Philosophy of Ancient China and Ancient India

Ancient Indian Philosophical Tradition

Most comparative philosophers working from the 1950s to the 1980s regarded Indian philosophy as a fundamental counterpoint to European philosophy. European philosophy was predominantly characterized as secular, while Indian philosophy was seen as religious; European thought was theoretical, whereas Indian thought was spiritually and practically oriented. European philosophy was marked by rationalism, while Indian philosophy was rich in mysticism. To master European philosophy required only professional education, but to grasp Indian philosophy one had to engage in the practice of yoga. It was also believed that the mystical nature of Indian philosophy was reflected in its self-designation as darśana, a term signifying intuitive vision, distinct from the rational procedures of European philosophy. This view of Indian philosophy now seems somewhat oversimplified.

According to contemporary understanding, the history of ancient Indian philosophy can be divided into four main periods:

1. Pre-School Stage (Shamanic Philosophers and Groups) - 5th century BCE;
2. Classical Pre-School Period (Conglomerates of "Related Philosophical Clans") - 4th century BCE to 2nd century CE;
3. Classical School Period (Formation of Major Philosophical Systems) - 2nd to 9th centuries CE;
4. Mature Scholastic Period (Division of Traditional Philosophical Schools and Syncretic Innovations) - 9th to 16th centuries CE.

Before the arrival of the first Buddhists, four main religious groups had emerged in India, with Buddhists joining as the fifth. Buddhist philosophical texts distinguish between communities of tapasvins (ascetics), among whom the most notable were the ācāryas or "naked" ascetics, whose name reflects their disdain for contemporary cultural achievements. In contrast, the parivrājakas (wanderers) were a fairly loose group of men and women who pledged celibacy. These travelers were renowned as teachers of eloquence and disseminators of knowledge, primarily engaged in educational activities and living by alms. The third group consisted of Brahmanists, who considered wisdom to reside in the ability to understand one's subject of study, diligent work, and, notably, a propensity for knowledge. The fourth and most structured group were the Jains, who considered themselves free from the snares of this world. Besides these groups, the early Indian materialists and idealists also had a significant influence. There were also philosophers who cannot be easily classified into any major group, such as Arada Kalama, who seems to have been an early Sankhya philosopher and yogin, and the first teacher of the future Buddha. The fifth group was organized by the Buddha with his disciples. The philosophical issues of Buddhist schools (to be distinguished from their religious aspects) represented a significant expansion and theoretical elaboration of the doctrines of Buddhism as initially preached by Siddhartha Gautama. The doctrine of universal suffering, which equates it not only with the prevailing emotional state of every being but also with its existence and the very components of any psychophysical organization, was further developed into the teaching of dependent origination of states of existence within such an organization.

Ontological issues primarily concerned the theory of dharmas - atomic carriers or substrates of elements that, according to Buddhist philosophy, constitute the flow of consciousness and existence, which in everyday experience appears as individuals and objects. Indian philosophy can be somewhat arbitrarily divided into traditional ancient categories: "logic," "physics," and "ethics." The sphere of "logic" can be further divided, as some ancient researchers did, into logic itself and epistemology, with the addition of linguistic philosophical issues. The main discursive field in epistemology was defined by various approaches to determining the sources of knowledge (pramāṇas), which were considered reliable and "atomic" - that is, irreducible to others. Linguistic philosophical issues included debates such as whether the term "cow" refers to a general form of a particular animal, the class of cows as such, or individual instances of cows. While Indian grammarians defended each of these interpretations, nāyāyikas believed that all were contextually compatible.

"Physics" in Indian philosophy encompassed a broad range of problems, which could be divided among ontology, rational psychology, cosmology, and theology. Ontological problems were closely related to the status definition of the category of non-being, which intrigued Indians more than being itself. For Buddhists, the phrase "There is no jug on the table" was interpreted as "There is no presence of a jug," whereas for Vaiśeṣikas it was understood as "There exists the absence of a jug." For Buddhists, non-being of something was derived from the absence of its potential attributes, whereas for their opponents, non-being had not only a context but also an independent reality (hence it constitutes an independent category), allowing us to identify its four varieties: non-being of things before their creation, non-being of a thing after its destruction, non-being of one thing relative to another, and absolute non-being (which pertains primarily to phantom objects like the horn of a hare or a celestial flower).

Discussions in the realm of rational cosmology predominantly revolved around the problem of the source of the world's creation and were related to theories of causality. Buddhists inclined towards the view that the world is a series of specific events, seeing the consequence as the destruction of the cause. Nāyāyikas, Vaiśeṣikas, and partially Mīmāṃsakas considered atoms as the source of the world, which combine and separate under the influence of external factors.

The concept of "theism" in Indian philosophy can only be discussed conditionally, as India did not have anything akin to Christian creationism, that is, the concept of creation ex nihilo, with all the consequences of such a concept's absence. However, discussions on this topic did occur among those who acknowledged the existence of a deity (īśvaravāda): Nāyāyikas, yogins, Vaiśeṣikas, and Vedantists - versus those who rejected it (nirīśvaravāda): Jains, Buddhists, Mīmāṃsakas, and Sāṅkhyas.

The sphere of "ethics" in Indian philosophical discussions was divided between literal ethical issues (universal moral imperatives and the motivation of a sense of responsibility) and soteriology as the doctrine of the ultimate goal of human existence. In the early period of Indian philosophy, ethical issues held significant importance, but in later periods, especially under the influence of Buddhist teachings, the notion of endless suffering of all beings became the starting point that defined human existence in this world. The doctrine of reincarnation - the teaching of endless individual rebirth as the realization of the law of karma - became a common "dogma" of Indian philosophy. The problem of good and evil, which was relatively ambiguous and equally "samsaric," gradually assumed marginal significance. In other words, this problem became secondary compared to discussions about the nature of "liberation" and strategies for its realization, in which ethical guidelines were only relevant at the initial stage.