Philosophy and Religion / J. C. Chatterji: Hindu Realism

Jagadish Chandra Chatterji

Hindu Realism

An Introduction to the Metaphysics of the Nyaya-Vaisheshika System of Philosophy

Preface

In the following pages¹ I have made an attempt to present the main metaphysical doctrines of two of the Hindu Schools of Philosophy, the Vaisheshika and the Nyaya, constituting what may be called Hindu Realism.

The attempt has been made after I have tried, during my residence at Cambridge, to understand and assimilate the European attitude in matters philosophical and the European mode of philosophic thinking.

I have not made any explicit comparison between the Realism, or any other phase, of European thinking and the Realism of the Hindus; but I have always kept the European ideas and attitude before my mind, so as to make this presentation of Hindu Realism intelligible to the Western reader.

Although written as early as 1824, and with insufficient material before him, yet the Essay of Colebrooke² on the Nyaya-Vaisheshika is still perhaps the best work on the subject in any European language. But excellent as the essay is, Colebrooke wrote it as a philologist more than a philosopher; and I doubt very much if a Western student of philosophy can at all get from it an intelligent idea of the Hindu system.

And if the earliest essay on the subject is not, nor was perhaps intended to be, a rational presentation of the Nyaya-Vaisheshika system, neither is the latest a reasoned statement of the case. For I am equally doubtful if, by reading Professor Max Muller’s account of the system, a European student of philosophy can form an idea as to the reason or reasons why the Hindu Realists held, and do hold even now, the metaphysical doctrines which are taught in their system.³

As for the translations of original Sanskrit works on the system, they can hardly be understood by anyone but those Orientalists themselves who are, or must be, already well acquainted with the Hindu mode of thinking and Hindu terminology.⁴

In regard to these translations Dr. Thibaut says:—“ Indian Philosophy would, in my opinion, be more readily and widely appreciated than it is at present, if the translators of philosophical works had been somewhat more concerned to throw their versions into a form less strange and repellent to the Western reader than literal renderings from technical Sanskrit must needs be.”—(Thibaut’s translation of the Shri Bhashya, p. x.)

Thus it happens that there is hardly a single presentation, in a European language, of the metaphysics of the Nyaya-Vaisheshika which would enable the reader to understand properly the reasoning by which it is supported. This honour I venture to claim for the present attempt, which is made by me not as a philologist, or an orientalist, but as a student of philosophy.

(a) The first claim then in regard to the originality of the following pages is that they contain a rational presentation, for the first time in a European language, of Hindu Realism generally.

(b) And in regard to special points, I venture to think that the following are presented for the first time in an intelligible form to a Western reader:—

(i) The idea of the Paramanus—an idea which is considered to be the most characteristic of the Nyaya-Vaisheshika.
(ii) The idea of Kala.
(iii) The idea of Dik.

(c) In addition to these claims to originality, this presentation of Hindu Realism also includes:—

(i) A fuller (though not exhaustive) statement, than is to be found in any other work in a European language, of the arguments given in support of the Atman from the Nyaya-Vaisheshika point of view.
(ii) A fuller and more intelligent presentation of the “ Synthetic Aspect ” from the Realistic standpoint.

I have confined myself to the explanation of the main doctrines only as taught by Kanada and Gotama, and have left out several of the minor ones, such as that of ‘Samavaya,’ which is peculiar to the Vaisheshika and the key to its notion of causality, i.e., the relation between the producing source and the product. I have also left out entirely all the later ideas; but I have given some of the recent reasonings which have been advanced on the subject by living and genuinely Hindu thinkers to meet objections based on European thought.

In presenting Hindu Realism, I have placed myself in the position of a Realist and a genuine follower of Kanada and Gotama. To write and speak as though one fully believed in the doctrines one has to present has been an ancient Hindu attitude. It was in this attitude that the great Vachaspati Mishra wrote on almost all the schools of Hindu Philosophy.

I subjoin herewith a list of the authorities, mostly in original Sanskrit, which I have consulted and referred to in support of my interpretation of the system.

I have left out all consideration of the ‘history’ of the system, or of its literature. European scholars have written on the subject; but as they have written with their own notion of the “philosophy of history” and with pre-conceptions which are peculiar to the Western mind, the history as conceived by them can be, from the Hindu standpoint, but partial truth (see Meaning of Progress and ‘Philosophy of History’, Beginninglessness of knowledge, and Notes chapters). Still, it serves all practical purposes and I have therefore refrained from touching upon the subject. But the list of the authorities subjoined is so arranged as to give one some idea of the history of the system in so far as its present literature is concerned.⁵

In this connection it may be just noted that the age of the existing works is no guide to the age and origin of the system itself (see note 5). The Hindus regard the whole of their Smriti literature, to which the Darshana-Shastra (their philosophy) belongs, as a branch of learning in which the meaning only is of importance (artha-pradhana) and distinguish it sharply from the Vedas or Shruti in which the words or sounds are of importance (shabda-pradhana).⁶ They can therefore see how it is possible that the Smriti literature, while retaining the meanings or ideas, has yet changed its form again and again, and how it is also possible that the Shruti, in so far as it is preserved, has retained its very words and sounds. In these circumstances, they hold that any system of their philosophy as a system of thoughts and ideas may be much older than the existing books in which it is now contained.

I have given most of the references in the foot-notes; but where a reference has needed some explanation I have given the same in notes at the end.

As the notes are often of the nature of textual criticisms or elucidation of texts, and can be needed to justify my statements to Sanskritists only, I have left many a word and passage untranslated.

Jagadish Chandra Chatterji
B.A. (Cantab.), Vidyavaridhi, Director of the Archaeological and Research Department Kashmir State.

Trinity College, Cambridge, March 1908.

Footnotes

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