ABSTRACT
Regarding several as yet unanswerable questions raised by physicists regarding some crucial aspects like origin of the universe, space, time, non-locality, quantum entanglement etc. within the frame work of modern science, the responses of the panel of Indian philosophers belonging to different schools, is presented in the annextrure I. These give a flavor of the character of Indian philosophies which are a mixture of both theistic and atheistic viewpoints. In this chapter we provide some more background to these ancient philosophies going as far back as 1500 BC. Clearly they fall into two groups: – (i) those that have allegiance to the Vedas, the scriptures dating book to 1500 BC and (ii) those which do not have their allegiance and belong to a period after 600 BC.
The first category called Asthika fall into two classes – those that are theistic of (believe in God). Among this class we have Vedantha, Kashmir Shaivisam and Yoga philosophies and among the second category we have Tarka, Sankhya, and Purva Mimamsa (Jaimini). Among Nastika philosophies we have Jainism, Buddhism, and the Charavaka which perhaps is the oldest purely materialist philosophy. Under Tarka we have Nyaya and Vaisesika and under Sankhya there are two groups theistic and atheistic.
The accepted source of knowledge (Pramanas) in India philosophy are Pratyaksha (perception), Anumana (inference), Apta vakya (Testiimony), Upamana (Comparison). Arthapatti (postulation), Anupalabdhi(non-cognition). The different philosophies accept different combination of the sources listed above. The conclusions regarding the ultimate reality reached by the different philosophies are also presented.
