Discovery India

The School of India Hindu Philosophy

Lecture by Dr. Darain DeBolt 9/12/2005

Ronald Hunter BFA.MED.BFA.

( This is a light look into a very vast subject the links below will provide much more comprehensive information)

The School of Hindu Philosophy

Classical India Philosophy

Indian Philosophy, one of the foremost Eastern traditions of abstract inquiry, expressed in the Indo-European language of Sanskrit. This philosophy comprises many diverse schools of thought and perspectives, and includes a substantial body of intellectual debate and argumentation among the various views we have today in the west, and the Greek to some extent of the past. (1)

Hindu Scripture

Hindu Philosophy

The Six Main Schools of Thought

1. Nyaya

2. Vaisheshika

3. Samkhya

4. Yoga

5. Purva Minansa

6.Vedanta Uttara Mimamsa

1. Nyaya

This philosophical speculation is based on a text is called the Nyaya Sutra.

It was written by Aksapada Gautama around the 3rd century BCE.

The most important contribution made by this school is its methodology.(2)

This is based on a system of logic adopted by most of the other Indian schools (orthodox or not), much in the same way that Western science and philosophy can be said to be largely based on Aristotelian logic.

Aristotle's logical system

Aristotle has 4 kinds of quantified sentences, and each of these contain a Subject and a Predicate:

• Universal affirmative: Every S is a P.

• Universal negative: No S is a P.

• Particular affirmative: Some S is a P.

• Particular negative: Not every S is a P.

Nyaya is the name given to one of the six orthodox or Astika schools of Hindu philosophy - specifically the school of logic called Aristotelian logic, also known as syllogistic logic, This is the same particular type of logic created by Aristotle, primarily in his works Prior Analytics and De Interpretatione.

But Nyaya is not merely logic for its own sake. Its followers believed that obtaining valid knowledge was the only way to obtain release from suffering, the physical body of pain. They identify valid sources of knowledge to distinguish them from mere false opinions.(3)

According to the Nyaya school, there are exactly 4 sources of knowledge. (Pramanas):

• perception,

• inference

• comparison

• testimony

Knowledge obtained from these are still either valid or invalid. Nyaya scholars identify, in each case, what it took to make knowledge valid. In the process they came up with a number of explanatory schemes, much like the

Contemporary Western analytical philosophy did and later developed into the System of Navya Nyaya (New Logic)

2. Vaisheshika (Particularity)

The Vaisheshika system was founded by the sage Kanada (2nd Century BC).

The school postulates an atomic pluralism. In terms of this school of thought, all objects in the physical universe are reducible to a certain number of atoms.

Vaisheshika, also Vaisesika, (Sanskrit: वैशॆषिक)is the Hindu schools of philosophy (orthodox Vedic systems)

Kanada was a Hindu sage who founded the philosophical school of Vaisheshika. Vaishesika system developed independently from the Nyaya, where these two eventually merged because of their closely related metaphysical theories

The Vaishesika differed from the Nyaya in one crucial difference:

Where Nyaya accepted four sources of valid knowledge, the Vaishesika school accepted only perception and inference as being such..

3. Samkhya

Believed to be the oldest of the orthodox philosophy of Hinduism. Seeing the universe as consisting of two eternal realities: Purusha and Prakrti. The Purushas (souls) are many, conscious and devoid of all qualities. They are the silent spectators of Prakrti (matter or nature), composed of three Gunas (dispositions): Satva, Rajas and Tamas (steadiness, activity and dullness).

When the equilibrium of the Gunas is disturbed, the world order evolves.

This disturbance is due to the proximity of Purusha and Prakrti.

Purusha :

potential conscious

potential of activity

potential of nature to be changing

Prakrti: nature

Kaivalya: Liberation , it is the difference between the two.

Purusa

Misery and its source [Conception of Avidya, Explanation of

'error' form the standpoint of Samkhya]

Liberation free form the Samsara

Gunas composed of three Gunas (dispositions)

Satva,

Rajas

Tamas (steadiness, activity and dullness).

Samkhya, also Sankhya,

Sanskrit is a school of Indian philosophy, and is one of the six Astika or Hindu philosophical schools, which is a dualistic philosophy. There are differences between the Samkhya and Western forms of dualism. In the West, the fundamental distinction is between mind and body.

In Samkhya, however, it is between the self (Purusha) and matter, In Sankhya it incorporates what Westerners would normally refer to as "mind".

4. Yoga

The Yoga system is generally considered to have arisen from the Samkhya philosophy. It’s primary text is the Bhagavad Gita, which explores the four primary systems.

The Sage Patanjali wrote the extremely influential text on Raja Yoga (or meditational) entitled the "Yoga Sutra". It is suggest he lived between 200 BC and 400 AD, in many ancient texts he is referred to as an incarnation of the serpent god Ananta, so he is sometimes depicted as half human and half serpent.(4)

The major difference from Samkhya is that the Yoga school not only incorporates the concept of Ishvara (a personal God) into its metaphysical worldview. It upholds Ishvara as the ideal upon which to meditate. In this school of Yoga Ishvara is the only aspect of Purusha that has not become entangled with Prakrti.

Prakrti (Sanskrit, "making first") denotes primordial

Prakrti in mythology is personified as a goddess or cosmic energy

Yoga utilizes the Brahman and the Atman terminology with the same concepts that are in the Upanishads, while adopting concepts of Vedantic monism.

With a system for the progressively gaining physical and mental control and mastery over the "personal self", both body and mind, until consciousness comes to the awareness of one's "real Self" (the soul, or Atman), as separate from one's feelings, thoughts and actions. This realization brings to the goal of Yoga that which is known as Moksha, Nirvana and Samadhi. These are in the most simple form to the realization of the Atman as being nothing other than the infinite Brahman. (5)

5. Purva Minansa

Dharma: duty to the ALL, this was written by Jaimini.

It is the sutras or Aphorisms which is its chief doctrinal authority, also called Karma-Mimansa because of the doctrine, that teaches one can be more or less freed from the making of new karma.

6.Vedanta Uttara Mimamsa

Shamkara;

The study and observation on cosmology this form is unparalleled in the realm of science and methodology.

The Vedanta Darsana, acknowledges Brahma as the Supreme Fundamental Truth.

Indian tradition has identified Badarayana, as the author of the Brahma Sutra, with Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas. There have been many commentaries written on this text.

1 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit

2 Nyaya Sutras of Gotama, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=called+the+Nyaya+Sutra.&btnG=Search

3 Hindu philosophy, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_philosophies

4 Biography of Patanjali ,Kofi Busia,, http://www.kofibusia.com/level_2_patanjali/patanjali.html

5 Yoga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga

Ronald Hunter BFA.MED.BFA.

Discovery India

The School of India

Lecture by Dr. Darain DeBolt 9/12/2005

Links

Yoga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,

Hindu philosophy, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,

Dharma & Philosophy

Hindu philosophy. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05

Hindu philosophy: Schools of Hindu Philosophy

Encyclopedia: Schools of Hinduism