Purusha
Puruṣa (IAST)Translation: "the Spirit"
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: पुरुष
Transliteration: Puruṣa
Translation: "spirit; individual soul; “person”; the indwelling form of God; cosmic person"
Definition:
- One of the two basic categories of the Sāṅkhya system. It is pure consciousness, unattached and unrelated to anything. It is non-active, unchanging, eternal, and pure. There are an infinite number of individual souls.
- According to Kashmir Shaivism, it is enveloped in the five sheaths of time, restriction, desire, knowledge, and portion of time (Kāla, Niyati, Rāga, Vidyā, and Kalā). It is the universal Self appearing under limitation as the many individual souls.
- According to Advaita Vedānta, it is fundamentally one. It is the eternal witness, the modification-less, the one who knows the body. Really speaking, the supreme Self (Paramātman) is the one and the only Puruṣa.
- The Puruṣa-Sūkta describes the primal Puruṣa as thousand-headed, thousand-eyed, thousand-footed, immanent and transcendent, covering the earth on all sides and extending beyond the length of ten fingers, all that is, has been, and will be. One-fourth of him is all beings, three-fourths of him are what is immortal in heaven.
- Depending on the context, the word may refer to either the “individual soul” or “God, Supreme.”
Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo)
Puruṣa — man; person; soul; spirit; the Self (Ātman) “as originator, witness, support and lord and enjoyer of the forms and works of Nature” (Prakṛti); the conscious being, universal or individual, observing and upholding the activity of Nature on any plane of existence; the infinite divine Person (Puruṣottama), “the Existent who transcends all definition by personality and yet is always that which is the essence of personality;” any of the ten types of consciousness (Daśa-Gāvas) in the evolutionary scale.
The Science of Yoga (I.K. Taimni)
Commentary: "The Puruṣa is not only the ultimate source of all perception as pointed out in Part 4, Sūtra 18, but he is also the motive power or reason of this play of Vāsanā which keep the mind in incessant activity. It is for him that all this long evolutionary process is taking place although he is always hidden in the background. It follows from this that even in the exalted conditions of consciousness which the Yogi might reach in the higher stages of Yoga, he is dependent upon something distinct and separate, though within him. He cannot be truly Self-sufficient and Self-illuminated until he is fully Self-realized and has become one with the Reality within himself. It is the realization of this fact, of his falling short of his ultimate objective, which weans the Yogi from the exalted illumination and bliss of the highest plane and makes him dive still deeper within himself for the Reality which is the consciousness of the Puruṣa." p. 334
"The Puruṣa by his very nature is eternal, omniscient and free and his involution in matter which involves tremendous limitations is brought about by his being made to lose the awareness of his Real nature. The power which deprives him of this knowledge or rather awareness of his Real nature is called Māyā or Illusion in Hindu philosophy and the result of this privation of knowledge is called Avidyā or ignorance. It is obvious that the words illusion and ignorance are used in their highest philosophical sense and we can barely get a glimpse into the real significance of these words. To understand Māyā and Avidyā in the real sense is to solve the Great Mystery of Life and to be free from their domination. This is the end and not the starting point of the search." p. 178
"If the union of Puruṣa and Prakṛti has been brought about by Māyā or Avidyā and leads through the development of the Kleśa to the misery and sufferings of embodied existence, it follows logically that the removal of these latter is possible only when the union is dissolved by the destruction of Avidyā. The union is the sole cause of bondage. Its dissolution must therefore be the only means available for Emancipation or Kaivalya of the Seer. The bondage is maintained by the Puruṣa identifying himself with his vehicles right from the Atmic to the physical plane. The release is brought about by his disentangling himself in consciousness from his vehicles one after another until he stands free from them, even though using them merely as instruments." p. 180
"When the pure consciousness of the Puruṣa is associated with Prakṛti, it becomes increasingly conditioned as it descends, plane by plane, these different degrees of conditioning being represented by the four stages of the Guṇa (Part 2, Sūtra 19). It should, however, be borne in mind that Sāṅkhya is based upon the absolute transcendence of the Puruṣa. According to it, the Puruṣa does not descend into Prakṛti but is merely associated with Prakṛti in an undefined manner. The mere propinquity of Puruṣa brings about changes in Prakṛti, one of these changes being the development of conditioned consciousness. It is because the Puruṣa is always quite separate and distinct from Prakṛti that all phenomena of consciousness or awareness are considered purely Prakṛtic, based on Sattva Guṇa. For all practical purposes, the word Sattva as used in the present context may be taken as the principle of awareness expressing through the faculty of Buddhi. The Puruṣa remains quite separate from it though his presence stimulates the awareness through Buddhi. This awareness becomes more and more vivid and simulates more perfectly the consciousness of the Puruṣa as it is expressed through the increasingly subtler stages of the Guṇa, but there can be nothing common between the two, for the former is a pure product of Prakṛti while the latter transcends Prakṛti altogether. The two are quite distinct. This is what is meant by the phrase Atyantāsaṅkīrnayoḥ." p. 299-300
