hi
I am going to provide a summary of the chapter of the "THE INDIAN MIND" "essentials of indian pohilosophy and culture (1967) by CHARLES A MOORE,also an review of the chapter.I will try to critically look at the moores explaination of indian mind.
I would like to mention here that this blog is created with the objective of understanding indian thought and mind based on the indian understanding(scholars and texts of indian thinkers),moores articles tries to picture western understanding of the east.
Before the beginning of the summary here is an introduction about charles a moore: senior professor philosophy of university of hawwaii, he was known internationally as the innovative and driving force behind the east west philosopher conference,1939 to 1964, held in honolulu which brought together some of the leading thinkers of the orient and occident to exchange ides and to enhance their understanding of other tradition.
summary:
charles a moore,introduction: the comprehensive indian mind,
chapter is an overview about the comprehensive understanding about indian mind which is based on philosphies of indian tradition on the many sided culture throught the ages.he starts with reason for need of understanding of philosophy of indian thought.
criticizes the western view about the indian minds, where they have misunderstood, westerners who have seen in india the source of fulfillment of their own selfish search for power and riches.he criticize the misrepresentation, confusion, misconception about the indian spirit "mind", philosophy, tradition and culture. west have destroyed the spirit of indian, but today its differnt case, it becomes a mistake if we use the loop of west to see india, we must concern ourselves, to understand indian mind need to look into the richnes, profudity, heights and depths of indian philosophy which is grounded in the sociopolitical and economic traditions and culture of everyday life of indian thought. understanding the thought of indian mind one as to have certain attitudes where he will be open minded, coridality to alien ideas and ideals , reconstruction of western misconception about indian thought, genuine understanding is required,should not oversimplifiy things.
philosophy is the main concern in this chapter so he looks into the different period of indian civilization which is carried from 4000 yrs of high level of culture and tradition. he divideds into three periods firstly vedic period he covers up with vedas upanishads, second period this is the period of two great epics the mahabharata and ramayana which are a comvination of history, mythology, and religo-philosophical, third period is sutra period.during this period the great six systems of hindu philosophy were formulated, systematized, and written in terms of the origianl basic texts of these great and greatly varying schools of philosophy, lastly he provides an account on western entry into indian where how the west as effect the indian philosophy. based on the historical account where moores focuses on the philosophical side of indian thought, ends up his article by concluding his philosophical understanding by stating 17 principles of indian thoughts,such as belief in sould spiritual goal of man is moksa, god as the ultimate, monism, karma, reibrth, the degree of tolerance introspective approach to truth, self having the infinitely greater powers, belief idealism, charity, values of soical life,welfare of society, moral purification of knowledge, transforming one's nature in accordance to truth,yoga for spiritual truth and lastly ultimate optimism. this may be and may not be the characterstics of indian thoughtas a whole, but he says it is important for 'understanding' in indian minds.
chalres a moore a intorductor note where his book the indian mind, essential of indian philosophy and culture, which is totally oriented with the pilosophy of indian people,based on the conference 1964, an collective idea about the indian mind is provided in his article, great scholars such as sakesna, raju, mohan datta, swami nikhilananda, mahadevan, s.radkhakrishnan, murti, tara chand,and others this book is published.
as mentioned by moore its important to understand indian philosophy which is the foundation for understanding of indian mind, but the question whiich i would raise here is the philosophy of indians which are mentioned above is based on the vedics, epics and only a philosophy of superiors, where the account provided is by intellectuals who hold good positions, this understanding of philosophy of one part of the indian culture, tradition and religion does not provide an total indian mind. in other words what about the commmon man or minority group, especially such as tribles, and rural unseen minds which are major group of people in indian,as we know india is a vast multicultural country containing very typical and various race, religion, cultural groups and communities. the understanding of the philosophy of which is based on the vedics and epics doesnot provide an detail account about the indian thought, its an half a truth, they dont provide an account on rural settings tribles and minority groups. which is missing in the charles a moore book
kiran
8 comments:
Its a very good start kiran...!! i appreciate ur work totally..
and ya coming to your question that Indians philosophy is basically given by superior or the elite group and the tribes are not concedered, i would say it is entirely a wrong notion.. because for example Valmiki who wrote ramayana is a tribe actually.. they got there superiority by contributing some or the other thing in that particular field.. many such examples: vyasa who wrote bharatha etc.. many such people were given the status of brahmins or any other upper cast based on there works. it was we who gave them the status because of there contributions and works.. as sri krishna says in GEETHA "caste is not based on birth but on de work that they do".. so i think to an extent you can always consider this fact also..
apart from this its a very good job..
