School · 300–1600 CE

Sāṃkhya

Sāṃkhya analyses bondage and liberation through the distinction between conscious puruṣa and productive prakṛti. Its enumerative account of principles supplied a metaphysical partner, though not an identical doctrine, to classical Yoga.

Shared questions

How can discriminating consciousness from material nature end suffering?
Which transformations of prakṛti explain experience, agency, and the world?

Internal disagreements

Sāṃkhya’s plural selves and usually non-theistic metaphysics prompted debate with Yoga, Vedānta, and Buddhist traditions.

Key texts

Sāṃkhyakārikā · c. fourth–fifth century CE — Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s verses became the seminal surviving text of the tradition.