Indian Philosophy: Overview

Catalog description

Taught by GTU. The course provides an overview of Indian (Dharma) thought and philosophical theology, known as the Sarva-darsanas, or Collective of Philosophical Viewpoints, comprising systems of thought from Hinduism, Jainism and (South Asian) Buddhism. The Hindu systems include Carvaka, Vaise?ika, Nyaya, Purva Mima?sa, Sa?kya, Yoga, Upani?adic Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita. Texts from classical Jaina srama?a (ascetic) and Buddhist Mahayana schools will also be studied. The disciplines covered encompass metaphysics, epistemology, cosmology, ethics, theology, and doctrines specific to Indian philosophy such as the concepts of karma, rebirth, and the full development of human consciousness. Utilizing hermeneutical analyses, the class will examine certain categories central to the classical systems that address the "big questions" or the "ultimate concerns" in a comparative perspective (intra-, and inter-traditions). Of concern will be the conundrums of existence and non-existence; faith and reason; valid knowledge and doctrinal beliefs; criteria of truth and falsity; self, no-self and the other; theodicy and free-will; morality and ethics; rights and justice; nature and ecology; death and afterlife (or rebirth); soteriology and liberation; and the optimal paths toward these ends. There will be reconstructive readings from Hindu, Jaina and Buddhists texts on the nature and ordering of the universe, moral governance, liberation from suffering, ecology, values and virtues - such as compassion, moral care, non-injury or nonviolence, dharma, and yoga as guiding moral principles. We will examine the aesthetics of grief, anxiety and joy. The course will take an evolving history of ideas approach with an eye to the reasoned thinking that has guided the metaphysical and moral trends in Dharma systems of philosophy and allowed these systems to respond to critiques from within and without. Students will delve deeply into the thinking of leading Dharma intellectuals and theologians in interactive critical dialogue with Western philosophical theories.