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Johannes Bronkhorst
The Context of Indian Philosophy
debates between them. Is it possible that the social context which was to accompany Indian philosophy practically throughout its long history, the debates that made the formulation of critical and systematic philosophy a necessity, is it possible that all this began at the Greek courts of northwestern India? I think there is much that pleads in favour of this possibility, 10 We know that a number of Greeks from that area were interested in Buddhism, even converted to that religion The text called "The questions of king Milinda shows that in the imagination of at least some later Buddhists, the Greeks and their kings, most notably Menander, had participated in discussions with Buddhists. It is also known that, even after the Greeks had lost power in northwestern India, their influence took centuries before ebbing away completely.
One of the two, belonging to the Theravada school of Buddhism, shows an ongoing refinement, but little or no attempt to develop a coherent system of thought. The other school, Sarvästivada, is altogether different. Several texts of its canonical "Basket of scholasticism" (abhidharma-pitaka) show that serious attempts at systematization were made in this school. Since the innovations concerned were made on the basis of traditional material, the result is often quite complex, and this is not the place to deal with them in full detail. Only some striking features must here be mentioned. The Sarvistivada conception of the world is essentially atomistic. The macroscopic, and therefore composite, objects which we are acquainted with from everyday experience do not really exist. What really exist are the ultimate constituents, called dharmas. A particularly important composite object is the human person which, too, does not really exist. The atomistic understanding of the world also finds expression in the belief in momentaries: nothing exists for more than a single moment. Various questions linked to this atomistic vision of the world are raised and often answered by introducing an appropriate dharma. The question, for example, how different bundles of dharmas stick together so as to form different persons (remember that persons do strictly speaking not exist), is answered with the introduction of a dharma called propri possession'. Other difficulties were connected with the belief that mental events occur only one at a time in one person. This leads to difficulties in the case where someone observes, say, his own desire. This activity involves two mental events, the observation and the desire, which cannot simultaneously exist. When the observation is present, the observed desire must of necessity be nos present. Observation of desire is therefore only possible if a non-present object (the desire) exists. The Sarvistivadins concluded from this that past and future exist. This particular view, incidentally, is responsible for their name, Sarvastivada, the "position (wide) according to which everything (sarva) exists (ast)". Sarvistivada, as will be clear from this very brief presentation, made a major effort to rationalise its teachings. Theravida did not Sarvstivida played a major role in the tradition of debate that came to involve all schools of philosophy, whether Buddhist, Brahmanical, or Jaina; it seems even likely that the Sarvistividins were the first to adhere to this tradition of debate in India. Theravida played no such role, and indeed left India before this tradition of debate had attained a prominent position,
What can we conclude from these attempts at systematization carried out, apparently for the first time, by the Sarvistividins of northwestern India? I am tempted to conclude that the same social context which made systematization possible and necessary in later times, existed already in the last centuries BCE in northwestern India, perhaps for the first time. The Buddhists of that time and region clearly felt the need to present their more sophisticated views in such a manner that outsiders would not easily find systematic weaknesses in them. Just like their later colleagues, they had to defend their positions, quite possibly during public debates
This conclusion raises a number of questions. Who were the rulers in northwestern India who might organize debates at their courts or elsewhere? With whom might the Buddhists of northwestern India have been asked to debate? Who were their opponents? Don't forget that we have no evidence of the existence of systematic brahmanical thought during this early period. What is more, there are good reasons to think that there were few, if any, Brahmins in the regions inhabited by the Buddhists of northwestern India primarily Gandhin, perhaps also Bactria. These regions were ruled, for at least some of the time that concerns us, by Greeks. We know that Hellenistic kings in general cultivated the presence of philosophers at their courts, and encouraged
At this point you may raise the following objection. You will admit that a certain knowledge of the context is required to understand at least certain issues dealt with in Indian philosophy. You are even willing to grant that context has to be considered in order to understand that there is such a thing as Indian philosophy at all. However, you will say, what we need to know about this context is relatively little. Two of the cases we have discussed show this. Yes, to understand some aspects of Indian philosophy we need to know that many Indian philosophers were Brahmins, people who claimed a privileged status in society, while others, most notably the Buddhists, did not accept that claim. And yes, you will continue to understand the inner dynamic of Indian philosophy one must know that public debates were a recurring phenomenon throughout its long history. However, you will insist, both these contextual features are as old as Ladian philosophy, they have accompanied it from beginning to end. Even after the disappearance of Buddhism from the Indian philosophical scene, debates continued, as we saw in the case of Bhattoji. In other words, you will conclude, only contextual features that have not changed in any essential manner need to be known to understand Indian philosophy. Other contextual features, features that changed over the period of two thousand years or more since the beginning of systematic philosophy in India, such other features are of little importance for the study and understanding of this tradition.
This objection is not justified in my opinion. It is true that two of the four examples so far discussed concerned contextual features of great temporal endurance. Both the brahmanical claim of social superiority and the tradition of public debate had a long life, as long as Indian philosophy itself. Yet it would be a mistake to look upon these two features as constants, as some unchangeable and permanent background to the development of Indian philosophy. They were not, as a matter of fact. Some schools of thought developed in environments where there were neither tradition of debate, nor sophisticated opponents ready to criticize their thought in detail. There is also reason to think that the tradition of debate was not always equally strong, I will briefly discuss one example for each of these two cases.
I have already briefly mentioned the Theravada school of Buddhism, contemporaneous with the Survistivada school which we studied in some detail. Both these schools developed and preserved an important body of scholastic literature, called Abhidharma. The Sarvstivada school. as we saw, remodelled their Abhidharma into a coherent system of thought. The Theraldins did no such thing. This can be seen by considering one of their texts, which is one of the earliest surviving texts in India dedicated to criticising the positions of others. It is called Kathavatthu "Text dealing with disputes", and was composed, according to tradition, 218 years after the death of the Buddha. It criticises in its oldest portions a position which we know was held by the Sarvlistividins, mentioned earlier. An analysis of the criticism presented in the Kathivatthu shows
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