Kapila
Dialogue of Kapila and Syūmaraśmi (Gokapilīya)
Traditional attribution
Dialogue of Kapila and Syūmaraśmi (Gokapilīya)
गोकपिलीय (कपिलस्यूमरश्मिसंवाद)
A debate between Kapila, who, faced with a cow destined for sacrifice, defends renunciation, knowledge and non-violence, and the sage Syūmaraśmi, who has entered the animal and defends the legitimacy of Vedic rites and of the householder’s life. The text does not resolve the tension simply: it shows a Kapila critical of blood sacrifice and a tradition seeking to reconcile ritual order with the pursuit of liberation.
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Authorship note
An episode of the Mahābhārata (Śāntiparvan, Mokṣadharma); an epic discourse ascribed to Kapila.
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Other works by Kapila
- Sāṃkhya Sūtra (Sāṃkhya-pravacana Sūtra) · 1400
- Kapila’s teaching to Devahūti (Kapila-gītā, Bhāgavata Purāṇa III.25–33) · 900
- Tattva Samāsa
- Dialogue of Kapila and Āsuri (Kapilāsurisaṃvāda)
- Ṣaṣṭitantra (“Treatise of Sixty Topics”)
- Sāṃkhya Kārikā (a work by Īśvarakṛṣṇa, not by Kapila) · 350
- Kapila Purāṇa
- Kapila Saṃhitā
- Kapila Smṛti
- Kapila Pañcarātra
- Kapila, Founder of Sāṃkhya and Avatāra of Viṣṇu (Knut A. Jacobsen) · 2008
- Classical Sāṃkhya (Gerald James Larson) · 1969
Sources
- The Mahābhārata. Edición crítica, vols. 13–16: Śāntiparvan, ed. S. K. Belvalkar. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1949–1966 (Mokṣadharma; diálogos de Kapila con Syūmaraśmi y con Āsuri; XII.337.60 sobre Kapila como proclamador del Sāṃkhya).
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