INKA PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROJECTION INTO THE

FUTURE

INKA DOCTOR JUVENAL PACHECO FARFÁN

CUSCO - PERÚ
 INKA PHILOSOPHY
AND ITS
PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE

Original work written by

Inka Doctor Juvenal Pacheco Farfán
All the authors rights reserved
Any or total copy of this material is forbidden
unless the written authorization of the Author.

Address: El Ovalo C-17 Av. Infancia

Wanchaq, Cusco – Perú
Phone: +51-84-224288
E-mail: inkajuvenalpacheco@gmail.com

Translation made in the city of Cusco – Perú

January 2005.
 INDEX
Prologue............................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................5
“INKA PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE”...................8
CHAPTER I.....................................................................................................................8
1. ESTABLISHING THE PROBLEM........................................................................8
2. DETERMINING THE PROBLEM.......................................................................11
3. MOTIVATING REASONS FOR DETERMINING THE PROBLEM................13
4. PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS CONCERNING PHILOSOPHY..................18
4.1 ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF PHILOSOPHY............................................20
4.2 PHILOSOPHY AND THE PHILOSOPHERS.................................................23
4.3 THE PHILOSOPHERS AND THEIR COMPLEXES.....................................28
4.4 PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL CLASSES...............................................30
4.5 THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY..................................................................34
CHAPTER II..................................................................................................................37
1. HISTORICAL – CULTURAL CATEGORIES FOR THE
SYSTEMATIZATION OF INCA PHILOSOPHY........................................................37
1.1 CULTURE AND INKA CULTURE...................................................................37
1.2 CIVILIZATION AND INKA CIVILIZATION..................................................40
1.3 IDEOLOGY AND INKA IDEOLOGY...............................................................40
1.4 SCIENCE AND INKA SCIENCE.....................................................................42
1.5 TECHNOLOGY AND INKA TECHNOLOGY.................................................45
1.6 HISTORY AND INKA HISTORY......................................................................48
1.7 INKA WRITING: THE KHIPUS......................................................................52
2. ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS AND ADVENTUROUS LUCUBRATIONS. 59
3. THE PROGRESSIVE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN THOUGHT........................61
CHAPTER III................................................................................................................67
1. PHILOSOPHY AND INKA PHILOSOPHY.........................................................67
2. THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY....................................74
3. THE CONSTANT DILEMMA OF PHILOSOPHY: MATERIALISM AND
IDEALISM.....................................................................................................................76
4. THE POSSIBILITY OF A MATERIALISTIC CURRENT OF INKA
PHILOSOPHY...............................................................................................................77
5. THE POSSIBILITY OF AN IDEALISTIC CURRENT OF INKA
PHILOSOPHY...............................................................................................................88
6. SOME CATEGORIES IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION OF THE
INKA...............................................................................................................................92
6.1 CONCEPTIONS OF THE SOUL OR SPIRIT.................................................93
6.2 SPACE AS A CATEGORY IN THE INKA PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION
95
6.3 TIME AS A CATEGORY IN PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION..................97
7. THE POSSIBILITY OF SOME PHILOSOPHICAL DISCIPLINES IN THE
INKA CONCEPTION....................................................................................................99
7.1 ETHICS AND MORALITY.............................................................................100
7.2 AXIOLOGY OR VALUES................................................................................109
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................115
 Prologue
Dr. Juvenal Pacheco Farfan, Principal Docent of Exclusive Dedication at the
Tricentennial National University of “San Antonio Abad” of Cusco, has had the
kindness to entrust me with writing the prologue to his investigative work: “INKA
PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE.”
With satisfaction I have accepted this task, even though the vast and complex field of
philosophy is not my usual domain of study. In this case, an exception lies in regard to
a link with the Andean Inka, whose language as a cultural product impassions me to
study it from all possible perspectives. It is indubitable that to have an appreciation of
a work as broad as the present concerning the philosophy of the Inca, I have to strive
to achieve, I’d hope, an appraising focus as skillful as it is impartial.
First of all, it pleases me to recognize in Juvenal Pacheco Farfan a true passion for all
things pertaining to the Inca, especially for things relating to their philosophy. It is
known that whoever comes to master a topic, and to have passion for it, will find
themselves on a road with many promising perspectives and the subsequent fruits of
labor in the short or long terms.
The author of this work has effusively devoted himself to the topic. He has thought
and pondered upon this work, carefully planning its proper execution. He has realized
an adequate design and has documented, with requisite patience and meticulousness,
a select bibliography of more than fifty reliable sources.
With the self-possession necessary of scientific investigation, Dr. Juvenal Pacheco
Farfan has helped direct the well-oriented advance of his field. He has lent solidity
and consistency to his focus of study.
The central problem under investigation in this work is that which figures in its title,
“INKA PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE”. Around this
problem revolves each of the three chapters of this work. Each of these is divided into
sub-chapters, subtitles, and epigraphs as they appear in the summary.
In CHAPTER I, after outlining and determining the problem, the reasons that
induced Dr. Juvenal Pacheco Farfan to select the topic in question are explained. He
then begins to reflect on philosophy in order to better elucidate all that will be dealt
with in the subsequent chapters.
Philosophy for the author is, in the end, “a science, an integration of knowledge that
has been rationally, methodically, and systematically developed by humankind in its
attempt to explain universal problems related to existence within the ethical-moral
and axiological canons. The crux of the work is its ability demonstrate whether or not
a truly unique Andean-Incan philosophy exists in the face of the incredulity of the
pessimists and skeptics. To demonstrate this fact, after validating himself with
affirmations and quotes from renowned authors, he continues to support “a
categorical form of the existence of an Inca philosophy” clearly presented by valid
and incontrovertible evidence.
In CHAPTER II the author engages in the discovery of historical-cultural
“categories” for the systematization of Inca philosophy.
Of these categories, the author refrains from giving us superfluous amounts of
information. He selects from the categories of CULTURE, CIVILIZATION,
IDEOLOGY, SCIENCE, and TECHNOLOGY only the most vital information to
define his values. After arriving at a conceptualization more or less complete, he dares
to affirm with certainty that the Inkan society elaborated and cultivated each of these
values and reached categorical ranks of high quality, surpassing in certain aspects
even western culture. He gives base to this assertion with the indisputable fact that the
Inka culture was capable of “conquering hunger, misery, and human exploitation by
utilizing a collective workforce that was organized, obligatory, and disciplined by its
ethical-moral standards and axioms of solidarity, reciprocity and humanitarianism as
demonstrated in AYNI (free service among the community)”. What better
demonstration is there than this!
In CHAPTER III, the final chapter, splitting a fundamental problem of philosophy,
the author of the work proposes to arrive at a conception of Andean-Incan philosophy
that is evident and clearly demonstrable. He elucidates by approaching the ancient
problems of MATERIALISM and IDEALISM as permanent philosophical positions
that struggle to overpower one another, as has been done over the ages and in the
ideologies of present world cultures. Analyzing the positions of diverse authors in a
critical and comparative form and then relating all of them with the Inka reality, he
reveals in this culture of our ancestors an evident “current of materialistic Inka
philosophy”. Also, he demonstrates a coexisting “current of idealistic Inka
philosophy”.
Following this, the author lays out “some categories in the conception of Inka
philosophy”. He tells us about the Inka conception of the soul or spirit, the vertical
division of the Inka world into “jananpacha”, “kaypacha” and “ukjupacha” with their
respective celestial, earthly and dead beings.
He refers to the Inka classification of time consisting of the “purunpacha” (remote
time); “ñaupapacha” (ancient time) and pachakuti (time that changes and renews).
Finally, he discusses certain philosophical disciplines within the Inka conception,
including moral, ethical and axiological. After conveniently clarifying and
differentiating these concepts on the basis of the definitions from many authors, he
expresses the affirmation that one of “the largest accomplishments of the
Tawantinsuyana society is its creation of an integrated system of norms and moral
principles whose rigidity and strictness guaranteed the total success of the social
collective and its familial relations.” These cultural norms allowed no exception,
everyone had to conform to them, beginning with the Inka and ending in the lower
classes. For this reason, the political and social organization of the Inka society was
admirable, constituting one of the greatest civilizations and cultures of humanity.
To conclude, we should express that we are pleased by the manner in which Dr
Juvenal Pacheco Farfan works. He expounds on each of the topics, not only in a form
both ordered and methodical, but also well planned. He does his best to clarify all of
the constituent concepts. He clearly presents the viewpoints and opinions of the
various authors until arriving at a clear definition, which serves as a basis from which
to spread his definitive personal opinion.
The present investigation is valuable, therefore, for its solid content, the originality of
its focus, the clarity of its ideas and finally for the concise and correct language that it
employs.
Cusco, January 14, 1994.
 Dr. David I. Samanez Florez
Doctor of Education
Doctor of Letters and Humanities
Full Member of the Higher Academy
of the
Quechua Language – Qosqo
 INTRODUCTION
The present work of investigation, entitled “INKA PHILOSOPHY AND ITS
PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE”, is a product of study, scrutiny and analysis of
the Andean-Inka society, whose existence in a determined reality and historical epoch
is recognized and accepted universally. There existed an Inka culture and civilization
with an integrated organization and levels of development so exceptional that they
inspire the admiration of all of humanity.
It was an extraordinary society whose harmonious and balanced development was not
the product of spontaneity, improvisation or accident, but was the result of planning,
organization, programming and integration with a central ideo-philosophical system
practiced by the entire continental Tawantinsuyana nation. Thus, from an economic
aspect, we have the imposition of collective property as a means of production with a
distribution both just and equal, avoiding the existence of rich and poor, exploiters
and exploited. From a social aspect, the Inkas managed to form a hierarchy structured
according to the functions, obligations and responsibilities of the individual in relation
to the collective as a whole. They succeeded in the formation of the ideals of the
COMMON GOOD and SOCIAL JUSTICE. In the political realm, the Inka and the
governing class rendered themselves to the service of the collective, achieving the
well being of all of the inhabitants of the empire. In education, the child, the
adolescent and the youth received an integrated development, learning and enacting
the axiological principle that work is the primary ineluctable task of the human to
achieve personal, familial, and social well being. The religious and military classes, in
addition to filling strictly institutional functions, exercised purposes eminently social.
That is to say, they managed to evolve an equilibrated society with surplus
production, where the ideal of general well being was made manifest. From here we
are able to infer that the entire socioeconomic, political and cultural organization was
sustained in a common philosophy.
It was an INKA PHILOSOPHY that was a product of the relation between man and
the earth as well as social and historic experience.
It is indubitable that the detractors (such as the agnostics, the skeptics, the sophists,
the metaphysicists, the religious fanatics, and the shamed intellectuals and historians
that suffer the syndrome of capitalism) of the Andean Inka collective and its cultural
manifestations will reject our thesis. Many will consider the existence of an Inka
philosophy a form of utopia. In the past five hundred years they have tried to justify
the Spanish conquest, with its secular genocide and ethnocide as well as the
subsequent forms of colonialism and imperialism, in the name of culture, religion,
language and/or referring to pseudo scientific theories such as the superiority of the
European-Western race and culture.
Furthermore, from the time of the conquest to the present, these ideologists and
intellectuals, defenders of the dominant economic class and retainers of political
power in Latin American and the Andean countries, have dedicated themselves to the
easy task of copying, plagiarizing, tracing and transmitting a multitude of cultural
forms, including the multitude of philosophical systems. Utilizing education as one of
it’s powerful instruments of domination, the state has wanted to teach that the culture
brought and imposed by the colonialist and imperialist countries is superior, better
and more evolved. To negate the HISTORIC INKA era and to justify the crimes of the
invaders, they resort to using words such as pre-Colombian, pre-Conquest, and pre-
Hispanic. When in reality the presence of these conquistadors from Europe in the
villages of the New World has been synonymous with destruction, exploitation,
blood, death, and pain.
In parallel, we have inculcated the attitude of rejection. We disdain the cultural
manifestations of anything native, original or indigenous to the point of
embarrassment. This is to say that the imperialist, colonialist countries in addition to
subjugating us materially and economically, sacking and preying on our natural
resources and riches, have dedicated themselves to subjugating us mentally and
spiritually. There have been five hundred years of alienation, estrangement, and
depersonalization in which we have lived with our backs to our own ways of life and
its own cultural manifestations.
To recognize the glorious history of the Great Continental Nation of the Inka and its
own original, extraordinary, singular and universally admired culture, in this work we
try to submerge ourselves in the world vision, the thought and philosophical
conception of the Tawantinsuyana collective. For this, we use the categories of
western philosophy and the resulting Spanish – European bibliography. This permits
the objective demonstration that there existed an INKA PHILOSOPHY, superior to
that of the Spanish and the European. It is a philosophy profoundly human, managing
to obtain the ideals of the COMMON GOOD and SOCIAL JUSTICE.
People with knowledge of present day Peru know it to be submitted to new forms of
colonialism and imperialism with very profound problems and contradictions like
most Latin American countries. This urges the necessity to reformulate our thesis and
necessitates a return to the GLORIOUS INKA SOCIETY to gather and rescue the
teachings and lessons found throughout the culture’s valuable manifestations and to
initiate the process of reconstruction in order to initiate the evolution and definitive
liberation of the Andean and Latin American countries. We need to reconstruct our
own consciousness, liberate ourselves mentally, consciously and spiritually. Then, we
need to structuralize a project and program of development with national and Latin
American ideals, goals and objectives.
Luis Valcárcel, the illustrious Peruvian and Latin American, invites us and challenges
us when he maintains: “Nothing of the science and philosophy of the amautas (Inka
wise men) has come to us: all that we know is what we can infer by examination, and
analysis of the surviving artifacts. Their highly cultured society was decapitated with
the destruction of its governing class.
All that was left was the large amount of laborers, without their leaders and guides, a
great body that lost its head. Even so, we admire and take advantage of this great
cultural heritage. Its uninterrupted and profound study is the primary task of the
intelligencia of Peru.”
In the final conclusion he proposes: “We can, with profound satisfaction, support that
it has been absolutely proven that the imperial state of the Inkas was one of the great
attempts for Universal Well Being. There were Inkas who understood, like no other
civilization in the world, that priority number one in all organized societies should be
the fulfillment of the primordial necessities of the human as a biological organism,
which is to say that the economy forms the basic order for cultural activity…
Our final conclusion then is that the greatest contribution that Peru can offer from its
history is the political-economic system invented by the Inkas and put into practice
with definite success, having achieved the total eradication of hunger and misery”.
(Historia del Perú Antiguo.Vol. I, pp.100-102).
As pan-Andean humans, with a dialectical attitude, we recognize the limitations and
imperfections of the present work. But we are sure that the patriots, pan-Andeans and
Latin Americans, lovers of their heritage and its cultural manifestations will stimulate
us and goad us in the selfless task of continuing in the difficult task of delving deeper
into the study of Inka philosophy and putting its teachings to the service of humanity
as a whole and establish the only alternative to the grave problems and multiple
needs it faces.
With the humility, simplicity and gratitude of the Andean people I express my special
recognition to the authority of the docents of the tricentennial UNSAAC, and to the
intellectuals of Cusco that have made the materialization of the present body of work
possible.
The author
“INKA PHILOSOPHY AND ITS PROJECTION INTO THE
FUTURE”
CHAPTER I
1. ESTABLISHING THE PROBLEM
The XX century, at the beginning of the XXI century and the new millennium, is
considered as the century of great revolutions and superstructures. It is also
characterized by great scientific and technological advances, profound socio-
economic transformations and politics on a national, continental and global scale
obliging all educated people and investigators of all disciplines of human knowledge
to establish positions and to contribute to the solutions of the universal problems of
humanity.
Despite the great revolutions among the different cultural manifestations, the human
as inhabitant of the planet earth has not achieved an integrated, definitive solution to
its substantial secular problems, nor for its cardinal necessities such as alimentation,
clothing, housing, health, education, etc. Humanity has not managed to materialize,
to make reality, the innate values of the human. In this work, we will consider the
human as a citizen of the world, capable of comprehending ethical-moral and
axiological principles. It appears that the achievements of science and technology
have contributed little or nothing to the well being of man and paradoxically, they
have made the structural problems into super-structural problems. It is sufficient to
mention the generalization of violence in many developing countries and sub-
developing countries of the American, European, Asian and African continents in
which the elemental concept and respect for the human being has been lost,
converting the human into a simple object, an instrument of exploitation and labor
with absolute loss of the recognition of legitimate rights and innate values. These are
values that are universally recognized, established, defended and protected by
international organizations like the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of the
American States (OAS).
The capitalist system, like the socialist system, is found to be in an accelerated form
of decomposition. This has unfortunate consequences for the inhabitants living
under these systems. The capitalist system, represented for the most part by the
European countries and the USA in America, despite its scientific and technological
conquests has not managed to overcome the secular problems of hunger, misery and
human exploitation. Social problems such as: delinquency, prostitution,
homosexuality, drug addiction, endemic infirmities such as: AIDS, tuberculosis,
venereal diseases, mental illnesses typified by neurosis and psychosis, decomposition
of the family unit, daily increases of abandoned children, single mothers, etc. have
not been resolved, much less eliminated, in the corresponding statistics. Contrarily,
all of the cited problems tend to be on the increase. Equally the socialist countries,
embodied by the gigantic nation of Russia and its allies, have begun to fall apart by
the sovereign will of the popular masses. It is a consequence of the incapacity,
ineptitude, and irresponsibility of the directing leaders that back down from their
duties, betraying the rights, interests, and ideals of the working class. In the countries
supporting the capitalist systems and the socialist systems, the common denominator
is the permanent loss of ethical-moral norms and axiological principals innate to
humanity. Humanity has been converted into a beast. The beastification of humanity
continues with enormous strides. The strengths and animal instincts of the human
want to govern and impose themselves over the rational strengths. Humanity has
generalized, universalized and globalized violence, injustice, libertinism, and
marginalization. Humanity has truncated the elemental rights of humanity, forgetting
ethical-moral legal standards. It has lost the ability to learn and enact these values. It
appears that humanity continues in a direction contrary to its own history, because it
does not tend nor try to impose its human condition, but rather, rescues and
implements its animal qualities and conditions. We will immediately formulate the
following question, “What role do philosophy and scientific and technological
advances play with some of the problems previously denoted, as well as others not
mentioned for their complexity? Do the socio-economic, political, educational and
cultural problems have some relation with philosophy? The answer is simple and
elemental: the structural and super-structural organizations of the capitalist and
socialist systems obey one philosophical concept, one ideology, and one doctrine.
Presently, the irreconcilable struggle between the capitalist system and the socialist
system continues. Yes it is true that the leading country of socialism, Russia and its
allies, has crumbled in an accelerated and peaceful form as a consequence of the
ineptitude, the irresponsibility, and incapacity of corrupt directing leaders, elevated in
power over the decades. Nevertheless, socialism as a doctrine, ideology and
philosophy maintains its force in other countries of the Asian and African continents.
The capitalist system with its prioritized categories of private property over the
means of production, the unequal distribution of wealth, the exploitation of the
salaried worker, the fundamental law of production founded on obtaining the
appreciation of value and its essential features of egoism and individualism have not
been the solution to the vital problems f humanity. It is sufficient to point out the
same secular problems existing in the U.S. as exist in Peru. Countries of the capitalist
system find philosophical sustenance in “Pragmatism” which in succinct form is
explained as being from Greek “pragma”: done, action. The current idealistic
subjectivism of the contemporary bourgeois philosophy is wide spread. The center of
this philosophy is found in the so-called “principle of pragmatism” which determines
the significance of truth by its practical utility. Pragmatism has ruled for a long time
in the spirit of the USA and only in recent times has it ceded its position to
neopositivism and religious philosophical conceptions”. (Rosental, M.M. Diccionario
Filosófico, pp.481-482).
It is necessary to clarify that the philosophical conception of pragmatism in the
development of the North American society is not a theme of the past, but that at
present maintains full and absolute force. Accordingly, the following quote
illustrates: “The capitalist system creates economic, social, political, cultural, moral,
and affective influences that are exasperating for the human being. The philosophers
of the capitalist system use these influences as a source for their doctrines and
themes. These influences include exploitation, misery, oppression, wars,
individualism, etc. that have conducted the human to anguish and desperation. The
existentialists have converted these affective states into the fundamental of their
idealist philosophy. They try to save the human conceived as isolated from society,
knowing that in this state the human has never truly existed, and then try to create
verbal conditions favorable for reaching happiness and liberty.
The idealist philosophers adopt a pessimistic and agnostic attitude before the
sciences and, in general, this leads to some theological conclusions. They believe that
they are correct and become dogmatic and unscientifically furious, they believe
themselves ideological representatives of humankind and assume a position as
redeemer…
The political leaders of the capitalists do not orient themselves in their activity to the
idealist principles that their ideologies proclaim. They are pragmatic, without having
studied pragmatism, and the truth is what is useful, that which benefits their interests
and aspirations. For them, the reason is not in their ideas but in money and power,
their fundamental activity is to negotiate and not to think. Their purpose is to
increase their riches and to dominate without bothering themselves with the means or
the philosophical ideas. Their heart and mind are found where their treasure is. The
idealistic, philosophical principles or religious beliefs are mystified halos of their
system, effective instruments of ideological domination used as means to create
conformity, to sow disorientation and to achieve the sleepy consciousness of the
dominated and exploited class.
In the capitalist countries and their sub-developed satellites there is a proliferation of
philosophical “isms” that are deft at confusing someone with the riches of
philosophical production. In the field of philosophy, richness is not quantity, nor is a
doctrine more truthful for the quantity it offers. In reality, this situation expresses the
crisis of the bourgeois philosophy. They try to elaborate a specific philosophy for the
solution of each problem. In this manner there has been the emergence of the
philosophy of the person, existence, action, life, etc.; as if one were dealing with
isolated worlds capable of being known and philosophically explained in and of
themselves”. (Guardia Mayorga, César Augosto. Filosofia, Ciencia y Religión,
Problemas Sociales y Humanos, pp.3-4).
As far as the socialist system is concerned, with its categories of social property over
the means of production, the equal distribution of production, the establishment of
the voice of the proletariat, the possible suppression of the exploitation of the human,
its essential traces of collectivism, cooperativism, friendly relations, collaboration
and fraternal, mutual help in search of the common good, has demonstrated the
inefficiency and incompetency of the directing classes to resolve cardinal problems
such as alimentation, clothing, shelter, education, and health. In agreement with this
appraisal of the majority of the countries submitting to socialist regimes, whose
philosophical sustenance is found in the historic-materialist dialectic and that in
succinct form can be explained:…Marx and Engels did not limit themselves when
making their theories out of the old materialist ideas and the dialectic of the idealists,
synthesizing them into a unity. Basing themselves on the most recent results of
natural science, on all of the historical experience of humanity, they demonstrated
that materialism was only able to be scientific and consequent if it became dialectic
in the end, at the same time that the dialectic could only be authentically scientific if
it became materialistic”. (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit. pp. 388-389).
As soon as Rosenthal refers to historic materialism, he supports: “Essentially the
Marxist-Leninist Philosophy is a philosophical science of society that in a
materialistic mode resolves the cardinal problem of philosophy in the field of history
and also studies the general laws of the development of history and the forms in
which human activity are realized. Historical materialism forms the theoretical basis
and methodology of the sociology of the social sciences… (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit.
pp. 391-392).
In synthesis, we can infer that idealism with a teleological foundation and ideological
support of capitalism, as well as dialectical-historical materialism, with a scientific-
revolutionary foundation and ideological support of socialism, have not been
alternative solutions to the vital problems and cardinal necessities of humankind.
Let’s form some questions to follow: “If the philosophical doctrines structured and
utilized since the beginning of the XXI century have not solved the problems of
humanity, then what can be done? In the end, what purposes do philosophy and the
great advances of science and technology serve? If philosophical systems and
structural ideologies in the western world have not been alternative solutions to the
problems of humanity, then is it feasible to structure a new philosophy? Is
philosophy able to structuralize outside the border of concrete reality, independently
of social, economic, political and cultural factors? Is it possible to systematize and
structure a philosophy emanating from the Andean-Inka world as a historical-cultural
inheritance? In summary, these are questions that maintain force in the present as
themes to be examined by the philosophical eye.
Despite Western egoism and shame-faced Peruvians, many don’t admit, much less
accept, the extraordinary, singular and elevated cultural manifestations of the
Andean-Inka world. We should respond to the previous questions by quoting José
Ingenieros when he says: “Let us aspire to create a national science, a national art, a
national politic, a national sentiment by adopting the characteristics of the multiple
originating races as a framework of our physical and sociological environment. Then,
all shall aspire to become one in their family, every family in their class, and every
class in their town. We shall also aspire that our people will be of significance in
humanity”. (Ingenieros, José. Las Fuerzas Morales p.116). To these premonitory
words of the Argentinean maestro, we should add: “LET US ASPIRE TO CREATE A
NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY, AN ADEAN-INKA PHILOSOPHY THAT SHALL BE
FOUND IN FORCE AND UNHARMED IN THE MAJORITY OF THE TOWNS
OF THE GLORIOUS, FRATERNAL, AND HUMANITARIAN WORLD OF
TAWANTINSUYANO.” As lovers of philosophy, let us rid ourselves definitively of
the colonialist mentality and begin to study, investigate, interpret and analyze our
concrete reality so that later we can project ourselves to achieve general conclusions
capable of universal service to humanity.

