Isvarakrsna

Īśvarakṛṣṇa (, , ) (fl. 350 CE) was an Indian philosopher and sage. He was the author of Samkhyakarika (“Verses on Samkhya”), an account of the universe and its components (tattvas) according to the Samkhya school, one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. Samkhyakarika is the earliest surviving authoritative text on classical Samkhya philosophy.

Isvara Krishna in Kārikā describes himself as laying down the essential teachings of Kapila as taught to Āsuri and by Āsuri to Pañcaśikha to himself. Samkhyakarika includes distilled statements on epistemology, metaphysics and soteriology of the Samkhya school. The text also refers to an earlier work of Samkhya philosophy called Ṣaṣṭitantra (science of sixty topics) which is now lost. The text was imported and translated into Chinese about the middle of the 6th century CE. The records of Al Biruni, the Persian visitor to India in the early 11th century, suggests Samkhyakarika was an established and definitive text in India in his times.