The achievements of the ancient Indians in the field of philosophy are but very imperfectly known to the world at large, and it is unfortunate that the condition is no better even in India. Read more »
ancient indians, ascetics, hindu scholars, indian logic, philosophical literature, puranas, sanskrit, upanishads, vedas The conception of Brahman which has been the highest glory for the Vedanta philosophy of later days had hardly emerged in the rig-Veda from the associations of the sacrificial mind. Read more »
brahman, devotion, magical formula, purusha, rig veda, shatapatha brahmana, supreme principle, vedanta philosophy, vedas Though it is generally held that the Upanishads are usually attached as appendices to the Aranyakas which are again attached to the Brahmanas, yet it cannot be said that their distinction as separate treatises is always observed. Read more »
ancient philosophers, aranyakas, brahmanas, hindu view, jnana, meditation, upanishads, vedas, vedic literature The Upanishads are also known by another name Vedanta, as they are believed to be the last portions of the Vedas (veda-anta, end); it is by this name that the philosophy of the Upanishads, the Vedanta philosophy, is so familiar to us. A modern student knows that in language the Upanishads approach the classical Sanskrit; the ideas preached also show that they are the culmination of the intellectual achievement of a great epoch. Read more »
atharva veda, brahmanas, brahmins, brihadaranyaka upanishad, classical sanskrit, isha upanishad, kena, philosophy of the upanishads, sama veda, shatapatha brahmana, vedanta philosophy, vedas Before entering into the philosophy of the Upanishads it may be worth while to say a few words as to the reason why diverse and even contradictory explanations as to the real import of the Upanishads had been offered by the great Indian scholars of past times. Read more »
hindu philosophy, indian scholars, light of experience, philosophy of the upanishads, truth and reality, vedanta, vedas, vedic literature There is the atman not in man alone but in all objects of the universe, the sun, the moon, the world; and Brahman is this atman. There is nothing outside the atman, and therefore there is no plurality at all. As from a lump of clay all that is made of clay is known, as from an ingot of black iron all that is made of black iron is known, so when this atman the Brahman is known everything else is known. The essence in man and the essence of the universe are one and the same, and it is Brahman. Read more »
atman, brahman, phenomenal world, upanishads, vedanta, visions There was practically no systematic theory of causation in the Upanishads. Shankara, the later exponent of Vedanta philosophy, always tried to show that the Upanishads looked upon the cause as mere ground of change which though unchanged in itself in reality had only an appearance of suffering change. Read more »
brahman, causation, chandogya upanishad, fire water, material cause, samkhya, systematic theory, upanishads It is hardly possible to attempt a history of Indian philosophy in the manner in which the histories of European philosophy have been written. Read more »
badarayana, divergent interpretations, doctrines, european philosophy, history of indian philosophy, oral instructions, principal systems, speculations, sutras, tides and currents, upanishads The Hindus classify the systems of philosophy into two classes, namely, the nastika and the astika. The nastika (na asti “it is not”) views are those which neither regard the Vedas as infallible nor try to establish their own validity on their authority. These are principally three in number, the Buddhist, Jaina and the Carvaka. The astika-mata or orthodox schools are six in number, Samkhya, Yoga, Vedanta, Mimamsa, Nyaya and Vaisheshika, generally known as the six systems (shaddarshana (1)). Read more »
atman, carvaka, kapila, liberation, metaphysical position, mystical practices, orthodox schools, patanjali, philosophy, vedas, vedic texts, yoga practices, yoga sutras, yoga system, yoga vedanta All the Indian systems except Buddhism admit the existence of a permanent entity variously called atman, purusha or jiva. Read more »
ananda, atman, bliss, consciousness, exact nature, existence, impurities, jiva, passion, purusha, summum bonum, unity, vedanta It is indeed true that in the Upanishads there is a large number of texts that describe the ultimate reality as the Brahman, the infinite, knowledge, bliss, and speak of all else as mere changing forms and names. The word Brahman originally meant in the earliest Vedic literature, mantra, duly performed sacrifice, and also the power of sacrifice which could bring about the desired result (l). Read more »
brahman, infinite knowledge, monistic, power of sacrifice, shankara, stage of development, upanishads, vedanta, vedic literature, water fire, yoga philosophy It is important for the history of Samkhya philosophy that Caraka’s treatment of it, which so far as I know has never been dealt with in any of the modern studies of Samkhya, should be brought before the notice of the students of this philosophy. Read more »
