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Indian Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction by Hamilton, Sue (2001) Paperback
Indian A Very Short Introduction by Hamilton, Sue published by Ox...
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About the author
Sue Hamilton
32 books6 followersSue Hamilton is a British archaeologist who is a Professor of Prehistory at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
A specialist in Later European Prehistory, she has published various papers and academic books on the subject based upon her own research.
A specialist in Later European Prehistory, she has published various papers and academic books on the subject based upon her own research.
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April 25, 2025
I’ve recently finished a book on Hinduism which is really pretty much about Indian Philosophy so I was interested to read this book which promised a more general overview of Indian thinking. Admittedly, both books were "Very short introductions" which limits what can be transmitted. Alas, it was pretty much the same and what I found missing from both books was some sort of critical analysis of both the history (as transmitted) and the actual ideas. It seems to me that there is less emphasis in the Indian Philosophy on divine revelation. That the sages were regarded as simply wise people (they all seem to be male). But they were not claiming (as in the Western tradition) that they were getting their message direct from God and therefore it had universal and irrevocable application. But I should mention here that I’ve only read this book in the Blinkist summary version, so, inevitably, have missed the detail and nuances that would be covered in the full book. Nevertheless, I’ve found these summaries to be pretty good and have no reason to doubt that, in the current case, that the Blinkist team have done a good job in extracting the essence. Anyway, I’ve extracted a few nuggets below which help capture what the book says.
“Mapping the universe:....The sages of the Upanishads and later thinkers like Nagarjuna pursued knowledge with a clear goal in mind: to transform their destiny and achieve liberation from the endless cycle of rebirth......it's a sophisticated understanding of how actions create consequences.
By the 5th century BCE, this understanding evolved to encompass all actions, with their effects potentially spanning multiple lifetimes.....The Buddha would later revolutionize this concept by teaching that intention, not just action, was the key to karmic consequences.
They created an incredible system of knowledge written in sacred texts called the Vedas. Their world centred on sacrifice–detailed ceremonies they believed maintained the harmony of the cosmos.
The brahmins maintained their position at the top of society because people believed their ritual purity kept these cosmic-maintaining ceremonies effective.....Some brahmins focused on performing ceremonies, others turned their attention inward......These inner-focused thinkers developed the teachings found in the Upanishads.....These texts introduced a revolutionary idea: your deepest self or atman shares its nature with the universal essence or Brahman.......Whether through precise ritual actions or deep insights into the nature of things, these thinkers aimed for practical results–breaking free from the cycle of rebirth and knowing the highest truth.
Buddha's revolutionary path to awakening:...Around 485 BCE, Siddhartha Gotama was born to a wealthy family in what we now call Nepal.....This young prince would eventually become known as the Buddha, the Awakened One......He shared what he called the Four Noble Truths, but took a completely different path than the brahmin priests.....The Buddha's most striking teachings centred on two ideas: how everything connects, and how nothing stays the same......He created a balanced approach between extreme self-denial and complex rituals.
This practical focus, would go on to influence not just Buddhist thought but the entire landscape of Indian philosophy.......These ideas spread rapidly across northern India, challenging the established order.
The brahmins began their response by looking deeply at language itself......From this focus on language grew new ways of proving what we can truly know. [Almost the same as the linguistic schools that grew up in British Philosophy around Bertrand Russell and Witgenstein]. As these ideas about knowledge grew, another school called Taisheshika mapped out everything that exists. They found several basic building blocks of reality: substance, quality, action universality, particularity, inherence, and absence....From these intellectual foundations grew many branches of Indian thought. Some focused on understanding the nature of knowledge......Others turned toward exploring consciousness itself. As these ideas flowed through Indian society, they sparked something revolutionary-whole new ways of understanding the human mind and its potential.
