Sāṅkhya View of Consciousness

The Sāṅkhya school, is one of the oldest philosophical traditions of India, and many of its ideas are traceable to the Ṛgveda and the early Upaniṣads like Chāndogya, Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣads. Sage Kapila, is regarded as the founder of this school and Sāṅkhyasūtras (aphorisms) attributed to him are not extant. The most important extant Sāṅkhya text is Īśvarakṛṣṇ's Sāṅkhyakārikā.

According to the Sāṅkhya system, there are two fundamental realities namely, puruṣa (consciousness) and prakṛti (matter). Prakṛti is the objective background of all experiences. It is the material possibility of all things, the potentiality of all modifications, the noumenal aspect of the universe. Prakṛti is the primary substance from which all forms of matter evolve. The objects are limited in space and time, while prakṛti itself is ubiquitous and all pervading. It is the ground condition of all physical manifestations in the universe. Prakṛti is primarily one, but is ever mutable; it evolves the material world out of itself.

According to Sāṅkhya philosophy, the dynamics of prakṛti are governed by the interactions of the three guṇas, which are the three basic types of constituents of physical substance. The three guṇas are sattva, rajas and tamas, which correspond roughly with 'transparency and buoyancy', ‘energy and activity’, and 'inertia and obstruction'. In other word, sattva reflects the principle of consciousness; it is light and luminous, and brings happiness to the individual. Rajas is the principle of action; it is stimulating and impelling and brings pain to the individual. Tamas is the principle of restraint; it is heavy and inactive, and produces the state of indifference. All physical phenomena are believed to consist of unstable combinations of these three types of constituent. And the instability of these combinations is responsible for the evolution and transformations of the material world. Though the guṇas are opposing constituents of prakṛti, their function is intrinsically harmonious. They work together like the wick, oil and fire in a lamp.

The first evolute of prakṛti is the mahat (the great), from which the rest of the material world evolves by a process of differentiation. It is the highest and subtlest form of matter. The mahat is preponderantly sāttvic. It may therefore be considered as the quintessence of all things. It includes intellect, ego and mind. It has both a cosmic aspect and a counterpart in the individual which is the psychological aspect called buddhi or intellect. Buddhi is a subtler and more powerful faculty than manas, and is responsible for the higher level of intellectual functions, which require intuition, insight and reflection. From the mahat arises the ahaṃkāra which is the ego (i.e. “I” principle/individuality). From the ahaṃkāraa dual form of evolution take place. In one the sattva component dominates and in the other tamas. Rajas is involved in both as a motivating force behind. The sattva form of evolution results in the generation of the mind, five sensory and five motor organs. The tamasic line evolves into five subtle and five gross elements of matter. From these the rest of the objects in the world manifest.

From the sattva aspect of ahaṃkāra appears manas which is often translated directly as mind. Manas is viewed essentially as an organ, the special organ of cognition, just as the eyes are the special organs of sight. It is intimately connected with perception, since the raw data supplied by the senses must be ordered and categorized. This is essential for the conceptual scheme before various objects can be perceived as members of their respective categories. In addition to its perceptual activities, manas is held to be responsible for the cognitive functions of analysis, deliberation and decision. Manas is closely allied to intellect (buddhi), ego, (ahaṃkāra) appropriates all mental experiences to itself, and thus 'personalizes' the objective activities of manas and buddhi by assuming possession of them. The combination of these three faculties (viz., manas, buddhi, ahaṃkāra) is referred to as antaḥkaraṇa, “inner instrument” of cognition to take place.

The puruṣa^[1], on the other hand, is pure Consciousness (nitya suddha buddha). It has no qualities to characterize it. The puruṣa is the essential Self, conveying the same sense as the ātman as used in the Upaniṣads. It is Consciousness as such, a transcendental principle that makes awareness possible. In conjunction with prakṛti, it enables us to experience unity, coherence, continuity, selfhood, and awareness of the world of objects and thoughts. According to Sāṅkhya there is a separate puruṣa in each person. Puruṣa is not an object of perception. It can only be inferred and intuitively realized. It is ever illuminating (sadāprakāṣa svarūpa). Unlike in NyāyaVaiśeṣika, consciousness is not an adventitious quality. Nor is it, unlike in Advaita Vedānta, the state of bliss. It has no activity, no form and no attachment. It stands alone. The puruṣa is all pervasive and not contained in the body in which it manifests. It is the absolute, unconditioned Self.

