Archive | Philosophy

From the Parinirvana of the Buddha to the sack of Nalanda (c. 1197) Indian Buddhism passed through three great phases of development, tradi­tionally known as the Hinayana, the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana, each with its own characteristics and its own spiritual ideals.

The Tantras are the most esoteric of the canonical texts. The word itself, derived from a root meaning ‘to spread’, is applied to a variety of treatises, and affords no clue to the contents of these works. While resembling the sutras in literary form, they differ from them in dealing with ritual and yoga rather […]

The Mahayana sutras are distributed into six great collections, the first five of which represent natural divisions, while the last consists of miscellaneous independent works. First comes the group of Prajnaparamita or’ Perfection of Wisdom’ sutras, of which there are more than thirty, ranging in length from some thousands of pages to a few lines.

With the exception of the Pali Canon, the actual writing down of which took place in Ceylon, and certain Mahayana sutras that may have been composed in Central Asia or even in China, the canonical literature of Buddhism is of exclusively Indian provenance. Where, when, and in what circumstances the thousands of individual texts of […]

The most important religious heritage of India from her ancient past is no doubt the doctrine of transmigration (samsara) which is characteristic of all Indian religions and sharply distinguishes them from those with a Semitic ancestry, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Whatever view of God the Hindu may adopt, he believes that the Divine is in man. Every human being, irrespective of caste or colour, can attain to the knowledge of this truth and make his whole life an expression of it. The Divinity in us is to be realized in mind and spirit and made […]

According to the Vaisesika thinkers, all composite objects of the universe are composed of the atoms of earth, water, air and fire. Hence the view of the Vaisesika concerning creation is called atomism or paramanuvada.

The vaisesika system is regarded as conducive to the study of all systems. Its main business is to deal with categorises and to unfold its atomistic pluralism. A category is called padartha and the entire universe is reduced to six or seven padarthas.

The Vaisesika system is next to Samkhya in origin and is of greater antiquity than the Nyaya. It may be prior to and is certainly not later than Buddhism and Jainism. The word is derived from Vishesa which means particularity or distinguishing feature or distinction.

Ethics is impossible with assuming the freedom of will. All moral Judgements – what ought you to do? This is right, this is wrong – can be meaningful only when it is assumed that man is free in his volitions.

The mental form of a sentence is called Judgement. But Judgements are of many types. Moral Judgement is different from every other judgement. Compared to others, it has the following characteristics:

Human life is not as simple as natural phenomena. Man has both intelligence and sentience.

A moral judgement as distinguished from a factual judgement is a judgement upon the action of an individual that can be evaluated as good or bad, right or wrong. Obviously it is a judgement upon the voluntary action of the individual.

Moral Judgements are judgements upon actions or motives of intention of the agents of actions. So in this respect they are quite different from factual judgements or assertive judgements.

The subjects of man’s ethical consciousness are his voluntary actions. The judgements of these voluntary actions depend on his character. He has to choose between various desires and analyse their results only then, reaching some decision.

This is another analysis of ethical sentences. According to this theory the ethical sentences do not express propositions at all. When we say, ‘Dogs are quadruped’, ‘Ram is tall’ we assert something. But the ethical sentence ‘X is good’ ‘Lying in wrong.’ Though look like assertions do not express any proposition at all because they […]