Two systems in particular-Yoga and Vedanta-created bridges between philosophical theory and spiritual practice that people still walk today......Yoga's origins stretch back to India's earliest spiritual seekers,....By the time these practices were systematized in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras around the 3rd century CE, they had evolved far beyond physical exercises.
techniques to still what they called the modifications of the mind.....Yoga points to something deeper-a pure awareness that watches it all happen. This watching presence, called purusha, stands apart from everything it observes-the world of prakriti.
Another tradition called Samkhya built a complete map of how this works. They saw reality as having two distinct sides-pure awareness on one hand, and everything else on the other.
Then came Shankara, a brilliant thinker who turned everything upside down. His tradition, Advaita Vedanta, said reality isn't split in two-it's all one thing, pure consciousness-existence called Brahman.......Shankara said the whole world works like this. It's real, but not in the way we usually think.
Other Vedantic philosophers like Ramanuja suggested a middle way........They saw reality as one fabric woven from many threads. Yes, everything connects in one great unity, but the distinctions we see still matter.......Each tradition offered a different map to freedom, a distinct way of seeing yourself and your place in the universe.
Walk into any major university, and you'll find students studying ancient Indian texts right alongside Plato and Kant [Well that didn’t appear to be happening at the Australian National University when I studied Philosophy there. But there was certainly a strong school studying Sanscrit. I just didn’t see much or any overlap with the scholars studying Plato and Kant.] .........When Western scholars first began learning Sanskrit and reading India's ancient texts in the 1800s, something unexpected happened.....Indians themselves began looking at their philosophical heritage with fresh eyes.....Today, Indian philosophy travels two paths. In universities, scholars use modern tools to study these ancient ideas, showing they're every bit as rigorous as Western philosophy. [I’d really be interested in finding out about these studies but they don’t see to get much attention in the West....I must do a bit of research. My initial forays into critical analysis of ancient Indian teaching has not been very illuminating....there seems to be a lot of work in how they transmitted the message ...like pedogogy rather than analysis of the ideas]. Meanwhile, traditional schools in India keep teaching these ideas the old way, focusing on how they can transform your life.
But here's the thing-this split between thinking and practice is new.....As we mentioned earlier, the original Indian philosophers saw no gap between careful reasoning and the search for spiritual freedom......These studies speak powerfully to modern questions. Their careful studies of meditation, how we perceive things, and the nature of awareness offer fresh angles on age-old mysteries: What watches your thoughts? How does your consciousness connect to the world?”
So what’s my overall take on the book? Well, I think it’s generally pretty good except I would have liked a little more about modern Indian Philosophy. What are the scientists and scholars in the Maths departments and Engineering faculties and the Philosophy faculties thinking and teaching these days. My take-away from reading this book is that they are pretty much stuck with traditional Indian Philosophy but there is that throw-away line about Indian Philosophers using modern tools to analyse the ancient texts. So what is different? We are not given any clues. So three stars from me.
“Mapping the universe:....The sages of the Upanishads and later thinkers like Nagarjuna pursued knowledge with a clear goal in mind: to transform their destiny and achieve liberation from the endless cycle of rebirth......it's a sophisticated understanding of how actions create consequences.
By the 5th century BCE, this understanding evolved to encompass all actions, with their effects potentially spanning multiple lifetimes.....The Buddha would later revolutionize this concept by teaching that intention, not just action, was the key to karmic consequences.
They created an incredible system of knowledge written in sacred texts called the Vedas. Their world centred on sacrifice–detailed ceremonies they believed maintained the harmony of the cosmos.
The brahmins maintained their position at the top of society because people believed their ritual purity kept these cosmic-maintaining ceremonies effective.....Some brahmins focused on performing ceremonies, others turned their attention inward......These inner-focused thinkers developed the teachings found in the Upanishads.....These texts introduced a revolutionary idea: your deepest self or atman shares its nature with the universal essence or Brahman.......Whether through precise ritual actions or deep insights into the nature of things, these thinkers aimed for practical results–breaking free from the cycle of rebirth and knowing the highest truth.