It (puruṣa) is not a substance that possesses the attribute of consciousness. It is the subjectivity behind all objectivity, the unrelated, unqualified, unchanging consciousness. It is not evolved from anything else, and nothing evolves from it. As a transcendental self it is held to exist in complete independence of the material realm. So the basic dualism in the Sāṅkhya metaphysics is between puruṣa and prakṛti, between Consciousness and matter.

How do we know that puruṣa, the pure Consciousness/Self exists? It is to be inferred on teleological grounds and presumed for making sense of moral responsibility. It is not an object that can be perceived by the senses or the mind. It is self-manifesting. The following are some of the reasons given in Sāṅkhyakārikā (17) for the existence of puruṣa.

The puruṣa (self) exists, (i) because composites are observed to exist for another; (ii) because this other (i.e. puruṣa) must be distinct or opposite to the three guṇas; (iii) because this other must serve as a governing factor or basis; (iv) because of the need for a conscious enjoyer; (v) because there is a basic inclination (in the light of their suffering) towards liberation (in all conscious beings).

There are order, law and symmetry, directionality and purposiveness in the universe. These cannot be attributed to prakṛti, which by its very nature is incapable of manifesting them. Therefore, there must be a conscious principle behind the pervasive teleology we find (Sāṅkhyakārikā:11). As the eleventh kārikā says, being affected by three-fold miseries, the person desires to get rid of them. That desire cannot be attributed to insentient matter. Therefore, it should belong to something different; and that something is the puruṣa.

According to classical Sāṅkhya system puruṣa is not one, but many.

The following reasons are given for assuming the plurality of puruṣas and not a non-dual ātman/ Self as in Advaita Vedānta philosophy.

“The plurality of puruṣas certainly follows from the distributive nature of the incident of birth and death and of the endowment of the instruments of cognition and action, from bodies engaging in action, all at the same time, and also from differences in the proportion of the three constituents"^[2].

Individual differences among people, their births and deaths, for example, suggest the existence of different puruṣas in different people. Otherwise, when one dies all others would die. This is a patent absurdity (Sāṅkhyakārikā: 18). This argument is very similar to the argument advanced by Nyāya-V aiśeṣika thinkers. Non-simultaneity of experiences and activities of the persons is possible only because each person has his own distinct self, puruṣa. Again, individual differences among persons cannot be accounted for as mere combination of the three guṇas in prakṛti. They require the postulation of separate puruṣas.

But this insistence on the plurality of puruṣas in the system is not harmonious with their claim that there is no difference among the puruṣas. If puruṣas do not differ from each other, then on what grounds can it be said that there are many puruṣas? Realizing this grave defect the commentators like Vācaspati, Gauḍapāda and Vijñānabhikṣu have maintained the reality of one puruṣa only. They argue, if Sāṅkhya can reduce all objects to one prakṛti, why can it not reduce all the empirical souls to one puruṣa by the same logic? Again, if all the puruṣas are essentially similar, if the essence of all is pure Consciousness, how can they be really many? The unconvincing nature of the answers offered by the Sāṅkhya philosophers prepared the way for the Advaita Vedānta with its claim that if the Sāṅkhya system had followed out the implications of their claims (1) that the Self is pure Consciousness, (2) that selves have no specific determination in themselves and (3) that selves are the only immutable realities, then they would have arrived at the conclusion that there is but one self and the physical world is an illusion.^[3]

As mentioned, Consciousness (puruṣa) is primary and it is in principle irreducible to any form or manifestation of matter (prakṛti). It is self-manifesting and self-luminous (svataḥ prakāṣa). Consciousness as such has no content and consequently is not an object of knowledge. It is non-relational and yet foundational for all awareness and knowledge. Consciousness, which is different from the mind, has two fundamental aspects. It manifests in two basic forms, (1) transcendental and (2) phenomenal. In its transcendental aspect Consciousness is apprehended through immediate intuition where there is no distinction between subject and object. In its phenomenal form it manifests in the cognitions where there is a differentiation between the cognizing subject (grāhi), the object of cognition (grāhya), and the process of cognition (grahaṇa). It is a sensory awareness. It is awareness with form and content. In Sāṅkhya philosophy, as in most other systems of Indian thought, Consciousness is different from the mind. The mind, unlike Consciousness, is physical, an evolutes of prakṛti. Consciousness in the human condition is reflected in the mind. The person (jīva) is an embodied consciousness (puruṣa). An embodied consciousness is constrained by the body-mind complex. It is the unique propensity of the mind to reflect consciousness so that its contents become revealed by the illumination of the puruṣa. When the puruṣa gets entangled with prakṛti, i.e., when there is an association between Consciousness and the mind/ buddhi, which is by its nature unconscious, becomes conscious. Deriving its illumination from its proximity to puruṣa, it (mind) manifests awareness and subjectivity.

