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In the post Holy Books of India, we present an overview of Indian literature. Now we will deal with several philosophical themes related to Hinduism.
Hindu philosophy is the oldest philosophical tradition in India, manifested in various historical periods. The first, around 700 B.C., was the Proto philosophical Period, when theories of karma and liberation emerged, and the proto scientific ontological lists in the Upaniṣhads were compiled.
They are part of the shruti Hindu scriptures, which discuss religion, and which are considered by most schools of Hinduism as religious instructions. There is no clear translation of this term, but it is used to designate someone who sits close to a teacher to listen to them.
The Milky Ocean, attributed to the “Durga Master,” ca 1780–90 CE from the Mehrangarh Museum. Vishnu lying on the cosmic waters dreaming the world into being. From: The Human Journey.
In the philosophy of science, protoscience is a field of research that has characteristics of an undeveloped science that may end up becoming an established science. Philosophers use protoscience to understand the history of science and to distinguish it from pseudoscience. The roots of the words proto + science indicate first science.
Then came the Classical Period, during the first millennium after Christ with constant philosophical exchange between different Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain schools. Some schools, such as Sāṅkhya, Yoga and Vaiśeṣika, fell into oblivion and others emerged, such as Kashmiri Saivism.
After the Classical Period, only two or three schools remained active. The political and economic disruptions caused by repeated Muslim invasions hampered intellectual growth. The Logical School (Nyāya), especially the New Logic (Navya-Nyāya), the Grammarians and the Vedānta schools survived.
According to Dilipi Luondo, Doctor in Indian Philosophy from the University of Mumbai (India) and Coordinator of the Center for Studies in Religions and Philosophies of India (NERFI-CNPq. - Brazil), “there is no Hindu religion but the terms that designate the religiosities that we call how they are included within a broad general framework called Hinduism are extremely diverse and plural and when you address these religious practices in local contexts through vernacular languages the designations are different. The word Hinduism was somehow imposed on this civilization. Today, this is not a problem, but it is important to note that Hinduism, if we take the defining criteria of religions as a reference, is not a religion.”
Philosophical thought in India began to form during the first millennium B.C. with the appearance of the Upaniṣhads and the development of different philosophical schools. In Indian thought it is not easy to distinguish between philosophy and theology as two independent branches of knowledge. Both go together as integral parts of every philosophical system or school born on Indian soil.
Hindus saw death as the passage of one's own spirit to another new being, reincarnated in a continuous series of births, deaths, and rebirths. Karma was like a physical law – everything that happens is a consequence of one’s own choice and behavior. An understanding then grew that people are at distinct stages of their spiritual journey and that one person's practices may not be appropriate for others.
Central themes of Hinduism
The central concerns of Hindu philosophers were metaphysics, epistemological questions, and moral philosophy. The different schools can be distinguished by their different approaches to reality. They all believed in the existence of a permanent individual “I” (ātman). They shared with their opponents, Buddhists and Jains, a belief in the need for liberation and used similar epistemic tools and methods of argument.
Epistemology, in the strict sense, refers to the branch of philosophy that deals with scientific knowledge. It is the critical study of the principles, hypotheses, and results of the various sciences, with the purpose of determining their logical foundations, their value, and their objective importance.
Sanskrit-speaking Aryans
Most scholars believe that during the second millennium B.C., Sanskrit-speaking Aryans gradually migrated south from the steppes of Central Asia, through the lands of present-day Afghanistan, where they found the remains of the earliest Indus-Saraswati civilization and infiltrated in the Indian Subcontinent around 1500 B.C.
Sarasvati is the Hindu goddess of wisdom, arts, and music and Shákti, the representation of the divine feminine, also known as The Great Divine Mother. This feminine force is responsible for the balance of the entire universe and is linked to the feminine energy, which exists in all Hindu gods. Shákti is the portrait of feminine power, fertility, creativity, and communication. Inseparable from it is the masculine principle, Shiva, which represents universal consciousness, the rational.
It is also the name of an extinct river in India, from the Indus River Valley, where the Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization developed, around 3000 B.C. Due to geological changes, this river dried up around 2000 B.C. and was rediscovered by satellite at the end of the 20th century. Its rediscovery led to a reinterpretation of the disappearance of the civilization that existed in that region. Previously, it was assumed that it had been destroyed because of a supposed invasion by the Aryans; Currently, it is believed that local climate change, which transformed the region into a desert, was the cause of the decline of this civilization. (Wikipedia).