2. DETERMINING THE PROBLEM

The theme that we propose to develop, with the title of “INKA PHILOSOPHY AND
ITS PROJECTION INTO THE FUTURE”, obliges us to take full consciousness of
the cultural manifestations of the Andean-Inka and the importance of their
contributions to the benefit of all of humanity. It is almost impossible to embrace the
totality of the native cultural manifestations in all their extension and profundity. It
would require the participation of scholarly patriots and specialists in many different
branches of human knowledge.
The chroniclers and historians of all epochs, national and foreign, have coincided in
expressing their surprise and admiration on occupying themselves with the elevated
level of development of the multitude of cultural manifestations of the
Tawantinsuyana collective. These manifestations are expressed in the gigantic,
original and extraordinary constructions that are a demonstration of the scientific and
technological knowledge of engineering in all of its specializations. They are
expressed in the architecture and art, which at present continue unchallenged over the
unfolding of the centuries. Finally, the cultrural manifestations are expressed in the
fact that the Inka social organization was the only one that managed to conquer
hunger and misery throughout human existence. From here it is simple to infer, not
only the possibility, but the real existence of an INKA PHILOSOPHY since:
“philosophy, equal to all creations of man, (art, science, religion, etc.) is historic,
philosophy cannot be understood if it is not related with humanity and the concrete
situations in which it is created. In fact, one cannot speak of “philosophy” in and of
itself for it would be too abstract. One can only speak of Greek Philosophy, Christian
Philosophy, etc. or the philosophy of a particular determined circumstance…
Philosophy is a human creation that is both concrete and historical”. (Escobar
Valenzuela, Gustavo. ETICA, Introducción a su problemática y su historia, pp 4-5).
Philosophy as a cultural element of the human, considered as a social and rational
being, is not the product of privileged, predestined minds belonging to subjects
isolated from their familial social groups, concrete reality and “determined
circumstances”; but rather, it is the result of social consciousness, collective minds.
In effect, philosophy cannot be spoken of abstractly, as some nebulous cloud
independent of the natural factors of a concrete reality, a society and a determined
epoch. If this is true, there exists the need to recognize the Andean-Inka collective as
a reality, as a determined circumstance whose natural conditions and totality of
cultural elements permit the systematization of a philosophy.
If in the historic evolution of universal philosophical thought it is permitted to
support, to speak of and to found the existence of a Philosophy of India, China,
Germany, and England; then within these same parameters, categories and rational
canons, there is no reason to support the negation of the existence of an Inka
Philosophy.
It is true, however, that INKA PHILOSOPHY, remains unwritten as a consequence of
the pernicious, negative influence and irresponsible attitude of the Spanish invaders
that dedicated themselves to the destruction and erasing of the Tawantinsuyana
collectives and their cultural manifestations. The history of Peru written by the
intellectuals and ideologists of the invading Spaniards afterwards, by the
representatives of the dominant class of the country, has wanted to hide, distort and
falsify all of the truths in relation to the great and original native cultural
manifestations. This was done by the Spanish invaders to justify the genocide and
ethnocide committed against the Inka people. Afterwards, their descendants, the
creoles and the mestizos, representatives of the dominant class supported by wrongly
attained economic power, and later supported in the political power that they
usufructed during the republican life of the country, tried to silence the authenticity
and real history of Inka Peru. Nevertheless, in order to remember, reflect and
evaluate the five hundred years since the invasion of the New World and its
consequent misfortunes, there has been the emergence of a plethora of patriots along
the length and width of the national territory, lovers of the Andean-Inka culture,
disposed to revising the pages of Peruvian history in it entirety and recovering the
authentic value and multiple cultural manifestations of the Pre-Inka and the Inka
collectives to the present.
To tell the truth, to write the authentic history of Peru, as the result of the heroic
participation of masses of people of the Andean-Inkan world, is extremely dangerous
and risky as the image and economic interests of the Hispanics, Europeans,
Occidentalists and all of their partisans are defenders of every form of colonialism
and imperialism. The genocide and ethnocide committed by the Spaniards using the
sword and the cross as instruments of destruction, barbarism and crime are not to
remain silent, forgotten or justified from any point of view. This is even less possible
from a humanist, rational or Christian position. The deaths of the twenty million
Tawantinsuyanas and the one hundred million inhabitants of the pan-American world
at the hands of the Spanish invaders by processes, techniques and methods most
cruel, sanguinary and irrational, obligate new generations of patriots and Americans
to vindicate, revalue, reconstruct and restructure all of the cultural manifestations of
the new continent as a formidable contribution to all of humanity.
The genocide and ethnocide committed by the Spanish invaders cannot be left with
impunity, and certainly not justified as the supposed creole and mestizo intellectuals
with a colonialist mentality try to do. Now is the time when the history of the masses
and the people of Peru, Tawantinsuyana America, cries out and summons the new
generations with the imperative necessity to take consciousness of our glorious Inka
past and its exceptional cultural manifestations such as the PHILOSOPHICAL
THOUGHTS AND CONCEPTIONS OF THE INKA WITH THEIR
AXIOLOGICAL PRINICIPLES AND ETHICAL-MORAL NORMS, presently in
force as we will demonstrate through this present body of work.

