Introduction to Indian Philosophy: A Free Online Course

Taught by Prof. Satya Sun­dar Sethy, this course from the Indi­an Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy-Madras pro­vides an Intro­duc­tion to Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy, and it’s sum­ma­rized as fol­lows:

Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy (San­skrit: Bhār­tiya Dar­shan) deals with var­i­ous philo­soph­i­cal thoughts of many sev­er­al tra­di­tions those orig­i­nat­ed in the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent, includ­ing Hin­du phi­los­o­phy, Bud­dhist phi­los­o­phy, and Jain phi­los­o­phy. The com­mon themes of all these philoso­phies are uni­ty and diver­si­ty (advai­ta and dvai­ta) in their under­stand­ing, inter­pre­ta­tion of the exis­tence of real­i­ty, and expla­na­tion of the attain­ment of lib­er­a­tion (mok­sha). The Indi­an philo­soph­i­cal sys­tems are clas­si­fied into two groups on the basis of the accep­tance of Vedas; Ortho­dox (Vaisheshi­ka, Nyāya, Sāmkhya, Yoga, Pur­va-Mimān­sā, and Uttar-Mimān­sā) and Het­ero­dox (Chār­va­ka School, Jain­ism and Bud­dhism). All these sys­tems are dis­cussed with a crit­i­cal approach to their the­o­ries in this course. Over and above, an intro­duc­to­ry note to Indi­an Phi­los­o­phy is placed at the begin­ning of the course.

All lec­tures can be viewed above, or streamed at this Youtube playlist. The course has been added to our list of Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.