akasa, atman, auditory sense, cognition, five elements, five senses, illuminations, karma, manas, pleasure pain, purusha, samkhya philosophy, sense of touch, visual sense We have now to meet the vexed question of the probable date of this famous Yoga author Patanjali. Weber had tried to connect him with Kapya Patamchala of Shatapatha Brahmana; in Katyayana’s Varttika we get the name Patanjali which is explained by later commentators as patantah anjalayah yasmai (for whom the hands are folded as a mark of reverence), but it is indeed difficult to come to any conclusion merely from the similarity of names (1). Read more »
commentators, grammarian, panini, patanjali, western scholars, yoga sutra The conception of Yoga as we meet it in the Maitrayana Upanishad consisted of six angas or accessories, namely pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka and samadhi (1). Read more »
ahimsa, anga, asana, dhyana, karuna, niyama, patanjali, pranayama, samadhi, satya, sex control, tarka, upanishad, yoga sutras The Samkhya philosophy as we have it now admits two principles, souls and prakriti, the root principle of matter. Souls are many, like the Jaina souls, but they are without parts and qualities. Read more »
ananda, bliss, brahman, consciousness, jiva, mental phenomena, samkhya philosophy, sense matter, vedanta The above consideration brings us to an important aspect of the Samkhya view of causation as satkaryavada. Samkhya holds that there can be no production of a thing previously non-existent; causation means the appearance or manifestation of a quality due to certain changes of collocations in the causes which were already held in them in a potential form. Read more »
atoms, buddhists, causation, continual change, dharma, manifestation, nihilists, non existent, reals It has been said that buddhi and the internal objects have evolved in order to giving scope to the experience of the purusha. What is the process of this experience? Read more »
abstraction, consciousness, imagination, manas, perception, purusha, sattva, senses, sense data The Vaisheshika is so much associated with Nyaya by tradition that it seems at first sight quite unlikely that it could be supposed to represent an old school of Mimamsa, older than that represented in the Mimamsa sutras. But a closer inspection of the Vaisheshika sutras seems to confirm such a supposition in a very remarkable way. We have seen in the previous section that Caraka quotes a Vaisheshika sutra. Read more »
aphorisms, cognition, demerit, dharma, enumerated, gunas, samskara, sense qualities, sneha, supposition, universality When we compare the Nyaya sutras with the Vaisheshika sutras we find that in the former two or three differentstreams of purposes have met, whereas the latter is much more homogeneous. Read more »
authorities, caraka samhita, chala, debates, hindus, jalpa, logical categories, practical art, refutation, sanskrit literature, sutras Of the six classes of entities or categories (padartha) we have already given some account of dravya (1). Let us now turn to the others. Of the qualities (guna) the first one called rupa (colour) is that which can be apprehended by the eye alone and not by any other sense. The colours are white, blue, yellow, red, green, brown and variegated (citra). Colours are found only in kshiti, ap and tejas. The colours of ap and tejas are permanent (nitya), but the colour of kshiti changes when heat is applied, and this, Shridhara holds, is due to the fact that heat changes the atomic structure of kshiti (earth) and thus the old constitution of the substance being destroyed, its old colour is also destroyed, and a new one is generated. Rupa is the general name for the specific individual colours. There is the genus rupatva (colourness), and the rupa guna (quality) is that on which rests this genus; rupa is not itself a genus and can be apprehended by the eye. Read more »
akasha, atomic structure, guna, katu, natural taste, nitya, rasa, rupa, tejas, vayu I have pointed out above that Nyaya divided perception into two classes as nirvikalpa (indeterminate) and savikalpa (determinate) according as it is an earlier or a later stage. Vacaspati says, that at the first stage perception reveals an object as a particular; the perception of an orange at this avikalpika or nirvikalpika stage gives us indeed all its colour, form, and also the universal of orangeness associated with it, but it does not reveal it in a subject-predicate relation as when I say “this is an orange.” Read more »
consciously, differentiation, notion, perception, subject and predicate, unification, universals Mind according to Nyaya is regarded as a separate sense and can come in contact with pleasure, pain, desire, antipathy and will. The later Nyaya writers speak of three other kinds of contact of a transcendental nature called samanyalakshana, jnanalakshana and yogaja (miraculous). The contact samanyalakshana is that by virtue of which by coming in contact with a particular we are transcendentally (alaukika) in contact with all the particulars (in a general way) of which the corresponding universal may be predicated. Thus when I see smoke and through it my sense is in contact with the universal associated with smoke my visual sense is in transcendental contact with all smoke in general. Jnanalakshana contact is that by virtue of which we can associate the perceptions of other senses when perceiving by any one sense. Thus when we are looking at a piece of sandal wood our visual sense is in touch with its colour only, but still we perceive it to be fragrant without any direct contact of the object with the organ of smell. The sort of transcendental contact (alaukika sannikarsha) by virtue of which this is rendered possible is called jnanalakshana. But the knowledge acquired by these two contacts is not counted as perception (1). Read more »
