________________
Panchastikayasara
25 ascendency of the priestly class. The sacrificial master or rajaman has to engage his priests, paying heavy fees or dakșiņās. Religious devotion during this period degenerated into petty commercialism. But this state of things did not last long. While the priests were further elaborating the ceremonial formulae, the work of investigating the true nature of reality was taken up by another band of thinkers. By this time the homogeneous Aryan tribe split up into different castes. Of these sects, the Kshatriyas or the warrior class have learned the secrets of Reality. They have introduced a new philosophical cult known as Brahmavidyâ. The Brahmavidyâ must have originally referred to certain spiritual intuitions obtained through introspection. Man discovered himself for the first time. The inner spiritual principle, the Atman is taken to be the Reality. It is neither the body nor the senses. It is something behind and beyond the corporeal frame. It is that which hears but is not heard. It is that which sees but is not seen. It is that which makes the operation of the senses possible while itself is beyond sense-apprehension. This spiritual principle was indifferently called Âtman or Brahman. Like the Pythogorians of Greece, the Indian thinkers kept their metaphysical cult as a secret. The Kshatriyas who were the discoverers and custodians of the New Thought, imparted it only to the deserving few. This Upanishadic cult, for so was it named, soon replaced the earlier ceremonialism. The Jñana-kânda superseded the Karma-kânda as the path to self-realisation. Even the priests, discounting their cerernonial technique, flocked to the royal courts to be initiated
steries. Thus the age was one of intense discussion, research and self-introspection. During this period again, we have the seeds of the different philosophical systems constructed in the succeeding period. No doubt Yâjñavalkya is a towering personality of the Upanishadic age. No doubt, he attempted reconciliation between the old and the new. In his hands the new wisdom appeared as distinctly monistic. But that current which is evidently the source of the later Vedantic stream was only one of the many currents of the Upanishadic wisdom. This is very well substantiated by the different systems constructed subsequent to the age. The philosophical systems in India are mainly of two classes, the orthodox and the heretic. The six Darsanas--Pūrvamîmâmsâ, Uttara mîmâmsâ or Vedanta, Sânkhya, Yoga, Nyâya, Višeshika-constitute the orthodox systems. The heretical systems are Buddhism, Tainism, the philosophy of the Charvakas and Brihasp Of course this classification does not mean anything but that it was made by Brahminical scholars. 'Orthox' and 'heretical' are terms mainly based upon the attitude towards the Vedas. Kapila's Sânkhya is niriśvara and is allied to Jainism and Buddhism in its opposition to Vedic sacrifices. Pûrvamîmâmsa or Vedânta rejects the creator and creation as Vyâvahâric and hence the result of mâya. There is a good deal of truth in the statement that it is merely Buddhism in disguise. Hence the traditional classification is justified neither by philosophical nor religious criterion,
Of these different systems which reperesent the post-upanishadic thought,
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
