Indian Philsophy

I would like to post about the basics of Indian Philosophy. Many of us believe that we should
know the history and Phiosphy of our grat country to enable us to understand the present.

These are almost verbatim copy of lectures on Philosphy for non-Philosophy students.

If you think it is worthwhile, please respond.

Philosophy is a western discipline, the corresponding Indian word is "Darsana". Philosophy and
Darsana mean and do not mean the same thing. Philosophy means love of knowledge. It examines
the nature of basic realities, such as life, matter, knowledge, consciousness, beauty,
morality, etc. It seeks pure knowledge. The emphasis is on rationality. Whatever it says, has
to be justified by reason. It does not take anything for granted. As ertrand Russell said, it
appeals to reason, rather than to authority.

Darsana means direct vision or immediate knowledge. The secondary meaning, is more relevant
here. It applies to systems of knowledge, such as Samkhya, Vedanta etc. which aim at knowledge
of reality or tattva-jnana. It is goal oriented, According to Indian tradition a serious
enquiry is not to be pursued if it does not satisfy some requirement. (Prayojana is a necessary
condition of any and every enquiry). Some systems hold that the aim of Philosophy is to attain
direct visions of reality. Thus it is called Darsana. All the schools of thought accept some
authoritative knowledge, with the single exception of Carvaka thinkers. But acceptance of
authority does not amount to blind dogmatism. Rational discussion is present in plenty. The
accepted style of thinking is such that rationality creeps in. Thinkers have right to interpret
the authoritative texts, and understand them in a rational way.

Sincere thanks for starting this thread, which was decidedly a missing element in this community.

I did find some very elaborate notes on Vedanta and Indian Philosophy at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [http://iep.utm.edu]]. I think that the starter of this thread has taken a correct direction by the intuitive understanding of the fundamental differences between Occidental and Indian inquiry.

I frequently wonder about the significant differences in occidental and Indian thinking, I am yet to come to conclusions on it. However, I believe that a lot of things in Indian thought have been known for some time now, were unknown to Western thinkers until the colonization of India.

The point raised so far about the difference between Darshana and Philosophy (as the West knows it) is pertinent. It brings about an important distinction in the ways in which these two communities of the world think about ideas. It is tempting to think that there are schools in Indian thought which encourage open mindedness and accurate thinking by simply reviewing the schools of Indian thought.

There is a simple elaboration of the Indian schools of thought at the following Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_philosophy#Orthodox_Schools_.28Astika.29

Although I am somewhat more familiar with the Vedantic doctrines, I have to admit my fascination for Samkhya and Nyaya. I believe that the Carvaka school of thought sort of missed the bus, because of their focus on Hedonism. This probably explains why Buddhism and Jainism have become more successful than hedonistic philosophies.

I found a pretty interesting paper (pdf link: http://glasscock.tamu.edu/agora/winter02/sukumaran.PDF) in the Agora archives. It is a chronicle of Atheist thought in Indian philosophy and therefore is a historical account of the accepted modes of Indian thought.

It is quite interesting to consider that these modes of thought have existed, because I believe the presence of atheism can contribute to greater debate on metaphysics, and in a sense, the presence of competing ideologies can foster stronger theism, and social bonding could increase this way. Unfortunately, this defeats the very open mindedness which led to the presence of atheist thought in the first place. However, this is not the way it is constructed. The two are complementary and rise-fall patterns.

Nacchinarkiniyan said:

I would like to post about the basics of Indian Philosophy. Many of us believe that we should
know the history and Phiosphy of our grat country to enable us to understand the present.

These are almost verbatim copy of lectures on Philosphy for non-Philosophy students.

If you think it is worthwhile, please respond.

Philosophy is a western discipline, the corresponding Indian word is "Darsana". Philosophy and
Darsana mean and do not mean the same thing. Philosophy means love of knowledge. It examines
the nature of basic realities, such as life, matter, knowledge, consciousness, beauty,
morality, etc. It seeks pure knowledge. The emphasis is on rationality. Whatever it says, has
to be justified by reason. It does not take anything for granted. As ertrand Russell said, it
appeals to reason, rather than to authority.

Darsana means direct vision or immediate knowledge. The secondary meaning, is more relevant
here. It applies to systems of knowledge, such as Samkhya, Vedanta etc. which aim at knowledge
of reality or tattva-jnana. It is goal oriented, According to Indian tradition a serious
enquiry is not to be pursued if it does not satisfy some requirement. (Prayojana is a necessary
condition of any and every enquiry). Some systems hold that the aim of Philosophy is to attain
direct visions of reality. Thus it is called Darsana. All the schools of thought accept some
authoritative knowledge, with the single exception of Carvaka thinkers. But acceptance of
authority does not amount to blind dogmatism. Rational discussion is present in plenty. The
accepted style of thinking is such that rationality creeps in. Thinkers have right to interpret
the authoritative texts, and understand them in a rational way.

