In 2024, I read around 40 books, and these were my three favourite.
Click on the picture for my reviews.
My Top 3 Books of 2024
My Indian Book Wins a BIBA!
Indian Mythology and Philosophy won the Best Indie Book Award (BIBA) in the religion and philosophy category.
I’m doubly pleased that the gold sticker works with the saffron book cover!
I was also delighted to read the following editorial review from Prof Nicolas Martin at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zürich:
Never before has the history and substance of Indian thought been laid out as clearly and succinctly, and completely, as in Burton’s book.
How the Western Mind Nearly Took an Eastern Turn
The striking similarities between Greek and Indian thought.
In antiquity, Pythagoras was better known as a philosopher than a mathematician. Although he may have introduced it to the West, the theorem that came to bear his name had been discovered centuries earlier by the Babylonians and Indians. His association with this theorem suggests some kind of Eastern connection.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570-c.495 BCE) was a near contemporary of Anaximander and Anaximenes, as well as the Buddha. He might even have met Thales of Miletus—”the first scientist”—who, it is said, advised him to travel to Memphis to take instruction from Egyptian priests.
At the age of 40, Pythagoras left Samos for Croton in southern Italy, where he established a philosophically minded religious community. Unusually for the time, Pythagoras admitted men and women alike. Of the 235 famous Pythagoreans listed by Iamblichus, 17 are women.
The men and women who entered the community’s inner circle were governed by a strict set of ascetic and ethical rules, forsaking personal possessions, assuming a mainly vegetarian diet, and—since words are so often careless and misleading—observing the strictest silence.
In India, at around the same time, the Buddha’s followers were organizing into monasteries. The Buddha delivered many of his discourses in the monastery of Jetavana in Shravasti, which had been donated to him by the banker Anathapindada. Buddhist monks could eat meat if it was offered to them, but only after ensuring that the animal had not been slaughtered on their behalf. At her insistence, the Buddha’s aunt Mahapajapati became the first of many Buddhist nuns.
The first Buddhist monasteries served as a prototype for the world’s first residential university at Nalanda, just as Protagoras’ community served as a model for philosophical institutions such as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum, and, later, for the monastic life and associated early universities.
Music played an important role in Pythagoras’ community. Pythagoreans recited poetry, sang hymns to Apollo, and played on the lyre to cure illnesses of body and soul. One day, or so the story goes, Pythagoras passed by some blacksmiths at work, and found that their hammering produced especially pleasing sounds. He then noticed that their anvils were simple ratios of one another, one being half the size of the first, another twice the size, and so on. This insight led to his “harmony of the spheres,” according to which the movements of the heavenly bodies are in a mathematical relationship akin to that between musical notes, and, together, amount to a grand cosmic symphony.
Pythagoras (the name means “Oracle among the people”) never divorced religion from philosophy and science, which, even in his day, left him open to accusations of mysticism. No doubt under the influence of Orphism, a mystery religion rooted in pre-Hellenic beliefs and the Thracian cult of Zagreus, Pythagoras came to believe in metempsychosis, that is, in the transmigration of the soul at death into a new body of the same or a different species, until such a time as it became moral. He himself claimed to have lived four lives and to remember them all in detail: in his first life, he had had the good fortune of being Aethalides, son of Hermes, who had given him the faculty of remembering everything even through death.
Parmenides
After Pythagoras’ death in c. 495 BCE, the Pythagoreans deified him, and attributed him with a golden thigh and the gift of bilocation (being in two places at once).
In India, the first Upanishads, the Chandogya Upanishad and Great Forest Upanishad, had by then already been written. The central vision of the Upanishads is one of pantheism (all is God), with God hidden in nature “even as the silkworm is hidden in the web of silk he made.” God is Brahman and the part or aspect of Brahman that is in us is Atman. The aim then becomes to achieve the knowledge and unity of Atman and Brahman, which is wisdom, salvation, and liberation (moksha). When Socrates argued for self-knowledge over knowledge, he made the same turn as the Upanishads.
The student of Western philosophy might be reminded of Parmenides (c. 515-c.440 BCE), who was still young when Pythagoras died. In his poem, On Nature, Parmenides contrasted the way of truth to the way of opinion. Through a chain of strict à priori deductive arguments from premises deemed incontrovertible, Parmenides argued that, despite appearances (the Way of Opinion), the universe must consist of a single undifferentiated and indivisible unity, which he called “the One”—comparable, of course, to Brahman.