The term Aryan in reference to an ethnic group, has several meanings. It concerns, more specifically, the subgroup of Indo-Europeans, who established themselves on the Iranian plateau since the end of the third millennium B.C. By extension, the name Aryans (not the term "Arias") was related to several peoples originating from the steppes of Central Asia, the Indo-Europeans, who spread across Europe and the regions already mentioned, from the end of the Neolithic. The name Aryan comes from the Sanskrit arya, which means noble.
Around 1000 B.C., the aryans became farmers and met non-Aryan peoples when they settled in cities. As their numbers increased over the next four centuries, traders, merchants, Aryan landowners, and moneylenders appeared. They traded with Arabia, the Assyrian empire, and later with China, the Malay Peninsula, and the islands of what are now Indonesia and the Philippines. Around 600 B.C., numerous cities were formed in northern India, with fortifications, moats, and walls.
Along the Ganges River, sixteen different kingdoms appeared. This expansion of the Indo-Aryans into the Gangetic plains brought with it changes in thought, diversity of opinions and questions.
As people became disinterested in religious routine and ritual sacrifice, the focus shifted to questions about the “self” and its relationship to the universe. Vedic notions were retained but adapted, reinterpreted, and expanded to include Hindu changes. Between 800 and 600 B.C., religious life changed as classical Hinduism and the advent of the Axial Age (between 800 B.C. and 200 B.C.) arrived in India. German philosopher Karl Jaspers defined the Axial Age as the deepest dividing line in history, during which the same line of thought appeared in three regions of the world: China, India, and the West.
Upanishads
This new interest was expressed in contemplative writings called the Upanishads, a collection of about two hundred books written over two centuries. They became the basis of Hinduism, serving as a summary of all the knowledge of the Vedas. Some contributors to the Upanishads repeated beliefs already expressed in the Vedas, such as that every living being has a spirit and that all spirits can migrate in and out of things.
But now the Hindus saw death as the passing of one's own spirit into another new being, reincarnated in a continuous series of births, deaths and rebirths called Samsara (wandering). The fate of a spirit or soul after death depended on how the person behaved in a previous life. Virtuous deeds led the soul to reincarnate in a higher life form; bad actions led the soul to enter an inferior form.
The concept of reincarnation is also found among some Native Americans, the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands and in West Africa. The idea was also attributed to Pythagoras, Socrates, and other philosophers of the Axial era of Ancient Greece – descendants of the Indo-Europeans.
Karma was like a physical law, and even the gods were subject to it. A person's moral acts determine their status in reincarnation, which means that everyone inexorably receives what they deserve. The Upanishads teach that what a person will be depends on how this person acts and behaves. What happens to someone is a consequence of their own choice and behavior and the current condition reflects previous acts in previous reincarnations.
Human birth is precious because, as human beings, we have the unique opportunity to affect our existence through conscious choice. But being reborn as a god or a Brahmin (a member of the priestly caste of Hindu society) is rare and requires a lot of karmic merit.
The power of sacred ritual action as a way of contacting the sacred worlds was no longer enough. Now the sages wanted to know the true nature of brahman, the profound reality that was the basis of religious practice and the very foundation of life. Brahman is the masculine and neutral form of brama. It is a concept from Hinduism, like the concept of absolute present in other religions. The term designates the divine, non-personalized and neutral principle of Brahmanism and theosophy. Not to be confused with Brahma, who, together with Vishnu and Shiva, forms the classical Hindu trinity.
The Axial sages thought this knowledge would confer liberation. In the Upanishads they sought the nature of ultimate reality and questioned the true nature of the “self.” They sought something immortal, redefining the pre-axial term for breath atman to mean something equivalent to “soul” that does not die when the body does, but has always existed. They claimed that confusing the distinction between the lower senses of the body and mind and atman, the higher “self,” brings anguish and suffering to the human being.
In the middle of the Axial era, atman and brahman converged and the sages concluded that the soul is identical with ultimate reality itself. Maya (the veil over reality) deceives us and makes us think and act in a self-centered manner, separates us from brahman and atman, and imprisons us in Samsara.
Moksha, the end of reincarnation
The main problem of the Hindu Axial Age was how to achieve complete liberation from the clutches of continuous birth and death (moksha), the end of reincarnation. In pursuit of this, people of all castes were led in masse to give up everything. Renunciation was seen as the only hope for a life of freedom and achievement.
Known as Samanas, there were so many that they were considered a fifth caste. These ascetics and sages lived alone in caves or forests, or with their families in communities supported by those who felt unable to seek moksha in this way.
Multiple gods
As the Hindu religion evolved throughout the Axial Period, there grew an understanding that people are at distinct stages of their spiritual journey and that one person's practices may not be appropriate for others. Thus, the worship of deities continued parallel to the search for brahman. Hindu gods with multiple arms or heads, some blue or elephant-like, are simultaneously human and non-human.
