Philosophy & Existence

Philosophy here is not just another discipline but a practice. It is the persistent refusal to accept the first available explanation of anything significant, or something completely irrelevant. This domain gathers essays that take ideas seriously enough to follow them past comfort.

Essays here hold two apparently opposite things as simultaneously true without forcing resolution. The truth may be absolute, but people can feel two completely opposite things at the same time. It does not make one a lie. The same number can be 6 for one person and 9 for another. Both true. Both absolute. Simply approached from different directions. The Jain doctrine of Anekāntavāda, developed across Jain philosophical literature from the early centuries CE, sees reality as many-sided, and proposes that any single perspective captures only a partial truth. Heraclitus said that everything flows and nothing stands still. Parmenides believed that nothing moves and change is an illusion. The Vedic tradition did not choose between them.

एकं सद् विप्रा बहुधा वदन्ति 
Ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti. 
To what is One, sages give many a title.

The truth may be one thing wearing many names. And yet even the oldest inquiry into the nature of existence arrived not at an answer but at an open question.

नास॑दासी॒न्नो सदा॑सीत्त॒दानीं॒ नासी॒द्रजो॒ नो व्यो॑मा प॒रो यत् । 
किमाव॑रीव॒: कुह॒ कस्य॒ शर्म॒न्नम्भ॒: किमा॑सी॒द्गह॑नं गभी॒रम् ॥
nāsad āsīn no sad āsīt tadānīṃ / nāsīd rajo no vyomā paro yat 
kim āvarīvaḥ kuha kasya śarman / ambhaḥ kim āsīd gahanaṃ gabhīram
Neither non-being nor being existed then. Neither the realm of space nor the sky beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water, bottomlessly deep?

को अ॒द्धा वे॑द॒ क इ॒ह प्र वो॑च॒त्कुत॒ आजा॑ता॒ कुत॑ इ॒यं विसृ॑ष्टिः । 
अ॒र्वाग्दे॒वा अ॒स्य वि॒सर्ज॑ने॒नाथा॒ को वे॑द॒ यत॑ आब॒भूव॑ ॥
ko addhā veda ka iha pra vocat / kuta ājātā kuta iyaṃ visṛṣṭiḥ 
arvāg devā asya visarjanenāthā / ko veda yata ābabhūva
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Rig Veda 10.129, Nāsadīya Sūkta.

Perhaps not even the creator knows. The individual might feel insignificant in the vastness of the universe, yet remains the medium through which significant things unfold. The universe seems to be the Pulse, the Weave, and the Canvas where everything unfolds, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, all at once. It is also merely a witness at the same time perhaps. It appears it is experiencing itself through everything it creates and everyone who stops to truly see.

This domain is not interested in philosophy as argument. It is interested in philosophy as attention, as inquiry. It is Indian and Western traditions in conversation, not one explaining the other. Sometimes both point at the same thing from different directions. Sometimes each unfolds something distinct, shaped by its own conditions and history. These are not contradictions to be resolved. They are the actual texture of reality, waiting to be sat with rather than explained away.

Essays here practice that sitting.

Citations: Anekāntavāda: Jain philosophical doctrine developed across the Nyāyāvatāra of Siddhasena Divākara, c. 5th century CE, and the Sanmatitarkaprakaraṇa. Rig Veda 1.164.46, Ralph T.H. Griffith, The Hymns of the Rigveda, 1896. Rig Veda 10.129, Nāsadīya Sūkta, Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, The Rig Veda: An Anthology, Penguin Classics, 1981. Heraclitus and Parmenides: pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, c. 6th to 5th century BCE.