Indian Philosophy (Volume II)

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Item Code: IDD915
Author: S. Radhakrishnan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Language: English
Edition: 2021
ISBN: 9780195698428
Pages: 807
Cover: Paperback
Other Details 8.5" X 5.5"
Weight 830 gm
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Book Description

 

About The Book:

 

Long acknowledged as a classic, this pioneering survey of Indian thought charts a fascinating course through an intricate history. From the Rig Veda to Rmanuja, Radhakrishnan traces the development of Indian philosophy as a single tradition of thought through the ages. Individual philosophers and their views are interpreted in the light of this broad argument. The author shows ancient philosophical texts at their best and relates them to contemporary issues of philosophy and religion. The prevent meaning and significance from being obscured by detail. Parallels between Indian and western philosophical traditions are regularly drawn.

This volume, a general introduction to Indian philosophy, covers the Vedic and Epic periods, including expositions on the hymns of the Rig Veda, the Upanisads, Jainism, Buddhism and the theism of the Bhagvadgita. Scholarly yet lucid, this book is an absorbing read for the general reader interested in Indian philosophy.

 

About The Author:

 

S. Radhakrishnan (1888-1975), distinguished scholar, statesman, and author, taught for many years at Oxford University before becoming the President of India in 1962. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954.

Excerpts from Review:

'S. Radhakrishnan's Indian philosophy (first published in 1923) is the first substantial work, in modern idiom, on the vast corpus of Indian philosophical thought. Over the past decades it has acquired the status of a classic. There is still a great deal in it both for the young philosophy undergraduate and for the serious researcher.'

- Mrinal Miri,
Vice Chancellor,
North Eastern Hill University, (NEHU), Shilong, India

'The Work gives a clear and rational account of the highest conceptions of Hinduism …[a] happy blend of Eastern conceptions with Western terminology.'

-Times Literary Supplement

 

PREFACE to the First Edition

In this volume, which is devoted to the discussion of the six Brahmanical systems, I have adopted the same plan and method of treatment as in the first. I have tried to adopt, what is acknowledged to be, the true spirit of philosophical interpretation, viz to interpret the ancient writers and their thoughts at their best and relate them to the living issues of philosophy and religion. Vacaspate Misra, who commented on almost all the systems of Hindu thought, wrote on each, as if he believed in its doctrines. In presenting intelligently tendencies of thought matured long ago and embodied in a number of difficult works, it has been necessary to select, emphasize and even criticize particular aspects, which naturally betrays the direction in which my own thinking runs. Involving as the work does so many decisions on points of detail, it is, perhaps, too much to hope that the book is free from errors of judgment; but I have endeavored to give an objective treatment and avoid playing tricks with the evidence.

I should repeat here that my discussion is not to be regarded as complete in any sense of the term, for almost every chapter deals with a subject to which a fully equipped socialist devotes a lifetime of study. Detailed discussions of particular systems require separate monographs. My task is the limited one, of sketching in broad outlines the different movements of thought, their motives and their results. I have made practically no attempt to deal with secondary variations of opinion among the less important writers of the various schools. My treatment of the Saiva, the Sakta and the later Vaisnava systems, which belong more to the religious history than to the philosophical development of India, has been brief and summary. I shall be thoroughly satisfied if I succeed in conveying an idea, however inadequate, of the real spirit of the several phases of Indian speculative thought.

If this volume is slightly more difficult is not entirely of my making, but is to some extent inherent in the subject and in the close thinking which its study involves. To condense a mass of facts into a clear narrative which can be followed by the reader without bewilderment or boredom is a task which I felt to be more than what I could compass. It is for the reader to judge how far I have succeeded in my attempt to steer a middle course between looseness and pedantry. To help the general reader, the more technical and textual discussions are printed in small type.

