bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mīmāṃsā
Authors: Taber John A. 
Published: September 2018

The school of Mīmāṃsā or Pūrva Mīmāṃsā was one of the six systems of classical Hindu philosophy. It grew out of the Indian science of exegesis and was primarily concerned with defending the way of life defined by the ancient scripture of Hinduism, the Veda. Its most important exponents, Śabarasvāmin, Prabhākara and Kumārila, lived in the sixth and seventh centuries ad. It was realist and empiricist in orientation. Its central doctrine was that the Veda is the sole means of knowledge of dharma or righteousness, because it is eternal. All cognition, it held, is valid unless its cause is defective. The Veda being without any fallible author, human or divine, the cognitions to which it gives rise must be true. The Veda must be authorless because there is no recollection of an author or any other evidence of its having been composed; we only observe that it has been handed down from generation to generation. Mīmāṃsā thinkers also defended various metaphysical ideas implied by the Veda – in particular, the reality of the physical world and the immortality of the soul. However, they denied the existence of God as creator of the world and author of scripture. The eternality of the Veda implies the eternality of language in general. Words and the letters that constitute them are eternal and ubiquitous; it is only their particular manifestations, caused by articulations of the vocal organs, that are restricted to certain times and places. The meanings of words, being universals, are eternal as well. Finally, the relation between word and meaning is also eternal. Every word has an inherent capacity to indicate its meaning. Words could not be expressive of certain meanings as a result of artificial conventions.
The basic orientation of Mīmāṃsā was pragmatic and anti-mystical. It believed that happiness and salvation result just from carrying out the prescriptions of the Veda, not from the practice of yoga or insight into the One. It criticized particularly sharply other scriptural traditions (Buddhism and Jainism) that claimed to have originated from omniscient preceptors.
Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika
Authors: Franco Eli , Preisendanz Karin 
Published: September 2018

The Nyāya school of philosophy developed out of the ancient Indian tradition of debate; its name, often translated as ‘logic’, relates to its original and primary concern with the method (nyāya) of proof. The fully fledged classical school presents its interests in a list of sixteen categories of debate, of which the first two are central: the means of valid cognition (perception, inference, analogy and verbal testimony) and the soteriologically relevant objects of valid cognition (self, body, senses, sense objects, cognition, and so on). The latter reflect an early philosophy of nature added to an original eristic-dialectic tradition. On the whole, classical Nyāya adopts, affirms and further develops, next to its epistemology and logic, the ontology of Vaiśeṣika. The soteriological relevance of the school is grounded in the claim that adequate knowledge of the sixteen categories, aided by contemplation, yogic exercises and philosophical debate, leads to release from rebirth. Vaiśeṣika, on the other hand, is a philosophy of nature most concerned with the comprehensive enumeration and identification of all distinct and irreducible world constituents, aiming to provide a real basis for all cognitive and linguistic acts. This endeavour for distinction (viśeṣa) may well account for the school’s name. Into the atomistic and mechanistic worldview of Vaiśeṣika a soteriology and orthodox ethics are fitted, but not without tensions; still later the notion of a supreme god, whose function is at first mainly regulative but later expanded to the creation of the world, is introduced. In the classical period the Vaiśeṣika philosophy of nature, including the highly developed doctrine of causality, is cast into a rigorous system of six, later seven, categories (substance, quality, motion, universal, particularity, inherence, nonexistence). Nyāya epistemology increasingly influences that of Vaiśeṣika.
The interaction and mutual influences between Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika finally led to the formation of what may be styled a syncretistic school, called Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika in modern scholarly publications. This step, facilitated by the common religious affiliation to Śaivism, occurs with Udayana (eleventh century), who commented on texts of both schools. Subsequently, numerous syncretistic manuals attained high popularity. Udayana also inaugurated the period of Navya-Nyāya, ‘New Logic’, which developed and refined sophisticated methods of philosophical analysis.
Gaṅgeśa (fl. c.1325)
Authors: Phillips Stephen H. 
Published: September 2018

Gaṅgeśa launched and solidified advances in logic and epistemology within the classical Indian school of Logic, Nyāya. He is traditionally taken to have inaugurated the ‘New’ school, Navya-Nyāya. Nyāya, both Old and New, is a multidimensional system that belies the stereotype of Indian philosophy as idealist and mystical in orientation. Gaṅgeśa worked with a realist ontology of objects spoken about and experienced every day. He articulated what may be called a reliabilist theory of knowledge: under specified conditions, sense-mediated and inferential cognitions (along with two other types) are reliable sources of information about reality.
Gaṅgeśa was a pivotal figure in classical Indian philosophy; most later debate both within his school and outside it presupposed cognitive analyses that he standardized. These analyses focus on properties exhibited by things known, properties central to the processes whereby they are known. Properties relating the cognized to the cognizer are especially important. Though Gaṅgeśa had a lot to say about the ontological status of these properties, others in his school found them problematic. Such controversy appears to have contributed to New Logic’s success: proponents of rival views were able to utilize Gaṅgeśa’s formulas and definitions without abandoning their own positions on what is real.
Definition, Indian concepts of
Authors: Bhattacharyya Sibajiban 
Published: September 2018