3. MOTIVATING REASONS FOR DETERMINING

THE PROBLEM
Among the principle reasons that motivated the determination of the theme that we
propose to study, analyze, interpret, and systematize we can mention:
3.1 The true and real Inka history, the multiple, complex, extraordinary
cultural manifestations, the levels of development; although they are not
recognized, unaccepted, and ignored as a consequence of the pernicious Spanish
invasion, with its secular genocide and ethnocide, such as the traitorous attitude of
the intellectuals and ideologists of the economically and politically dominant class
of the republican life of Peru and the countries of the Tawantinsuyana world.
3.2 From the Spanish invasion to the present, Peru and the other countries of
the New World have been considered as simple colonies and their inhabitants as
mere slaves, servants, perhaps even sub-human. They have been considered as
colonies whose inherent riches are to be exploited without limit and whose
inhabitants should be utilized as instruments of production without recognition of
their human rights including: life, health, alimentation, housing, clothing,
education, etc. It is the attitude and conduct of colonialism that has been justified
for five centuries and still tries to maintain, conserve and implement itself from
decades into centuries. Accordingly, the following quote clarifies:
“The colonial reasoning decides our destiny and it establishes the fountain from
which spills the gravest conflicts of our country. In it is nurtured racism, which is
the ideological cloak that hides the colonial relations of production. From it
emanates the economic programs and the “established” order. It is the reason for
the power and strength of the republican institutions. It is not important when they
divorce from reality or how often they attack. Colonial reasoning began to form in
the colonial phase of our history. At first, it was supported by the Spanish power
that legitimized its dominion in the superiority of its culture and its arms. To this
end, its ideologies became expert explanations of the precolonial past, proposing
racist explanations about the inferiority of our resources and developing lineal
schemes of history where they placed themselves at the pinnacle of history and the
native inhabitants at the initial steps of a long ascent. In their scheme, the
indigenous corresponded with the beginning of their prehistoric age, far in time
from the dominion of the human over its material conditions of existence. The
indigenous did not have a religion, they were idolaters and there were some who
supported that they were sons of Cain or frozen survivors of the “Earthly
Paradise”. Therefore, the wise “amautus” were stigmatized and persecuted as
witches and perverted idolaters, their technical skills depreciated as primitive and
at length, were overcome by those of the colonists. Their customs were vilified
and the people were converted into servants unless they submitted themselves to
the demands and habits of the colonial way of life.
So was born the colonial reasoning, in a womb of genocide and ethnocide, with
dogmatic conviction the one and only true reason, hiding its evil behind a cross
that promised love and peace… in another life.
Colonial reasoning imposed itself over the national reason that had been forged by
the villages throughout history”. (Lumbreras, Luis Guillermo, EN QUE
MOMENTOS SE JODIO EL PERU, pp. 21-22).
3.3 The Spanish invasion was realized by a motley group of men incapable
of learning and actualizing human values, the majority of them recruited from
prisons, directed by soldiers and fanatical priests imposing in a violent form the
material and cultural conditions of their society of origin which they considered to
be superior to the material and cultural conditions of the native collectives of the
New World. The supposed superior culture and higher evolution of the invaders
did not signify advance or progress for the Tawantinsuyana societies. On the
contrary, from the beginning of the nefarious presence of the Hispanic adventurers
to the present, it has signified an accelerated process of destruction and its
consequential crisis in the structural and super-structural organization of our
societies. Accordingly, this quotation corroborates us: “The Spanish colony
implanted itself on what was a socially buoyant economic state with exceeding
capacity to maintain a redistributive regimen extremely generous on the part of
the state to an impressive magnitude. The State’s income secured public projects
of great expanse in the whole range of its domain and permitted support of an
exquisite network of functionaries and servants. It was not a paradise; the political
system and the tributary system were very rigid and demanding in favor of the
Inka class that sustained the power. But it was not the political system or the
forms of taxation that were the causes of notable development, the Inka society
was only part of a history that taught the method by which the stark environment
was progressively subjugated, giving place to the possibility of the great states and
the success of the human over their circumstances”. (Lumbreras, Luis Guillermo.
Wk. Cit. pp. 22-23).
3.4 Equally, they spoke of racial superiority, even as they tried to coax the
inhabitants of the invaded villages, who considered the colonists as divine beings,
or at least attributing them with celestial attributes and even assigning them the
title of “envy of the gods”. Since the arrival of the semi-educated navigator known
as Christopher Columbus, who in his crass ignorance thought himself to have
arrived on the coasts of the far east of India, dubbed the inhabitants of the new
world with the pejorative appellative “Indians”. A name that the governors and the
governed of the invaded peoples never used. It was certainly never used in the
Andean-Inka collectives, where the daily relations within the family and society
evolved themselves within a framework of high respect, deference and affection,
as all were considered as members of the ayulla, of the community, as members of
an ample family. Some terms of daily use being: wayqey: brother (among men);
panay: sister (men toward women); ñañay: sister (between women); turay: brother
(women toward men); taytay: father (youth of both sexes toward elderly adults);
mamay: mother (youth of both sexes toward adults), etc.
The racial and cultural superiority of the West, Europe, and Spain with relation to
the Tawantinsuyana and their cultural manifestations has been an absurd, unreal,
and irrational mistake. All humans as inhabitants on the planet earth, despite the
originality of each and every one, all belong to the same universal category, have
the same faculties, qualities, potentials and limitations.
We infer that the humans of all ethnic groups of the world are of one category, the
human being. Accordingly, Julio Roldan, in his status as presenter in the First
National Congress of Ethno History, realized in the city of Qosqo, organized by the
Special Commission: Five Hundred Years of European Invasion and Andean
Resistance, of Provincial Counsel, covering the theme: “500 Years: Ideologies in
Contrast”, expressed “Indianism sustains that the world that flourished before the
arrival of the invaders was a society “just, equilibrated and rational,” which was
not only different than Western culture but was in many varied aspects superior.
We read: “When the European invaders arrived here five hundred years ago, there
were enormous storehouses full of clothing, utensils and food in reserve.
Everything was in abundance, richness and prosperity. They also found a society
without beggars, vagrants, abandoned, laziness, degenerates, humiliated or vexed.”
In other words, they found close to paradise. Meanwhile, the European society
from which they came harbored discrimination, racism, mendacity, poverty,
vagabondism, banditry, prostitution and abandoned elderly all in the shadows of
the insolent wealth of a minority. In other words, it was a veritable inferno.”
3.5 The colonial presence of imperial Spain had motivated the violent
imposition of the structural and super structural conditions of this country over the
material and spiritual conditions of the constituent collectives of the
Tawantinsuyana world. “This produced a great fracture, principally in the
economic and social domains. The Inka economy, by nature autocratic and
autonomous, had reached a flourishing state thanks to a highly developed
agriculture, which was achieved over millennia of domestication of a difficult
terrain. Just the same, the difficult geographies, the diversity of climates and
ecological levels all permitted a varied production. The arduous labor of leveling
the abrupt earth of the mountains, the irrigation of the deserts of the coast, and a
wise distributive system assured the population of the Tawantinsuyana sufficient
and equilibrated alimentation.
The Spanish Conquest, the following period of colonialism and then the following
Republic, was continually destroying this rich and exemplary agricultural culture.
If they didn’t annihilate it totally it was because this would have signified the total
annihilation of Peru itself.
The violent transformation of the economy at the beginning of the Conquest was
accompanied by the equally violent alteration of the social order. It was a
community based society, in many respects, in which there had been true
equilibrium in the distribution of work and goods. This was changed into a social
organization of servitude and slavery in which an opulent and arrogant minority
enjoyed almost all of the wealth of the country. The Tawantinsuyana was a state
governed by a caste that enjoyed many privileges and properties, this is true, but in
the royal family of the Inka and the rest of the population there existed a solidarity.
There were customs, traditions, beliefs and common interests of such manner that
the country was composed of a social unity. Since the Conquest, during the period
of colonialism and the Republic, this unity ceased to exist. Presently there is not
one Peru, but two Perus at the least: an official Peru, with its laws, symbols and
attributes, which is the heritage of a small minority, and a majority Peru that is
dispossessed. Its interests opposed, its ideals and sentiments are different from the
minority”. (Delgado Washington. EN QUE MOMENTO SE JODIO EL PERU, pp.
40-42).
Since the Spanish invasion to the present, there have been two Perus, with two
groups of populations whose relations and social-economic conditions have
differed as radically and abysmally as there cultural manifestations. The alien
Spaniards and their descendants, integrated into the minority group of the country,
retain the economic and political power to protect and defend their interests and
property that comes from the unlimited sacking of the national riches. They are
supported in a philosophical conception and scale of values completely their own
that includes: egoism, individualism, and narcissism all complemented by the
constant practice of treason, disloyalty, intrigue, perfidy, treachery, etc. On the
other hand, the large social group composed of the inheritors of the Inka
inhabitants that managed to escape the politics of genocide and ethnocide of the
invaders, for the most part integrated into rural populations and communities, find
themselves in an economic situation of immense crisis. They follow the
philosophical conception and scale of values inherited from the glorious Andean-
Inka collective that is composed of: reciprocity, solidarity, cooperation, and
collectivism in search of the COMMON GOOD, complemented by the constant
practice of AYNI (free service between families), and MINK’A (collective labor
for the materialization of public works), etc.
3.6 The Spanish invaders, their descendants and their ideologies from the
moment of their arrival in the New World to the present have wanted to impose on
us a complex of beliefs, customs, habits, traditions, ethical-moral, axiological,
social, political, cultural, educational, religious and artistic principals, etc.
Furthermore, the supposed racial superiority and better development of the western
culture was not justified rationally or objectively, they simply tried to destroy all of
the original and authentic cultural manifestations of the existing cultures. It is
sufficient to point to some of the examples: native religion was considered as a
simple manifestation of idolatry, the native languages such as Quechua and
Aymara were typified as simple dialects with the intention of negating the
existence of an ideographic writing and therefore an Inka history; the disdain of the
exceptional advances in scientific and technological achievements, the refusal to
acknowledge the fabulous constructions of the Tawnatinsuyana and attributing
them to demons or extraterrestrials, the incapacity to assimilate or to accept the
philosophic thought and the ethical-moral and axiological principals, etc. In other
words, all of the cultural manifestations of the inhabitants of the New World were,
plain and simply, considered as primitive, lacking value and importance and were
consequently sentenced to disappear.
Nevertheless, not only the native cultural manifestations were motive of disdain,
scorn and persecution, but also the Andean-Inkan inhabitant. They received total
lack of recognition for their condition and category as human being. The
incorrectly named Indian, previously named by the ideologies of the colonists,
simply served as a beast of burden or a mere instrument of production. They were
denied human categorization as a rational, social and historic being. They were
 denied the possibility of having a soul, a spirit, conscience, intelligence and other
psychological faculties. This is supported quite strongly by: “…a sanguinary
worker for whom, as for the now famous legendary Colonel Custer, the only good
Indian was a dead Indian”. (Delgado Washington. Wk. Cit. p.54). Equally, they
were negated the elemental right to use traditional articles of clothing, to feed
themselves with their customary foods such as quinoa, tarwi, quiwicha, corn,
chuño, beans, turnips, and varied meats, etc.. The traditionally healing foods of
Peru were disdained as “Indian food”. (Valcárcel, E. Luis. Historia de la Cultura
Antigua del Peru. p.84).
3.7 After three hundred years of the most bloody and brutal colonialism that
had ever been registered in the pages of history, and another two hundred years of
the supposed Republican life of Peru, the native inhabitants of the Tawantinsuyana
continue to be marginalized and exploited of their fundamental rights and are
denied their innate value as humans. At the beginning of a new century and
millennium, the Peruvian peasants and the natives of the American continent
continue to earn the disrespectful title “Indian”. Their riches and varied cultural
manifestations continue to be the cause of vilification and disdain on the part of the
supposed inheritors of the Hispanic-European invaders. The ideologies of the
economically and politically dominant class of the country, generation after
generation, utilizing education as an effective instrument, taught us to disdain the
cultural manifestations of the Andean inhabitants with the following anathema:
You shouldn’t use the campesino (peasant) clothing, because they are the clothes
of the Indian. You shouldn’t eat the traditional foods because they are the food of
the Indians. You shouldn’t speak the native languages, Quechua or Aymara,
because they are the Indian languages. You shouldn’t play the indigenous musical
instruments, like the quena or zampones, because they belong to the Indians. You
shouldn’t sing or dance to folklore music such as huayno and its varieties, because
they belong to the Indian. These attitudes should be the material of another
investigation, the alienating attitude of the Peruvian, the American, supposedly
modernized.
These false modernizers, enemies of the true Peru, its inhabitants and its cultural
elements, to justify their treachery, have conceptualized that all of the external,
foreign cultural manifestations have always been better than the national. This is
an easy and irresponsible attitude: copy, trace, plagiarize, and practice all of these
exotic manifestations. This results in the fact that the Peruvians have never had A
NATIONAL IDENTITY, A NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF BEING THE
INHERITORS OF A GLORIOUS INKA PAST AND ITS CULTURAL
MANIFESTATIONS.
3.8 Presently, Peru is found subjected to the colonial mentality. The colonial and
imperialist countries continue to consider Peru as a vassal, maybe a mine that
belongs to them as property that they should continue exploiting of its natural
resources and riches without limit. Furthermore, the colonial and imperialist colonies
not only maintain Peru in the position of a dominated country, economically and
materially dependent, but also keep it in vassalage, enslaved, subjugated mentally
and spiritually. To this objective they impose their philosophical systems, ideologies,
politics, education and other cultural manifestations in accord with the interests of
the economically dominant social groups of each country. If the Spanish invaders,
during the course of three hundred years, dedicated themselves to sacking and
robbing the resources of Peru in the name of God and the King, all for the benefit of
the colonial and imperialist country of Spain, then during the Republican period and
the present they continue to exploit enormous amounts of national riches for a new
colonialist and imperialist country- the U.S.A. of North America. In the name of
democracy, liberty, and liberalism the economically and politically dominant class of
this country has always dealt, betrayed and mortgaged the legitimate interests, rights
and resources of the Peruvian people.
As a result of the preceding, present day Peru, descendant of the glorious Inka past,
is immersed in the capitalist system that is found in a state of collapse and complete
crisis as a consequence of the ineptitude, irresponsibility, and incapacity of the
directing classes that act as imperialist figureheads of the colonial countries. The
greatest losers are the national majorities that are found subjected to an accelerated
process of decay.
Before this inhuman and heart-breaking situation of the majority of Peru and Latin
America, there is an alternative. The most acceptable and viable is to return our gaze
to the great Tawantinsuyana Inka society which achieved the conquering of hunger,
misery, unemployment, poverty and homelessness. The INKA PHILOSOPHY,
IDEOLOGIES, DOCTRINES and the majority of their cultural manifestations
remain unharmed, in force. It is the job of the authentic Peruvians and Latin
Americans to recuperate the INKA PHILOSOPHY and other manifestations to
formulate an alternative solution to the structural, super-structural, national and
continental problems.

4. PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS CONCERNING

PHILOSOPHY
The subject of philosophy is extremely broad, profound and impossible to cover in
its full extension. Despite many thousands of years, the theme of philosophy; its
origin, evolution, nature, conceptualization and importance all remain in debate and
discussion. Its irreconcilable positions are based in contradiction.
For a majority of authors, philosophy is the Western European, Hispanic mentality
that originated in Ancient Greece in the VI century. Instead, we propose a new thesis
concerning this theme and we formulate that philosophy, as a cultural element,
originates at the moment that humanity achieves two universal categories: social
being and rational being. When one refers to the development of philosophy, the
traditionalists consider that philosophy has the same phases of evolution as are
attributed to the western world: ancient, middle, renaissance, modern and
contemporary. Let us propose that if the science of history recognizes different
phases of development in multiple cultures and/or civilizations of the world, then
philosophy cannot be free of the evolutionary idiosyncrasies of each individual
cultural contributor. The individual nature of each theme discussed, equally, is
subject to debate and constant contradiction as well. Therefore, for some thinkers this
level of human knowledge is special and consequently, is a discipline, and as such
cannot be confused with the sciences, as it occupies itself with the level of human
knowledge and is therefore located on top of the body of the sciences. Then, there are
other authors, who consider it to be a special science with objectives, principles,
methods and unique ends. Furthermore, there are authors that consider philosophy as
a product of the minds of priests, the privileged, the predestined with exceptional
qualities, far removed from the average person. Contrarily, we formulate a thesis that
philosophy as a cultural element is also the product of a human that is considered a
social being, a member of the masses, the collective, belonging to a certain
generation and a determined period of time.
Equally, there are some who conceptualize philosophy as merely a conglomeration of
knowledge that is eminently theoretical, metaphysical, and without application or
importance. However, there are authors, with whose position we agree, that support
that the importance of philosophy is rooted in the possibility of its application and the
level of its application. All of humanity has had to orient themselves in the world
using knowledge and philosophical principles. This is how ethical–moral standards
and scales of value come to be.
When we formulate the thesis for the possibility of the existence of an Inka
philosophy, immediately we are questioned and denied the possibility. Especially by
the intellectuals and educated thinkers formed within the canons and molds of the
Western – Hispanics accustomed to the easy task of copying, tracing, repeating,
plagiarizing, and transcribing the current philosophical structures of the Old World,
rejecting our position with multiple metaphysical and philosophical arguments, such
as the fact that they consider philosophy as a universal knowledge with an ecumenical
projection on all of the problems related with nature, the world, humankind,
knowledge, etc. Nevertheless for these same authors, defenders of Westernism, it is
possible to speak of a European Philosophy, an Eastern Philosophy, a German
Philosophy, an English Philosophy, a Spanish philosophy, etc.
Applying the same conceptualization on our part, we support that yes it is possible,
justifiable and rational to speak of an American, a Latin American, a Peruvian, an
Argentinean, and with good reason, an Inka philosophy. Definitively, we should
abandon the metaphysical, nebulous and systematized concepts of the detractors of
philosophy and affirm in categorical form that “PHILOSOPHY; SCIENCE,
IDEOLOGY, even literature and art, cannot be structured outside of spatial–temporal
concrete reality. Furthermore, the philosophical conceptions, the scientific-
technological principles and the multiple forms of cultural manifestations, such as art
and literature, do not come from the sky, from hell or from other unknown worlds
distant and incommensurable in the rational attitude of humankind. Philosophy and all
of the forms of knowledge and cultural manifestations are the resulting products of
the human mentality and attitude that is creative, inventive, transformative, and
seeking. This mentality is in permanent relation with the material world that
surrounds the human subject.
If the European, Asian, Greek, and Roman Philosophies are the results of a rational
attitude in the populations of these realities, created to explain general, universal
problems, then there does not exist a rational justification for the negation of the
existence of an American, Peruvian, Argentinean, or furthermore an INKA
PHILOSOPHY.

4.1 ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF

PHILOSOPHY
At the present, the discrepancy between scholars about the origins of philosophy,
science, and culture itself, continues. In the field of human knowledge and the process
of investigation, as much as in philosophy as in all of the sciences, the final word has
not been said. We do not admit unarguable truths in the practice of philosophy and
science, because this signifies a fall into dogmatism and therefore to do so is to
assume a religious attitude. By their very nature, philosophical and scientific
principles cannot be completed and remain completely dynamic and dialectic.
Reviewing the existing bibliography, the majority of the philosophers consider
ancient Greece as the place of origin of philosophy. Enough to point out well-known
authors such as Manuel Garcia Morente, when he supports: “Starting with Socrates, in
the IV century before Christ in Athens, there began a philosophy conscious of itself
and the methods it employed”. (Lecciones Preliminares de Filosofia, p. 20).
In turn, M.M. Rosental’s Diccionario Filosófico considers that: “The term
“philosophy” is found for the first time with Pythagoras; with science particularly, it
is introduced for the first time by Plato. Philosophy emerged in a slavery supporting
society as a science that united all of the knowledge that man possessed about the
objective world and about himself, a perfectly natural thing given the low level of the
development of knowledge in the early phases of human history”, (p.231).
Nevertheless, the authors are not few that consider the civilizations before ancient
Greece as the origin of philosophy. In accordance, the following citations illustrate:
“The first problem, the problem of origins, continues without a precise solution.
Along side those, including Aristotle, that considered Tales in the VI century as the
first philosopher, there were in Greece other historians that went back further into
Hellenism, to the barbarians, to find the origins of philosophy. Diógenes Laercio, in
the prologue of his Lives of the Philosophers, tells us about the fabulous antiquity of
the philosophy among the Persians and the Egyptians. Therefore, since antiquity, two
theses confront one another: Is philosophy an invention of the Greeks or is it an
inheritance that they received from the barbarians? It appears that the Asian
civilizations and the pre-Hellenistic civilizations, such as the Mesopotamian and
Egyptian civilizations, had been in contact with cities such as Jonia, which are the
cradles of Greek philosophy; giving reason to the second of these theses”. (Brehier,
Emile. Historia de la Filosofia. Vol. I, pp. 54-55).
“Philosophy was born three thousand years ago in countries of the East. In antiquity
they had already formed two opposing currents: materialism and idealism. Along with
this juxtaposition appears the development of a philosophy with two opposing focuses
about the knowledge of the world: the dialectic method of thought and the
metaphysical”. (Edit. Progreso Moscú, Historia de la Filosofia, Vol. I. p.6).
“As systems of philosophy more or less complete that made the first attempts to
understand the world as a whole, materialism and idealism appeared many centuries
before our era in the pro-slavery societies of the ancient East: China, India, Egypt and
Babylonia. Philosophy in those times reached its maximum flourishing in Greece and
Rome.” (Afanasiev, Victor. Manual de Filosofia, p. 19).
We can infer that the problem of the origin philosophy still has not been definitively
clarified nor resolved and that the theme continues to be the cause of discord among
scholars dedicated to the study of philosophy. Before formulating our position, let us
pose some questions: If the common denominator of philosophy is the attempt to
rationally explain universal problems, then is it implied that the rational condition of
humanity began in the distant cultures of the Eastern world or maybe in ancient
Greece? Did the denizens of the cultures that were predecessors to these pro-slavery
societies live at the level or state of the animal? Did philosophy not exist as a form of
knowledge in these predecessors of the slave holding societies? To the preceding
questions, let us respond by making reference to the birth of human society and
support that: “Humanity appears in the beginnings of the present period, or the
quaternary period, in the history of the earth, whose origins science situates at close to
a million years ago…
The appearance of humankind represents one of the most immense transformations
operating in the evolution of nature. This transformation consummated itself when the
human ancestors began to produce tools. The radical difference between the human
and the animals started the moment in which the first instruments were created, no
matter how rudimentary they may have first been…
In the passing of many thousands of years, by rough calculations and slowly
accumulating experience, humankind learned to produce the simplest of instruments,
efficient to deal blows, cut, dig the earth and other very simple operations that
nevertheless reduced the times required to do the activities of production.
A formidable victory of the primitive human in the struggle against nature was the
discovery of fire. This discovery substantially changed the material living conditions
of our ancestors…
The principle material employed for an incredibly long period of time in the
production of arms was stone. We know the epoch of the use of the instruments of this
class by the name of the Stone Age, which began hundreds of thousands of years
ago”. (Manual de Economica Politica. Academia de Ciencias de la U.R.S.S. en pp.
24-25).
From this quote we infer that humankind considered as a rational and social being,
capable of creating instruments of production, defense and attack, does not first
appear in the slavery states of the East, and much less in ancient Greece; but rather,
many thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years earlier we find the human
with sufficient rational capacity as a social being to be capable of creating culture.
Leaving the first premise and considering that philosophy is a cultural element, we
formulate the hypothesis that it emerged the moment in which humans reached the
two universal categories: social being and rational being, and furthermore, was
capable of forging a culture. We say the Human, considered as such, with all of its
attributes, qualities, potentials, traits, characteristics, capable of producing the
instruments of production, of attack-defense, creates culture and therefore history and
philosophy.
The primitive human, as inhabitant of planet Earth, already provided with the two
universal categories: social and rational being, in its attempts to respond to the
different questions, multiple problems, difficulties, and adversities that its
environment presented and the daily necessities vital for existence, was obligated to
assume a rational attitude and conduct. Since then have emerged some primary
philosophical gems, completely weak, imperfect, limited, and confused within the
accumulation of knowledge. They were preponderously religious, mythological. “If
this is so, the first philosophical systems of the Greeks would be, in some way,
primitive; they would be nothing but an elaborate form of a way of thinking that is
much more ancient. Without a doubt, it is with this mentality that it is necessary to
search for the true origin of philosophical thought, or at least for some of its aspects…
In this manner, the first “philosophers” of Greece did not have to truly invent
philosophy, they worked with representations of a complexity and richness and also a
confusion that to us seems almost inconceivable. More than invent, they needed to
unravel and select, or improve the invention consisting of this very discernment. They
would better understand, without a doubt, if they knew what they had rejected instead
of knowing that which they had conserved…
If, in spite of these warnings, we begin our history in Tales, it is not because we want
to forget the long prehistory in which philosophical thought had been elaborated; it is
only for the practical reason that the epigraphical documents of the Mesopotamian
civilizations are few and difficult to access, and also because the documents
concerning these early cities are not able to give us any indication about what ancient
Greece may have been like.
The question of the distant horizons of the history of philosophy, along with its
origins, cannot be resolved with exactitude. It is undeniable that there has been in
certain times in the countries of the extreme East, and above all in India, a flourishing
of philosophical systems”. (Brehier, Emile. Wk. Cit. Vol I. pp. 56-57).
To better understand our position, we will discuss the process of human evolution
from the moment of conception in the womb, which is slow and surrounded by a
series of limitations, difficulties and imperfections. The science of biology tells us
that the new human being is the result of the joining of a spermatozoa and an ovule
and that it originates as an egg or zygote. The moment in which the process of
gestation begins, it is known that the new being, the future baby, child and human,
although it is insignificant and microscopic in the first weeks and months of its
existence, will nevertheless with the passing of eight months of gestation acquire the
form, the features, the qualities, and potentialities of a human being ready to liberate
itself from the cloister of it’s mothers womb and to continue in the following months
and years a slow process of evolution and development that is permanent and
constant. Likewise, Philosophy has originated in the moment that humanity had
reached the categories with which it is universally attributed: a social and rational
being, whose temporal- spatial determination is impossible to fix with certainty.
Let us infer that an equal process has occurred throughout the development of the
sciences. Suffice to point out the case of Mathematics: “emerging from the remotest
reaches of history out of practical necessity, it had as object the simplest forms of
numbers and geometric figures”. (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit. p. 385), to the present we
have not been able to precisely set the place nor date of its appearance. In effect, to
demonstrate our thesis in objectivity, let us formulate some questions of mathematics
and the other sciences of human knowledge: When and where did the numbers
emerge as indispensable elements of science and mathematics? Who were the
inventors, discoverers, creators, and systematizers, of the numbers? These are
questions that will continue to be unsolvable as long as humanity exists; equal to the
interrogations formulated in relation to philosophy.
In synthesis, exclusively the human, considered as a social and rational being, has
been the administrator, author and creator of culture, and consequently of history and
philosophy.