In the preparation of this volume I have found, not only the Sanskrit texts of the different schools, but also the writings of Deussen and Keith, Thibaut and Garbe, Ganganath Jha and Vidyabhusan Aiyar and Professor J.S. Mackenzie, for their kindness in reading considerable parts of the MS. and the proofs, and making many valuable suggestions. Professor A. Berriedale Keith was good enough to read the proofs, and the book has profited much by this critical comments. My deepest thanks, however, are due, as in the case of the first volume, to the General Editor, Professor J.H. Muirhead, who gave to work much of his time and thought. But for his generous assistance, the defects of the book- whatever they maybe- would have been very much greater. The printing of the work involved considerable trouble, and I am glad that it has been extraordinarily well done.

Introduction

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's India Philosophy, first published in 1921-3 is a classic which has inspired generation of scholars and intelligentsia alike, in and outside India, to know the vast treasures of Indian philosophical thought. Based on Sanskrit sources and written elegantly, using the diction of his contemporary philosophical style, the two volume work has continued to educate and inform generation of philosophers in India. It is with great enthusiasm and pleasure that I welcome this new edition.

The publication of volume one of Indian Philosophy in 1921, in the Muirhead Library of Philosophy series, shot the young scholar to international fame. The same year Sir Asutosh Mukerjee appointed him to the prized King George V Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Calcutta. The Department of Philosophy in Calcutta had such stalwarts as Hiralal Haldar, K.C. Bhattacharya, and S.N. Dasgupta. It created a stir that a young and relatively unknown scholar from the south was placed above them. But soon this young man proved his worth and endeared himself to all by his gentle and courteous lectureships abroad, all crowned by appointment concurrently with his position in Calcutta, to the Spalding Professorship in Eastern Religion and Ethics at the University of Oxford.

India Philosophy followed the footsteps of Madhava Achayra's Sarvadarsanasamgraha. Expositions of the 'Six system' were followed by a chapter in Saiva, Sakta, and later Vaisnava theistic schools, capped by a brilliantly written concluding chapter. Three chapters were devoted to the Vedanta: one on the Vedanta sutras, and two others on Advaita Vedanta of Samkara and the theism of Ramanuja respectively. Clearly the author's own preference was the Advaita of Samkara. The entire exposition of the systems was geared towards it as the immanent telos operating through them. As in the case of Madhava Acharya's demography, they all, that is all the other systems, pointed towards their culmination in Advaita Vedanta.

In order to appreciate Radhakrishnan's interpretive point of view, it is important to bear in mind the general intellectual and spiritual climate in India. 1921, the year of publication of the Indian Philosophy, was also the year when Mahatma Gandhi launched his first movement of non-cooperation against the British rule. A few years earlier, Rabindranth Tagore had won the Noble Prize for literature. Radhakrihnan had already written a monograph on the philosophy of the Upanishad to which Tagore wrote the foreword. Indian Philosophy was nurtured by both the rising self -conscious on the part of India, as well as contributed to it. Besides being an academic philosopher, Radhakrishnan was drawn into the public philosophical discourse in which he excelled. His writings and speeches inspired the intelligentsia of the country.

Philosophically, the dominant ideas during Radhakrishnan's philosophical training in Madras, flowing from the British universities into India, were Hegelian in origin. Hegelianism of various brands obtained in Oxford, and then in Calcutta. An idealistic monism, for which Reality is one and spiritual, manifesting itself in and through the world and history, prevailed. Radhakrishnan was impressed by the close affinity between Hegelian monism and the Advaita, but he was painfully aware of Hegel's misinformed critique of Indian thought as being a product of 'abstract understanding' Amongst British neo-Hegelians, F.H.Bradley impressed him most and he saw in Bradley's Appearance and Reality a close approximation, leaving out Plato and Hegel to Advaita, while he did not fail to note their differences. The University of Calcutta, already full of such neo-Hegelianism (the already mentioned Hiralal Haldar was the author of the first exposition and critique of neo-Hegelianism), was a fertile ground, already for Radhakrishnan's ideas.

