History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

Page 1685

CHAPTER XXIII PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS OF SOME
OF THE SELECTED PURANAS
The readers who have followed the philosophy of the Vedānta as interpreted by Vijñāna Bhikṣu in his commentary on the Brahmasūtra and the Israra-gitā section of the Kūrma Purāņa must have noticed that, according to him, the Vedānta was associated with the Sāmkhya and Yoga, and in support of his view he referred to many of the Purāņas, some of which are much earlier than Sankara. Vijñāna Bhikṣu, therefore, quotes profusely from the Purāṇas and in the writings of Rāmānuja, Vadhva, Vallabha, Jiva Goswami and Baladeva we find profuse references to the Purāņas in support of their views of the philosophy of the Vedānta.
It is highly probable that at least one important school of ideas regarding the philosophy of the Upanişads and the Brahma-sūtra was preserved in the Purāņic tradition. Sankara's interpretation of the Upanişads and the Brahma-sūtra seems to have diverged very greatly from the semi-realistic interpretation of them as found in the Purāņas. It was, probably, for this reason that Sankara seldom refers to the Purāņas; but since Sankara's line of interpretation is practically absent in the earlier Purāņas, and since the extreme monism of some passages of the Upanişads is modified and softened by other considerations, it may be believed that the views of the Vedānta, as found in the Purānas and the Bhagavad-gitā, present, at least in a general manner, the oldest outlook of the philosophy of the Upanisads and the Brahma-sutra.
It seems, therefore, desirable that the treatment of the philosophy of Rāmānuja and Vijñāna Bhikṣu should be supplemented by a short survey of the philosophy as found in some of the principal Purāṇas. All the Purāņas are required to have a special section devoted to the treatment of creation and dissolution, and it is in this section that the philosophical speculations are largely found?. In the present section I shall make an effort to trace the philosophical speculations as contained in the sarga-pratisarga portions
1 sargaś ca pratisargaś ca ramso mant-antarāni ca ramśā-nucaritan cai'ra purānam pañca-laksanam. || Kūrma Purāņu, 1. 12.