4.2 PHILOSOPHY AND THE PHILOSOPHERS

Traditionally, as well as in the present, some scholars consider that the philosophical
and scientific attitude, as well as study and investigation, is for people of privileged,
exceptional, and super powered minds. They consider it to be for people with
exceptional, singular qualities. In addition, they figure philosophy to be a product of
reflections, and the pondering of individuals, isolated from familial social groups and
at the margins of the influences of the totality of the material and spiritual factors of
society in the time in which their existence evolves. These are positions and concepts
completely mistaken, false, and unscientific.
In this manner, when the Philosophy of Greece or antiquity is spoken of, we are
presented with them as a result of reflections and personal conjecture with relation to
the problems, unknowns, and questions existing concerning nature, society and
humanity itself. Historically, Tales of Miletos is presented as the thinker that
considered “water” as the substance, source and fundamental principle of all of that
exists. Also, we are referred to Anaximenes as the philosopher that postulated that
“air” was the basic element of all in existence; we are referred to Heraclitus of Efeso
as the thinker that considered “fire” as the primary element. In this nature we could
name just as many other philosophers in the evolution of the universal history of
philosophy. Nevertheless, to recognize the existence of a Greek Philosophy and its
representatives, an Arab Philosophy and its concordant representatives, an Asian
Philosophy and its representatives, we are compelled to support that philosophy is a
result of the rational attitude of humanity situated in a concrete spatial-temporal
reality. Meaning that humanity considered as social and rational beings is capable of
creating philosophy, history and in this nature, the totality of the different cultural
manifestations. The individual human, isolated in familial and social groups, plain
and simply does not exist. Such a being would therefore be unable to make culture in
its many and varied forms.
Nevertheless, there is the need to finalize concerning the role, task and function that
philosophy fulfills. Who is the philosopher? At this question we can answer with the
following quote: “There is a need to destroy the wide spread prejudice that
philosophy is something very difficult for the fact that it is the intellectual activity
belonging to a determined category of scientific professionals or systematic thinkers.
Accordingly, it is necessary to begin the demonstration that all humans are
“philosophers”, defining the limits and the categories of this “spontaneous
philosophy”, belonging to “all of the world”, we are speaking of the philosophy
contained: a) in language itself, which is a complex of determined notions and
concepts and not just grammatical words devoid of content; b) in common sense and
in good sense; c) in popular religion and consequently, in all systems of belief,
superstition , opinion, ways of seeing and acting that include what is generally called
“folklore”. (Gramsci, Antonio. Introducción a la Filosofia de la Praxis, p.11).
From the vantage point of Gramsci, we can make the following inferences: 1) All
humans are capable of assuming a philosophical attitude and philosophizing in an
attempt to rationally explain the multiple universal problems. By their very nature,
humans are the only beings on the earth that worry, question, and investigate
occurrences related to their past. Furthermore, they live in the present and project into
the future. Here we infer that the human, as well as a social and rational being, is a
eminently historical being. 2) Philosophy as a form of knowledge, with features,
categories, and characteristics that differentiate it from other forms of knowledge, is
not an absolute autarchy; but, is a result of inquietude, and human action. As a
cultural element, it maintains a constant relationship with the totality of the sciences,
the various levels of knowledge (empirical, religious), artistic expression, ethical-
moral and axiological principals, as well as political, educational, and social-
economic factors, etc.
Nevertheless, When Gramsci refers to the “professional or technical philosopher”, he
makes the following digression: “…not only does he think with more logical rigor,
with better coherency, and superior systematization than other humans, but also
knows all of the history of thought, that is to say that he knows of the development of
thought before him and is in the position to deal with problems from the point in
which they are found after having been object to a history of attempts at solution, etc.
On the terrain of thought, he has the same function that the specialists have on the
diverse terrains of science.
Nevertheless there is a difference between the philosopher specialist and the other
specialists: the philosopher specialist more closely resembles the human than the rest
of the specialists. What has defined the character of the philosopher is precisely the
thing that has made the philosopher specialist a figure similar to the other scientific
specialists. One can imagine an entomologist without all of the other specialists that
are empirical entomologists, a specialist in trigonometry without the rest of the people
that study trigonometry, etc. (you can find sciences that are refined, specialized, and
necessary, but they are not “common”), but one is not able to think of any person that
is not a philosopher or that does not think, precisely because thought is the defining
property of humanity (unless they are a pathological idiot)”. (Gramsci, Antonio, Wk.
Cit. pp. 43-44).
We formulate the thesis that philosophy is the product and result of collective minds,
a social consciousness. The social classes, the masses, the societies in their totality
make philosophy. In accordance with this, we quote the following: “Philosophy
cannot be evaded so easily. These people possess a philosophy besides the fact that
they do not show it. Philosophy is something that we all possess, in the same way that
we employ prose to speak. Before thought and before theory, there was practicality,
and to maintain life, humans had to possess it to deal with their complicated,
recalcitrant, and at times hostile, environment. They have lived from hunting or
fishing, from agricultural labors or the fabrication of products, using tools and
establishing relations that imply that they know the world within which they live.
Since these rudimentary ideas constitute the material of philosophy as a theory of the
world and of life, philosophy is something that no human can avoid and it would
therefore appear convenient to investigate it a little bit more”. (Selsam, Howard, ¿qué
es la filosofia? colección 70. p. 10).
If we postulate the position that philosophy is the product of a collective of minds, a
social consciousness of the masses; then, the unanswered question surfaces: What
function or role do the so-called philosophers carry out? Responding, we are able to
affirm that the people historically known as “philosophers”, have exclusively
dedicated themselves to the systematization, expounding, transcribing, and
materializing of the experiences, necessities, aspirations, feelings, and ideals of the
masses, social classes, collectives and people. The thing most worthy of merit
concerning the philosophers is that they have explained the different collective
experiences in their books and then have opinioned, commented, and fixed their
positions in positive and negative form, favorable and disfavorable, approved and
unapproved, of the aforementioned collective experiences.
Furthermore, the universal history of philosophy presents us with cases of great
thinkers and philosophers whose thoughts, reflections and philosophical
investigations that have not been materialized or systematized through books. The
history of philosophy registers cases of great characters whose philosophical
thoughts, lives, actions, conduct, and even their very deaths have been philosophical
lessons that last throughout the centuries; even throughout human existence. We will
cite some of these most important philosophers:
“Tales de Mileto (624 – 546 B.C.). Antiquity places him among the seven wise men.
Aristotle called him the father of philosophy… The truth is that Tales was not lacking
in common sense”. ( Hirschberger, Johannes, Historia de la Filosofia, T.I. p. 46).
“Pythagoras was born in Samos in 570 B.C… Heraclitus recognized that Pythagoras
“knew more than anybody among all men”…He didn’t have to write anything. Yet,
around him congregated a group of men, forming a type of community or association
that loyally and tenaciously conserved the ideas of their teacher and transmitted them
orally. The community had a philosophical structure and religious ethic with a strong
ascetic tone”. (Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk. Cit. p. 49).
Socrates was born in Athens around the year 470… Humanity occupied a central
place in his thought, and to this humanity he gave truths and values. Nothing remains
of Socrates writings. His philosophy is a living philosophy. He spoke with everyone
that he encountered”. (Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk. Cit. p.76).
In addition the preceding philosophers, we give two cases of representatives from
religious systems of global projection, Islamism and Christianity.
When the largest religion is referred to, it is said that: “Numerically, Islamism follows
Confucianism as the most widely practiced non-Christian religion, and after
Christianity Islam also follows as the most rapidly developed of all the world
religions”. (Hume, Robert Ernesto, Las Religiones Vivas, p.221).
A succinct biography of Mohammed, relates “…he was born in Mecca, which at that
time was one of the most important cities of Arabia, as well as a center of animism
and idolatry. Like other members of the Koreish tribe to which he belonged, he held
the occupation of a Shepard and merchant. In his merchant trade he traveled
throughout Syria and Palestine where he came in contact with Jews and Christians.
(Hume, Roberto Ernesto, Wk. Cit.p. 223).
The sacred books of Islam manifest: “Islam is unique among the world religions, as
its sacred books claim the revelation of God to be its founder. Allah is the principle
speaker in the Koran. Sometimes he is represented as speaking simply to Mohammed,
and at other times he orders Mohammed to speak as the spokesman of God. But the
historical truth appears to be that Mohammed himself did not write a word of the
actual Koran. Around one year after his death, Abu Bekr, his successor, ordered a
compilation of the teachings of the prophet that would record them exactly, or they
were conserved by other methods by his devoted disciples. Eleven or twelve years
after the death of Mohammed, Otman, the third caliph, ordered a revision and the
total destruction of all existing copies of the previous compilation because of the
variations and confusions that had emerged among the discourses attributed to
Mohammed. Therefore, the actual text of the Koran is not a first edition, but a second
that was made in order to “keep the people from diverging from one another over
their sacred books, as had the Jews and the Christians…
From the point of view of literary criticism, in the thought of Mohammed there is
material from many sources that are revealed in his teachings. Some traditional
beliefs and Arabic legends are recognized in the Koran”. (Hume, Roberto Ernesto,
Wk. Cit. pp.229 – 230).
Now we will take a look at the case of the religion that has had total predominance in
the western world, specifically in the continents of Europe and the Americas, whose
influence on all of the aspects of the social-economic, political, cultural, and
educational organization is wide spread in the present day. Consider that:
“Christianity is one of the nine existing religions, founded by a historical leader, of
great spiritual power, whose teachings have gained permanent disciples…
Christianity is one of the four religions that come from not merely a notable person,
but also from centuries of religious experience within an organized religion…
Christianity is the only one that incorporates into its own canon the sacred books of
its antecedent religion…
Christianity made itself resemble all of the other existing religions of Asian origin, but
differentiates itself by its historical development and by the fact that its influence
occurred predominantly in the west. Its people of the West have derived their ideals of
justice, liberty, possibility, cooperation and progress from nothing more than the
religion of Jesus Christ.
Finally, Christianity is unique for the fact that many of its adepts, together with its
opponents and many others, vividly feel that the ideals of Jesus Christ are still far
from being fully realized…
The Christian scriptures are contained in the bible. This book is the primary source of
information in respect to the founder and the origin of the Christian Church. It is the
authorized compendium of the Christian principles and the most valuable document
in the conservation of the Christian life”. (Hume, Roberto Ernesto, Wk. Cit. pp. 243-
244).
Nevertheless, we will clarify the importance of the content of the Bible with the
following citation: “The Bible did not fall from the sky”. Here are books that do not
claim to have fallen from the clouds, containing some celestial voice, but rather, were
patiently reunited throughout the centuries in the heart of the people of God thanks to
the faith of its conscientious minority.
During some 18 centuries, from Abraham to Jesus Christ, the people of Israel
discovered each time with more lucidity that the One God had been bound to them.
The experiences of the national community and the inquietudes that developed among
the believers: all of this passed by one way or another to these books, related by the
prophets speaking on the part of God. It was the responsible religious people of Israel
that received, selected and accredited these books, integrating them into the sacred
book.
So was formed the Old Testament of the bible. The title Testament refers to the fact
that the books were the most precious inheritance delivered by God to his chosen
people.
After such experiences, a time of crisis came to the people of Israel in which God
wanted to bring them all at once to maturity of faith. This is why Jesus came. He
brought to finish the most transcendental experience of all of history. Jesus, with his
strength to save the Jewish people from immanent destruction, then his rejection, his
death, and then finally his resurrection: this was the ultimate word of god.
The trajectory of Jesus originated in the prediction that was written of in the church
and the sacred books. Those books were approved by the responsible of the church
and then passed on to be integrated into the New Testament”. (La Biblia, Ediciones
Paulinas Verbo Divino, 1972, p.4).
For an adequate comprehension and subsequent interpretation of the contents of the
Bible, we resort to the following quote: “The New Testament is the collection of 27
books in the Bible that were written in the 70 years after the resurrection of Jesus and
 those that the church of the apostles recognized as a genuine expression of their faith.
Though they were very inspired by God, these books did not fall from the sky, but are
the work of the apostles and the evangelists of the early church. They do not pretend
to answer all of our questions in respect to the faith. They are a conglomeration of
testimonies referring to the impact that the unique individual Jesus Christ produced in
his contemporaries.
But why is there a New Testament after the Old?
Simply because they are two parts of the same history, and they divide the cross of
Jesus…
The Bible is one only with its two Testaments, just as there is only one Salvation,
spiritual and material, for the people of humanity and the universe”. (LA BIBLIA,
Nuevo Testamento, pp.1).
We are able to infer that the Bible, as a unity, composed of the Old Testament and the
New Testament “has not fallen from the sky… it is not proclaimed to be from the sky,
with some celestial voice, but was patiently reunited along the centuries in the heart
of the people of God.”
The Bible, sacred book of the Christians, has two parts. Its first part, the “Old
Testament” is the product of 18 centuries of experiences of the national community of
the chosen people, “God wanted to bring them all at once to the maturity of faith.”
The New Testament, the second part of the Bible, is the product of the: “four gospels
attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John…
We know that Jesus died when he was still young and that he died without having
written anything. But Jesus had dedicated the majority of his life to forming these
twelve apostles that were selected. They lived with him, as did the disciples of the
Jewish teachers. Jesus made them memorize his teachings. More than multiply the
lessons by preaching, he had repeated in a thousand ways the essential truths with his
actions. The apostles had recorded in their memories a series of instructions from the
teacher in addition to the facts that were witnessed”. (La BIBLIA, Nuevo Testamento,
pp: 1-2).
The founder and initiator of Christianity, as a religious philosopher, did not write
anything, nor did he leave a written book, a product, or a materialization of his
thoughts, actions, works, miracles or debates with the intellectuals of the societies
where he might have visited. “Living a normal life in the heart of his humble family,
he took advantage of the best instruction and experience of his days. His maturity
reveals the amplitude and profundity of his culture”. (Hume, Roberto Ernesto, Wk.
Cit. pp.245 – 246).
The references to the philosophers of ancient Greece, to Mohammed, founder of
Islam and to Jesus Christ, founder of Christianity, permits us to infer that philosophy
is not obliged to be in written form, to be transmitted through books, because of the
specific cases of Pythagoras, Socrates, Mohammed, and Jesus Christ, whose lives,
conduct, actions, and thoughts up to their deaths have been lessons and manifestations
of philosophy in themselves.