In this climate, Radhakrishnan's interpretation of Indian thought was characterized by several underlying beliefs. First, he believed in the development of philosophy, in India, following a logical sequence, never at rest, but always on the move. So even in the twentieth century, after thousands of years of movement, it is still not complete; there is room for further development. The beauty of philosophy is in the process. In this, he opposes the conservative, who look upon the darsanas as providing complete systems, each by itself and in totality as well, to which nothing can be added and form which nothing can be taken out. But Radhakrishnan also opposes the liberalism which looks upon the ancient modes of thinking as errors, to be replaced by ideas from the West. His great admiration for the Indian tradition is matched by his recognition that Indian philosophy has to learn from, and profit by, lesions from the West. Furthermore, the history of philosophy in India has been a story not only of progress but also of decline. The most important thing is the future. We need to build upon the achievements of our ancestors.

Perhaps, the most characteristic feature of Radhakrishnan's interpretation is the emphasis on the movement of thought from logical reasoning to spiritual intuition. Logical reasoning marks the progress from consciousness to self -consciousness, but self-consciousness is to be transcended by intuition which he sometimes calls super-consciousness. The contrast between reason and intuition pervades all his writings, and has influenced generation of philosophers in India, but has also been a point for criticism by the younger hard-headed thinkers. There is no doubt that here too he was influenced by Hegel whose Phenomenology of Spirit, of 'consciousness' 'self-consciousness' ' Reason' and 'Spirit'. Thus in Radhakrishnan's view, philosophy has to leave us at a point where religion based, not on fact but on religious experience, takes over. The idea of this higher 'experience' was popularized by him. Modern, rather post- modern, critics have wondered if this is truly Indian, based on Sanskrit sources.

Radhakrishnan is a supreme example of Indian modernity. In the age of post- modernism, his thinking has come under attack by the analytic philosophers, by grammarians by Navya Naiyayikas as well as by a lot of other post-modern thinkers. But none of these critics have risen to that height of nobility and grandeur in writing and in speech which he achieved, which influenced and inspired generation of his countrymen and which in this 'self -contradictory' age of globalizations and fragmentation, we may need to revisit.

 

CONTENTS

 

Preface to the Second Edition   vii
Preface to the First Edition   ix
Introduction by J.N.Mohanty   xi
List of Abbreviations   xv
PART III
THE SIX BRAHMANIGCAL SYSTEMS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION   3
  The spirit of the age - The Darsanas -Astika and Nastika - Sutra literature - Date - Common ideas - The six systems.  

 

CHAPTER II
THE LOGICAL REALISM OF THE NYAYA   14
  The Nyaya and the Vaisesika - The beginning of the Nyaya - Literature and history - Aim and scope - The nature of definition - Perception - Its analysis and kinds - Inference - Syllogism - Induction - Causation - Plurality of Causes - Asatkaryavada - Criticism of the Nyaya view of causation - Comparison - Verbal knowledge - Authoritativeness of the Veda - Other forms of knowledge - Authoritativeness of the Vedas - Other forms of knowledge - Aaitihya and Arthapatti, Sambhava and Abhava - Tarka, Vada, Nigrahasthana - Memory - Doubt - Fallacies - Truth, its nature and criterion - Theories of error - The Nyaya theory of knowledge examined - The world of nature - The theory of knowledge examined - The world f nature - The individual soul - Samsara -Moksa - Criticism of the Nyaya theory of soul and its relation to consciousness - Ethnics - Proofs for the existence of God - Conclusion.  

 

CHAPTER III
THE ATOMISTIC PLURALISM OF THE VAISESIKA   157
  The Vaisesika - Date and literature - Theory of knowledge - Categories - Substance - Soul - Manas - Space - Time - Akasa - Earth, water, light and air - The atomic theory - Quality - Activity - Generality - Particularity - Inherence - Non-existence - Ethics - Theology - General estimate.  

