Somewhere between 700 and 600 BCE, a sage named Kapila formulated a system of thought that would become the philosophical foundation for both Yoga and early Vedanta.
Samkhya — the word means enumeration or discrimination — is built on a single, irreducible distinction: Purusha and Prakriti.
Purusha is pure Consciousness. It has no qualities. It does not think, does not feel, does not move. It simply is — a witnessing presence, eternal, unchanging, utterly silent. It is not a person. It is not a god. It is the bare fact of Consciousness itself.
Prakriti is matter — but matter understood in its fullest sense, including mind, intellect, and ego. Prakriti is composed of three Gunas — Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas — in a state of perfect equilibrium at the dawn of creation. When this equilibrium is disturbed, the universe unfolds.
The problem, in Samkhya, is the confusion between these two. Purusha — pure Consciousness — mistakes itself for Prakriti. It identifies with the body, the mind, the ego. It says I am thinking when thinking is actually a process of Prakriti. It says I am suffering when suffering belongs to the body-mind complex, not to Consciousness itself.
Purusha is like a crystal placed near a red flower — it appears coloured, but it has no colour of its own. The confusion of the reflection for the reality is the root of all bondage.
Liberation in Samkhya is Viveka — discrimination. The direct recognition of the distinction between Purusha and Prakriti. Consciousness is not the body. Consciousness is not the mind. Consciousness is not even the subtle body that carries karma from life to life. Consciousness is the witness. Always the witness. Only the witness.
When this is recognised, Prakriti withdraws — like a dancer who stops performing when the audience has left. The show was always for Purusha. When Purusha recognises its own nature and stops being the confused audience, the performance ceases.
Samkhya is dualistic — Purusha and Prakriti are genuinely distinct. This distinguishes it from Advaita Vedanta, which holds that ultimately only Brahman exists. But the practical insight is the same: what you are is not the body-mind. What you are is the witnessing Consciousness. And that Consciousness is already free.