Its function is to remind Hindus that brahman transcends the human capacity for thought and experience, and to point beyond the manufactured image toward ultimate reality. These deities are manifestations of brahman and channels for brahman.
There are 330 Hindu gods. A Hindu can choose his Ista-Devata, personal deity of his choice. These images, to this day, help devotees, allowing them to feel close to divine reality and for it to care about them. During festivals such as Darsan, images of deities are fed, dressed, and honored and finally, at the end of the festival, destroyed, in recognition of the fact that reality is beyond the image, a mere metaphor created by humans to help them on their journey towards brahman, the one true Reality.
Mysticism
One of the main trends in Indian religious philosophy is mysticism. This term can be misleading, as it can evoke Western, and particularly Christian, notions of religious experience, practice, and ends. However, many scholars of religion have long used these concepts to study Hinduism and interpret it for Western students. The desire for union of the “self” with something greater than the “self,” whether defined as a principle pervading the universe or as a personal god, is a sense in which Hinduism has a “mystical” dimension.
However, while Hindu mysticism, at one extreme, is the realization of the identity of the individual “self” with the impersonal principle called brahman (the position of the Vedanta school of Indian philosophy), at the other extreme is intensive devotion to a personal god who it is found in bhakti (devotional) groups.
First, it is based on experience: the state of achievement, whatever it is called, is both knowable and communicable, and the systems are all designed to teach people how to achieve it. This is not, in other words, pure speculation.
Secondly, it aims to liberate the spiritual substance of the individual from its imprisonment in matter, whether matter is considered real or illusory. Third, many systems recognize the importance or necessity of mind and body control as a means of achievement; Sometimes this takes the form of extreme asceticism and mortification, and sometimes it takes the form of cultivating the mind and body so that their energies can be channeled properly.
Finally, at the heart of Hindu mystical thought is the functional principle that to know is to be. Thus, knowledge is something more than an analytical categorization: it is a total understanding. This understanding can be purely intellectual, and some schools equate the goal with omniscience, as Yoga does. But understanding can also mean total transformation: if someone truly knows something, it is that thing.
Thus, in devotional schools, the devotees's objective is to transform themself into a being who, in eternity, is in an immediate and loving relationship with divinity. But although both are ways of knowing, some consider the difference between them significant. First, the individual has the responsibility to train and use his or her own intellect.
The romantic relationship of the second, on the other hand, is one of dependence, and the deity assists the devotee through grace. Thus, some theological schools emphasize self-control, while others emphasize devotion and divine grace. Other teachers say that the devotee should not strive to control his mind; rather, with meditation, your consciousness will naturally try to transcend itself and reach a state of bliss.
In fact, some Shri Vaishnava theologians have said that one should simply consent to receive divine grace and not assume any responsibility in the scheme of salvation; others within this tradition have emphasized the importance of bhakti understood as active self-surrender to Vishnu and Lakshmi.
The distinction between these two views of salvation is illustrated by the analogy of the cat and the monkey. The cat carries her kittens in her mouth and therefore the kitten has no responsibility. But the young monkey must cling, with its own strength, to its mother's back.
Sri Vaishnavism is a religious sect that originated in southern India and is known for its rich theological history and the unique ways in which it has been practiced over the centuries. It is centered on the worship of Vishnu, the preserver of the universe, and is one of the most prominent Vaishnavite traditions in India. It has been a major influence on Indian culture and society and has given rise to many of the country's great philosophical and spiritual leaders.
Theists or atheists
In contrast to their opponents, who were atheists, Hindu philosophers could be either theists or atheists. In fact, we can observe a growing tendency toward theistic ideas near the end of the Classical Period, with the result that strictly atheistic teachings, which were more philosophically rigorous and sound, fell into disuse. Hindu metaphysics perceived ātman as part of a greater reality (brahman).
Metaphysics
The concept of ātman was crucial in many debates because many had a different understanding of it or claimed they did not need this concept. This helped a more precise articulation of the term, although many Hindu thinkers maintained that knowledge of ātman is only a partial understanding of reality; the individual “self” is just one part of the larger picture of the universe, an all-encompassing spiritual entity, of which ātman is a tiny fragment.
Experiencing this spiritually, through meditative practices, frees one from the normal way of things: such a person is not reborn and does not repeat the anguish, pain, illness, old age, and death of ordinary mortals; instead, you are free forever. It can be achieved through one's own efforts, although the guidance of a teacher, a guru, is often necessary.
These efforts may need to be extended over several lifetimes to eliminate all accumulated karmic imprints. Karmic imprints, which can result from physical activities, speech, or mental acts, are what truly bind people to the swirling process of rebirth.