Definitions in Indian philosophy are conceived very differently from definitions in Western philosophy. In Western philosophy and logic, it is usual to define a term or a linguistic expression. A definition here consists of a ‘definiens’, typically a longer expression, statement or proposal, and a ‘definiendum’, a shorter expression or term whose meaning is established by the definiens. Definitions permit the definiendum to be put in place of the definiens and are thus ‘abbreviations’ (for example, ‘father’ is an abbrevation of ‘male parent’). In India, definitions in the sense of abbreviations were regularly used in grammar from the earliest times, as in the work of Pāṇini (c.800 bc).
In Indian philosophy, however, definitions are not conceived of as abbreviations. We may have direct acquaintance with an object; this is one way of knowing it. We may also know an object or many objects through their properties or features; this is another way of knowing them. These properties or features are the modes under which objects are cognized. If we know objects through the properties that belong to all of them and only to them, then the objects are collected together through their properties to form a group. A group is nothing real; it is a way of collecting objects by knowing them under one mode. When we know a group of objects through properties common to all of them and only to them, we may also want to know another set of properties or features which also belongs to all the objects and only to them. The second set of properties is the defining mark (lakṣaṇa), or, simply, the definition, of the objects collected together into a group by being known under one mode. The objects themselves are the definienda of the definition. The first set of properties through which the definienda are collected together to form a group is called ‘the limiting properties of being the definienda of the definition’. The defining mark, that is, the definition, is not an essential property of the definienda, but is only a property (or set of properties) common to all of them and only them.
Interpretation, Indian theories of
Authors: Deshpande Madhav M. 
Published: September 2018

Need for interpretation of texts was felt already during the ancient period of Vedic texts in India. Vedic texts were orally transmitted for over a thousand years. During this period, the change in locations of people reciting the texts and the mother tongues of the reciters led to a widening gap between the preserved sacred texts and their interpreters. Additionally, there was a notion that the sacred language was a mystery which was only partially understood by the common people. This led to the early development of exegetical tools to assist the interpretation of the sacred literature.
Later, grammarians and etymologists developed sophisticated exegetical tools and theories of interpretation. These generally led to a deeper understanding of the structure of language. The priestly tradition developed its own canons of interpretation, which are manifest in the system of Mīmāṃsā. Here we have the first fully developed theory of discourse and context.
The categories developed by Mīmāṃsā were used by other schools, especially by the school of Dharmaśāstra, or Hindu religious law. Both Mīmāṃsā and Dharmaśāstra created sets of hierarchical principles for authoritative guidance in interpretation. Other philosophical and religious traditions developed categories of their own to deal with problems of interpretation. A major problem was created when the literature accepted as authoritative by a tradition contained apparently contradictory passages. The traditions had to deal with this problem and find ways of explaining away those passages which did not quite fit with their own view of truth. For this purpose, a whole set of categories were employed. At a later period, several ingenious principles of interpretation were used for texts in general. Here, significant contributions were made by the traditions of Sanskrit grammar and poetics.
Knowledge, Indian views of
Authors: Phillips Stephen H. 
Published: September 2018

