Some Notes on Indian Philosophy
Introduction
- orthodox systems
o Nyaya
o Vaishesika
o Samkhya
o Yoga
o Purva-mimamsa
o Vedanta schools of philosophy
- unorthodox systems (more concerned with various philosophical problems, like the nature of the world (cosmology), nature of reality (metaphysics), logic, the nature of knowledge (epistemology), ethics and the religion)
o Buddhism
o Jainism
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
p. 1
Vedic Religion
- Vedism, the religion of the ancient Indo-European people who entered India at about 1500 BC, formerly from the Iran India
- Classical Hinduism was given way at around 500 BC, when there was a decrease in literary activity in Vedic schools
Mythology
- Vedism a polytheistic sacrificial religion different from its successor, Hinduism
- Worship of numerous divinities connected with natural phenomena.
- Brahmans officiate; there are ritual sacrifices of animals and the drinking of soma
- Sacred fire: Agni; Soma as the deified aspect of the poured liquid
- Indra as the highest god, warlike, vanquished the sun and etc.; and also Varuna, who upheld cosmic and moral laws
Ritual
- Sacrifices in return for material things; effective with songs and invocations
- Each sacrifice is done on the behalf of the yajamana, or the host.
- Sacrifices were simple: no temple; no images, only a consecrated open space; a quadrangular altar, and the agnadheya (“installation of the fire”)
o Domestic sacrifices
o Public sacrifices, which could go on for days
- “Horse-sacrifice” was an integral part; Human sacrifice more allusive than literal
- Allusion for the mythical giant Purusa, which, from his limbs, sprung the four castes.
p. 2
Development and Decline
- Over centuries, rituals became complex and expensive, to the point that only Brahmans could perform it. Brahmanism.
- Reaction: late Vedic thought became philosophical and speculative – search for harmony between microcosm and macrocosm, the goal being an all-embracing unity with reality
- Aranyakas: vedic ritualism more symbolic than literal
- Upanishads: intense questioning of the assumptions of Vedism
- Crucial idea: brahman (universal soul) and atman (the innermost being of things, the essence of which is bliss), merging; atman (the self) and brahman (ultimate reality) becomes the basis for Hindu metaphysics.
- 600 BC, karma and release from the samsaric circle through meditation than sacrifice meant the end of Vedism and the appearance of Hinduism
- Legacy of Vedism in modern Hinduism: caste, occasional Vedic performances continuing, offerings to homa (sacred fire), Hindu rite of passage/ initiation, Vishnu and Shiva were also in Vedic mythology
p. 3
Vedic Texts
- Vedas, from approximately the 15th to 5th century BC) written in archaic sanskrit
o Rig Veda (of verses); around 1000 hymns
o Yajur Veda (of sacrificial formulas); prose formulas
o Sama Veda (of psalms); with musical notation
o Atharva Veda (not as important as the first three)
- Each veda had a Brahmanas, explanation, origin, and importance of the ritual, ceremonial application of the texts
o Aranyakas (c. 600 BC) and the Upanishads (c. 700-500 BC) respectively expound symbolism of more difficult rites, and speculate cosmology and man’s relation to it
- Shruti (what is heard) divinely revealed section of Hindu literature, is unlike the later texts (Smriti), which is based on human memory, traditional texts
Shruti and the Nature of Authority
- “Orthodox” philosophies from Vedic statements
- Vedanta schools: affiliation with Shruti authority
- Mimamsa (hermeneutics): interpretation of sacred texts
- Hinduism: considered Vedas as “apauruseya,” meaning not composed by anyone
- Sayana (commentator): spoke of the eternality of the Vedas; no beginning or end, but was created by Brahma
- Chain of Vedic teachers, interpretations various, thus makes the Vedas free from fault (doxa);
- Authorities of the Vedas cannot be contradicted by empirical evidence
- Since there is no author, a chain of Vedic teachers is seen, bearing testimony to the eternality of the Vedas
- “dharma,” what ought to be done
p. 4
The Upanishads (Wisdom section)
- Last component of the Vedas, the mystically oriented and originally esoteric texts; beginnings of philosophy and mysticism
- Knowledge of ultimate reality of all phenomena seems to be separate
- Emphasis on knowledge alone: ultimate reality in all phenomena
- Desire for mythical knowledge ensuring freedom from “re-death.”
