Scientific Enlightenment, Div. One
Book 2: Human Enlightenment of the First Axial

2.B.4. A Genealogy of the Philosophic Enlightenment in Ancient India

Chapter 1: Classification of Indian Philosophy
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Classification of Indian intellectual traditions (After Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy)

The source in primitive intraworld religiosity: the Vedas (up to the second half of the first millennium B.C.) To classify all the literature belonging to that particular epoch and known collectively as the Vedas or "'Sruti' (from sru to hear)" (ibid., p. 11) "from the point of view of age, language, and subject matter" (ibid., p. 12):

                                      |--- Rig-Veda (oldest, arranged according
                                      |    to gods [Agni, Indra, etc.])   
                                      |--- Atharva-Veda (of spells & incant.)
       |--- Samhita ("put together")--|
       |                              |--- Sama-Veda (stanza taken from Rg. to
       |                              |    be chanted in soma sacrifices)  
Vedas -|                              |                                   
       |                              |--- Yajur-Veda (sacrificial prayers used
       |                                   in many sacrifices)                
       |--- Brahmanas (prayer brahman; up to 500 A.D.)
       |                                                                       
       |--- Aranyakas (forest treatise): "proto-philosophy"
       |                                                      
       |--- Upanishads

Brahmanas: corresponding to the complexification of the ritual practices there arose the "distribution of the different sacrificial functions among several distinct classes of priests", and so the caste system and the professionalization of priesthood in charge of the increasingly elaborate ritual details; Brahmanas were the theological treatises dealing with, rationalizing and speculating on the ritual details, their origins and significances. (Ibid., p. 13)

Aranyakas: the transition from intraworld religious practices to speculative metaphysics, i.e. the transformation of the former, such as sacrifices of actual things, into the latter, i.e. abstract impersonal symbolism. "To take an illustration from the beginning of the Brhadaranyaka we find that instead of the actual performance of the horse sacrifice (asvamedha [asva = horse]) there are directions for meditating upon the dawn (Usas) as the head of the horse, the sun as the eye of the horse, the air as its life [i.e. soul, breath], and so on... It was thus that the Aranyakas could pave the way for the Upanishads, revive the germs of philosophic speculation in the Vedas, and develop them in a manner which made the Upanishads the source of all philosophy that arose in the world of Hindu thought." (Ibid., p. 14)

Early development of Hindu philosophy from Upanishads (600 - 100 B.C.):

                                                    
                                    |--- Bhagavadgita --- Vaisnava (theistic
          Upanishads (700 -500 BC;  |                        system; 800 AD-)
Vedas --- Brahmasutra: classical ---|
         exposition of Upanishads)  |
                                    |--- Saiva & Tantra (the other theistic 
                                                         orientation)

The various schools of Vaisnava philosophy, from 9th century onward, attempted to organize the loose theistic ideas of Upanishads into metaphysical theories, writing extensive commentaries on this and the Brahmasutra to prove its descent from them. (Ibid., p. 8)

The other theistic trend, the Saiva and Tantra thinkings, were of "a more eclectic nature." (Ibid.)

Buddhism and Jainism arose around 500 B.C., in reaction to which (principally the Buddhists) Hindu philosophy came to fruition, coming into 6 schools (500 - 200 B.C.):

                     |--- Samkhya & Yoga
           Buddhism  | 
Upanishads -- | -----|--- Nyaya & Vaisesika
            Janism   |                               
                     |--- Mimamsa, Vedanta

"Samkhya and Yoga are but different schools of one system. The Vaisesika and Nyaya in later times became so mixed up that, though in early times the similarity of the former with Mimamsa was greater than that with Nyaya, they came to be regarded as fundamentally almost the same systems." (Ibid., p. 7)

All these are covered by Dasgupta in the first volume of his History.


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