Indian Philosophy
The "India" in question is the Indian subcontinent—the land constituting present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and surrounding countries such as Srī Lanka to the south and Bhutan, Sikkim, Afghanistan, and Nepal to the north. And although philosophy in the sense in question covers much of what is covered by the term philosophy in its contemporary usage in English-speaking countries, it also has a specific use in the Indian context, in which it refers to the thoughts expressed in the literature relating to liberation (mokṣa; nirvāṇa). In this usage, philosophy, and the philosophical literature of India, is contrasted in Indian thinking with the literature pertaining to other matters, notably the literature concerned with political and social concerns (arthaśāstra), with interpersonal relations such as the sexual and aesthetic dimensions of love (kāmaśāstra), and with morals (dharmaśāstra), each of which has a pertinent literature of its own. The "philosophical" literature of India, then, relates to ultimate concerns, especially how to achieve liberation from rebirths and the nature of a universe in which liberation is possible and available. It is a literature that does not primarily include such Western fields of philosophy as political and social philosophy (for that is artha), aesthetics (for that is kāma) and ethics (for that is dharma).
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