ABSTRACT
For a variety of motives, the Indians have shown, from an early period onwards, a considerable interest in a more systematic analysis and understanding of the world, man and religion. ‘Systematic’ denotes here an analytical, logically coherent and wide-ranging approach, carried out through increasingly sophisticated and carefully defined methods. Whilst it is possible to maintain a distinction between philosophy and theology in principle, the overlap and interaction between these two disciplines has been far greater in India than in the West. This is partly due to the fact that ‘religion’ here need not involve the concept of a personal absolute, and partly there was the need perceived by many thinkers to present their teaching within an ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘orthopraxy’ which at least nominally had Vedic authority. Thus purely philosophical systems tended to be expanded through references to religious matters. And even in cases where their premisses were directly based on religion, no concept of ‘God’ was necessarily involved. To describe them as ‘theologies’ would emphasise this religious concern, though it would be misleading, if it were associated in all cases with a theos, ‘God’.
