Indian philosophy


Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana, meaning "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśana, ānvīkṣikī was used to refer to Indian philosophies by classical Indian philosophers, such as Chanakya in the Arthaśāstra.
A traditional Vedic classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Vedas as 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 Vedic philosophy—Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta—and five major non-Vedic or heterodox schools—Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Charvaka. The āstika group embraces the Vedas as an essential source of its foundations, while the nāstika group does not. However, there are other methods of classification; Vidyaranya for instance identifies sixteen schools of Indian philosophy by including those that belong to the Śaiva and Raseśvara traditions.
The main schools of Indian philosophy were formalised and recognised chiefly between 500 BCE and the late centuries of the Common Era. Some schools like Jainism, Buddhism, Yoga, Śaiva and Vedanta survived, but others, like Ajñana, Charvaka and Ājīvika did not.
Ancient and medieval era texts of Indian philosophies include extensive discussions on ontology, reliable means of knowledge, value system and other topics.

Common themes

Indian philosophies share many concepts such as dharma, karma, samsara, dukkha, renunciation, meditation, with almost all of them focusing on the ultimate goal of liberation of the individual from dukkha and samsara through diverse range of spiritual practices. While many sutra texts explicitly mention that the work leads to moksha, Indian philosophy is not exclusively concerned with moksha.
They differ in their assumptions about the nature of existence as well as the specifics of the path to the ultimate liberation, resulting in numerous schools that disagreed with each other. Their ancient doctrines span the diverse range of philosophies found in other ancient cultures.

Hindu traditions

Some of the earliest surviving Indian philosophical texts are the Upanishads of the later Vedic period, which are considered to preserve the ideas of Brahmanism. Indian philosophical traditions are commonly grouped according to their relationship to the Vedas and the ideas contained in them. The origins of Jainism remain enigmatic, with scholarly consensus divided between pre-Vedic roots, parallel development alongside Vedic civilization or post-Vedic emergence. The historical presence of its 23rd Tirthankara, Parshvanatha in the 8th-7th century BCE provides one of the earliest anchors of the tradition. Despite the accepted historicity of Parshvanath, the historical claims such as the link between him and Mahavira, whether Mahavira renounced in the ascetic tradition of Parshvanatha, and other biographical details have led to different scholarly conclusions. Doubts about Parshvanatha's historicity are also supported by the oldest Jain texts, which present Mahavira with sporadic mentions of ancient ascetics and teachers without specific names. Even the early archaeological finds, such as the statues and reliefs near Mathura, lack iconography such as lions and serpents. Buddhism also originated at the end of the Vedic period. These traditions drew upon already established Brahmanical concepts, states Wiltshire, to communicate their own distinct doctrines.
Hindu philosophy classify Indian philosophical traditions as either orthodox or heterodox, depending on whether they accept the authority of the Vedas and the theories of brahman and ātman found therein. Besides these, the "heterodox" schools that do not accept the authority of the Vedas include Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivika and Charvaka.
This orthodox-heterodox terminology is a scholarly construct found in later Indian sources and not all of these sources agree on which system should be considered "orthodox". As such there are various heresiological systems in Indian philosophy. Some traditions see "orthodox" as a synonym for "theism" and "heterodox" as a synonym for atheism. Other Hindu sources argue that certain systems of Shaiva tantra should be considered heterodox due to its deviations from the Vedic tradition.
One of the most common list of Hindu orthodox schools is the "six philosophies", which are:
  • Sāṃkhya, a philosophical tradition which regards the universe as consisting of two independent realities: puruṣa and prakṛti and which describes a soteriology based on this duality, in which purush is discerned and disentangled from the impurities of prakriti. It has included atheistic authors as well as some theistic thinkers, and forms the basis of much of subsequent Indian philosophy.
  • Yoga, a school similar to Sāṃkhya which accepts a personal god and focuses on yogic practice.
  • Nyāya, a philosophy which focuses on logic and epistemology. It accepts four kinds of Pramā : perception, inference, comparison or analogy, word or testimony. Nyāya defends a form of direct realism and a theory of substances.
  • Vaiśeṣika, closely related to the Nyāya school, this tradition focused on the metaphysics of substance, and on defending a theory of atoms. Unlike Nyāya, they only accept two pramanas: perception and inference.
  • Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā, a school which focuses on exegesis of the Vedas, philology and the interpretation of Vedic ritual.
  • Vedānta, focuses on interpreting the philosophy of the Upanishads, particularly the soteriological and metaphysical ideas relating to Atman and Brahman.
Sometimes these six are coupled into three groups for both historical and conceptual reasons: Nyāya-''Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya-Yoga, and Mīmāṃsā-Vedānta. Each tradition also included different currents and sub-schools. For example, Vedānta was divided among the sub-schools of Advaita, Visishtadvaita, Dvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Suddhadvaita, and Achintya Bheda Abheda.
The doctrines of the Vedas and Upanishads were interpreted differently by these six schools, with varying degrees of overlap. They represent a "collection of philosophical views that share a textual connection", according to. They also reflect a tolerance for a diversity of philosophical interpretations within Hinduism while sharing the same foundation.
Hindu philosophers of the orthodox schools developed systems of epistemology and investigated topics such as metaphysics, ethics, psychology, hermeneutics, and soteriology within the framework of the Vedic knowledge, while presenting a diverse collection of interpretations. The commonly named six orthodox schools were the competing philosophical traditions of what has been called the "Hindu synthesis" of classical Hinduism.
All these systems are not the only "orthodox" systems of philosophy, as numerous sub-schools developed throughout the history of Hindu thought. They are however the most well known Hindu philosophical traditions.
In addition to the six systems, the Hindu philosopher Vidyāraṇya also includes several further Hindu philosophical systems in his Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha :
  • Paśupata, a school of Shaivism founded by Nakulisa
  • Shaiva Siddhantha, a theistic and dualistic school of Shaivism, which is influenced by Samkhya, and expands the Samkhya system further.
  • Pratyabhijña, which defends an idealistic monism and part of the Kashmir Shaivism tradition of Tantric Shaivism
  • Pāṇini Darśana, a tradition focusing on Sanskrit linguistics and grammar which also developed the theory of sphoṭavāda'' under Bhartṛhari, a theory which places speech and sound at the center of its metaphysics.
  • Raseśvara, an alchemical school which advocated the use of mercury as a way to attain enlightenment.