desire, direct contact, jnana, perceptions, pleasures, pleasure pain, senses, virtue, visual sense It is difficult to say how the sacrificial system of worship grew in India in the Brahmanas. This system once set up gradually began to develop into a net-work of elaborate rituals, the details of which were probably taken note of by the priests. As some generations passed and the sacrifices spread over larger tracts of India and grew up into more and more elaborate details, the old rules and regulations began to be collected probably as tradition had it, and this it seems gave rise to the smriti literature. Read more »
brahmanas, commentaries, enquiry, ganganatha jha, india, literature discussions, sacrifices, sacrificial rituals, sutras Mimamsa has to accept the existence of soul, for without it who would perform the Vedic commandments, and what would be the meaning of those Vedic texts which speak of men as performing sacrifices and going to Heaven thereby? The soul is thus regarded as something entirely distinct from the body, the sense organs, and buddhi; it is eternal, omnipresent, and many, one in each body. Prabhakara thinks that it is manifested to us in all cognitions. Indeed he makes this also a proof for the existence of self as a separate entity from the body, for had it not been so, why should we have the notion of self-persistence in all our cognitions–even in those where there is no perception of the body? Read more »
consciousness, existence, going to heaven, pleasure pain, sacrifices, sense organs, true reason, vedic texts Comprehension of the philosophical Issues more essential than the Dialectic of controversy. Read more »
attainment, epistemological, perceptions, philosophical issues, psychological experience, right knowledge, sanskrit, theory of knowledge It is difficult to ascertain the time when the Brahma-sutras were written, but since they contain a refutation of almost all the other Indian systems, even of the Shunyavada Buddhism (of course according to Shankara’s interpretation), they cannot have been written very early. I think it may not be far from the truth in supposing that they were written some time in the second century B.C. Read more »
brahma sutras, govinda, madhava, mandukya upanishad, monistic, shankara, upanishads It is useless I think to attempt to bring out the meaning of the Vedanta thought as contained in the Brahma-sutras without making any reference to the commentary of Shankara or any other commentator. There is reason to believe that the Brahma-sutras were first commented upon by some Vaishnava writers who held some form of modified dualism. Read more »
brahma sutras, dualism, nagarjuna, philosophy, prajnaparamita, shankara, upanishads, vaishnava, vedanta Vedanta philosophy is the philosophy which claims to be the exposition of the philosophy taught in the Upanishads and summarized in the Brahma-sutras of Badarayana. The Upanishads form the last part of the Veda literature, and its philosophy is therefore also called sometimes the Uttara-Mimamsa or the Mimamsa (decision) of the later part of the Vedas as distinguished from the Mimamsa of the previous part of the Vedas and the Brahmanas as incorporated in the Purvamimamsa sutras of Jaimini. Read more »
brahmanas, brahma sutras, commentaries, hindu, ramanuja, shankara, upanishads, vedanta philosophy, vedas The Mimamsists held that everything that is said in the Vedas is to be interpreted as requiring us to perform particular kinds of action, or to desist from doing certain other kinds. This would mean that the Upanishads being a part of the Veda should also be interpreted as containing injunctions for the performance of certain kinds of actions. The description of Brahman in the Upanishads does not therefore represent a simple statement of the nature of Brahman, but it implies that the Brahman should be meditated upon as possessing the particular nature described there, i.e. Brahman should be meditated upon as being an entity which possesses a nature which is identical with our self; such a procedure would then lead to beneficial results to the man who so meditates. Shankara could not agree to such a view. For his main point was that the Upanishads revealed the highest truth as the Brahman. No meditation or worship or action of any kind was required; but one reached absolute wisdom and emancipation when the truth dawned on him that the Brahman or self was the ultimate reality. The teachings of the other parts of the Vedas, the karmakanda (those dealing with the injunctions relating to the performance of duties and actions), were intended for inferior types of aspirants, whereas the teachings of the Upanishads, the jnanakanda (those which declare the nature of ultimate truth and reality), were intended only for superior aspirants who had transcended the limits of sacrificial duties and actions, and who had no desire for any earthly blessing or for any heavenly joy. Read more »
bhagavadgita, brahman, heavenly joy, meditation, sacrifices, shankara, truth and reality, upanishads, veda, vedas The main idea of the advaita (non-dualistic) Vedanta philosophy as taught by the Shankara school is this, that the ultimate and absolute truth is the self, which is one, though appearing as many in different individuals. The world also as apart from us the individuals has no reality and has no other truth to show than this self. All other events, mental or physical, are but passing appearances, while the only absolute and unchangeable truth underlying them all is the self. Read more »
