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Kapila

Vedic sage who is commonly identified, with others, as the founding father of the system of Samkhya, one among six faculties of Vedic philosophy. He is not, however, the author of the text primarily liable for giving the college its philosophical definition: Ishvarakrishna's Samkhya-karika (c. 4th century CE).

In response to Hindu sources, Kapila was a descendant of Manu, the primal human being, and a grandson of the creator-god Brahma, or he was an avatar of the god Vishnu. The important spiritual text the Bhagavad-Gita photos him as a recluse related to yogic adepts (siddhas). The Samkhya system attributed to Kapila has had a substantial impact on the Hindu tradition as a whole, particularly by its close affiliation with Yoga, as symbolized in Kapila's own asceticism. For example, Samkhya varieties a notable part of the philosophical background of the Bhagavad-Gita. In mythology, Kapila is portrayed as an exemplar of yogic stringency. His hermit routine is said to have produced in him an inside retailer of such intense warmth that he was able to reducing to ashes the 60,000 sons of the Vedic king Sagara.

Buddhist sources present him as a well-known thinker whose students constructed town of Kapila Vastu, in keeping with one custom the birthplace of the Buddha. Although there are lots of similarities within the philosophies of the Buddha and Kapila (e.g., stress upon meditation as a method for eradicating struggling, belief that the Vedic gods were subject to limitations and circumstances, and dislike of formality and of Brahmanic doctrines), Kapila did not set up a religious community.