---
type: Concept
bundle: sankhya-darshana
bundle_version: 0.13.0
id: purusha
title: Puruṣa
iast: Puruṣa
devanagari: पुरुष
description: Pure, inactive consciousness -- the passive witness-principle of Sāṃkhya, explicitly PLURAL (countless individual puruṣas, no hierarchy among them) and NOT the same as Vedāntic ātman/brahman, NOT a soul that acts, NOT Vaiśeṣika ātman (which is a substance bearing qualities).
darshana:
- Samkhya
tags:
- purusha
- consciousness
- samkhya
- dualism
- witness
not:
- term: atman / brahman (Advaita Vedanta)
  why: Upanishadic-core (v0.6) treats atman as ultimately non-different from the single, non-dual brahman. Samkhya's purusha is explicitly plural -- innumerable distinct consciousnesses, never merging into one. Collapsing purusha into the Advaita atman-brahman identity erases the single sharpest metaphysical disagreement between the two systems.
  instead: 'State plainly: classical Samkhya holds a plurality of purushas, each independently eternal and unconnected to the others; it has no doctrine of a single universal Self absorbing the many.'
- term: the soul that acts or thinks
  why: Purusha is pure witness-consciousness -- it never acts, thinks, or changes. All activity, thought, and change belong to prakriti (including buddhi, ahamkara, manas). What looks like 'a person deciding' is prakriti's internal apparatus operating near purusha's reflected light, not purusha itself doing anything.
- term: a creator or moral agent
  why: Purusha does nothing and creates nothing. It is a mistake to read purusha as a doer who is rewarded or punished; bondage and liberation are, strictly, apparent conditions of prakriti's proximity to purusha, not events purusha undergoes.
related:
- /concepts/prakriti.md
- /concepts/viveka-khyati.md
- /concepts/kaivalya-samkhya.md
timestamp: '2026-07-10'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Puruṣa -- पुरुष

**Not:** atman / brahman (Advaita Vedanta), the soul that acts or thinks, a creator or moral agent

## What It Actually Means

Puruṣa is Sāṃkhya's name for pure, changeless consciousness: the silent witness in whose presence prakṛti's activity becomes visible. It has no qualities, does nothing, and is never modified by anything it witnesses. Classical Sāṃkhya holds that puruṣas are plural and countless -- each bound person corresponds to a distinct puruṣa, none ranked above another, none merging with the rest. This plurality is not incidental; it is the metaphysical backbone that keeps Sāṃkhya's dualism strict and its causal account free of any single cosmic agent.

## Audience Metaphor

Think of puruṣa as a cinema screen. The screen does nothing -- it does not run, act, or change with the film -- but the film's drama is legible only because the screen holds still and reflects the light. Prakṛti is the projector, the reel, and the drama; puruṣa is the screen. Mistaking the screen for a character in the story is exactly the error Sāṃkhya's boundary work exists to prevent.

## Citations

1. Samkhya-Karika 17-19, 61-62 -- see [references/samkhya-karika.md](../references/samkhya-karika.md)
2. Samkhya-Pravacana-Sutra 1.61-66 (plurality of purushas argued explicitly) -- see [references/samkhya-pravacana-sutra.md](../references/samkhya-pravacana-sutra.md)
3. Cross-bundle warning: atman/brahman in upanishadic-core v0.6 -- a non-dual, singular account; never merge with plural purusha
