[Advaita-l] shaDdarhana and other unorthodox schools

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, Abhilash Shastry wrote:

>  I never heard about thirteen orthodox schools. I will be grateful if
>  you or some other members can elaborate on this. If vidyAraNya listed
>  thirteen orthodox schools, how did "shad-darshana" come to be accepted
>  almost universally?

The idea of shad-darshana is much older than Madhavacharya but I don't
know precisely where it initially came from.  In the
sarvadarshanasamgrah
15 darshanas are mentioned.

chArvAka           - Skeptical Materialism. Extinct.  We know of its
                      views only in fragments.
bauddha            - Buddhism
Arhata             - Jainism
rAmanuja           - rAmanuja is the founder of Vishistadvaita Vedanta
pUrNapraGYa        - pUrNapraGYA is another name for Madhva the founder of
                      Dvaita Vedanta
nakulIshapAshupata - A variety of Shaivism founded by Nakulisha or
                      Lakulisha.  Now extinct.
shaiva             - the shaiva siddhAnta found today in TN.
pratyabhiGYa       - the Kashmiri Shaivism.
raseshvara         - the philosophy of the raseshvaras or siddhas (alchemists.)
aulukya            - uluka ("owl") is a nickname for Kanada the founder of
                      vaiSheshika.
akShapAda          - akShapAda was the first name of Gautama the founder
                      of nyAya.
jaiminIya          - Jaimini is the founder of pUrva mImAMsa
pANini             - pANini is the founder of vyAkarana (grammar.)
sAmkhya            - the darshana founded by kapIla.
pAta~njala         - pAta~njali was the founder of yoga.

some editions also include a 16th chapter dealing with Advaita Vedanta
but this may have been added by someone later for completeness's sake.  As
Madhava/Vidyaranya is the author of many classics on the subject he may
not have felt the need to include information on Advaita Vedanta here.

An interesting thing is the author has apparently ordered the darshanas 
from worse to better (according to his opinion.)


-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>