When prakriti's equilibrium is disturbed and evolution begins, the very first thing to appear is not a sense organ, an element, or anything recognisably physical. It is mahat, sometimes called the great principle, and considered from the standpoint of an individual rather than the cosmos as a whole, it is buddhi, intellect. This ordering is one of Samkhya's more distinctive commitments: the capacity for discernment precedes, both logically and in the sequence of evolution, the organs that will eventually do any sensing or acting, and the objects those organs will eventually sense or act upon.
Mahat is described as predominantly sattvic, the clearest and most luminous of the twenty-three evolutes, which is why it is capable of buddhi, the specific cognitive function of discriminating one thing from another and settling on a determination. Ordinary perception, in the classical model, passes through buddhi at its final stage: the senses gather raw data, manas coordinates it into a single presented object, ahamkara claims it as belonging to a self, and buddhi renders the actual judgment, "this is that." Buddhi is also, distinctively, the tattva capable of the highest judgment the system cares about, discriminating purusha from prakriti itself, which is why liberation is described as an event in buddhi rather than in purusha, even though purusha is the one who benefits from it.
Everything downstream of mahat, in the classical order, from ahamkara through the eleven organs and five subtle elements to the five gross elements, is buddhi's effect rather than its cause, making it the hinge on which the entire perceptible world turns.