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CHAPTER IV

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SYSTEMS
OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

In what Sense is a History of Indian Philosophy possible? IT is hardly possible to attempt a history of Indian philosophy in the manner in which the histories of European philosophy have been written. In Europe from the earliest times, thinkers came one after another and offered their independent speculations on philosophy. The work of a modern historian consists in chronologically arranging these views and in commenting upon the influence of one school upon another or upon the general change from time to time in the tides and currents of philosophy. Here in India, however, the principal systems of philosophy had their beginning in times of which we have but scanty record, and it is hardly possible to say correctly at what time they began, or to compute the influence that led to the foundation of so many divergent systems at so early a period, for in all probability these were formulated just after the earliest Upanisads had been composed or arranged.

The systematic treatises were written in short and pregnant half-sentences (sūtras) which did not elaborate the subject in detail, but served only to hold before the reader the lost threads of memory of elaborate disquisitions with which he was already thoroughly acquainted. It seems, therefore, that these pithy halfsentences were like lecture hints, intended for those who had had direct elaborate oral instructions on the subject. It is indeed difficult to guess from the sūtras the extent of their significance, or how far the discussions which they gave rise to in later days were originally intended by them. The sutras of the Vedānta system, known as the Śārīraka-sūtras or Brahma-sūtras of Bādarāyaṇa for example were of so ambiguous a nature that they gave rise to more than half a dozen divergent interpretations, each one of which claimed to be the only faithful one. Such was the high esteem and respect in which these writers of the sūtras were held by later writers that whenever they had any new speculations to

offer, these were reconciled with the doctrines of one or other of the existing systems, and put down as faithful interpretations of the system in the form of commentaries. Such was the hold of these systems upon scholars that all the orthodox teachers since the foundation of the systems of philosophy belonged to one or other of these schools. Their pupils were thus naturally brought up in accordance with the views of their teachers. All the independence of their thinking was limited and enchained by the faith of the school to which they were attached. Instead of producing a succession of free-lance thinkers having their own systems to propound and establish, India had brought forth schools of pupils who carried the traditionary views of particular systems from generation to generation, who explained and expounded them, and defended them against the attacks of other rival schools which they constantly attacked in order to establish the superiority of the system to which they adhered. To take an example, the Nyāya system of philosophy consisting of a number of half-sentences or sūtras is attributed to Gautama, also called Akṣapāda. The earliest commentary on these sūtras, called the Vätsyāyana bhāṣya, was written by Vātsyāyana. This work was sharply criticized by the Buddhist Dinnaga, and to answer these criticisms Udyotakara wrote a commentary on this commentary called the Bhasyavättika1. As time went on the original force of this work was lost, and it failed to maintain the old dignity of the school. At this Vācaspati Miśra wrote a commentary called Värttika-tātparyaṭikā on this second commentary, where he tried to refute all objections against the Nyaya system made by other rival schools and particularly by the Buddhists. This commentary, called Nyaya-tatparyaṭīkā, had another commentary called Nyāyatātparyaṭīkā-pariśuddhi written by the great Udayana. This commentary had another commentary called Nyāya-nibandhaprakāśa written by Varddhamana the son of the illustrious Gangeśa. This again had another commentary called Varddhamänendu upon it by Padmanabha Miśra, and this again had another named Nyāya-tātparyamaṇḍana by Śankara Miśra. The names of Vātsyāyana, Vācaspati, and Udayana are indeed very great, but even they contented themselves by writing commentaries on commentaries, and did not try to formulate any 1 I have preferred to spell Dinnāga after Vācaspati's Tātparyatīkā (p. 1) and not Dignaga as it is generally spelt.

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original system. Even Šaňkara, probably the greatest man of India after Buddha, spent his life in writing commentaries on the Brahma-sutras, the Upanisads, and the Bhagavadgītā.

As a system passed on it had to meet unexpected opponents and troublesome criticisms for which it was not in the least prepared. Its adherents had therefore to use all their ingenuity and subtlety in support of their own positions, and to discover the defects of the rival schools that attacked them. A system as it was originally formulated in the sūtras had probably but few problems to solve, but as it fought its way in the teeth of opposition of other schools, it had to offer consistent opinions on other problems in which the original views were more or less involved but to which no attention had been given before.

