SECTION XIII.

Of the Six Durshůnŭs,

Or the writings of the six philosophical sects.

THE six dŭrshănŭs are six Systems of Philosophy, having separate founders, shastros, and disciples. Their names are, the Voishéshiků, the Nyayŭ, the Meemangsa, the Sankhyu, the Patŏnjălă and the Védantă dŭrshŭnus.-The schools in which these systems were taught existed in different parts of India, but were held principally in forests or sacred places, where the students might not only obtain learning, but be able to practise religious austerities: Kupilŭ is said to have instructed his students at Gŭnga-sagŭrů; Pătănj lee at Bhagŭ-bhandară; Kŭnadă în mount Nălă; Joiminee at Neel vǎtǎ-moolu; and Goutămă and Védă-vyasŭ seem to have instructed disciples in various parts of India. We are not to suppose that the Hindoo sages taught in stately edifices, or possessed endowed colleges; they delivered their lectures under the shade of a tree or of a mountain; their books were palm-leaves, and they taught without fee or reward.

The resemblance between the mythologies of the Greeks and Hindoos has been noticed by Sir W. Jones, but in the doctrines taught by the philosophical sects of the two nations, and in the history of these sects, perhaps a far stronger resemblance may be traced

Each of the six schools established among the Hindoos originated with a single and a different founder: thus Kunado was the founder of the voishéshiků; Goutămă of the noiyayiků; Joiminee of the Meemangsa; Kupilă of the sankhyň; Pătănjŭlee of that which bears his name; and Védă-vyasă of the védantů;-as Thales was the founder of the ionic sect, Socrates of the socratic, Aristippus of the cyrenaic, Plato of the academic, Aristotle of the peripatetic, Antisthenes of the cynic, Zeno of the stoic, &c. It is equally worthy of notice, that those who maintained the opinions of a particular dŏrshŭnă were called by the name of that dŭrshănă: thus those who

N n

followed the nyayŭ were called noiyayikus; and in the same manner a follower of Socrates was called a socratic, &c.

*

In the different durshŭnus various opposite opinions are taught, and these clashing sentiments appear to have given rise to much contention, and to many controversial writings. The nyayu durshůně especially appears to have promoted a system of wrangling and contention about names and terms, very similar to what is related respecting the stoics: The idle quibbles, jejune reasonings, and imposing sophisms, which so justly exposed the schools of the dialectic philosophers to ridicule, found their way into the porch, where much time was wasted, and much ingenuity thrown away, upon questions of no importance. The stoics largely contributed towards the confusion, instead of the improvement, of science, by substituting vague and ill defined terms in the room of accurate conceptions.'+

It is also remarkable, that many of the subjects discussed among the Hindoos were the very subjects which excited the disputes in the Greek academies, such as the eternity of matter; the first cause; God the soul of the world; the doctrine of atoms; creation; the nature of the gods; the doctrine of fate; transmigration; successive revolutions of worlds; absorption into the divine being, &c. It is well known, that scarcely any subject excited more contention among the Greek philosophers than that respecting spirit and matter; and if we refer to the Hindoo writings, it will ap pear, that this is the point upon which the learned Hindoos in the dŭrshănŭs have particularly enlarged. This lies at the foundation of the dispute with the bouddhus; to this belongs the doctrine of the voishéshikos respecting inanimate atoms; that of the sankhyus, who taught that creation arose from unassisted nature, and that of others who held the doctrine of the mundane egg. Exactly in this way, among

* At present few of the Hindoos are anxious to obtain real knowledge; they content themselves with reading a book or two in order to qualify themselves as priests or teachers, or to dispute and wrangle about the most puerile and trifling conceits. + Enfield, p. 318, 319.

"An Orphic fragment is preserved by Athenagoras, in which the formation of the world is represented under the emblem of an egg, formed by the union of night, or chaos, and ether, which at length burst, and disclosed the forms of nature. The meaning of this allegory probably is, that by the energy of the divine active principle upon the eternal mass of passive matter, the visible world was produced."—Enfield, page 116.

the Greek philosophers 'some held God and matter to be two principles which are eternally opposite, as Anaxagoras, Plato, and the whole old Academy. Others were convinced that nature consists of these two principles, but they conceived them to be united by a necessary and essential bond. To effect this, two different hypothesis were proposed, one of which was, that God was eternally united to matter in one chaos, and others conceived that God was connected with the universe as the soul with the body. The former hypothesis was that of the antient barbaric philosophers, and the latter that of Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, the followers of Heraclitus,' &c.

The Greeks, as they advanced, appeared to make considerable improvements in their philosophy: "The most important improvement,' says Brucker, 'which Anaxagoras made upon the doctrine of his predecessors, was that of separating, in his system, the active principle in nature from the material mass upon which it acts, and thus introducing a distinct intelligent cause of all things. The similar particles of matter, which he supposed to be the basis of nature, being without life or motion, he concluded, that there must have been, from eternity, an intelligent principle, or infinite mind, existing separately from matter, which having a power of motion within itself, first communicated motion to the material mass, and, by uniting homogeneal particles, produced the various forms of nature.' A similar progress is plainly observable among the Hindoos: the doctrine of the voishéshikŭ respecting atoms was greatly improved by the light which Védŭ-vyasu threw on the subject, in insisting on the necessity of an intelligent agent to operate upon the atoms, and on this axiom, that the knowledge of the Being in whom resides the force which gives birth to the material world, is necessary to obtain emancipation from matter.

