Indian philosophy
Indian philosophy- totality philosophical theories all Indian thinkers, ancient and modern, Hindus and non-Hindus, theists and atheists. Since ancient times, it has developed continuously, without sharp turns, such as those experienced by Western philosophy, which often changed the direction of its development. Its oldest documents, which are still considered holy today, are contained in the Vedas (before 1500 BC). Almost all the literature on Indian philosophy is written in the language of art connoisseurs and scientists - Sanskrit. Since most of the changes in Indian philosophy were associated with commentary on the basic, recognized authoritative texts, the old European philosophical scholars believed that Indian philosophy should be defined as the prehistory of philosophy, when in fact its development ran parallel to the development of Western philosophy, although in other forms. The question of the existence in India of an equivalent to the European term “philosophia” is a traditional subject of discussion in Indology, to which scientists and philosophers give different, often contradictory, answers. Like medieval Western European philosophy, Indian philosophy also dealt primarily with religious problems, but it paid more attention to reflection on the knowledge of the transcendental. Since Hindus believe in the eternity of a cyclically renewed world process, they have not created a philosophy of history proper. Aesthetics and the doctrine of society and the state are special, separate sciences for them. In his historical development Indian philosophy falls into three periods:
Indian philosophy has had a huge influence on world culture. One of the greatest German philosophers of the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer, under the influence of the Upanishads, was the first among famous European thinkers to carry out a synthesis of Western European and Indian philosophy.
A special role in the popularization of Indian philosophical thought in the USA and Europe was played at the end of the 19th century by the Indian philosopher and public figure Swami Vivekananda.
Since the 19th century, under the influence of Western European thought - such teachings that represent modernized theism, or pantheism (Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, teachings of R. Tagore, M. Gandhi, Aurobindo Ghosh). Modern Indian philosophy (S. Radhakrishnan) has made efforts to combine Indian and Western concepts of the good. The spiritual hybrid of Helena Blavatsky is based on Indian philosophy - theosophy (the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875, headquartered in Adyar, near Madras) and directions diverging from it (anthroposophy, etc.). Among the representatives of Indian philosophy of the 20th century one can name Pullu Tirupati Raju (1904-1992), Daya Krishna (born 1924), Pravas Jivan Chaudhuri (1916-1961), Abdul Rahman (born 1923), K. Satchidananda Murthy (born 1924 ), Mar Gregorios (1922-1996). It should be borne in mind that many modern Indian philosophers, while maintaining an inextricable connection with their philosophical tradition, live and work outside of India. One of the most significant of them is Jitendra Nath Mohanty (born 1928). He is known both as a phenomenological philosopher and as a historian of Indian philosophy. Among philosophers adhering to the Marxist tradition, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (1918-1993) became widely known, having made a significant contribution to the study of ancient Indian philosophy.
Many movements appeared in the West using elements of Indian philosophy, which later became part of the New Age culture.
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Various schools of philosophy were born on the basis of different points of view on the eternal questions of existence. Each founder of his teaching, trying to prove the correctness of his worldview, surrounded himself with students and followers who supported and developed the philosophy of this particular school. Sometimes the teachings of different schools literally contradicted each other, but, based on the laws of the same philosophy and logic, each point of view had the right to exist.
The most ancient studies studied to date are the philosophical studies of Ancient India. Their origin dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. These teachings were based on the study of the surrounding world, human relationships, everything that is connected with the nature of the existence of the human body and its soul. But the research did not have a solid scientific basis; rather, they related to logical conclusions from what was seen and felt. These were the first steps towards scientific teachings and explanations of various phenomena in human life.
We can say that all world philosophy has its roots going back centuries and is based on the research of Ancient India. Let's consider important features philosophy of Ancient India in more detail.
The preserved treasures of Indian philosophy, written in Sanskrit, have survived to this day. This work has a common title "Veda", i.e. knowledge, vision. The collection includes various spells, rituals, invocations, prayers, etc., addressed to the forces of nature, and is also an attempt to interpret the world person from a philosophical point of view. The teaching explains people’s first ideas about their moral and moral essence in life.
The Vedas are divided into four parts, which are worth talking about in more detail:
All schools of philosophy of Ancient India are based on the Vedas, hence the division of society into four varnas, or, as they are also called, castes - brahmans, kshatriyas, vaishyas and sudras. Varna is the status of a certain group of people in society; to be more precise, it is a shell, color, color, cover. The right to belong to a particular caste is determined by birth. Each caste is engaged in a certain type of activity.
Only men of the first three castes had access to knowledge; the fourth caste, as well as all women, were excluded from knowledge. Their dignity was valued on a par with animals.
As can be seen from the development of history, the division of society is also based on a unique philosophy that comes from the ancient Vedas. With the development of society and its division into castes, currents appear that have shaped Orthodox and unorthodox schools of Indian philosophy. Schools of these directions appear, which adhere to the support or refutation of the Vedas. The division into these schools of philosophical knowledge occurs in the 6th century. BC. — this was led to by the development of society, the formation of new economic relations, the moral improvement of man, and the emergence of new knowledge.
Let us briefly consider how the two schools of different philosophical beliefs differ.
Orthodox schools(astika - frantic) remained true to the philosophy of the Vedas. These included Vedanta, Sanhya, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Yoga and Vaisheshika. Adherents of these movements are those who believe in the continuation of life after leaving for another world. It is interesting to consider each direction of Orthodox schools in more detail.
Unorthodox schools(nastika - atheist), who do not take the ancient Vedas as the basis of their philosophy. These include Buddhism, Charvaka Lokayata, Ved Jainism. Adherents of this school are considered atheists, but the Jaya and Buddhist schools still profess astika, as they believe in the continuation of life after death.
