Talk:Indian philosophy/Archive 1

LPSG
The following comment was left on my talk page:


 * Namaste. I noticed that you added a link on the article for Indian philosophy  but that site seemed to be a collection of general materials not related to Hindu philosophy specifically.  The only item I found there that seemed relevant was a paper on Hindu Philosophy that I think would be considered a self-published document and thus not a WP:RS for this topic.  If you feel that the site is important I would encourage you to raise the issue on the talk page for the article so it can be examined more closely.  It is good to see someone with an interest in philosophy participating, and I look forward to dialog on this matter if you feel that I have acted in error, as I so often do.  Buddhipriya 23:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you probably only clicked on the first link in my addition and failed to notice the second (which I think is the thing you are calling "a self-published document"). The second link (which is one part of the site linked to on the first link) was to the recommended reading list provided by the philosophy department of University College, London to students writing a paper on Indian philosophy (analogous to at least a full-year course at an American university). In general, these recommended reading guides are of the utmost quality (naming the best general introductions, translations, etc. in a given area of philosophy), but Indian philosophy is not my specialty so I cannot confirm that this is the case here. I hope that you look again and reconsider whether this might be a useful resource for individuals considering what to read in this area, but I trust your judgment if you conclude that this isn't appropriate here. - KSchutte 23:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the clarifications. I think the second item is a relevant external link according to WP:EL but I would place it under the section for External Links.  Take a look at the edit I just made to the article to see if you agree.  The other link is for a general Western philosophy department, and that I do not see as relevant.  Buddhipriya 00:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That's fine. I'll just edit it a little for clarification. - KSchutte 00:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Should this article be edited down so that it is just a list?
Most of the text in this article is unsourced. It seem to be mainly a list of links to other articles, which is where detail can be found and better maintained. Should this article be edited down and made specifically a navigation list? Buddhipriya 00:11, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think that this should be the long-term goal of this page, but if the current text seems harmful or misdirected it might be nice to replace it with a sentence or two whose accuracy cannot legitimately be disputed. (It seems to be "filler" text anyway.)  I've thought of doing similar things with the worthless text at 20th-century philosophy. - KSchutte 22:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with KSchutte. The long term goal should be to develop this into a high-class, descriptive (non-list) article. So we should remove any statements that are simply "wrong" or "harmful", but for others it may be better to add sources ourself. I'll try to put in some time, and at least start the wikification process. Abecedare 23:09, 14 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I made a quick pass through the article to slim it down a bit. I am concerned that if we duplicate material that is in the detail articles, maintaining the content will be difficult.  I do not have much experience with overview articles, so I look forward to what Abecedare can do with it.  My general feeling is that almost all of the articles on Hindu philosophy topics are very weak and it would be interesting to try to mount an effort to tune up a series of them.  The value of this one is as a pointer to other things. Buddhipriya 23:17, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I think this article needs to be re-written in the summary style i.e. have a short descriptive paragraph on each important topic with links provided to the Main articles for details. I have taken a stab at a descriptive intro just to provide seed-material - right now it overly relies on one source (Radhakrishnan (1929) and thus is likely to be dated and over-emphasizing a single POV. So feel free to modify/rewrite it. As India and Philosophy articles show, it is certainly possible to write a cogent article on a vast topic, which can then serve as a road-map to the reader for further exploration. Abecedare 00:07, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, looks much better already! OK, I will do another pass to try to try to add a different source for some broad issues. Buddhipriya 00:18, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I added a few things from Chatterjee and Datta of a general nature. Enough changes for me today.  I hope Abecedare or another editor will take another whack at it before I do another session.  I think the trick is to avoid too many details on the individual points but find thematic material that cuts across multiple schools.  There are some general criticisms which perhaps can be tackled, such as the frequent charges that Indian philosophy is pessimistic, a claim that is specifically discussed by Chatterjee and Datta.  I hope I have not quoted them too often, but the article was starting from zero and it is easier for me to pick through one source at a time. Buddhipriya 01:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * In looking over the citation to periods, I noticed in my copy of the source materials that Radhakrishnan and Moore continue their period analysis by noting a decline in the dynamism of Indian thinking about the 16th century when (in their words) "India became the victim of outside powers" (A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, p. xxi). I think this is true, and that these authors are mainstream sources, not firebrand nationalists.  I think this material should be put into the article, but fear that if I do it it may provoke the sort of haggling that is so tiresome on other Hindu pages.  I also have no desire to fall into the trap of being called a political POV pusher.  I actually have very little interest in politics, but I do think this is an occasion when some mention should be made.  What would be the best way to approach this issue? Buddhipriya 02:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hindu_Philosophy
What do do regarding the overlap problems with content in Hindu Philosophy which is also in need of work? Buddhipriya 18:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * No one has replied to the above question. Does anyone have a good suggestion on how to reduce forking between this article and Indian philosophy which of necessity covers much of the same ground, Indian philosphy being a superset of Hindu philosphy? Buddhipriya 19:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up needed
This article needs a thorough cleaning-up. The Jainism section earlier was a copy-paste from Jain-samaja & Co. Did not contain even a singe of proper encyclopaedic language. Same goes with section on Sikhism and to an extent, Buddhism also. Often religious satsang gets mixed up in an encyclopaedia. Indian_Air_Force (IAF) (talk) 18:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thereof we cannot speak...

