The Origin of Indian Dualism - Samkhya School ...Contd

Originally, the Samkhya system did not permit the inclusion of Ishvara (the Lord of all Creation), since the early Samkhyas argued that the existence of a personal God cannot be proved and hence cannot be admitted to exist and that an unchanging reality called Ishvara cannot be the Lord of a changing entity like the world. Later on, as the Samkhya and Yoga schools merged together, the Samkhya system accepted the concept of Ishvara. Thus, Indian forms of Dualism had both theistic and atheistic variations.

The central postulate of the Samkhya School is that the Universe is born of the confluence of Purusha (Self, masculine principle) and Prakriti (Creative Energy, feminine principle). Prakriti is said to consist of three Gunas (disposition) - Sattva (purity, light), Rajas (passion, activity) and Tamas (inertia) and evolves into twenty-four tattvas (principles).

All jivas (sentient beings) are considered as manifestations of the conscious Purusha and all physical phenomena are manifestations of the unconscious Prakriti. The Purusha forgets his true nature, independent of Prakriti and out of this confused identity arises Samsara (bondage through identification with the physical body). When the Purusha attains the knowledge of this difference through Nitya-Anitya Viveka (discrimination between the eternal and the non-eternal), he gets liberated from bondage and attains Kaivalya or Moksha.

Thus, the Samkhya system is the origin of all schools of Indian Dualism (Self vs Matter).