Buddha's revolutionary path to awakening:...Around 485 BCE, Siddhartha Gotama was born to a wealthy family in what we now call Nepal.....This young prince would eventually become known as the Buddha, the Awakened One......He shared what he called the Four Noble Truths, but took a completely different path than the brahmin priests.....The Buddha's most striking teachings centred on two ideas: how everything connects, and how nothing stays the same......He created a balanced approach between extreme self-denial and complex rituals.
This practical focus, would go on to influence not just Buddhist thought but the entire landscape of Indian philosophy.......These ideas spread rapidly across northern India, challenging the established order.
The brahmins began their response by looking deeply at language itself......From this focus on language grew new ways of proving what we can truly know. [Almost the same as the linguistic schools that grew up in British Philosophy around Bertrand Russell and Witgenstein]. As these ideas about knowledge grew, another school called Taisheshika mapped out everything that exists. They found several basic building blocks of reality: substance, quality, action universality, particularity, inherence, and absence....From these intellectual foundations grew many branches of Indian thought. Some focused on understanding the nature of knowledge......Others turned toward exploring consciousness itself. As these ideas flowed through Indian society, they sparked something revolutionary-whole new ways of understanding the human mind and its potential.
Two systems in particular-Yoga and Vedanta-created bridges between philosophical theory and spiritual practice that people still walk today......Yoga's origins stretch back to India's earliest spiritual seekers,....By the time these practices were systematized in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras around the 3rd century CE, they had evolved far beyond physical exercises.
techniques to still what they called the modifications of the mind.....Yoga points to something deeper-a pure awareness that watches it all happen. This watching presence, called purusha, stands apart from everything it observes-the world of prakriti.
Another tradition called Samkhya built a complete map of how this works. They saw reality as having two distinct sides-pure awareness on one hand, and everything else on the other.
Then came Shankara, a brilliant thinker who turned everything upside down. His tradition, Advaita Vedanta, said reality isn't split in two-it's all one thing, pure consciousness-existence called Brahman.......Shankara said the whole world works like this. It's real, but not in the way we usually think.
Other Vedantic philosophers like Ramanuja suggested a middle way........They saw reality as one fabric woven from many threads. Yes, everything connects in one great unity, but the distinctions we see still matter.......Each tradition offered a different map to freedom, a distinct way of seeing yourself and your place in the universe.
Walk into any major university, and you'll find students studying ancient Indian texts right alongside Plato and Kant [Well that didn’t appear to be happening at the Australian National University when I studied Philosophy there. But there was certainly a strong school studying Sanscrit. I just didn’t see much or any overlap with the scholars studying Plato and Kant.] .........When Western scholars first began learning Sanskrit and reading India's ancient texts in the 1800s, something unexpected happened.....Indians themselves began looking at their philosophical heritage with fresh eyes.....Today, Indian philosophy travels two paths. In universities, scholars use modern tools to study these ancient ideas, showing they're every bit as rigorous as Western philosophy. [I’d really be interested in finding out about these studies but they don’t see to get much attention in the West....I must do a bit of research. My initial forays into critical analysis of ancient Indian teaching has not been very illuminating....there seems to be a lot of work in how they transmitted the message ...like pedogogy rather than analysis of the ideas]. Meanwhile, traditional schools in India keep teaching these ideas the old way, focusing on how they can transform your life.
But here's the thing-this split between thinking and practice is new.....As we mentioned earlier, the original Indian philosophers saw no gap between careful reasoning and the search for spiritual freedom......These studies speak powerfully to modern questions. Their careful studies of meditation, how we perceive things, and the nature of awareness offer fresh angles on age-old mysteries: What watches your thoughts? How does your consciousness connect to the world?”
So what’s my overall take on the book? Well, I think it’s generally pretty good except I would have liked a little more about modern Indian Philosophy. What are the scientists and scholars in the Maths departments and Engineering faculties and the Philosophy faculties thinking and teaching these days. My take-away from reading this book is that they are pretty much stuck with traditional Indian Philosophy but there is that throw-away line about Indian Philosophers using modern tools to analyse the ancient texts. So what is different? We are not given any clues. So three stars from me.
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