Gradually, notions of divine intervention in the liberation process found their way into numerous teachings. It was a combination of one's own efforts plus divine grace that would guarantee final liberation, which was now not just freedom from repeated cycles of lives, but also an identification with the divine, or the companionship of a god as an eternal lover or servant.
Some Advaita philosophers have postulated a single ultimate principle, while others have argued for the existence of one ultimate cause of the universe: God. However, the worship of a multitude of gods was still widely practiced, as it is to this day. Advaita Vedanta is a “philosophy,” that emerged many centuries ago in India, having its origins in the Vedas, the oldest and most sacred scriptures of Hinduism. Advaita means “non-duality,” and Vedanta means “the final part (or conclusion) of the Vedas.”
The main doctrine of Advaita postulates that only the Absolute (brahman) is real and that the world (all creation) is unreal, with all modification, duality, plurality, whether objective or subjective, is just a superimposition, an image which is superimposed on the Absolute through the power of illusion (maya).
Udayana (11th century), one of the most prominent thinkers of the School of Logic (Nyāya), constructed a set of arguments for the existence of God. Put, his claim is that this multifaceted world must obviously be the effect of some cause, and that cause must be nothing other than God.
But not all thinkers felt the need to trace the world to a primary cause, although most considered causal chains to be of primary importance in interpreting the world.
The nature of the causal relationship has been hotly debated. Some have claimed that an effect already exists in some form latent in its cause, just as yogurt is already potentially present in milk even before the milk turns sour. In the same way, this entire multiple world already existed in an undifferentiated primitive aqueous mass, in which it will dissolve again at the end of its existence.
Other philosophers, such as Śaṅkara (eighth century), interpreted the relationship between cause and effect in a slightly unusual way. The difference is only apparent, the universe is only superimposed on an immutable, eternal, universal and undifferentiated principle, the brahman of the Upanishadic thinkers. We overlap things out of ignorance.
A good analogy is that of a man walking down the road, half-blinded by the bright midday sun. Suddenly, he jumps over an elongated shape on the road, afraid of stepping on a snake. A passerby laughs and asks, ‘Are you afraid of a piece of dirty old rope?’ The person who jumped in fear was superimposing a snake on the old rope. In the same way, we superimpose the entire universe on brahman. There are no causal relationships. We talk about such concepts to facilitate debate, but they have no place at the final level.
Sources of knowledge
Since the worldviews were different, they had to be proven and properly established. Consequently, logical, and epistemological tools were developed and shaped according to the needs and beliefs of each philosopher. Most agreed on two or three sources of knowledge: perception and inference, with verbal testimony as a possible third source.
In this quest for philosophical rigor, there was a need for precision of language, and there were important philosophical developments among the grammarians and the philosophers who explained the Vedas (the Mīmāṃsakas). The culmination of these linguistic efforts can be seen in the language philosopher Bhartṛhari. One of his greatest achievements was the full articulation of the theory that a sentence is understood in a sudden act of comprehension.
Bhartṛhari (also Romanized as Bhartrihari, fifth century C.E.) was a Hindu linguistic philosopher who is typically attributed two influential Sanskrit texts: the Trikāṇḍī (including Vākyapadīya), on Sanskrit grammar and linguistic philosophy, and the Śatakatraya, a work of Sanskrit poetry, comprising three collections of around one hundred stanzas each.
In logic, inference is the intellectual operation through which the truth of a proposition is affirmed because of its connection with other propositions already recognized as true. It therefore consists of deriving conclusions from known or decidedly true premises.
Due to their different ontologies, the schools also disagreed about the objects of knowledge. Nyāya stated that they were the “self,” the body, the sense organs, the mind, rebirth, pain, and freedom (Mokṣa).
Sāṅkhya linked the objects of cognition to the sense organs: the eye has color as its object, the ear has sound, the tongue has taste, and so on; inference has as its object things beyond sensory perception, such as consciousness, the undifferentiated material matter of the universe, and causal relationships.
‘Perception’ was confined to sensory or external perception. Some thinkers have also recognized a kind of mental perception for mental states (such as joy or distress). This was sometimes classified as belonging to a broader category of inner awareness that also included yogic awareness. Yoga and other types of perception, in turn, could be classified as “extraordinary,” as in the Nyāya system, especially its later form (Navya-Nyāya, “New Logic”).
Precise definitions of perception have varied widely. Some thought it was direct color consciousness; others argued that it was a cognition arising from the relationship of an object to the senses, which is neither verbal nor erroneous, but definite. An exchange of ideas arose about whether perception is a direct experience, that is, non-propositional, and whether a propositional level of perception can be postulated.
