Material and Spiritual Natures: A Scientific Commentary on Sāñkhya Sūtras

Sāñkhya is one of the Six Systems of Vedic philosophy, and Sāñkhya Sūtra is the oldest and most authoritative text on this philosophy. This book translates and comments on this ancient text.

Sāñkhya describes a process of material manifestation in which the world springs from a primordial idea called pradhāna which means "I am the master". From this idea, many desires for enjoyment called prakṛti are created. From these notions of enjoyment, qualities of greatness called mahattattva are produced. And from the qualities of greatness, many types of egos—entitlement and pride—are created. From these entitlements, beliefs about the world that will prove that the self is the enjoyer are produced. From these beliefs object-concepts, from the object-concepts sense perceptions, and from the sense perceptions the objects that embody these sense perceptions, are produced.

This inverted process that begins in the idea of mastery illustrates how the soul enters the world due to its desire for mastery. As this idea is false, the soul's efforts to realize mastery are constantly wrecked by nature. Since the foundation of material existence is a false idea, but the wrecking is real, hence, nature is said to be both real and false. Nature is however stated to not be evil, although suffering is real, because nature has a purpose to make the soul realize that the Supreme Lord is the true master. If the soul accepts the Lord as the true master and renounces its desire for mastery, then it is liberated.