SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Name:

Mr James Kimball

Email address:

jaskimball@hotmail.com

Thesis title:

The soteriological role of the ṛṣi Kapila in the Yuktidīpikā: the production and transmission of liberating knowledge in classical Sāṃkhya.

Year of Study:

Fourth year

Internal Supervisors

• Theodore Proferes

PhD Research

The seventy-two verses of Īśvarakṛṣṇa’s Sāṃkhyakārikā (ca. 350-550 C.E.) form the core text of the classical school of Sāṃkhya philosophy.  Of the classical commentaries on the Sāṃkhyakārikā, the anonymous Yuktidīpikā (ca. 600-700 C.E.) provides the most extensive information on the ṛṣi Kapila, the legendary founder of the Sāṃkhya system, known as the paramarṣi or ‘highest seer’.

In the Yuktidīpikā, the circumstances of Kapila’s incarnation and the production of his knowledge are discussed in relation to the epistemological, psychological and phenomenological paradigms of Sāṃkhya.  In particular, the importance attributed by the Yuktidīpikā to Kapila’s original formulation of Sāṃkhya knowledge and the circumstances of its production and transmission provide a basis for a re-evaluation of the role of the epistemological notion of āptavacana or ‘authoritative testimony’ in the Sāṃkhya system.  In addition, the evidence of the Yuktidīpikā suggests that the purpose behind Kapila’s very incarnation was primarily soteriological. 

PhD Conferences

Conference of the American Oriental Society (2009, 2010), Royal Asiatic Society Student Series (2010)