Changes taking place in India with the advent of nomadic tribes who called themselves arias, destroyed the usual ways of life of society. With time the texts of the sacred “Vedas” have become incomprehensible to the majority from people. There remained a small group of initiates who could interpret them - brahmins. These changes date back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.
Arias brought into Indian culture new world philosophical doctrines and ideas. They had their own gods who demanded sacrifices.
Over the centuries, Vedic philosophy acquired new knowledge and became more complex with new rituals. Supported and developed new forms religious philosophy still brahmins. They proclaimed the main god Prajapati - the Master of creatures and the Lord of creations. Rituals with sacrifices became an everyday reality. Philosophy divided the world into two - the world of gods and ordinary people. Brahmin priests placed themselves on a par with the ancient gods and their teachings. But the Vedas were still considered the fundamental basis of the new philosophy.
In the process of social development, there was a rethinking of philosophical movements, the foundations of which were laid in the mists of time. Next they became the basis for the emergence of new religions, such as Hinduism(a continuation of Brahmanism mixed with Vedic philosophy and local religions) and Buddhism.
As we now know, Buddhism from the philosophical school grew to such heights that he became one of the three world religions and spread to the countries of the East and Southeast and Central Asia.
Man's desire for knowledge, which subsequently leads to the development and progress of society, was taken from ancient philosophical treatises. Today people are also searching for answers to the eternal questions of humanity, not suspecting that they are repeating the path of many generations who have tried to understand the meaning of life.
Indian philosophy- a set of philosophical theories of all Indian thinkers, ancient and modern, Hindus and non-Hindus, theists and atheists. Since ancient times, it has developed continuously, without sharp turns, such as those experienced by Western philosophy, which often changed the direction of its development. Its oldest documents, which are still considered holy today, are contained in the Vedas (before 1500 BC). Almost all the literature on Indian philosophy is written in the language of art connoisseurs and scientists - Sanskrit. Since most of the changes in Indian philosophy were associated with commentary on the basic, recognized authoritative texts, the old European philosophical scholars believed that Indian philosophy should be defined as the prehistory of philosophy, when in fact its development ran parallel to the development of Western philosophy, although in other forms. The question of the existence in India of an equivalent to the European term “philosophia” is a traditional subject of discussion in Indology, to which scientists and philosophers give different, often contradictory, answers. Like medieval Western European philosophy, Indian philosophy also dealt primarily with religious problems, but it paid more attention to reflection on the knowledge of the transcendental. Since Hindus believe in the eternity of a cyclically renewed world process, they have not created a proper philosophy of history. Aesthetics and the doctrine of society and the state are special, separate sciences for them. In its historical development, Indian philosophy falls into three periods:
1. Vedic period (1500-500 BC),
2. classical, or Brahman-Buddhist (500 BC - 1000 AD) and
3. post-classical, or Hindu period (since 1000).
Vedic period[edit | edit original text]
The worldview of the Rigveda (Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद, ṛgveda?, “veda of hymns”) is a collection of primarily religious hymns, the first known monument of Indian literature and other Vedas [The word “veda” means “knowledge” and is derived from the root “vid-”, (Sanskrit “ know"), reconstructed as being derived from the Proto-Indo-European root "*weid-", meaning "to see" or "to know". "*Weid-" - also source of origin English word"wit", as well as the Latin "vision"], as well as Brahmanism (texts on sacrifices, from 1000 BC) represents extreme pluralism: gods, people, animals, plants, elements, seasons, countries of light, sacrifices, qualities, parts of the body, spiritual abilities, etc. - all are substances endowed with life, which are connected with each other, mutually penetrate each other and can be transformed into one another, which is achieved through magical actions. The number of these possibilities decreases as we discover more and more their genetic relationship to each other: every fire is a manifestation of the Fire God, every eye is a manifestation of the Sun God, etc. The world and its phenomena are considered as the perfection of the primary essence (purusha). In the philosophical treatises of the Hupanishads (secret teaching, from 800 BC), the doctrine of universal unity finds its valid form for all subsequent times in the view that at the basis of the cosmos lies the eternally existing - Brahman, from which everything that exists has developed and which is identical with the eternal inner the core of the individual, the Atman. It also develops a theory about the transmigration of souls, about the subsequent effect of good and bad deeds - karma, which determines the new existence of a living being, as well as the passionate desire to escape from the cycle of repeated births - samsara - thanks to asceticism and the acquisition of higher knowledge - the decisive factor in all subsequent history spirit.
Classical period[edit | edit source text]
During this period, interest in ethical issues develops. Agnostics, materialists and fatalists oppose the Brahmins and reformists. Along with Brahmanism, atheistic lokayata and creeds now appear. Schools of philosophy called darshans are developing. Later, they are divided into orthodox (based on the teachings of the Vedas) and heterodox.
Unorthodox Darshans:
· Buddhism (Pali बुद्धधम्म, Buddha Dhamma, “Teaching of the Awakened One”) - religious and philosophical teaching (dharma) about spiritual awakening (bodhi), which arose around the 6th century BC. e. in Southeast Asia based on the ideas of Buddha Shakyamuni.
· Jainism (Sanskrit जैन, jaina? from Sanskrit जिन, jina?, “winner”) is a religious and philosophical doctrine that arose in India approximately in the 6th century BC. e., which denies the authority of the Vedas and the superiority of the hereditary caste of priests.
Orthodox Darshans:
1. Mimamsa(“clarification” of the Vedic text on sacrifices) deals with the explanation of ritual, but in its methods it can be classified as an atheistic pluralist system.
2. Vedanta(the conclusion of the Vedas) in the Brahma Sutra, based on the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, teaches about the emergence of the world from Brahman; individual souls, through knowledge or love of God - bhakti - automatically achieve salvation, achieve unity with God, without merging with him. Influenced by the idealism of late Buddhist philosophy, Shankara (circa 800 AD) gives the texts a new interpretation, which regards the previous teaching about the real transformation of Brahma only as a lower level of truth, as an appearance of truth; in reality, all diversity is an illusion (maya), individual souls are identical to the unchanging Brahma.