This article does not seem to be acquainted with anything that contemporary scholars of Indian Philosophy (not Religion) would recognize as constitutive of philosophical discussion in Classical to Pre-Modern India (200 C.E-1600 C.E). Or of anything that classical Indian philosophers would recognize as the practice they were engaged in, for that matter.

Shankara and Nagarjuna are not the only two people who thought in India. Not by a long shot. They are, in fact, not particularly representative either.

Tihs article fails miserably not simply in terms of what it discusses, or the works it cites (rather, fails to cite), but in terms of its basic and evident ignorance of the history of Sanskrit literature and its genres. There are philosophical genres in Sanskrit (and theological, in Medieval Tamil), but none of this is to be found in this article. No hint of the "sort of" thought engaged in by Indian intellectuals, not the range of their concerns, nor the diversity of analytic methods and arguments.

Apart from relying on grossly inadequate sources, the fact that the word 'pramANa' (epistemic warrant) does not show up is symptomatic of the article entirely missing the history and character of the tradition in India. No references to the works of B. K. Matilal, Jitendranath Mohanty, to name just two scholars who have done much to correct the gross inaccuracies and misapprehensions of Indian thought (the conflation of Sankara's mysticism, popular among Bengali middle-class spirituals in the 18th-19th century, with philosophical thought in general, is a particularly eggregious problem that could have been solved by one inexpensive book by Matilal "On Perception"); but while one wants to take the authors' confusion of Vedantic theology and philosophical theology practiced indepednent of scriptural warrant (as it is in the Nyaya tradition post 450 c.e) to task, a more pressing problem must engage us: the author of this article shows no sign of knowing the difference either in Sanskrit texts, or in the history of Philosophy in the West, between what philosophy (in a weak "wise sayings" sort of mode) one can find in pre-philosophical literature, on the one hand, and philosophical texts proper, which take as their concern general categories in epistemology, metaphysics, and language, as their concern, and proceed in the mode of problems and arguments, proofs and refutations--methods closer to the spirit of Islamic, Medieval and contemporary analytic philosophy.

There is philosophy in Classical India. None in this article.

As a concerned Student of Indian Philosophy, I really hope the editors can see to it that someone does better. 128.135.96.119 (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Title/Scope mismatch
This article only refers to a few lines of philosophy (Hindu, Jain and Buddhist) and should not carry the title it does. I would expect that an article with this title, in relation to a country of a billion people (and, by implication, a sub-continent with nearly a billion and a half) and with a history that extends more than 5000 years would be very large and must, in keeping with reality, be inclusive. Unless it is the opinion of the experts (has this article received the attention of an expert?) that this article does, in fact, refers to a vast majority of "Indian Philosophy" I think this article should be renamed and updated with a clearer scope and a more appropriate title or deleted altogether (re-written). The (limited) components that are referred to seem to have their own dedicated (and adequate) pages and, as suggested elsewhere, a list may be more appropriate. Indian philosophy may (or may not) just be too unwieldy to effectively put on one page. This page should, perhaps, focus on its classifications and let dedicated pages handle the elaboration.

Specific (layman) queries and comments I have:

Movements like the Sufi movement have been ignored and their exclusion not explained. Was Kabir a philosoper? The Muslims (mysteriously ignored in this article) surely had their own philosophical thought influenced by the Arabs and Middle-Eastern philosophers but was there any subsequent evolution of "Muslim Philosophy"  in India? Even the Mughals, it seems from this article, developed no philosophy during their empire. It would also seem from this article that there were no noteworthy Indian atheists of any kind before the Colonial era. The Christians, living in India for over 2000 years, never seemed to have got around to philosophy. Are there any contemporary "Indian" philosophers at all? What about Mohandas K. Gandhi, what was his philosophy - did he have none or was it one mentioned in this article?

The article either implies that the Atheists, Muslims, Parsis and Christians had no philosphy or they are not Indian. The former conclusion is insulting (to Atheists, Mulsims, Parsis, Christians and non-hindu Indians in general) and the latter wrong (the wikipedia article on India is a good starting point to see what I mean about "Indian"). 80.227.170.65 (talk) 14:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.227.170.65 (talk) 14:04, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Acharya Rajnish reference
I really don't know about calling Acharya Rajnish an example of someone who successfully synthesised Eastern and Western philosophical thought. Snickrpedia (talk) 03:57, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal merger from Hindu Philosophy
This is a proposed merger from Hindu Philosophy into this article. The rationale is that these two articles contain mostly the same information.

