Within the Sāṃkhya system, the self is identified with Puruṣa, understood as pure consciousness or spirit that is fundamentally distinct from Prakṛti, the entire realm of matter and mental processes. Puruṣa is characterized as eternal, indestructible, and unchanging, an inactive awareness that simply witnesses. All forms of activity, transformation, and experience—thinking, feeling, bodily movement, pleasure and pain—belong to Prakṛti and its evolutes such as intellect (buddhi), ego (ahaṃkāra), and mind (manas). The self, as Puruṣa, does not act, does not change, and is not truly an enjoyer or sufferer, even though it appears to be so.

Sāṃkhya is pluralistic in its understanding of self, affirming countless individual Puruṣas rather than a single universal consciousness. Each Puruṣa is a distinct locus of awareness, while the differences observed among living beings arise from the varying configurations of subtle and gross bodies within Prakṛti. These bodies, governed by the three guṇas (sattva, rajas, tamas), shape the empirical personality, but they do not alter the pure nature of Puruṣa. Thus, what is ordinarily taken to be “self”—the body, the mind, the sense of “I” as doer and enjoyer—is, in Sāṃkhya terms, a construction of Prakṛti rather than the true spiritual principle.

Bondage arises because Puruṣa becomes entangled in misidentification, taking the movements of Prakṛti to be its own and saying, “I am this body, I am this mind, I am the one who acts and suffers.” This confusion between the witnessing consciousness and the material processes is the root of saṃsāra. The empirical self or ego (ahaṃkāra), being a product of Prakṛti, is precisely the locus of attachment and suffering, while the true self remains ever untouched. The drama of worldly life thus unfolds as a kind of superimposition, where the still, clear light of Puruṣa seems colored by the changing states of Prakṛti.

Liberation, termed kaivalya, is described as a state of isolation or aloneness of Puruṣa, attained through discriminative knowledge that firmly distinguishes Puruṣa from Prakṛti. When this clear insight arises—seeing that all activity and all qualities belong solely to Prakṛti—the false identification falls away. Puruṣa abides as pure, inactive witness, no longer bound by the illusions of doership, enjoyment, or suffering. In this vision, the self is recognized as multiple, eternal, and unbound, a silent consciousness that was never truly entangled, only seemingly so through ignorance.