write any history of successive philosophies of India, but it is necessity that each system should be studied and interpreted in all the growth it has acquired through the successive ages of history from its conflicts with the rival systems as one whole [Footnote ref 1].  In the history of Indian philosophy we have no place for systems which had their importance only so long as they lived and were then forgotten or remembered only as targets of criticism.  Each system grew and developed by the untiring energy of its adherents through all the successive ages of history, and a history of this growth is a history of its conflicts.  No study of any Indian system is therefore adequate unless it is taken throughout all the growth it attained by the work of its champions, the commentators whose selfless toil for it had kept it living through the ages of history.

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[Footnote 1:  In the case of some systems it is indeed possible to suggest one or two earlier phases of the system, but this principle cannot be carried all through, for the supplementary information and arguments given by the later commentators often appear as harmonious elaborations of the earlier writings and are very seldom in conflict with them.]

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Growth of the Philosophic Literature.

It is difficult to say how the systems were originally formulated, and what were the influences 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