A Philosopher's Ruminations

Sankhya is one of the earliest philosophical schools of India, traditionally said to be established by Rishi Kapila whose original work Shastritantra is unfortunately lost today. The earliest sources we have today of this school is Sankhya Karika of Isvara Krishna which has a commentary on it by a great erudite scholar Vacaspati Mishra, his work is known as Tattva Kaumudi. Apart from that there are Sankhya Sutras with two commentaries one by Aniruddha known as Vritti and the other by Vijnanabhikshu known as Sankhya Pravacana Bhashya. Vijnanabhikshu is the greatest exponent of this system in latter times. PRAKRITI Prakriti is the cause of the manifest universe, both material and psychological. It is a state of equilibrium of the three Gunas: Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. These three though denoted by the term Guna are not qualities, they are rather feeling substances, the ultimate reals. Prakriti is a generic term for these three. Sattva denotes lightness or freedom, rajas restlessness a...

  Aristotle famously declared in his Metaphysics – All men by nature desire to know. But this raises the following questions: a)       What is knowledge? b)      Why do we desire it? c)       Why should we consider this desire to be natural to human beings?   Regarding the first question Aristotle believed that we know only when we know the reason why something is the way it is. Hence knowledge is always of the universal or the principle because particular things come to be and pass away but their principle is eternal. Coming to the second question – why do we desire knowledge. Aristotle’s answer is knowledge is valuable not for the sake of something else but for its own sake i.e. it is an end in itself. But this theory is threatened by the consideration that we do not value knowledge for its own sake but for the sake of something else, some practical benefit that it may confer on us. Our modern ...

The primary difference between the two approaches lies in this that Indian philosophers that do believe in the existence of a soul, do not only hold that we have a soul separate from the body but that the soul can exist without any physical or mental attributes altogether. An example is the Advaita Vedanta school and Sankhya school that holds the Soul to be of the nature of pure consciousness and on the other hand schools like Nyaya and Vaisesika that even though do not subscribe to the view that soul is pure consciousness, still believe that soul is a substance that can exist without the quality of consciousness and will. On the other end of the spectrum, even those who do deny the existence of the soul like Buddhists, even among them some like Yogacara school believe in pure consciousness even though they do not believe in a soul. To be clear the concept of a person is composed of two elements, one unity of consciousness and second, the substratum of desire and volition i.e. a person...