Sankhya and Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta, Vaisesika and Nyaya, the six classic

systems, philosophies, or more literally points of view" ( darsanas;from the root

drs, "to see), are regarded as the six aspects of a single orthodox tradition.
Though apparently and even overtly contradictory, they are understood to be
complementary projections of the one truth on various planes of consciousness,
valid intuitions from differing points of view-like the experiences of the seven
blind men feeling the elephant, in the popular Buddhist fable. The founders, actual
or supposed - Kapiia, Patanajali, jaimini, Vyasa, Gautama, and Kanada-should
probably be regarded rather as schools than as individuals. Nothing is known of
them but their names. Their sutras stand at the beginning of a copious literature
of commentators, yet are themselves but the last terms of a long foregoing period
of discussion, each of them including arguments against all the others. Moreover,
without the commentaries the texts would be unintelligible: they are not the self-
sufficient works of independent thinkers, but mnemonic 'threads (sutras) for the
guidance of oral teaching in the ancient Indian style of the guru and his
adhikarin.1