(a) Examine and evaluate the proofs given by Sāmkhya philosophy to prove the existence of Puruṣa. (10 marks) (b) What is the…

Sāmkhya proofs of Puruṣa. Sāmkhya argues that insentient Prakṛti cannot account for the world or experience. Its five proofs are inferential. First, saṅghāta-parārthatvāt: the aggregation of instruments and causes implies a purpose, and purpose requires a conscious witness. Second, triguṇyādiviṣayavat: the world contains objects suited to the three guṇas, suggesting an enjoyer. Third, adhiṣṭhātṛ: the subtle body (tanmātras, mind, etc.) requires a controller. Fourth, bhoktṛbhāvāt: experience itself requires an experiencer. Fifth, kaivalyārtha-pravṛtteḥ: the fact that sādhanā aims at liberation implies a liberated subject. Critically, these proofs are mutually reinforcing but not strictly independent. The aggregation and teleology proofs risk circularity if Prakṛti’s evolution is explained as for Puruṣa’s sake. The controller proof is awkward because Puruṣa is passive witness, not an active agent. The experiencer and liberation proofs are the strongest, since they appeal to the givenness of consciousness and the intelligibility of mokṣa. Thus the proofs are better read as a cumulative case than as formal demonstrations; they establish Puruṣa as the necessary condition of experience and liberation, though some formulations are redundant or teleologically loaded.

Vaiśeṣika sāmānya. For Vaiśeṣika, sāmānya is a real universal, eternal, one, and distinct from the particulars in which it inheres. It is not mental but an ontological ground of similarity. It inheres in many particulars through samavāya, an inseparable relation that is neither identity nor contact. Prashastapāda classifies sāmānya into para, Sattā, and apara; apara is further divided into parāpara, such as dravyatva, and apara, such as gotva. This hierarchy explains how higher universals subsume lower ones without collapsing into particulars. Against Buddhist apoha, which treats universals as mere negative exclusions, Vaiśeṣika argues that cognition of commonality, memory, inference and language require a positive real universal. The critical difficulty is samavāya: if the universal is one and in many, how is it undivided? If it is distinct from particulars, how does it make them what they are? The relation is primitive and hard to analyse. Nevertheless, sāmānya’s ontological realism is epistemologically indispensable: it makes general knowledge, scientific classification and valid inference possible. The doctrine is therefore defensible, though its metaphysical account of inherence remains opaque.

Pātañjala samādhi and Īśvara. In Pātañjala Yoga, samādhi is citta-vṛtti-nirodha, the stilling of mental modifications. Samprajñāta samādhi retains an object and passes through savitarka, where thought is accompanied by word and concept; nirvitarka, where it transcends them; savicāra, where attention turns to subtle objects; nirvicāra, where even subtle object is transcended; and then sānanda and sāsmitā, where bliss and refined ego-light remain. Asamprajñāta samādhi has no object, but it is not final, because residual saṃskāras, saṃskāra-śeṣa, remain. Only nirbīja samādhi, described in YS 1.51, removes all seeds and leads to kaivalya. Īśvara is a viśeṣa-puruṣa, a special self untouched by afflictions, habits and merit. He is not the creator of the world but an object of īśvara-praṇidhāna, a limb of aṣṭāṅga yoga. Meditation on him produces prasāda-bhāvana, a receptive grace that steadies the mind and hastens samādhi. Critically, the stages are phenomenological and not always strictly linear; a practitioner may move back and forth. The role of Īśvara is theistic but optional, suited to those with faith, and does not make Pātañjala a creator-theism. Its strength is practical psychology; its weakness is that the transition to seedless samādhi is described as attainment rather than analysis.

Jaina karma and soteriology. Jaina philosophy treats karma not as a moral record but as subtle matter, karma-vargaṇā, that enters and binds the jīva. It binds through yoga, activity, and kaṣāya, passion. Karma is broadly divided into ghātiyā, which obstructs the soul’s nature, and aghātiyā, which does not; specifically, it is analysed into eight types: jñānāvaraṇīya, darśanāvaraṇīya, mohanīya, antarāya, vedanīya, nāma, gotra and āyuṣya. These determine the soul’s perception, knowledge, delusion, obstruction, pleasure and pain, name, birth and life-span. Soteriology follows directly: mokṣa is the complete release of jīva from karmic matter through saṃvara, the stoppage of new influx, and nirjarā, the exhaustion of old karma. Ahiṃsā is central because violence generates passion and karmic influx; the triratna of right faith, knowledge and conduct provides the disciplined path. Critically, the doctrine risks determinism, since karma seems to fix birth, experience and capacity. Yet Jaina thought preserves agency: yoga and kaṣāya are conditions, not absolute causes, and the soul can choose non-violence, renunciation and austerities. The material account of karma is unusual and vulnerable to the objection that matter cannot bind consciousness, but it gives a concrete, non-theistic explanation of moral causation. On balance, Jaina soteriology is coherent: karma is the problem, ethical discipline is the method, and liberation is the removal of matter from the self.

Vivartavāda and pariṇāmavāda. The claim that vivartavāda is the logical development of pariṇāmavāda is partly true. Pariṇāmavāda holds that Brahman, as material cause, undergoes real transformation into the world. This explains experience but creates severe problems: if Brahman changes, it becomes subject to time, plurality, impermanence and limitation. Śaṅkara argues that pariṇāma implies avidyā in Brahman, because real change requires ignorance, potency and affectability, all incompatible with nirguṇa, nirvikāra Brahman. Vivartavāda therefore develops as a corrective: the world is not a real modification but an apparent modification, māyā or avidyā, superimposed on Brahman. This preserves Brahman’s nirvikāratva while accounting for empirical appearance. However, it is not a strict logical consequence of pariṇāma; it changes the ontological thesis from real change to apparent change. Bhāskara objects that the world is Brahman’s real body, not illusion, and Yādavaprakāśa defends a more robust reality of change, arguing that Shankara’s view makes experience unreal. These counter-arguments show that vivarta is a dialectical response to pariṇāma’s aporias, not its inevitable outcome. I therefore agree only in a qualified sense: vivartavāda is the logical development of the critical problems raised by pariṇāmavāda, but not the logical continuation of pariṇāma itself. It is a different solution to the same problem: how to reconcile the one Brahman with the many. Across these systems, ontological claims are tested by their explanatory power for experience, knowledge and liberation.