Kapila

Kapila is honoured as the founding sage of Sankhya, but he is a legendary rather than a historically documented figure. No work that can be securely ascribed to him survives. The Sankhya Karika names a line of teachers descending from Kapila through Asuri and Panchashikha. The Bhagavata Purana presents a Kapila, regarded as an incarnation of Vishnu, teaching a devotional form of Sankhya to his mother Devahuti, and the Bhagavad Gita names Kapila among perfected sages (10.26). Whether these references point to one figure is unclear.

On attribution: Texts bearing Kapila's name are traditional attributions to a legendary founder and are much later than the origins of Sankhya.

• In tradition, the first teacher of the distinction between consciousness (purusha) and nature (prakriti)
• Liberation through discriminating knowledge of this distinction
• Enumeration of the principles (tattvas) through which nature unfolds
• In the Bhagavata Purana, Sankhya analysis joined with devotion to God

Also: Sankhya Sutras (traditionally attributed; generally dated much later, around the 14th–15th century CE) · Tattva Samasa (traditionally attributed; date uncertain) · Teaching to Devahuti in the Bhagavata Purana, Canto 3 (a Puranic presentation)