- Two oldest: Brhadaranyaka (“Great Forest Text”) and the Chandogyas: emphasis on the knowledge of cosmic connection underlying rituals
- Death was not the end: samsara
- Brahman and atman; knowledge of the realization of the self substituted ritualism
- In the following centuries, main theories with divine essence underlying the world were harmonized and synthetically combined, and tendency was to extol one god; goal became identificatory with meditation leading to the complete cessation of phenomenal existence and Ishvara becomes refuge for those seeking eternal peace.
- Upanishads composed during turbulent times, authors probably reacting to such times, breeding asceticism, rebirth, transmigration.
- Transmigration: found in the Brhadaranyaka: normally, soul returns to Earth reborn as another thing; samsara (reincarnation) – rebirth depends on previous life works
p. 5
Origin of the Concept of Brahman and Atman
- Upanishads try to answer one question: “Who is that one being?” through Brahman = atman
- Brahman, the greatest, also bursts forth into the manifested world, is viewed as nothing but atman (innermost self of man, but also the innermost self of all beings)
- Originally, atman = breath; but then it becomes that which pervades, that which gives, that which eats, and that which constantly accompanies
o Koshas (sheets covering the innermost being)
§ Bodily self
§ Vital self
§ Thinking self
§ Innermost self (bliss) – ananda
- Also (see below); the first three being states of the self, contrasted with the fourth, which is transcendent (turiya)
o Waking (jagrat)
o Dreaming (svapna)
o Dreamless sleep (susupti)
- Spiritualization of Brahman and the universalization of atman
- “neti-neti,” not this or that, [negative] others uphold positively the all pervasiveness of Brahman
- Brahman: infinite, truth, knowledge, but also as consciousness, existence, bliss
Principles underlying Macrocosm and Microcosm
- Marcocosm (universal) and microcosm (individual), their identification according to their true essences, attempts at correlation. Transcendent self and Brahman as bliss are not correlational, but actually identical.
SUTRAS, SHASTRAS, and SMRITIS
The Vedangas (“Studies Accessory to the Veda”)
- Relating to the timely and proper performance of the Vedic sacrificial rituals
- Aphorisms
- Liturgy:
o Shiksa – instruction, articulation/ pronunciation
o Chandas – meter
o Vyakarana – analysis and derivation
o Nirukta – lexicon
o Jyotisa – luminaries; concerns astronomy and ritual periods
o Kapla – mode of performance
§ Shrauta sutra – rules for performing the complex rituals
§ Shulba sutra – how to make the geometric calculations for the construction of the ritual area
§ Grhya sutra – rules for performing domestic rites, for life-cycle rituals; shows how some minor divinities became important than most major Vedic gods
§ Dharma sutra – rules for the conduct of life
p. 6
Dharma Sutra and Dharma Shastras
- Dharma sutra: manuals on dharma, duties at various stages of life
- Manu-smriti: various topics such as cosmogony, definition of dharma, sacraments, initiation, marriage, purification, etc.