 

CHAPTER IV
THE SAMKHYA SYSTEM   226
  Introduction - Antecedents - Literature - Causality - Prakrti - Gunas - Cosmic evolution - Purana - The relation between Purusa and Prakrti - The problem of knowledge - Jiva - Ethics - Release - God - Is Samkhya atheistic? - General estimate.  

 

CHAPTER V
THE YOGA SYSTEM OF PATANJALI   308
  Introduction - Antecedent of the Yoga system - Date and literature - The Samkhya and the Yoga - Psychology - The means of knowledge - The art of Yoga - Ethical preparation - the discipline of the body - Regulation of breath - Sense-control - Contemplation - Concentration - Freedom Karma - Supernormal powers - Theism of the Yoga -conclusion.  

 

CHAPTER VI
THE PURVA MIMASA   345
  Introduction - Date and literature - The source of knowledge - Perception - Inference - Scriptural testimony - Comparison - Implication - Non-apprehension - Theory of knowledge: Prabhakara, Kumarila - The self; Prabhakara, Kumarila - Nature of reality - Ethics apurva - Moksa - God - Conclusion.  

 

CHAPTER VII
THE VEDANTA SUTRA   398
  The Vedanta and its interpretation - Authorship and date of the Sutra - Relation to other schools - Brahman - The world - The individual self - Moksa - Conclusion.  

 

CHAPTER VIII
THE ADVAITA VEDANTA OF SAMKARA   413
  Introduction - Date - Life and personality of Samkara - Literature - Gaudapada's Karika - Buddhist influence - Anaalysis of experience - Causation - Creation - Ethics and religion - Relation to Buddhism - General estimate of Gaudapada's position - Bhartrhari - Bhartrprapanca - Samkara's relation to the Upanisads and the Brahma Sutra - Relation to Buddhism and other systems of philosophy - The reality of Atma - Its nature - Theory of knowledge - Mechanism of knowledge - Perception, its nature and varieties - Inference - Scriptural testimony - Refutation of subjectivism - Criterion of truth - Inadequacy of logical knowledge - Self-consciousness - Adhyasa -Anubhava - Scriptural authority - Higher wisdom and lower knowledge - Samkara and Kant, Bergson and Bradly - The Objective approach - Reality and existence - Space, time and cause - The world of phenomena - Brahman - Saguna and Nirguna - Isvara - Proofs for the existgence of God -Brahman and Isvara - Personality - Creation - The phenomenal character of Isvara - Being, not-being and becoming - The Phenomenality of the world - The doctrine of maya - Avidya - Is the world an illusion? - Avidya and maya - The world of nature - The individual self - Saksin and Jiva - Brahman and Jiva - Avacchedavada - Bimbapratibimbavada - Isvara and Jiva - Ekajivavada and Anekajivavada - Ethics - Charge of intellectualism and asceticism considered-Jnana and Karma-Karma and freedom - Moksa - Future life - Religion - Conclusion.  

 

CHAPTER IX
THE THEISM OF RAMANUJA   616
  Introduction - The Puranas - Life - History and literature - Bhaskara - Yadavapraksa - The Pramanas - Implication of Ramanuja's theory of knowledge -God - The individual soul - Matter - Creation - Ethics and religion - Moksa - General extimate.  

 

CHAPTER X
THE SAIVA, THE SAKTA, AND THE LATER VAISNAVA THEISM   674
  Saiva Siddhanta - Literature - Metaphysics, ethics and religion the Pratyabhijna system of Kashmir - Saktaism - The dualism of Madhva - Life and literature - Theory of knowledge - God - Soul - Nature - God and the world - Ethics and religion - General estimate - Nimbarka and Kesava - Vallabha - Caitanya, Jiva Gosvami and Baladeva.  

 

CHAPTER XI
CONCLUSION   715
  the course of Hindu philosophic development - The unity of the different systems - The decline of the philosophic spirit in recent times - Contact with the West - The present situation - Conservatism and radicalism - The future.  
NOTES   728
INDEX   739

 

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