INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

the systems of thought and reflection that were developed by the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent. Three basic concepts form the cornerstone of Indian philosophical thought: the self, or soul (atman), the moral efficacy of human actions (karma), and salvation (moksha) as the highest ideal. Indian philosophy is composed of six orthodox schools, or systems of thought; Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, and Yoga. There are also unorthodox schools, such as those of Buddhism and Jainism. The sacred texts of Hindu culture, principally the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Mahabharata, have long influenced Indian philosophical thinking, even after the creation of the six orthodox schools. Each of these schools of thought was systematized by sets of sutras, which reduced the doctrines of a particular system of thought into a number of brief but memorable aphorisms, formulas, or rules. Of the six orthodox schools, Mimamsa, or Purva-mimamsa, is the system that gives rules for the interpretation of the Vedas and provides a philosophical justification for the observance of Vedic ritual. (The Vedas are the earliest sacred writings of India.) Vedanta forms the basis of most modern schools of Hinduism; it is concerned with the philosophical interpretation of the Vedas, rather than with their ritualistic aspects as is M imamsa. Vedanta is concerned with brahman, or the ultimate reality, and the relation between it and the finite individual. Its major texts are the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita. Nyaya worked out in profound detail the method of reasoning known as inference; this school is important for its analysis of logic and epistemology. Vaisesika is important for its attempts to identify, inventory, and classify the entities of reality that present themselves to human perception. Samkhya adopts a consistent dualism between the orders of matter and that of the self, or soul. In the Samkhya school, right knowledge consists of the ability of self to distinguish itself from matter. Yoga has greatly influenced several of the other schools through its prescription of practical disciplines for intuitively realizing the metaphysical knowledge put forth by the Samkhya system, to which Yoga is closely related. the systems of thought and reflection that were developed by the civilizations of the Indian subcontinent. They include both orthodox (astika) systems, namely, the Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva-mimamsa, and Vedanta schools of philosophy, and unorthodox (nastika) systems, such as Buddhism and Jainism. Indian thought has been concerned with various philosophical problems, significant among them the nature of the world (cosmology), the nature of reality (metaphysics), logic, the nature of knowledge (epistemology), ethics, and religion. Additional reading General S.N. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, 5 vol. (192255, reprinted 1977), a comprehensive account, though its scholarship tends to outweigh philosophical insight; M. Hiriyanna, Outlines of Indian Philosophy (1932, reissued 1975), lucidly written, based on reliable acquaintance with original source material but leaving out many minor, though important, schools of thought; S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, 2 vol. (192327), a very readable account written from an idealistic point of viewmay often mislead; S.C. Vidyabhusan, A History of the Medival School of Indian Logic (1909), still indispensable, though outdated and containing many inaccuracies; U.N. Ghoshal, A History of Indian Political Ideas: The Ancient Period and the Period of Transition to the Middle Ages (1959); Donald H. Bishop (ed.), Indian Thought: An Introduction (1975), 15 historical essays by Indian scholars; Balbir Singh, The Conceptual Framework of Indian Philosophy (1976), a study of 12 fundamental concepts; Karl H. Potter (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (1970 ), a very valuable source. For current articles on Indian philosophy, see Philosophy East and West (quarterly) and The Journal of Indian Philosophy (quarterly). Critical studies from the point of view of modern Western thought Karl H. Potter, Presuppositions of India's Philosophies (1963, reprinted 1976); Ninian Smart, Doctrine and Argument in Indian Philosophy (1964); and B.K. Matilal, Epistemology, Logic and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis (1971), three books that, together, form a good introduction to the logical, dialectical, and analytical aspects of Indian philosophy; Kewal Krishan Mittal, Materialism in Indian Thought (1974). English translations of Sanskrit sources S. Radhakrishnan and C.A. Moore (eds.), A Source Book in Indian Philosophy (1957), an excellent one-volume collection of source materials (does not include many medieval masterpieces on logic and epistemology); The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, 2nd ed., trans. by R.E. Hume (1931); The Bhagavadgita, trans. by S. Radhakrishnan (1948). Selected readings on the systems and texts (Upanisads): Arun Shourie, Hinduism, Essence and Consequence: A Study of the Upanishads, the Gita, and the Brahma-Sutras (1980), an analysis and assessment of Brahmanical Hinduism; R.D. Ranade, A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1968). (Bhagavadgita): Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita (191620, reissued 1974). (Mahabharata): Edward W. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India (1901, reprinted 1973). (Carvakas and Ajivikas): Dakshinaranjan Shastri, A Short History of Indian Materialism, Sensationalism and Hedonism (1930); Dale Riepe, Early Indian Philosophical Materialism (1954); A.L. Basham, The History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas (1951, reprinted 1981). (Buddhism): Benimadhab Barua, Prolegomena to a History of Buddhist Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1974); David J. Kalupahana, Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis (1976); A.L. Herman, An Introduction to Buddhist Thought: A Philosophic History of Indian Buddhism (1983); Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, 2 vol. (Eng. trans. 193032, reissued 1970), a work of great scholarship, marred by too-hasty comparisons with 19th-century European philosophers, and containing an English translation of Dharmakirti's Nyayavindu; T.R.V. Murty, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (1955, reissued 1980); (Mimamsa): A. Berriedale Keith, Karma-mimamsa (1921, reprinted 1978); P. Shastri, Introduction to the Purva Mimamsa, 2nd ed. (1980). (Vedanta): Eric J. Lott, Vedantic Approaches to God (1980), a clear introduction to the religious philosophies of Vedanta; Jacob Kattackal, Religion and Ethics in Advaita (1980, reprinted 1982); T.M.P. Mahadevan, Gaudapada: A Study in Early Advaita (1952; 4th ed., 1975); Eliot Deutsch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction (1969, reissued 1973); P.N. Srinivasachari, The Philosophy of Visistadvaita (1943, reprinted 1973). (Vaisnavism and Saivism): R.G. Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Saivism and Minor Religious Systems (1913, reissued 1980). (Nyaya-Vaisesika): H. Ui, The Vaiseshika Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1962); N.S. Junankar, Gautama: The Nyaya Philosophy (1978); S.C. Chatterjee, Nyaya Theory of Knowledge (1939); D.H. Ingalls, Materials for the Study of Navya-Nyaya Logic (1951); J.N. Mohanty (trans.), Gangesa's Theory of Truth (1966); B.K. Matilal, The Navya-Nyaya Doctrine of Negation (1969). (Samkhya-Yoga): S.N. Dasgupta, The Study of Patanjali (1920); Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, 2nd ed. (1969; originally published in French, 1954); Karel Werner, Yoga and Indian Philosophy (1977), a wide-ranging introduction. (Mughal philosophy): Azlz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (1964). Contemporary Indian philosophy S. Radhakrishnan, The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy (1920); Rabindranath Tagore, Religion of Man (1931, reprinted 1981); S. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religions and Western Thought (1939, reissued 1974); Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (1949, reissued 1982); S. Radhakrishnan and J.H. Muirhead (eds.), Contemporary Indian Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1952); P.T. Raju, Idealistic Thought of India (1953, reprinted 1973); Kalidas Bhattacharyya, Studies in Philosophy, 2 vol. (195658), and (ed.), Recent Indian Philosophy (1962), and Philosophical Papers (1969); G. Misra, Analytical Studies in Indian Philosophical Problems (1970); K.S. Murty and K.R. Rao (eds.), Current Trends in Indian Philosophy (1972); Margaret Chatterjee (ed.), Contemporary Indian Philosophy (1974); J.N. Mohanty, Philosophy in India: 19671973, Review of Metaphysics, 28:5484 (1974); N.K. Devaraja (ed.), Indian Philosophy Today (1975); Dale Riepe, Indian Philosophy Since Independence (1979), an assessment from the perspective of historical and dialectical materialism; T.M.P. Mahadevan and G.V. Saroja, Contemporary Indian Philosophy (1981), brief accounts of the lives and thought of eight philosophers of the first half of the 20th century. Jitendra N. Mohanty Historical development of Indian philosophy Jaina philosophy Jainism, founded in about the 6th century BC by Vardhamana Mahavira, the 24th in a succession of religious leaders known as Jinas (Conquerors), rejects the idea of God as the creator of the world but teaches the perfectibility of man, to be accomplished through the strictly moral and ascetic life. Central to the moral code of Jainism is the doctrine of ahimsa, or noninjury to all living beings, an idea that may have arisen in reaction to Vedic sacrifice ritual. There is also a great emphasis on vows (vratas) of various orders. Although earlier scriptures, such as the Bhagavati-sutra, contained assorted ideas on logic and epistemology, Kundakunda of the 2nd century AD was the first to develop Jaina logic. The Tattvarthadhigama-sutra of Umasvatis, however, is the first systematic work, and Siddhasena (7th century AD) the first great logician. Other important figures are Akalanka (8th century), Manikyanandi, Vadideva, Hemchandra (12th century), Prabhachandra (11th century), and Yasovijaya (17th century). The principal ingredients of Jaina metaphysics are: an ultimate distinction between living substance or soul ( jiva) and nonliving substance (ajiva); the doctrine of anekantavaha, or nonabsolutism (the thesis that things have infinite aspects that no determination can exhaust); the doctrine of naya (the thesis that there are many partial perspectives from which reality can be determined, none of which is, taken by itself, wholly true, but each of which is partially so); and the doctrine of karma, in Jainism a substance, rather than a process, that links all phenomena in a chain of cause and effect. As a consequence of their metaphysical liberalism, the Jaina logicians developed a unique theory of seven-valued logic, according to which the three primary truth values are true, false, and indefinite, and the other four values are true and