The contributions of the successive commentators served to make each system more and more complete in all its parts, and stronger and stronger to enable it to hold its own successfully against the opposition and attacks of the rival schools. A system in the sūtras is weak and shapeless as a newborn babe, but if we take it along with its developments down to the beginning of the seventeenth century it appears as a fully developed man strong and harmonious in all its limbs. It is therefore not possible to write any history of successive philosophies of India, but it is necessary that each system should be studied and interpreted in all the growth it has acquired through the successive ages of history from its conflicts with the rival systems as one whole1. In the history of Indian philosophy we have no place for systems which had their importance only so long as they lived and were then forgotten or remembered only as targets of criticism. Each system grew and developed by the untiring energy of its adherents through all the successive ages of history, and a history of this growth is a history of its conflicts. No study of any Indian system is therefore adequate unless it is taken throughout all the growth it attained by the work of its champions, the commentators whose selfless toil for it had kept it living through the ages of history.

1 In the case of some systems it is indeed possible to suggest one or two earlier phases of the system, but this principle cannot be carried all through, for the supplementary information and arguments given by the later commentators often appear as harmonious elaborations of the earlier writings and are very seldom in conflict with them.

Growth of the Philosophic Literature.

It is difficult to say how the systems were originally formulated, and what were the influences that led to it. We know that a spirit of philosophic enquiry had already begun in the days of the earliest Upanisads. The spirit of that enquiry was that the final ✓ essence or truth was the ātman, that a search after it was our highest duty, and that until we are ultimately merged in it we can only feel this truth and remain uncontented with everything else and say that it is not the truth we want, it is not the truth we want (neti neti). Philosophical enquires were however continuing in circles other than those of the Upanisads. Thus the Buddha who closely followed the early Upanisad period, spoke of and enumerated sixty-two kinds of heresies', and these can hardly be traced in the Upaniṣads. The Jaina activities were also probably going on contemporaneously but in the Upaniṣads no reference to these can be found. We may thus reasonably suppose that there were different forms of philosophic enquiry in spheres other than those of the Upanisad sages, of which we have but scanty records. It seems probable that the Hindu systems of thought originated among the sages who though attached chiefly to the Upanisad circles used to take note of the discussions and views of the antagonistic and heretical philosophic circles. In the assemblies of these sages and their pupils, the views of the heretical circles were probably discussed and refuted. So it continued probably for some time when some illustrious member of the assembly such as Gautama or Kanāda collected the purport of these discussions on various topics and problems, filled up many of the missing links, classified and arranged these in the form of a system of philosophy and recorded it in sūtras. These sūtras were intended probably for people who had attended the elaborate oral discussions and thus could easily follow the meaning of the suggestive phrases contained in the aphorisms. The sūtras thus contain sometimes allusions to the views of the rival schools and indicate the way in which they could be refuted. The commentators were possessed of the general drift of the different discussions alluded to and conveyed from generation to generation through an unbroken chain of succession of teachers and pupils. They were however free to supplement these traditionary explanations with their own

1 Brahmajāla-sutta, Digha, 1. p. 12 ff.

views or to modify and even suppress such of the traditionary views with which they did not agree or which they found it difficult to maintain. Brilliant oppositions from the opposing schools often made it necessary for them to offer solutions to new problems unthought of before, but put forward by some illustrious adherent of a rival school. In order to reconcile these new solutions with the other parts of the system, the commentators never hesitated to offer such slight modifications of the doctrines as could harmonize them into a complete whole. These elaborations or modifications generally developed the traditionary system, but did not effect any serious change in the system as expounded by the older teachers, for the new exponents always bound themselves to the explanations of the older teachers and never contradicted them. They would only interpret them to suit their own ideas, or say new things only in those cases where the older teachers had remained silent. It is not therefore possible to describe the growth of any system by treating the contributions of the individual commentators separately. This would only mean unnecessary repetition. Except when there is a specially new development, the system is to be interpreted on the basis of the joint work of the commentators treating their contributions as forming one whole.

The fact that each system had to contend with other rival systems in order to hold its own has left its permanent mark upon all the philosophic literatures of India which are always written in the form of disputes, where the writer is supposed to be always faced with objections from rival schools to whatever he has got to say. At each step he supposes certain objections put forth against him which he answers, and points out the defects of the objector or shows that the objection itself is ill founded. It is thus through interminable byways of objections, counter-objections and their answers that the writer can wend his way to his destination. Most often the objections of the rival schools are referred to in so brief a manner that those only who know the views can catch them. To add to these difficulties the Sanskrit style of most of the commentaries is so condensed and different from literary Sanskrit, and aims so much at precision and brevity, leading to the use of technical words current in the diverse systems, that a study of these becomes often impossible without the aid of an expert preceptor; it is difficult therefore for all who are not widely read in all the different systems to follow any advanced

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