Six Schools

Collective name for the six developed
schools of traditional Hindu philosophy. All six schools consider the religious texts known as the Vedas to be the
most authoritative pramana, the means
by which human beings can gain true
and accurate knowledge. All six schools
also assume that philosophical reflection must ultimately serve religious
goals, to release the embodied soul
(atman) from an otherwise unending
cycle of transmigration. Aside from
these basic similarities, each of these
schools developed distinctive and characteristic perspectives. Despite their differences, by the early centuries of the
common era the schools had become
associated in pairs: Nyaya-Vaisheshika,
Samkhya-Yoga, and Purva MimamsaUttara Mimamsa, with the final school
more commonly known as Vedanta.
Of these, the Nyaya school focused
on examining and cataloguing the pramanas, the means by which human
beings can gain true and accurate
knowledge, and their conclusions
became accepted by all six schools. The
Vaisheshika school was a descriptive
ontology that categorized the world in
atomistic fashion, in which all things
were considered to be constructed from
smaller parts. This school had inherent
philosophical problems that contributed to its eclipse. Samkhya is an
atheistic dualism based on the distinction between a conscious but inert
654
Sitamarhi
purusha (“person,” or spirit), and an
unconscious but active prakrti
(“nature”). According to the Samkhya
proponents, failure to discriminate
between the two leads to the evolution
of the world and the individual person,
whereas correct understanding reverses
this process. Samkhya provides the theoretical basis for the Yoga school, which
essentially details techniques to help
one gain the correct understanding
between these two entities. Purva
Mimamsa stresses the study of the Vedas
as the source of instruction for human
beings, an emphasis that led it to
develop sophisticated theories of language and methods for textual interpretation. These tools were used by the
Vedanta school in its efforts to reveal the
ultimate meaning of the Vedas. Most of
the first millennium during the common era was a time of lively debate
among these schools, each of which
held varying positions on basic things
such as the reality of the world. By the
end of the millennium Vedanta had
become the most significant philosophical perspective, largely eclipsing the
others, although it had absorbed certain
influences from them. For further information see Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
and Charles A. Moore (eds.), A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy, 1957.