- Juridical law embedded in religious law and practice: manifested in the caste system
- Dharma Shastra of Yajnavalkya, only second to the Manu
- Addresses people at various stages of life
- Important sutras: some of which are of Gautama, etc
- Dharma Shastras: become the basis for Hindu law: Dharma Shastras of Manu, Smriti
p. 7
EPICS AND PURANAS
- These epics took shape out of the stories, mythology, philosophies, and the problem of dharma
The Mahabharata
- The Mahabharata: 100,000 verses, attributed to Vyasa
- 5 sons of Pandu (Pandavas), against the sons of Pandu’s brother: Dhrtasatra
o Arjuna
o Ynahisthira
o Bhima
o Nakula
o Sahadeva
- One survivor continues dynastry
- Each hero a son of a god (Indra, Dharma, Vayu, the Ashvins)
- Infused with religious implications
- Vedic gods lose importance: Prajapati to Brahma
- Krishna (in other epics, places, more superhuman than divine); in Mahabharata, a tribe’s chief; in Bhagavadgita: a teacher, but does not respect certain rules, ethics
- There are many passages wherein dharma is treated systematically
- Vedic gods lose importance and survive only as figures of folklore. Prajapati as Bhima and Krishna as hero/lecturer/superhuman
p. 8
The Ramayana (Valmiki)
- Rama, Sita, Laksmana, exiled to forest; in the forest, Sita is abducted by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka.
- Hanuman, the monkey king, helps Rama and finds Sita in Lanka; Ravana is defeated and Rama is restored as king; Sita rescued
- In kingdom, people doubt Sita’s chastity: sent on a hermitage where she bares Rama two sons; Sita eventually dies by re-entering the earth
- Everything in the myth designed for harmony
- Rama identified with Vishnu
- Shadow side: killing of monkey king Valin violates rules of warfare
- Rama’s reign becomes the prototype of a harmonious and just kingdom, to which all kings sould aspire to
- Rama and Sita set the ideal for conjugal love; Rama to his father as filial love; Rama and Laksmana as fraternal love; everything in the mind designed for harmony
- Shadow side: “subtlety” of dharma and the inevitability of its violation becomes a central argument throughout Indian history
The Bhagavadgita
- Arjuna despairs at having to subdue his kin, and lays down his arms in battle. Krishna , his charioteer, lectures, becoming a discourse
- Dharma, but without self-interest; does not deny relevance of discipline of knowledge (jnana-yoga), in which one seeks release in a yogic (ascetic) course of withdrawal and concentration
- Way of release: devotion to God (bhakti-yoga)
- Bhagavadgita gives a typology of dominant trends:
o Dharma-based brahmanism
o Enlightenment-based asceticism
o Devotion-based theism
- Three different ways of releasing the self from transmigration:
o Discipline of action: not the acts that bind, but the intentions; thus, dharma without any self-interest
o Does not deny the relevance of the discipline of knowledge: one seeks release in an ascetic course of withdrawal and concentration
o Discipline via devotion to God (bhakti-yoga); in response to this devotion, God will extend his grace, enabling them to overcome the bonds of this world.
- New emphasis is placed on devotion, which has since remained a central theme in Hinduism
- Bhagavadgita profoundly influential, serves as a moral code to others, also influences attitudes; social ethics
p. 9
The Puranas
- Like an encyclopedia; common to all; proliferation of goddesses
p. 10
Cosmogony
- Narayana (identified with Vishnu) floated on the snake Ananta (“endless”) on the primeval waters. From this navel grew a lotus, and there Brahma was seen reciting the four Vedas with his four mouths: “egg of Brahma,” containing all the worlds
- End of the world: not ultimate, merely cyclical; periodic destruction; tandava dance of Shiva, doomsday, but only temporary (pralaya), after which creation begins in the same fashion.
- Manu: primordial ancestor of humankind
p. 11
Cosmology
- Heaven, earth, netherworld,
o Heaven having seven layers, the tip of which is Brahma-loka, or the world of Brahma.
o On earth, there are seven circular continents, the central one surrounded by the salty ocean and each of the other concentric continents by oceans of other liquids; center of central mainland is India
EARLY BUDDHIST DEVELOPMENTS
Background
- Denials, both in the religious and literal, were prevalent during this time.
- Built on Brahmanic and non-Aryan ideas at around 600 BC
- Naturalists, denying both virtue and vice
- Determinists: denying sin and the freedom of will
- Materialists: denying virtue, vice, and afterlife; salvation through an ascetic life of self-discipline
- “Is there an afterlife?”
