With reference to the history of philosophical thought in India, consider the following statements regarding Sankhya school : 1. Sankhya does not accept the theory of rebirth or transmigration of soul. 2. Sankhya holds that it is the self – knowledge the leads to liberation and not any exterior influence or agent. Which of the statements given above is / are correct?

Statement 2 is correct and statement 1 is wrong, so the answer is B.

Sankhya, as set out in Ishvarakrishna's Samkhyakarika, accepts samsara. The purusha is bound to prakriti through the subtle body (linga sharira), which carries the samskaras of karma from one birth to the next. Liberation (kaivalya) comes when this association ends.

• Statement 1 is wrong because Sankhya accepts transmigration. It is the Charvaka school that rejects rebirth and the soul.
• Statement 2 is correct. Bondage arises from ignorance of the difference between purusha and prakriti, and liberation comes through viveka, or discriminative knowledge. Classical Sankhya does not appeal to Ishvara or any external agent to grant moksha.

Core concept: the dualism of purusha (consciousness) and prakriti (matter), with liberation understood as knowledge-based. This connects to Mains GS-4 on ethics and self-knowledge, and to the Sankhya-Yoga contrast, since Yoga admits Ishvara as a special purusha.

Trap: aspirants assume that because Sankhya is atheistic it must reject rebirth. The two claims are independent.