Foundations · Reading
Sankhya: Purusha and Prakriti
The school that gives Yog its map: pure awareness, and the nature it watches.
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Philosophy
Sankhya is one of the oldest schools of Indian thought, and the one Patanjali's Yog is built on. It counts, as its name suggests, the principles of existence.
There are two fundamental realities. Purusha is pure awareness, unchanging and only witnessing. Prakriti is nature, made of the three gunas, and it unfolds into everything else, including the mind. Sankhya enumerates twenty-four principles, or tattvas, of Prakriti. Liberation is the clear discernment that awareness is not what it watches.
Terms
- Purusha
- Pure awareness, the witness.
- Prakriti
- Nature, everything that changes, including the mind.
- Tattva
- A principle or element of existence.
Ideas behind it
Sources and tradition
- YOG Union App Content Map, 2 November 2026, pp. 2–3, philosophy and foundations