The mind is preponderantly sāttvic and because of that the mind has the possibility of reflecting puruṣa (consciousness). The association between puruṣa and the mind does not involve genuine interaction between the two but only a relation that provides for a reflection of the puruṣa in the mind (budhi). Such a reflection is made possible by the sattva component of the mind. Sattva aspect of matter has peculiar affinity with puruṣa in that it is capable of reflecting consciousness, unlike tamas, which obstructs it. Buddhi¸ as aspect of the mind, is always translucent and becomes transparent in association with puruṣa. It is only the sāttvic characteristics of buddhi which allows human thoughts and experiences to 'absorb' consciousness. The reflection of the puruṣa makes the buddhi conscious. When the buddhi becomes conscious, that consciousness in turn is superimposed upon the puruṣa. From this the ji›va (the embodied puruṣa) gets the notion of an experiencing person by mistaking the modifications of the buddhi as its own. Thus it is the association of the puruṣa and the buddhi in the ji›va that gives one the selfconsciousness and the subjective experience of the world. The puruṣa, however, by this association with ji›va appears to have lost its freedom, innate purity and perfection. By mistaking the cognitions of buddhi as its own, it develops a sense of false identity with the mind, thus lost in the mirage of the mind. According to Sāṅkhya school, the quest of the person is to gain release from the shackles and the bondage brought about by its association with the mind/ buddhi. The Yoga System attempts to explain this bondage and lays down a progressive scheme for the self-realization of the puruṣa in the individual ji›va. When the puruṣa gets its release and gains freedom from the barricade of matter (prakṛti) and the confinement of the senses, it regains its self-illumination in a state of splendid isolation (kaivalya), a state of perfection in being. Thus kaivalya is the goal and yoga practice is a means to achieve this goal.

The puruṣa wrongly identifies itself with the evolutes of prakṛti and considers itself to be bound. Puruṣa does not modify and becomes an embodied self. It becomes embodied because its misconception and lack of understanding. This erroneous understanding can be corrected when puruṣa discerns between itself and the products of prakṛti. With constant practice of this viveka it attains kaivalya. What is significant here is that while prakṛti undergoes a constant transformation, puruṣa remains unaffected to any causal process. It is free from change and modification. Hence with proper discernment it realizes its nature being pure Consciousness, unattached to prakṛti. The doctrine of pariṇāmavāda is applicable only to prakṛti and a kind of vivartavāda for puruṣa.

The contemporary scholar Gerald James Larson in his article Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya and the plurality of Puruṣas (Puruṣa-bahutva) in Sāṅkhya has successfully brought out the following distinction between Sāṅkhya and Advaita which is relevant for our understanding. He compares and contrasts between the Sāṅkhya structuring of the problem of the one and the many and the Advaita Vedānta structuring of the problem of the one and the many as a result of the divergent interpretations of consciousness in the two systems. Usually Sāṅkhya and Vedanta are contrasted in terms of dualism versus monism, and that, of course, is a true enough distinction as far as it goes.

A simple chart reveals the contrast at a glance.^[4]

One	Many
Śaṅkara’s	Sāṅkhya’s
ātman-Brahman	puruṣa-bahutva
Sāṅkhya’s	Śaṅkara’s
Prakṛti	māyā-avidyā

Śaṅkara's one and the many is the exact antithesis, or perhaps better by way of keeping the 'reflection' metaphor, the mirror reversal of Sāṅkhya's one and the many. According to Advaita Vedānta, contentless Consciousness (ātman) is always one, whereas the multiplicity of the phenomenal, empirical everyday world is a bewildering and, finally, illusory, or at least irrational, many (māyā, avidyā).

For Sāṅkhya, the exact opposite or the mirror reversal is the case. Contentless Consciousness (puruṣa) reveals itself as many, whereas the multiplicity of the phenomenal, empirical everyday world is a completely intelligible, rational one (prakṛti or mulasprakṛti as traigunya).

For Advaitins, a single, cosmic consciousness disperses itself into a random and finally unintelligible multiplicity. But according to Sāṅkhya, many consciousnesses reside in a single, rational world.

