Many will agree that philosophy is rarely a general topic of discussion in India for an educated layman. As an academic discipline most of the universities in India do not even have a department of philosophy. Rarely, when it happens to be a point of discussion, philosophy as a subject matter in India is generally confused with theology, religion and spirituality.
A recent encounter with a friend led to a chat about philosophy – philosophy being the subject that I taught and wrote about as a profession. Typically, his idea of philosophy was closely linked to religion and spirituality, and he had, it appears from the conversation, a glorified sense of anything Indian including philosophy (though, from my conversation with him, I gathered that he had no idea of what is Indian philosophy beyond showering eulogies on what he considered to be a pure Indian philosophical tradition).
When I told him that my research was on philosophy of science from the Western analytic tradition, his immediate response was whether I accept Western philosophy at the cost of rejecting Indian philosophy. This idea of acceptance and rejection, perhaps, presupposes Western philosophy and Indian Philosophy as two mutually exclusive and conflicting thought patterns (where one has to be accepted and other rejected on the grounds of truth).
It further implies that if one carries forward his study in one, this automatically implies that the other is rejected. This, to me, seemed a bit surprising- surprising because to think in terms of acceptance and rejection, in such a naïve manner, is untenable and inappropriate, as far as the subject matter of philosophy is concerned. My explanation that this is an ill-conceived understanding did not convince him.
Thus, when it comes to talking about Indian philosophy (sometimes read wrongly as Hindu philosophy), the commonsense view of a layman is, therefore, distorted. This general distorted understanding is that Indian philosophy is a unified body of knowledge, and all the discourses on it is an expatiation of a monolithic narrative of an esoteric truth that stands in direct conflict with other philosophies. One does find much work on classical Indian thought produced and documented by Western Orientalists who referred to these thoughts as systems of Indian philosophy, also known as darshanas.
Further, it is also held, as a general opinion sometimes derived from the Orientalists, that Indian philosophy is a repository of spiritual insights that no other world view possesses (a view that has gained a more aggressive voice under the present Hindutva political regime). Some of them also projected a view that the pinnacle of philosophical excellence was reached in Vedanta, a view that is contestable.
For precisely this reason, one of the questions that has often come up for discussion in scholarly circles is whether Indian culture and civilization recognized an independent domain of discourse or discipline of study called “philosophy” as a discursive analytic tradition. Frank Thilly in the introductory chapter of his book A History of Philosophy remarks that oriental thoughts like that of the Hindus do not go beyond faith, mythology and poetry.
More precisely, is there some Indian analogue to what the Western civilization, derived from Greek thought, has called “philosophy”? Such a question did arise as a consequence of the Indian encounter with European thought in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The specific reason why the question comes up is that the deliberations of these systems of thought were primarily confined to soteriological concerns (i.e. on the concerns of salvation and liberation referred to by terms like moksha and mukti).
What is Darshana?
Darshana, the term used to designate a genre of classical literature, is considered to be equivalent to the modern sense of philosophy. Wilhelm Halbfass, a philosopher and Indologist, in one of the essays of his book, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding, notes that darshana has gained “the Neo-Hindu self-understanding and self-definition”.
This idea got glorified later by philosophers like Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan as the distinguishing characteristic of Indian philosophy leading to the idea of spirituality being the intrinsic orientation of Indian philosophy (Indian philosopher Daya Krishna is highly critical of Radhakrishnan on this). What marks Indian philosophy, for some Indian philosophers with a strong cultural chauvinist bent of mind, is this idea of spirituality. On this basis they attach a glorified sense to it.
The term darshana, as the Indian term for philosophy, has been analyzed by Halbfass in two different ways- in the etymological sense and the doxographic sense (doxography is a piece of literary work that compiles and summarizes the different schools of thought in philosophy).
Etymologically, it is derived from the root drsh in Sanskrit which means “to see” or “to perceive”. But it is not the literal perception or physical perception but a metaphorical sense of the word that matters. In this sense it means intuition or, to use Halbfass’s translation, “right vision” or “realization”. It is the intuition of the ultimate reality or the truth that this etymological sense suggests.
In the doxographical sense it merely means views and doctrines of different schools of Indian thought like Samkhya Nyaya Vedanta, Buddhist or Jaina discourses considered as philosophical systems (for example, Max Muller’s The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy). Halbfass has provided a detailed analysis of the evolution of the doxographic sense, the role and background that darshana, as a “mere view”, has played.
The word conveys the idea that this body of literature has as its aim a profound view or vision that transcends mere intellectual contemplation. The transcending of intellectual contemplation means that emphasis is on direct realisation of truth that leads to liberation or salvation. This exclusive concern for the soteriological aspect of Indian philosophy is captured by the word darshana that distinguishes it from the purely theoretical and analytic enterprise of Western philosophy.
This gives rise to two pointed questions: a) Whether Indian philosophy is circumscribed by sotereological concerns? and b) Did Indian philosophers’ focus on soteriological concerns elude them from engaging in philosophical enterprise purely as a theoretical exercise or as ‘love of wisdom?’
Anviskshiki is the other term that has also come to mean philosophy. The term’s correspondence to philosophy was first drawn by the German scholar Herman Jacobi in his article “A Contribution towards the Early History of Indian Philosophy” in Indian Antiquary Vol. 47, 1918.
The term appeared in the very beginning of Kautilya’s Arthashastra which Jacobi takes as the basis of his translation. There were others who followed him on this translation. Surprisingly the etymology of anviskshiki also comes close to that of darshana. It is derived from anv and iksha and iksha also means seeing. It is this idea of right vision or realization, associated with darshana that prevails among educated laymen in India.