Classical Indian epistemology centres on a complex of terms for knowledge, knower and the known or knowable, including pramāṇa, ‘means to knowledge’ or ‘source of knowledge’. Views about perception, inference, testimony and a few additional candidate sources are the topics of core proposals of competing epistemological theories. Certain types of scepticism are also addressed, but explaining how it is possible that we know anything has been less central than other issues. Debates about knowledge – and doubt as well – are often caught up in larger war plans concerning the nature of awareness.
The various classical schools typically bring views about awareness with them to the epistemological arena, but a neutral, common touchstone for and important constraint on all pramāṇa theorizing is what is called speech behaviour, vyavahāra, reflecting, it is presumed, bits of everyday knowledge. Verbalizations of perception, for example, ‘That is a pot’, of inference, for example, ‘There is fire on yonder mountain’ (made on the basis of the sight of smoke and an understanding of the general rule that wherever there is smoke, there is fire), of information acquired through testimony, and so on, are the givens for which a successful theory has to account.
Principal candidate sources proposed in addition to perception and inference are testimony, analogy, circumstantial implication and negative perception. Mystical experience as a pramāṇa for spiritual matters is viewed as a variety of perception by its advocates, and scripture as a variety of testimony. With stock examples of bits of knowledge agreed upon, disagreement typically centres on what the source is for a particular example and whether admission of any source in addition to perception and inference is ever required. Or, in some cases, a stock example is slightly modified, better to align with a stance taken on a putatively additional pramāṇa.
With regard to what the sources make known, some argue that each pramāṇa works within a range of possibilities unique to itself, with no overlap. Thus what is known by perception cannot be known by inference. Others dispute such contentions, although at least a few such restrictions on individual knowledge sources are usually recognized. Buddhists and some others appear to be motivated to deny pramāṇa status to testimony because appeal to testimony is used to justify what they see as objectionable religious theses. Similarly, the Cārvāka materialist denies inference, apparently out of fear of its power to prove the existence of spiritual entities such as God or the soul.
The Buddhist Nāgārjuna and others challenge the pramāṇa programmes proffered by epistemologists of all stripes, and provoke what may be called meta-epistemological responses that bring out connections between pramāṇa proposals and a logic of presumption. In particular, the Nyāya response to Nāgārjuna and company is by any light an admirable effort of philosophy.
Meaning, Indian theories of
Authors: Deshpande Madhav M. 
Published: September 2018

The term artha in Sanskrit is used for the notion of meaning, in the widest sense of the word ‘meaning’; it can be the meaning of words, sentences and scriptures, as well as of nonlinguistic gestures and signs. Its meaning ranges from a real object in the external world referred to by a word to a mere concept of an object which may or may not correspond to anything in the external world. The differences regarding what ‘meaning’ is are argued out by the philosophical schools of Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā, Buddhism, Sanskrit grammar and Sanskrit poetics. Among these, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika and Mīmāṃsā have realistic ontologies. Mīmāṃsā focuses mainly on interpreting the Vedic scriptures. Buddhist thinkers generally depict language as giving a false picture of reality. Sanskrit grammar is more interested in language than in ontology, while Sanskrit poetics focuses on the poetic dimensions of meaning.
Generally, the notion of meaning is stratified into three or four types. First there is the primary meaning. If this is inappropriate in a given context, then one moves to a secondary meaning, an extension of the primary meaning. Beyond this is the suggested meaning, which may or may not be the same as the meaning intended by the speaker. Specific conditions under which these different varieties are understood are discussed by the schools.
The various Indian theories of meaning are closely related to the overall stances taken by the different schools. Among the factors which influence the notion of meaning are the ontological and epistemological views of a school, its views regarding the role of God and scripture, its focus on a certain type of discourse, and its ultimate purpose in theorizing.
Self, Indian theories of
Authors: Rukmani T.S. 
Published: September 2018

Hindu thought traces its different conceptions of the self to the earliest extant Vedic sources composed in the Sanskrit language. The words commonly used in Hindu thought and religion for the self are jīva (life), ātman (breath), jīvātman (life-breath), puruṣa (the essence that lies in the body), and kṣetrajña (one who knows the body). Each of these words was the culmination of a process of inquiry with the purpose of discovering the ultimate nature of the self. By the end of the ancient period, the personal self was regarded as something eternal which becomes connected to a body in order to exhaust the good and bad karma it has accumulated in its many lives. This self was supposed to be able to regain its purity by following different spiritual paths by means of which it can escape from the circle of births and deaths forever.
There is one more important development in the ancient and classical period. The conception of Brahman as both immanent and transcendent led to Brahman being identified with the personal self. The habit of thought that tried to relate every aspect of the individual with its counterpart in the universe (Ṛg Veda X. 16) had already prepared the background for this identification process. When the ultimate principle in the subjective and objective spheres had arrived at their respective ends in the discovery of the ātman and Brahman, it was easy to equate the two as being the same spiritual ‘energy’ that informs both the outer world and the inner self. This equation had important implications for later philosophical growth.
The above conceptions of the self-identity question find expression in the six systems of Hindu thought. These are known as āstikadarśanas or ways of seeing the self without rejecting the authority of the Vedas. Often, one system or the other may not explicitly state their allegiance to the Vedas, but unlike Buddhism or Jainism, they did not openly repudiate Vedic authority. Thus they were āstikadarśanas as opposed to the others who were nāstikadarśanas. The word darśana for philosophy is also significant if one realizes that philosophy does not end with only an intellectual knowing of one’s self-identity but also culminates in realizing it and truly becoming it.
Confucius (551–479 BC)
Authors: Lau D.C. , Ames Roger T. 
Published: September 2018