3. Samkhya(“reasonable weighing” or “enumeration”) preaches atheistic pluralism: the primary substance is only apparently connected with a kind of soul-spirit; overcoming this illusion guarantees liberation,
4. Yoga(tension, training) is the practice of contemplation; its theoretical basis is Samkhya, but it also recognizes a personal God.
5. Nyaya(rule, logic) - the doctrine of forms of thinking, which developed the five-term syllogism.
6. Merged into one system with yoga Vaisesika, which sought to establish differences between everything that confronts us in the external and inner world. Vaisheshika developed the doctrine of categories and atomism; being theistic, she saw the liberation of man in the separation of the soul from all material things and its transformation into an organ of thinking.
Jainism and Buddhism are non-theistic faiths. While the first recognizes eternal spiritual monads and material entities, the second denies the existence of an unchanging substance. The personality and the world it cognizes are born through the interaction of naturally occurring transitory factors - dharmas. Recognizing that there is no unchanging individual, but only a stream of interacting dharmas, is a prerequisite for achieving nirvana. The extreme pluralism of early Buddhism, Theravada pluralism, is opposed to the pantheism of the Mahayana, or “great vehicle.” According to the “middle teaching” of Nagarjuna (1st-2nd centuries), dharmas do not have true existence, because they are transitory; only the incomprehensible “emptiness”, accessible only to contemplation, is real. Samsara and nirvana from the highest point of view of reality are one and the same. In the later teaching of Asanga and Vasubandhu (I-IV centuries) about the “uniqueness of consciousness,” Buddhism comes closer to Vedanta in that it considers the spiritual as the ultimate being, perceived through yoga, when the external world is cognized as a projection of consciousness.
Hindu period (from 1000)
Buddhism in India is dying out, Jainism is losing its importance. Vedanta and Nyaya-Vaisesika are still developing; characterized primarily by the emergence of realistic Vaishnava and Shaivite systems, which in a scholastic form tried to prove that the Brahman of the Brahmanistic sutras is God Vishnu, or Shiva. These teachings were partly dominated by Tantrism and Shaktism. Since 1000, under the influence of Islam, a number of monotheistic faiths arose: (Kabirpanthi, Sikhism).
Indian philosophy has had a huge influence on world culture. One of the greatest German philosophers of the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer, under the influence of the Upanishads, was the first among famous European thinkers to carry out a synthesis of Western European and Indian philosophy.
The Indian philosopher and public figure Swami Vivekananda played a special role in the popularization of Indian philosophical thought in the USA and Europe at the end of the 19th century.
Since the 19th century, under the influence of Western European thought, there have been teachings that represent modernized theism, or pantheism (Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, the teachings of R. Tagore, M. Gandhi, Aurobindo Ghosh). Indian philosopher Dev Atma (1850-1929) created a system of philosophical naturalism. Modern Indian philosophy (S. Radhakrishnan) has made efforts to combine Indian and Western concepts of the good. The spiritual hybrid of Helena Blavatsky is based on Indian philosophy - theosophy (the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875, headquartered in Adyar, near Madras) and directions diverging from it (anthroposophy, etc.). Among the representatives of Indian philosophy of the 20th century one can name Pullu Tirupati Raju (1904-1992), Daya Krishna (born 1924), Pravas Jivan Chaudhuri (1916-1961), Abdul Rahman (born 1923), K. Satchidananda Murthy (born 1924 ), Mar Gregorios (1922-1996). It should be borne in mind that many modern Indian philosophers, while maintaining an inextricable connection with their philosophical tradition, live and work outside of India. One of the most significant of them is Jitendra Nath Mohanty (born 1928). He is known both as a phenomenological philosopher and as a historian of Indian philosophy. Among philosophers adhering to the Marxist tradition, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (1918-1993) became widely known, having made a significant contribution to the study of ancient Indian philosophy.
In the West, many movements appeared that used elements of Indian philosophy, which later became part of the New Age culture.
The philosophy of Ancient India - briefly, the most important thing. This is another topic from a series of publications on the basics of philosophy. In the previous article we looked at. As already mentioned, the science of philosophy arose simultaneously in different parts of the world - in Ancient Greece and in Ancient India and China around the 7th-6th centuries. BC. Often the philosophy of Ancient India and Ancient China are considered together, as they are very connected and have had a great influence on each other. But still, I propose to consider the history of the philosophy of Ancient China in the next article.
The philosophy of Ancient India was based on the texts contained in the Vedas, which were written in ancient language- Sanskrit. They consist of several collections written in the form of hymns. It is believed that the Vedas were compiled over a period of thousands of years. The Vedas were used for religious service.
The first philosophical texts of India are the Upanishads (late 2nd millennium BC). The Upanishads are an interpretation of the Vedas.
The Upanishads formed the main Indian philosophical themes: the idea of an infinite and one God, the doctrine of rebirth and karma. The One God is the incorporeal Brahman. Its manifestation – Atman – is the immortal, inner “I” of the world. The Atman is identical to the human soul. The goal of the human soul (the goal of the individual Atman) is to merge with the world Atman (the world soul). Anyone who lives in recklessness and impurity will not be able to achieve such a state and will enter the cycle of rebirth according to the cumulative result of his words, thoughts and actions, according to the laws of karma.
In philosophy, the Upanishads are ancient Indian treatises of a philosophical and religious nature. The most ancient of them date back to the 8th century BC. The Upanishads reveal the main point Vedas, which is why they are also called “Vedanta”.
