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Sutra in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or,more broadly,a condensed manual or text. Sutras are a genre of ancient and medieval Indian texts found in Hinduism,Buddhism and Jainism.
The historical Vedic religion,also known as Vedicism and Vedism,constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent during the Vedic period. These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts,and some Vedic rituals are still practiced today. The Vedic religion is one of the major traditions which shaped Hinduism,though present-day Hinduism is significantly different from the historical Vedic religion.
Mīmāṁsā is a Sanskrit word that means "reflection" or "critical investigation" and thus refers to a tradition of contemplation which reflected on the meanings of certain Vedic texts. This tradition is also known as Pūrva-Mīmāṁsā because of its focus on the earlier (pūrva) Vedic texts dealing with ritual actions,and similarly as Karma-Mīmāṁsā due to its focus on ritual action (karma). It is one of six Vedic "affirming" (āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. This particular school is known for its philosophical theories on the nature of Dharma,based on hermeneutics of the Vedas,especially the Brāḥmanas and Saṃhitas. The Mīmāṃsāschool was foundational and influential for the Vedāntic schools,which were also known as Uttara-Mīmāṁsāfor their focus on the "later" (uttara) portions of the Vedas,the Upaniṣads. While both "earlier" and "later" Mīmāṃsāinvestigate the aim of human action,they do so with different attitudes towards the necessity of ritual praxis.
Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy,depending on one of three alternate criteria:whether it believes the Vedas as a valid source of knowledge;whether the school believes in the premises of Brahman and Atman;and whether the school believes in afterlife and Devas.
Magadha also called the Kingdom of Magadha or the Magadha Empire,was a kingdom and empire,and one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas,'Great Kingdoms' of the Second Urbanization,based in southern Bihar in the eastern Ganges Plain,in Ancient India. Magadha was ruled by the Brihadratha dynasty,the Haryanka dynasty,the Shaishunaga dynasty,the Nanda dynasty,the Mauryan dynasty,the Shunga dynasty and the Kanva dynasty. It lost much of it territories after being defeated by the Satavahanas of Deccan in 28 BC and was reduced to a small principality around Pataliputra. Under the Mauryas,Magadha became a pan-Indian empire,covering large swaths of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan.
Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to,or are associated with,Buddhism and its traditions. There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead,there are three main Buddhist Canons:the Pāli Canon of the Theravāda tradition,the Chinese Buddhist Canon used in East Asian Buddhist tradition,and the Tibetan Buddhist Canon used in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.
Sanskrit literature broadly comprises all literature in the Sanskrit language. This includes texts composed in the earliest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language known as Vedic Sanskrit,texts in Classical Sanskrit as well as some mixed and non-standard forms of Sanskrit. Literature in the older language begins with the composition of the Ṛg·veda between about 1500 and 1000 BCE,followed by other Vedic works right up to the time of the grammarian Pāṇini around 6th or 4th century BCE.
Buddhism,which originated in India,gradually dwindled and was replaced by approximately the 12th century. According to Lars Fogelin,this was "not a singular event,with a singular cause;it was a centuries-long process."
Kosala,sometimes referred to as Uttara Kosala was one of the Mahajanapadas of ancient India. It emerged as a small state during the Late Vedic period and became one of the earliest states to transition from a lineage-based society to a monarchy. By the 6th century BCE,it had consolidated into one of the four great powers of ancient northern India,along with Magadha,Vatsa,and Avanti.
Āryāvarta is a term for the northern Indian subcontinent in the ancient Hindu texts such as Dharmashastras and Sutras,referring to the areas of the Indo-Gangetic Plain and surrounding regions settled by Indo-Aryan tribes and where Indo-Aryan religion and rituals predominated. The limits of Āryāvarta extended over time,as reflected in the various sources,as the influence of the Brahmanical ideology spread eastwards in post-Vedic times.
Yāska was an ancient Indian grammarian and linguist. Preceding Pāṇini,he is traditionally identified as the author of Nirukta, the discipline of "etymology" within Sanskrit grammatical tradition and the Nighantu,the oldest proto-thesaurus in India. Yaska is widely regarded as the precursive founder of the discipline of what would become etymology in both the East and the West.
Anekāntavāda is the Jain doctrine about metaphysical truths that emerged in ancient India. It states that the ultimate truth and reality is complex and has multiple aspects.
Mahabhashya,attributed to Patañjali,is a commentary on selected rules of Sanskrit grammar from Pāṇini's treatise,the Aṣṭādhyāyī,as well as Kātyāyana's Vārttika-sūtra,an elaboration of Pāṇini's grammar. It is dated to the 2nd century BCE on the basis of records of Yijing,the Chinese traveller who resided in India for 16 years and studied in Nalanda University.
Kumārila Bhaṭṭa was a Hindu philosopher and a scholar of Mimamsa school of philosophy from early medieval India. He is famous for many of his various theses on Mimamsa,such as Mimamsaslokavarttika. Bhaṭṭa was a staunch believer in the supreme validity of Vedic injunction,a champion of Pūrva-Mīmāṃsāand a confirmed ritualist. The Varttika is mainly written as a subcommentary of Sabara's commentary on Jaimini's Purva Mimamsa Sutras. His philosophy is classified by some scholars as existential realism.
Vaiśeṣika Sūtra,also called Kanada sutra,is an ancient Sanskrit text at the foundation of the Vaisheshika school of Hindu philosophy. The sutra was authored by the Hindu sage Kanada,also known as Kashyapa. According to some scholars,he flourished before the advent of Buddhism because the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra makes no mention of Buddhism or Buddhist doctrines;however,the details of Kanada's life are uncertain,and the Vaiśeṣika Sūtra was likely compiled sometime between 6th and 2nd century BCE,and finalized in the currently existing version before the start of the common era.
Richard Francis Gombrich is a British Indologist and scholar of Sanskrit,Pāli,and Buddhist studies. He was the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1976 to 2004. He is currently Founder-President of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. He is a past president of the Pali Text Society (1994–2002) and general editor emeritus of the Clay Sanskrit Library.
Siddhasēna Divākara was a jain monk in the fifth century CE who wrote works on Jain philosophy and epistemology. He was like the illuminator of the Jain order and therefore came to be known as Divākara,"Sun". He is credited with the authorship of many books,most of which are not available. Sanmatitarka is the first major Jain work on logic written in Sanskrit.
T. J. F. (Tom) Tillemans is a Dutch-Canadian Buddhologist,Indologist and Tibetologist. Since 1992,Tillemans has been Professor of Buddhology in the Faculty of Oriental Languages and Civilizations at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.
Greater Magadha is a concept in studies of the early history of India. It is used to refer to the political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains during the Vedic age.
Vedic learning started in Mithila with the expansion of Vedic and Brahmanic culture eastwards along the Ganges plain. Some sources consider this centre of Brahminical study to form an Ancient Mithila University. From the 12th/13th to 15th century CE it was an important centre of Nyaya Shastra and logical sciences.
References
- ↑ Johannes Bronkhorst, Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (Leiden, 2007).
- ↑ In Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: Review of Greater Magadha
- ↑ H-Net Reviews
- ↑ Unisciences - UNIL - Johannes Bronkhorst
- ↑ "J. Bronkhorst". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 24 January 2016.
- ↑ Bronkhorst, Johannes (2016). How the Brahmins won : from Alexander to the Guptas. Leiden. ISBN 978-90-04-31551-8. OCLC 946610880.
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