HISTORY OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

Vedic philosophy : Time and place

Vedas constitute the most ancient of Indian philosophical thought. According to Max muller the vedas were invented by Indo-European Aryan tribes around 1500 BC when they invaded India  and conquered the native people.This interpretation of Vedas however has been disputed.The vedas mention a lost river Saraswati around which they lived. The riverbed of this river has been discovered and more than a thousand settlements have been found along it. This river gradually dried up due to tectonic shifts from 6000 BC onwards. The vedas mention this river as full and flowing and presumably belong to this time and age.

    Rigveda is the oldest Veda and it mentions a tribal life ,partly nomadic. It is possible that around 6000 BC. scattered  Bronze Age settlements were present along river saraswati and Indus and its tributaries.The archaeological evidence of settlements of this age has been discovered along the banks of these rivers.As was typical of bronze implements ,only limited agriculture was possible. The villages and cities were thus small initially. However around 2500 BC. planned cities with paved streets arose . Commerce using a written script for accounting and trade with Mesopotamia occurred by sea route.

    Vedic philosophy essentials

    Vedic philosophy resembles other Bronze Age religions of ancient Mesopotamia,Egypt and later Greek and Roman religions. It considers all actions in living and non living matter as due to the conscious act of Gods or humans . Humans have limited but conscious capacity to act on matter or society. Thus when a car is driven it is a conscious act of a human which has built and operated the car. The car cannot exist without human consciousness. However at the level of society ,life or non living matter such conscious acts can be done only by Gods . Thus the God  Indra,Varun and others control these domains. Above them are the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh , the creator maintenance and destroyer of the universe. However the Supreme consciousness is what controls everything and that is Brahma. Brahma is invisible ,present everywhere and eternal. 

      Everything is ever changing in this universe. The river observed one hour ago is not the same river now. Similarly the body undergoes changes in infancy ,youth and old age. The soul/ cosciouness  which inhabits the body also migrates along with it. If we consider different states of consciousness such as sleep,dreams and awake ,these are also different states in which the soul migrates. All three states have their own reality including the awake state which is called MAYA . The migration of soul moreover after death can occur in different body of a human or lower animal or plant in the state of MAYA consciousness.

   The transmigration of consciousness is extremely important for humans as the good or bad work done during a lifetime will determine the body in the next life. Thus a person doing bad deeds in his lifetime may get a body in animal form. The motivation to do good deeds is inherent in Vedic philosophy and the highest aim is to escape the cycle of life altogether or Moksha.     

     The Vedas contain mantras or religious incantations the pronunciation of which correctly enables one to connect with Gods . As the mantras were difficult to memorise ,there being no written records ,these were at that time memorized and transmitted by a class of people the Brahmins. Another class of people ,the shramans believed in meditation in connecting with the supreme consciousness and often lived  the life of a hermit.

 Iron Age and new philosophies

Around 1500 BC the saraswati river had completely dried out. Simultaneously the Iron Age had come to India enabling the making of iron implements and clearing of forestedland along the Ganges . The people thus migrated to the Gangetic plains along with their philosophy. Iron implements enabled an agricultural surplus and creation of cities ,commerce.trade and kingdoms. Some of the kingdoms were republics ruled by tribal leaders but most were monarchies.This was thus called second urbanisation and by 500BC around sixteen kingdoms or Jana pads existed in India.

    By the time of second urbanisation the Vedic religion as practised had become extremely complicated. The ceremonies performed by Brahmins were elaborate and the masses did not understand their significance. The shramans or sanyasis had become themselves secluded and hardly interacted with the public. A number of philosophies were now propounded by groups which lived in various newly established cities.The philosophy which was accepted most by the masses were of Gautam or Siddharta and Mahavir Jain being called now Buddhism and Jainism respectively.    

        However there were other philosophical groups. The materialists led by Ajitha  kesakambala propounded that the universe consisted of only material things and there was no good or bad act. The Ajivikas led by Gosaliputra believed in transmigration of consciousness but believed everything was predetermined and no human action could change ones fate.The skeptics were philosophers who used a technique of negation to avoid come to any definite position.

Philosophy of Gautum Buddha

   Gautam Buddha teachings may be considered the pinnacle in Indian philosophy. Around  500BC other philosophers all over the world brought about by Iron Age productivity and growth of city life and intellectual communities were present. Thus Ezekiel in Israel,Confucius in China,Heraclitus,Thales and Pythagoras in Greece,Zoroaster in Persia arose and came with new philosophies which challenged age old bronze thinking. This age is also called the axial age.

    Gautam Buddha was a khatriya born in the royal family of Kapilavastu in Himalayan foothills of India. His life till age of thirty years was spent in luxury. But then a turning point came in his life when he saw a sick person,a person of old age,a corpse and a religious preacher. This compelled him to think of ever present misery in life and a way to escape it.

    As per the teachings of his age Buddha went to many teachers and learned especially the technique of deep meditation. Meditation enables the mind to control attention. Accomplished yogis can completely control attention and use it to even control bodily functions like breathing  and digestion,being able to stop eating or breathing for days.

     However Buddha was not satisfied with achieving mastery of meditation. He wanted to remove misery from life.  Buddha believed that mastery of attention control could be used to achieve happiness. One has to concentrate attention unwaveringly on eight facets of mental life through right wisdom,right morality and right mental cultivation. Buddha or the Enlightened one believed that the purpose of life is to achieve happiness through accepting life as it is - Tathata. He did believe in the prevailing views in society of transmigration of consciousness,but also believed that happiness can be achieved in this life itself and good acts used to improve it.

   Buddha did not want to keep knowledge of his enlightenment to himself but to spread it among the masses. He created an organization of monks to spread his message. However he forbid himself to be called a God or to his teachings to be written down in a book. Buddha’s teaching became dominant in India for a thousand years till about 1000AD . It however spread by this time to Central Asia, Chinan.,Japan and Southeast Asia.

Ack: The complete Idiots guide to the life of Buddha ;Searching for Vedic India