Plato
In the Metaphysics, Aristotle says that Plato’s teachings owed much to those of the Pythagoreans; so much, in fact, that Bertrand Russell upheld not Plato but Pythagoras as the most influential of all Western philosophers. Pythagoras’ influence is perhaps most evident in Plato’s mystical approach to the soul and in his emphasis on mathematics, and, more generally, reason and abstract thought, as a secure basis for the practice of philosophy.
Just as Plato (c. 437-c. 348 BCE) leaned upon Heraclitus and his theory of flux (“No one ever steps twice into the same river”) for his conception of the sensible or phenomenal world, so he leaned upon Parmenides for his conception of the intelligible or noumenal world, which he rendered as the ideal, immutable realm of the forms.
Plato’s Phaedo, in which Socrates discusses the immortality of the soul with a pair of Pythagorean philosophers, is essentially an Upanishad in both form and content. Socrates argues that the forms cannot be apprehended by the senses, but only by pure thought, that is, by the mind or soul. Thus, the philosopher seeks in as far as possible to separate soul from body. As death is the complete separation of soul and body, the philosopher aims at death, and can be said to be almost dead.
Although the Phaedo is at the root of Western psychology, philosophy, and theology, it is also deeply Eastern in advocating supreme detachment and ego suppression or disintegration as the route to salvation. Also, death is an illusion … we will be reincarnated … according to our karma. These, however, are not the aspects that the West has retained.
Read more in Indian Mythology and Philosophy.
How the Upanishads Transformed the Human Mind
In many ways, the Upanishads anticipated Greek philosophy.
The national motto of India, Satyameva Jayate (Truth Alone Triumphs), is from the Mundaka Upanishad.
“Upanishad” means something like “hidden connections”, “secret teaching”, or “esoteric doctrine”, literally, “a sitting at (the feet of the teacher)”. Upanishadic wisdom can only be transmitted to those who are fit to receive it, by those who are fit to teach it.
Although a part of the Vedas (the last or latest of its four layers), the Upanishads tend to take a dim view of what went before. “Of what use” asks the Shvestashvatara Upanishad, “is the Rig Veda to one who does not know the Spirit from whom the Rig Veda comes?”
The Great Forest Upanishad promises freedom from the very things valued by the Vedas and Vedic society: “It is when they come to know this self that Brahmins (priests) give up the desire for sons, the desire for wealth, the desire for worlds…”
In a passage known as the Udgitha of the Dogs, the Chandogya Upanishad satirizes the Brahmins as a procession of dogs, who chant, “Om, we will eat! Om, we will drink! O Lord of food, bring us food here. Bring us food here. Om.”
An Introduction to the Upanishads
By a restrictive definition, there are around 108 Upanishads. The first dozen or so are the most important, and referred to as the mukhya (main or major) Upanishads. Many “Upanishads” are much later sectarian texts (Vaishnavite, Shaivite…), claimed as Upanishads to lend them the force of revelation. In the Vedas, there are ten embedded Upanishads, with all ten regarded as mukhya. Some of the mukhya Upanishads are in mostly prose; others are in verse.
The earliest Upanishads are the Great Forest Upanishad and Chandogya Upanishad, which date from around or before the sixth century BCE. These two are also the longest Upanishads, with, respectively, 627 and 434 verses; while the shortest mukhya Upanishads are the Mandukya Upanishad and Isha Upanishad (often contracted to Ishopanishad), with only 12 and 18 verses.
The Mandukya Upanishad discusses Om, Brahman, and four states of consciousness. The Ishopanishad is often given pride of place at the beginning of Upanishadic anthologies. In an abridged form, it runs something like this:
Behold the universe in the glory of God: and all that lives and moves on earth. Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal … He who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings loses all fear … May life go to immortal life, and the body go to ashes, Om. O my soul, remember past strivings, remember! O my soul, remember past strivings, remember!
Parallels with Plato’s dialogues
The content of the Upanishads is very diverse, and may include mantras, rituals, creation myths, lineages of teachers, historical narratives, and the like. But at their best and most original, the Upanishads take the form of a philosophical dialogue, not unlike those of Plato, with named interlocutors presenting and debating various viewpoints.
For example, in the Great Forest Upanishad, the sage Yajnavalkya engages in philosophical debate with, among others, his wife Maitreyi, the sage Gargi (another, rare, woman), and King Janaka of Videha—who salutes Yajnavalkya with “namaste”.
In the Chandogya Upanishad, the sage Uddalaka Aruni—the guru or teacher of Yajnavalkya—engages in debate with his son, Shvetaketu. Uddalaka Aruni, Shvetaketu, Yajnavalkya, Maitreyi, and Gargi are among the first philosophers in recorded history.
