Lecture On Jainism

Author(s): Lala Banarasidas
Publisher: Anuvrat Samiti

Page 39

( 31 ) for without admitting a growing up of different philosophical schools side by side during a period which preceded their last arrangement.'
"In the Upanishads and Brahmans, though there is a common note running through then all, there is yet grcat latitude and want of system, and a variety of opinions supported by different teachers and different schools. Even in the hymns we meet with great independence and individuality of thought, which occasionally sccns to amount to dowr:right scepticism and atheism. We must keep all this in. niind if we wish to gain a correct idea of the historical origin and growth of what we are accustomed to call six philosophical systems of India.”
" That such opinions (Charvaka) existed at an earlier time, we can see in some of thc hymns in which many years ago I pointed out these curious traces of an incipient sceptecisin............ There are some tenets of the followers of Brihaspati which seem to indicate the existence of other schools of philosophy by their side.
The Brihaspatyas speak as if being inter pares they differ from others as others differ from them. Traces of an opposition against the religion of the Vedas (Kautsa) appear in the hymns, the Brahmans, and the Sutras, and to ignore them would give us an entirely false idea of the religious and philosophical battles and battle-fields of ancient India.”