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 earliest literature of India is the Vedas. These consist mostly of hymns in praise of nature gods, such as fire, wind, etc. Excepting in some of the hymns of the later parts of the work (probably about 1000 B.C.), there is not much philosophy in them in our sense of the term.
It is here that we first find intensely interesting philosophical questions of a more or less cosmological character expressed in terms of poetry and imagination. In the later Vedic works called the Brahmafnas and the Aranyakas written mostly in prose, which followed the Vedic hymns, there are two tendencies, viz. one that sought to establish the magical forms of ritualistic worship, and the other which indulged in speculative thinking through crude generalizations.
This latter tendency was indeed much feebler than the former, and it might appear that the ritualistic tendency had actually swallowed up what little of philosophy the later parts of the Vedic hymns were trying to express, but there are unmistakable marks that this tendency existed and worked. Next to this come certain treatises written in prose and verse called the Upanishads, which contain various sorts of philosophical thoughts mostly monistic or singularistic but also some pluralistic and dualistic ones. These are not reasoned statements, but utterances of truths intuitively perceived or felt as unquestionably real and indubitable, and carrying great force, vigour, and persuasiveness with them. It is very probable that many of the earliest parts of this literature are as old as 500 B.C. to 700 B.C.
Buddhist philosophy began with the Buddha from some time about 500 B.C. There is reason to believe that Buddhist philosophy continued to develop in India in one or other of its vigorous forms till some time about the tenth or eleventh century A.D. The earliest beginnings of the other Indian systems of thought are also to be sought chiefly between the age of the Buddha to about 200 B.C. Jaina philosophy was probably prior to the Buddha. But except in its earlier days, when it came in conflict with the doctrines of the Buddha, it does not seem to me that the Jaina thought came much in contact with other systems of Hindu thought. Excepting in some forms of Vaishnava thought in later times, Jaina thought is seldom alluded to by the Hindu writers or later Buddhists, though some Jains like Haribhadra and Gunaratna tried to refute the Hindu and Buddhist systems.
The non-aggressive nature of their religion and ideal may to a certain extent explain it, but there may be other reasons too which it is difficult for us to guess. It is interesting to note that, though there have been some dissensions amongst the Jains about dogmas and creeds, Jaina philosophy has not split into many schools of thought more or less differing from one another as Buddhist thought did.
aranyakas, philosophical questions, philosophical thoughts, poetry and imagination, upanishads, vedas, vedic hymns The sacred books of India, the Vedas, are generally believed to be the earliest literary record of the Indo-European race. It is indeed difficult to say when the earliest portions of these compositions came into existence. Read more »
gangadhar, hindus, hymns, india, indo european, max mueller, mouth to mouth, sacred books, seers, vedas When the Vedas were composed, there was probably no system of writing prevalent in India. But such was the scrupulous zeal of the Brahmins, who got the whole Vedic literature by heart by hearing it from their preceptors, that it has been transmitted most faithfully to us through the course of the last 3000 years or more with little or no interpolations at all. Read more »
brahmin, hindus, hindu philosophy, history of india, religious authority, vedas, vedic civilization, vedic literature, vedic ritual There are four collections or Samhitas, namely rig-Veda, Sama-Veda, Yajur-Veda and Atharva-Veda. Of these the rig-Veda is probably the earliest. The Sama-Veda has practically no independent value, for it consists of stanzas taken (excepting only 75) entirely from the rig-Veda, which were meant to be sung to certain fixed melodies, and may thus be called the book of chants. Read more »
atharva veda, book of spells, demon world, fire god, god indra, history of sanskrit literature, religious sacrifices, rigveda, rig veda, sama veda, soma sacrifice, spells and incantations, yajur veda After the Samhitas there grew up the theological treatises called the Brahmanas, which were of a distinctly different literary type. They are written in prose, and explain the sacred significance of the different rituals to those who are not already familiar with them. (1) Read more »
brahmanas, brahmans, caste system, dogmatic assertions, generation to generation, gnostics, hymns, max muller, rituals, sacred significance, theological treatises, unbounded imagination As a further development of the Brahmanas however we get the Aranyakas or forest treatises. These works were probably composed for old men who had retired into the forest and were thus unable to perform elaborate sacrifices requiring a multitude of accessories and articles which could not be procured in forests. Read more »
