Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion

Edward Conze suggested that the first two chapters of the Ratnaguṇa (hereafter “the 41 verses”) were the earliest Mahāyāna text. Yet the origin of the verses and their relationship with other prajñāpāramitā texts have been murky. Through five levels of analysis, this research argues that the 41 verses were most likely the verse section of the Sūtra of Mahā-prajñāpāramitā Pronounced by Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva (SMPMB) and later became independent and expanded. The five levels of analysis are as follows. First, the Mahāyāna origin narratives, the Mahāyāna sutras, and ancient Indian Buddhist art all point to Mañjuśrī as the most likely architect of the prajñāpāramitā doctrine. Second, as an early Mahāyāna text, the SMPMB’s narrative shows that Mañjuśrī pronounced prajñāpāramitā and the Buddha sanctioned it. Third, the Tibetan Ratnaguṇa bears the line “Homage to Holy Mañjuśrī” in its beginning, and the text is usually found in conjunction with “The Recitation of Mañjuśrī’s Attributes.” Lexical items also show high parallelism between the 41 verses and the SMPMB. Fourth, a semantic intertextual analysis demonstrates full and complete intertextuality between the two texts. That is, the two texts can fully annotate each other. Finally, a content analysis of the references to the “one four-line verse” (yi si ju ji 一四句偈) in Mahāyāna texts indicates that it is most likely a corrupted reference to the 41 verses. The research further notes that intertextuality between the 41 verses and other prajñāpāramitā sutras cannot provide explanations for the observations in the above analysis, thus excluding alternative explanations. Finally, the research notes that how to attain wisdom deliverance was a widely explored subject from the Buddha’s time to the early schools. Mañjuśrī’s prajñāpāramitā doctrine is the most sophisticated interpretation of the Buddha’s teaching on “see things as they really are” and thus constituted the foundation of early Mahāyāna Buddhism.

The Phaedo’s intense preoccupation with the notions of self-liberation and self-transcendence in the face of death is strikingly reminiscent of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. It is therefore not surprising that comparative philosophers have shown great interest in comparing this particular Platonic work to various South Asian texts: The Phaedo has been compared to the philosophy underlying yoga and Patanjali, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta, the canonical account of the Buddha’s final days. Of particular relevance is the Katha Upanishad, which shares with the Phaedo enough common features, both textual and structural and thematic, for a comparative analysis to be fruitful. These striking resemblances enable me to bring important dissimilarities in the dialogical processes into focus— dissimilarities which have much to convey to us philosophically. These dissimilarities demonstrate that although the two traditions engaged in transformative ideas and practices that centered on the liberation of the soul, there is still a substantial difference between the nature of the philosophy celebrated by the Greeks and the mystical thought developed by the Upanishadic sages.

Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja were not solely textists; nor were they merely existential metaphysicians; nor were they a combination of both. Rather, their epistemologies involve a sixfold use of vitally important sacred and secular pramāṇa-s as instruments in orchestrated fashion where symphonies of their respective ontologies are given to their listeners. With the two Vedāntins, no pramāṇa is in every case the lead instrument. Rather, they employ any of the six as lead instrument at various times, depending on the pedagogic and/or apologetic context, while the others support the melody played by the lead. The result for both teachers is a melodic epistemological opposed-to-the-other composition characterized by careful thought and use of the six pramāṇa-s, all with the goal of defending their respective traditions of Vedānta as the truth of the matter at hand—knowledge of Brahman.

This paper is historical and is devoted to an old controversy in the Indian philosophical tradition with the Vedantins (and others) holding that cognitive states are self-revealing and the Nyaya taking the opposite position. I have summarized the major Vedantin arguments for their viewpoint and offered a critique from the Nyaya perspective. This throws light on a major philosophical controversy in the Indian tradition, a controversy that has not been studied in-depth in the Western tradition. Notably the problem of induction, a major problem in contemporary epistemology, has been studied in-depth in the Western tradition since its introduction by David Hume in the 18th century but the said problem has been studied deeply in Indian tradition for centuries earlier. I have argued in my Classical Indian Philosophy of Induction (2010) that the older Indian contribution on this problem is fully relevant for the very best that contemporary philosophers have offered on this. I hope that this paper will draw the attention of contemporary Western epistemologists who would get involved in this critically important epistemological debate and address a lacuna in the Western tradition.