- Recognition of natural law in the universe
Eightfold Path
- Four noble truths follow the mean between sensual indulgence
o There is suffering in attachment
o There is a origin of suffering
o There is a way out of suffering
o The way out of suffering is the eightfold path
- Only the middle path suffices: the eightfold path
- 3,4,5 base themselves on morality (shila)
- 6,7,8 on concentration (samadhi)
- 1,2 on right wisdom (prajna)
o Right views
o Intention
o Speech
o Action
o Livelihood
o Effort
o Mindfulness
o Concentration
p. 12
Doctrines and Ideas of the “Buddhist Tipitaka”
- Three baskets: canonical and philosophical doctrines of early Buddhism
- Abhidamma pitaka, having seven parts:
o Dhammasangami: enumerates elements of existence
o Vibhanga: further analysis of the dhammas
o Dhatukatha: detailed classifications of the elements
o Puggalapannati: descriptions of persons who are on development stages
o Kathavatthu: discussions and refutations of other schools of Buddhism
o Yamaka: deals with pairs of questions
o Pathana: analysis of relations among the elements
- Buddhist philosophers deny any permanence
- Recognize non-partial components (space, Nirvana, temporary stoppage of the flow of passions)
- Attainment of Nirvana through denial of the self
- The person was of five aggregates: only the first one is material; the rest are mental
o Material form
o Feeling
o Conception
o Disposition
o Consciousness
- For Buddhism, matter = sensations and sense data; mind = corresponding modes of consciousness and their objects
- Key notion of all this is that of the dhammas.
- Human person consists of material and mental factors
The Concept of Selflessness and Nirvana
- Two key notions, even in early Buddhism, are that of Anatman (“no-self”) and nirvana; anatman is more of a phenomenological account
- Annihilationism and eternalism rejected; annihilationism affirms a self that is no longer in existence, while eternalism is incompatible with the premise that “all laws are selfless.”
- Not siding with the metaphysicians: the consciousness “I am,” is outside of the five aggregates
- The doctrine of “no-self” has two aspects: pudgala and dhammas
- Pudgala (individual);
o Individual is outside of the five aggregates
o This being outside leads to the disappearance of passion/ desire
o And removes “covering of the passion”
- Dhammas (elements of being)
o Utter insubstantiality of all elements
o Removes all misconceptions about general nature of things
o Removes “concealment of things”
- Together, they result in Nirvana
- Nirvana: utter extinction of passions and suffering; beyond causation – state of freedom and spontaneity, its essence bliss; yet Nirvana is also another perishing state; truth of utter selflessness and insubstantiality of things
- Ignorance destroyed, along with craving
p. 13
EARLY SYSTEM BUILDING
- Sutras: “scrolls,” “threads”
- Systematization of each school of thought in the forms of sutras
- Philosophical compositions took the form of commentaries
The “Purva-mimamsa-sutras” and Shabara’s Commentary
- Investigates the nature of Vedic injunctions
- 1st reflection: nature of Vedic injunctions, led to the development of principles of scriptural interpretation
- Jaimini: Vedic injunctions do not merely prescribe; but also recommend actions as a means to a goal
- Vedic injunction: attainment of heaven
- Jaimini’s dharma – artha, through injunctive statements of the scriptures
- Only statements in scripture are sources of all valid knowledge of dharma (not from God, since these are natural); eternal, however
- Jaimini’s central concern is dharma:
o dharma as a desired object, whose durability is testified only by the injunctive statements of the scriptures;
o dharma not as an existent reality, but a future course of action which cannot be known by sense-experience;
o only injunctive statements can state what ought to be done
- Mimamsa rejects the belief that these utterances are of God. Words themselves are authoritative
- Shabara: epistemological themes of the sutras; intrinsic validity of experience; error due to the presence of defects in the ways of knowing; soul as separate entity that enjoys the results of one’s actions in this or in the next life
The “Vedanta-sutras”: Relation to the “Mimamsa-Sutras”
- approves words and meaning relation is eternal
- But: dispenser of fruits is Ishvara
- Jaimini: stresses on ritualism (dharma)
- Badarayana: stresses philosophical portions (Upanishads) (focus on Brahman, or absolute reality)
- Badarayana’s sutras laid the basis for the development of Vedanta philosophy; approves eternal relation of the words and their significations; however, the dispenser of fruits is Ishvara
- Relation of Vedanta to the Mimamsa is difficult to ascertain.