In them the Vedas received the greatest development. The idea of connecting everything with everything, the theme of space and man, the search for connections, all this was reflected in them. The basis of everything that exists in them is the inexpressible Brahman, as the cosmic, impersonal principle and basis of the whole world. One more central point the idea of the identity of man with Brahman, of karma as the law of action and of samsara, like a circle of suffering that a person needs to overcome.
WITH 6th century BC the time of classics has begun philosophical schools(systems). Distinguish orthodox schools(they considered the Vedas the only source of Revelation) and unorthodox schools(they did not recognize the Vedas as the only authoritative source of knowledge).
Jainism and Buddhism classified as heterodox schools. Yoga and Samkhya, Vaisheshika and Nyaya, Vedanta and Mimamsa- these are six orthodox schools. I listed them in pairs because they are pairwise friendly.
Jainism is based on the hermit tradition (6th century BC). The basis of this system is personality and it consists of two principles - material and spiritual. Karma binds them together.
The idea of rebirth of souls and karma led the Jains to the idea that all life on Earth has a soul - plants, animals and insects. Jainism preaches such a life as not to harm all life on Earth.
Buddhism arose in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. Its creator was Gautama, a prince from India, who later received the name Buddha, which means awakened one. He developed the concept of a way to get rid of suffering. This should be the main goal of life for a person who wants to gain liberation and go beyond samsara, the cycle of suffering and pain.
To break out of the circle of suffering (enter nirvana) you need to observe 5 Commandments (Wikipedia) and engage in meditation, which calms the mind and makes one's mind clearer and free from desires. The extinction of desires leads to liberation and deliverance from the cycle of suffering.
Vedanta was one of the most influential schools of Indian philosophy. Exact time Its appearance is not known, approximately in the 2nd century. BC e. The completion of the teaching dates back to the end of the 8th century AD. e. Vedanta is based on the interpretation of the Upanishads.
In it the basis of everything is Brahman, which is one and infinite. The Atman of man can know Brahman and then man can become free.
Atman is the highest “I”, the absolute, which is aware of its existence. Brahman is the cosmic, impersonal beginning of everything that exists.
Mimamsa is adjacent to Vedanta and is a system that explained the rituals of the Vedas. The core was considered the idea of duty, which represented the making of sacrifices. The school reached its culmination in the 7th-8th centuries. It had an impact on strengthening the influence of Hinduism in India and reducing the importance of Buddhism.
This is the philosophy of dualism founded by Kapila. There are two principles in the world: prakriti (matter) and purusha (spirit). According to it, the main basis of everything is matter. The goal of Samkhya philosophy is the abstraction of spirit from matter. It was based on human experience and reflection.
Sankhya and Yoga are connected. Sankhya is theoretical basis for yoga. Yoga is a practical technique for achieving liberation.
Yoga. This system is based on practice. Only through practical exercises can a person achieve reunification with the divine principle. A lot of such yoga systems have been created, and they are still very famous all over the world. It is this that has become most popular now in many countries, thanks to a set of physical exercises that make it possible to be healthy and not get sick.
Yoga differs from Samkhya in the belief that every person has a supreme personal Deity. With the help of asceticism and meditation, you can free yourself from prakriti (material).
Nyaya was the doctrine of various forms thinking, about the rules of discussion. Therefore, its study was mandatory for everyone who was engaged in philosophizing. The problems of existence in it were explored through logical comprehension. Man's main goal in this life is liberation.
Vaisheshika is a school related to the Nyaya school. According to this system, every thing is constantly changing, although there are elements in nature that are not subject to change - these are atoms. An important topic of the school is to classify the objects in question.
Vaisheshika is based on the objective cognizability of the world. Adequate cognition is the main goal of systematic thinking.
From Samkhya to Vedanta. Indian philosophy: darshans, categories, history. Chattopadhyaya D (2003). A professor at Calcutta University wrote this book especially for Europeans who are just beginning to become acquainted with the philosophy of Ancient India.
Six systems of Indian philosophy. Muller Max (1995). The Oxford University professor is an outstanding expert on Indian texts; he has translated the Upanishads and Buddhist texts. This book is referred to as a fundamental work on the philosophy and religion of India.
Introduction to Indian Philosophy. Chatterjee S and Dutta D (1954). The authors present the views of Indian philosophical schools briefly and in simple language.
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Indian philosophy emerges in the middle of the first millennium BC new era according to European chronology. It is impossible to determine a more precise date for this event. The neglect of the ancient Indians to date significant events and lives of outstanding personalities, as well as the lack of a single point of view among modern researchers on what, in fact, can be considered the beginning of Indian philosophical thought, make this task practically insoluble. However, we can more or less accurately talk about the creation of the first philosophical system. Its author lived about a century before the Buddha, therefore somewhere within the seventh century BC. At this time, states had already arisen in India and there was literary language- Sanskrit, in which this philosophy was written.
There are many similarities between Indian and European philosophy, but there are clear differences. In the next section we will focus mainly on the features of Indian philosophy.
Features of Indian philosophy. A) Development within the framework of traditional concepts. When comparing the history of Indian philosophy with the history of the European “love of wisdom”, it is clearly seen that Indian philosophical thinking developed within the framework of a very limited traditional set of schools and directions. Sankhya, Nyaya-Vaisheshika, Patanjali's yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Lokayatika philosophy, Jainism and Buddhism make up almost all of its content. And this at a time when in Europe almost every new author tried to create his own philosophical system.
This phenomenon is explained by the fact that, in contrast to Europe, the cradle of Indian civilization was not a city, but a village: the overwhelming majority of the Indian population lived in rural areas, and the cities of this country were not as numerous as in Europe. And the structure of the city itself was simply an enlarged copy of the social structure of the village: the same management system, the same set of professions, the same way of life. The conservatism of village life is well known. Over the centuries, the Indian village has remained virtually unchanged. The agricultural community that arose at the dawn of civilization has survived to this day; for the most part, the ancient way of life of the community has been preserved.
