Ajñana
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Ajñana
''Ajñāna'' () was one of the ''nāstika'' or "heterodox" schools of ancient Indian philosophy, and the ancient school of radical Indian skepticism. It was a Śramaṇa movement and a major rival of early Buddhism, Jainism and the Ājīvika school. They have been recorded in Buddhist and Jain texts. They held that it was impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it was useless and disadvantageous for final salvation. They were specialized in refutation without propagating any positive doctrine of their own. Sanjaya Belatthiputta was one of the major proponents of this school of thought. Sources All of our knowledge of the Ajñāna come from the Buddhists and Jain sources. The Ajñāna view points are recorded in Theravada Buddhism's Pāli Canon in the ''Brahmajala Sutta'' and ''Samaññaphala Sutta'' and in the ''Sūyagaḍaṃga'' of Jainism. Along with these texts, ...
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Philosophical Skepticism
Philosophical skepticism ( UK spelling: scepticism; from Greek σκέψις ''skepsis'', "inquiry") is a family of philosophical views that question the possibility of knowledge. It differs from other forms of skepticism in that it even rejects very plausible knowledge claims that belong to basic common sense. Philosophical skeptics are often classified into two general categories: Those who deny all possibility of knowledge, and those who advocate for the suspension of judgment due to the inadequacy of evidence. This distinction is modeled after the differences between the Academic skeptics and the Pyrrhonian skeptics in ancient Greek philosophy. In the latter sense, skepticism is understood as a way of life that helps the practitioner achieve inner peace. Some types of philosophical skepticism reject all forms of knowledge while others limit this rejection to certain fields, for example, to knowledge about moral doctrines or about the external world. Some theorists criti ...
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Charvaka
Charvaka ( sa, चार्वाक; IAST: ''Cārvāka''), also known as ''Lokāyata'', is an ancient school of Indian materialism. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embraces philosophical skepticism and rejects ritualism and supernaturalism. It was a popular belief system in ancient India. Brihaspati a philosopher, is traditionally referred to as the founder of Charvaka or Lokāyata philosophy, although some scholars dispute this. During the Hindu reformation period in the first millennium BCE, when Buddhism was established by Gautama Buddha and Jainism was re-organized by Parshvanatha, the Charvaka philosophy was well documented and opposed by both religions. Much of the primary literature of Charvaka, the Barhaspatya sutras, were lost either due to waning popularity or other unknown reasons. Its teachings have been compiled from historic secondary literature such as those found in the shastras, sutras, a ...
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Sanjaya Belatthiputta
Sañjaya Belatthiputra (Pali: '; Sanskrit: ''Sañjaya Vairatiputra''; literally, "Sañjaya of the Belattha clan"), was an Indian ascetic philosopher who lived around the 7th-6th century BC in the region of Magadha. He was contemporaneous with Mahavira, Makkhali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambali and the Buddha, and was a proponent of the ajñana school of thought. Teacher Sanjaya is thought to be the first teacher of the future Buddha's future two great disciples, Maha-Moggallana and Sariputta. Both of them were followers of a person named Sanjaya Parabajjaka (Sanjaya the wanderer). Historically, Sanjaya Parabajjaka is considered to be same as Sanjaya Belatthiputta by many scholars. These two future arahants ultimately left Sanjaya's tutelage as it did not address their unresolved desire to end ultimate suffering. Sanjaya Parabajjaka also had a follower named Suppiya, and so was Tattvalabdha, a minister at the court of King Ajatashatru. Thought Hecker (1994) contextualizes Sanjaya's ...
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Śramaṇa
''Śramaṇa'' (Sanskrit: श्रमण; Pali: ''samaṇa, Tamil: Samanam'') means "one who labours, toils, or exerts themselves (for some higher or religious purpose)" or "seeker, one who performs acts of austerity, ascetic".Monier Monier-Williams, श्रमण śramaṇa, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, p. 1096 The term in early Vedic literature is predominantly used as an epithet for the ''Rishis'' with reference to ''Shrama'' associated with the ritualistic exertion. The term in these texts doesn't express non-Vedic connotations as it does in post-Vedic Buddhist and Jain canonical texts. During its later semantic development, the term came to refer to several non-Brahmanical ascetic movements parallel to but separate from the Vedic religion. The Śramaṇa tradition includes Jainism, Buddhism, and others such as the Ājīvika, Ajñanas and Cārvākas. The śramaṇa movements arose in the same circles of mendicants from greater Magadha that ...
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Pyrrho
Pyrrho of Elis (; grc, Πύρρων ὁ Ἠλεῖος, Pyrrhо̄n ho Ēleios; ), born in Elis, Greece, was a Greek philosopher of Classical antiquity, credited as being the first Greek skeptic philosopher and founder of Pyrrhonism. Life Pyrrho of Elis is estimated to have lived from around 365/360 until 275/270 BCE. Pyrrho was from Elis, on the Ionian Sea. He was likely a member of the Klytidiai, a clan of seers in Elis who interpreted the oracles of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia where Pyrrho served as a high priest. The Klytidiai were descendants of Klytios, who was the son of Alcmaeon and the grandson of Amphiaraus. In the ''Python'', Pyrrho's student Timon of Phlius describes first meeting Pyrrho on the grounds of an Amphiareion, i.e., a temple of Amphiaraus, while they were both on a pilgrimage to Delphi. Diogenes Laërtius, quoting from Apollodorus of Athens, says that Pyrrho was at first a painter, and that pictures by him were exhibited in the gymnasium at Eli ...