Are human rights negotiable? Jacques Derrida argued that it is necessary to negotiate the nonnegotiable to save the nonnegotiable. This paper defends this claim while arguing for what Calvin Schrag called an ethics of the fitting response and finding such a response in Amartya Sen’s realization-focused comparative approach to justice. For Derrida, the aporetic character of urgency produces decisions which must be made outside the institutional limits of decision theory. That calls for a deconstruction of the axiomatics of rights in institutional settings. It also makes urgent the need for a deinstitutionalized ethics undeceived by the challenge of making judgments in aporias. Using Ted Honderich’s humanism as counterfoil, the argument moves through Derrida’s concept of "contradictory coherence" to Schrag’s transverse rationality, which thinks with deconstruction in order to think against its negative outcomes. The paper ends by suggesting that Schrag's communicative praxeology forges an ethics compatible with Sen’s threshold conditions to determine rights through freedoms.

In this article, I reconsider Gandhi's relationship to liberal democracy. I argue that a properly Gandhian approach to this relationship should emphasize the role of the satyagrahi facilitating conflict resolutions and progress in truth. Above all, this approach calls upon courageous, exemplary individuals to pass over and join the viewpoints of 'unreasonables' marginalized by the liberal state. However, I also argue that contemporary Gandhians should explore cultural adaptations of the satyagrahi-role appropriate to highly materialistic, multicultural liberal-democracies. In these societies, the traditional figure of the ascetic or saint may lack popular cultural resonance. Moreover, moral learning and spiritual insight often derives from popular culture and entertainment as much as religious traditions, or devotional practices. Contemporary Gandhi’s scholars should thus consider the prospects for 'alternative satyagrahis' embracing some materialist values and cultural motifs, as appropriate sources spiritual growth and soul-force.

Religion (dharma) plays a vital role in the Hindu (Sanatana) quest for understanding and practicing harmony between nature and humanity that result into the formation of a cosmological awakening, i.e. 'transcending the universe.' The importance and applicability of such new consciousness is a sign in promoting global humanism in the 21st century, where environmental ethics and sustainability are the wheels of making the future more humane and peaceful. Arne Naess, who coined the term 'deep ecology' conceiving humankind as an integral part of its environment, gives credit to Gandhi. Gandhi’s contributions help to re-awaken the human spirit to self-realisation, finally leading to revelation promoting human coexistence with nature sustainably, mostly through re-interpretation of Vedantic thought. Under the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) the ideas of Gandhi are recognised as a path that makes human coexistence stronger, feasible and co-sharedness, sustainable in peace and harmony with nature. This essay presents ecospiritual contextuality and its vitality concerning a sustainable perspective in line with Gandhi's vision and way of life.

The global reach of Tagore’s achievement can be freshly understood through a theory of purposive behavior by the American philosopher, Stephen C. Pepper. Pepper proposed dividing human purposes in three categories: conative achievement, and affective. Tagore’s prose fiction can fill out the theory with more complex and problematic examples towards a cross cultural ethics. His novels about the emerging professional class in India reveal the tensions between traditional values of the family and religious observance against individual efforts to fulfil desire, find pleasure, and be productive outside or in home life. The last completed prose fiction of the Bengali master presents a distinct challenge for critics and filmmakers as his longstanding sympathy for the plight of women may cause us to misread the rollickingly satirical "Laboratory" in which a scientist's legacy is fought over by a thoroughly corrupt mother and daughter.

This paper explores the philosophy of emotion in classical India. Although some scholars have endeavored to develop a systematic philosophy of emotion based on rasa theory, no serious effort has been made to read the relationship between emotion and the self in light of rasa theory. This exclusion, I argue, is an outcome of a broader presupposition that the 'self' in classical Indian philosophies is outside the scope of emotion. A fresh reading of classical Sanskrit texts finds this premise baseless. With an underlying assumption that emotion and self are inherently linked, this paper explores similarities between the Indian and Chinese approaches.

