First philosopher Thales or Kapil?

And, it is said that human civilization has reached the principle of Bigwang through the path shown by him. For this reason, Thales is considered the father of philosophy or the first philosopher of the world. There are different claims, but it is widely accepted that Thales himself laid the foundations of philosophy.

A Google search with the keyword 'first philosopher of the world' reveals several pages of results related to Tales of Miletus. This means that most of the authors of the material available on the Internet consider Thales to be the world's first philosopher. Based on the evidence so far, it was Thales who laid the foundation of rational thinking about philosophy in ancient Greece, around the time of Siddhartha Gautama. To confirm why Thales of Miletus is the first philosopher, author AC Grayling writes in the book 'The History of Philosophy', 'We know for certain that Thales was the first person to think systematically about the origin and nature of the universe. Not only did he think about it, he also thought about it, not religious or mythical, but specifically philosophical.'

Primarily, philosophy deals with finding the meaning of both life and the world. Among these, the question of how creation began is a matter of interest to philosophers. In the Greek tradition, Thales opened a new way to it, which Goretto has become today as the highway of philosophy.

Thales' philosophy was that the creation of the world began from water. We don't know much about Thales. There is a controversy about what are his compositions and on which subjects he wrote. He came to be known from the writings of the later philosopher Aristotle. Based on what evidence historians have found so far, it is certain that Thales is the founder of the Greek philosophical tradition. However, to say that he is the founder of Unani Najodi philosophy is to say that he is the first philosopher in the world and this has been accepted by many people so far.

Did 'Philosophy' begin with Thales? No, instead, Kapilmuni or Maharishi Kapil of Kapilvastu in present day Nepal may be the first philosopher in the world. Kapil, the pioneer of Sankhya philosophy among the 6 main streams of Eastern philosophy, took the mystery of the universe-life out of the myth and the mystery of God and explained it rationally for the first time.

When is Kapil's life span? Not sure exactly. However, most historians agree that he was about three centuries earlier than Thales or Buddha. It is almost certain that his time was between the 10th century BC and the 8th century BC. Although some have claimed the 6th or 5th century BC, it does not seem to match.

Historian Richard Garvey, who has studied extensively on Kapil and Samkhya philosophy, has written, "The essence of India's Upanishads, Puranas, Buddhist philosophy and Lokayat philosophy culminates in Samkhya philosophy." Garvey's argument that Samkhya philosophy was the source of other major Indian philosophies shows the antiquity of Samkhya. Kapil's Sankhya philosophy can be seen in the Upanishads, the main texts of Vedanta philosophy. Similarly, Samkhya has an influence on Lokayat and Buddhist philosophy.

In all these philosophies, Kapil has his own interpretation of Sankhya philosophies. Since the writing tradition was not established in India at the time of Kapil, Samkhya philosophy is known only from the Upanishads and Buddhist texts, just as Thales is known only from the writings of Aristotle. Therefore, modern historians have worked hard to rediscover what was the true essence of Samkhya philosophy. Of these, the efforts of historians Richard Garvey and Deviprasad Chattopadhyay have been a great resource for us.

Why consider Kapil a philosopher according to the modern definition? You have to look at Sankhya-Saar to find out. Based on the discussion about Sankhya philosophy in various sources, the essence of Sankhya philosophy can be captured in three points.

First, the goal of Samkhya philosophy was to discover the cause of human suffering and find a solution to it. This is the subject of Nitant Darshan or 'Philosophy'. It is from this philosophy that the Buddha derived suffering as a philosophical concept.

Second, Kapil's Samkhya philosophy has a rational explanation of the creation of the world. Three hundred years before Thales, Kapil's theory is much more complicated than Thales's. Kapil says, 'The creation of the world is due to the interaction of Prakriti and Purusha (or Pradhan).' Historians have different opinions on how to interpret Prakriti and Purusha. Most of them have interpreted Prakriti as matter and Purusha as Prana (Consciousness). That is, the world is a nexus of matter and life or consciousness. That is, in the beginning there was matter, it took various forms and after consciousness was added to it, the world came into its present form. This interpretation is not wrong even today. It has taken away the creation of the universe from God or mythical stories and brought it to a rational explanation. According to the information received till date, Kapil is the first philosopher in the world to give such a rational explanation of the creation of the world and Sankhya is the oldest philosophy.

Thirdly, Kapil put forward two other principles in Samkhya philosophy, dynamics and the principle of cause-effect relationship, which have been accepted by most of the modern philosophies. Both theories have been accepted from Buddhist philosophy to modern Marxist philosophy. The principle of dynamism states that everything in the world is changing and nothing is immutable. In simple language of cause-effect theory, any event has a cause (background) and an effect (effect), which in turn becomes a cause and another event occurs. This is how the cycle continues.

Kapil's theory about the creation of the universe is in accordance with the definition of modern philosophy, while Kapil's theory about dynamics and cause-effect relationship is adopted by modern philosophy. Kapil's philosophy is more rational, mature and higher level than Thales' Paniism. Today Thales's waterism has been proven wrong, but the relevance of Sankhya is reaffirmed.

