Notes and Study material for Exams
Philosophy of Advaita Vedanta Advaita Vedānta is one version of Vedānta. Vedānta is nominally a school of Indian philosophy, although in reality it is a label for any hermeneutics that attempts to provide a consistent interpretation of the philosophy of the Upaniṣads or, more formally, the canonical summary of the Upaniṣads, Bādarāyaņa’s Brahma Sūtra. Advaita … Read more
Philosophy of Mimamsa Dharma Mīmāṃsā, a Sanskrit word meaning “revered thought,” is the name of one of the six astika (“orthodox”) schools of Hindu philosophy, whose primary inquiry is into the nature of dharma (duty) based on close hermeneutics of the Vedas. Its core tenets are ritualism (orthopraxy), anti-asceticism and anti-mysticism. The central aim of … Read more
Philosophy of Nyaya Prama Nyāya (literally “rule or method of reasoning”) is a leading school of philosophy within the “Hindu umbrella”—those communities which saw themselves as the inheritors of the ancient Vedic civilization and allied cultural traditions. Epistemologically, Nyāya develops of a sophisticated precursor to contemporary reliabilism (particularly process reliabilism), centered on the notion of … Read more
Anekantvada Anekantavada, in Jainism, the ontological assumption that any entity is at once enduring but also undergoing change that is both constant and inevitable. The doctrine of anekantavada states that all entities have three aspects: substance (dravya), quality (guna), and mode (paryaya). Dravya serves as a substratum for multiple gunas, each of which is itself … Read more
Satvahanas After the fall of the Mauryan Empire, the history of the Andhras, as a continuous account of political and cultural events, commences with the rise of the Satavahanas as a political power. According to Matsya Purana there were 29 rulers of this dynasty. They ruled over the Andhradesa including Deccan for about 400 years … Read more
Shungas The Sunga Empire (or Shunga Empire) is a Magadha dynasty that controlled North-central and Eastern India as well as parts of the northwest (now Pakistan) from around 185 to 73 B.C.E. It was established after the fall of the Indian Mauryan empire. The capital of the Sungas was Pataliputra. Later kings such as Bhagabhadra … Read more
Hindu Sects: Hinduism as a federation of various sects – Shaiva, Vaishnava and Shakta Hinduism is a complex religion. It is an artificial collection of several traditions that originated in India in the last few millenniums. Since, the Muslim and British rulers and scholars alike were ignorant of the native traditions, they grouped everything under … Read more
Reformers like Raja Rammohan Roy, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Jyotiba Phule, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Pandita Ramabai understood that ignorance and backwardness in the Society was responsible for hindering its progress and development. They studied the religious scriptures and criticized the prevalent religious and social practices. According to them, society should be based … Read more
The Bhakti Movement in Indian history represents a movement that popularized devotional surrender to a personally conceived supreme God. Its origins are traced to the Brahamanical and Buddhist traditions of ancient India. It was in south India that it grew from a religious tradition into a popular movement based on religious Equality and broad based … Read more
Philosophical and social thoughts of Maharshi Arvind Sri Aurobindo believed that the highest truths, the truth contained of science and religion were already contained in Vedas. The Gita and the Upanishads are nothing but a logical continuation of the Vedas. He believes in traditional concept of man and accepts the classical views about the union … Read more