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c. 2nd century BCE-5th century CE (schools formalized over centuries)Primary source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Six Orthodox Schools of Philosophy Systematize Hindu Thought

Logicians, atomists, dualists, and non-dualists all claim the same scripture as their foundation

On the timeline · around c. 2nd century BCE-5th century CE (schools formalized over centuries) · Classical HinduismVedic OriginsClassical HinduismSix Orthodox Schools of Philosophy Systematize Hindu Thought500 BCE400 BCE300 BCE200 BCE100 BCE1 CE100 CE

Quick facts

The six schools
Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga
Shared trait
Astika: all accept Vedic authority
Oldest dualist school
Samkhya
Later dominant school
Vedanta

What happened

Over the centuries following the Upanishads, Hindu philosophy organized itself into six orthodox, or astika, schools of thought, so called because each accepted the authority of the Vedas even while arguing sharply different metaphysical positions. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy names them as Mimamsa, Vedanta, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, and Yoga, an unbroken tradition of later authors expanding and carrying forward the arguments of their predecessors. Samkhya, one of the oldest, set out a dualism of consciousness and matter; Yoga paired Samkhya's metaphysics with meditative practice; Nyaya developed formal logic and theories of valid knowledge; Vaisheshika pursued a theory of atomism; Purva Mimamsa defended the authority of Vedic ritual; and Vedanta, focused on the Upanishads rather than the earlier ritual portions of the Vedas, would centuries later produce Adi Shankara's influential non-dualism. Each school produced its own root texts, commentaries, and debate traditions, and philosophers within one school routinely argued against the others across generations.

Why it matters

The six schools gave Hindu philosophy a formal, debate-based intellectual culture comparable to classical Greek philosophy, and Vedanta in particular, the last of the six to fully mature, would go on to become, in the Stanford Encyclopedia's words, the most influential school of modern times, shaping everything from Adi Shankara's 8th-century synthesis to 19th- and 20th-century reformers who framed Hinduism for a global audience.

How we know

Each school's positions survive through its own root sutras and centuries of commentarial literature in Sanskrit, cross-referenced and debated by rival schools in their own surviving texts, giving historians of philosophy multiple independent textual traditions to reconstruct the arguments from.

Sources

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Part of a timelineHistory of Hinduism26 events · Hymns memorized for three thousand years without writing them down, a philosophy that a self and the universe are the same thing, and a religion with no founder that became the world's third largestView all →
Six Orthodox Schools of Philosophy Systematize Hindu Thought · History of Hinduism · SourcedStory