Kapil is considered a 'primitive scholar' in the Indian philosophy tradition. In the Upanishads and the Puranas, Kapil is clearly described as an Adividwan. Today, there is no question about the antiquity of Sankhya philosophy, nor is there any doubt that Kapil was the pioneer. So Kapil is the first person who can be confirmed as a 'philosopher' by the modern definition.

Similarly, today there is neither doubt that Kapil is centuries older than Thales, nor dispute that modern definitions confirm Kapil as a philosopher. By any standard Thales is a philosopher, by all those standards Kapil is also a philosopher. But how did Thales become the world's first philosopher and Kapil the first Indian philosopher? This is a misconception created by the Eurocentric intellectuals, who see everything European as global and anything outside of Europe as regional. Thales is the first philosopher of the world and Kapil is limited to Indian primitives because of the mistaken concept that the history of philosophy begins with the Griselli philosophical tradition.

The knowledge traditions of the world were never isolated from each other. Since ancient times, knowledge has been exchanged between Europe-Asia and Africa. Thousands of years before Kapil, the merchants of the Indus civilization used to go to Mesopotamia for trade. There was a rich exchange of knowledge and technology between the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the Chinese and the Sindhs. Among these, the Mesopotamian knowledge tradition developed into the Greek philosophical tradition, while the Indus River civilization developed into the Indian philosophical tradition. However, the people who played a major role in this were the people who migrated to India and Europe from the Yamnaya cultural area, who are known today as Indo-European speaking people or Aryans for convenience. Therefore, it is not appropriate for us to consider Thales and Kapil as philosophers from different planets. They were two philosophers from the common knowledge tradition of Afro-Euro-Asian geography. Although it is natural that these two knowledge traditions have their own characteristics, they are not mutually exclusive.

Another question may arise in this – Kapil was Kapil Vastu? This may not be a very important question for Samkhya philosophy and Kapil's historicity, but human curiosity always wants its solution. According to various historians, he belonged to Kapilvastu as today Kapilvastu is named after Kapil. Similarly, it seems that the 'Kapil branch' mentioned in the Yajurveda may be the predecessor of the 'Shakya' dynasty of Siddhartha Gautama. The story that Kapil settled in Kapilvastu must have some basis. This also strengthens the claim that Kapil was Kapilvastu.

Another argument that strengthens the claim that Kapil belonged to Kapilvastu is the influence of Samkhya philosophy on Buddha. Kapil's Sankhya tradition, which dates back to a few centuries before Buddha, was unbroken and alive around Kapilvastu until the time of Siddhartha Gautama. Therefore, Siddhartha Gautama was directly influenced by Samkhya philosophy. Buddhist philosophy is most influenced by Samkhya philosophy. Just as Kapil developed the philosophical concept of suffering in Samkhya, the same tradition was followed by the Buddha. Sankhya was also the source of Buddha's doctrine of non-violence. There is no need to doubt that Buddha got the principle of dynamics and the principle of cause-effect relationship from Kapil, because there is no other source of these principles.

After Siddhartha Gautama left the palace and took sannyasa, the first monastery or ashram to which Vidyarjanarth took refuge was the ashram of Alara Kalam, a guru of the Samkhya tradition. Alara Kalam was passing on Kapil's knowledge to the new generation many generations after Kapil. The reason why Gautama Buddha was so influenced by Samkhya philosophy must be the lively influence of Samkhya knowledge tradition in Kapilvastu region. The Buddha repeatedly referred to the Sanatana Dharma, which means the religion that has passed down from time immemorial. If Sanatana Dharma of the Kapilvastu region was none other than Samkhya, the philosophy of Buddha would have been completely different from Samkhya.

Therefore, there is no reason why Nepal should consider Kapil as its national hero, but it is not very important. What is important is our efforts to research more about Kapil and uncover his philosophy. State bodies and universities could also work on it and if the views of the world's first philosopher could be selected from the influence of Upanishads, Buddhist philosophy and Lokayat, a new dimension could be added to the world in the field of philosophy and history.

What is interesting to do more research about Kapil is that some Sanskrit texts, including the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana, call him an asura. Similarly, Kapil's chief disciple is Asuri. What this implies is that Kapil was not of the Vedic Aryan tradition. The philosophy advanced by Samkhya philosophy is also completely different from the Rigvedic tradition. Historians who have worked seriously on ancient Indian history have made great efforts to clarify the meaning of the word Asura. One of these views is that they were people of the Indus civilization, that is, the Indian tribes of that time. Scientists studying ancient DNA agree that the people of the Indus civilization were the ancestors of the Dravidian race and that they arrived thousands of years before the Vedic Aryans. This indicates that Kapil was not a Vedic Aryan but a Dravidian ancestor. If it is proved that Kapil was the ancestor of the Dravidians, it can prove that the Indian tradition of knowledge was not exclusive to the Vedic Aryas but was shared by all South Asian people, and everyone contributed to it. It needs more research and analysis.

Whether Kapil is Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic or Tibeto-Burman, his Sankhya philosophy has an influence even today. Not only in the Indian philosophical tradition, but also in the European philosophical tradition. It is our responsibility to find out, understand and tell more about him. It can be an important milestone to break the clutches of Europe-centered knowledge, and it can be an important gift of Nepal to the philosophy of the world. Kapilavastu is not only the birthplace of Buddha, but also known as the birthplace of philosophy and the birthplace of the world's first philosopher.