Outlines of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007308
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: M Hiriyanna
Publisher: George Allen and Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 419
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 40 MB

Page 102

102 OUTLINES OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY priests by profession. It is most likely that they contributed not a little towards the development of such doctrines. This is also corroborated by tradition. Thus while Vidura, who is of 'low origin,' appears as the spokesman of this type of doctrine often in the epic, there are others like Ajagarawho expound the same, but are Brahmins. According to the evidence of early Buddhistic literature also, there were Brahmins as well as Sramaņas who denied a surviving soul and refused to believe in transmigration.3 In fact, we have here an exact parallel to what happened in the case of the Indian language. As in the history of the Indian language we have an epic phase distinguished from the language of 'the priests (sistas), so we have in the history of Indian philosophy a creed, with ramifications of its own, of the upper reflective classes other than the professional priests.5 The influence of the heterodox doctrine is transparent in more than one sphere of Indian thought, as we now know it. It has given rise directly or indirectly to religious systems like Jainism and Buddhism and in later scholastic philosophy it is represented, however inadequately, by the Cārvāka system. On the other schools also like the Sankhya it has, as we shall see, left its indelible mark. But it is sometimes very difficult to say in the case of a tenet whether it owed its origin to the priests or to the others; for, as in the case of language whose evolution serves as a pattern for us here, the secular creed, as we may term it, has influenced the orthodox
Cambridge History of India, vol. i. pp. 421-2. Cf. Prof. Jacobi: SBE. vol. XXII. p. xxxii.
> xii. 179 3 See e.g. passage quoted from the Samyuttaka-nikāya in Oldenberg's Buddha (pp. 272-3).
Cf. Keith: Classical Sanskrit Literature, pp. II-12. 5 To complete the parallel, we have to mention the existence of popular faiths corresponding to the many Prāksts spoken by the common folk. 6 'The similarity between some of those 'heretical' doctrines on the one side, and Jaina or Buddhist ideas on the other, is very suggestive, and favours the assumption that the Buddha, as well as Mahavira, owed some of his conceptions to these very heretics and formulated others under the influence of the controversies which were continually going on with them.' SBE. vol. XLV. p. xxvii. Cf. also Prof. Winternitz: op. cit. pp. I and 18.