Nyāya and Īśvarakṛṣṇa's classical Sāṅkhya claimed to understand perceptions of two levels: non-propositional (what we call 'sense data') and propositional (naming and attaching concepts to sense data). Inference (anumāna) was the next most important instrument of knowledge.
In the Classical Period, three types of inference were enumerated. Their definitions reveal a certain confusion between old and innovative ideas of inference. Inference is used as a source of knowledge in cases where objects cannot be grasped directly. The basis of inference is the consistent relationship between the reason and the thing to be proved (sādhya). This requires us to see reason. Here is an example argument:
There is fire on the mountain. (Thesis)
Because there is smoke (which I can see with the naked eye). (Reason)
Like in the kitchen. (Positive example)
Unlike the lake. (Negative example)
Therefore, there is fire on the mountain. (Conclusion)
The consistent relationship is not explicitly stated in the syllogism, although it is obvious: where there is smoke, there is fire. Syllogism is a philosophical term with which Aristotle designated the conclusion deduced from premises, the perfect logical argument. In the classical form, it is a deductive argument made up of three declarative propositions that are connected in such a way that, from the first two, it is possible to deduce a conclusion.
Verbal testimony was considered another decisive source of knowledge of things beyond sensory apprehension. A competent witness is a trustworthy person who has direct knowledge, is willing to communicate it, and can express it.
It was argued that revealed sacred literature could be classified as testimony. There was also some discussion about whether to include this source of knowledge in the inference. Other pramāṇas suggested were analogy and presumption.
An example of presumption is the following: it is observed that Devadatta is fat; no one sees him eating too much during the day; so (the presumption is that) he must eat all night.
Indian philosophers also discussed an argument known as tarka, a type of reasoning we call reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity). Tarka or logic, is one of the aids in attaining correct knowledge when direct and clear knowledge is not possible. Philosophical treatises frequently resort to it. As regards spiritual truths beyond the reach of the senses, tarka is not accepted as an independent source of knowledge. It is accepted only if it is not against Śruti (that which is heard” or “divine revelation”) but strengthens its teachings.
Moral issues
Two important principles govern Indian moral philosophy: karma and dharma. The theory of karma was articulated in the early Upanishads (which are placed from 700 B.C. but were earlier). It concerns the causal relationship between acts and their results, although neither has always been understood uniformly.
In general, the workings of karma have not been interpreted as a fatalistic mechanism. Except for a few schools, most Indian thinkers came to conceive of karma in terms of a kind of naturalistic law of causality. The best-known philosopher of the Upaniṣhads, Yājñavalkya, was the first to teach karma, which soon became discernible in all intellectual developments, as well as being a governing principle in everyday ethics.
The principle of dharma is linked to karma. Dharma means “standing up for what is right,” what we might call “morality” today. The precise translation of the term depends on the context.
For example, we can translate dharma as “justice” in cases where something that was illegally taken must be recovered. Thus, in the epic Mahābhārata, it is justice for the Pāṇḍavas to recover their kingdom, which was illegally taken from them by their cousins, the Kauravas.
There is also dharma as an “individual duty,” according to a person’s social and economic status in society. This could be compared with the Kantian idea of duty (duty for duty's sake). Then there is the general dharma that applies to society, a guide in moral and social matters.
An important ideal in Hindu moral philosophy, that of the stages of life, is described in the body of literature known as the Dharmaśāstras. The concept of dharma as presented in the Dharmaśāstras can be understood from the doctrine of puruṣārthas, a pan-Indian paradigm based on four fundamental aspirations of the human existential condition postulated by traditions of Hinduism, and which consist of kāma, artha, dharma and mokṣa.
Dharma, that which keeps high. The mission of life.
Artha, or economic development;
Kama, or sensory enjoyment;
This endorses the determination of social status by birth and prescribes for everyone (at least, each man of the two highest classes, namely priests and royalty) the various stages for progressing in life. The prescribed sequence is as follows:
First, the social guardian should study and abstain from sexual relations; then he should get married, raise children and accumulate material goods; third, he should become a religious seeker, abandoning the comforts of home, family, and riches (although his wife may still provide some family comfort); finally he should leave the company of his wife and wander alone as an ascetic until his death.
Two value systems, one socially engaged and the other with an ascetic tendency, seem to be combined here. Closely related are the four goals of human life (puruṣārtha):
material well-being,
pleasure and fun,
morality and social responsibility,
the goal, freedom from repeated births.
Here, too, two value systems are combined: the first three objectives guide the socially committed, while the last is the objective of a person in the final stage of life.
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