Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t9.4

v1.c7.s9.t9.4

Aurobindo occupies an important position in the history of Indian modern philosophy. He was famous for his “Integral Vedanta” philosophy (also known as the “Spiritual Evolution”) in the world. Here the meaning of “integral” is “comprehensive”, the so-called “Integral Vedanta” was in the succession of the “tat tvam asi” principle of Advaita in ancient Vedanta, Aurobindo at the same time integrated a variety of Vedanta doctrines together, eliminated the differences between them and reconciled the essence in a whole. In addition, he also reconciled various opposite concepts in the ancient Vedanta philosophy, such as the Bráhman and the world, one and more, clear and avidya etc., so they become the different grades or levels of the highest noumenon Bráhman. From the perspective of modern philosophy, people also call “Integral Vedanta” the “Spiritual Evolution.” Since Darwin’s theory of biological evolution was published in the mid-19th century, the world has witnessed a variety of evolutionary theories to explain the development laws of nature and human society. Aurobindo’s “Spiritual Evolution” was a product of this trend. Although he had absorbed some elements of Darwin’s theory of evolution, he thought this doctrine was ill-structured as it only explained the phenomena “existing on the ground”, without mentioning the existence in “heaven” and “eternal”. Therefore, Aurobindo tried to use the highest spiritual noumenon - the Bráhman of India Vedanta philosophy, through the “spiritual evolution” approach to link up the existences “on the ground” and existences in the “eternal heaven”, thus integrated the natural phenomena and supernatural phenomena in a whole. The fundamental characteristic of Aurobindo’s philosophy is, it’s based on the inheritance of ancient Vedanta philosophy, absorbs a lot of contents from Western philosophy and modern science, and reconciles the Eastern and Western philosophy, materialism and idealism, religion and science together.