Where should we start the story? In Greece or in India? In other words, which country contains the traces of the earliest developments of philosophy?
So far as Greek philosophy is concerned, we are aware of some of its earliest phases. It has been generally recognized that philosophical speculations in Greece cannot be traced earlier than the sixth century B.c. The first Greek thinker whom we can appropriately describe as a philosopher was Thales. A specific incident has helped us to determine his chronology. It is said that he had predicted through his calculations the correct time of an eclipse which took place in 585 B.c.
Two men who after Thales gave a new turn to the development of philosophical thought in Greece were Pythagoras and Socrates. Pythagoras lived about 532 B.c. and the death of Socrates took place in 399 B.C.
When, however, we look at India of the sixth century B.c., we see a completely different picture. This period in India witnessed not the beginnings, but the development of philosophical thought. It was not a case of the dawn of philosophy as in Greece, but what may be described as the full glow of philosophical day. It was not the first faltering steps of the human intellect along the long and arduous way of philosophical quest but it marked a stage which could have been reached only after a considerable journey.
Two facts are inevitably forced upon our attention in any discussion of this period : (i) The emergence of Buddhism and Jainism took place in this period. (ii) Before the advent of the Buddha and Mahavira, there had already been a considerable development of philosophical thought in India and systems had emerged which presupposed a long period of wide and deep philosophical speculation.
Gautama the Buddha occupies a peculiar place among the greatest men of the world. It is a debatable point whether we should place him in the category of prophets or of philosophers. In other words, what was the purport of his teaching? Was it a new revelation or was it a new philosophical discovery? In spite of long controversy, both philosophy and religion continue to claim the Buddha. I do not want to repeat that controversy, but it seems clear to me that it is easier to see him in the role of a philosopher than in that of a prophet. He started on his inquiries in order to solve the problem of life, not to search for the existence of God.
Jainism also arose about the same time and was even more indifferent to the existence of God. Like the Buddha, Mahavira also sought an answer to the riddle of existence without any reference to the existence of God. The intellectual constructions of the Jainas are based on principles which properly belong to the world of philosophy. The fact that India in the sixth century B.c. could exhibit the method and approach of Gautama the Buddha and Mahavira is in itself evidence that the country had developed a widespread and deep philosophical insight. An atmosphere was already in existence in which there could develop different theories and interpretations of the mysteries of life. It is also clear that a stage had been reached where these problems could be solved without presupposing either the existence of God or the revelation of His will.
Such a philosophic temper did not emerge in Greece till much later. Ionian philosophy which is one of the earliest of the Greek Schools believed in a theory of souls informing the planets and other stellar bodies. These can hardly be distinguished from the gods and goddesses of popular mythology. Located on the peak of Mount Olympus, they were the gods of religion; when, however, the same gods put on a philosophic garb and mounted the heavens, they acquired the philosophic title of Intelligences of the Spheres. This tendency of Ionian philosophy continued in all the later Schools of Greek thought. If the heavenly souls of Aristotle are subjected to proper scrutiny, it will be seen that they are not very different from the old Hellenic gods. It is true that Socrates protested against the worship of gods, but even he was not able to eradicate completely from philosophy the influence of the popular conception of gods.
The way in which the Indian intellect reacted to their problems, we find ourselves faced with an entirely new approach. Elsewhere, philosophy and religion pursued distinct and different paths; though their paths had at times crossed and the one had influenced the other, the two had never merged. In India, on the other hand, it is not always possible to differentiate between the two. Unlike Greece, philosophy was not confined here to the walls of the academies but became the religion of millions.
The solutions which Gautama the Buddha and Mahavira had found for the problems of existence were, as we have already seen, basically philosophical, but their teachings created religious communities in the same way as the preaching of the Semitic prophets. Socrates was, in many respects, a unique character among the Greek philosophers. He was essentially a philosopher, but to call him only a philosopher does not fully describe his personality. When we try to think of him, we are inevitably reminded of Jesus Christ. What we know of the events of his life have close affinities with the life of the prophets of Israel and the yogis of India.
He was often in a state of trance. He also believed in an oracle or inner voice which guided him in all moments of crisis. When in his last days he was addressing the court in Athens, he was guided by the behest of this inner voice. Nevertheless, Socrates has been classed among philosophers. His followers did not try to create a religious community based on his personality or his teachings. This fact shows clearly the difference between the Indian and the Greek spirit. In Greece elements of religion acquired the characteristics of philosophy; in India philosophy was itself turned into religion.
The distinction we have drawn between philosophy and religion cannot, therefore, describe accurately the Indian situation. If we try to apply to India the criterion which distinguishes philosophy from religion, we will either have to change the criterion itself or recognize that in India philosophy and religion have pursued the same path. We have attempted to form an idea of the intellectual make-up of India of the sixth century B.c. from an analysis of the personalities of Gautama the Buddha and Mahavira. We should now enquire into the external evidence to justify the conclusions we have drawn from such internal considerations.
All students of Indian philosophy are today agreed that the philosophy of the Upanisads had already begun to develop before the emergence of Gautarna the Buddha and Mahavira. It is also admitted generally that those Upanisads which are recognized to be the oldest were composed about the eighth century B. C. Authorities, however, differ as to the period and order of emergence of the six Indian systems or Darsanas. According to some, the Charvaka school had been developed before the time of Gautama the Buddha. They quote in evidence certain references in the Upanisads which suggest that a materialistic interpretation of the universe had already taken shape, and this is the essence of Charvaka's thought. Others have expressed similar opinions about the Samkhya and the Yoga systems. They emphasize the fact that Buddhism contains some parallel lines of thought and infer that these two Schools must be, if not earlier than, at least contemporaneous with Gautama the Buddha.
If the views of these scholars are accepted, the beginnings of Indian philosophy ·will have to be pushed back several centuries earlier than the seventh century B.c. It is evident that in order to account for such a stage of development in the seventh century B. c., metaphysical speculations must have begun here at least several hundred years ago. In Greece it took almost three hundred years to reach from Thales to Aristotle. There would be nothing surprising if in India also it had taken an equal period to develop the systems of the Samkhya, the Yoga and the Charvaka from the first gropings of philosophical speculation. It would thus be a plausible inference to hold that the beginnings of Indian philosophy can be traced back to a thousand years before Christ.