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 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 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 The conception of a world-soul related to the universe as the soul of man to his body is found for the first time in R.V.X. 121. I, where he is said to have sprung forth as the firstborn of creation from the primeval waters. Read more »
atman, brahman, cosmic creation, metaphysical reality, mythical character, philosophical significance, primeval waters, purusha, rig veda, soul of man, 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 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 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 Nyaya-Vaisheshika in most of its speculations took that view of things which finds expression in our language, and which we tacitly assume as true in all our ordinary experience. Thus they admitted dravya, guna, karma and samanya, Vishesha they had to admit as the ultimate peculiarities of atoms, for they did not admit that things were continually changing their qualities, and that everything could be produced out of everything by a change of the collocation or arrangement of the constituting atoms. Read more »
antecedent, atoms, axiom, guna, hypothesis, karma, material cause, molecular movement, speculations, unseen power 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 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 Bikram Yoga is for beginners, as well as advanced students of yoga. Bikram yoga is a challenging of 26 asanas, or postures, and 2 breathing exercises and is generally considered as the most intense type of yoga. Bikram Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105°F. Read more »
bikram yoga, body cleanse, breathing exercises, cardiovascular exercise, hatha yoga, hot yoga, insomnia, perfect health, posture, suffering from depression, vibrant good health, wellness restoration, yoga bikram, yoga class, yoga poses The whole process is expressed in Eastern philosophy by the doctrine of the Reincarnation of the individual soul. Although this doctrine is commonly rejected in the West, it is unreservedly accepted by the vast majority of mankind of the present day, as it was in past centuries. Read more »
alexander the great, eastern philosophy, empedocles, herodotus, immortal soul, intellectual world, julius caesar, ovid, persian magi, philosophers, plato, plotinus, proclus, pythagoras, reincarnation, soul wandering
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