5 ms·

While Jung here mostly seem to admire Ramana and India's philosophy, it is my opinion that world has largely slighted and meted out injustice to India's philoso

by n_t 6y ago

While Jung here mostly seem to admire Ramana and India's philosophy, it is my opinion that world has largely slighted and meted out injustice to India's philosophical traditions. There are many exceptions, primarily among physicists and non-academic philosophers, but most commonly cited literature is very dismissive. It could be due to two reasons - 1. 1000+ years of invasions and occupations which deliberately mispotrayed indic philosophy, still has its effect. 2. Earlier academicians took a reductionist view or outright dismissal due to incorrect translation of literature and lack of cultural understanding. The translations were also incorrect as they were retrofitted into then familiar philosophies, religions and terms. Probably, same argument can be applied to many other ancient cultures too but I think over time native or non-native academicians took genuine interest and brought out the the best. For India, unfortunately, everything got entangled with politics post-independence, including philosophy. Indians themselves either have next to no knowledge of it's philosophical treasures (barring few sayings and quotes) or take very negative view of it's past contributions since that's what they have largely read. The end result is that now traditionalists are very apprehensive of any scrutiny or change as they feel more and more cornered. On the hand, modernists are even more vocally abusive of past, as with flooded with all sort of information (like the one from OP) general audience has started questioning their stance as well. I hope, eventually people will get to see the depth of Indian philosophies and with that start seeing religious text as high philosophies and its "holy-men" as philosophers (what they really are and as Jung sees) and not as godmen who craft miracles and wishes.

