Abstract

The relationship between the two classical Sāṃkhya paradigms of the conditions and the intellectual creation has been a matter of debate since the early days of modern Indology. The precise role of each of these paradigms in the broader Sāṃkhya system, as well as the relationship between them, is unclear from the text of Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikā, and most of the classical commentaries on this text offer little clarification. Of these commentaries, the anonymous Yuktidīpikā provides the most detailed and extensive information on many philosophical issues, including the nature of the bhāvas and the pratyayasarga. This article aims to show that previous attempts by scholars to explain the relationship between these two paradigms have not taken the evidence of the Yuktidīpikā fully into account, and to reconstruct a more adequate understanding on the basis of this evidence.