Rishi Kapila

Kapila is the sage tradition names as the founder of Samkhya, the philosophy that separates the conscious self (purusha) from nature (prakriti). Kapila means "tawny" or "reddish-brown". This page is about Kapila the Samkhya teacher. The texts also tell of a Kapila in the Sagara story, and of a Kapila who is the son of Kardama in the Bhagavata Purana. The Puranas treat all three as one sage, and they say he is a form of Vishnu. Whether they were one person is not settled.

The Samkhya Karika of Ishvarakrishna, which is dated to about 350 CE with other estimates from about 200 to 540 CE, names Kapila as the first of its line of teachers, through Asuri and Panchashikha [Samkhya Karika 70]. Scholars say it is unclear in which century of the first millennium BCE he lived, and some propose the seventh or sixth. The Bhagavad Gita has Krishna say that among the perfected he is the sage Kapila [Bhagavad Gita 10.26]. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad (5.2) has the words "kapilam rishim". Scholars disagree whether it means a sage named Kapila, a tawny seer such as Rudra, or Hiranyagarbha.

Texts disagree on his parents. The Bhagavata Purana makes him the son of Kardama and Devahuti [Bhagavata Purana 3.24]. The Baudhayana Dharmasutra mentions a Kapila who is the son of Prahlada, and the Matsya Purana a Kapila who is the son of Kashyapa and Danu. The Samkhya Pravachana Sutra, also called the Kapila Sutra, is credited to him by tradition, but it is dated to about the fourteenth century CE.

1. The line of Samkhya teachers: Ishvarakrishna says the teaching came down from Kapila to Asuri, from Asuri to Panchashikha, and from him through a line of disciples to himself [Samkhya Karika 70].
2. Teaching his mother: In the Bhagavata Purana Brahma tells Kardama that Vishnu will be born as his son. The child is Kapila, who says he has taken this body to explain Samkhya to people again. After Kardama leaves the household, Kapila teaches Samkhya and yoga to his mother Devahuti in the Third Canto [Bhagavata Purana 3.24 and 3.25 to 3.33].
3. The sons of Sagara: King Sagara's sixty thousand sons dug down to the netherworld looking for the horse of his sacrifice. They found a sage sitting in meditation and accused him of taking it. In the Ramayana the sage is Vishnu in the form of Kapila, and he reduced them to ashes. The Vishnu Purana calls him a portion of Vishnu and says a flame came from his body [Ramayana, Bala Kanda 40; Vishnu Purana 4.4]. The Mahabharata tells the story in Vana Parva sections 107 to 109. Bhagiratha later brought the Ganga down to free them.
4. Among the perfected: Krishna says, "among the perfected I am the sage Kapila" [Bhagavad Gita 10.26].

• The hermitage of Kardama, where Kapila was born in the Bhagavata Purana
• The netherworld, where the sons of Sagara found him
• The mouth of the Ganga on Sagar Island, where a Kapil Muni temple stands and a fair is held at Makar Sankranti