Among the Greeks there existed the Pyrrhonic, or sceptical sect, 'the leading character of which was, that it called in question the truth of every system of opinions adopted by other sects, and held no other settled opinion, but that every thing is uncertain. Pyrrho, the founder of this sect, is said to have accompanied Alexander into India, and to have conversed with the bramhŭns, imbibing from their doc. trine whatever might seem favourable to his natural propensity to doubting. These

Greek sceptics ask, What can be certainly known concerning a being, of whose form, subsistence, and place, we know nothing? On the subject of morals, they say, there appears to be nothing really good, and nothing really evil.'-So among the Hindoos, there arose a sect of unbelievers, the bouddhus, having its founder, its colleges, and shastrus. Many of the Hindoos maintain, that the dŭrshănŭs owe their origin to the dispute between the bramhuns and the bouddhus; but this supposition probably owes its origin to the fact, that the Hindoo philosophers of three of these schools were much employed in confuting the bouddhŭ philosophy: the following may serve as a specimen of the arguments used on both sides:-The bouddhus affirm, that the world sprung into existence of itself, and that there is no creator, since he is not discoverable by the senses.* Against this, the writers of the orthodox durshůnus insist, that proof equal to that arising from the senses may be obtained from inference, from comparison, and from sounds. The following is one of their proofs from inference: God exists; this we infer from his works. The earth is the work of some one-man has not power to create it. It must therefore be the work of the being whom we call God. When you are absent on a journey, how is it that your wife does not become a widow, since it is impossible to afford proof to the senses that you exist? According to our mode of argument, by a letter from the husband we know that he exists; but according to yours, the woman ought to be regarded as a widow. Again, where there is smoke, there is fire: smoke issues from that mountain-therefore there is fire in the mountain. It will not excite surprize, that an atheistical sect should have arisen among the Hindoos, when it is known that three of the six philosophical schools were atheistical, the Voishéshiků, the Meemangsa, and the Sankhyŭ. †

The system adopted by Pythagoras, in certain particulars, approaches nearest to that of the bramhuns, as appears from his doctrine of the metempsychosis, of the active and passive principles in nature, of God as the soul of the world, from his rules of self-denial and of subduing the passions; from the mystery with which he surrounded

* The bouddhŭs, say the bramhuas, disregard all the doctrines and ceremonies of religion: Respecting heaven and hell, which can only be proved to exist from inference, they say, we believe nothing There is a beaven: Who says this-and what proof is there, that after sinning men will be punished? The worship of the gods we regard not, since, he promised fruit hangs only on an inference. + From these and from the bouddhus more than twenty inferior sceptical sects are said to have sprung.

himself in giving instructions to his pupils; from his abstaining from animal food,* &c. -In all these respects, the Hindoo and Pythagorian systems are so much the same, that a candid investigator can scarcely avoid subscribing to the opinion that India was visited, for the purpose of acquiring knowledge, by Pythagoras, Anaxarchus, Pyrrho, and others, who afterwards became eminent philosophers in Greece.'+

That which is said of Pythagoras, that he was possessed of the true idea of the solar system, revived by Copernicus, and fully established by Newton, is affirmed of the Hindoo philosophers, nor does it seem altogether without foundation.

In all these, and other respects, may be traced such a close agreement between the philosophical opinions of the learned Greeks and Hindoos, that, coupled with the reports of historians respecting the Greek sages having visited India, we are led to conclude, that the Hindoo and Greek learning must have flourished at one period, or nearly so, that is about five hundred years before the Christian æra.

Among those who profess to study the dărshůnus, none at present maintain all the decisions of any particular school or sect. Respecting the Divine Being, the doctrine of the védantă seems chiefly to prevail among the best informed of the Hindoo pundits; on the subject of abstract ideas and logic, the nyayŭ is in the highest esteem. On creation, three opinions, derived from the dorshunůs, are current: the one is that of the atomic philosophy; another that of matter possessing in itself the power of assuming all manner of forms, and the other, that spirit operates upon matter, and produces the universe in all its various appearances. The first opinion is that of the voi◄ sheshikŭ and nyayй schools; the second is that of the sankhyŭ, and the last that of the védantă. The Patunjălă, respecting creation, maintains that the universe arose from the reflection of spirit upon matter in a visible form. The Meemangsa describes

creation as arising at the command of God, joining to himself dhurmŭ and ŏdhărmă, or merit and demerit. Most of the dürshunus agree, that matter and spirit are eter

* Not only man, but brute animals are allied to the divinity; for that one spirit which pervades the universe unites all animated beings to itself, and to one another. It is therefore unlawful to kill or eat animals, which are allied to us in their principle of life.-Enfield, page 405. + Ibid.