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Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhonism is a school of philosophical skepticism founded by Pyrrho in the fourth century BCE. It is best known through the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus, writing in the late second century or early third century CE. History Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 – c. 270 BCE) and his teacher Anaxarchus, both Democritus, Democritean philosophers, Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, traveled to India with Alexander the Great's army where Pyrrho was said to have studied with the magi and the gymnosophists, and where he was influenced by Buddhism, Buddhist teachings, most particularly the three marks of existence. After returning to Greece, Pyrrho started a new line of philosophy now known as "Pyrrhonism." His teachings were recorded by his student Timon of Phlius, most of whose works have been lost. Pyrrhonism as a school was either revitalized or re-founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BCE. This phase of Pyrrhonism, starting with Aenesidemus and going through the last known ...
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Catuṣkoṭi
''Catuṣkoṭi'' (Sanskrit; Devanagari: चतुष्कोटि, , Sinhalese:චතුස්කෝටිකය) is a logical argument(s) of a 'suite of four discrete functions' or 'an indivisible quaternity' that has multiple applications and has been important in the Dharmic traditions of Indian logic, the Buddhist logico-epistemological traditions, particularly those of the Madhyamaka school, and in the skeptical Greek philosophy of Pyrrhonism. In particular, the catuṣkoṭi is a "four-cornered" system of argumentation that involves the systematic examination of each of the 4 possibilities of a proposition, ''P'': # ''P''; that is being. # not ''P''; that is not being. # ''P'' and not ''P''; that is being and that is not being. # not (''P'' or not ''P''); that is neither not being nor is that being. These four statements hold the following properties: (1) each alternative is mutually exclusive (that is, one of, but no more than one of, the four statements ...
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Āstika And Nāstika
''Āstika'' and ''nāstika'' are concepts that have been used to classify Indian philosophies by modern scholars, as well as some Hindu, Buddhist and Jain texts. The various definitions for ''āstika'' and ''nāstika'' philosophies have been disputed since ancient times, and there is no consensus.Nicholson, Andrew J. 2013. ''Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History''. Columbia University Press. . ch. 9.Doniger, Wendy. 2014. ''On Hinduism''. Oxford University Press. . p. 46. In current Indian languages like Hindi and Bengali, ''āstika'' and its derivatives usually mean 'theist', and ''nāstika'' and its derivatives denote an 'atheist'; however, the two terms in ancient- and medieval-era Sanskrit literature do not refer to 'theism' or 'atheism'. The terms are used differently in Hindu philosophy. For example, '' Sāṃkhya'' is both an atheist (as it does not explicitly affirm the existence of God in its classical formulation) and ''āstika'' ...
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Pre-sectarian Buddhism
Pre-sectarian Buddhism, also called early Buddhism, the earliest Buddhism, original Buddhism, and primitive Buddhism, is Buddhism as theorized to have existed before the various Early Buddhist schools developed, around 250 BCE (followed by later subsects of Buddhism). The contents and teachings of this pre-sectarian Buddhism must be deduced or re-constructed from the earliest Buddhist texts, which by themselves are already sectarian. The whole subject remains intensely debated by scholars, not all of whom believe a meaningful reconstruction is possible. "Early Buddhism" may also be used for considerably later periods. Name Various terms are being used to refer to the earliest period of Buddhism: * "Pre-sectarian Buddhism" * "Early Buddhism", * "The earliest Buddhism", * "Original Buddhism", * "The Buddhism of the Buddha himself." * Precanonical Buddhism * Primitive Buddhism Some Japanese scholars refer to the subsequent period of the early Buddhist schools as ''sectarian ...
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Ājīvika
''Ajivika'' (IAST: ) is one of the ''nāstika'' or "heterodox" schools of Indian philosophy.Natalia Isaeva (1993), Shankara and Indian Philosophy, State University of New York Press, , pages 20-23James Lochtefeld, "Ajivika", ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism'', Vol. 1: A–M, Rosen Publishing. , page 22 Believed to be founded in the 5th century BCE by Makkhali Gosala, it was a śramaṇa movement and a major rival of Vedic religion, early Buddhism and Jainism. Ājīvikas were organised renunciates who formed discrete communities. The precise identity of the Ajivikas is not well known, and it is even unclear if they were a divergent sect of the Buddhists or the Jains. Original scriptures of the Ājīvika school of philosophy may once have existed, but these are currently unavailable and probably lost. Their theories are extracted from mentions of Ajivikas in the secondary sources of ancient Indian literature. Scholars question whether Ājīvika philosophy has been fai ...
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Theravada
''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhism), Buddha Dhamma'' in the Pāli Canon for over two millennia. The Pāli Canon is the most complete Buddhist canon surviving in a Indo-Aryan languages, classical Indian language, Pali, Pāli, which serves as the school's sacred language and ''lingua franca''.Crosby, Kate (2013), ''Theravada Buddhism: Continuity, Diversity, and Identity'', p. 2. In contrast to ''Mahāyāna'' and ''Vajrayāna'', Theravāda tends to be conservative in matters of doctrine (''pariyatti'') and monastic discipline (''vinaya''). One element of this conservatism is the fact that Theravāda rejects the authenticity of the Mahayana sutras (which appeared c. ...
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Nagarjuna
Nāgārjuna . 150 – c. 250 CE (disputed)was an Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker, scholar-saint and philosopher. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.Garfield, Jay L. (1995), ''The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way'', Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jan Westerhoff considers him to be "one of the greatest thinkers in the history of Asian philosophy." Nāgārjuna is widely considered to be the founder of the Madhyamaka (centrism, middle-way) school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement. His ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, or MMK) is the most important text on the madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness. The MMK inspired a large number of commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese and continues to be studied today. History Background India in the first and second centuries CE was politically divided into various states, including the Kushan Empire and the Satavaha ...
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