SĀṂkhya
SĀṂKHYA, a Sanskrit word meaning "enumeration," "categorization" is derived from the substantive saṃkhyā ("number") and is the name of one of the earliest Hindu philosophical schools.
The Teachings of the School
As the name implies, the Sāṃkhya school relies on distinct and recognizable patterns of enumeration as methods of inquiry. The different patterns of enumeration can be grouped into three main separate divisions according to their overall function in the system: the principles of twenty-five (constitutive), the dispositions of eight (projective), and the categories of fifty (effective).
Basic to an understanding of the Sāṃkhya school is the importance it places on the distinction between contentless consciousness (puruṣa) and materiality (prakṛti), two completely different principles. Nothing exists apart from these two principles. This distinction caused the Sāṃkhya school to be labeled "dualistic." Contentless consciousness is the opposite of materiality in that it is inactive, yet conscious, and therefore not subject to change. Materiality, on the contrary, is potentially and actually active, but unconscious. Materiality is both unmanifest and manifest. The unmanifest materiality may also be called the "original materiality" because it is from this that the whole manifest universe emerges.
The universe undergoes cycles of evolution and absorption. During absorption, the original materiality is dormant, and the three constituents of materiality (the guṇas: sattva, rajas, and tamas) are in a state of equilibrium.
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