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EASTERN PHILOSOPHY - INDIA |
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Select: Yajnavalkya - Gautama Buddha - Isvarakrsna - Shankara Rabindranath Tagore - Swami Vivekananda - Mohandas Gandhi Sri Aurobindo There is no agreement among scholars whether Yajnavalkya (picture) was a historical person or the fictitious name for a group of thinkers and teachers. At any rate, this name is connected with the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad which does not only belong to the thirteen oldest Upanishads but is considered the most coherent and illuminating of all of them. It is representative of the earliest philosophical development of the Vedic religion, previous to the earliest beginnings of Greek philosophy. The Upanishads teach the belief in Brahma, the one great reality, as the ground of existence, the belief in transmigration and karma, which originally meant sacrificial acts, but later the influence of human action, as the explanation of apparently unjust or incomprehensible distribution of good and evil and the home of liberation of the sould through union of the individual with Brahma. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad presents these tenets in a relatively concentrated form. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On The Internet
Gautama Buddha (563-483 B.C.E.) Buddha (picture) is the title of the Hindu sage Gautama, or Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism. The term signifies "the wise, or enlightened" and is applied in the East as an analogue of our word "saint." Oriental scholars concur in fixing the time of the great Buddha in the 6th century B.C.E. He was the son of a king, named Suddhodana. His father, fearing lest his son should desert his high station and take to a religious life, had him early married to a charming princess and surrounded with all the splendor and dissipation of a luxurious court. Twelve years spent in this environment only deepened his conviction that all that life could offer was vanity, and he therefore resolved to learn whether a life of austerity would not lead to peace. Gautama escaped from the palace and entered on the life of a religious mendicant when about 30 years of age. He began by studying all that the Brahmans could teach him, but, finding their doctrine unsatisfactory, he turned to asceticism. He resolved to conquer the secret of peace by sheer force of thinking. He arrived at the cnclusion that ignorance is the ultimate cause of existence and that, therefore, with the removal of ignorance, existence and all its anxieties would be cut off at their source. Passing through successive periods of contemplation, he realized this truth in his person and attained the perfect wisdom of the Buddha, "the Enlightened." Having acquired the knowledge of the causes of misery and the means by which these causes are to be counteracted, the Buddha was now ready to lead others on the road to salvation. He first preached at Benares; but the most important of his early converts was the sovereign of Magadha, whose dynasty continued for many years to encourage the new faith. Buddha traversed a great part of northern India, combating the teaching of the Brahmans and everywhere making numerous converts. His disciples, well trained and organized, continued his work after him. The doctrines and rules of discipline were settled in general councils, the most important of which convened about 250 B.C.E., in the reign of Asoka. Buddhism was carried into Ceylon, Burma, and Thailand. By the beginning of the Christian era, it had become the philosophy/religion of the northwesterly parts of India and adjacent regions. It was adopted in China in 62 C.E., whence it extended into Korea and Japan. Buddha was one of the first philosophers and religious leaders to proclaim universal brotherhood. It was this doctrine of equality which gave Buddhism so strong a hold in caste-ridden India. He taught that salvation came to all through self-denial and charity. Purity of conduct, suppression of desire, and continuous contemplation were sufficient to raise one to the highest state of bliss, or Nirvana, which amounted eventually to the extinction of consciousness. The three main doctrines of Buddhism are: the transmigration of sould, the desirability of Nirvana, and the chain of cause and effect. As a result of this last doctrine, the idea of sin has little place in the religion. Buddhism is highly philosophic, yet, modified and combined with other systems, it is today one of the great philosophical religions of the world. Buddha died at Kusinagara, India, at the age of 80. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
The name of Isvarakrsna is connected with the Samkya Karika, composed about the middle of the fifth century, and probably the oldest of the sic traditional systems of Indian philosophy. Its foundation is attributed to the sage Kapila. Samkya philosophy inspired Buddha who lived a century later. The Samkya school shares with other systems the belief in the Indian gods, demigods and demons, but it conceives them as mortal and subject to transmigration. Contrary to the Brahman concept, there is no place for a universal God in the Samkya system, which expressly denies the existence of such a god. The Samkya philosophy is pessimistic, regarding all existence as suffering, and dualistic, insisting on the fundamental difference between soul and matter. Salvation from suffering can be reached by cognitive grasping of the absolute difference between the soul and everything material. It is probable that the Samkya doctrine influenced Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
