The six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, or darshanas, are systematic traditions of argument and analysis concerned with logic, the nature of reality, the self and the path to liberation. Compiled into formal sutra literature from roughly the last centuries BCE through the early centuries CE, and elaborated through many centuries of commentary afterward, they represent Indian philosophy's most sustained engagement with epistemology, metaphysics and soteriology, and continue to shape Hindu theology and practice.
The concept of darshana
Darshana, literally "view" or "seeing," designates a complete philosophical system: a theory of valid knowledge (pramana), an account of the nature of reality, and a path toward moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth (samsara). Six schools that accept the authority of the Vedas are traditionally classed as astika (orthodox): Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Purva Mimamsa and Uttara Mimamsa, the last commonly known as Vedanta. Schools that reject Vedic authority are classed as nastika (heterodox), principally Charvaka, Jainism and Buddhism. The six orthodox schools are traditionally studied in three complementary pairs: Nyaya with Vaisheshika, Samkhya with Yoga, and Purva Mimamsa with Uttara Mimamsa.
Nyaya
Nyaya, the school of logic and epistemology, is traced to the sage Gautama (also called Akshapada), whose Nyaya Sutra was compiled over several centuries, roughly between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. It sets out four valid means of knowledge - perception, inference, comparison and verbal testimony - and developed an elaborate theory of syllogistic reasoning used in philosophical and theological debate across Indian traditions, including by its rivals. Nyaya underwent a major revival in medieval India as Navya-Nyaya ("New Logic"), associated above all with Gangesha Upadhyaya of Mithila in the 13th century and later scholars centered in Bengal, who developed a highly technical logical vocabulary still studied by specialists in Sanskrit philosophy.
Vaisheshika
Vaisheshika, attributed to the sage Kanada and his Vaisheshika Sutra, is concerned with metaphysics and natural philosophy. It proposes that the physical world is composed of indivisible atoms (paramanu) that combine according to fixed principles to form all matter, and it organizes reality into categories (padartha) such as substance, quality, action, generality, particularity and inherence. Vaisheshika's atomism developed independently of, but is sometimes compared with, Greek atomist theories. By the early medieval period Vaisheshika had largely merged with Nyaya into a combined Nyaya-Vaisheshika tradition.
Samkhya
Samkhya is among the oldest of the six schools and is traditionally attributed to the sage Kapila, though its earliest surviving systematic text, Ishvarakrishna's Samkhya Karika, dates to around the 4th or 5th century CE. It proposes a strict dualism between Purusha, pure consciousness, and Prakriti, primordial matter, whose interaction gives rise to the entire manifest world through an evolving sequence of twenty-five principles (tattvas). Liberation is achieved through discriminative knowledge (viveka) that separates consciousness from its entanglement with matter. Classical Samkhya is notably non-theistic, treating the universe as arising without reference to a creator god.
Yoga
The Yoga school shares Samkhya's metaphysics of Purusha and Prakriti but adds a theistic element and a detailed practical discipline for achieving liberation. Its foundational text, Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, compiled sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 4th century CE, sets out the Ashtanga or eight-limbed path: ethical restraints (yama), personal observances (niyama), posture (asana), breath control (pranayama), withdrawal of the senses (pratyahara), concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana) and absorption (samadhi). This framework underlies most later traditions of Hindu meditative and ascetic practice, distinct from the physical postural yoga that developed much later.
Purva Mimamsa
Purva Mimamsa ("prior inquiry"), founded on Jaimini's Mimamsa Sutra, is concerned with the correct interpretation and performance of Vedic ritual. It holds that the Vedas are eternal and authorless (apaurusheya), and that the disciplined performance of ritual duty (dharma) sustains cosmic order independent of any personal deity. Its major commentators include Shabara, and later the rival exegetes Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara, whose seventh- and eighth-century commentaries shaped much of later Hindu ritual and legal theory.
Uttara Mimamsa (Vedanta)
Uttara Mimamsa, better known as Vedanta ("end of the Veda"), takes the Upanishads rather than ritual injunctions as its primary scripture, and centers on the relationship between Atman, the individual self, and Brahman, the ultimate reality. Its foundational text is Badarayana's Brahma Sutra, itself terse enough to have generated centuries of rival commentary. Three sub-schools became especially influential: Advaita Vedanta, associated with Adi Shankaracharya (traditionally dated to the 8th century CE), which holds that Atman and Brahman are ultimately identical and that the perceived world of multiplicity is maya, an appearance superimposed on a single underlying reality; Vishishtadvaita, or qualified non-dualism, associated with Ramanuja (11th-12th century), which holds that individual souls and the world are real but exist in eternal dependence on Brahman as parts of a single organic whole; and Dvaita, or strict dualism, associated with Madhvacharya (13th century), which holds that God, souls and matter are eternally and irreducibly distinct.
Heterodox traditions
Alongside the six orthodox schools, classical India produced philosophical systems that rejected Vedic authority. Charvaka, also called Lokayata, was a materialist and skeptical tradition that denied the existence of the soul, an afterlife, karma and any world beyond direct sensory experience; because its own texts have not survived, its positions are known mainly through the often hostile summaries of rival schools. Jainism, systematized by Mahavira in the 6th century BCE though tracing its lineage of teachers (tirthankaras) much further back, centers on ahimsa (non-violence), ascetic discipline and the doctrine of anekantavada, the many-sidedness of truth. Buddhism, founded by Siddhartha Gautama in roughly the same period, rejects both the Vedas and the concept of a permanent self (anatman), teaching liberation from suffering through the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. A further heterodox tradition, Ajivika, associated with the teacher Makkhali Gosala and built on strict determinism (niyati), was historically significant but died out by the medieval period and survives only in fragments preserved by rival traditions.
Shared concepts and method
Despite their disagreements, the six orthodox schools share a common philosophical vocabulary: the relationship between Atman and Brahman, the workings of karma and rebirth (samsara), the ultimate goal of moksha, and the concept of maya as a veiling or illusory power. Most schools also share a commitment to reasoned debate structured around accepted pramanas, and to a commentarial method in which later thinkers advance their positions through detailed exegesis of earlier root texts (sutras) rather than through wholly new treatises, a pattern that produced an unbroken tradition of philosophical argument in Sanskrit lasting well over a thousand years.
Further reading
- Flood, Gavin. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press, 1996
- Hiriyanna, M. Outlines of Indian Philosophy. Motilal Banarsidass, 1993
- Klostermaier, Klaus K. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press, 2007
- Radhakrishnan, S. Indian Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 1923
- Stietencron, Heinrich von. Hindu Myth, Hindu History. Permanent Black, 2005
See also
This entry was last revised on 4 August 2026.