Purusha
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Purusha (Skt. puruṣa; Tib. སྐྱེ་བུ་, Wyl. skyes bu) - literally the 'person', this is an important feature of the Samkhya philosophical system. It has nine special features (Tib. ཁྱད་པར་དགུ་, Wyl. khyad par dgu):
- It has the essence of cognizance, since it discovers objects
- It is unborn, since it is uncreated
- It is an experiencer, since it undergoes pleasure and pain
- It is permanent, since it is beyond arising and degenerating
- It is all-pervasive, since it pervades all the beings of the three worlds
- It has no qualities, since it does not possess the qualities of the three gunas
- It is a subject, since it is the experiencer of objects
- It is unitary, since it is devoid of parts
- It is unending, since it has neither a beginning nor an end.
- cf. Prakriti