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Johannes Brusher
The Contest of Indian Phili
Here, then, we see how a purely philosophical debate took on a social dimension, dictated by the fundamental interests of the philosophers involved. In studying these debates it is imperative to know the different social backgrounds to which thinkers like Kumarila and Dharmakirti belonged, the former being an orthodox Brahmin, convinced of the intrinsic superiority of the Brahmins, the latter Buddhist, and as such sceptical with regard to all such claims. This opposition between Brahmins and Buddhists was not created by Kumanla and Dharmakirti, to be sure. The opposition had been there right from the beginning. A number of Sutras in the ancient Buddhist canon depict discussions between the Buddha and one or more Brahmins, in which the claim to superior status of the Brahmins is rejected, or even made fun of. With Kumarila and Dharmakirti this opposition took on a distinctly philosophical dimension, it became part of the philosophical debate of that time. The historian of philosophy will need to be able to place this debate in its historical situation, he will need to be aware of the context in order to fully understand the contents.
A completely different example of a philosophical development which was, perhaps, closely related to a social phenomenon is constituted by a concept which came to play a role in buddhist thought, viz., that of the teaching-body (dharmakaya) of the Buddha. We know that worshipping the bodily remains of the Buddha was an important aspect of the religion of Buddhist laymen and monastics alike. These bodily remains were often preserved in stops. However, the Buddhist preoccupation with dead bodies was highly impure in the eyes of their brahmanical neighbours. Their sensitivity to the impurity of death and all that is associated with it did influence the Indian Buddhists, too, as may be illustrated by the fact that they tended to turn their attention from the bodily relics to the stipus, their containers, which became objects of worship in their own right. It is also striking that bodily remains of the Buddha tended to be accessible, to at least some degree, in regions which Buddhism did not share with Brahmanism-China, Tibet, Ceylon, but also northwestern India, but hardly ever in regions where Brahmanism was important. It is perhaps in these regions that Buddhist thinkers developed the idea that the real body of the Buddha was not his physical body, but rather his teaching (dharma). There are, as a matter of fact, canonical statements to that effect. It was but a small step from here to postulating an entity called dharmakaya, teaching.body, and to maintain that that is the body of the Buddha that should be worshipped. The dharmakaya did indeed undergo a long and interesting development in buddhist thought, and come to be identified in various texts, with different important concept, among them dharmadhatu and fathāgatagarbha; most importantly, many Buddhists came to look upon the dharmakava as the absolute. This long development, if the hypothetical reconstruction of the historical background of the dharmakaya here presented is correct, began, and finds its original explanation, in the Buddhist reaction to brahmanical social pressure.
philosophy would have a hard time to survive. The situation in classical and medieval India was not different in this respect. These philosophers, too, had material and intellectual needs. They too, needed an income, or at least shelter and regular meals, they needed access to libraries, manuscript libraries in their case, they needed to be able to pass on their knowledge, first of all to students, we may assume, but also to a network of other philosophers who read their works; etc. The Indian philosophical texts that have come down to us say very little about these earthly and banal realities, yet it is undeniable that, if the circumstances had not been right, many authors might not have been able to write their texts, or even after writing them, these texts would not have been read and preserved.
All this amounts to saying that the very fact that there is such a thing as Indian philosophy cannot be separated from the circumstances that made this possible. It seems a priori likely that there might not have been philosophy in South Asia if there had not been people who had the leisure to create and continue it. But the existence of such a group of people, in and by itself, might not yet have guaranteed the presence of a philosophical tradition. To some extent these people had this leisure, they were given this leisure, because other members of society thought that the study of philosophical issues was particularly important and represented a fundamental value of society as a whole. This we know is true. Most schools of Indian philosophy agreed that philosophy is necessary for those who wish to attain liberation from the cycle of rebirth which they all believed in; and liberation from rebirth is the highest aim there is.
So far so good. The elements considered so far do not, however, explain why Indian philosophy took the forms it actually took. They would explain the existence of wisdom teachings, perhaps in different varieties for different currents of thought. They do not explain why classical Indian philosophers went out of their way to argue for their positions, sometimes going to the extent of criticizing the positions of other thinkers, they do not explain why these philosophers developed logical rules and rules of debate, why they presented their views in the form of ever more coherent wholes, why they created systems of thought rather than mere collections of wise statements. Why did they do all this? Why did they not leave each other alone, concentrating cach on his own method to attain liberation Liberation, in most religious currents of India, is a highly personal attainment, quite independent of social considerations; why then should the way leading to it pass through philosophical debates whose aim is to convince, or refute others? Obviously the Indian philosophers did all they could to convince each other, to show that the other thinkers, if they really thought things out clearly, should change their opinions and convert to their own points of view.
At first sight one might think that Indian philosophers were concerned with convincing each other because this was part of their missionary intention. We know that Buddhism made conscious effort to convert people, and that it was extraordinarily successful in this. Jainism, too, We can be sure, made efforts to convince people of the value and importance of their path to liberation. In spite of this, I think that the urge to convert provides at best a very small part of the answer to our question. Buddhism and Jainism did not, or not primarily, carry out their missionary activity by means of philosophical debate, but by preaching their respective doctrines. And Brahmanism, as is well known, was not interested in missionary activity in the ordinary sense at all: no one could become a Brahmin who was not already a Brahmin, agreement or disagreement on complex philosophical issues could not change that
The correct explanation of the elements of Indian philosophy just mentioned, as I see it, is different. These elements are in an important sense the result of a social custom. They are the consequence of a feature of the social context, that has accompanied Indian philosophy for most
These last two examples show that knowledge of the social context of Indian philosophy sometimes helps the modern researcher to understand certain details of the positions taken by its practitioners. However, we also need knowledge of the social context to understand that there was such a thing as Indian philosophy at all. In a way this is self-evident. If one wishes to understand why there is philosophy in the modern world, it is important to know that there are institutions, such as universities, which provide modern philosophers with the support they require, such as jobs, teaching opportunities, funds for publications, etc. etc. Without such support, modern
2 For detail, cheest (2005)
Para ore detailed pronation,
Broekhorst [20:169 m).
