- Lived:
- c. 350–450 CE · India, somewhere in the Gupta empire — beyond that, nothing is known
- Tradition:
- Sāṃkhya — the oldest of the six classical schools (darśanas) of Hindu philosophy
- The Big Idea:
- Reality is two utterly different things — consciousness, which only watches, and nature, which does everything else, including your thinking — and suffering ends the moment you stop confusing the two.
- In their words:
- "As a dancer ceases to dance, having shown herself to the audience, so nature ceases, having shown herself to the spirit." (Sāṃkhya Kārikā, verse 59)
- If you remember one thing:
- He drew the sharpest line ever drawn between consciousness and matter — sharper than Descartes' — and put the mind, startlingly, on the matter side of it.