The stability of life and traditions was also supported by the caste division of the Indian population, which prevented the interpenetration of cultures of different strata of the Indian people, their renewal and development. The authority of the past and tradition, which as a result became the main guidelines in the life of Indians, predetermined the narrow range of directions in their philosophy that had developed in ancient times.
B) Orientation to the Vedas. Second distinctive feature creativity of Indian thinkers is that the vast majority of the philosophical concepts they created are directly or indirectly connected with the Indo-Aryan sacred books Vedas (from the Sanskrit “view” - to know, to know), reflecting a pre-philosophical, mythological worldview. The influence of the Yajurveda, Samaveda and, in particular, the most ancient Rigveda on Indian philosophy is undeniable, despite the fact that Indians distinguish in it “nastika” - movements that do not recognize the sacred nature of the Vedas and criticize their content, and “astika” - movements that recognize the Vedas as sacred, and consciously focusing on them in the process of their development. Regardless of their belonging to one group or another, they all bear traces of the influence of the Vedic worldview.
C) Spiritualism (idealism) of Indian philosophy. The third feature that gives Indian philosophy originality and originality is, according to the Indian historian of philosophy Swami Radhakrishnan, the pronounced “spiritualism” (idealism) inherent in almost all of its concepts. This is due to the total dominance of religious ideologies in ancient India already at the very early stages of the development of civilization. The religious doctrines of India, unlike the theocentric doctrines of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, were anthropocentric. In them, man was interpreted as the semantic center of the universe, since only he was capable of self-knowledge and self-improvement, that is, of changing his consciousness through true knowledge of reality. Knowledge, thus, became a means of saving a person, by which the ancient Indians understood independence from the constantly changing phenomena of the material world. In religious doctrines, salvation through knowledge was opposed to the empirical state of the individual and the sensory world, which was endowed in them with all those attributes that characterize its materialist teachings: objectivity, materiality, epistemological (cognitive) primacy in relation to the knowing subject, etc. Thus, religious ideologies in India included the traditional problematic of materialism, dissolved it in their teachings, and therefore the need for special materialist concepts was not as pressing as in Europe.
D) Indian philosophy as a way of interpreting religious concepts. The fourth feature of Indian philosophy is that it arises as an attempt to interpret religious doctrines that usually need interpretation. Unlike medieval Europe Where, under the guise of discussions on religious topics, completely secular philosophical problems were solved, in India, under the guise of completely secular disputes, discussions were held on religious topics. This was because it was considered sacrilege to question religious doctrines. Their interpretation, or rather those fragments of it that concerned subjects that apparently had nothing to do directly with religious beliefs, was analyzed. Naturally, the participants in the philosophical debate understood very well that we were actually talking about the basic provisions of certain religions.
E) Practical orientation. The fifth feature of Indian philosophy is its practical orientation. It (philosophy) never arises from the desire to explain. Its task is always to interpret and justify the path to achieving religious liberation.
E) Connection with yogic practice. Indian philosophy is always, with rare exceptions, associated with yogic practice, which, influencing the consciousness of the believer, leads him to “liberation”, i.e. to achieve a religious goal.
G) Reliance on the organism’s worldview. The last, seventh feature of Indian philosophical thinking is that it is based on the organismic worldview (sensual image of the world), inherited from the Vedic mythological worldview of the ancient Indians.
Worldview has always, and especially in ancient times, played a very significant role in the formation of philosophical views different nations. It arose as a result of extrapolation (transfer) of the sensory image of an object to the world as a whole.
The ancient Indians saw in it, at least at the beginning, the human body, as if turned inside out, in the form of an organism, dismembered in the process of bloody sacrifice into its constituent organs. Thus, in one of the Indian myths, the world appears in the form of the cosmic primordial man Purusha, dismembered into parts:
When was Purusha divided into how many parts?
Was he divided?
What have his lips become, what have his hands become, what have become his thighs?
………………………………………………
The moon was born from a thought, from the eyes it arose
From the mouths of Indra and Agni, from the breath arose
It emerged from the navel air space,
The sky appeared from the head.
From the feet - the earth, the countries of the world - from the ears.
This is how the worlds were distributed. (Rigveda, X, 90)
Vedic literature. The emergence and implementation of the idea of this action, i.e., sacrifice, in India is closely related to the process of development of Vedic literature, which is divided into several stages.
The first stage is the time of creation of “samhita” » , that is, actually Vedas. Initial period This stage is characterized by an almost complete absence of traces of sacrificial rituals. The famous English Indologist M. Muller called it the period of “chhand” (“chhandas” in Sanskrit “hymn”), since the Rig Veda created then - the most ancient of the works of the Indian people that have reached us - contains hymns dedicated to the numerous gods of India. The order of the hymns in it is not associated with any religious rituals.
However, later, in other Vedas, this connection is revealed and becomes more and more obvious. In the Samaveda and especially in the Yajurveda, hymns are recited as verbal accompaniment various types sacrifices. In addition, they contain mantras - sets of words or sayings that have sacred meaning and are repeated during sacrificial rituals. Therefore, Muller called the second period of the first stage of development of Vedic literature the period of mantras.
The next stage includes the appearance of “brahmanas” - books containing information about the rituals of sacrifices and the interpretation of their hidden meaning and symbolism.
The third stage is characterized by the creation of "aranyakas" » , the so-called “forest books”, which contain the reflections of the brahmins who found refuge in the forest on the symbolic and mystical aspects of sacrifices. Finally, at the fourth stage, “Upanishads” appear - books containing, along with mythological texts, the beginnings of philosophical reflection in the form of attempts to rationally comprehend the religion of Brahmanism.
