The systems of the Six Schools (Saddarshana) of orthodox Hindu philosophy were formulated in terse sutras from about the beginning of the Common Era through the period of the Gupta empire (320–540).
The most important of the Six Schools is the Vedanta (“End of the Vedas”), also called Uttara-Mimamsa or, later, Mimamsa. The most-renowned philosopher of this school was Shankara (traditionally dated c. 788–820, though he probably lived in the first half of the 8th century). Born at Kaladi in Kerala, he is said to have spent most of his life traveling through India debating with members of other sects. The Shankaran system has sounded the keynote of intellectual Hinduism down to the present, but later teachers founded sub-schools of Vedanta, which are perhaps equally important.
Shankara was also responsible for the growth of Hindu monasticism, which had been in existence for more than a millennium in the form of hermit colonies. Inscriptions from Gupta times onward also refer to monklike orders of Shaiva ascetics, apparently living according to distinctive disciplines and with distinguishing garments and emblems. Shankara founded the dashanami" class="md-crosslink">dashanami, a closely disciplined Shiva order, perhaps partly modeled on the Buddhist order, the sangha. The dashanami, which is still the most influential orthodox Hindu ascetic group, is composed of 10 brotherhoods (dashanami means “those with 10 names”). Orders became an established institution with wider geographic affiliations. Some of these admitted Brahmans only; others were open to all four classes or even to women; some made a practice of nudity; and all are inclined to individual asceticism. Shankara is also said to have founded the four main monasteries (matha) at the four corners of India: Sringeri in Karnataka, Badrinath in the Himalayas, Dwaraka in Gujarat, and Puri in Orissa. Many followers of Shankara in southern India, however, aver that Shankara established a monastery in the city of Kanchipuram, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The monastic head of this institution as well as the abbots of the other monasteries control the spiritual lives of many millions of devout laypersons throughout India, and their establishments strive to maintain the traditional philosophical Hinduism of the strict Vedanta. In modern times, certain dashanami leaders have incurred criticism for their firm opposition to social change.
The theologians had to assume the task of explaining the relation between God, the unaffected and unchanging cause of all things, and the universe. According to the great South Indian thinker and devotee of Vishnu Ramanuja (c. 1017–1137), brahman (i.e., God) is a Person as well as the object of an individual’s search for the higher knowledge that is the only entrance to salvation. Because an absolute creation is denied, God is viewed as the sole cause of his own modifications—namely, the emanation, existence, and absorption of the universe. The universe, consisting of chit (consciousness) and achit (what is not conscious; this category includes matter and time), forms the body of brahman, or Vishnu.
Ramanuja, bronze sculpture, 12th century; from a Vishnu temple in Thanjavur (Tanjore) district, India.Courtesy of the Institut Français de Pondichéry
God is conceived to be essentially different from everything material, the absolute opposite of any evil, free from any imperfection, omniscient, omnipotent, possessed of all positive qualities (such as knowledge, bliss, beauty, and truth), of incomparable majesty, the inner soul of all beings, and the ultimate goal of every religious effort. The universe is considered a real transformation of brahman, whose “body” consists of the conscious souls and everything unconscious in their subtle and gross states. The karma doctrine is modified as follows: the Lord, having determined good and bad deeds, provides all individual souls with a body in which they perform deeds, reveals to them the scriptures from which they may learn the dharma, and enters into them as their internal regulator. The individual acts at his own discretion but needs the Lord’s assent. If the devotee wishes to please him, God induces him, with infallible justice and loving regard, to intentions and effort to perform good deeds by which the devotee will attain him; if not, God keeps him from that goal.
Influenced by the bhakti movement, Ramanuja had admitted two ways of emancipation: in addition to the meditative method of the highest insight (jnana) into the oneness of soul and God, which destroys the residues of karma and propitiates God to win his grace, there is the way of bhakti. Those who prefer the former way will reach a state of isolation, the others an infinitely blissful eternal life in, through, and for God, with whom they are one in nature but not identical. They do not lose their individuality and may even meet Vishnu in his Vaikuntha heaven and enjoy delight beyond description. Among many followers of Ramanuja, however, complete self-surrender (prapatti) came to be distinguished from bhakti as a superior means of spiritual realization.
Authors of Shaiva Puranas established two ingenious and complementary doctrines to explain the nature and omnipotence of God, the existence of the world, and the identity of God and the world. A theory of five “faces,” or manifestations—each of which is given mythological names and related mantras—is of great ritual significance. It associates Shiva’s so-called creative function, by which he provokes the evolution of the material cause of the universe, with his first face, or aspect; the maintenance and reabsorption of the universe with his second and third faces; his power of obscuration, by which he conceals the souls in the phenomena of samsara, with his fourth face; and his ability to bestow his grace, which leads to final emancipation, with his fifth face. The five functions are an emanation of the unmanifested Shiva, who is the transcendent brahman.