Eastern philosophy


Eastern philosophy includes the various philosophies that originated in East and South Asia, including Chinese philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Korean philosophy, and Vietnamese philosophy, which are dominant in East Asia; and Indian philosophy, which are dominant in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Japan and Mongolia.

Indian philosophy

refers to ancient philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism may have roots dating back to the times of the Indus Valley civilization. The major orthodox schools arose sometime between the start of the Common Era and the Gupta Empire. These Hindu schools developed what has been called the "Hindu synthesis" merging orthodox Brahmanical and unorthodox elements from Buddhism and Jainism. Hindu thought also spread east to the Indonesian Srivijaya empire and the Cambodian Khmer Empire. These religio-philosophical traditions were later grouped under the label Hinduism. Hinduism is the dominant religion, or way of life, in South Asia. It includes Shaivism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism among numerous other traditions, and a wide spectrum of laws and prescriptions of "daily morality" based on karma, dharma, and societal norms. Hinduism is a categorization of distinct intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid, common set of beliefs. Hinduism, with about one billion followers is the world's third-largest religion, after Christianity and Islam. Hinduism has been called the "oldest religion" in the world and is traditionally called Sanātanī|, "the eternal law" or the "eternal way"; beyond human origins. Western scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions, with diverse roots and no single founder.
Some of the earliest surviving philosophical texts are the Upanishads of the later Vedic period. Important Indian philosophical concepts include dharma, karma, samsara, moksha, and ahimsa. Indian philosophers developed a system of epistemological reasoning and logic and investigated topics such as Ontology, reliable means of knowledge, value system and other topics. Indian philosophy also covered topics such as political philosophy as seen in the Arthashastra c. 4th century BCE and the philosophy of love as seen in the Kama Sutra. The Kural literature of the post-Sangam period between c. 1st century BCE and 5th century CE, written by the Tamil poet-philosopher Valluvar, is believed by many scholars to be based on Jain or Hindu philosophies.
Later developments include the development of Tantra and Iranian-Islamic influences. Buddhism mostly disappeared from India after the Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent, surviving in the Himalayan regions and south India. The early modern period saw the flourishing of Navya-Nyāya under philosophers such as Raghunatha Siromani who founded the tradition, Jayarama Pancanana, Mahadeva Punatamakara and Yashovijaya.

Orthodox schools

The principal Indian philosophical schools are classified as either orthodox or heterodox – āstika or nāstika – depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Vedas are a valid source of knowledge; whether the school believes in the premises of Brahman and Atman; and whether the school believes in afterlife and Devas.
There are six major schools of orthodox Indian Hindu philosophy—Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta, and five major heterodox schools—Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Cārvāka. However, there are other methods of classification; Vidyaranya for instance identifies sixteen schools of Hindu Indian philosophy by including those that belong to the Śaiva and Raseśvara traditions.
Each school of Hindu philosophy has extensive epistemological literature called Pramana-sastras.
In Hindu history, the distinction of the six orthodox schools was current in the Gupta period "golden age" of Hinduism. With the disappearance of Vaisheshika and Mīmāṃsā, it became obsolete by the later Middle Ages, when the various sub-schools of Vedanta began to rise to prominence as the main divisions of religious philosophy. Nyaya survived into the 17th century as Navya Nyaya "Neo-Nyaya", while Samkhya gradually lost its status as an independent school, its tenets absorbed into Yoga and Vedanta.

Sāmkhya and Yoga

is a dualist philosophical tradition based on the Samkhyakarika, while the Yoga school was a closely related tradition emphasizing meditation and liberation whose major text is the Yoga sutras. Elements of proto-Samkhya ideas can, however, be traced back to the period of the early Upanishads. One of the main differences between the two closely related schools was that Yoga allowed for the existence of a God, while most Sāmkhya thinkers criticized this idea.
Sāmkhya epistemology accepts three of six pramanas as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge; pratyakṣa, anumāṇa and śabda. The school developed a complex theoretical exposition of the evolution of consciousness and matter. Sāmkhya sources argue that the universe consists of two realities, puruṣa and prakṛti.
As shown by the Sāṁkhyapravacana Sūtra, Sāmkhya continued to develop throughout the medieval period.