    Śramaṇic traditions

Several non-Vedic traditions of thought also flourished in ancient India and they developed their own philosophical systems. The Śramaṇas included various traditions which did not accept the Brahmanical religion of the Vedas. These non-Vedic schools gave rise to a diverse range of ideas about topics like the atman, atomism, ethics, materialism, atheism, agnosticism, free will, asceticism, family life, ahimsa and vegetarianism. Notable philosophies that were a part of Śramaṇa family were Jainism, early Buddhism, Charvaka, Ajñana and Ājīvika.
Indian Śramaṇa tradition had one of its earliest known prominent exemplar as Parshvanatha, the 23rd Tirthankar in 9th century BCE. It became prominent in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, and even more so during the Mauryan period. Jainism and Buddhism were especially influential. These traditions influenced all later forms of Indian philosophy who either adopted some of their ideas or reacted against them.

Jain philosophy

philosophy is the oldest Indian philosophy that separates body from the soul completely. Each individual soul is inherently endowed with infinite knowledge and boundless bliss. However, since infinity its true nature has remained veiled due to ignorance, causing it to mistakenly identify with the physical body. This misidentification leads to suffering and the accumulation of karma. As karma accumulates, the soul becomes bound to the cycle of birth and rebirth, perpetuating a continuous journey of suffering and ignorance, until it ultimately attains liberation through self-realization. Jainism lays down the path for the soul to realize its true nature by right faith and active awareness of the self as an unchanging eternal gnāta and drashtā distinct from its ignorant activities like thoughts, passions, etc.
Jainism experienced a resurgence after Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara, revitalized and unified the ancient teachings of the Śramaṇic tradition, originally established by Rishabhadeva, the first Jain Tirthankara, millions of years prior. Historians outside of the Jain tradition date Mahavira to the 6th century BCE, roughly contemporaneous with the Buddha. This timeline would place the historical Parshvanatha approximately 250 years earlier, in the 9th century BCE.
Jainism is a Śramaṇic religion and rejected the authority of the Vedas. However, like all Indian religions, it shares the core concepts such as karma, ethical living, rebirth, samsara and moksha. Jainism places strong emphasis on asceticism, ahimsa and anekantavada as a means of spiritual liberation, ideas that influenced other Indian traditions.
Jainism strongly upholds the individualistic nature of soul and personal responsibility for one's decisions; and that self-reliance and individual efforts alone are responsible for one's liberation. According to the Jain philosophy, the world is full of hiṃsā. Therefore, one should direct all efforts towards the attainment of Ratnatraya, which are Samyak Darshan, Samyak Gnana and Samyak Chàritra, the key requisites to attain liberation.