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In India the borders between Philosophy and religion are somewhat less tense than in western philosophy. For most of the Hindu philosophers the sacred
traditions, as for example the Veda, represent the basis for all speculation. The main doctrines of these religious sources, for example incarnation, karma and moksha are fully accepted without any sense of criticism.
The orthodox doctrines may differ in their metaphysical views (the definition of soul, monism and pluralism etc.), but they agree in general in their
views about the central questions of life, as they are the sense and the goal of life or the different means of liberation. We can say, that they represent different types of view, which are adapted to the personal
needs of human beings. These views, we call them in India darshanas, can differ from each other. In the western culture it probably would not be possible, to accept on one side the negation of the existence of god
and at the same time to believe in the existence of a personal god and an impersonal absolute reality. In India this is possible, as the phenomenology of religion is much wider than in the Christian tradition.
Besides this acceptance of the religious traditions in India there existed as well an opposition, which was directed in their philosophical view
towards the religious tradition and its authority. The school of Charvaka for example denied the existence of the transcendental, they believed in a firm, materialistically orientated dogma. Bakhtavar propagated in
the 19th century the philosophical view of "emptiness". This view, which can be closely linked to the Mahayana-Buddhism, was opposed to the Charvakas´ conviction, that the interior world of human
beings can be explained only through the external factors of the material world. Charvaka believed, that the external world was a mere reflection of the human self.
Athavale explains in his article the nature and the functions of Indian philosophy. His main interest is not the mention and distinction of the
different philosophical systems, much more he tries to give to the reader a sense of Indian Philosophy. To his opinion, philosophy means first of all a means of salvation. In that sense traditional Indian philosophy
might provide the world and mankind with the possibility of finding new ethical values and a better understanding of life. In his article Athavale gives on one side an inside in the very complex subject of Indian
philosophy, on the other side he provides the reader with a deep inside in the phenomenon `Indian world of thougt´.
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