4.3 THE PHILOSOPHERS AND THEIR

COMPLEXES
We consider it necessary to make some clarifications about the manifestations of
conduct, attitude, reactions, and familial-social relations of those people whom we
consider to be “philosophers”. Traditionally, many philosophers have been presented
as special people, singular, and exceptional in comparison to the common members of
society. For this reason, there is the need to make some digressions in regard to the
managers, authors, and systematizers, of philosophy. For this we appropriately quoted
earlier: “it is necessary to destroy the wide spread prejudice that philosophy is
something difficult because it is an intellectual activity belonging to a determined
category of scientific specialists or professional, systematic philosophers.” (Gramsci,
Antonio, Introducción a la Filosofia de la Praxis, p.11).
Then, there exists the inevitable necessity to unearth and definitively destroy the
assortment of prejudices, complexes, beliefs, superstitions, and dogmas that have
been structured around philosophy, including the ones with relation to the
philosophers themselves. In effect, there emerges the question: Who can
philosophize? Are the philosophers exceptional beings, super powered, predestined?
Who is philosophy for? In the end, one should be able to formulate a large quantity of
questions, with the sole objective of removing the prejudice from philosophy and
liberating philosophy from the complexity we have day dreamed it to belong to.
Responding to the preceding questions, we should sustain in categorical form that if
culture is the work of humanity, then philosophy, history and the totality of cultural
elements are products resulting from the creative and transforming capacity of
humanity. The human is considered as a social and rational being, it has been capable
is capable of creating philosophy and accordingly, culture. All human beings of the
earth, men and women, of all latitudes, geographical regions, races, social status,
economic conditions, political functions and cultural levels are able to make and
assimilate philosophy. Philosophy is a necessary, obligatory, and imperative product
of humanity. It must put itself at the service of humanity, in any other case there
would, plain and simply, be no reason for it to exist.
Nevertheless, the detractors of the Western, European world have structured multiple
prejudices, and complexities around philosophy and the philosophers. We shall see
some conceptions that they illustrate for us: “At the same time as the relation between
philosophy and the specialized sciences changes, there appears a new type of cultured
human and a new type of educated literature, specialized, within reach of only the
initiated”. (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit. p. 235). This is an affirmation that helps us to
understand that philosophers are considered as human beings possessing exceptional
qualities, super powered, privileged with preternatural mental faculties and therefore
their work also is assumed to possess these properties; philosophy is thought to be
exclusively for people with faculties and intellectual qualities similar to the authors.
In other words, it was considered that the common person was not able to understand
philosophy.
In addition, the occcidentalists have also considered that the philosophers were
members of a special race, maybe supermen, and were predestined by nature to
govern, colonize and to direct the destiny of the people and the world in there
proximity. Let us not forget the first and second World Wars, provoked and developed
by the Germans, with the philosophical orientation of Friedrich Nietzsche whose
doctrine is founded in metaphysical vitalism and the will to power that brings the
“superman” to his culmination. On the other hand, an objective conception of
philosophy, scientific, rational, and human not only rejects but also discards all
ideological conceptions and doctrines supported in the superiority of human races. All
of the inhabitants of the world, from all races, of all colors, from every environmental
condition and culture possess the same qualities, aptitudes and conditions to develop
themselves and to create the totality and multiplicity of cultural manifestations.
Accordingly, the authors we have mentioned illustrate: “Lacking the resources of
experimental verification, the number of hypotheses was immense. In philosophy,
such multiplicity of hypotheses signifies the diversity of types of philosophical
explanation of the world. This diversity and the level of elaboration converted the
philosophy of antiquity into a school of philosophical thought for later times. …In the
multiple forms of Greek philosophy –wrote Engels- there is already the germ, in
genesis, of all later conceptions”. (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit. p.234). “The strange
nature of the indigenous society caused surprise in the Spanish. This surprise, this
fascination, was left in the chronicles that soldiers, friars, functionaries and
intellectuals wrote between the XVI and XVII century about the strange Andean
society”. (Tamayo Herrera, José, Historia General del QOSQO, Vol. I, p.89). This
implies that the Greco-Occidental and Inka-Andean societies have had highly
developed cultural manifestations that at present continue to be the subject of
admiration of all of the people of the world.
Equally, some have wanted to distort the true mission of philosophy, degenerating its
content and sense, obscuring its clarity and levels of understanding. The number is not
small who believe that to philosophize, you should speak in a way that is hard to
understand, using an abstract metaphysical language and making neologisms to
provoke effect in all of the people in the world.
In conclusion, the philosopher was considered as a superhuman, with superhuman
intellectual faculties, singular physical qualities, of a superior race, well spoken and
as such, should live in his house of cards at the margin of the social class, removed
from society, his contradictions and problems subject to permanent reflection and
meditation. This is a completely mistaken conception. It is not possible to imagine the
existence of a human isolated from its family, at the margins of its social class and far
from society. Accordingly we clarify with the following citation:
“Since ancient China, India, Greece and Rome to the present, the philosophical
discussions have reflected social subjects, and the principal philosophical arguments
that have manifested have referred to vital and significant social battles.
The majority of the philosophers, nevertheless, have considered that philosophy was
the product of “pure reason” and that it would degrade if it was mixed with whatever
economic problem or political interest. But the reality is more to the contrary.
Philosophy has significance and value because it has relation with general theories
about the nature of the world and of humanity. One of the deplorable subproducts of
the illusion of the philosophers, in respect to the divorce between philosophy, social
problems and class alignments, is the popular notion that philosophers live “in the
clouds”. Many have come to consider, erroneously, that the philosophers (by their
own fault) are apart from the social classes and from social influence. The masses
have responded to this attitude by separating themselves from philosophy. But none
of these separations are possible”. (Selsam, Howard.Revolución en Filosofia,
colección 70.5 pp.7-8).
Finally, concerning this same theme, we ratify our position with the thoughts of Dr.
Armando Barrionuevo Sánchez: “Philosophy, without this being a definition, is a
social heritage that is transmitted through history as a cultural inheritance.
It is a social heritage, because it does not belong to anyone in particular. No one is the
owner of philosophy. No one has created it from nothing and it belongs to nobody.
Philosophy is the result of a collective force exercised through time, without terms or
conditions. It is not a task that has to be delivered by a determined date. And as such,
it is a free creation. We say then that it is a social heritage because it belongs to
everyone and to nobody. Humanity as a whole is owner of philosophy, and it is
accessible to anybody who desires to do so. No one can be kept from philosophy, and
like freedom it has two senses, liberty to do and liberty not to do, and so the human is
free to philosophize or not to philosophize.
Finally philosophy is transmitted through history…it has passed from generation to
generation, from thought to thought… philosophy is a cultural inheritance. It is a
social heritage of a special nature. This nature is cultural”. (Barrionuevo Sánchez,
Armando. Introducción a la Filosofia, p.11). In synthesis, humanity only as a social
being, member of a social class, of a society, of a concrete reality existing in a
determined time, is able to make culture and consequently philosophy.

4.4 PHILOSOPHY AND THE SOCIAL

CLASSES
Philosophers and philosophy could not be at the margin of the influences of other
material and cultural factors of society during a determined era. In the preceding
pages we have sustained that philosophy is the result of the social and rational
condition of humanity in a concrete reality where the development of their existence
evolves; furthermore it is the product of collective minds, social consciences, by the
means of which the masses express, exteriorize, and systematize their aspirations,
inquietudes, necessities, ideals, etc. If this is the thesis that we sustain across this
present body of work, then immediately we will be brought to formulate the following
questions: Did the human, with its universally attributed categories, appear already
existing in social classes? Is the existence of the social classes as old as humanity
itself? The answers to these questions are negative. Sociology, Anthropology,
Historical Materialism, Economics and even Philosophy explain the process of human
evolution with sufficient amplitude throughout the different ages of history.
The formulation of two economic laws explain to us the basic features of two
historical stages with sufficiency: “We are able to formulate a fundamental economic
law of the order of the primitive community of the following nature: they had to
produce the essential needs for the existence of the primitive community with the help
of the instruments of rudimentary production and a base of collective work.
The absence of private property, the nonexistence of the division of society in classes
and the exploitation of humans by humans excluded the possibility of the existence of
the State”. (Academia de ciencias de la U.R.S.S. Manual de Economía Política, p.
28). “The relation of production to the order of the primitive community
disintegrated, being substituted by the new relations of production, with the character
of the new productive strengths.
Collective work was displaced for individual labor, social property for private
property and the hereditary order for the society of classes. Apart from this period, all
of the history of humanity, until the construction of the socialist society, converted
into the history of the struggle of the classes.” (Wk. Cit. p. 31).
When stating the material conditions and economic relations that determined the
emergence of the social classes in this manner, there is the need to point out the
connections that exist between the members of a determined social class and the
philosophical attitudes of a group, being dominant or dominated, exploiter or
exploited, slave holding or enslaved. The human individually considered, could not
act at the margin of its family or be isolated from its social group to which it belongs.
Consequently, the primitive human, knowledgeable of it’s immediate inhospitable,
hostile environment and the presence of animals physically more evolved that
constitute constant danger to its continued existence, saw itself obligated to remain
bound and act solidly in all of the daily tasks for the satisfaction of its vital
necessities.
These binding conditions of the existence of the primitive people, with the coming of
the ages, centuries, and maybe millennia, as a consequence of the new relations of
production, gave way to the emergence to the societies of classes, with an inherent
organization based in slavery; a phase in which the dominant class organized itself
politically and lawfully across the state, to defend its economic interests. “The slave
holding state carried out an important role in the development and securing of the
relations of production of the society based in slavery. They kept the masses of slaves
subject to obedience and finally converted them into an extensive apparatus of
subjugation and violence over the popular masses. The democracies of Greece and
ancient Rome that the bourgeois historians exalt so highly were in reality slave –
holding democracies”. (Academia de Ciencias de la U.R.S.S. Manual de Economía
Política, p.34).
With the new relations of production within the slave-holding society established, a
state in service to the minority and economically dominant class, there emerges the
necessity to scrutinize the social location of the philosophers and their philosophical
conceptions, ideologies, politics, and doctrines within the structural and super
structural organization of these societies. We see some cases in the unfolding of the
history of philosophy.
“Tales de Mileto… gave very correct political counsels”. It is easy to gather that the
“correct political counsel” was offered to the governing class and consequently, the
economically dominant. “Pythagoras became worthy of an enormous respect for his
special mode of life. Still his followers that speak of the lifestyle of Pythagoras,
appear as something special among other people… Others, the “mathematicians”,
inheritors and torch-bearers of the ancient spiritual aristocracy of the primitive group,
held philosophy and science in high honor, particularly music, geometry, astronomy,
and medicine”. (Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk.Cit. pp. 49-50).
“Pythagoreanism was not only a school of philosophy, but furthermore, a political
organization of a slave holding aristocracy.” (Rosental M.M. Wk. Cit. p. 471).
Heraclitus of Efeso… kept an aristocratic distance with respect to the multitude”.
(Hirschberger, Johannes Wk. Cit. p. 52). “Native of Efeso (Asia Minor), of
aristocratic lineage”. (Rosental M.M. Wk. Cit. p.280).
It would be unnecessary to name the totality of the philosophers of ancient Greece
who had been members of the aristocratic, dominant class of the socially,
economically and politically unjust dominant class in that era. Accordingly, the
following citation corroborates us: “The historical analysis reveals that the diverse
and contrary philosophies do not emerge from pure reason or from simple facts
themselves, but because of antagonistic social forces. Any study of the history of
philosophy, any explanation of the philosophy of an individual or of a period that
doesn’t recognize the social means, the era, the economic system and the economic
conflicts in which philosophy evolves, or the group and position of the class of the
philosopher that develops a given philosophy, would inevitably fail to understand the
cause of the divergences and conflicts of the philosophical systems…
The history of philosophy in its context –the real dynamic life of humans in society-
reveals that philosophy has not been a mere search “dispassionate” of the truth, but
that with frequency it has become interested in defending or attacking the social
institutions, the customs and the existing traditions”. (Selsam, Howard. ¿Qué es la
Filosofia?, p. 12).
The author of this source, pointing out names of two principal philosophers of
ancient Greece, expresses: “Plato, whatever his “pure” theoretical interests may have
been, utilized philosophy to justify the lavish lifestyle of the land holding Greek
aristocracy and to give them support for the ideal of an oligarchic state governed by
an elite that was the only form of government the subjects of the State could trust.
The goal and the purpose of life for Plato was simply knowledge, and the function of
those that lacked the conditions to cultivate knowledge was to work for those that
did…The tendency of Plato was not to make philosophy contribute to the social well
being, but rather to impose the existing social order more strongly so that there
would be philosophers in the peak of the social class pyramid. Plato descended from
a wealthy family of landholders that saw themselves being affected by the emergence
of a new commercial and manufacturing class. Many of the principle traits of his
philosophy can be attributed to the desire of his class to maintain the old state of
things, to maintain the strictly defined classes and to avoid change.
Aristotle, who was the greatest philosopher of the Greeks, occupied a social position
somewhat different. His family lived in the court of Phillip of Macedonia where his
father was a doctor. Here Aristotle fell under the influence of the idea of the
formation of a vast Macedonian empire that would cover the entire East… In his
ethic, Aristotle expounds his ideas about human life. It is an ethic for the rich where
the poor are negated of ever being capable of virtuosity, and therefore were never
even thought of or considered. Once again, as with Plato, the object of all of human
society consisted in permitting that a few would be able to live in idleness and in
abundance, which was supposed to give them the opportunity to dedicate themselves
to the most elevated of all activities- the pursuit of pure knowledge of the primary
principles of the universe”. (Wk. Cit. pp.18-19).
In this manner, since it’s appearance in the classed societies, philosophy has not been
far from the irreconcilable struggle of the classes or from the emergence of the slave
holding societies even to the present day. “It was only a few short centuries during
which, in similar fashion, there formed two classes of philosophy- one that the
“scholastics” taught in the “schools” and that of rebels, the philosophy of the
spokespeople of the nascent capitalist class, people that stayed invariably outside of
the universities. The confrontation was between a closed, dogmatic scholasticism that
embraced theology and was designed to maintain the feudal system and the plan
created to reveal new truths and to liberate life, the arts and the sciences from the
dead hand of the church and the feudal land-holding nobility…
At the present, there are once again two classes of philosophy in mortal combat.
This time it is not the merchant, commercial, manufacturing class and their
intellectual representatives that confront and challenge the political and economic
power of the dominant class. It is entire nations, enormous masses, hundreds of
millions of people that fight to liberate themselves from the yoke of servitude. It is
the greatest social revolution that humanity has ever known…
Philosophy since its beginnings, has participated in the battle of the classes. It has
been the partisan of a progressive class, as well as of a class in decline. According to
this, it has collaborated in the progress of science and in the growth of superstition
such as animism and magic. These were the characteristics of the communal
primitive life, so philosophy has characterized the class society since the sixth and
fifth century before Christ in China, India and Greece up until the present day”.
(Selsam, Howard. Revolución en Filosofia. Colección 70.5. pp.12-14).
In actuality, the structural and super-structural organization of the capitalist societies
obey a philosophical conception, an ideology, a doctrine. The multiplicity of
economic, social, political, educational, cultural, and natural, etc. problems cannot be
detached from a determined philosophical conception. If the members of the
politically and economically dominant class refer to philosophical conceptions,
ideologies, and doctrines such as: the existence of dominant races, men predestined
to govern society in order to exploit the majority of the sectors of a society, etc. with
a scale of values such as: egoism, individualism; then accordingly the members of
the popular sector, dominated and exploited, also have their own conception of
philosophy, with their own scale of values, such as: solidarity, reciprocity, fraternity,
etc.
In this manner, philosophy as a cultural manifestation, resulting from the social
condition and rationality of humanity as well as from spatial – temporal concrete
reality, from the moment of the emergence of the slave-holding society to our days,
has always had the stamp of class. The intellectuals, the ideologists of the dominant,
exploiting, oppressive class, presently represented by the bourgeoisie, will continue
justifying their condition as the economically and politically dominant class in a
thousand forms, reorting to metaphysical, abstract, mythological explanations.
Accordingly Guardia Mayorga points out:
“The bourgeoisie defend all that favors their existence as the dominant social class:
they grant themselves the power of the human ideals and put them to their service;
they began their political history with mottos of human liberty, equality and
fraternity, and finish forgetting them, or at least, distort their content and objective.
Elaborating their ideology and “social myths” with a dogmatic tendency, they appeal
to their institutions and ideologies to conserve, defend and impose these beliefs on
the popular consciousness as universal truths. For example, to impose and to defend
the perennial nature of the economic and social system based on private property and
exploitation, they have adopted the metaphysical and religious principal of the
immutability of human nature. Then, based in this principle, they sustain egoism,
social inequalities, different intellectual capacities of the exploiters and the exploited,
and the right to property, etc. According to them, things will always exist this way
because they form part of the immutable nature of humanity or are their products.
Egotism determines the appearance of private property and the accumulation of
riches in the hands of a few, and not the reverse.
To prevent the smallest doubt about the truth of the principle of the immutability of
human nature from fitting, they appeal to the revealed truth that God created
humanity with all of His attributes, including egoism, naturally. And if a rational
foundation is wanted, there is the metaphysical, the “supreme science”, that supports
that essentially nothing ever changes, and much less the human, of course. The
accidental can change, but not the essential. Therefore, they make the human appear
essentially as it is now and it will always be this way.
Following this logic, egoism is natural to the human, the human will always be
egotistical, and since egotism is what engenders private property, private property
will exist as long as the human exists”. (Guardia Mayorga, César Augusto. Filosofia,
Ciencia y Religión, p. 51).
When Guardia Mayorga supports that the bourgeoisie: “empower themselves with
the ideals of humanity”, he has reasoned and demonstrates a historical truth. We
quote two specific cases: first, the doctrine and the teachings of Jesus Christ and his
disciples, which motivated the advent of Christianity as one of the most important
religions of the world, but also, its philosophical content. Historically, we know that
Christ was born, lived, and developed, in a poor family. Among his principle
teachings, Jesus mentions the equality of humans. Since the society in which he lived
was slave holding, he proposes that all humans are sons of one God, have equal
rights and as such he repudiated the imposition of slavery. He formulates the
profoundly human principle: “love one another or love your fellow man as you love
yourself”. This means that Christianity emerged as “a religion of slaves and
oppressed workers. With time, Christianity suffered many changes, and converted
into the religion of the ruling classes and was accepted as the religion of the State”.
(Rosental, M.M. Diccionario Filosófico, pps. 125-126). A second example is the
French revolution that began in 1789. Initiated by the bourgeois consisting of the
professionals, industrial workers, merchants, artisans and the laborers or peasants in
opposition to the dominant class composed of the clergy and the nobility that
maintained a society characterized by different forms of injustice, inequality and
privileges. Afterwards, they implanted a republican democratic government with the
idealist maxims of: liberty, equality, fraternity, and popular sovereignty formulated
by the philosophers: Carlos de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Francisco Maria
Arouet (also known as Voltaire), and Jean Jacob Rousseau; whose thoughts and
ideals, actually belonged to the economic and politically dominant class represented
by the international bourgeois, were recommended in theoretical and verbal form on
a global level.

