Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India

encyclopedia

PHILOSOPHY

rial elements (

mahabhuta

), hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell, speech,

grasping, walking, evacuation, procreation, mind (

manas)

and the

25th,

Purusha

(the person, the soul).

Sankhya

which was founded

by the sage Kapila recognises the dualism between soul and matter,

Purusha and Prakriti.

An important feature of this school is the doc-

trine of the three dispositions or qualities

(guna)

causing virtue

(sattwa),

passion

(rajas)

and darkness

(tamas).

These three quali-

ties correctly balanced constituted normality.

Closely related to Sankhya is the school of

Yoga

(spiritual dis-

cipline, union), the basic texts of which are ascribed to the Sage

Patanjali. This school accepts the philosophical doctrines of

Sankhya

with one important difference in that it accepts a God (

Ishvara

) as

the supreme omniscient Being. He was specially symbolised in the

sacred syllable OM. Patanjali says: "The word which expresses him

is OM. The word must be repeated with meditation upon its meaning.

Hence comes knowledge of the

Purusha

and destruction of the

obstacles to that knowledge." The

Isvara

Yoga

is not the creator

of the world but a being possessed of infinite knowledge who has

existed for all eternity. The Yoga school sets forth a system for con-

trolling the mind and body through physical and ethical disciplines

which leads to knowledge of the ultimate reality.

The

Yoga Sutra

recommends the practice of controlled breathing

(

pranayama

) with the ultimate object of suspending it for as long a

period as possible; its frequency should be expanded . In this way

the body will breathe as few a number of times as possible and in

a progressively shallower manner till it is able to hold the breath for

a fairly long period.

The idea that controlled breathing cleanses the system and that

the elements of the body are thereby rid of all impurities came later.

Originally breath was controlled because it disturbed the attention

and because the control of breath not only made the mind attentive

but also reduced the

Karma

that clouded discriminative knowledge.

The

Yoga Sutra

lays down a scheme of fixation of attention in

order to avoid distraction. The mind could be fixed on any visible

part of the body like the navel or the tip of the nose or of the tongue

or later on some hidden constituent of it like the heart lotus (

hrdayapun

darika)

or the light within the head (

murdhajyotis)

after fixation on

external objects has been practised. The steadying of the mind thus

achieved is called

dharana

(fixed attention). The mind is said to have

attained

dhyana

(contemplation or meditation) when the object of

concentration fills the whole mind. When the knower almost loses

himself in the object, the ultimate goal of the process of concentra-

tion is reached, namely,

Samadhi

(Deep Meditation).

These three represent the direct aids to conscious concentration.

The indirect are: 1)

Yama,

the practice of non-violence, truthful-

ness, not stealing, chastity, and the avoidance of greed. 2)

Niyama

- observance, the practice of contentment 3)

Asana,

sitting in certain

postures, the most famous of which is

padmasana,

the Lotus posture

in which the feet are placed on the opposite thighs. 4)

Pranayama,

control of the breath and 5)

Pratyahara,

restraint.

This course of training is the

Rajya Yoga.

The risk was not

foreseen that the search after powers would result in the means of

bringing about concentration usurping the rightful place of the end

to be achieved. The various postures and breathing were controlled

for the sake of acquiring powers over the body. Other systems

developed such as the

yoga

of spells

(Mantra Yoga)

and the

yoga

of force

(Hatha Yoga)

which involved very difficult postures.

Two other systems of thought were the

Vaisheshika

(the School

of Individual Characteristics) and the

Nyaya

(Analysis). The former

which was founded by Kanada developed a view of the physical

universe through its atomic theory according to which objects were

constituted of atoms (

anu

) and as each was distinct by virtue of its

own ultimate peculiar quality called

Visesa,

the school came to be

known as

Vaisheshika.

The non-atomic substances are time, space,

soul and mind.

Vaisheshika

thus postulated a dualism between matter

and soul and declared that salvation depends on fully recognising the

atomic nature of the universe and its difference from the soul. The

Nyaya

school specialised in the methodology of thought and reason-

ing. It was founded by Akshapada Gautama. It was rather a school

of logic than of theology. A religious basis was given to the system

by the contention that clear thinking and logical argument were es-

sential to salvation.

The

Vedanta

("End of the Vedas"), the school which primarily

based itself on the Upanishads, emerged as the leading school of

Hindu philosophy. The doctrines of

Vedanta

attempted to formu-

late more systematically the Upanishadic teaching concerning the

nature of

Brahman

(world spirit or soul) and the identity of the

individual soul or self

(Atman)

with

Brahman.

The

Brahma

Vedanta Sutras, the earliest Vedanta work, are ascribed to Badaray-

ana or Vyasa, the legendary sage and teacher. Other thinkers who

expounded the doctrines of the Vedanta and who are referred to by

Vyasa include the sages Ashmarathya, Audulomi, and Kashakritsna.

The

Brahma Sutras

were supplemented by Sariraka-Bhasya, the

commentary of Shankaracharya, who is regarded as one of the

greatest philosophers the world has produced and the "second-father"

Vedanta.

Vedanta

postulates the existence of

Brahman

as the only Reality

and only Existence. With this conception the Vedantists brushed

aside all the previous conceptions and theories including that of

Kapila's

purusha

and

prakriti

holding that even these aspects or

principles must be existing merely in the "mind of the one".

The above six schools of philosophy were developed by the

orthodox thinkers who accepted the

Vedas

as authoritative. All the

schools are one in agreeing that the goal of the philosophical quest

is liberation from the misery of the transmigratory cycle, of going

from birth to death and death to birth (

samsara)

and the attainment

of eternal Bliss

(Mukti or moksha).

Thus three basic concepts form

the cornerstone of Hindu philosophical thought: the self or soul,

(

atman

), action or deed

(karma)

which conditions one's future birth

(samsara),

and salvation

(moksha).

All these schools of philosophy played a notable part for a time,

becoming superseded later, leaving only some subsidiary aspect of

it as its contribution. The

Sankhya

school was once the most widely

accepted school against which even Buddhism had to contend. But

the rise of

Vedanta

made it superfluous, its doctrines of primordial

matter being paralleled by the Vedantic conception of illusion

(maya)

and its conception of the spirit or

purusha

by the Vedantic

atman

Brahman.

The

Mimamsa

had served to restore the authority of

the

Veda

when it was assailed by the Buddhists but with the rise of

Vedanta, Mimamsa

began to merge with it.

THE BHAGAVAD GITA

The

Bhagavad Gita

(The Song of the Lord), which forms part

of the great epic, the

Mahabharata,

is a religious philosophical text