Purusha

Purusha ( -ind. Pur , puruṣa ^IAST , “man, man, spirit”) is, according to Hindu mythology , a creature from whose body the Universe was created.

In the Rigveda, a separate hymn, the Purusha Sukta, is dedicated to the sacrifice of Purusha. Purusha - The Enjoyer is the fourteenth of 1000 Vishnu names .

In Indian philosophy, the term “purusha” means “divine spirit, ” the macrocosm . In Sankhya philosophy, purusha is the multiple immovable masculine (spiritual) cosmic principle, “pure consciousness” contemplating the dynamic feminine principle - prakriti ( matter ). Purushas are eternal, their basic properties are the absence of properties ( nirguna ). However, Purusha, contemplating prakriti, is prone to mistakenly identify with her and with the gunas .

In the original teaching, the thesis of the multiplicity of purushas ( purusha-bakhutvam ) was present , while later treatises proclaimed the principle of a single purusha, endowed with qualities close to the attributes of the atman of the Upanishads .

According to Ishvarakrishna (the author of the early, classical Sankhya ), the union of Purusha and Prakriti occurs so that Purusha sees Prakriti, just as the lame and the blind combine. At the same time, the combination of Purusha and Prakriti does not mean the intervention of the former in material processes in which the self-development ability inherent in nature is realized. Purusha is only a passive spectator of the actions of Prakriti, its main quality is audasinya (indifference).

The authors of the treatises of the late Sankhya departed from atheistic positions and wrote that God (Purusha) is the main principle of peacemaking. Like a magnet that causes iron to move, it directs from within all the processes performed by Prakriti (interpretation of Vijnanabhikshu).

In Ayurveda , Purusha means a complex of mental characteristics of an individual, which are tied with the “ropes” of the gunas to Prakriti. The goal of the Ayurveda doctor is thus: to free the Purusha from the influence of the gunas and to separate it from the gunas and Prakriti.