India · c. 4th–5th c. CE
Īśvarakṛṣṇa
Author of the classical summary of Sāṃkhya
His seventy-odd verses argue that effects pre-exist in their cause, that matter evolves into intellect, ego and world through three qualities, and that liberation comes from discriminating consciousness from matter.
Life and thought
Īśvarakṛṣṇa is known only as the author of the Sāṃkhyakārikā, some seventy verses that form the oldest surviving systematic text of Sāṃkhya, India’s classic dualist philosophy. He is usually placed around the 4th–5th century CE; the text was certainly circulating by the 6th, when Paramārtha translated it into Chinese with a commentary. Earlier Sāṃkhya treatises are lost, so his summary became the school’s canon.
The verses begin with suffering and the search for a sure way out of it. Reality is of two kinds: pure consciousness (puruṣa), many inactive witnesses; and a single primal matter (prakṛti), woven of three strands—lucidity, energy and inertia. When their balance is disturbed, matter unfolds in a fixed order into intellect, ego-sense, mind, senses, elements and the world. Because effects already exist in their cause, nothing comes from nothing. Bondage is confusing consciousness with matter’s activity; liberation is the knowledge “I am not this”, after which matter, like a dancer whose performance is over, withdraws.
Works
Shaped
c. 4th–5th c. CE? (dating disputed)PatañjaliPatañjali’s Yoga presupposes the Sāṃkhya scheme of puruṣa and prakṛti; the relative dates of the two texts are uncertain.Meanwhile, in other traditions
354–430Augustine of HippoNorth African bishop who fused Christianity with Platonismborn c. 350–370; died 415HypatiaMathematician and Neoplatonist teacher in Alexandria412–485ProclusHead of the Platonic school in Athens and Neoplatonism’s great systematiserOn the record
Īśvarakṛṣṇa wrote the Sāṃkhyakārikā in the 4th–5th century CE.
The composition date is unknown, but Paramārtha’s Chinese translation with commentary (557–569 CE) sets a latest date; Gerald Larson places the text in the Gupta period (c. 320–540) and Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s floruit is usually given as c. 350. Wikipedia has no article on him: “Ishvara Krishna” redirects to “Samkhyakarika”, so the link now points there directly.