-bhaskar
hi kiran...!! one more comment, i think wat u have done is a very good job but den plz concentrate on ur spellings n some gramatic mistakes.... apart from that its a very good thing...
i do agree to the point that we who have given the identity, my concern is in mahabharatha,only the kings, all those words are highlighted given the authoritative persons, where is the words of a soldier who was fighting in the war, what about eklavya, even though he got some importance, his personality is not highlighted as arjuns. so my concern in the same way why is that other group of peoples word are not brought into the picture. krishnas word i agree that if i say the krishnas word are manifested and modified by the elite group, so i would also say why should i always look into the krishna words, why cant i take any otehr pesons idea about caste, who says that caste division is done by the uppers and it is creating a problem to society. my point of criticising the view great epics, it is always been onesided view point and neglected others.
i to an extent agree with your concern that many tribes have been neglected in our past. but my answer lies in my previous comment only... i can give u n number of examples that they where not neglected. only thing is their identity changed from lower caste(or what ever u may call, i don't believe in it) to upper caste. this is the reason you are not able to understand the truth. if we come in to the epics also we find many tribes or other so called lower caste people are given too much importance. for their devotions to the lord etc, like guha in ramayana, as you mentioned ekalavya, valmiki, vedavyasa, lord krishna himself who was a yadhava, mathsyagandhi, and many more..
the question u asked why is ekalvya not given importance in mahabharatha unlike arjuna, then answer me this... why is thulsi das ramacharitha manasa not given that importance as valmiki who is a trib basically...? it is the criteria.. the role that he played was small, but if u see the same kharnas role... it is given too much importance equal to dhuryodhana.. with out kharna mahabharatha is not complete..
and your one more concern is that there is only less prominence given to the tribes etc in those epics or any other issues for that matter, then my concern will be there are many great people of the so called elite group also who are not given that importance like others... in that case everyone's history should be included(including yours and mine).. what you say kiran.?
if this is the case then every one will have to fight for their own philosophies to get in to history which will be a big chaos. that is the reason our elders have combined all the philosophies and selected the best and given us. if you still want to prove it to be wrong then i think you should go in depth studies about our past, study fully and then criticize that the tribes or the lower caste peoples philosophies are ignored. and for your further references i can always help u.
actually i didnt finish my comments, i would say, valmiki, krishna and others where what in actually, krishna is an avatar of lord vishnu, valmiki was one of the gandarva, in his before lifes, so this people only because of curse and concept called karma, they landed into the earth and did the things..... its again the karma ideology plays a role, which is an invention of the elite group. i totally disagree with point elders have gathered all phiolosphies and only highlighted the importance. where is the gathereing, if u say gita, and vedic books, i would question who wrote that, its from the elite groups, the tribes and rural community group have their own ideology, where they have their own traditions, ideologies and philosophies, one examples there is tribal group callled soligas, who are wonderers they are dependable on nature, they dont have any idea abt the gita, only they live for food. they just protect the forest, wonder in forest for their livelihood. is any phiolosphy of soligas are added by the elders, if so prove it to me.
each do have their own phiolosphy, but ideologies of society plays a role on them to frame their own philosophy. as said by john locke. that is why each an every one under the same stream of the of philosophy to certain extent.
ok, now its making me think... ok den lets go further deep in to our history... but am very sure that there will be a reason... lets try to find out.. but do agree wid ur point also... lets see.. will get back to u once i try to find out the reason..
but at the same time kiran, tell me this do u say that wat ever krishna n valmiki and others r not actually tribes n something else in there previous birth etc... wat ever it is, who ever they are in their previous birth, wat they wer born as or in which group they wer born as in that generation is important.. that is wat i believe.. for example: kiran who represented Christ university as a cricketer in Malaysia is kirans contribution or his hard work, not wat who he was in his previous birth... but i do agree wid the fact that their philosophies are to an extent missed out... i dont agree with it saying that they are totally ignored... lets try to find out n will be back to u again for sure.. and to my comment to which u said u dont agree that the elders have selected the best philosophies, ok for time being let it be, i will try to get back to u after i get u the facts... if not then let us come to the conclusion that it was not so... till den lets try to find out..
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