MN Roy The dynamic view of nature attained a high degree of clarity with the Jains. The dialectic logic developed by the Jain philosophers was later on condemned by Sankaracharya as “an unsettling style of reasoning”. It was, indeed, unsettling for the rigid orthodox logic which set up an imaginary absolute standard. Once the absoluteness…
M N Roy As the composite outcome of all the positive elements in the whole previous history of Indian thought, Buddhism shook the very foundation of the hoary edifice of Brahmanical orthodoxy. It disputed the authority of the Scriptures; vigorously condemned the sacrificial rites and rituals of the Vedic Natural Religion; it denied the existence…
M N Roy The spiritual revolt represented by the Indian materialists eventually culminated in the rise of Buddhism which all but liquidated the Vedic natural religion and freed India from Brahmanical domination for several hundred years. Internal evidence proves that the Vedanta Sutras were composed for combating Buddhism. Therefore, they could not be regarded as…
M N Roy In India also, the dissatisfaction with the Vedic Natural Religion gave rise to speculations about the origin of things. Some of the earlier Upanishads are fragmentary records of those speculations. But for reasons stated in a preceding chapter, early Indian speculations about the origin of things developed directly into metaphysics and a…