ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Murty traces the conception of philosophy in Indian culture during various periods. In the period before 600 BC, philosophy in India was considered as a method and speculation about ultimate reality. In the next stage, it was considered transcendental knowledge of the Absolute and the Self. Toward the end of that period, several schools of philosophy arose that depended on sense perception and “either–or” logic. Anything non-material in man is denied and morality was found by some to be meaningless. In the age of republics and kingdoms (c. 600–321 BC), there arose two other conceptions of philosophy: one which considered different speculations about Reality as partial and relative, and the right vision of Reality as the result of right action and right knowledge which only a pure and holy person possesses; and the other conception held that no speculative view of Reality is true, and through “devotion to meditation the mind has to attain the Unconditioned.” This too implied relinquishing all views regarding Reality. In the later years, Murty shows, philosophy included the branches of logic, epistemology, metaphysics and soteriology.