While yoga has come to be seen as more of an exercise than anything else in the West, the roots of yoga are similar to those of philosophy and religion. There is a philosophically rich view on the nature of the world, being, the nature of humanity, how we ought to live, and our place in the world. The theoretical part of yoga has been called a religion as well as a philosophy and this paper argues that it should be treated as a philosophy. Yoga gives reasons for the theoretical views, reasons for the practice, and encourages practitioners to continuously study, reflect, and search for knowledge of "eternal truths". This paper focuses on the ethical restraints of yoga – the yamas – in order to show the connections to the Dualistic metaphysical view of the universe and the epistemological goals expressed in The Yoga Sutras.

One approaching a thing from a distance may perceive it as existent, then as a substance, then as a tree and, finally, as a fig tree. Thus, the same fig tree can be the object of all these different perceptions. This shows, Udayana argues, that difference in cognitive states does not necessarily prove that their objects are different. This argument is in response to the Buddhist claim that since perceptual cognitive states and non-perceptual cognitive states are different, their respective objects are also different; unique particulars (svalakSaNa) that alone are real, are grasped in perception; general features (saamaanyalakSaNa) that are not real are grasped in non-perceptual cognitive states. The Buddhist objects: when the same thing appears to be the object of different cognitive states, only that cognitive state which leads to useful result is reliable. Udayana replies: More than one cognitive state in the above situation may lead to useful result; it is not justified to accept only one of them as reliable and reject the others. The Buddhist objects again: perceptual awareness is direct but non-perceptual awareness is indirect: hence their objects are different. Udayana replies: The same thing may be perceived when there is sensory connection with it and then inferred from an invariably connected sign when there is no sensory connection. Thus, the same thing may be the object of both direct and indirect cognitive states depending on different causal conditions.

The paper has two main parts. The first part is devoted to the traditional Hindu viewpoint on the existence and permanence of the self as an immaterial substance. Various arguments offered by Hindu philosophers against the materialist view that the body is the self as well as arguments against the Buddhist view of the self as a stream of constantly changing states are discussed critically with reference to recent philosophical perspectives. The second part is devoted to the doctrine of karma and rebirth. A number of traditional arguments for the doctrine are studied analytically and critically as well as relevance of the doctrine for addressing the problem of evil that for many is a serious issue facing the creationist position. Finally, the major arguments of Plato who also held that the self is eternal and goes through reincarnation are critiqued from a comparative standpoint.

This paper focuses on a specific area of interest within the philosophical system of Schopenhauer and Buddhism which is human rights, the concept of compassion and the issue of the pure motive behind human action. Both theories express pessimism regarding the transitoriness of life and the pain caused, and how this deprives man of inner peace. The common acknowledgment of the fact that human life entails great suffering guides the two philosophies into an awareness of the need for salvation. In their metaphysics, there is a number of similarities that conclude to the point that moral truthfulness is a principal virtue in human life, practically indispensable for right living. In this particular context, while compassion is highlighted as the main ethical factor, it is a question of paramount importance in these doctrines whether the motive behind the action is a motive concentrated on the Self or purely on the Other.

The basis of religion lies in the nature of man as a thinking self-conscious being. As a thinking being, I can make my individual self and the world, which is opposed to it, the object of my thought and have the capacity to transcend the opposition and rise to a higher unity in which both these -- the self and not-self are comprehended as elements. It is by thought that we transcend the limits of finitude and share in a life which is universal and infinite, in which religion may be said to consist. Thought or self-consciousness is a universal principle in us and being universal, enables us to rise above our particularity and participate in the universal and absolute life or God.

‘Necessity of Religion’ means that in the nature of man as an intelligent self-conscious being there is a necessary spiritual urge which forces him to rise above what is material and finite and to find rest nowhere short of an Infinite and Absolute Mind. This does not mean that each and every man is religious and the fact that there are men who are not religious does not disprove the necessity of religion. Rather in the very notion of a spiritual self-conscious being there is involved what may be called a virtual or potential infinite. True it is that Nature and man are both finite. But it is the characteristic of a spiritual intelligent being to transcend its individual limitations and realize itself in that which lies beyond itself.

