Philosophy East and West

Abstract:

This essay looks at the various devices that commentators on Sanskrit śāstra texts use in order to make the śāstra texts comprehensible to the reader. Very often written in a sūtra style, the texts would sometimes be difficult to understand without these commentators, who can be called hermeneuts in modern parlance. Here, three topics are addressed: Īśvara in the Nyāyasūtras; the problematic permanent status accorded to prakṛti in Sāṃ khya/Yoga and its reconciliation with the permanent status of the atman in the Upaniṣads; and, finally, the Īśvara concept in Patañjali's Yogasūtras.