According to Advaitins, contentless Consciousness (ātman) can never be particular or individual; it can only be general or universal. For Sāṅkhya contentless consciousness (puruṣa) can never be general or universal; it can only be particular or individual.

According to Advaita Vedānta (for Śaṅkara), what truly is and what is truly intelligible and what is ultimately satisfying (that is, what is sat, cit and ānanda) can only be the sheer transparency of contentless Consciousness (ātman); anything else is an unintelligible, mysterious otherness. But for Sāṅkhya system, the world itself is truly intelligible and rational; what is unintelligible and mysterious is my particular or individual presence in it.

A comparison of Sāṅkhya theory of puruṣa with the Nyāya view of self is also worth noting here:

Nyāya regards the self as the agent, the doer, and the originator of all the voluntary activities in which the body enveloping the self is involved. There is simply no functioning of consciousness without body. According to Sāṅkhya, however, the puruṣa is sentient but inactive and it is prakṛti, the material matrix of the whole universe, which is active and the agent of all actions. What, therefore, belongs to prakṛti is wrongly imputed to puruṣa. In the Nyāya view, the self is depicted as just the material repository of all the qualities that are induced in it by the activity of the body-mind-sense-complex. The self only suffers the existence of these qualities. In no sense, therefore, the self can be regarded as the agent of the activities. The ultimate condition of the self is also totally bereft of agency or doership. Thus Nyāya seems to do violence to its own view of self by treating it as the agent of all voluntary activities while Sāṅkhya rightly considers the puruṣa as a seeming but not real agent of the activities initiated by the dynamic prakṛti.

In this way, the three (Lokāyata/Cārvāka, Sāṅkhya and Nyāya) schools not only accept the reality of the material world or nature, but work moreover for an essentially materialist interpretation of its constitution, basing up on their respective theories of the nature of matter, namely the bhūtas (physical elements), pradhāna (primeval matter) and paramāṇus (atoms). According to Cārvākas, consciousness is secondary to matter. In the case of Nyāya system, though matter, in the form of the atoms, is eternal and immutable, consciousness is essentially a transient phenomenon, somehow or other temporarily produced by the peculiar collocation of a number of intrinsically unconscious (jaḍa) entities, most of which are material. How the essentially unconscious entities can produce consciousness is something not discussed in this system? But their philosophical position demands that this has to be so. Among the modern scholars Hiriyana is the only one to boldly draw our attention to the fact that the Nyāya view of the origin of consciousness from things essentially unconscious is basically the same as that of the plain-speaking materialists. As he puts it, “The position is scarcely distinguishable from that of the Cārvākas”^[5].

Accordingly Sāṅkhya philosophy is generally viewed as a form of rigid dualism i.e. the philosophy of matter and puruṣa (consciousness), rather than materialism pure and simple. The later exponents of Sāṅkhya are faced with the following question: “though puruṣa is pure intelligence, the guṇas are non-intelligent subtle substances, how can the latter come into touch with the former^[6]?

To this they answer:

“One class of the guṇas called sattva is such that it resembles the purity and the intelligence of the puruṣa to a very high degree, so much so that it can reflect the intelligence of the puruṣa and thus render its non-intelligent transformations to appear as if they were intelligent. Thus all our thoughts and other emotional and volitional operations are really the non-intelligent transformation of the buddhi or citta having a large sattva preponderance of virtue of the reflection of the puruṣa in the buddhi, these appear as if they are intelligent”.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

It is difficult to translate 'puruṣa' because there is no equivalent word in English vocabulary. Puruṣa is sometimes translated as “soul” or “spirit” and at other times “Self” or “Consciousness” From a Psychological perspective, it would seem that “consciousness” comes closest to convey the appropriate sense of puruṣa. Prakṛti may be understood as non-conscious matter.

[2]:

Surendranath Das Gupta, Yoga as philosophy and Religion, (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929), 20.

[3]:

Troy Wilson Organ, The Self In Indian Philosophy, (London: Moutan and Co, 1964), 69-70.

[4]:

Gerald James Larson, “Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya and the plurality of Puruṣas (Puruṣabahutva) in Sāṅkhya”, JICPR, vol.10, no.1 (1992), 96.

[5]:

M. Hiriyana, Outlines of Indian Philosophy, (Bombay: Blackie & Son, 1983), 260.

[6]:

Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol.1, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1951), 259.