The Essence of the Upanishads
This being philosophy, there is a tendency to abstraction, to grasp at “the truth behind the truth” (satyasya satyam). The central vision is one of pantheism (all is God) or panentheism (all is in God), with the Creator dissimulated in nature “even as the silkworm is hidden in the web of silk he made”.
God is Brahman, and the part or aspect of Brahman that is in us is Atman. The aim then becomes to achieve the knowledge and unity of Atman and Brahman, which is wisdom, salvation, and liberation.
Before the Upanishads, Brahmins sacrificed to the gods for society to prosper. After the Upanishads, Brahmins turned instead to the God within, to achieve their own liberation.
Some two hundred years later, Socrates would make a similar turn. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates tells Phaedrus that he sees no point in being curious about myths or anything else which is not his concern:
I must first know myself… to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous.
Read more in Indian Mythology and Philosophy.
The Philosophy of Yoga
Yoga is one of the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy.
A darshana is an outlook, a philosophy, literally, a “vision.” The term darshana is especially associated with the six orthodox schools of Indian philosophy, the so-called shaddarshana, or “six visions.” What makes them orthodox, and therefore Hindu, is that they accept the authority of the Vedas. With good reason, the shaddarshana are often presented in pairs: Samkhya-Yoga, Nyaya-Vaisheshika, and Mimamsa-Vedanta. In this post, I shall, of course, be focussing on Samkhya-Yoga.
The Samkhya School
The founder of the Samkhya school is held to be Kapila, who lived, perhaps, in the sixth century BCE. Little is known about him. He is sometimes described as an avatar of Vishnu or the grandson of Brahma. He is mentioned by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita as the greatest of sages: “Amongst the gandharvas I am Chitrath, and among the siddhas, I am sage Kapila.” According to Puranic lore, his meditation produced such intense inner heat that, when they disturbed him, he incinerated the Sagarputras, the 60,001 sons of King Sagara, simply by opening his eyes.
In the Buddhist tradition, the students of Kapila built the Shakya capital of Kapilavastu. The Buddha, who was raised in Kapilavastu, was therefore steeped in Samkhya philosophy, explaining the affinities between Samkhya and Buddhism.
Kapila is held to have authored the Samkhya Sutra, although the extant text appears to be medieval in origin. Instead, the school’s primary text is the Samkhyakarika by Ishvarakrishna, who lived in the third or fourth century CE.
In the first verse, Ishvarakrishna states the aim of Samkhya: to eliminate the three forms of dukkha (suffering): internal, from physical and mental disease; external, from outside threats, especially other people; and divine, that is, from natural disasters.
Samkhya is a radical dualism that holds that the universe is made up of two independent, infinite, and eternal realities: Purusha (souls) and Prakriti (matter or nature). The Purushas are conscious but have no attributes. They are pure ‘witness consciousness.’ Prakriti is composed of the three gunas (qualities or tendencies of matter), sattva (preservation, harmony), rajas (creation, passion), and tamas (destruction, apathy).
Initially, the gunas are in equilibrium. But at its approach, Purusha disturbs this equilibrium in favour of rajas, and this imbalance sets off material creation.
Comparisons With Western Dualism
Unlike Western dualism, which is between mind and matter, Samkhyan dualism is between self and matter—with “matter” encompassing most of what Westerners would consider “mind” (intellect, ego, emotions, etc.)—everything, in fact, except witness consciousness, of which mind is the instrument.
Also, unlike Western dualism, Samkhyan dualism is atheistic or agnostic. Although an orthodox school, Samkhya is remarkably silent about God and the Vedas.
The Samkhyan Account of Creation
At the approach of Purusha, undifferentiated Prakriti evolves 23 tattvas (elements, aspects), first buddhi (intelligence), and from buddhi ahamkara (ego or self-consciousness).
Under the influence of sattva guna, ahamkara yields the five organs of sense (eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue), the five organs of action (arms, legs, speech, organs of elimination, organs of creation), and manas (mind).
Then, under the influence of tamas guna, ahamkara yields the five subtle elements (sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste), from which the five material elements (earth, air, water, fire, ether) emerge.
Notice that the material world is last in the order of creation. Its evolution from the five senses suggests that the world is an illusion, although this is never explicitly stated.
Manas has a special role in mediating between the ten organs, the five senses, and the world without. Being of Prakriti, buddhi, ahamkara, and manas are not conscious. However, they appear to be conscious and are set into motion by proximity with Purusha—functioning, as it were, by reflected consciousness.
