FREE LEARNING SERIES
Self and change in Indian philosophy
Work through Sāṃkhya, Advaita, Buddhist conditionality and Jaina viewpoints, following each system’s reasons and distinctions.
4 lessons · Learn at your own pace
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Learn, practise, explain
Try the exercise before reading its explanation. Answer the self-check questions in your own words, then compare your reasoning with the answers. Revisit any difficult section before moving on. No account or payment is needed.
- 01
Sāṃkhya: puruṣa, prakṛti and the three guṇas
Does being aware of a changing thought make awareness itself another changing thing? Classical Sāṃkhya develops a distinctive answer. Explore Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikā through its account of consciousness, change, causation and liberation.
Learning outcome: Explain puruṣa and prakṛti, trace the twenty-five principles, and apply the distinctions between mental activity, identification and witnessing to a worked example.
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Advaita: inquiry and orders of reality
An appearance can guide our actions and still depend on something we have misunderstood. Advaita Vedānta uses this problem to investigate self and world. Explore Śaṅkara’s non-dual inquiry through consciousness, superimposition and the correction of error.
Learning outcome: Explain self and Brahman, distinguish the orders of reality, and follow how superimposition and correction work in two everyday examples.
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Buddhist dependent origination and not-self
How does suffering arise without a permanent owner standing behind every experience? This lesson studies selected Pāli Nikāya discourses preserved in the Theravāda tradition. Later Buddhist traditions develop these questions differently; the account here is deliberately tied to named texts.
Learning outcome: Explain conditioned arising, analyse the five aggregates, and use two examples without reducing a liberation teaching to a modern psychological trick.
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Jaina many-sidedness and disciplined viewpoints
Can something persist while also changing? Can two speakers disagree because each leaves an important qualification unstated? Jaina philosophy develops a rich account of these questions. Its many-sidedness concerns reality and knowledge, not a slogan that every opinion deserves to be called true.
Learning outcome: Distinguish aspects from opinions, analyse qualified assertions, and use disagreement to improve precision without excusing factual error.
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