false, true and indefinite, false and indefinite, and true, false, and indefinite. Every statement is regarded as having these seven values, considered from different standpoints. Knowledge is defined as that which reveals both itself and another (svaparabhasi). It is eternal, as an essential quality of the self; it is noneternal, as the perishable empirical knowledge. Whereas most Hindu epistemologists regarded pramana as the cause of knowledge, the Jainas identified pramana with valid knowledge. Knowledge is either perceptual or nonperceptual. Perception is either empirical or nonempirical. Empirical perception is either sensuous or nonsensuous. The latter arises directly in the self, not through the sense organs, but only when the covering ignorance is removed. With the complete extinction of all karmas, a person attains omniscience (kevala-jana). (See also Jainism.) Mughal philosophy Reference has been made earlier to the Sufi (Islamic mystics), who found a resemblance between the ontological monism of Ibn al-'Arabi and that of Vedanta. The Shattari order among the Indian Sufis practiced Yogic austerities and even physical postures. Various minor syncretistic religious sects attempted to harmonize Hindu and Muslim religious traditions at different levels and with varying degrees of success. Of these, the most famous are Ramananda, Kabir, and Guru Nanak. Kabir harmonized the two religions in such a manner that, to an enquiry about whether he was a Hindu or a Muslim, the answer given by a contemporary was It is a secret difficult to comprehend. One should try to understand. Guru Nanak rejected the authority of both Hindu and Muslim scriptures alike and founded his religion (Sikhism) on a rigorously moralistic, monotheistic basis. Among the great Mughals, Akbar attempted, in 1581, to promulgate a new religion, Din-e Ilahi, which was to be based on reason and ethical teachings common to all religions and which was to be free from priestcraft. This effort, however, was short-lived, and a reaction of Muslim orthodoxy was led by Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi, who rejected ontological monism in favour of orthodox unitarianism and sought to channel mystical enthusiasm along Qur'anic (Islamic scriptural) lines. By the middle of the 17th century, the tragic figure of Dara Shikoh, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's son and disciple of the Qadiri sufis, translated Hindu scriptures, such as the Bhagavadgita and the Upanisads, into Persian and in his translation of the latter closely followed Sankara's commentaries. In his Majma' al-bahrayn he worked out correlations between Sufi and Upanisadic cosmologies, beliefs, and practices. During this time, the Muslim elite of India virtually identified Vedanta with Sufism. Later, Shah Wali Allah's son, Shah 'Abd-ul-'Aziz, regarded Krishna among the awliya' (saints). Historical development of Indian philosophy Presystematic philosophy Sruti and the nature of authority All orthodox philosophies can trace their basic principles back to some statement or other in the Vedas. The Vedanta schools, especially, had an affiliation with the authority of sruti, and the school of Mimamsa concerned itself chiefly with the questions of interpreting the sacred texts. The Hindu tradition regards the Vedas as being apauruseyai.e., as not composed by any person. Sayana, a famous Vedic commentator, said that this means an absence of a human author. For Sayana, the eternality of the Vedas is like that of space and time; man does not experience their beginning or end. But they are, in fact, created by Brahma, the supreme creator. For the Advaita Vedanta, because no author of the Vedas is mentioned, an unbroken chain of Vedic teachers is quite conceivable, so that the scriptures bear testimony to their own eternality. The authoritative character of sruti may then be deduced from the fact that it is free from any fault (dosa), or limitation, which characterizes human words. Furthermore, the Vedas give knowledge about thingswhether dharma (what ought to be done) or Brahman (the absolute reality)which cannot be known by any other empirical means of knowledge. The authority of the Vedas cannot, therefore, be contradicted by any empirical evidence. Later logicians of the orthodox schools sought to give these arguments precision and logical rigour. The Vedic hymns (mantras) seem to be addressed to gods and goddesses (deva, one who gives knowledge or light), who are personifications of natural forces and phenomena (Agni, the fire god; Indra, the rain god; Vayu, the wind god). But there are gods not identifiable with such phenomena (e.g., Aditi, the infinite mother of all gods; Mitra, the friend; Varuna, the guardian of truth and righteousness; Visvakarman, the all-maker; sraddha, faith). Also, the hymns show an awareness of the unity of these deities, of the fact that it is one God who is called by different names. The famed conception of rtameaning at once natural law, cosmic order, moral law, and the law of truthmade the transition to a monistic view of the universe as being but a manifestation of one reality about which the later hymns continue to raise fundamental questions in a poignant manner, without, however, suggesting any dogmatic answer. Development of the notion of transmigration The hymns may, in general, be said to express a positive attitude toward human life and to show interest in the full enjoyment of life here and hereafter rather than an anxiety to escape from it. The idea of transmigration and the conception of the different paths and worlds traversed by good men and those who are not