Upanishads & Samkhya

The inner reality of love can be recognized only by conscious living.

Term Upanishad derives from upa- (‘nearby’), ni-(‘at the proper place, down’) and sad (‘to sit’) and it means ‘sitting near a teacher to receive the sacred teachings’.

Vedanta (anta ‘the end’ or ‘last portion’) is the essence and culmination of all the knowledge within the Vedas. Vedas (vid – ‘to know’, ‘knowledge’ of the eternal truth).

Based on the Upanishads, two schools of philosophy developed in India: (1) The realistic (e.g. Samkhya)  (2) The idealistic (e.g.Vedanta). The Samkhya philosophy combines the basic doctrines of Samkhya and Yoga. However it should be remembered that the Samkhya represents the theory and Yoga represents the application or the practical aspects

Samkhya is dualistic realism. It is dualistic because it talks about two eventual realities: Prakriti, matter and Purusha, self (spirit). Samkhya is realism as it considers that both matter and spirit are equally real. Samkhya has many realities also because of its teaching that Purusha is not one but many.

According to Samkhya the radical interactions among the three disturb the state of equilibrium in Prakriti. Then there may be dominance of one or the other guna. This disequilibrium, with certain other influencing factors, prompts Prakriti to differentiate into world-objects.

The evolution  results in 23 different categories of objects. They comprise of three elements  of  Antahkaranas or the internal organs as well as the ten Bahyakaranas or the external organs. 

Among all these, the first to evolve is Mahat(the great one). Mahat evolves as a result of preponderance of sattva. Since it is an evolute of Prakriti, it is made of matter. But it has psychological, intellectual aspect known as buddhi or intellect. Mahat or intellect is a unique faculty of human beings. It helps man in judgment and discrimination. Mahat helps to distinguish between the subject and the object. Man comes to understand the self and the non-self, the experiencer and the experienced as distinct entities with Mahat. Mahat, by its inherent association with sattva, possesses qualities like luminosity and reflectivity. Buddhi can reflect  Purusha owing to these qualities.

The second evolute is ahamkara (ego). It arises out of the cosmic nature of Mahat. Ahamkara is the self-sense. It is concerned with the self-identity and it brings about awareness of “I” and “mine”.

According to the Samkhya there emanates two sets of objects from ahamkara. The first set comprises of the manas (mind), the five sense-organs and the five motor organs. The second set consists of the five elements which may exist in two forms, subtle and gross.

The five subtle elements are also called tanmatras. These five subtle elements or tanmatras are: elemental sound, elemental touch, elemental colour, elemental taste and elemental smell. They are shabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa and gandha respectively. The gross elements  arise as a result of combination of the subtle elements.

The five gross elements are space or ether (akasa), water, air, fire and earth.

Let us elaborate on the above. Ahamkara has three aspects that differ according to the preponderance of the three gunas– sattva, rajas and tamas. With the dominant sattva–guna, the Sattvika–ahamkara  produces manas (mind), the five sense organs and the five motor organs. The five sense organs are chakshu (to see), sroto (to hear), rasna (to taste), ghrana (to smell) and tvak (to feel). The five motor organs are concerned with the powers of speech, handling, movement, excretion and procreation. These organs, in Sanskrit, are referred to as vak, pani, pada, paya and upastha respectively. All these ten organs together form external organs (bahyakaranas). Mahat, ahamkara and manas form internal organs (antahkaranas.)

It should be noted here that the manas or the mind is different from Mahat or the buddhi. Manas or the mind in co-ordination with the sense-organs, receives impressions from the external world, transforms them into determinate perceptions and conveys them to the experiencer or the ego. Thus manas is produced and is capable of producing also. But though Mahat is produced, it can not produce.