(a) Present an account of evolution of Prakṛti as propounded in Sāṃkhyakārikā. In this context, also explain the difference…

(a) Evolution of Prakṛti; buddhi, mahat and ahaṃkāra. In the Sāṃkhyakārikā, prakṛti is the unconditioned material cause, triguṇa, and source of the twenty-three evolutes. Its evolution is satkāryavāda: the effect pre-exists in the cause, and the manifold is a modification of prakṛti. Evolution begins when the equilibrium of the guṇas is disturbed by the proximity (saṃyoga) of puruṣa, like the lame and the blind cooperating, for the sake of puruṣa's experience and release (SK 21). SK 3 classifies the principles: prakṛti is only cause; mahat, ahaṃkāra and the five tanmātras are both cause and effect; the sixteen (eleven organs and five gross elements) are only effects; puruṣa is neither. The first evolute is mahat/buddhi, the cosmic intelligence that reflects puruṣa and initiates differentiation. Buddhi is niścayātmikā, the determinative faculty that decides “this is so”; as mahat it is the vast cosmic principle of intelligence; as individual buddhi it is the same faculty in the embodied self. From mahat arises ahaṃkāra, the principle of self-reference or abhimāna, which appropriates experience as “mine.” Ahaṃkāra has three aspects: vaikarika/sāttvika, taijasa/rājasa and bhūtādi/tāmasa. The sāttvika aspect gives rise to the eleven organs—manas and the five jñānendriyas and karmendriyas; the tāmasa aspect gives rise to the five tanmātras, which produce the five mahabhūtas; rajas assists both by providing dynamic activity. Thus the avyakta becomes vyakta through a graded unfolding from intelligence to ego, sense and matter. Mahat and buddhi are thus not two principles but one: 'mahat' names the first evolute in its cosmic, universal aspect, and 'buddhi' names its determinative function (adhyavasāya, SK 23), which has sāttvika forms (dharma, jñāna, vairāgya, aiśvarya) and tāmasa opposites. Ahaṃkāra is a distinct, second evolute that individuates by I-making; together they explain how one prakṛti yields subtle and gross worlds while remaining distinct from puruṣa.

(b) Yoga's soteriology. The quoted statement captures Yoga’s diagnosis of bondage. In the Yoga Sūtra, yoga is citta-vṛtti-nirodha (I.2–4): the stilling of mental modifications. Citta is not the self but a subtle instrument of prakṛti. When vṛttis are active, puruṣa appears to take their form (vṛtti-sārūpya, I.4) as if reflected in citta; in the absence of viveka-khyāti, the self identifies with the reflected modifications—thoughts, ego, pleasure, pain. This misidentification is avidyā, the first of the kleśas (II.3–5); it causes saṃyoga, the conjunction of seer and seen, which is the cause of avoidable suffering (II.17, II.24). Yoga’s soteriology therefore aims at kaivalya, the isolation of puruṣa in its own nature, not annihilation but cessation of false identification. The path uses abhyāsa and vairāgya, the limbs of aṣṭāṅga yoga, and discriminative insight that the witness is distinct from the witnessed. The appraisal is mixed. The model is powerful because it explains bondage without making puruṣa responsible for karma, and gives a practical method for self-knowledge. Yet it remains theoretically delicate: if puruṣa is pure consciousness and prakṛti inert, how does reflection occur, and how does citta-vṛtti-nirodha produce new knowledge rather than mere quiescence? Yoga answers that the reflection is a functional relation, not ontological identity, and that viveka-khyāti is decisive. Still, the dualism leaves the relation between consciousness and matter under-explained.

(c) Integral Yoga's double movement. Sri Aurobindo’s statement that “Our Yoga is a double movement of ascent and descent” reinterprets this soteriology as a cosmic process. Ascent is the evolution of consciousness from matter through life, mind and beyond toward Supermind, a dynamic integral intelligence. Descent is involution and the self-limitation of the higher: the Supermind or Spirit descends into matter, and Integral Yoga seeks to draw that higher consciousness back into the human being and the world. In The Life Divine and The Synthesis of Yoga, this is not escape from the world but transformation of it. The triple transformation—psychic, spiritual and supramental—means that the individual first turns to the inner psychic being, then purifies and widens through spiritual experience, and finally opens to the supramental consciousness that can transform body, life and mind. This double movement resolves the Sāṃkhya-Yoga dualism by integrating Brahman and Śakti: the absolute is not a passive puruṣa separate from prakṛti, but a dynamic unity of consciousness and power. It avoids ascetic withdrawal by making the world the field of transformation, while retaining Yoga’s discipline of self-knowledge. The way forward, therefore, is not merely to isolate the self from prakṛti, but to recognise prakṛti as the dynamic expression of the one Spirit and to transform it through the descent of the higher into the lower.