Indian Philosophy

[Anonymous No.19204484]

Is there a chart for getting into early Asian spritual lit.?
I see the main ones are the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads etc., but not sure in which way and manner I should tackle them

[Anonymous No.19204508]

>>19204484

[Anonymous No.19205116]

read "Hinduism and Buddhism" by Ananda Coomaraswamy

[Anonymous No.19205370]

Reading the Upanishads independent of tradition's guide is pointless as they're contextless snippets commenting on various parts of the Vedas.

Anyways, start with What The Buddha Taught, and then read the Heart Sutra. You need to start with Buddhism because if you don't Hindu thought doesn't make sense (all of Hindu thought amounts to reacting to Buddhism), Jainism doesn't make sense (Buddhism in many ways is just a reaction to Jainism), Vedic religion doesn't make sense (Buddhism is ALSO a reaction to Vedic religion), and Sikhism won't make sense (Sikhism is a reaction to Islam and Hinduism).

For Confucianism, start with the Analects. Move into Laozi. Decide from there if you want to go into Chinese Folk Religion (in which case, read the Four Books and Five Classics), or Neo-Confucianism (Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Korean Neoconfucianism, and Motoori Norinaga; you need Buddhism to make sense of any of this). For Taoism, start with the Tao Te Ching, then read the Zhuangzi. While you're doing this, use the I Ching (the Willhelm/Baynes translation); from here you'll either get it or you won't.

For Japanese, go over to /int/, find the /lang/ thread, and use the resources there to start learning Japanese.

[Anonymous No.19205379]

>>19205370
It's true. Buddhism lives rent-free in Hinduism. Gotta start with the 'Jeets

[Anonymous No.19205490]

>>19204508
>>19205379

>multiple Buddhist texts
YIKES

For Buddhism you should only sit and read the simple stuff first, as in for a year or so at the very least. That means Dhammapada, Heart Sutra, and maybe What the Buddha taught. For many people, these texts should be the most they should need.

Trying to absorb anything else is useless at this stage as you'll skim over 90% of the content because the basics aren't properly covered/understood well.

[Anonymous No.19205631]

>>19205490
> Heart Sutra,
That's not buddhism. Buddhism is at best the buddhist sutras in theravada.

[Anonymous No.19205704]

>>19204484
You can check out this list of online philosophy encyclopedia articles for Indian philosophy to see if any of it looks like stuff you might want to read the writings of.

Hindu-related entries

https://iep.utm.edu/hindu-ph/
https://iep.utm.edu/upanisad/
https://iep.utm.edu/bha-gita/
https://iep.utm.edu/sankhya/
https://iep.utm.edu/yoga/
https://iep.utm.edu/nyaya/
https://iep.utm.edu/bhartrihari/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kumaarila/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shankara/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sriharsa/
https://iep.utm.edu/bhed-ved/
https://iep.utm.edu/ramanuja/
https://iep.utm.edu/venkatan/
https://iep.utm.edu/madhva/
https://iep.utm.edu/kashmiri/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gangesa/

non-Hindu Indian-related entries

https://iep.utm.edu/jain/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/buddha/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/
https://iep.utm.edu/vasubandhu/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dharmakiirti/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/saantarak-sita/
https://iep.utm.edu/santideva/
https://iep.utm.edu/tibetan/

[Anonymous No.19205729]

>>19204484
i just read the most popular texts which were the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Dhammapada. That worked for me desu.
Reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse helped to make sense of it in a more practical sense.

[Anonymous No.19205735]

>>19205729
Meditating also has helped me to understand it better

[Anonymous No.19205890]

>>19205490
You will notice, if you are capable of noticing things, that the chart advises you to start with the Dhammapada or the Heart Sutra, and the rest of it builds from those.

[Anonymous No.19205905]

>>19205631
>the buddhist sutras in theravada.
Entire passages of the nikayas are contained in the prajñaparamita sutras, which the heart sutra is a condensed version of. It's all Buddhism. Keep coping hyperprotestant, it doesn't work like that and the sutta pitaka is not the "buddhist bible"

[Anonymous No.19207314]

ty for all the advice lads
i got filtered by the new captcha yday and gave up