Introduction This is a comparative study. It is in two parts: 'nature' and 'elementary nature'. 'Nature (of things)' as in the Western tradition is identified here with 'prakrti' in sankhya. Nature Sankhya is argued to be a post-epoche discourse. 'Pure consciousness' is then identified with 'buddhi' and what Husserl calls its 'ground', with 'pradhan'. The 'nature' of the psychophysical reality is argued to be 'pure consciousness' while the 'nature' of 'pure consciousness' is argued to be its 'ground'. Phenomenological reduction is interpreted as 'laya' of the psychophysical reality into its 'nature'. 'Elementary nature' 'Stuff' and 'form' in phenomenology and the three 'guna' in sankhya are interpreted as the 'elementary natures'. Two criteria, one of 'non-selfsufficiency' and the other of 'comprehensiveness', for qualifying as 'elementary nature', are proposed. The former is shown to disqualify as 'elementary nature', what we get by 'empirical intuition'. What Husserl describes as 'pure essence' satisfies, but it is argued to be but a kind, the 'empirically instantiated' kind of 'pure essence' and is identified with what sankhya calls 'drstasvalaksana' kind of 'samanya visaya'. 'Stuff', is not 'empirically instantiated', but 'empirically un-instantiated' kind of 'pure essence' and is identified with what sankhya calls 'a-drstasvalaksana' kind of 'samanya visaya'. It is characterised as non-selfsufficiency of 'reciprocal' kind, as against 'form', as one of 'unilateral' kind. The other criterion, that of 'comprehensiveness', is based upon 'satkaryavada'. It requires moods and the four Aristotelian causes of mental things to be traceable to the 'elementary natures' in the respective discipline. Sankhya satisfies both these criteria but phenomenology is not found to fare as well; particularly, 'sense-data', which Husserl proposes as 'stuff', fails on the criterion of 'non-selfsufficiency'.