4.5 THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY

We want to conclude the theme “Preliminary Reflections Concerning Philosophy”,
by occupying ourselves with the stated nature of this category of knowledge. The
concept of philosophy is cause of constant digressions on the part of philosophers of
diverse positions. Due to its complex, contradictory, and problematic nature, at
present there does not exist a single concept that is accepted by the majority.
Accordingly, it is wanted: “to demonstrate certain simple and fundamental ideas that
refer to the nature of philosophy, to its history and its place in the world. The two
popular conceptions, bourgeois and mutually contradictory are: 1) that philosophy
consists of the mere succession of individual opinions concerning the nature of
humans and the world; 2) that Philosophy is the “love of wisdom” and that its history
is the history of the development of knowledge and the understanding of the world.
None of these concepts are satisfactory. The history of philosophy is more than a
mere series of individual conceptions of the world. This concept forgets the social
forces that inspire and model philosophical thought and does not recognize the
influence of specific stages of technological and scientific progress. On the other
hand, the history of philosophy is not the same as the development of human
knowledge of the world. In such case it would be identical to the history of science
and this is without a doubt, false.
This problem resolves itself once we situate philosophy in the middle of its real
development in the society of classes. Then we discover that since its beginning in
the antique world, and until the present day, it has been characterized by the fight
between partisans, audacious and timid, consistent or hesitating, of a materialist
concept of the world and the partisans of a religious, mystic and idealistic view”.
(Selsam, Howard. Revolución en la filosofia, Colección 70, No 5, p. 13).
From here we can infer that one of the constant problems within the nature of
philosophy is the permanent irreconcilable struggle between two philosophical
currents: materialist and idealist, and then the aggregate. There are philosophers that
admit the existence of a third position, eclectic, conciliatory, also called dualistic.
We should begin the development of the proposed problem by formulating a
question: “At what moment did the conflict between the two currents of philosophy
begin or emerge? Which of these currents emerged originally? An investigation into
the pages of the general history of philosophy does not find a precise explanation for
the proposed questions. There has never been a philosopher that occupied himself
with the scrutiny of the preceding questions and there does not exist objective,
satisfactory answers at the present. Responding, we can revisit the very evolution of
humanity. The human considered as it is, with the attributes of a social and rational
being, across the historic process as manager and actor of culture, found itself in
need of favorable and advantageous adaptation to an adverse, hostile, environment
with multiple problems, unknowns, and questions. The humans responded in the first
centuries of their existence by assuming a mythological attitude and then a religious
attitude, and then finally they assumed a philosophical attitude.
“Myth is the faith of the masses that suggests what has been thought on confronting
the great questions about the world and about life, of the gods and the men”.
(Hirschberger, Johannes, Historia de la Filosofia, T.I, p.43). After this there would
continue a long phase of Hylozoism that considered that all of reality is full of gods,
which finally passed into philosophical knowledge strictly supported in “reason”.
Here we can infer that some manifestations or philosophical gems have emerged in
parallel form, maybe within the mythological, religious conceptions. Since the
moment that humans possessed the rational faculty, they searched for the “primary
principles” or essence of all existing things, in material or spiritual elements, the first
glimmers and indices appear in the philosophical currents of materialism and
idealism, including that of eclecticism and dualism. Nevertheless, the necessity to
identify the spatial-temporal factors and designating the philosophical current that
appeared first will be a task very difficult although not impossible.
Returning to the principle of analogy, we can formulate the same questions with
relation to the origin of the human. Between men and women, which appeared first?
Possibly no investigator has ever formulated this question, much less, has tried to
answer or explain it rationally. Nevertheless, an elemental reflection induces us to
support, in categorical form, that to guarantee the continuity of humanity, both the
man as the woman is necessary. It is imperative that each is complemented. The
disappearance of one of them would implicate the disappearance of humanity itself.
In equal case, the existence of philosophy is only guaranteed with the complementary
participation of materialism and idealism, despite their contradictions and abysmal
differences. The disappearance of one of the these currents, would ineluctably
motivate the disappearance of philosophy itself. Maybe the explanations of Dr. Hugo
Florez Ugarte, in the classrooms of the National University of San Antonio Abad of
Cusco, when we return to our condition as a student, had a lot of reason when he
supported: “That materialism and idealism are like the two eyes of the human being
that permit it to visualize and to know reality in equal manner. Philosophy requires
the presence of the two philosophical currents: Materialism and Idealism, to
investigate and explain reality.”
It is easy to infer that the history of philosophy is the history of the irreconcilable
struggle between materialism and idealism. From the moment of its origin up to the
present, this battle, this contradiction has existed and will have to continue as long as
humanity continues. The existence of a successor current is not possible. To declare
one of the philosophical currents as dominant, would be saying that current has come
to discover the ultimate, insuperable, unarguable truth.
Hypothetically, let’s consider that materialism as a philosophical current had
managed to discover the ultimate truth. This would implicate that idealism could not
justify its own existence and vice versa; the inferior, conquered, current wouldn’t
have reason to exist. Furthermore, philosophy itself would lack content and
importance, its presence would be useless, insubstantial. Its reason to exist would not
be justified. It would be impossible for the human to occupy itself, to dedicate itself
to the study of philosophy because the problems and themes of investigation would
have already have found definitive and unarguable solutions.
We should finalize that an inferential element permits us to affirm that the continuity
of philosophy itself is guaranteed by the presence of the contradiction, in permanent
form, of the two currents of philosophy: materialist and idealist and also by the same
continuity philosophy shares with humanity. As long as humanity exists, philosophy
will exist with its two universally accepted currents; just as the continuity of
humanity is guaranteed by the imperative presence of man and woman.
Another peculiar feature of the nature of philosophy is the fact that that it is innately
dialectical. This means that philosophy is changing, dynamic, and mutable. The
totality of the knowledge, principles, premises, and categories expressed through the
doctrines, schools and currents are found in constant evolution and change. The
common denominator of philosophy is change. Supporting this, Haraclitus of Efeso,
the “obscure”, says that in the philosophical task the only eternal thing is change.
For the innately dialectic, dynamic nature of Philosophy, unarguable truths are not
accepted or admitted. Philosophy is completely removed from the complex of
dogmas. The dialectic, dynamic nature of philosophy impels the human to dedicate
itself with constancy, perseverance, and at the same time fruition, to the activity of
philosophy, in its attempt to rationally explain the universal problems.
Finally, another manifestation of the nature of philosophy is its unity. A unity that
stands in spite of its continuity and permanence caused by the contradictory presence
of the philosophical currents: materialist and idealist as well as its permanent
dynamism through the evolution of the centuries and the millennia. Philosophy will
continue conserving its unity as a form of knowledge with its own constants and
categories in its attempt to explain and scrutinize universal problems in a rational
manner. The permanence of philosophy is guaranteed across all of space and time
with the presence of the human as actor and administrator of culture and finally of
the planet earth and the universe.
 CHAPTER II
1. HISTORICAL – CULTURAL CATEGORIES FOR
THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF INCA PHILOSOPHY
In our attempt to systematize INKA PHILOSOPHY, we encounter a series of
barriers, obstacles, and limitations that make, at least in part, our investigative labors
difficult. Primarily as a consequence of the unhappy, unfortunate, even apocalyptic,
presence of the Spaniards whose acts of genocide and ethnocide have tried to
eliminate and devastate the grandiose Tawantinsuyana collective and its cultural
manifestations. These are circumstances that make our job difficult, but not
impossible, since with the enthusiasm of patriotic intellectuals, profound lovers of
Peru and its glorious past, we are sure to proceed toward the materialization of the
ideal formulated in the body of this work.
Supporting this, Tamayo Herrera says: “WHEN ONE TRIES TO WRITE about the
Incas, a Cusqueño is put in a jam because they are working with a theme that takes
us directly to the central nerve; the reason being that the glorious history of our
ancestors is found buried in myths, prejudice, deformations, and deliberate
disinformation. To talk about the Incas is a privilege and at the same time a danger
touching the limits of the incredible and the exemplary.” (Tamayo Herrera, José.
Historia General del QOSQO, Vol. I, p. 67).

Therefore, in the republican Peru of the present, where the shamefaced intellectuals
and ideologists and supposed inheritors of the Spaniards have tried to minimize,
transform and anathemize the great Andean-Inka society, to speak of philosophy is a
privilege, but doubly dangerous. For this very reason, we propose some criteria and
historical-cultural categories related with the exceptional and extraordinary Inka
society. This shall yield an adequate, objective development of thought within the
canons of the didactic and methodological norms.

