The World of Indian Philosophy
Traditions, Arguments, and Visions of Reality
What if the self does not exist? What if everything is predetermined? What if reality is one, many, material, mental—or empty of any fixed essence?
Indian philosophers have been arguing about such questions for more than two thousand years, usually with great sophistication and remarkably little agreement.
The World of Indian Philosophy: Traditions, Arguments, and Visions of Reality is an accessible journey through Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka materialism, Nyaya logic, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta, and other major traditions.
Along the way, you will meet the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Dignaga, Dharmakirti, Gangesha, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Tagore, Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan, Daya Krishna, B. K. Matilal, and others—thinkers who disagreed about the self, God, matter, consciousness, language, knowledge, freedom, and just about everything else worth disagreeing about.
Clear, lively, and irreverent, this book presents Indian philosophy not as one serene mystical worldview, but as a vast and often ruthless intellectual argument about reality, suffering, morality, liberation, and how anyone can possibly know that they are right.
- Author
- Quim Aiguafreda
- Published
- August 12, 2026
- Pages
- 213
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 979-8192255391
Thinkers discussed
From the opening pages
The question sounds reasonable. We ask what Stoicism says or what utilitarianism says. Surely India, after centuries of intellectual activity, must also have reached a position. Perhaps reality is one, the self is eternal, the world is illusion, desire is troublesome, meditation is admirable, and everyone eventually becomes serene.
They argued about whether God exists, whether a creator is needed, whether there is one self, many selves, or no permanent self at all. They disputed whether reality consists of matter, atoms, consciousness, enduring substances, or momentary events. They disagreed about perception, inference, testimony, language, universals, causation, error, and what makes knowledge knowledge rather than an unusually confident mistake.
A useful Sanskrit word here is darshana. It is connected with “seeing” and can mean a view, standpoint, or perspective. In philosophical contexts, a darshana is not “the Indian worldview” but one organized way of looking at reality and defending claims about it.
Contents
8 chapters
Entering the Argument
- India Did Not Have One Philosophy
- Philosophy Before Philosophy Had Departments
- The Vedas: Instructions for Maintaining the Universe
- The Upanishads: The Self Becomes Suspicious
- Karma: Cosmic Accounting Without a Customer-Service Department
- Moksha: The Peculiar Goal of Getting Out
The Great Rebellion
- The Shramanas: Declining the Vedic Package
- The Buddha and the Problem of Suffering
- No Self: Buddhism Removes the Owner
- Dependent Origination: Nothing Exists by Itself
- Jainism: Reality Has More Than One Side
- Jain Souls in a Crowded Universe
- Ajivikas: When Fate Has Already Read the Ending
- Charvaka: What If There Is No Invisible World?
How Do You Know That?
- Pramana: Reliable Ways of Knowing
- Nyaya: Please Provide Evidence
- Smoke, Fire, and Inference
- Can Testimony Give Knowledge?
- The Skeptics Make Everyone Uncomfortable
What Is Reality Made Of?
- Vaisheshika: An Inventory of Reality
- Atoms Before Modern Physics
- Samkhya: Consciousness and Nature File for Divorce
- How a Universe Evolves Without a Creator
- Yoga: Samkhya Learns to Sit Down
- What Happens When the Mind Stops Talking?
Ritual, Duty, and Language
- Mimamsa: The Ritualists Strike Back
- How Can Words Be Eternal?
- Dharma: When Duties Collide
- The Bhagavad Gita: Act, Renounce, Devote
Buddhist Philosophy Gets Dangerous
- Abhidharma: Taking the Person Apart
- Nagarjuna: Nothing Has Independent Existence
- Nagarjuna Versus Everything
- Yogacara: Is the World in the Mind?
- Dignaga and Dharmakirti: Logic Without Universals
Vedanta and Ultimate Reality
- Vedanta: Same Texts, Different Universes
- Shankara: Only Brahman Is Ultimately Real
- Ramanuja and Madhva: Unity Has Competition
Philosophy After the “Classical” Age
- Navya-Nyaya: Logic Becomes Alarmingly Precise
- Colonialism and the Reinvention of Indian Philosophy
- Indian Philosophy Is Still Happening