Click to expand...

Thank you. The links to the articles in Wikipedia are quite useful. I would try to present a simpler form so that those who want to read further can refer to Wikipedia and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Some of the topics in Indian philosophy have not been covered in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Shyam Ranganathan of York University is the editor for Indian philosophy. So if you know some Professor of Philosophy try to rope him/her in.

List of articles required.

http://www.yorku.ca/shyamr/DesiredArticleList.htm

I have been convassing people for this.

Excellent Idea.

I contacted Dr. Shyam Ranganathan regarding a correction in the article of BhedAbheda Vedanta some time back. He was forthcoming and said he would look into the correction. I don't know if he would be interested in being part of this forum but the following is possible:

1. We could go through the IEP webpage and understand which areas of Indian philosophy are missing from it.

2. Having identified the knowledge areas which need to be created, we could make a proposal to IEP (Ranganathan) to include material with research suggestions for the same.

I don't know if this should be covered in the purpose of this thread. Of course, it could be included in a separate thread or forum.

I am also in advocacy of creating a closed Wiki page using a domain which could be sponsored by this website. If this is possible, we could consolidate all the information which we want under a separate wiki called "Indian Philosophy Wiki" or something like it, where we give permissions to specific individuals for editing information on the wiki.

Do let me know if this is a good idea.

Nacchinarkiniyan said:

Thank you. The links to the articles in Wikipedia are quite useful. I would try to present a simpler form so that those who want to read further can refer to Wikipedia and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Some of the topics in Indian philosophy have not been covered in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Shyam Ranganathan of York University is the editor for Indian philosophy. So if you know some Professor of Philosophy try to rope him/her in.

List of articles required.

http://www.yorku.ca/shyamr/DesiredArticleList.htm

I have been convassing people for this.

Click to expand...

You have to be associated with the Philosophy department of a University to contribute to IEP. I have not seen any contribution from Indian Universities. Again writing an Encylopedic article is a bit of a chore. I have been contributing to Wikipedia for a number of years. The primary rule is " No Original research". This does tend to cramp your style. Then quoting from original Sanskrit texts is not encouraged because it can not be verified.

There are some web sites which do have articles. Sadly Hindu sites have become very commercial. There was a great site put up by a great soul from Madras in geocities.com. This was in the early days of internet. But it disappeared about a couple of years back. I tried to revive it from the internet archives. But since I could not contact the original contributor, I dropped the idea.

I had suggested to the administrators of this forum to create a web site like this.

http://www.namboothiri.com/

The highlight of the first post was the difference between the western concept of Philosophy and
the Indian concept.

Again to repeat:

The acceptance of authority did not amount to blind dogmatism. Rational discussion was present
in plenty. The accepted style of thinking was such that rationality creeps in. Thinkers had the
right to interpret the authoritative texts, and understand them in a rational way.

There was a traditional style which the philosophers in India were expected to observe. First,
the three stages of thinking were sravana, manana, and then nididhyasana.

The first one is acceptance of truths from teachers.

The second one is rational consideration.

This is followed by sadhana, or concentration.

This second stage ensures presence and use of reason.

Again there was a laid down philosophical procedure.

The first step is the statement of purvapaksa, or the opinion of the opponent. If no such
opponent is available, even then the theorist is expected to say, what an opponent may say.

This is followed by khandana, or criticism and rebuttal of the views of the opponent. Then
only, the thinker has the right to present his own conclusions.

In this way the rationality of the position was preserved.

We have benefited by this procedure. Many of the old texts have been lost. But we know the
position of the different systems from subsequent texts. Adi Sankaracharya in his Brahma Sutra
Bhashya first repudiates the position of all other schools. The same procedure was followed by
Ramanujacharya also.

Another style of philosophizing should be mentioned here. The philosophical thinking in India
can be traced back to the hoary past. Traditional Indian philosophy developed in systems. These
systems started with sutras, or aphorisms, which are pithy sayings, easy to memorise and full
of meanings. These were followed by commentaries and sub-commentaries, which were rational
exposition of the sutras.

The commentators never claimed any credit for original thinking; they professed to unfold the
thoughts of their masters. Each commentator tried to explain, what his preceptor has said. It
was his task to justify the position of the teacher against the arguments brought forward by
critics. This continued for centuries and ideas developed stage by stage. In spite of their
restrictive styles, new horizons opened up.

Two different types of commentaries have been accepted in India. In one the commentators do not
deviate from the words of the original texts. These are called Bhasyas. On the other, some
commentators had the liberty of exploring beyond the original, expanding the thoughts contained
therein. These are Vartikas.

Foe example Panini's grammar is in the form of Sutras. Every Sutra has a Bhasya and a Vartika. To understand the Sutra we read the Sutra, Bhasya and the vartika