Sanskrit Reading Group: Samkhya Philosophy II

How did the earliest school of Indian philosophy evolve from “ancient speculations” in Vedic hymns and prose Vedanta to become a fully fledged systematic philosophical description of the cosmos and all that it contains—from the matter of nature to the nature of spirit? In the second of a two-part reading course, we will continue to explore, in the original Sanskrit, Isvara Krishna’s seminal Samkhyakarika, a non-dualist discourse consisting of 73 verses (or karikas) that interrogates the composition of the world and the practice of philosophical reasoning. What systems govern the cosmos and humanity? What categories and principles compose the world? What part of the cosmos is matter, and what spirit? What role is played by the divine? We will address these and other questions by tracing a path from the mundane to the sublime—paying close attention to the basics of grammatical paradigms and building towards word formation and composition. How did the Samkhyan investigative tradition emerge from earlier practices of erudition, and what scholarly and editorial interventions have continued to shape it?

Our text will be The Samkhyakarika of Isvarakrnsa: A Sanskrit Study Guide, edited by Les Morgan (2023). An electronic version of the 1995 edition of Samkhyakarika (with notes) is available here. 

Course Schedule

Saturday, 10:00am-12:00pm ET
March 22 — May 03, 2025
6 sessions over 7 weeks
Class will not meet Saturday, April 12th

$335.00

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