Between the time of the emergence of sacrifices, which falls during the period of formation of the Samhitas, and the appearance of the Upanishads, centuries pass, during which sacrificial rites actually turn into a prism, refracting reality into images corresponding to these rites. Thus, the formation of the universe was identified by the ancient Indians either with the process of sacrificing the cosmic primordial man Purusha, or with Ashvamedha - the sacrifice of a horse, in which the beginning of all things was embodied.
In connection with the above, it should be noted that at the dawn of history, including in India, man was often sacrificed to the gods. But in order for him, as a victim, to become a model of the universe in the minds of ancient society, a certain system of social relations was necessary that would assign this role to him not only religiously, but also socially.
This is necessary because the idea of the world always bears the stamp of the social structure. The ideology of any society, including mythology, the key relationships between people extend to nature and the world as a whole. And if the world is depicted in such an ideology as a human victim, this means that a person in this social system is in the position of a victim. The caste social system in India has become a system that assigns such a role to a person for thousands of years.
Castes and Varnas. Most often, castes are understood as hereditary groups of people characterized by endogamy (the custom of marriage within a group), a certain place in social hierarchy associated with traditional activities and limited in communication with each other. One of the main caste-forming features is the commonality of hereditary profession. People born in the caste system are initially intended for certain occupations, that is, they are carriers and personification of certain functions, just like each of the castes. At all times, the relationship between castes was apparently limited almost exclusively by professional interests, which led to ignorance individual characteristics person. There was practically no interest in his personal qualities: neither spiritual, nor even, as was the case in antiquity, physical. It follows from this that in the caste system of relations a person really becomes a victim - he is sacrificed to this very system. His inclinations, abilities and talents due to sharply limited professional opportunities turn out to be unclaimed, and therefore the personality turns out to be unfulfilled.
The caste system in India began with the emergence of varnas - four class groups that emerged in the process of development of Indian society. At its top there was a varna of priests, brahmans, responsible for the religious state of society. Their main function was to preserve and transmit to next generations the sacred knowledge contained in the Vedas. Since these sacred books were written down only centuries after their origin, the priests were living carriers of the information contained in them, which they learned by heart and were orally transmitted from one Brahman to another. They also monitored the performance of religious rites, provided education and scientific research and, speaking modern language, were responsible for the state of Indian culture as a whole.
The second in the social hierarchy was the Kshatriya varna (kshatriya - “endowed with power”) - the military class from which came the kings (rajas), representatives state power and warriors. Although the administrative power was in the hands of the kshatriyas, they did not have the same privileges as the brahmanas. There was a constant struggle between these varnas for supremacy in society.
The third and most numerous varna were the Vaishyas (Vaishva - “endowed with property”). They included farmers, artisans and traders. Vaishyas were the main tax-paying class on which the well-being of Indian society depended.
Indians belonging to these three varnas were called twice-born, since they had the exclusive right to study the Vedas, which in its significance was equated to a second birth. Such an assessment, apparently, was justified, since the sacred knowledge contained in the Vedas and the psychosomatic practice that accompanied the training radically changed the consciousness of the student, revealing to him not only the secret aspects of the world around him, but also those of his own possibilities about which he didn't even suspect. True, women, regardless of their class, did not have such a right. And a brahman who dared to introduce a woman to the Vedas was expelled from his varna.
Representatives of the lowest, fourth, varna - the sudras - were also not allowed to study the Vedas. Shudras were engaged in difficult and unprestigious types of labor (for example, fishing or garbage collection). Their purpose was to serve the first three varnas. They were deprived of many rights, including the right to participate in worship and sacrifices to the gods. True, they were allowed to perform home sacrifices and rites of remembrance of their ancestors.
Subsequently, groups of people were identified within the varnas, the main distinguishing feature of which was their occupation, that is, castes. Belonging to a caste was hereditary, and transition from one caste to another was not allowed.
The emergence of Indian philosophy. In the 1st century BC. According to European chronology, the era of the Sramanas began in India. She was celebrated social movement against the dominance of Varna Brahmins in all areas of life of the Indian people. The greatest strength of this varna was its intellect. And it was in this area that a massive attack by representatives of other varnas began. The kshatriyas, who had administrative power, wealth and conditions for receiving a comprehensive education, had the greatest opportunities to achieve this goal. Basically, their environment gave rise to thinkers who posed an intellectual challenge to the Brahmans in the form of religious and philosophical concepts that questioned the traditional Brahmanistic ideology of the Vedas.
However, even among the Brahmins themselves, individual representatives, fed up with traditional teachings and looking for new solutions eternal problems. They were not satisfied with the increasing ritualization of Brahmanism; they were disgusted by the tendency towards the lack of spirituality of the members of their varna and, as a consequence, the simplification of the religious ideal. Feeling loneliness in their environment, they leaned toward radical individualism. But individualism, emerging in a society with a mythological mentality, becomes one of the main reasons for the death of this mentality. Until a person separates himself from society and, even more so, does not oppose himself to it, his mind possesses exclusively generic, that is, mythological thinking. The latter accepts the world as something given and therefore treats it neutrally. It is neither pessimistic nor optimistic. Pessimism and unjustified optimism are dangerous for the race and are therefore rejected by it.
The isolation of the individual and his opposition to society gives rise to the relationship between subject and object, due to which society is subjected to critical analysis by the isolated individual. Critical because the very appearance of the subject occurs due to suffering, the cause of which is dissatisfaction with fate and disappointment. The suffering consciousness is merciless to the world and society and is a destructive force in relation to the latter. Thanks to him, on the ruins of the blood-tribal system, against the background of the myth that still continues to exist, a new thinking arises - rational. It is not bound by the concern for the preservation of the race inherent in myth and is not afraid to give an objective assessment of reality, whatever it may be. On the contrary, the loss of concern for the preservation of the species, and through it, the preservation of the species “man,” and the switching of attention to individuals made such an assessment necessary, since the suffering consciousness could be helped only by revealing the real causes of suffering.