- Karma against path of knowledge
Contents and Organization of the Four Books
- Four books, sutras, of Badarayana, each book having four chapters
- 1st book: reconciliation
- 2nd book: consistency
o Dualism and Vaishesika atomism not interpretation/ defensible
o Material world could arise from spirit
o Effect is not different from the cause
o Though Brahman is all-perfect – creation is an unmotivated act of delight
- 3rd book: spiritual discipline and various stages of journey
- 4th book: results of discipline; differences between Godhead and Brahman
- Vedanta: only Brahman is external
Variations of View
- Relation between individual and absolute spirit and possible body existence of a liberated individual
- Variations of views from the interpreters coming after Badarayana
o One thinks both are identical
o Another not
o Another through a process of purification
p. 16
The “Samkhya-karikas”: Relation to Orthodoxy
- theistic, as regards the unmanifested as the purusa (the self)
- Samkhya-sutras are theistic, yet the karikas are atheistic
- At around 200 AD
The Nature of the Self (Purusa)
- Karikas: many selves (each being of the nature of pure consciousness)
- Self: neither original matter (prakrti) or an evolute
- Matter has three gunas, but the self is not of the gunas
- Matter, unlike the self, is creative
- Existence of self through ordered arrangement in nature meant for another, this other being a conscious spirit
- All selves
o Passive witnesses, essentially alone; neutral, non-agentic
The Nature, Origin, Structure, of the World (Prakrti)
- Satkaryavada: effect is implicitly pre-existent in the cause prior to production
- Phenomenal nature is regarded as an evolution out of a primitive state of matter, known through satkaryavada
- Original prakrti is the primary matrix out of which all differentiations arise, within which all was contained in an indistinguishable manner.
- Prakrti: original matter is
o uncaused,
o eternal,
o all-pervading,
o one,
o independent,
o self-complete,
o no distinguisable parts
- Matter has three gunas: (either being caused or uncaused)
o Non-discriminating
o Object
o General, non-conscious, creative
- Evolution:
o Buddhi: intelligence
o Ahamkara: ego-sense
o Manas: mind
o Five tanmatras
§ The sense data
§ Color
§ Sound
§ Smell
§ Touch
§ Taste
o Five organs of touch (five gross elements, including ether)
p. 17
Three Gunas
- Nature is said to consist of three gunas, originally in equilibrium, in states of mutual preponderance:
o Light: harmony, reveals others
o Activity: dynamic
o Inertia: heaviness
- Man’s varying psyhological responses are thus hypostatized and made into components properties or elements of nature (disproved by Shankara)
Epistemology
- Perception: application of sense organs to their objects
- Inference: divides application into three, then two (past, present), induction of the property of a thing from the part of it, even when the whole is not perceivable
- Verbal testimony: authoritative knowledge
- Buddhi: intellect, outer sense apprehend only objects, yet not otherwise, makes judgments and enjoys the objects of the senses; inner senses which apprehend all objects (past, present, future);
- Buddhi can also differentiate the self and the natural components of the person
Ethics
- Suffering due to ignorance of the true nature of the self; freedom can be reached through knowledge of distinction between the self and the nature (at the end of this, one becomes a pure witness)
- Intellectualism
The “Yoga-Sutras”: Relation to the Samkhya
- Voluntaristic; grave self-control then to realization
- 2nd century BC; yoga ang samkhya stand in close relation, so much so that the two systems are regarded as one by tradition
- Yoga adds the 26th principle to the Samkhya list of 25, making it theistic
- Samkhya is intellect metaphysical knowledge as means to liberation
p. 18
God, Self, Body
- Yoga-sutras define God: distinct self (purusa), untouched by suffering, actions and their effects, etc
- God’s existence through the degrees of knowledge found in finite beings, ascending, ending in omniscience, characterized by God; source of all secular and scriptural traditions
- Self: distinct from the mind
- Mental state not self-intimating; it is known in introspection
- Unchangeable self
