RETURNING TO CLASSICAL INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Last week, I drove to the Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and bought the book, Classical Indian Philosophy.[1] This volume forms part of Peter Adamson’s larger project, A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.
One of the strengths of the series is its consistency of voice and method across very different philosophical traditions. This consistency is helpful because it allows the reader to see how similar philosophical questions are addressed differently in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. With Jonardon Ganeri as co-author, Hindu and Buddhist thinkers are presented not as curiosities or precursors but as philosophers engaged in rigorous arguments, responding to one another across traditions, centuries, and shared intellectual problems.
Adamson writes with a light, humorous touch; he often reaches for unexpected illustrations to clarify philosophical problems. One of these is his recurring use of giraffes as an example to explain certain philosophical questions. Giraffes already feature prominently in his earlier work on Medieval philosophy, where they appear in discussions of universal forms versus concrete material objects, so by now they seem like a necessary part of philosophical discourse.
Reading this book is a bit of a detour from my usual reading and writing in Western philosophy, and that is part of its appeal for me. I did not set out to begin a new project or anything like that; I simply found myself wanting to read something that asked different questions and used a different philosophical grammar.
I am not new to this material. I have taught college courses on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain thought, usually under the broad and uneasy umbrella of “World Religions.” This term is suspect. It distinguishes traditions that have written scriptures and an apparent ability to cross cultures from those labeled “tribal” with only a narrow ethnic appeal, a distinction that says more about modern academic categories than about the traditions themselves. These courses also required the compression of materials shaped by the need for comparative analysis rather than sustained engagement with each of the traditions examined and discussed.
I found the book to be extremely interesting, and to my surprise, I read 128 pages on the day I bought the book. What is different about reading this work now is that I am reading without the pressure of translating arguments into lecture notes or discussion prompts. The book is not something I plan to teach or cite. I simply wish to deepen my knowledge of non-Western philosophical approaches.
One of the issues in classical Indian philosophy is the nature of the self. In his non-dualist Hindu philosophy (Advaita Vedānta), Śaṅkara distinguishes between brahman and ātman only to deny that this distinction ultimately holds true. Brahman names the unconditioned reality that underlies all appearances; it is not a god or a being among beings but the ground of being itself. Ātman names the deepest reality of the self—not personality, memory, or ego, but what remains when all contingent features fall away. Śaṅkara’s central claim is that these are not two separate things. Liberation from the karmic cycle of birth and rebirth consists in realizing their identity.
On the other hand, Indian Buddhist philosophers such as Nāgārjuna pressed in the opposite direction. Classical Buddhist thought denies the reality of any enduring self, and Nāgārjuna radicalizes this denial by arguing that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence (śūnyatā). From this perspective, the very attempt to secure a self—even a metaphysically refined one—is a subtle form of attachment that sustains ignorance and suffering.
The book makes it clear that Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophy developed side by side in India, often in direct conversation and open disagreement. These traditions share vocabularies, methods of argument, and a common concern for liberation from suffering. What was at stake was not only how reality is structured but also what must be seen—or relinquished—for freedom to be possible. In Advaita Vedānta, the problem is misrecognition: failing to see what one already is. For Nāgārjuna, the problem is attachment: the impulse to grasp any fixed identity. Jain philosophy is unique in that it is able to find truth in both of these positions.
There is value in reading without an instrumental purpose, in letting a different tradition set the pace and terms of the conversation. Sometimes, philosophical study is not about progress at all, but about returning to questions you once learned how to ask and discovering that they sound different when you hear them again.
[1] Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri, Classical Indian Philosophy. A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.