Consciousness - Indian Thought - Brahmanical Systems, Buddhist Systems, Bibliography
cycle classical
There is enormous diversity among the various traditions of classical Indian philosophy concerning the nature of consciousness and the place of humanity in the cosmos, but there are a number of presuppositions that are shared by many of India's great thinkers. Most classical Indian philosophical schools agree, for example, that living beings are reborn over and over again in a beginningless cycle (samsara) and that one's present situation is determined by past actions (karma). The final goal of most of these systems is also the same: liberation (moksa) from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Additional Topics
In the Brahmanical systems, karmic actions are closely related to one's social duty (dharma), which is determined by the endogamous group (varna) into which one is born. Morality is not individual, but collective, and in making decisions one is not expected to decide for oneself what is and is not moral; rather, one determines what people of one's type ought to do in particular situa…
The Buddhists, while accepting the notions of karma, samsara, and moksa (or nirvana in common Buddhist parlance), reject many of the core assumptions of the Naiyayikas, as well as important doctrines of the Upanishads and Advaita Vedanta. One of the cornerstones of Indian Buddhist schools is the doctrine of "no-self" (anatman), which rejects the Brahmanical belief in a permanent, unc…
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