absolute truth, advaita, akara, appearances, brahman, cognition, comprehension, duality, macrocosm, microcosm, objective truth, passions, preceptor, sensations, vedanta philosophy, world consciousness The world-appearance is not however so illusory as the perception of silver in the conch-shell, for the latter type of worldly illusions is called pratibhasika, as they are contradicted by other later experiences, whereas the illusion of world-appearance is never contradicted in this worldly stage and is thus called vyavaharika (from vyavahara, practice, i.e. that on which is based all our practical movements). Read more »
appearance, brahman, consciousness, illusions, perception, right knowledge, sattva, true reality, vedanta Ajnana the cause of all illusions is defined as that which is beginningless, yet positive and removable by knowledge (anadibhavarupatve sati jnananivartyatvam). Though it manifests itself in all ordinary things (veiled by it before they become objects of perception) which have a beginning in time, yet it itself has no beginning, for it is associated with the pure consciousness which is beginningless. Read more »
consciousness, dosha, illusions, imagination, imposition, negation, notion, perception, vedanta Ajnana defined as the indefinite which is neither positive nor negative is also directly experienced by us in such perceptions as “I do not know, or I do not know myself or anybody else,” or “I do not know what you say,” or more particularly “I had been sleeping so long happily and did not know anything.” Read more »
consciousness, entities, i do not know, negation, perception, vedanta This ajnana rests on the pure cit or intelligence. This cit or Brahman is of the nature of pure illumination, but yet it is not opposed to the ajnana or the indefinite. The cit becomes opposed to the ajnana and destroys it only when it is reflected through the mental states (vritti). The ajnana thus rests on the pure cit and not on the cit as associated with such illusory impositions as go to produce the notion of ego “aham” or the individual soul. Read more »
aham, antahkarana, appearance, brahman, ego, illumination, intelligence, jiva, luminosity, madhava, manifestations We have already seen that the indefinite ajnana could be experienced in direct perception and according to Vedanta there are only two categories. The category of the real, the self-luminous Brahman, and the category of the indefinite. The latter has for its ground the world-appearance, and is the principle by which the one unchangeable Brahman is falsely manifested in all the diversity of the manifold world. Read more »
brahman, diversity, existence, infinite reality, infinite variety, maya, objective world, perception, principle, true knowledge, vedanta The Vedanta philosophy looked at the constantly changing phenomena of the world-appearance and sought to discover the root whence proceeded the endless series of events and effects. The theory that effects were altogether new productions caused by the invariable unconditional and immediately preceding antecedents, as well as the theory that it was the cause which evolved and by its transformations produced the effect, are considered insufficient to explain the problem which the Vedanta had before it. Read more »
cause and effect, definition of cause and effect, manifestation, phenomena, transformations, vedanta philosophy Pramana is the means that leads to right knowledge. If memory is intended to be excluded from the definition then pramana is to be defined as the means that leads to such right knowledge as has not already been acquired. Right knowledge (prama) in Vedanta is the knowledge of an object which has not been found contradicted (abadhitarthavishayajnanatva). Except when specially expressed otherwise, prama is generally considered as being excludent of memory and applies to previously unacquired (anadhigata) and uncontradicted knowledge (1). Read more »
memory, mental state, perception, previous moments, right knowledge, vedanta We have many times spoken of truth or reality as self-luminous (svayamprakasha). But what does this mean? Vedanta defines it as that which is never the object of a knowing act but is yet immediate and direct with us (avedyatve sati aparoksavyavaharayogyatvam). Self-luminosity thus means the capacity of being ever present in all our acts of consciousness without in any way being an object of consciousness. Read more »
anubhuti, appearance, consciousness, manifestation, self luminosity, vedanta, world experience Jiva or individual means the self in association with the ego and other personal experiences, i.e. phenomenal self, which feels, suffers and is affected by world-experiences. In jiva also three stages are distinguished; thus when during deep sleep the antahkarana is submerged, the self perceives merely the ajnana and the jiva in this state is called prajna or anandamaya. In the dream-state the self is in association with a subtle body and is called taijasa. In the awakened state the self as associated with a subtle and gross body is called vishva. So also the self in its pure state is called Brahman, when associated with maya it is called Ishvara, when associated with the fine subtle element of matter as controlling them, it is called hiranyagarbha; when with the gross elements as the ruler or controller of them it is called virat purusha. Read more »