- Self knows = self is reflected in the mental state
- Aim of yoga: arrest mental modifications so that the self remains in its true, undefiled essence, not subject to suffering
- Attitude to the body: ambivalence; body treated as filthy, unclean
- Bodily perfection: “Beauty, grace strength, adamantine hardness”
Theories and Techniques of Self-Control and Meditation
- in final stage, mental modifications cease to be and self is left in its pure, undefiled state of utter isolation, freedom, or absolute independence
o Restraint
o Observance
o Posture
o Regulation of breath
o Abstraction of senses
o Concentration
o Meditation
o Trance
§ Superconsious/ conscious
Beginnings of Mahayana Buddhist Philosophy: Contributions of the Mahasingkas
- “School of the Great Assembly,” seeded from the Theravadins (Elders) at around 400 BC, the germs for which Mahayana Buddhism was to spurn from was lain
- Defied Buddha, taught the doctrine of the emptiness of the elements of being
- Distinguished mundane and supramundane reality
- Considered consciousness to be intrinsically free from all impurities
p. 19
Contributions of the Sarvastivadins
- “Realists” who believe that all things exist
- Rejected the individual self, but acknowledged the dharmas, or the elements of being
- Each dharma is a self being; law of causality applies to the formation of aggregates
- Dharmas exist:
o Unconditioned
§ Space (akasha)
§ Two cessations (nirodha):
· From knowledge (Nirvana)
· From prior to Nirvana (flow of passions through meditation prior to Nirvana)
- There is no eternal substance called “I.”
- Advanced theories like the temporal predicates being determined by the function of a dharma, is accepted by the Vaibhasikas, or those among the Sarvastivadins who follow the Vibhasa
Contributions of the Sautrantikas
- Vaibhasika doctrine inconsistent with Buddhist teachings
- Sautrantikas insist on the non-eternality of dharma; only present dharmas exist
- Unconditioned dharmas are mere absences, negative; nirvana as negative
- Epistemology: direct realists, representationism, external world is only inferred from mental conceptions that alone are directly apprehended
The Worldview of the “Arthashastra”
- Science of artha, or material prosperity, which is one of the four goals of human life
- Artha: means of substinence of man
- Work of politics and diplomacy
Theories of Kingship and Statecraft
- King’s divine nature, or divine sanction of the king’s office
- Four functions:
o Acquire what is not gained
o Protect what is gained
o Increase what is protected
o Distribute the surplus accordingly, to the deserving
- Three powers of the king:
o Power of good counsel
o Majesty of the king himself
o Power to inspire
- Priest is not an element of the state, but serves the state
- King is not exempt from the laws of dharma; in fact, king himself should be the ideal model, free from the six passions
- Enlightened monarchial paternalism
p. 20
Concepts of the Public Good
- Happiness of the king lies in the happiness of the subjects
- Main task of the king is to offer protection
- Monarchy only solution against anarchy
- King’s duty: avert plagues, protect agriculture, industry, mining, tend to the orphan, aged, poor, control crime with the help of spies, settle legal disputes
Relation between States
- Self-interest
The Formation and Implementation of Policy
- Treaties based on truth and oath is binding
- Advocating espionage
Fragments from the Ajivikas and the Carvakas: The Ajivikas
- At about the time of the rise of Buddhism, religious mendicants who held unorthodox views
- Makkhali’s views:
o No cause of the depravity of things
o No cause of the purity of beings
o Nothing depends either on one’s own efforts or on others’
o All things are destitute of power, force, or energy
o Changing states are due to destiny, environment, and their own nature
o Denial of sin, dharma, freedom of man in shaping his own future
o Determinist, but scholars say he leaves room for chance
o Atomistic cosmology and that all beings are destined to culminate in a state of final salvation; believes in rebirth but also in a special doctrine of reanimation according to which it is possible for one person’s in the dead bodies of others
p. 21
The Carvakas
- Another pre-Buddhist system of philosophy, earliest materialistic schools of philosophy.