"As the pure consciousness of the Puruṣa is really quite separate and yet appears indistinguishable from awareness in the realm of Prakṛti, the question arises how to separate the two in order to gain knowledge of the Puruṣa. The method prescribed in Part 3, Sūtra 36 is Saṃyama on the distinction between the purpose hidden behind the Pratyaya and the purpose of the Puruṣa himself. The Pratyaya is for another. It is a product of Prakṛti which according to Sāṅkhya acts only and always for the Puruṣa. The consciousness of the Puruṣa is for the Puruṣa himself. It has no ulterior motive or purpose, the Puruṣa being eternal, changeless and Self-sufficient. This distinction, subtle though it is, can be made the object of Saṃyama and it is possible in this manner to resolve the apparently homogeneous Pratyaya into its two components, the Sattva Guṇa in which the consciousness of the Puruṣa is reflected and the consciousness of the Puruṣa himself. The problem is not unlike that of distinguishing between a source of light and its reflection in a mirror. Just as there can be several methods of distinguishing between the real object and its reflection, so there can be several methods of distinguishing between the reflection of the Puruṣa in Sattva and the Puruṣa himself. The method proposed is one of them and leads to the knowledge of the Puruṣa himself as distinguished from his reflection in Sattva. When this knowledge is obtained, the Yogi is in a position to exercise non-instrumental perception hinted at in Part 3, Sūtra 34. As the Puruṣa is above the limitations of Prakṛti, his perception must also be above the limitations of the mind and the sense-organs." p. 301
"The illusion is destroyed completely and in the real sense only when the Yogi is able to leave the vehicle at will in Samādhi and to look down upon it, as it were, from a higher plane. Then he realizes definitely that he is different from that particular vehicle and can never, after such an experience, identify himself with that vehicle as has been explained in dealing with Part 2, Sūtra 6. The process of separating off the vehicle and disentangling consciousness from it is repeated over and over again on the superphysical planes until the last vehicle—the Atmic—is transcended in Nirbīja Samādhi and the Puruṣa stands free (Svarupe‘vasthanam) ‘in his own-form’." p. 180
"How do we know that it is the Puruṣa whom we are seeking in all these multifarious objectives? Because while the objectives keep changing all the time and never satisfy us, he always remains in the background. He is the common factor in all our efforts to find happiness through ever-changing forms and, therefore, he must be the real object of our search. Simple reasoning, is it not? He is thus not only the constant background of consciousness (Part 4, Sūtra 18) which illuminates the mind in all its activities, but also the hidden drawing force of desire in all its forms and phases."
One important consequence of the Puruṣa being the ultimate goal amidst all the changing objectives which we pursue is that no condition of existence attained by the Yogi, however exalted it may be, can give him abiding peace. The Divine urge within him will, sooner or later, assert itself and make him dissatisfied with the condition he has attained, until he has found the Puruṣa in Self-realization. For the consciousness of the Puruṣa alone is Self-sufficient, Self-contained and Self-illuminated and until this is attained there can be no real security, no real freedom and no abiding peace." p. 373-374
The Upanishads: Volume I (Swami Nikhilananda)
"A hymn of the Rig-Veda addressed to the Puruṣa (the Cosmic Person) describes His universal form in the following manner: The Puruṣa has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet. He covers the universe on all sides and transcends it "by the measure of ten fingers." All this—the past, the present, and the future—is indeed the Puruṣa; He alone is the Lord of all, mortal and immortal. "Its hands and feet are everywhere; Its eyes and head are everywhere; Its ears are everywhere; It stands encompassing all in the world." "The heavens are His head; the sun and moon, His eyes; the quarters, His ears, the revealed Vedas, His speech; the wind is His breath; the universe, His heart. From his feet is produced the earth. He is, indeed, the Inner Self of all beings." This universal form comprises not only our earth and the galactic system to which it belongs, but all the fourteen worlds of Hindu mythology—the seven above and the seven below—and all the animate and inanimate creatures dwelling therein, including gods and angels, men and animals, birds and insects, trees, plants, shrubs, and creepers. This totality is the Lord's universal form."
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Hartz, Richard. Glossary to the Record of Yoga (Sri Aurobindo). Retrieved from http://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Glossary_to_the_Record_of_Yoga
- Taimni, I. K. (1975). The Science of Yoga: The Yoga-Sūtras of Patañjali in Sanskrit with Transliteration in Roman, Translation in English and Commentary: Theosophical Publishing House
- Nikhilananda, Swami (1949). The Upanishads: Volume I—Katha, Iśa, Kena, and Mundaka. New York, New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. p. 69-71.