aranyakas, brahmanas, free thinking, hindu, ritualism, sacrifices, self knowledge, upanishads, ushas, 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 It will however be wrong to suppose that these monotheistic tendencies were gradually supplanting the polytheistic sacrifices. On the other hand, the complications of ritualism were gradually growing in their elaborate details. Read more »
creation of the world, demon, devotion, dignity, eternity, fulfilment, magical results, rituals, sacrifice, vedas, virtue The cosmogony of the rig-Veda may be looked at from two aspects, the mythological and the philosophical. The mythological aspect has in general two currents, as Professor Macdonell says, “The one regards the universe as the result of mechanical production, the work of carpenter’s and joiner’s skill; the other represents it as the result of natural generation (1).” Read more »
atman, births, brahmana, cosmogony, golden egg, hymn 5, immortality, navel, pantheistic, rig veda, supreme being There seems to be a belief in the Vedas that the soul could be separated from the body in states of swoon, and that it could exist after death, though we do not find there any trace of the doctrine of transmigration in a developed form. Read more »
correct knowledge, doctrine of transmigration, hymns, karma, manas, rig veda, rita, sacrifices, shatapatha brahmana, soul of man, two fires 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 The passage of the Indian mind from the Brahmanic to the Upanishad thought is probably the most remarkable event in the history of philosophic thought. We know that in the later Vedic hymns some monotheistic conceptions of great excellence were developed, but these differ in their nature from the absolutism of the Upanishads as much as the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems in astronomy. Read more »
atman, brahman, one god, principle, rig veda, upanishads, vedic hymns How the Upanishads came to be introduced into Europe is an interesting story. Dara Shiko the eldest son of the Emperor Shah Jahan heard of the Upanishads during his stay in Kashmir in 1640. He invited several Pandits from Benares to Delhi, who undertook the work of translating them into Persian. Read more »
benares, indian wisdom, kashmir, pandits, sanskrit literature, schopenhauer, upanishads, vedas, zend avesta 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 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 The examination of the two ancient Nastika schools of Buddhism and Jainism of two different types ought to convince us that serious philosophical speculations were indulged in, in circles other than those of the Upanishad sages (1). Read more »
attainment, brahmanas, magical power, philosophical speculations, sacrifices, sages, upanishads, vedas, vedic 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 It is very probable that the earliest beginnings of Nyaya are to be found in the disputations and debates amongst scholars trying to find out the right meanings of the Vedic texts for use in sacrifices and also in those disputations which took place between the adherents of different schools of thought trying to defeat one another. Read more »
buehler, compound words, kautilya, logic, scriptural knowledge, upanishads, vatsyayana, vedic accents, vedic texts, vidya 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 The Vaisheshika sutras begin with the ostensible purpose of explaining virtue (dharma) (I.i. 1) and dharma according to it is that by which prosperity (abhyudaya) and salvation (nihshreyasa) are attained. Then it goes on to say that the validity of the Vedas depends on the fact that it leads us to prosperity and salvation. Then it turns back to the second sutra and says that salvation comes as the result of real knowledge, produced by special excellence of dharma, of the characteristic features of the categories of substance (dravya), quality (guna), class concept (samdanya), particularity (vishesha), and inherence (samavayay) (1). Read more »
dharma, effect karma, guna, karma karma, material cause, odour, sutras, water fire The Nyaya sutras begin with an enumeration of the sixteen subjects, viz. means of right knowledge (pramana), object of right knowledge (prameya), doubt (samshaya), purpose (prayojana), illustrative instances (drishtanta), accepted conclusions (siddhanta), premisses (avayava), argumentation (tarka), ascertainment (nirnaya), debates (vada), disputations (jalpa), destructive criticisms (vitanda), fallacy (hetvabhasa), quibble (chala), refutations (jati), points of opponent’s defeat (nigrahasthana), and hold that by a thorough knowledge of these the highest good (nihshreyasa), is attained. In the second sutra it is said that salvation (apavarga) is attained by the successive disappearance of false knowledge (mithyajnana), defects (dosha), endeavours (pravritti, birth (janma), and ultimately of sorrow (1). Read more »