- “Lokayata,” or view held by the common people, art of sophistry
- This world extends only to the limits of possible sense experience
- Materialism on an epistemological basis
- Perception alone as a valid means of knowledge, since no amount of finite observations could possibly yield the required universal premise needed in inferential knowledge
- Since inference is rejected, “afterlife,” destiny,” “soul” are rejected
- Authority of the scriptures are also rejected
- Reductive materialism displayed, under four elements: earth, wind, water, fire
- Consciousness viewed as a product of the material structure of the body, characterizes the body than the soul
- Ethics as hedonistic
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE SYSTEM
Developments in Mahayana
Nagarjuna and Shunayavada
- Nagarjuna gave the Mahayana a philosophical basis
o Dharmas are also empty
o “Emptiness” means subjection to the law of causality, lack of an immutable essence and an invariant mark
o Entails a repudiation of dualities:
§ ontological monism,
§ but an epistemological dualism between the orders of truth: the conventional and the transcendental
o Nagarjuna analysed various philosophies and showed all of them to have contradictions. The world is viewed as a network of relations, yet these relations are unintelligible.
o “Partial identity and partial difference” is also rejected as unintelligible.
o Notion of causality is rejected
o Concepts of change, substance, self, knowledge, and universals also do not fare better
o Pramana, the valid means of knowledge, is also directed
- Middle path
- All metaphysical statements as false
- Nagarjuna used reason to condemn reason.
Contributions of Vasubandhu and Asanga
- Converted by his brother Asanga to the Yogacara, Vasubandhu wrote “Establishment of the Thesis of Cognitions—Only”
o Supposedly external objects are merely mental conceptions.
o Yogacara idealism: the concept of a merely inferred external world is not satisfying; if self-consciousness is self-intimating and if it can assume forms, it is logical that forms ascribed to alleged external objects are really forms of consciousness
o Thus, a beginning-less power that would amount for this tendency of consciousness to take up forms and to externalize them is needed; kalpana, or imagination.
- Two other modes of consciousness:
o Ego consciousness
o Storehouse consciousness
§ Stored traces of past experiences, both pure and defiled
- Early anticipations on the notions of conscious, subconscious become the theoretical constructs to account for the order of individual experience. But there is still a common world
- Nirvana: state wherein wherein storehouse consciousness wither
- Though individual ideas are in the last resort mere imaginations, essentially, consciousness is without distinctions of subject and object.
- Ineffable consciousness is the “suchness” underlying all things
- Vasubandhu and Asanga are responsible for the growth of Buddhist logic
- Vasubandhu: “perception” as the knowledge caused by an object; “inference” knowledge of an object through its mark (essence of inference, but not of its origin)
p. 23
Contributions of Dignaga and Dharmakrti
- “Compendium of the Means of True Knowledge” is one of the greatest works on Buddhist logic.
- “Perception:” a knowledge that is free from all conceptual constructions, including name and class concepts
- Pure sensation as perception
- Inference: difference between inference of the self and inference for the other
- Laid down three criteria of a valid middle term viz. that it should “cover” the minor premise, be present in the similar instances, and be absent in dissimilar absences
- “The Wheel of Reason:” Dignaga set up a matrix of nine types of middle terms (hetu)
- 700 BC: perception to include the condition “unerring” and distinguished between the four kinds of perception: that by the five senses, that by the mind, self-consciousness and perception of the yogins.
o Also introduced a threefold distinction of valid terms: middle must be related to the major either by identity (“tree from an oak”) or as cause and effect (“fiery, due to smoke”)
o Hetu: a nonperception from which the absence of the major could be inferred
o Consolidated the central epistemological thesis that perception and inference have their own exclusive objects.
