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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t5: Philosophy

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t5

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English

Philosophy

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The Dharma sūtras speak of four stations of life (āśramas), student, householder, ascetic and forest-dwelling hermit. The last two stages were devoted to a life which stood in contrast to that of the first two. While the former emphasised a life of Karma or ordained acts, the latter showed the path of contentment, renunciation and the seeking of the knowledge of the soul or ātman as the means to the supreme welfare. The older Upanishads must have certainly come into being by this time and the path of ātmajñāna declared by them greatly prized. We know from Pāṇini that there were already in his days codified Sūtras bearing on the life and conduct of Bhikshus or mendicants by two different authors Pārāśarya and Karmanda (IV. iii. 110-1). These Bhikshus were also known as Parivrājakas and Maunins as the Dharma Sūtras show (Āpast. II. 9.21; Baudh. II. vi. 14; Gaut. III. 2). Gautama (III. 10. 11) refers to Upanishads and Vedānta and in the Adhyātmapaṭala (I. 8. 22-23) of the Āpastamba Dharma Sūtra we have an epitome of the doctrine of Ātmajñāna as taught in the Upanishads. However the general teaching of the Dharma Sūtras was in favour of combining an observance of Dharma with Jñāna as can be seen in Āpastamba (II. 9. 21) who refutes the doctrine of Jñāna as the sole means of welfare. The Vānaprastha of these texts is identical with Strabo’s Hylobioi or forest dwellers, a subdivision of the Śramaṇas (Greek sarmanes); their mode of life was regulated by the institutes of their school, and Baudhāyana (II. 6. 14) defines Vānaprastha as one who follows the institutes of the Vaikhānasa Śāstra which was thus a text in existence at that time.

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These evidences show that when Buddhism arose and even earlier still, Brahmanism had within its fold its own class of mendicants and ascetics, and that the term Śramaṇa need not refer exclusively to the Buddhist ascetics. In Kauṭilya's *Arthaśāstra* too, references are only to these Brahmanical ascetics. Kauṭilya mentions Parivrājaka, Tāpasa, Muṇḍa and Jaṭila (I. 10, 11, 12), Śramaṇas (I. 12), Vānaprastha and Yati (III. 16), Tāpasas, Tapovanas, Tapasvins, and Āśramas (II. 2, II. 35, 36, III. 9 and IV. 3), and Muṇḍas and Jaṭilas with pupils inhabiting mountain caves (XIII. 2). Kauṭilya imposes punishment on those renouncing life without making proper provision for their family (II. 1, 28) which is understandable as a stricture passed on the easy increase in the Buddhistic ascetic fold.

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It is remarkable that Kauṭilya refers more than once to female ascetics (I. 12; III. 3, 4). That Brahmavādinīs were not taboo within the Brahmanical fold is proved not only by the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad* but by an illustration of Patañjali as well. Patañjali speaks of women studying the Mīmāṃsā of Kāśakṛtsna (IV. i. 14), and as Kāśakṛtsna is an author cited by Bādarāyaṇa in his *Vedānta Sūtras*, we may take it that the Mīmāṃsā of Kāśakṛtsna referred to by Patañjali was an Uttaramīmāṃsā text current in that time. But such women ascetics or students of philosophy must have been few.

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A certain amount of metaphysical discussion on even such topics as the exact nature and identity of the import of a word (padārtha) is seen from Kātyāyana's reference to Vyāḍi holding vyakti or dravya to be padārtha. Āpastamba twice refers to Vedic interpretation as being decided by principles of Nyāya, and as Bühler has pointed out, we have here nearly the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā Śāstra. Upavarsha, whom the legends in the *Bṛhatkathā* assign to Pāṭaliputra of this period and whom Rājaśekhara's verse also connects with Pāṭaliputra, is known from later references as an old author on Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṃsās. More definite is Kauṭilya's reference to philosophical branches of learning and study, Ānvīkṣikī (I. 2) which, according to him, comprised Sāṅkhya, Yoga and Lokāyata. The last is a school of material philosophy; Sāṅkhya is to be taken as knowledge in general, and Yoga as observance of ordained Dharma, or other purificatory practices or Hetuvidyā. In Baudhāyana (II. vi. 30) there is an interesting discussion on āśramas ; it is said that the fourfold classification of āśramas is not authoritative, that the householder's is the only āśrama and that one Kapila, an Asura, son of Prahlāda, devised this fourfold division. It can be seen that the four āśramas fall into two groups of two, Brahmachārin and Gṛhastha observing the ordained Dharmas ; and the Vānaprastha, who retired from home to forest, and Bhikshu who was not particular about a life of Karma. The Dharmasūtrakāras as believers in Karma are, it is to be expected, always for upholding the Gṛhastha, while the philosopher will denounce the Gṛhastha's futile routine and hold up the latter āśramas as capable of bringing real solace to the soul and freedom from the threefold distress. Now Kapila, author of the Sāṅkhya, is one of our earliest philosophers who belittled Karma and advocated Jñāna or Viveka. As this path of knowledge gained greater popularity, its adherents had to be approved of and assigned a place in the accepted scheme of things, and thus probably did the āśramas amplify themselves.

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That philosophical debate and systematic investigation of subjects had advanced in this period is borne out by the thirty-two topics of methodology in the exposition of a system of thought, called Tantrayuktis, which Kauṭilya enumerates, defines and illustrates at the end of his work, and most of which became later part of the Nyāya system of Akshapāda.

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