Confucius is arguably the most influential philosopher in human history – ‘is’ because, taking Chinese philosophy on its own terms, he is still very much alive. Recognized as China’s first teacher both chronologically and in importance, his ideas have been the rich soil in which the Chinese cultural tradition has grown and flourished. In fact, whatever we might mean by ‘Chineseness’ today, some two and a half millennia after his death, is inseparable from the example of personal character that Confucius provided for posterity. Nor was his influence restricted to China; all of the Sinitic cultures – especially Korea, Japan and Vietnam – have evolved around ways of living and thinking derived from the wisdom of the Sage.
A couple of centuries before Plato founded his Academy to train statesmen for the political life of Athens, Confucius had established a school with the explicit purpose of educating the next generation for political leadership. As his curriculum, Confucius is credited with having over his lifetime edited what were to become the Chinese Classics, a collection of poetry, music, historical documents and annals that chronicled the events at the Lu court, along with an extensive commentary on the Yijing (Book of Changes). These classics provided a shared cultural vocabulary for his students, and became the standard curriculum for the Chinese literati in subsequent centuries.
Confucius began the practice of independent philosophers travelling from state to state in an effort to persuade political leaders that their particular teachings were a practicable formula for social and political success. In the decades that followed the death of Confucius, intellectuals of every stripe – Confucians, Legalists, Mohists, Yin–yang theorists, Militarists – would take to the road, attracted by court academies which sprung up to host them. Within these seats of learning, the viability of their various strategies for political and social unity would be hotly debated.
Mujō
Authors: Hull Monte S. 
Published: September 2018

A Japanese word originating in Buddhism, mujō means impermanence, transience or mutability. It characterizes all phenomena of experience, but is especially significant for human endeavours to achieve happiness. In the Buddhist analysis of existence, all things arise and perish through dependent origination; they are impermanent, without substance and continually subject to change. This presents human beings with an imperative existential problem, for they ignore or fail to realize the pervasiveness of impermanence. Endeavouring to secure lasting satisfaction, they cling to what is transient and mutable. The result is suffering, the unsatisfactory nature of ordinary – unenlightened – human existence.
The problem of impermanence is fundamental to Buddhism from its inception, but interpretations of the concept varied with the evolution of other doctrines, most notably the Mahāyāna notion of emptiness. The indigenous Japanese sensitivity to the transience of life and nature interacted with Buddhism to articulate, often in aesthetic terms, not only the threats but also the contributions of impermanence to meaningful human existence. The most thorough examination of mujō is offered by the Zen Buddhist Dōgen, who in his exposition of the radical temporality of existence as being-time identifies the full realization of impermanence with Buddha-nature or enlightenment.
Buddhist philosophy, Korean
Authors: Cho Sungtaek 
Published: September 2018

Buddhism was transmitted to the Korean peninsula from China in the middle of the fourth century ad. Korea at this time was divided into three kingdoms: Kokuryô, Paekche and Silla. Both Kokuryô and Paekche accepted Buddhism as a state religion immediately after it was introduced, to Kokuryô in 372 ad and to Paekche in 384 ad. However, it was not until two centuries later that Silla accepted Buddhism as a state religion. This was because Silla was the last of the three kingdoms to become established as a centralized power under the authority of one king.
It is not coincidental that Buddhism was accepted by these three states at the very same time that a strong kingship, independent of the aristocracy, was created. These newly established kingships needed a new ideology with which to rule, separate from the age-old shamanistic tradition which had been honored among the previous loose confederations of tribes. Buddhism fulfilled this need. It became a highly valued tool which kings used shrewdly, not only to provide their societies with a political ideology but to give them a foundation from which to build a viable system of ethics and philosophical thinking. Given this historical legacy, Korean Buddhism came to possess a feature which set it apart from the other East Asian traditions: it became ‘state-protection’ Buddhism. Although this was not a particularly sophisticated phenomenon on a philosophical level, this feature had a lasting influence on all aspects of Buddhist thought in Korea. In general, Korean Buddhism has followed a course of development more or less parallel to that of the greater East Asian context, although with notably closer ties to China than to Japan. There is no historical evidence which indicates any direct intellectual transmission from India, Buddhism’s birthplace; rather, most of the philosophical development of Buddhism in Korea occurred as Korean monks travelled to China to study and obtain Buddhist texts which had either been written in or translated into Chinese. Despite such close ties to China, however, Korean Buddhism has developed its own identity, distinct from that of its progenitor.
Compared to Indian and Central Asian Buddhism, which developed along clear historical lines, the development of Buddhism in China was largely dependent on the personalities of individual monks, and was thus affected by such factors as their region of origination and the particular texts which they emphasized. Thus, in the process of assimilating Indian Buddhism, the Chinese created and developed a number of widely varying schools of Buddhist thought. In Korea, however, such a diverse number of philosophical traditions was never established. Rather, one of the distinct features of Korean Buddhism has been its preference for incorporating many different perspectives into a single, cohesive body of thought.