switch11 6y ago
very well put
sidm83 6y ago
Having been very much from the modernist camp, a few years ago I read some Norse mythology followed by some Greek. Whatever I knew of Indian mythology was mostly through festivals, stories told by elders during childhood and some children's books. Norse felt pretty much tribal in comparison and Greek was a bit better than Norse, still it felt short of childhood memories. So I started to dig up more about Indian, and boy it took me a while in wikipedia figuring out the chronology and even the different kinds of literature that existed, a real rabbit hole. I have just about started out and got a long way to go.
- galtwho 6y ago
  Someone making it easier for the current educated english speaking Indian to know about their history and culture is a guy called Jaggi Vasudev also known to his fans as Sadhguru. His organisation Isha has 2 ashrams, one in Missippi, US and a bigger one in Coimbatore, India. Seems to have quite the following as well as is evident by some of the discussions from diverse[1] set of people 1. https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhguru/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhguru/videos
  - trevyn 6y ago
    Some more data points on this one: https://www.google.com/search?q=sadhguru+cult https://www.google.com/search?q=sadhguru+cult
    - galtwho 6y ago
      yeah do your own research, trust only your own experiences
  - gholap 6y ago
    Heads up: he makes really funny claims like "I can make drinking water into poison just by looking at it" Ref: https://youtu.be/6C1p4HUHlfE?t=105 https://youtu.be/6C1p4HUHlfE?t=105 (1:45 mark)
  - hunter-2 6y ago
    Please, not him. Guy has a real shady history. He killed his wife and claimed she attained moksha or something.
  - sidm83 6y ago
    Not him please. Even otherwise I feel not wise to follow a single guru if your interests are more academic otherwise it generally leads to a more cultish experience. There is no single canonical way to 'enlightenment' here, each one can find their own. What I am doing - starting with Upanishads (aka Vedanta, literally the end part of Vedas, where you get the gist), there are 10 major ones which come with commentary by Adi Shankaracharya. Remaining are not minor in the sense of importance, just that you get to them once you grasp the major ones first as they come without the authoritative commentary. They are overall philosophical in nature. Next come the Puranas. Again there are about 8-10 of these. These contain most of the stories or the 'mythology' which we heard in our childhood and read in the books. There are many more but I guess I'll start here and see where it takes me.
mark_l_watson 6y ago
India’s philosophical traditions took a bad hit under British rule. School systems were destroyed, and the culture was subverted.
- raincom 6y ago
  Actually, they were already destroyed by the time British Raj came to India. It was due to Islamic rule/colonization. Between 10th century and 15th century (for 500 years) there were no intellectual works in eight domains, as Sheldon Pollock noted in his paper "Sanskrit knowledge on the eve of colonialism and at the dawn of globalization".
  - naruvimama 6y ago
    Sheldon Pollock of all the people. He is a known American Orientalist. Are there no traditionalists, do we still need to depend on a white man to get our own philosophy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit
    - raincom 6y ago
      Having white skin doesn't make false whatever Pollock says. Similarly, having brown skin doesn't make true whatever a brown person says. Just evaluate arguments independently of one's color. I am not saying that whatever Pollock says is true; instead, I am bringing in a specific point, for which Pollock adduces evidence.
  - mark_l_watson 6y ago
    You might want to check that. We recently saw the new documentary movie on Ayurvedic food and eating. They had a section on how the British destroyed the schools (including Ayurveda schools) and generally used maiming and other extreme punishments. I am not picking on the English, all empires do really rotten stuff. I can’t think of one exception.
    - raincom 6y ago
mavelikara 6y ago
> 1000+ years of invasions and occupations which deliberately mispotrayed indic philosophy, still has its effect. The Indian subcontinent was broken into many small countries engaged in constant battles with each other. Do you mean that?
KhoomeiK 6y ago
The 5 non-Vedantic schools were already on the decline long before foreign invasion. I attribute it largely to the Bhakti movement which sort of functioned as the popular wing to the intellectual Vedantic school, which had no parallel in the other Astika schools. Nyaya-Vaisesika arguably survived in the form of Navya Nyaya but never gained popular support while Sankhya-Yoga (and the Buddhist/Sramana milieu) had a lot of their concepts reincorporated into Advaita Vedanta. Mimamsa is completely extinct as far as I know except for perhaps the Srauta tradition in regions of South India. If you want to blame anything for the death of Indian philosophical tradition, blame the onslaught of Vedanta and their relentless arguments about self-god metaphysics for 1500 years.
- z3phyr 6y ago
  The bhakti movement started in southern part of the subcontinent around 8th century A.D. The Hephthalite invasions came around 3rd, 4th and 5th century A.D. The Rashidun and Umayad (Islamic campaigns) came around late 600 A.D. I am not going to talk about the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Scythians and other invasions, but they happened way before.
  - raincom 6y ago
    Prof Jack Hawley of Columbia University convincingly argued the opposite: Bhakti movement did not start in the South, and its a product of North India. Check his book: A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement (Harvard, 2015)
  - KhoomeiK 6y ago
    > The bhakti movement started in southern part of the subcontinent around 8th century A.D. I don't really see how that's relevant. It doesn't matter where the Bhakti movement started, only that it bolstered the Vedantic school's ideas. > The Hephthalite invasions came around 3rd, 4th and 5th century A.D. These only really impacted the Punjab region, while the intellectual centers across the Gangetic Plain remained more or less stable as far as I know. > The Rashidun and Umayad (Islamic campaigns) came around late 600 A.D. Again, these only really impacted the Sindh and Punjab regions and widespread Islamic conquest only started in the 1200s with the Ghaznavids. > I am not going to talk about the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Scythians and other invasions, but they happened way before. The Indo-Greeks and Scythians arguably had a positive impact on Indian philosophy, pretty much never destroying items with cultural value. They made major contributions to Buddhism and played a significant role in its spread across Asia.

by n_t 6y ago

switch11 6y ago

very well put

sidm83 6y ago

Having been very much from the modernist camp, a few years ago I read some Norse mythology followed by some Greek. Whatever I knew of Indian mythology was mostly through festivals, stories told by elders during childhood and some children's books. Norse felt pretty much tribal in comparison and Greek was a bit better than Norse, still it felt short of childhood memories. So I started to dig up more about Indian, and boy it took me a while in wikipedia figuring out the chronology and even the different kinds of literature that existed, a real rabbit hole. I have just about started out and got a long way to go.

galtwho 6y ago
Someone making it easier for the current educated english speaking Indian to know about their history and culture is a guy called Jaggi Vasudev also known to his fans as Sadhguru. His organisation Isha has 2 ashrams, one in Missippi, US and a bigger one in Coimbatore, India. Seems to have quite the following as well as is evident by some of the discussions from diverse[1] set of people 1. https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhguru/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/sadhguru/videos
- trevyn 6y ago
  Some more data points on this one: https://www.google.com/search?q=sadhguru+cult https://www.google.com/search?q=sadhguru+cult
  - galtwho 6y ago
    yeah do your own research, trust only your own experiences
- gholap 6y ago
  Heads up: he makes really funny claims like "I can make drinking water into poison just by looking at it" Ref: https://youtu.be/6C1p4HUHlfE?t=105 https://youtu.be/6C1p4HUHlfE?t=105 (1:45 mark)
- hunter-2 6y ago
  Please, not him. Guy has a real shady history. He killed his wife and claimed she attained moksha or something.
- sidm83 6y ago
  Not him please. Even otherwise I feel not wise to follow a single guru if your interests are more academic otherwise it generally leads to a more cultish experience. There is no single canonical way to 'enlightenment' here, each one can find their own. What I am doing - starting with Upanishads (aka Vedanta, literally the end part of Vedas, where you get the gist), there are 10 major ones which come with commentary by Adi Shankaracharya. Remaining are not minor in the sense of importance, just that you get to them once you grasp the major ones first as they come without the authoritative commentary. They are overall philosophical in nature. Next come the Puranas. Again there are about 8-10 of these. These contain most of the stories or the 'mythology' which we heard in our childhood and read in the books. There are many more but I guess I'll start here and see where it takes me.