The Samkhyan Account of Liberation
Adding Purusha and Prakriti to the 23 tattvas makes a total of 25 tattvas—of which 24 are of Prakriti. Nonetheless, it is for the sake of Purusha that the differentiation occurs, to provide it with experience and, in time, with liberation (moksha). By reflecting the consciousness of Purusha, Prakriti is showing Purusha to itself.
Purusha and Prakriti are like a lame man and a blind man, lost in the wilderness. The blind man carries the lame man, who guides his steps. Both are looking for their way home, to moksha, when they will part ways. But having never traveled, the lame man is avid of experience and so enthralled by his adventure that he forgets about his destination.
To be consistent with the universal law of karma, Samkhya assumes that a Purusha that is bonded to Prakriti (that is, a jiva), has two bodies: a gross, mortal body, and a subtle body made up of the higher functions which transmigrates according to past merit. The continuity of the subtle body enables the Purusha to keep on learning through numerous incarnations.
Final liberation consists in the realization of the separateness of Purusha and Prakriti. This involves a process of involution, or “going back to the womb”—that is, reversing, through intellect and understanding, the process of evolution from the material elements back to undifferentiated Prakriti and beyond.
In short, salvation consists in counting backwards.
The Yoga School
Samkhya exerted such a profound influence on Yoga that the two schools are sometimes merged as Samkhya-Yoga. But whereas Samkhya emphasizes knowledge and discrimination as the path to liberation, Yoga rather emphasizes discipline.
Although Yoga essentially borrows the metaphysics of Samkhya, it introduces a twenty-sixth tattva, namely, Ishvara, or “the Lord”—for which reason it has been called “Theistic Samkhya.” The nature of “Ishvara” is open to interpretation, but it may be regarded as a special Purusha that is unentangled and, therefore, inactive.
The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali
In the second century BCE, or perhaps the fifth century CE, Patanjali collected the ideas around yoga in the Yoga Sutra. These 196 verses became the foundational text of Yoga, which, towards the end of the first millennium, began to be mentioned as a separate school.
Patanjali’s synthesis influenced all other schools of Hindu philosophy, which regard it as authoritative. It is sometimes referred to as Raja Yoga (Royal Yoga) or Ashtanga Yoga (Eight-Limbed Yoga) to distinguish it from the many other forms of yoga, such as Jnana, Karma, Bhakti, Mantra, and Tantra—which are, of course, more complementary than mutually exclusive.
The Yoga Sutra has four sections: Samahdi (Concentration), Sadhana (Practice), Vibhuti (Yogic or Magical Powers), and Kaivalya (Isolation or Liberation). In the first section, Patanjali defines yoga as “the cessation of mental fluctuations” (chitta vritti nirodha)—with chitta (mind) assimilated in the Samkhyan system to buddhi, ahamkara, and manas. In the third section, he warns against practicing yoga for the perverted purpose of acquiring yogic powers—suggesting that this sort of thing may have been common.
Ashtanga or Eight-Limbed Yoga
The eight stages of Patanjali’s Yoga are:
- Yama (abstinence or restraint)
- Niyama (discipline or observances)
- Asana (‘seat’, posture)
- Pranayama (breath control)
- Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses)
- Dharana (concentration of the mind on some object)
- Dhyana (steady meditation on that object) and
- Samadhi (absorption, ecstatic union with the ultimate).
The first two stages are ethical preparations. Yama involves abstinence from injury, falsehood, stealing, lust, and avarice. Niyama involves purity or cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study, and devotion to God.
The next two stages are physical preparations, each involving a series of exercises to remove physical or bodily distractions.
The fifth stage involves taking control of the mind by emptying it of impressions.
The remaining three stages, which may take several lifetimes to perfect, aim at increasingly heightened states of awareness and return.
According to Patanjali, the five kleshas (poisons, obstacles to Yoga and liberation) are ignorance, ego, attachment or desire, aversion to unpleasant things or truths, and fear of death and desire to live.
Final Remarks
The aim of yoga, and ascetic practice in general, is essentially to react against ordinary human habits, which entangle us, or our Purusha, with Prakriti, to the extent that Purusha identifies with Prakriti and more particularly with the restless chitta and its manifold modifications.
This is a far cry from the yoga practised in the West as a form of physical culture, with postures borrowed from Hatha Yoga and optional spiritual sprinkling for stress relief. Even Hatha Yoga is about a lot more than that.
Read more in Indian Mythology and Philosophy.
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