ABSTRACT
Samkhya maintains that the object of philosophy is to gain the perfect and complete knowledge of the truth, which is no mere aggregate of all the possible views and experiences of the objective world, but an immediate experience of reality in the transcendental consciousness. Samkhya is dualistic, for it postulates two ultimate realities, Purusa, and prakrti, primordial nature. Purusa, though independent of prakrti, inactive and separate from her, is regarded as the prime mover, the first cause of the cosmic process. Purusa is like the magnet, and prakrti like the iron as it responds to the magnetic influence. The three gunas, sattwa, rajas, and tamas, the constituents of prakrti, form the material structure of the universe. In the Samkhya view of causality, the effect is essentially identical with the cause; and the universe, which is a product, is therefore only a superficial transformation of prakrti and is essentially constituted of the gunas.
