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Chapter Fifteen
NON-ABSOLUTISM AND JAINA VIEW
OF DARSANA
India has been the birth-land and play-ground of different types of philosophies, even the rustics and the illiterate talk about Brahman and Atman, Maya and Mokṣa, Anekanta and Ahimsa. Infact philosophy runs into the veins of Indian blood. Indian people not only talk but also live philosophy. Philosophy, Religion and Ethics are so close to the Indian life that they become inseparable parts of the personality of every Indian. Jainism, Buddhism or Vedanta are not arm-chair of philosophies but they are living creeds of the Indian people. Thus philosophy is not only the light-house but also the fountain of life for them. It is not only an enquiry into the meaning of reality but also into the meaning of life. Indeed, Indian philosophy is the philosophy of life.
However, in the technical sense, philosophy is used in three different senses in Indian thought, namely, vision, self-realisation and ratiocination. The first meaning, i. e., 'vision' is very crude although very close to the literal meaning of philosophy or Darśana (drś = to see). Here 'seeing' means 'sense-perception' or Pratyakṣa. The Carvākas accept this view of darśana, because it holds that perception alone is the source of knowledge. In our ordinary usage, we glibly talk about vision of a pot (Ghaţa-darśana) or vision of cloth (Paţa-darśana ). But I wonder, if we can accept such a crude view of philosophy, although we can not deny that the 'deeper-seeing' starts from the 'surface-seeing' of a perceptual 'pot' or a piece of 'cloth'. Even the Vedantic example that the different forms of pot have their ground in the motherearth, forms change but not reality.
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