| This dissertation examines the late 16th century northern Indian philosopher Vijnanabhiks&dotbelow;u and his significance for the wider history and historiography of philosophy in India. After introducing the basic historical problematic in chapter one, chapters two and three deal with Vijnanabhiks&dotbelow;u's relationship to two different philosophical traditions, Vedanta and Sam&dotbelow;khya-Yoga. Chapter two discusses in particular Bhedabheda (Difference and Non-difference) Vedanta, a school often overshadowed by the more well-known Advaita (Monistic) Vedanta, and elucidates the internal logic of some of Vijnanabhiks&dotbelow;u's characteristic Bhedabheda arguments. Chapter three sketches a brief outline of the history of Sam&dotbelow;khya-Yoga, and illustrates how Vijnanabhiks&dotbelow;u sought to establish a theistic Sam&dotbelow;khya philosophy that had its foundations in the Bhedabheda philosophy of his earlier writings. In chapter four I approach some of the schemes by which pre-modern Indian authors classified doctrinal systems, such as the well-known template of the "six systems of Indian philosophy" and the division between the schools of the "believers" ( astikas) and "infidels" (nastikas ). On the basis of these historical findings, in chapter five I revisit the historiography of Indian philosophy in the modern period. I illustrate how European scholars adopted these native classificatory systems for their own ideological ends, and how from this Vijnanabhiks&dotbelow;u's philosophy came to be understood in the 19th and 20 th centuries as a perverse and idiosyncratic example of "syncretism." In my final chapter, I draw conclusions from Vijnanabhiks&dotbelow;u's particular case to argue for a more diverse, reflexive, and methodologically sophisticated approach to the historiography of Indian philosophy. |