§ Perception: pure particular
§ Inference: universal
- Metaphysics: a moderate idealism
Purva-mimamsa: the Bhatta and Prabhakara schools
Principal texts and Relation to Shabara
- Prabhakara, who most likely lived after Kumarila, author of the commentary Brhati on Shabara’s bhasya.
- Differs from the view of Kumarila.
- Kumarila restricted Mimamsa to an investigation into dharma
- Prabharaka inquired into the meaning of the Vedic texts
- Kumarila: vedic injunctions
- Prabhakara: sense of duty alone should instigate a person to act
p. 24
Metaphysics and Epistemology
- Bhatta (Kumarila’s school) and Prabharaka schools were realist.
- Both undertook to refute Buddhist idealism and nihilism.
- Bhatta ontology:
o Substance: “darkness”
o Quality
o Action
o Universals
o Negation
- Prabharaka ontology:
o From Bhatta, negation rejected, and four added:
§ Power
§ Resemblance
§ Inherence-relation
§ Number
§ Substance (claim of darkness was rejected, nothing but absence of perception of color)
- Reality of universals, but the perspectives of which differs
o Prabhakaras – universals only in perceptible instances, that true universals are perceivable. Rejection of abstract universals, like existence, and merely postulated universals such as “Brahmanhood” (which cannot be perceptually recognized in a person)
- Epistemologies of the two schools differ:
o Bhatta recognized
§ Perception
§ Inference
§ Verbal testimony
§ Comparison
§ Postulation
§ Nonperception (the way men validly and directly apprehend an absence; in conformity with Shabara’s statement that non-existence itself is a way of true knowledge)
§ Defined perception in terms of sensory contact with the object, whereas the Prabhakaras define it in terms of immediacy and apprehension.
o Postulation is viewed as the sort of process by which one may come to know for certain the truth of a certain proposition; yet the Bhatta such cases under inference on the grounds that such cases, since one is not inferring but postulating.
o “Comparison” is given the name resemblance with a perceived thing of another which is not present
o Prabhakaras rejected nonperception as a way of knowing
Ethics
- Kumarila: all moral injunction are meant to bring about a desired benefit and that knowledge of such benefit and of the efficacy of the recommended course of action to bring it about is necessary for instigating a person to act.
- Prabhakara: ethical theory of duty for its own sake
o Sense of duty alone being the proper incentive
- Bhattas recognize supersensible efficacy of action to produce remote effects (apurva) as a supersensible link connecting moral action and life and the supersensible effect to be realized afterward.
- Prabhakara: apurva only the action that ought to be done
p. 25
Hermeneutics and Semantics
- Prabhakara defended the thesis that words primarily mean either some course of action or things connected with action.
o Sentence forms the unit of meaningful discourse, and the word is never used by itself to express a single unrelated idea
o Sentence signifies a relational complex that is not a mere juxtaposition of word meanings
o Theory of language learning follows from these contentions:
§ Learning of sentence meanings from observing elders issuing orders and juniors obeying them
· Meaning of words: insertion and extraction of words in sentences, and the resulting variations.
- Semantic approach follows Prabhakaras principle of Vedic interpretation: all Vedic texts are interpreted as bearing on courses of action prescribed, and there are no merely descriptive statements in the scriptures.
- Only Vedic injunctions yield authoritative verbal testimony that may be regarded as a way of knowing, whereas all other verbal knowledge is really inferential.
- Prabhakaras: Vedas as authoritative.
- Kumarila: words convey their own meaning, not relatedness to something else.
- Persons learn the meaning of words by seeing others talking as well as from the advice of elders
Religious Consequences
- Mimamsa: universe as eternal, does not admit the need of tracing a creator
- Creator as dispenser of fruits, only apurva
- Theoretically not requiring a God, the system posits a number of deities as entailed by various ritualistic procedures with no ontological status assigned to the gods
posted by Monching at
11:59 PM
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