In the view of Spencer, Hamilton, Mansel and others, while the province of science is the known, the province of religion is the unknown and the unknowable. Ever addition to the gradually increasing sphere of science reveals a wider sphere of nescience, the unknown and unknowable background of the infinite and the absolute. Since to think is to condition and since the infinite and the absolute is unconditioned, to think or know the infinite or the absolute is to think the unthinkable or know the unknowable though we are compelled to accept the existence of the infinite and the absolute. But this viewpoint is contradictory. It is self-contradictory to hold simultaneously that human knowledge is confined to the finite and that we can know of an existence beyond the finite and that all human knowledge is relative and yet that we can know of the existence of the absolute. Objections to the scientific study of religion based on arguments from intuitive character of religious knowledge and arguments from authoritative nature of religious knowledge are also addressed.

An issue in philosophy of life is what in nature can and what cannot be explained by physics and chemistry. The mechanical theory is the same as the physico-chemical theory and the mechanical explanation of biological phenomena amounts to the recognition of such phenomena as falling under the laws of physics and chemistry. Hobhouse points out that a living body acts in some respects as a mechanism while in other respects it appears to act differently. But where does the difference lie? One difference seems to be that a living organism, when out of order, struggles back to order and normal functioning in a structured way that a machine appears to be incapable of. Haldane asserts that a living organism can grow from within and give rise to another system of the same sort out of a tiny special itself as it happens in reproduction and that such reproduction belongs to a class qualitatively different from that of mechanical operation. The qualitative difference between life and matter is also supported in Alexander’s doctrine of emergent evolution.

In the view of Alexander Space-Time or Pure Motion is the basic stuff of the universe, for it is Space-Time or Pure Motion that remains if one thinks out all that can be excluded through a rigorous act of abstraction short of annihilation. Alexander subscribes to the doctrine of emergent evolution and holds that the empirical world in all its ascending levels emerges out of the primal background of Space-Time. The first ascending level of emergence is that of matter with primary qualities; the next ascending level is that of secondary qualities; life emerges in the next ascending level and mind emerges in the next ascending level. Reductive materialism must be rejected, for each new quality emerging in the ascending level is irreducible to the previous level and there is always an explanatory gap between the previous level and the ascending level. The highest of the empirical qualities known to us is mind or consciousness; there is an empirical quality which is to succeed the distinctive empirical quality of our level, that new empirical quality is God or deity. We cannot tell what the nature of deity is; but we can be certain that it is not mere mind or spirit, for no new emergent quality can be reduced to the previous level. Rather deity is what mind or spirit deserves in the ascending order.

The Buddhist argues that when two cognitive states are different, their objects are also different. For example, awareness of a pot is different from awareness of a cloth and their objects are different as well. Based on the pervasion that no two different cognitive states have the same object the Buddhist claims that the objects of inference and testimony on the one hand are different from the objects of (indeterminate) perception on the other. That is, what is perceived is never the same as what is inferred or learnt from testimony. This lends support to the Buddhist position that only unique particulars that are grasped in (indeterminate) perception are real; what are grasped in inference or testimony are not unique particulars and, accordingly, are not real. Udayana’s critique of the above position is explained and analyzed.

The prisoner’s dilemma is a fictional story that shows why individuals who seek only their personal benefit meet worse outcomes than those possible by cooperating with others. The dilemma provides an effective, albeit often overlooked, method for studying the Hindu principle of “desireless action” (niṣkāmakarma). In the context of the prisoner’s dilemma, a prisoner who wants to uphold the principle of “desireless action” may choose one of two decision-making strategies: to be indifferent and leave the decision to chance or to either pursue the common good or the other person’s benefit instead of his or her own. Assuming that followers of niṣkāmakarma can be goal-oriented, the second strategy is more appropriate than the first, as long as one pursues unselfish goals and remains both indifferent and uncommitted to personal benefit. This interpretation is tested and further discussed in this article in light of the values of the modern environmental and anti-consumerist degrowth movement.