The reports on the life of Shankara (picture), who is considered by some authorities the greatest commentator, even the greatest philosopher of the Hindus, are adorned with myths and legends that ascribe to him superhuman powers and the performance of many miracles. He was revered as a saint and as a scholar whole theoretical and practical teachings became of great consequence. Shankara systematized the philosophy of the Upanishads, and, in his commentaries, elucidated many passages of the Vedanta. He is characterized as a gentle and tolerant reformer and also as an everready controversialist who was eager to refute any doctrine that differed from his own. He denied the relevance of caste and lineage, and denounced the desire for personal separateness as the cause of bondage to conditional existence, birth and death. Devotion is an instrument of emancipation from ignorance and enslavement. Devotion is not to be distinguished from contemplation. Truth is to be understood intellectually, but the highest spiritual intuition leads to the union of the knower, the known and knowledge. Shankara often described the way to that goal as the denial of selfness in thought, feeling and action. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Rabindranath Tagore (picture), the greatest lyrical poet of modern India, also a successful dramatist and novelist, and a highly respected author of philosophical treatises, was the descendant of an old Brahman family. The great aim of his life was to revive the ideals of ancient India and at the same time to obtain a better understanding between East and West. His attitude was opposed to that of Gandhi, whose methods he held in contempt. After studying law in England, Tagore managed his family's estate for seventeen years. In 1901 he founded his school, Abode of Peace, where pupils were educated in accordance with his principles. When he came to England in 1911, where his poems Gitanjali (Song of Offerings) were published in an English version prepared by the author, he was enthusiastically received, and his fame spread over Europe and America. He was the first Asian to receive, in 1913, the Nobel Prize. In 1915, he was knighted. After the massacre of Amritsar he intended to renounce his knighthood in order to protest against the British administration of India but instead consented to a compromise. Tagore's poems have been translated into many languages, and the music of his diction remained charming and strong in most of the versions. The harmonious balance of his personality, which found expression in his writings, never failed to impress everyone he met. His ethics did not tolerate morals of expediency or sanction of means according to their ends. Always ready to protest against injustice and persecution, he was a staunch adversary of German nationalism and Hitler's regime. His philosophy is based on the belief in the progressive realization of the divine in man, and it shows little interest in celestial destiny. He insists that man's perfection shall come in the world in which he is living. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Educated abroad, Swami Vivekananda (picture) was an agnostic, whose rationalistic doubts were dispersed by the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. His simple belief in the philosophy of the monistic Vedanta of Sankara and the attempt to reemphasize the unity of all religions made Vivekananda a disciple, who devoted the remainder of his life to the dissemination of his teacher's ideas. He founded the Ramakrishna Mission for humanitarian service, brought to Hinduism an enthusiastic missionary approach, and emphasized the positive aspect of Vedanta: "that all is Brahma, and, therefore, that service of man as God is better than quiescent meditation." His influence has been in the works of such philosophers as Radhakrishnan and Aurobindo, in the social service and spread of Hindu ideas throughout the world, and it is even apparent in the political attitude of Mahandas Gandhi. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Not only the vast majority of Hindus but also many Westerners have accorded to Gandhi (picture) the title of "Mohatma," the "great soul," and have revered him as a master of wisdom and saintliness, while also recognizing his political skill and steadfastness. At least in modern times, Gandhi has had no equal in his ability to use spiritual weapons for political aims, in his power to make the resistance of the powerless irresistible. He has been adored as the father of the new State of India. But shortly after he had realized the ideal of a free India, for which he had struggled for nearly half a century, he was assassinated by a fanatical son of his own people. Gandhi restored the self-reliance of Hinduism after he had been imbued with the spirit of Western civilization and had rejected it. In 1889 he was called to the bar in London. Then, for seventeen years, he was a lawyer in South Africa before becoming the champion of the cause of the Indian settlers in that country. In 1914 he returned to India and in 1919 started the Satyagraha (Truth-seeking movement). From 1920 on he campaigned for noncooperation with the British government. Devoted to Hinduism as Gandhi was, he was also inspired by Tolstoy's doctrine of nonviolence which became his principal battle-cry in the struggle against British domination and was considered by him the panacea for every evil. Nonviolence was conceived by him as "conscious suffering," not as meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but "the putting of one's whole soul against the will of the tyrant." It means the restitution of the ancient Indian law of self-sacrifice. He repeatedly protested against being regarded as a visionary. Instead, he described himself as a "practical idealist" and rightly claimed "to know my millions" and to "recognize no God except the God that is to be found in the hearts of the dumb millions." But he also claimed that he recognized God's presence while the millions could not see it. In The Radical Academy
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The son of a prominent Bengalese physician, Sri Aurobindo (picture) was educated in England, where he was sent at the age of seven. Returning to India at the age of twenty-one, he served the State of Baroda for the next three years in various administrative and teaching capacities; in 1906 he resigned from the Baroda State Service. He anticipated Fandhi in organizing the national action of passive resistance during his next few years of political activity in Bengal. Imprisoned by the government for one year on a false political charge, he left Bengal upon his release in 1910, went to live in French Pondicherry, and from then on devoted his interests exclusively to philosophical writing and teaching. Two books synthesize his teachings: The Life Divine, his philosophy, and The Synthesis of Yoga, his system of Yoga. He also completed three volumes of poetry, and from 1914 to 1921, he was the the eidtor of ARYA, a philosophical journal. In 1926, he retired to the Ashrama, where he lived in isolation except for a few public appearances during the course of each year. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
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