goodi.e., the world of Vishnu and the realm of Yamaare found in the Vedas. The chain of rebirth as a product of ignorance and the conception of release from this chain as the greatest good of the spiritual life are markedly absent in the hymns. Historical development of Indian philosophy Further developments of the system Developments in Mahayana Nagarjuna and Sunyavada Though the beginnings of Mahayana are to be found in the Mahasangikas and many of their early sects, Nagarjuna gave it a philosophical basis. Not only is the individual person empty and lacking an eternal self, according to Nagarjuna, but the dharmas also are empty. He extended the concept of sunyata to cover all concepts and all entities. Emptiness thus means subjection to the law of causality or dependent origination and lack of an immutable essence and an invariant mark (nihsvabhavata). It also entails a repudiation of dualities between the conditioned and the unconditioned, between subject and object, relative and absolute, and between samsara and Nirvana. Thus, Nagarjuna arrived at an ontological monism; but he carried through an epistemological dualism (i.e., a theory of knowledge based on two sets of criteria) between two orders of truth: the conventional (samvrtti) and the transcendental (paramartha). The one reality is ineffable. Nagarjuna undertook a critical examination of all the major categories with which philosophers had sought to understand reality and showed them all to involve self-contradictions. The world is viewed as a network of relations, but relations are unintelligible. If two terms, A and B, are related by the relation R, then either A and B are different or they are identical. If they are identical, they cannot be related; if they are altogether different then they cannot also be related, for they would have no common ground. The notion of partial identity and partial difference is also rejected as unintelligible. The notion of causality is rejected on the basis of similar reasonings. The concepts of change, substance, self, knowledge, and universals do not fare any better. Nagarjuna also directed criticism against the concept of pramana, or the means of valid knowledge. Nagarjuna's philosophy is also called Madhyamika, because it claims to tread the middle path, which consists not in synthesizing opposed views such as The real is permanent and The real is changing but in showing the hollowness of both the claims. To say that reality is both permanent and changing is to make another metaphysical assertion, another viewpoint, whose opposite is Reality is neither permanent nor changing. In relation to the former, the latter is a higher truth, but the latter is still a point of view, a drsti, expressed in a metaphysical statement, though Nagarjuna condemned all metaphysical statements as false. Nagarjuna used reason to condemn reason. Those of his disciples who continued to limit the use of logic to this negative and indirect method, known as prasanga, are called the prasangikas: of these, Aryadeva, Buddhapalita, and Candrakirti are the most important. Bhavaviveka, however, followed the method of direct reasoning and thus founded what is called the svatantra (independent) school of Mahhyamika philosophy. With him Buddhist logic comes to its own, and during his time the Yogacaras split away from the Sunyavadins. Contributions of Vasubandhu and Asanga Converted by his brother Asanga to the Yogacara, Vasubandhu wrote the Vijapti-matrata-siddhi (Establishment of the Thesis of CognitionsOnly), in which he defended the thesis that the supposedly external objects are merely mental conceptions. Yogacara idealism is a logical development of Sautrantika representationism: the conception of a merely inferred external world is not satisfying. If consciousness is self-intimating (svaprakasa) and if consciousness can assume forms (sakaIaviiana), it seems more logical to hold that the forms ascribed to alleged external objects are really forms of consciousness. One only needs another conception: a beginningless power that would account for this tendency of consciousness to take up forms and to externalize them. This is the power of kalpana, or imagination. Yogacara added two other modes of consciousness to the traditional six: ego consciousness (manovijana) and storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijana). The alaya-vijana contains stored traces of past experiences, both pure and defiled seeds. Early anticipations of the notions of the subconscious or the unconscious, they are theoretical constructs to account for the order of individual experience. It still remained, however, to account for a common worldwhich in fact remains the main difficulty of Yogacara. The state of Nirvana becomes a state in which the alaya with its stored seeds would wither away (alayaparavrtti). Though the individual ideas are in the last resort mere imaginations, in its essential nature consciousness is without distinctions of subject and object. This ineffable consciousness is the suchness (tathata) underlying all things. Neither the alaya nor the tathata, however, is to be construed as being substantial. Vasubandhu and Asanga are also responsible for the growth of Buddhist logic. Vasubandhu defined perception as the knowledge that is caused by the object, but this was rejected by Dignaga, a 5th-century logician, as a definition belonging to his earlier realistic phase. Vasubandhu defined inference as a knowledge of an object through its mark, but Dharmottara, an 8th-century commentator pointed out that this is not a definition of the essence of inference but only of its origin.