
he, who surveys it all from the highest heaven,
he, knows-or maybe even he doesn’t know. (7)”
Astika Darsanas have drawn philosophical ideas copiously from the diverse speculations and myths contained in the Vedas. Philosophers of each Darsana developed these speculations into distinctive philosophical thoughts on the nature of reality (Metaphysics). Some argued for a pluralist account, according to which reality is composed of an irreducible plurality of different types of objects. Others preferred dualism, that reality is composed of two fundamentally different substances. And some others argued for monism that despite appearances to the contrary, at the most fundamental level, only one thing was real. The key debate among the philosophers of various Darsanas was whether pluralism, dualism or monism offered the best theory of the fundamental nature of reality.
Here, I am attempting to give you a simplistic overview of the dualist thesis of Samkhya Darsana
Samkhya Darsana is traditionally considered to be founded by Sage Kapila. It is also believed that the core ideas of Samkhya existed much before he methodically enunciated them. However, the earliest extant Samkhya text is Samkhya Karika of Isvarakrsna. It dates from the fourth-fifth century CE. The term Samkhya means ‘enumeration’. The principal interest of philosophers of this school was to enumerate the variety of physical and non-physical phenomena that constitute the world. The aim was that through careful enumeration of everything that exists arises knowledge that one can successfully discriminate between which of these things are real ‘you’ and which aren’t. In seeking to enumerate all constituents of our world Samkhya Darsanas developed a complex theory of evolution which purported to explain how each type of thing is produced of some other kind of thing.
The Samkhya held that before the onset of the evolutionary process, only two types of substances existed,
1. Purusa — Pure Consciousness and
2. Prakrti- Primordial Matter.
And all other things originate from the interactions between these two fundamental substances. The idea of Purusa as the source of cosmic energy is derived from Rg Veda’s ‘Purusa Sukhta’. The meaning of the term Purusa has transformed from the God-like being from whom the world originated to an idea of a primordial substance, a ‘Pure Consciousness’. Prakrti is considered the actual primordial matter out of which the world evolves. But it couldn’t have generated a world of its own. It possessed no power to do so. Prakrti could be imagined as an inert mass of dark matter that becomes active only when Purusa interacts with it. Once that happens, the evolutionary process is triggered. The process then unfolds through a series of stages. The first stage involves the manifestation of three Gunas (categories) or Tattvas ( literally — That-ness) within Prakrti. These Gunas are
i) Sattva — Qualities of light
ii) Rajas — Passion or Energy
iii) Tamas — Darkness or Inertia
The subsequent stages of evolution are said to be kept in balance by the three Gunas. Our capacities of sense- hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting, and smelling- evolved from the ego ( the sense we have of being a self); the ego itself is an evolutionary product of primordial matter. The simplistic line diagram showing the stages of the evolutionary scheme is given below
The Samkhya deploys this evolutionary scheme to give an account of the existence and nature of both the world and individual consciousness within that world.
The Samkhya Darsana, however, doesn’t explain why Purusa — Pure Consciousness- suddenly attended to the inert mass, Prakrti. The Samkhya is a non-theistic tradition within Astika School. There is no God in its metaphysics goading Purusa to act. Philosophers from the Darsana seem to regard the cause of the beginning of the interaction of Purusa with Prakrti as what we might call a cosmic blip that had dramatic but unintended results. It set in motion the evolutionary processes which led to the manifestation of the world of our experience. The explanation of the philosophers that perhaps an unintended cosmic blip was the cause of the universe’s beginning would seem familiar to students of science. Modern science, too, has no idea of how an infinitely hot and dense single point inflated and stretched into a space-time expanse that formed our universe (Big Bang theory). Rg Veda, like the Samkhya and the cosmologists, expresses scepticism on the beginning of the universe in its elegant and widely known verse, Nasadiya Sukhta.
Nature Of Dualism in Samkhya Darsana
Unlike Cartesian Dualism- the duality of mind and body-that dominated western philosophy, Dualism in the Samkhya is discriminating and deep. It posits two basic non-reducible types of substances, Purusa and Prakrti. Purusa (Pure Consciousness) is not what is generally understood by the English term ‘mind’. Samkhya regards the mind as a modification of Prakrti (Primordial Matter). Its primary function is to organise the information derived from the senses. Mind is also not considered equivalent to underlying ego (sense of being a self). According to Samkhya, neither the mind nor the ego is the true self. The ego is the psychological subject lodged within the material body. It is referred to as the empirical self — the owner of our experiences. It has evolved from the primordial matter, Prakrti. The genuine self is described as a silent witness who is fundamentally different from embodied (empirical) self and is thought to reside in the realm of Purusa ( Pure Consciousness).
Soteriological Concern
The soteriological concern of Samkhya Darsana is liberation from pain. The opening line of Samkhya Karika is ‘ From torment by threefold misery arises the inquiry into the means of terminating it’. It means that torment is caused by three kinds of pain- Adhyatmika (pain from one’s own body and mind), Adhibhoutika (pain caused by other living beings) and Adhidaivka (pain caused by supernatural agencies)- and from there arises a desire of inquiry of terminating it.
According to the Samkhya, the way to terminate suffering is to discriminate between one’s genuine self and what one mistakenly believes to be oneself. The way to accomplish this is through acquiring the right kind of knowledge. The knowledge that Samkhya Karika states, ’Thus, from analysis of the principles ( tattva), knowledge arises that “I am not, nor does it belong to me, nor do I [as an empirical self] exist”. This [knowledge] is free from error, pure and abstract.’ Unquote. This knowledge discriminates the ‘ Empirical Self’, an evolutionary product of Prakrti (Primordial Matter), from the ‘True Self’. That brings the liberating realisation that the ‘ True Self’ belongs to the realm of Purusa (Pure Consciousness) and is essentially free from pain.
Thank you for reading
References
1. Eastern Philosophy — the basics by Victoria S Harrison
2. Indian Philosophy- A very short introduction by Sue Hamilton
3. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
4. Basics of Indian philosophy-An Introduction https://medium.com/@ashokpeer/indian-philosophy-an-introduction-16a7b42cbfef