Apparently, it is precisely this situation that gives rise to the first Indian philosophical concept, the author of which was the brahman Kapila, who contrasted the rationalism of his thinking with the mythologism of the teachings of the Vedas.
Sankhya philosophy. Kapila's philosophy is called "Sankhya", which translated into Russian means "enumeration". The first classical exposition of Sankhya philosophy is considered to be the text “Sankhya-karika” by Ishvarakrishna. Its author and commentators at the beginning of the work essentially reveal the meaning of the name of Kapila’s philosophy, saying that the latter, “seeing the world immersed in blind darkness in the continuity of samsara, felt pity for it and expounded to his relative the brahman Asuri, who wanted knowledge, this doctrine of The 25 principles are the teaching through which suffering is destroyed.” That is, the creator of Sankhya listed 25 principles of the world in his concept.
Both Ishvarakrishna and Kapila himself are convinced that suffering is an integral part of life. Analyzing suffering, the authors of Sankhya identify three types of suffering: “from oneself, from living beings and from deities.” Suffering from oneself can be associated with illness, with separation from the pleasant, connection with the unpleasant, etc. Suffering from living beings is caused by other people, livestock, animals, birds, insects, water monsters and the like. Suffering from the deities comes from the atmosphere and is caused by "cold, heat, winds, showers, lightning", which can often be caused by occult activities. It is useless to fight them with conventional means, since the latter do not give reliable and lasting results. Among such useless means, the Samkhyaikas mention drinking, food, rubbing, clothing, jewelry, and women. These also include correct behavior, safe houses, stones, spells, herbs, etc. Questioning the usual methods of getting rid of suffering, Samkhyaiks rise to criticize traditional religious views and rituals, and, first of all, the sacrificial rituals sanctified by the Vedas, which have become part of the blood and flesh of Indians. “Vedic is like ordinary,” they declare. First of all, in their opinion, such means as sacrifices devalue themselves by being associated with murder, that is, “with uncleanness.” But even if we are talking about a bloodless sacrifice, for example, about a libation of the divine drink “soma,” then it ultimately turns out to be useless.
According to opponents of the Samkhyaiks - supporters of traditional beliefs, the sacrifice of Soma allows believers to become celestials and find eternal happiness in heaven. However, the Samkhyaikas consider this state to be temporary. In the conditions of reality surrounding a person, eternity itself bears a sign of relativity. Is the sky forever? No. It is part of the world. And the world has limits to its existence. It (existence) is cyclical. And although human life incomparable in its brevity with the life of a celestial being, the latter, in the end, will also come to its end:
Many thousands of lords over the gods have passed
During world periods: time is hard to beat.
And gradually leading their opponents to realize the true path of salvation from suffering, the Samkhyaikas quote the following saying:
Not by rituals, not by offspring, not by wealth -
By renouncing the world, others achieved immortality.
What is available to hermits.
True immortality (and, accordingly, happiness) is “on the other side of rituals.” But if not rituals, then what can lead to it? According to the Samkhyaikas, this can be done by “discriminating cognition of the “manifest,” “unmanifest,” and “knower.”
Each of these types of existence is cognized in its own way, which the Sankhya Karika speaks of as follows: “the establishment of objects of knowledge is through the source of knowledge.” In other words, the “unmanifested” and the “manifested,” the eternal and the transitory, are cognized in different ways and each has its own means of comprehension, its own “source of knowledge.” The latter, according to the Samkhyaikas, there are three: “perception” (pratyaksha), “logical conclusion” (anumana) and “word of authority”, or “heard” (sruti).
Perception is interpreted by them as “certainty in the objects of cognition with the help of the senses.” Logical inference, or inferential knowledge, is a consequence of perception and “relies on the sign and the bearer of the sign,” when, for example, from the presence of a staff one concludes about a hermit, or, seeing fire, one expects to see smoke. In addition, inferential knowledge includes conclusions based on the previous (when the clouds are used to judge the approaching rain), conclusions “by part”, when the properties of a part (falls of water in the ocean) are used to judge the whole (the salinity of the entire ocean) and conclusions based on analogies (when, from the fact that the stars change place, one concludes about their movement, since “Chaitra changes place because it moves”).
The last of the listed types of knowledge is the word of authority, or heard (shruti). It is self-reliable, since it was taken from the sayings of the Veda, which is non-human in origin. And the creator of Sankhya himself, the first sage Kapila, recalled the “shruti” that he had studied in past births in previous world periods.
What types of cognition are available to the discriminating knowledge of the “manifest,” “unmanifest,” and “knower”? To answer this question, it is necessary to disclose the content of the listed terms.
A) Manifested. By “manifested” Sankhya Karika means, first of all, that which has limits and, accordingly, a cause. That which has a cause is not eternal, dependent, plural (consists of parts). All these are characteristics of the real world, which the Samkhyaikas traditionally described in the image and likeness of a sacrificed living being, and which, due to this, contained both ideal and material principles. The existence of the manifested was absolutely reliably ascertained inferior species cognition - perception. As Samkhya Karika says, “Even a plowman with dusty feet recognizes the “manifested” in the form of earth, etc. through the perception of pots, cloth, stone, lump of clay, etc.”
B) Unmanifest. A much more difficult task is the ascertainment and knowledge of the “unmanifested,” which the Samkhyaikas call prakriti or pradhana. This is the source of the “manifested”, which has common features with the latter, but is inaccessible to perception. In the words of Sankhya Karika, he is unobservable. And “the establishment (cognition) of the unobservable is through inference by analogy,” that is, through logical inference.
