Samkhyakarika

Who was Samkhyakarika?

The Samkhyakarika is the earliest extant text of the Samkhya school of Indian philosophy. Dated to the Gupta era, it is attributed to Ishvara Krishna.

In the text, the author described himself as being in the succession of the disciples from the great sage Kapila, through Āsuri and Pañcaśikha. His Sāṁkhya Kārikā consists of 72 ślokas written in the Ārya metre. The last three ślokas were probably added later.

The earliest important commentary on his Kārikā was written by Gaudapada. Another important commenatary is Vacaspati Mishra's Sāṁkhyatattvakaumudī.

The Sāṁkhya Kārikā was translated into Chinese in c. 6th century CE. In 1832, Christian Lassen translated the text in Latin. H.T. Colebrooke first translated this text into English. Windischmann and Lorinser translated it into German, and Pautier and St. Hilaire translated it into French.