Nyāya

school of epistemology explores sources of knowledge and is based on the Nyāya Sūtras. Nyāya holds that human suffering arises out of ignorance and liberation arises through correct knowledge. Therefore, they sought to investigate the sources of correct knowledge or epistemology.
Nyāya traditionally accepts four Pramanas as reliable means of gaining knowledge – Pratyakṣa, Anumāṇa, Upamāṇa and Śabda. Nyāya also traditionally defended a form of philosophical realism.
The Nyāya Sūtras was a very influential text in Indian philosophy, laying the foundations for classical Indian epistemological debates between the different philosophical schools. It includes, for example, the classic Hindu rejoinders against Buddhist not-self arguments. The work also famously argues against a creator God, a debate which became central to Hinduism in the medieval period.

Vaiśeṣika

is a naturalist school of atomism, which accepts only two sources of knowledge, perception, and inference. This philosophy held that the universe was reducible to paramāṇu, which are indestructible, indivisible, and have a special kind of dimension, called "small". Whatever we experience is a composite of these atoms.
Vaiśeṣika organized all objects of experience into what they called padārthas which included six categories; dravya, guṇa, karma, sāmānya, viśeṣa and samavāya. Later Vaiśeṣikas added one more category abhava. The first three categories are defined as artha and they have real objective existence. The last three categories are defined as budhyapekṣam and they are logical categories.

Mīmāṃsā

is a school of ritual orthopraxy and is known for its hermeneutical study and interpretation of the Vedas. For this tradition, the study of dharma as ritual and social duty was paramount. They also held that the Vedas were "eternal, authorless, infallible" and that Vedic injunctions and mantras in rituals are prescriptive actions of primary importance. Because of their focus on textual study and interpretation, Mīmāṃsā also developed theories of philology and the philosophy of language which influenced other Indian schools. They primarily held that the purpose of language was to correctly prescribe proper actions, rituals, and correct dharma. Mīmāṃsā is also mainly atheistic, holding that the evidence for the existence of God is insufficient and that the Gods named in the Vedas have no existence apart from the names, mantras and their power.
A key text of the Mīmāṃsā school is the Mīmāṃsā Sūtra of Jaimini and major Mīmāṃsā scholars include Prabhākara and Kumārila Bhaṭṭa. The Mīmāṃsā school strongly influenced Vedānta, which was also known as Uttara-Mīmāṃsā; however, while Mīmāṃsā emphasized karmakāṇḍa, or the study of ritual actions, using the four early Vedas, the Vedānta schools emphasized jñanakāṇḍa, the study of knowledge, using the later parts of Vedas like the Upaniṣads.

Vedānta

or Uttara-Mīmāṃsā, are a group of traditions which focus on the philosophical issues found in the Prasthanatrayi, which are the Principal Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita. Vedānta sees the Vedas, particularly the Upanishads, as a reliable source of knowledge.
The central concern for these schools is the nature of and the relationship between Brahman, Ātman and Prakriti.
The sub-traditions of Vedānta include Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, and Bhedabheda. Due to the popularity of the bhakti movement, Vedānta came to be the dominant current of Hinduism in the post-medieval period.

Other

While the classical enumeration of Indian philosophies lists six orthodox schools, there are other schools that are sometimes seen as orthodox. These include:
The nāstika or heterodox schools are associated with the non-Vedic Śramaṇic traditions that existed in India since before the 6th century BCE. The Śramaṇa movement gave rise to a diverse range of non-Vedic ideas, ranging from accepting or denying the concepts of atman, atomism, materialism, atheism, agnosticism, fatalism to free will, extreme asceticism, strict ahimsa and vegetarianism. Notable philosophies that arose from Śramaṇic movement were Jainism, early Buddhism, Cārvāka, Ajñana, and Ājīvika.