How Darshanas fail as Philosophy
It would be interesting to begin with a more general question of how philosophers themselves have reflected on the concerns of philosophy. Etymologically, the word philosophy is derived from Greek words philia (love) and sophia (wisdom) which means ‘love of wisdom’. Pythagoras was supposed to have coined this word. When asked who he was by Leon, the tyrant of Philius, he replied humbly that he was a lover of wisdom, preferring the term philosopher to the expression sage or a man of wisdom (There are different versions of this story).
The etymology, by itself, does not capture what the discipline of philosophy is about unless one has an understanding of what constitutes this wisdom? This is an open question as far as philosophy is concerned because, from the time of Greek thought, philosophy has expanded its compass to accommodate different kinds of approaches on a diverse range of issues of social, moral and political concern as well as of the natural world. When deliberating on these concerns, sometimes the word philosophy has been and is used in a most elastic way, and this point has been well articulated in a very lucidly written introductory philosophical text Living Issues in Philosophy by Harold Titus and others. They introduce the meaning of philosophy by distinguishing its informal and the formal sense.
The informal sense of “having” a philosophy, according to the authors, is a “set of views or beliefs about the life and the universe, which are often held uncritically” that refers to a certain attitude towards ideas and issues of a very general nature. These ideas include, among others, purpose of life, meaning of life, goals of living and mysteries of life and death and god. A general reflection on these ideas coupled with ones attitude towards such ideas is referred to as philosophy. Such a broad view, as the authors rightly note, is “vague, confused and superficial”.
To go beyond this broad view of philosophy, one has to understand that the wisdom or sophia component of philosophy lies in the process of reflecting on and criticizing our most deeply held conceptions and beliefs. This is a cryptic statement on what constitutes the wisdom or sophia component of philosophy. A philosophical discourse is such a process of critical reflection. Such a discourse is generally marked by certain characteristic features.
These features can be broadly described as follows. First, a philosophical inquiry begins with problems and questions of a very general nature- like questions on the nature of the universe, the problem knowledge, meaning of freedom etc.
Secondly, it responds to such problems by making clear the key concepts and ideas it deals with. Generally the concepts it deals with would be of a very abstract nature.
Third, it inquires into the foundations and presuppositions of the subject and examines the defensibility of the assumptions it rests on.
Finally, the discussion proceeds by argument and reasoning. In the course of these arguments, defending its thesis, it raises and responds to possible objections to its thesis. Arguments and counterarguments abound that form the core of a philosophical debate.
To what extent does the enterprise that has been termed Indian philosophy possess such characteristic features? Some scholars of history of philosophy maintain that India never had a legacy of philosophy. Even those who concede that India did make significant contributions to philosophy and are more sympathetic to its enterprise admit that the culture never had a term equivalent to “philosophy”.
It can be argued that even if there is no equivalent term for philosophy, the darshanas do take up philosophical problems for discussion. How does darshana or anvikshiki relate to the expositions of Indian schools of thought on the basic philosophical problem?
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, the Indian Marxist philosopher (to be distinguished from the founder/chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical research of the same name) in his scholarly work What is Living and What is Dead in Indian Philosophy identifies a methodology by means of which one can discern a philosophical problem that these schools have considered significant. That one problem is the reality of the material or physical world or otherwise.
Philosophers of idealist leanings hold the view that the reality is pure ‘spirit’. These idealist philosophers reject experience and reason as valid sources of knowledge for knowing the reality. Meditation and contemplation are the valid means that lead to a mystical experience. This experience is the seeing (in the metaphorical sense) of the reality as spirit. Such an idealistic outlook is a very prominent feature of Indian philosophy. It is this aspect of seeing or “right vision”, the soteriological concern of liberation and salvation (moksha), that is suggested by the term darshana and anviskhiki .
All this goes to indicate that Indian philosophy was essentially soteriological barring one school of Lokayata whose literature has not come down to us. It is said to have been destroyed by the orthodoxy who considered its exponents to be heretics. In the scholarly study titled Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism Chattopadyaya has provided an exposition of this materialist school by a process of reconstruction from fragmentary survivals preserved in the writings of the opponents of the school.
How far have darshanas been able to capture the characteristics of philosophy mentioned above? It is doubtful that it has. Most of the discourses of the so called philosophical schools give an exposition of their schools and the commentaries and sub-commentaries do make an attempt to present an argument but fall short of making one.
For example, in arguing for the special kind of knowledge which brings liberation they deny perception and reasoning as a means of knowing as far as this special knowledge is concerned. They can never make an argument in this case as they would end up using reason against reason undercutting their whole argument. To avoid this problem the orthodox schools claim scriptural authority as testimony and, therefore a means of knowledge, in such matters. It is here that darshana fails as philosophy.
However, the educated layman, like my friend mentioned above, has a complete misconception and a distorted understanding of this discipline of philosophy. The glorified sense of darshana as sublime and profound pearls wisdom is primarily responsible for such a distortion and misconception.
It has been argued in a detailed paper on how the philosophical arguments of the Advaita Vedantic view of Shankara are not substantive. Further, even in the discourses of other systems it is difficult to find rigorous arguments to credit it as a philosophical discourse.
In all these discourses there has been a conflation of the doxographical “mere view” sense and the etymological “right vision” sense of darshana making the discourses “vague confused and superficial”, a characteristic of the informal sense of philosophy. This conflation, according to Halbfass, is “a symptomatic innovation of Neo-Hinduism”.
S K Arun Murthi is Ex Faculty of Philosophy in IISER, Mohali (retired), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