apta, atman, body senses, chala, dosha, five senses, inference, jalpa, pain sorrow, perception, pleasure pain, right knowledge, self body, sense objects, tarka, testimony 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 Samkhya asserts that the teleology of the prakriti is sufficient to explain all order and arrangement of the cosmos. The Mimamsakas, the Carvakas, the Buddhists and the Jains all deny the existence of Ishvara (God). Nyaya believes that Ishvara has fashioned this universe by his will out of the ever-existing atoms. For every effect (e.g. a jug) must have its cause. If this be so, then this world with all its order and arrangement must also be due to the agency of some cause, and this cause is Ishvara. Read more »
atoms, buddhists, existence, fire in the forest, inference, jug, manifest world, teleology The manner in which knowledge originates is one of the most favourite topics of discussion in Indian philosophy. We have already seen that Samkhya-Yoga explained it by supposing that the buddhi (place of consciousness) assumed the form of the object of perception, and that the buddhi so transformed was then intelligized by the reflection of the pure intelligence or purusha. The Jains regarded the origin of any knowledge as being due to a withdrawal of a veil of karma which was covering the all-intelligence of the self. Read more »
cognition, collocation, indian philosophy, inference, intellectual elements, intelligence, linga, perception, physical elements, purusha The third pramana, which is admitted by Nyaya and not by Vaisheshika, is upamana, and consists in associating a thing unknown before with its name by virtue of its similarity with some other known thing. Thus a man of the city who has never seen a wild ox (gavaya) goes to the forest, asks a forester - “what is gavaya?” and the forester replies - “oh, you do not know it, it is just like a cow”; after hearing this from the forester he travels on, and on seeing a gavaya and finding it to be similar to a cow he forms the opinion that this is a gavaya. This knowing an hitherto unknown thing by virtue of its similarity to a known thing is called upamana. Read more »
cow, inference, observation, perception, realists, right knowledge, testimony, validity, vedas, virtue, visual sense Shabda or word is regarded as a separate means of proof by most of the recognized Indian systems of thought excepting the Jaina, Buddhist, Carvaka and Vaisheshika. A discussion on this topic however has but little philosophical value and I have therefore omitted to give any attention to it in connection with the Nyaya, and the Samkhya-Yoga systems. The validity and authority of the Vedas were acknowledged by all Hindu writers and they had wordy battles over it with the Buddhists who denied it. Read more »
carvaka, philosophical value, sutras, vedas 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 From what we have said before it will be easy to see that Mimamsa agrees in the main with Vaisheshika about the existence of the categories of things such as the five elements, the qualities, rupa, rasa, etc. Kumarila’s differences on the points of jati, samavaya, etc. and Prabhakara’s peculiarities have also been mentioned before. On some of these points it appears that Kumarila was influenced by Samkhya thought rather than by Nyaya. Samkhya and Vaisheshika are the only Hindu systems which have tried to construct a physics as a part of their metaphysics; other systems have generally followed them or have differed from them only on minor matters. The physics of Prabhakara and Kumarila have thus but little importance, as they agree in general with the Vaisheshika view. In fact they were justified in not laying any special stress on this part, because for the performance of sacrifices the common-sense view of Nyaya-Vaisheshika about the world was most suitable. Read more »
dharma, five elements, inference, injunctions, rasa, sacrifices, theory of knowledge, valid knowledge, veda 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 Gaudapada’s work is divided into four chapters: (1) Agama (scripture), (2) Vaitathya (unreality), (3) Advaita (unity), (4) Alatashanti (the extinction of the burning coal). The first chapter is more in the way of explaining the Mandukya Upanishad by virtue of which the entire work is known as Mandukyakarika. The second, third, and fourth chapters are the constructive parts of Gaudapada’s work, not particularly connected with the Mandukya Upanishad. Read more »
advaita, ananda, atma, deep sleep, dream state, extinction, mandukya upanishad, oneness, prana, shivam, theories of creation 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 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 It is useless to seek the origins of Yoga, which are submerged in that magical history in which primitive people live and which the evolving of culture doesn’t succeed to disregard. Certain analogies with the doctrines of ancient schools of China as emerged in Taoism, make a great deal probable that existed to a large extent in southern and south-oriental Asia certain routines, based above all on the control of breath and on auto hypnotic processes, from which slowly and with degrees derived both Yoga and the mentioned Taoist currents. Read more »