mark_l_watson 6y ago

India’s philosophical traditions took a bad hit under British rule. School systems were destroyed, and the culture was subverted.

raincom 6y ago
Actually, they were already destroyed by the time British Raj came to India. It was due to Islamic rule/colonization. Between 10th century and 15th century (for 500 years) there were no intellectual works in eight domains, as Sheldon Pollock noted in his paper "Sanskrit knowledge on the eve of colonialism and at the dawn of globalization".
- naruvimama 6y ago
  Sheldon Pollock of all the people. He is a known American Orientalist. Are there no traditionalists, do we still need to depend on a white man to get our own philosophy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_for_Sanskrit
  - raincom 6y ago
    Having white skin doesn't make false whatever Pollock says. Similarly, having brown skin doesn't make true whatever a brown person says. Just evaluate arguments independently of one's color. I am not saying that whatever Pollock says is true; instead, I am bringing in a specific point, for which Pollock adduces evidence.
- mark_l_watson 6y ago
  You might want to check that. We recently saw the new documentary movie on Ayurvedic food and eating. They had a section on how the British destroyed the schools (including Ayurveda schools) and generally used maiming and other extreme punishments. I am not picking on the English, all empires do really rotten stuff. I can’t think of one exception.
  - raincom 6y ago

mavelikara 6y ago

> 1000+ years of invasions and occupations which deliberately mispotrayed indic philosophy, still has its effect. The Indian subcontinent was broken into many small countries engaged in constant battles with each other. Do you mean that?

KhoomeiK 6y ago

The 5 non-Vedantic schools were already on the decline long before foreign invasion. I attribute it largely to the Bhakti movement which sort of functioned as the popular wing to the intellectual Vedantic school, which had no parallel in the other Astika schools. Nyaya-Vaisesika arguably survived in the form of Navya Nyaya but never gained popular support while Sankhya-Yoga (and the Buddhist/Sramana milieu) had a lot of their concepts reincorporated into Advaita Vedanta. Mimamsa is completely extinct as far as I know except for perhaps the Srauta tradition in regions of South India. If you want to blame anything for the death of Indian philosophical tradition, blame the onslaught of Vedanta and their relentless arguments about self-god metaphysics for 1500 years.

z3phyr 6y ago
The bhakti movement started in southern part of the subcontinent around 8th century A.D. The Hephthalite invasions came around 3rd, 4th and 5th century A.D. The Rashidun and Umayad (Islamic campaigns) came around late 600 A.D. I am not going to talk about the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Scythians and other invasions, but they happened way before.
- raincom 6y ago
  Prof Jack Hawley of Columbia University convincingly argued the opposite: Bhakti movement did not start in the South, and its a product of North India. Check his book: A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement (Harvard, 2015)
- KhoomeiK 6y ago
  > The bhakti movement started in southern part of the subcontinent around 8th century A.D. I don't really see how that's relevant. It doesn't matter where the Bhakti movement started, only that it bolstered the Vedantic school's ideas. > The Hephthalite invasions came around 3rd, 4th and 5th century A.D. These only really impacted the Punjab region, while the intellectual centers across the Gangetic Plain remained more or less stable as far as I know. > The Rashidun and Umayad (Islamic campaigns) came around late 600 A.D. Again, these only really impacted the Sindh and Punjab regions and widespread Islamic conquest only started in the 1200s with the Ghaznavids. > I am not going to talk about the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Scythians and other invasions, but they happened way before. The Indo-Greeks and Scythians arguably had a positive impact on Indian philosophy, pretty much never destroying items with cultural value. They made major contributions to Buddhism and played a significant role in its spread across Asia.