The Nature of Reality - An Indian perspective
A 4-Part Essay
I. Introduction.
By 1200 BC, India had begun to be settled for agricultural pursuits. The land was vast. Water, the lifeblood of agriculture, was available in plenty. Tracts of forest lands were cleared and turned to agricultural use. Animals were domesticated and put to farm work. For the most part, food and other basic resources were available in plenty. The intensity of competition for scarce resources, frequently seen elsewhere, was less prominent here. And as the civilization settled, it turned to pursuits of excellence in all streams of life - art and architecture, literature, music, medicine, astronomy...
Of all these pursuits, there was one that has forever distinguished India from other nations in the annals of history. This pursuit was the search for truth, for the meaning and purpose of life, for understanding the universe around us. Never has any other nation in the past or present ever experienced such a wave of curiosity for understanding the nature of things as they are. Thousands upon thousands of young men (and certain outstanding women) studied, contemplated, meditated on the subject. Many left home in search of teachers who had solved the mystery. Some traveled by foot all their lives, others aimed for solitary residence in the wilderness by rivers, forests and mountains. Some gathered by hermitages of teachers in the forests, others met at the debating councils of kings who were no less driven by this inquiry, this fundamental curiosity.
The society of the day was structured by the caste system into five primary groups - Brahmin (the priests), Kshatriya (warrior rulers), Vaishyas (merchants and farmers), Shudras (menial workers) and the Pariahs (outcastes designated for the most degrading work). Yet there was one more group, that of the Samnyasin, one who had left home and society in the pursuit of truth. This last group was comprised of former members of all the other castes.
History records many people as claiming to have discovered truth. In the Indian context, the four Vedic scriptures (Rik, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva) are the foundation of Hinduism, and are considered by followers to be timeless, without beginning, divinely revealed. It is noted that there were as many as 75 different schools of thought based on the Vedas alone, each making the above claim. Of these many systems, six have survived and are considered prominent. These are the shad-darshana (darshana meaning the sight of things as they are, of truth). The six darshanas are the systems of Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. Being based on the sanctity of the Vedas, they were called the Astika Darshanas. Today, Vedanta is the foremost of these schools though one may find followers of each of the others.
In time, there were movements of rebellion against the belief in the sanctity of the Vedas and quite specifically against the caste system, which denied opportunity for social mobility. Around the sixth century BC, Mahavira spread the teachings of Jainism and Siddhartha Gautam spread his teachings as the Buddha. Over time, many separate and competing streams of thought arose around these teachings too. As many as 18 different schools of ancient Buddhism are recorded, 4 among them retaining prominence - Vaibhasa, Sautrantaka, Yogachara and Madhyamaka. These schools of Jainism and Buddhism, together with the Carvaka philosophy of pure materialism came to be collectively known as the Nastika Darshanas, those founded without faith in the Vedas.
II. The different streams of thought.
Of the schools of thought based on Vedic scriptures, of particular interest are Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta. Samkhya was the oldest, probably developing prior to 1000 BC. Its most famous propounder was the sage Kapil, and its major contribution is its theory of evolution, which was later adopted by Vedanta.
The philosophy of Yoga revolves around the Ashtanga Yoga propounded by Patanjali, the eight step way - Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayam, Pratyahar, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi. Samadhi is the ultimate transcendental state, a supra-conscious state of being, and the path to this was outlined by Patanjali in his treatise, the Yoga Sutras. What has commonly come to be known as Yoga in the west is merely the third step of Asana (Posture), a series of physical efforts. This is a preliminary step towards Patanjali's ultimate goal of Samadhi, though there is even a later branch of yoga called the Hatha Yoga, focusing primarily on this physical approach.
Of greatest interest among all the darshanas is Vedanta. Vedanta too over the centuries assumed many different, competeing streams of thought. Yet the primary stream of Advaita Vedanta, of which a prominent expounder was Adi Sankaracharya, is perhaps of greatest interest. Below we outline the key ideas of this stream of thought, and discuss some elements of it.
The Vedas may be broadly categorized into 2 sections. The vast majority is the Karma Kanda, the section dealing with rituals, each aimed at achieving a certain desired goal. The remainder, called the Jnana Kanda, deals with the nature of Ultimate Reality. This section of the Vedas is known as the Upanishad. The Vedantic system is based on 3 main texts - the Upanishads (of which many exist, 11 among these considered the most prominent), the Bhagwad Gita (a section of the Mahabharata) and the Brahma Sutras of Ved Vyasa.