To understand this statement, you need to consider one key principle Samkhya philosophy. It turns out that the Samkhyaiki always believed that the effect is necessarily contained in its cause. So the pot is already contained in clay, the fabric is already contained in threads. (after all, fabric is a state of threads, and there is nothing but threads in it). Therefore, the properties of the effect are always inherent in the cause, that is, it can be judged by analogy with the effect. And since the manifested is a consequence of the unmanifested, pradhana, the latter is endowed by the Sankhyaika with the signs of the manifested, but not all, but only those that are inherent in all its components.
A common feature of all modifications of the “manifested” is three guns. Three gunas, or three qualities - sattva, rajas and tamas - mean, respectively, lightness and illumination, motivation and mobility, heaviness and numbness and have the nature: sattva - joy, rajas - suffering and tamas - apathy. These qualities permeate all forms of manifestation, mixing with each other. Moreover, one of them usually prevails. It is the three guns that characterize the unmanifested, or pradhana. True, the gunas do not mix in it and are in balance.
However, what does this tell us about the existence of pradhana? After all, she is imperceptible. “The imperceptible does not mean the non-existent,” say the Samkhyaikas. Immunity is a consequence of many factors. For example, the subtlety or remoteness of an object. What is manifest must have a cause due to its inconstancy, multiplicity, dependence, etc. But the cause can only be something other, different from the effect, although having something with it general properties. And what could be “other” of the manifested other than the unmanifested? Therefore pradhana exists.
B) Knowing. Through logical deduction, the Samkhyaikas also solve the question of the existence of the third component of the world order - the “knower”, or Purusha. If we generalize the Samkhya reasoning on this matter, then it boils down to the fact that both the manifested and the pradhana feel the need for something third, for which they are intended and which they need as a controlling principle. Therefore, the third, that is, Purusha, exists.
The Samkhya system is dualistic: it recognizes two independent principles of the world, independent from each other: Purusha and Pradhana. Purusha is Atman, an individual soul, although it has little in common with the “soul” in the European sense of the word. Purusha, or Atman, is pure consciousness, a subject devoid of intellect and feelings. He is empty, passive and indifferent. The reason for all the listed signs of Purusha, or rather, the absence of any signs in this pure consciousness, is the non-presence of gunas in it: “After all, the happy and satisfied, as well as the unhappy and hating his suffering (i.e., having qualities, or gunas - B.B. ) are not indifferent.”
Purusha is not unique. It is multiple. And in this statement there is another fundamental discrepancy between Samkhya and orthodox Brahmanism. The latter argued that Atman, that is, the individual soul, is identical to Brahman, the world soul. In other words, any individual soul is one and the same world soul, but endowed with individual traits, and everything that exists has one single spiritual basis - Brahman. Sankhyaiks reject the Brahmanistic principle of the identity of Atman and Brahman and believe that each body is pre-existed by an individual soul - Atman.
Unlike the consciousness-subject of Purusha, Pradhana (aka Prakriti), or the unmanifested, is an object, and therefore does not have consciousness. As has already been said, it is permeated with gunas and endowed active property generation, which also differs from Purusha. The passive but conscious Purusha and the active but unconscious Pradhana come into contact for the purpose of "insight" of the Purusha. The fact is that Purusha (essentially a person) suffers because of his connection with Pradhana, because of his identification with her. He refers to himself the triple suffering localized in it. So that he can notice this, Pradhana reveals herself to him, which should lead to his subsequent isolation from her. The manifestation of Pradhana occurs under the influence of excitement from the presence of Purusha. The balance of the gunas is disturbed, due to which differences arise: some gunas (qualities) alternately prevail over others. This is how “the creation of the world is accomplished.”
For a correct understanding of the process of world creation, one should again recall the peculiarities of the worldview of the ancient Indians, who imagined the Universe in the form of a sacrificial animal or person. This parallelism between the cosmic and the human is clearly visible when considering the philosophy of Sankhya. Based on what has been said, it should be borne in mind that everything that Sankhya says about the forms of manifestation of Pradhana applies to both the world and man.
The first manifested form or modification of Pradhana is Mahat - intellect. Accordingly, it must be understood both as the “world mind” and as the intellect of an individual person (Sanskrit “buddhi”). His function is to make decisions. It has sattvic and tamasic aspects. When the sattvic aspect wins, then a person achieves such properties of intelligence as virtue, knowledge, dispassion, and superpowers. If Tamas defeats Sattva, vice, ignorance, passion and inability triumph in a person.
From Mahat comes Ahamkara (Egotism) - “imagining oneself.” This inception concerns everything that a person perceives: “I am called to this,” “I am truly capable of this,” “These objects are for me,” these are the verbal expressions of the phenomenon of inception. It is based on egotism that the intellect makes decisions: “I must do this.”
Egotism, or ahamkara, changes. He becomes either sattvic or tamasic. Having become sattvic, it gives birth to eleven indriyas (organs). Of these, there are five indriyas of perception: eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin, and five indriyas of action: organs of speech, hands, feet, organs of excretion and organs of reproduction. Mind, the eleventh indriya, is of the nature of both, because it directs the activity of both the indriyas of perception and the indriyas of action.
Having become tamasic, egotism gives rise to a group of tanmatras (subtle matter), consisting of five elements: sound, touch (touch), form, taste, smell - which are the objects of the five indriyas of perception. It is interesting that these qualities, or properties of objects, which (with the exception of form) in European philosophy were considered non-existent in nature (secondary), Kapila makes independent entities, having a corporeal nature, elements underlying the material world. From these qualities, which have a subtle bodily nature, gross matter is formed, which also has five groups: from sound, space is formed, from touch and sound - wind, from form, touch and sound - fire, from taste, form, touch and sound - water, from smell, taste, form, touch and sound - earth. (See diagram 1.)
