Sankhya: Purusha, Prakriti and the 25 Tattvas

What Sankhya sets out to do

Sankhya (also spelled Sāṅkhya) is one of the oldest systematic philosophies in the Indian world. At its heart is a metaphysical diagnosis: reality is explained as the interplay of two radically different principles — puruṣa (consciousness) and prakṛti (primordial nature). From this basic distinction Sankhya builds a detailed map of mind, matter and liberation. Over two millennia it has shaped debate across Vedānta, Yoga, Sāṅkhya itself and many living Hindu traditions, even when sects adapt or reject parts of its framework.

Short historical note

Traditionally Sankhya is associated with the sage Kapila. The earliest systematic text that survives in the classical school form is the Sāṅkhya-kārikā, traditionally attributed to Īśvarakṛṣṇa; scholars date its composition broadly between the 2nd century BCE and the 4th century CE, though precise dating remains debated. Patanjali’s Yoga Sūtras (roughly 2nd century BCE–4th century CE in scholarly estimates) adopt Sankhya metaphysics for the practice of liberation, and commentators in later centuries weave Sankhya ideas into Bhakti, Śaiva and Śākta literatures.

Two principles: Purusha and Prakriti

Sankhya’s most famous claim is its dualism. Puruṣa — usually translated as “consciousness” or “self” — is pure awareness, inactive and many (plural), a witness to experience. Prakṛti — “primordial nature” — is unconscious, creative energy that contains potential for everything that appears.

Where some Hindu systems locate a single ultimate reality (Brahman) or a personal god, classical Sankhya treats Purusha as multiple and non-creative. This has led many later thinkers to label it non-theistic, though devotional traditions sometimes rework Sankhya categories into theistic frames.

The three guṇas — a moving balance

• Sattva — clarity, harmony, lightness. When sattva predominates cognition becomes clear and calm.
• Rajas — activity, desire, movement. Rajas drives change, will and attachment.
• Tamas — inertia, dullness, resistance. Tamas grounds or obscures experience.

Prakṛti evolves by the shifting proportions of these guṇas. Ethical and spiritual practice in Sankhya and allied traditions often aims at reducing rajas and tamas and increasing sattva, but liberation requires something more than a sattvic life — it requires discriminative knowledge that disentangles Purusha from prakṛti.

The 25 tattvas (basic categories)

One of Sankhya’s most practical contributions is its list of elemental principles or tattvas. Counting Purusha, classical Sankhya enumerates 25. A compact way to view them:

• 1. Prakṛti — unmanifest nature (root).
• 2. Mahat / Buddhi — cosmic/intellectual principle (intellect).
• 3. Ahaṃkāra — ego-sense (I-maker).
• 4. Manas — mind; coordinator of sense data.
• 5–9. Five jñānendriyas — sense organs (ear, skin, eye, tongue, nose).
• 10–14. Five karmendriyas — organs of action (speech, hands, feet, excretory, reproductive).
• 15–19. Five tanmātras — subtle elements (sound, touch, form, taste, smell).
• 20–24. Five mahābhūtas — gross elements (ākāśa/space, vāyu/air, tejas/fire, ap/water, pṛthivī/earth).
• 25. Puruṣa — pure consciousness, witness.

This taxonomy ties psychology, perception and cosmology together: the same sequence explains how sensation becomes mind-stuff and how mind-stuff unfolds into the material world.

Knowledge, perception and liberation

Sankhya emphasizes discriminative knowledge (viveka) as the means to liberation (kaivalya — aloneness or isolation of Purusha). Epistemologically it commonly accepts three pramāṇas (means of valid knowledge): perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna) and reliable testimony (śabda), though details vary across commentators.

For Sankhya, suffering arises when Purusha misidentifies with prakṛti’s products (mind, body, desires). Liberation is the clear, direct recognition that “I” am not the body-mind complex but pure witness. That insight ends misdirected agency and the cycle of bondage.

Relation to Yoga and other traditions

Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras adopt Sankhya metaphysics as the theoretical backdrop for yogic practice, while adding devotional or theistic elements (the notion of Īśvara) absent in classical Sāṅkhya. In the Bhagavad Gītā, chapters that are sometimes called “Sankhya-yoga” use Sankhya-like analysis even as the text integrates duty (dharma) and devotion (bhakti), showing how Sankhya vocabulary became part of normative Hindu discourse.

Vedānta critics raise several objections: for example, Advaita Vedānta questions Sankhya’s postulation of many Purushas and denies prakṛti’s ultimate reality altogether. Śaiva and Śākta systems often accept similar psychological maps but place a supreme deity or energy (śakti) at the origin.

Ethical and practical implications

Sankhya’s path is largely intellectual and contemplative: knowledge of the categories and steady observation of one’s inner states. Yet it has ethical consequences. If suffering springs from misidentification, then restraint, dispassion and clear perception become moral aims. In practice, Sankhya influenced ascetic disciplines, meditation techniques and attitudes toward desire and duty.

Note: Some practices associated with Sankhya-related yoga—such as extended fasts or breath-control (prāṇāyāma)—can affect health. Seek guidance from qualified teachers and medical advice where relevant.

Why Sankhya still matters

Sankhya’s strength lies in its clarity and granularity. It offers a vocabulary to talk about mind, perception and the structure of experience without collapsing inner life into mere matter or assuming a single personal god. Even when later traditions modify its metaphysics, Sankhya’s analytic method — asking what exactly is causing our suffering and how to disidentify from it — remains influential in Indian philosophy, devotional theology and practical spiritual training.

Modest closing

Sankhya is not a single monolith but a family of texts, commentaries and lived interpretations. Different schools emphasize different points: some keep its non-theistic thrust, others read it through the lens of deity-centred devotion. What endures is its invitation to look closely at consciousness, to enumerate the workings of nature, and to cultivate the knowledge that can free the watcher from being trapped in the watched.