nfluences that led to it. We know that a
spirit of philosophic enquiry had already begun in the days of the
earliest Upani@sads. The spirit of that enquiry was that the final
essence or truth was the atman, that a search after it was our
highest duty, and that until we are ultimately merged in it we
can only feel this truth and remain uncontented with everything
else and say that it is not the truth we want, it is not the truth we
want (_neti neti_). Philosophical enquires were however continuing
in circles other than those of the Upani@sads. Thus the Buddha
who closely followed the early Upani@sad period, spoke of and enumerated
sixty-two kinds of heresies [Footnote ref 1], and these can hardly be
traced in the Upani@sads. The Jaina activities were also probably
going on contemporaneously but in the Upani@sads no reference
to these can be found. We may thus reasonably suppose that there
were different forms of philosophic enquiry in spheres other than
those of the Upani@sad sages, of which we have but scanty records.
It seems probable that the Hindu systems of thought originated
among the sages who though attached chiefly to the Upani@sad
circles used to take note of the discussions and views of the antagonistic
and heretical philosophic circles. In the assemblies of these
sages and their pupils, the views of the heretical circles were probably
discussed and refuted. So it continued probably for some time
when some illustrious member of the assembly such as Gautama
or Kanada collected the purport of these discussions on various
topics and problems, filled up many of the missing links, classified
and arranged these in the form of a system of philosophy and
recorded it in sutras. These sutras were intended probably for
people who had attended the elaborate oral discussions and thus
could easily follow the meaning of the suggestive phrases contained
in the aphorisms. The sutras thus contain sometimes
allusions to the views of the rival schools and indicate the way in
which they could be refuted. The commentators were possessed
of the general drift of the different discussions alluded to and
conveyed from generation to generation through an unbroken
chain of succession of teachers and pupils. They were however
free to supplement these traditionary explanations with their own

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[Footnote 1: _Brahmajala-sutta, Digha_, 1. p. 12 ff.]

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