antahkarana, brahman, caitanya, deep sleep, dream self, dream states, ego, gross body, jiva, maya, personal experiences, purusha, right knowledge, subtle body, world experiences The subject can be conceived in three forms: firstly as the atman, the one highest reality, secondly as jiva or the atman as limited by its psychosis, when the psychosis is not differentiated from the atman, but atman is regarded as identical with the psychosis thus appearing as a living and knowing being, as jivasakshi or perceiving consciousness, or the aspect in which the jiva comprehends, knows, or experiences; thirdly the antahkarana psychosis or mind which is an inner centre or bundle of avidya manifestations, just as the outer world objects are exterior centres of avidya phenomena or objective entities. The antahkarana is not only the avidya capable of supplying all forms to our present experiences, but it also contains all the tendencies and modes of past impressions of experience in this life or in past lives. The antahkarana is always turning the various avidya modes of it into the jivasakshi (jiva in its aspect as illuminating mental states), and these are also immediately manifested, made known, and transformed into experience. Read more »
antahkarana, atman, impressions, jiva, jnana, manifestation, objective world, states of consciousness The inner experiences of pleasure and pain also are generated by a false identification of antahkarana transformations as pleasure or pain with the self, by virtue of which are generated the perceptions, “I am happy,” or “I am sorry.” Read more »
antahkarana, false identification, inference, inner experiences, manifestation, perception, pleasure and pain, vedanta We have already seen that the Mimamsists had asserted that all knowledge was true simply because it was knowledge (yatharthah sarve vivadaspadibhutah pratyayah pratyayatvat). Even illusions were explained by them as being non-perception of the distinction between the thing perceived (e.g. the conch-shell), and the thing remembered (e.g. silver). Read more »
illusions, perception, presence, vedanta Vedanta says that when a duly qualified man takes to the study of Vedanta and is instructed by the preceptor - “Thou art that (Brahman),” he attains the emancipating knowledge, and the world-appearance becomes for him false and illusory. Read more »
attainment, karma, right knowledge, selfish desires, vedanta, vedas, worldly enjoyments Vedanta is distinctly antagonistic to Nyaya, and most of its powerful dialectic criticism is generally directed against it. Shankara himself had begun it by showing contradictions and inconsistencies in many of the Nyaya conceptions, such as the theory of causation, conception of the atom, the relation of samavaya, the conception of jati, etc (1). Read more »
maya, rajas, sattva, shankara, vedanta, vedas, yoga Each of these Ages has its appropriate Shastra or Scripture, designed to meet the characteristics and needs of the men who live in them The Hindu Shastra are classed into: (1) Shruti, which commonly includes the four Veda. (Rik, Yajuh, Sama, Atharva, and the Upanishads), the doctrine of which is philosophically exposed in the Vedanta-Darshana. (2) Smriti, such as the Dharma-Shastra of Manu and other works on family and social duty prescribing for pavritti-dharma, as the Upanishads had revealed the nivritti-dharma. (3) The Puranas, of which, according to the Brahma-vaivartta Purana, there were originally four lakhs, and of which eighteen are now regarded as the principal. (4) The Tantra. Read more »
darshana, dharma, hindu, kali yuga, kularnava tantra, nirvana, puranas, sadhana, shastra, shruti, tantras, upanishads, veda The object of this ritual, which is described in Mahanirvana-Tantra, Chapter V, verses 93 et seq, is the purification of the elements of which the body is composed. (1) The Mantra-mahodadhi speaks of it as a rite which is preliminary to the worship of a Deva.(2) Read more »
brahman, cakra, deva, earth element, emanation, ether, evil demons, involution, mahanirvana tantra, mantra, monistic, pranayama, process of evolution Now let us understand clearly what we mean by a subtle body. It is nothing but a minute germ of a living substance. It contains the invisible particles of matter which are held together by vital force, and it also possesses mind or thought-force in a potential state, just as the seed of a plant contains in it the life force and the power of growth. Read more »
alimentary canal, ethereal, gross body, living substance, manifestations, particles of matter, potential state, power of speech, putrefaction, subtle body, thought force, vital energy Another argument which the Vedantists advance in support of the theory of Reincarnation is that “Nothing is destroyed in the universe.” Destruction in the sense of the annihilation of a thing is unknown to the Vedantic philosophers, just as it is unknown to the modern scientists. They say “non-existence can never become existence and existence can never become non-existence;” or, in other words, that which did not exist can never exist, and conversely that which exists in any form can never become non-existent. Read more »
births and deaths, existence, impressions, law of nature, reincarnation, sleep of death