The reason why I feel the merger should go from Hindu philosophy into Indian philosophy is because of the inclusion in both articles of the Nastika (heterodox) schools, which have arguable inclusion in an article on Hinduism. -- Bill Huston (talk)  16:01, 12 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a strange proposal. Hindu philosophy and Indian philosophy are very different; as different as Hinduism is different from Indian religions. Indian philosophy is made up of different philosophies namely: Vedic philosophy which includes Hinduism, and Sramanic philosophy which includes Buddhism and Jainism. Hence Jain philosophy, Buddhist philosophy and Hindu philosophy make Indian philosophy. Hindu and Indian philosophy cannot be equated under any circumstances.--Anish (talk) 04:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, now I know why why this proposal looked strange. Jain and Buddhist philosophy were wrongly made part of Hindu philosophy. Not surprisingly, Huston was mislead and acted in good faith. I have corrected it. If not required, the tag for merger may be removed.--Anish (talk) 05:21, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I have reorganized the sections a bit, so that Buddhism and Jainism are not presented solely as nastika schools of Hindusism. The latter is certainly a POV of Hindu philosophy as discussed in Hindu philosophy (and briefly mentioned here), but should not be presented as fact in this article. Abecedare (talk) 05:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This is really surprising. When mentioning Hindu philosophy, mention is always made of six Darsanas of Hindu Philosophy, never of Jainism and Buddhism. Astika and Nastik is relevant only when you talk of Indian Philosophy as a whole. Nastika means heterodox or heretical tradition...that is belonging to other tradition and not our tradition. Hence even by this POV categorisation, Jainism and Buddhism does not fall under Hindu Philosophy. I have checked certain sources for this:


 * Hindu philosophy By Theos Bernard] there is no mention of Jainism
 * Hinduism: Analytical Study By Amulya Mohapatra - Clearly mentions that Astika and Nastika defination is given by Hindus. Also mentions that Hindu Philosophy is made up of saddarasan or six systems of philosophy.
 * Religions and the truth: philosophical reflections and perspectives By H. M. Vroom - I have not been able check what references Radhakrishnan and Moore say, but this book discusses what Radhakrishnan and Moore have written and clearly says that Hindu philosophy is made up of Six darsanas.
 * Concise Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy By Routledge (Firm), Edward Craig clearly identifies Jain and Buddhist philosophy as different from Hindu philosohy and classifies them all as part of Indian philosophy. here Jaina philosophy is clearly distinguished form Hindu philosophy.
 * --Anish (talk) 09:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You may be right. I'll have to recheck the sources to see whether they say something like "Brahmins regarded Budhism, Jainsism and Carvakas as nastika schools", or "Brahmins regarded Budhism, Jainsism and Carvakas as nastika schools of Hindu philosophy". I recall it as the latter, but will need to verify (may take a a week or so). To be clear: there is no claim that Jainism and Buddhism are schools of Hindu philosophy; the only question is whether Hindus regarded them as such (just as Buddha and Rishabha were added to the list of Vishnu avatars in Vaishnava tradition). Abecedare (talk) 14:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes pls check. This will clarify many things and avoid unnecessary confusion.--Anish (talk) 10:12, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I am removing the merger tag as no case has been established yet for the merger.--Anish (talk) 04:09, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The inclusion of Buddhism (and possibly Jainism) as part of Hinduism is a late development, I believe. In the Puranas where the Buddha is said to be an avatar he is said to have deluded people away from the Vedic religion. The Bhavishya Upanishad has: "At this time, reminded of the Kali Age, the god Vishnu became born as Gautama, the Shakyamuni, and taught the Buddhist dharma for ten years. Then Shuddodana ruled for twenty years, and Shakyasimha for twenty. At the first stage of the Kali Age, the path of the Vedas was destroyed and all men became Buddhists. Those who sought refuge with Vishnu were deluded." I think the idea that Buddhism was a Hindu sect arose after Buddhism had died out in India. I could be wrong. The ideas that Buddhism is a Hindu sect may originate in the 19th century as part of the Hindu reaction to Christian proselytism? It seems like something that would have arisen as part of a defensive reaction. It would be very interesting to know the history of this. Mitsube (talk) 22:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Hinduism,buddhism and jainsim in india were in harmonious co existence in india,unlike the abrahamic faiths.no one was branded as heretic.secondly the disappearance of buddhism in india starts with the islamic invasion not as reaction by hindu brahmins.another important point that needs to be mentioned is the behaviour of harsha of kashmir who destroyed both hindu and buddhist shrines in kashmir since his wealth was reducing and one more thing buddhism was popular only in certain parts of north india.it was never popular in much of the south india.islamic invasion had in most impact in northern india were buddhism was relatively popular.In orissa there are hindu temples dedicated to the buddha.buddha is a part of the hindu pantheon not very recently but since time immemorial.also thervada buddhism has lot of hindu flavour in it.the worship of Rama in Thailand as also Ganesh in thailand is an example.Linguisticgeek (talk) 05:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Buddhism was already on its last legs in when Shankara started his career. This is well documented. Mitsube (talk) 06:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ...in India. However Buddhist philosophy in China and Tibet would continue to develop long after Shankara. And Shankara was even accused of being a Buddhist at heart.--174.7.10.39 (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)