[Advaita-l] Indians' interest in higher philosophy border on religion

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Dear friends,

Kindly have a look at the following aspects. and give your comments if found woorthwhile.

In
 any study of development of philosophical thoughts one must consider 
the basic premises of the religions. There have been the feeling among the western scholars that the indians were never really interested in philosophy. They were interested in religion. 
 There is valid reason for that . While Nyaya was formulated first  by 
an ancient Indian sage it came to back-seat due to the development of 
higher philosophical thoughts, which alone can explain certain aspects 
such as why a person is born blind or deaf or born in an impoverished 
situation or in a family without any education and social standing. Here
 comes the karma theory and rebirth,
 which is not accepted by the Semitic religion at present, though there 
are hints in the Bible and the Quran on rebirth. Any interested person 
can also read the book  entitled "Reincarnation in Islam" and some of 
the writings of the other authors to see that.  Samkhya and Yoga came to
 provide the answer. That did not fully satisfy the Indian sages and in 
came the revelations enshrined in the Veda and Vedanta. On the other 
hand Lord Buddha, who too found that Samkhya and Yoga did not give the 
final answer, propounded that  Non- separation (or Universal unity) 
alone is the final answer and that is achieved only when one sheds the 
body of the five skandhas through the eightfold path and attains 
Shunyata. Thus there is valid reason for giving prominence to the 
Metaphysical aspects so dear to the Indian thinkers. The westernern 
scholars know their deficiency but the present day interpretations of 
their own texts do not help them. It is quite
 possible that Prophet Muhammad and Prophet Jesus knew much more than 
their followers know to get a proper interpretation

Secondly the 
dating aspects are very important for studying the development of the 
philosophical aspects. Indian Historiography is very different. The 
ancient wise people gave the chronological data through the puranas as 
well as through the astronomical data scattered  in the Puranas and the 
Itihasas. Unfortunately the colonial historians tried to distort the 
chronology of ancient indian history. We are fortunate these days 
because there are people who are doing hard work to restore the correct 
chronology of ancient Indian history.

Regards,

Sunil K. Bhattacharjya