Kapila (Hindi: कपिल ऋषि) was a Vedic sage credited as one of the founders of the Samkhya school of philosophy. He is prominent in the Bhagavata Purana, which features a theistic version of his Samkhya philosophy. Traditional Hindu sources describe him as a descendant of Manu, a grandson of Brahma. The Bhagavad Gita depicts Kapila as a yogi hermit with highly developed siddhis, or spiritual powers.

Many of the details about sage Kapila's life are described in Book 3 of the Bhagavata Purana, where it is mentioned that his parents were Kardama Muni and Devahuti. Kapila is considered an incarnation of the supreme-being (Narayana) and listed as such in the list of incarnations in Bhagavata Purana .After his father left home, Kapila instructed his mother, Devahuti in the philosophy of yoga and devotional worship of Lord Vishnu, enabling her to achieve liberation (moksha). Kapila's Sankhya is also given by Krishna to Uddhava in Book 11 of the Bhagavata Purana, a passage also known as the "Uddhava Gita".

Mukesh Kapila CBE has worked extensively and advised in crisis and conflict management, humanitarian affairs, post-conflict recovery and development, and HIV and AIDS. Kapila is currently Special Representative for the Aegis Trust.

Kapila's background is in medicine, public health and, subsequently, international development and humanitarian affairs. He has qualifications from the Universities of Oxford and London.

As a mid-level civil servant in 1994, he was part of the first British teams to see the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide after entering Rwandan Patriotic Front-controlled Kigali.

He was the Deputy Director of the National UK AIDS programme during the 1990s.^{[citation needed]}

He was Head of Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs unit of the British Department for International Development from 1998 to 2002. From 2002-2003, Kapila was a Special Adviser to the United Nations, first to the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan and then to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2003-2004 Kapila was the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and the UN Development Program Resident Representative for the Sudan.

Kapila Vatsyayan (born 25 December 1928) is a leading Indian scholar of classical Indian dance and Indian art and architecture.

Vatsyayan received her M.A. from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. from the Banaras Hindu University. She is the author of many books including The Square and the Circle of Indian Arts, Bharata: The Natya Sastra, and Matralaksanam. She was the founder-director of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (Indira Kalakendra) in Delhi. She has also served as secretary to the government of India and the Ministry of Education, department of Arts and Culture, in which she was responsible for the establishment of many institutions of higher education in India.

She served briefly as a member of the Rajya Sabha in March 2006, and was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2007 for a term expiring in February 2012. She is the sister of poet and critic Keshav Malik.

In 1970 Vatsyayan received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship. In 1998, she received the "Outstanding Contribution to Dance Research" award, given by Congress on Research in Dance (CORD). In 2011, she was awarded the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India, and Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award (2000)