buddhists, cross legged, magical history, mohenjodaro, psychological investigations, rudra, upanishads, yoga teachers The worlds are inhabited by countless grades of beings, ranging from the highest Devas (of whom there are many classes and degrees) to the lowest animal life. The scale of beings runs from the shining manifestations of Spirit to those in which it is so veiled that it would seem almost to have disappeared in its material covering. There is but one Light, one Spirit, whose manifestations are many. Read more »
brahman, gayatri, lakshmi, manifestations, maya, one spirit, purusha, rays of light, rudra, sandhya, sarasvati, supreme mother Ordinarily there are four chief divisions or castes (varna) of Hindu society – viz.: Brahmana (priesthood; teaching); Kshattriya (warrior); Vaishya (merchant); Shudra (servile) – said to have sprung respectively from the mouth, arm, thigh, and foot of Brahma. Read more »
brahman, caste, castes, hindu society, hybrid class, investiture, priesthood, sacred thread, tantra, twice born, vaishya, varna, vedas, vipra As valuable as are all these illustrations, examples, and figures of speech, still all must of necessity fall short of the truth in the case of the Soul of Man–that wondrous something which has been built up by the Absolute after aeons and aeons of time, and which is destined to play an important part in the great Cosmic Drama which it has pleased the Absolute to think into existence. Drawing its Life from the Universal Life, it has the roots of its being still further back in the Absolute itself, as we shall see in the next lesson. Great and wonderful is it all, and our minds are but illy fitted to receive the truth, and must be gradually accustomed to the glare of the Sun. But it will come to all–none can escape his glorious destiny. Read more »
aeons, allusions, awareness, cosmic consciousness, cosmic drama, mental characteristics, oneness, oriental philosophies, tat tvam asi, thou art, unity, upanishads According to the temperament of the sadhaka, so is the form of worship and sadhana. In fact, the specific worship and sadhana of the other classes is strictly prohibited by the Tantra to the pasu. Read more »
acara, animal creation, asrama, divya, kali age, kali yuga, observances, pasu, rajas, sadhana, vedas THERE are four different forms of worship corresponding with four states (bhava);(1) The realization that the jivatma and paramatma are one, that everything is Brahman, and that nothing but the Brahman exists, is the highest state or brahma-bhava. Constant meditation by the yoga process upon the Devata in the heart is the lower and middlemost (dhyana-bhava), japa and stava (hymns and prayer) is still lower, and the lowest of all mere external worship (puja). Read more »
advaita, brahman, brahmanas, caitanya, consciousness, daily puja, dhyana, japa, karma, nitya, panca, prana, pratima, sandhya, sudras, tantrik, worshipper, yoga Sabda, or sound, which is of the Brahman, and as such the cause of the Brahmanda, is the manifestation of the Cit-sakti itself. The Visva-sara-Tantra says (1) that the Para-brahman, as Sabda-brahman, whose substance is all mantra, exists in the body of the jivatma. It is either unlettered (dhvani) or lettered (varna). The former, which produces the latter, is the subtle aspect of the jiva’s vital sakti. Read more »
akasa, body waves, brahman, ethereal space, external manifestation, inhalation and exhalation, jiva, letters of the alphabet, mantra, nada, prana, sabda, space waves, varna, vayu, waves of sound This word, which comes from the root yaj (to worship), is commonly translated “sacrifice”. The Sanskrit word is, however, retained in the translation, since Yajna means other things also than those which come within the meaning of the word “sacrifice”, as understood by an English reader. Read more »
butter ghee, deva, homa, mantra, nadis, nyasa, offerings, om, organic creation, principles of tantra, sacrifice, spirits, vedas This term is generally translated as meaning penance or austerities. It includes these, such as the four monthly fasts (catur-masya), the sitting between five fires (pancagnitapah), and the like. It has, however, also a wider meaning, and in this wider sense is of three kinds, namely, sarira, or bodily; vacika, by speech; manasa, in mind. Read more »
ahimsa, brahmanas, fasts, jala, krsna, manasa, sadhana, self restraint, siddha, silence, speech, tantras, tantrika, tapas, vidya The elements in their literal sense are not available in sadhana for all. The nature of the Pasu requires strict adherence to Vaidik rule in the matter of these physical functions even in worship. This rule prohibits the drinking of wine, a substance subject to the three curses of Brahma, Kaca, and Krsna, in the following terms; Madyam apeyam adeyam agrahyam (”Wine (1) must not be drunk, given, or taken”). Read more »
fish, householder, kaca, krsna, maithuna, pasu, ritual purposes, sadhana, sexual act, sexual intercourse, strict adherence, visnu, wine Through dhyana is gained the third quality of realization or pratyaksa. Dhyana, or meditation, is of three kinds: (1) sthula, or gross; (2) jyotih; (3) suksma, or subtle.* Read more »
atma, brahman, dhyana, four vedas, great ocean, kalpa