1.1 CULTURE AND INKA CULTURE

Culture is complex, problematic, and contradictory. It has been motive of multiple
conceptualizations and discrepancies among scholars and investigators. Therefore it
is necessary to clarify that the nature and substantial feature of the totality of the
sciences, including philosophy, is the dialectic, the progressive, the ascendant, the
spiral and the historic. To understand this, as much in the field of the sciences as in
philosophy, one cannot admit unarguable, insuperable, unspeakable principles,
because that would implicate falling into a dogmatic position and assuming an
unchanging religious attitude.
To demonstrate the hypothesis about the existence of an Inka culture, we see
ourselves obligated to revise the corresponding bibliography about the significance
of the term culture. Presently, we have as a definition of culture: “Collections of
material and spiritual values created by humanity in the process of historical–social
practice that historically characterize the phase achieved in the development of the
society. In the strictest sense of the word, we are in the habit of speaking of material
culture (technical achievements, production experience and other valuable materials
created in the process of production) and of the spiritual culture (production,
diffusion and consumption of spiritual values in the fields of science, art, literature,
philosophy, morality, illustration, etc.) Culture is a historical phenomena that evolved
in dependence on the change of the economic–social formations”. (Rosental, M.M.
Diccionario Filosófico, pp. 132-133).
The preceding quotes permit us to gather some conclusions that we consider
important to demonstrate the formulated hypothesis:
Culture is an exclusively and eminently human manifestation. Only the human is
able to make culture. Accordingly, culture is a universal manifestation. All of the
groups of people, or societies, of the world, possess culture, along with cultural
manifestations. The human, considered with its two substantial categories: social
being and rational being, since the instant of the invention of the instruments of
production, of attack and defense, collection of fruits, hunting and animal
domestication, discovery of agriculture, of fire, etc., to the present, has managed to
construct a cultural world to which it belongs innately. This means that the most
developed societies or countries, with scientific and technological advances most
extraordinary, or contrarily, the countries most undeveloped or primitive societies,
whose level of development permit them to be located in the stone age, all have
culture and a complex of cultural manifestations.
In comparison to the universality of culture, we should talk of the relativity, the
particularity of the same. This will help to understand culture as something peculiar,
original, singular, authentic and native to a determined society. What we want to say
is that the cultural elements of a determined society are different from the cultural
manifestation of another society, including, within a region and with better reason,
between one country and another, one continent and another. Enough to point out the
cultural manifestations of Cusco with relation the cultural expressions of Puno, with
relation to Ayacucho, all of which differ substantially as soon as one refers to their
nature, content, message, etc. Equally one appreciates the said differences between
the cultural elements of the developed and industrialized countries with relation to
the undeveloped countries or of the third world and these in relation to the tribal
groups of the African continent or the Amazon region of Peru and Brazil.
The cultural manifestations, by their nature, should be grouped by material or
spiritual features. Among the material elements of culture, we can name: construction
of dwellings, everything from a hut to the present day skyscrapers of cosmopolitan
cities; the instruments, tools and implements of production, transformation,
distribution, circulation, consumption; the instruments of defense and attack, from
the arrow to the atomic bombs; the means of communication, transportation; the
forms of dress; the constructions with multiple ends, etc. Among the elements of
spiritual nature, subjective or immaterial, we should name among the most
important: the totality of common knowledge, scientific, religious, philosophical; art
in its various specialties; the practice of sports; moral, legal norms, customs, habits
and axiological principles, etc.
The preceding considerations, permit us to conceptualize culture as a totality; it is the
complex of modifications, transformations, constructions, inventions, discoveries,
conquests, and achievements that humanity has reached in the evolution of its
existence to the present day that are found in permanent change, transformation,
modification and subject to the dialectic laws. Culture as a reality and social
phenomenon, uniquely and exclusively, is admissible as a product of the human
considered as a social being.
Having defined the explicit meaning of the word culture, we should formulate the
following questions: Is it possible to support the existence of an Inka culture? What
are the manifestations or cultural elements of the Andean-Inka world? The first
question should be responded to affirmatively and categorically in regards to the
existence of this culture with most outstanding and extraordinary features,
characteristics, and very extraordinary, singular and original categories in
comparison to the other cultures of the world both East and West. The Inka culture
reached a level of global, integrated development, as much material as spiritual; it
managed to construct a society extremely perfected in its integrated organization; it
suffices to demonstrate that hunger, misery and finally mendacity did not exist in any
of the classes.
When referring to cultural manifestations and elements, it must be noted that it
would be almost impossible to cover them in their entirety for the amplitude and
profundity of the culture of the Andean-Inca world. The chroniclers and historians
have generously recognized the continental organization of the Tawantinsuyana
society. Among the cultural elements we are able to mention: the very sui generis
social organization at a global level; the unique economic structure, the political and
administrative organization of the ruling class with its sufficient checks of efficiency;
the integrated educational system; the ethical–moral and axiological principles; a
world vision, religion, philosophy, science, and technology that permitted them to
live in perfect harmony with nature and the environment, whose natural elements
where elevated to the level of deities; the art, the language, and the fabulous
transformations, modifications, and constructions realized in the material world such
as: Machupijchu, Saqsaywaman, Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, Waqrapukara, etc. These
constitute true archaeological – historical monuments that motivate the admiration
and surprise of the entire world and as such constitute the “Cultural Heritage of the
World”.
In synthesis, it is not only possible to speak of or support the existence of the Andean
– Inkan culture, but also to affirm, assure, and verify the existence of this culture,
whose manifestations or elements at the end of the twentieth century and at the
beginnings of the twenty-first, remain unscathed, in force, as much in the material
world as in the spiritual.
Furthermore, the superiority of the Andean- Inkan culture, with relation to the
Western and Eastern cultures, is demonstrated by its elevated level of development in
its different specialties as the people of different branches of science have been
coming to demonstrate.

1.2 CIVILIZATION AND INKA CIVILIZATION

With frequency, many scholars and specialists become confused and consider culture
and civilization as synonymous, equivalent terms. For this reason, it is necessary to
make a bibliographic reference.
To demonstrate our hypothesis that it is feasible to speak of an Inka civilization, we
appeal to the following citation:
The Dictionary of Pedagogy-Labor, which Victor Garcia Hoz directed and wrote the
prologue for, expresses: “Some counter pose culture and civilization; culture, it is
said, has always had some spiritual fundamentals: when these are destroyed, it
converts into civilization. The elevated disinterest in culture is substituted for the
practical utilitarianism of civilization. But, in a strict etymological sense, civilization
makes reference to the groups in which man lives, lawfully organized society. In this
 sense, civilization is the perfection that individuals acquire to live in society, and
more concretely, in the political society or the state, or in the concert of diverse
states. Civilization does not counter pose culture in this manner, but is its social
dimension”, (p.231).
We should add some peculiarities of culture and civilization. Culture is a universal
manifestation, ecumenical; that is to say that all of the countries of the world, all of
the societies of the globe, have cultural manifestations; understanding this, one is
able to talk of a culture: China, India, Inka, Aztec, Greek, Machiguengas,
Huachipaires, Chuntakiros, etc. Civilization, corresponds with the countries that have
a juridical, legal, and institutional organization through the State, the organism most
representative of the society; if this is so, we are able to speak of a Roman, Greek,
Chinese, Indian, Inkan, etc. civilization. One the fundamental traits of the great
collectives of antiquity has been the fact that they have managed to structure a State
with an integrated organization.
With all of the fundamentals brandished by the different authors, we are in the
position of proposing the existence of an INKA CIVILIZATION as a term for
containing all of the highest forms of the life of a people, such as: religion, art,
science; the existence of an elevated technology; a complex of material and spiritual
realizations such as the expressions of practical utilitarianism of ordered social
groups belonging to a society lawfully organized in the political society or State, or
in the concert of diverse states; finally, as a manifestation of a historical stage, with
the emergence of a societies of classes.
Furthermore, the Inka State had a structure very unusual and different from all of the
States of the world. It is true that the city of Qosqo was capital of the Great
Continental Nation of Tanwantisuyo, constituted by a sum of fifteen hundred or more
nations. It is also true that it was a decentralized State divided in four suyos or
regions. The social classes were determined by the function that they carried out in
the society in condition of the governing or governed and not in the function of
economic power, being that the fundamental objective of the social classes was: THE
COMMON GOOD:
In synthesis, we should admit the existence of an Inca culture and finally an Inka
civilization, as its social dimension.

1.3 IDEOLOGY AND INKA IDEOLOGY

Now we should scrutinize the content of ideology and support the
existence of an Inka ideology. For this we once again see ourselves obligated to
translate the concept in question:
Rosental, defining the content of ideology, considers it to be the system of
conceptions and ideas: political, juridical, esthetical, religious and philosophical, that
integrate the superstructure of society. If this is so, then we should support the
existence of an Inka ideology categorically and taxonomically. Its manifestation is
found in force regulating the individual and social conduct of the majority of the
Peruvians and people of the Andes at the present. Of course the fifteen hundred years
of colonial presence, in and of itself, in the territory of the great Tawantinsuyu,
managed to destroy and cause the Inka State to disappear; but, many of its cultural
and ideological manifestations still remain in force. For a demonstration of elements
of the Inka ideology, we can point to some political conceptions: the council of
Qosqo, composed of four people representative of the four suyos or regions of the
original Inka empire, called Apus; the representatives of the two neighborhood –
dynasties of each population center called: Hanan and Urin; in this same manner, the
decimal organization beginning with Puriq or the leader of the family, then, the Pisaq
Kamayoq or Boss of five families, Chunka Kamayoq or Boss of ten families and
successively into the millions.
Within the judicial conceptions, we have the drastic sanctions of great severity, such
as the death penalty for minor offenses; the double castigation of greater severity
toward the governing member, with relation to the governed, for offenses of the same
nature, etc. Moral conceptions include obligatory collective labor according to the
aptitudes and the capacities of the Inkan habitants, the great solidarity of spirit and
reciprocity, such as ayni, with the goal of achieving the common good. Esthetic
conceptions are materialized in the gigantic constructions like Machupijchu,
Saqsaywaman, Pisaq; the ceramics represented through the aribolas; the painting
with a variety of colors in the qeros (wood and clay vases); metalworking with
mastery of the precious metals such as silver and gold, as well as copper and bronze;
the varieties of music and dance for agriculture, war, great religious ceremonies, and
for collective work such as the mink’a, etc.
Religious conceptions include: the more important gods Pachakamaq, or creator of
the universe; Wiraqocha: supreme god; Tunupa or Tonopa, universal god; Intitayta or
father sun; Mamapacha or mother earth; Mamakilla or mother moon; Illapa or
lightning bolt; the Apus, etc.; the center of the religious universe at the famous
temple of Qorikancha in the city of Qosqo, the capital of the Tawantinsuyana nation,
where all of the gods of all of the conquered collectives in the four suyus of the
Andean – Incan continent converged; furthermore, the complex priest organization
must be mentioned. The philosophical conceptions are consistent in the intention to
rationally explain the universe as a totality, a unity, where the human is an integrated
part, an elemental component; its fundamental objective being to live in harmony
with nature, its elements and all forms of life; the philosophical conceptions of time
were divided into three phases: past: ñaupaq; present: kay, kunan; future: qhepa.
Equally, space was divided into three sectors: the high world or hanan pacha; the
present, terrestrial world or kay pacha; and the subterranean world or ukhu pach, etc.
From here we are able to infer that the great Andean – Inkan society had a very
developed ideology with all of its cultural manifestations.

1.4 SCIENCE AND INKA SCIENCE

Science is the cause of different conceptions of knowing nature and the complexity
of phenomenon, objects and the parcels of reality that are studied.
We consider it important to add a concept from the methodological point of view,
and then, to make the following digressions: “Science is a complex of known facts
previously established and systematized that continuously sums up the results of the
collection of activities that investigation performs to obtain new knowledge. Science
adds this new knowledge as a contribution to that already in existence”. (Caballero,
Romero, Alejandro, Metodología de la Investigación Científica, p. 33).
The preceding concept enables us to infer that science has some essential features
that differentiate it from the other forms of knowledge; among the most important
are:
The eminent rational nature of scientific knowledge stems from its susceptibility to
verification, demonstration, experimentation, correction and perfection.
Science in comparison with philosophy occupies itself with the concrete, specific
parts of reality. It does not bother with general, universal problems, but its theme of
study and investigation are concrete problems of reality. This is a fact that motivates
the classification of science as being in accord with the nature of objects,
phenomenon, and facts of investigation.
Science, like philosophy, is dialectic, implicating that science in its totality is
completely incompatible with dogma, absolute principles, and insuperable and
unarguable truths. “It has no pretension of the absolute”, according to Abbagnano;
and “it is a collection of provisionally established knowledge” as Caballero Romero
demonstrates.
Considering reality and nature as a unity, a totality of phenomena and objects that
maintain permanent and constant interrelation that conserve a reciprocal action, then
the totality of the sciences, despite the corresponding specialties, maintain a constant
interrelation, a reciprocal action. Therefore, it is not possible to accept the total,
absolute autarchy or autonomy of the sciences.
Science, like philosophy, we should consider as one “of the forms of social
consciousness” (Rosental) that is found in permanent relation with the other forms of
cultural manifestation such as: social–economic, political, educational, etc. Science
as a social product, resulting from the collective mentality, has its origin in the social
and rational condition of humanity. Accordingly, José Ingenieros clarifies for us:
“The sciences are the result of a millennium of social collaboration in which infinite
individual experiences have been combined. Each society, in a given moment,
possesses a certain actual experience that is the function of its possible science: the
most risky hypotheses are general interpretations founded in the knowledge of their
means and their time, no matter how much the genius anticipates the experience of
the future.
As a common heritage of society, the sciences should not constitute a privilege of a
hermetic cast, nor is it licit that some monopolize its results to the disadvantage of
the others. The only limit of its diffusion should be the capacity to comprehend it; the
only destiny of its applications should be the increasing of common happiness of
humanity and permitting it to have a more dignified life”. (Ingenieros. José. Wk. Cit.
pp 84-85).
“Even when the investigator works solitarily, their activity would be impossible
without the achievements that the scientific community assimilates. In science there
is not space for “Robinsons”, that is to say, for the activity of isolated people.
The product of the activity of the investigator is essentially a social activity.” (Silvia
Santisteban, Luis. Epistemología y Metodología de las Ciencias Sociales”, pp.29-30).
In this manner, the human, as a social being with sufficient capacity of reasoning, in
an attempt to explain the multitude of problems and questions in existence in nature,
within society, and in the development of its own existence, have given origin to the
different forms of knowledge including: mythic, religious, philosophical, scientific,
technological, artistic, etc. In this sense, we should describe in detail that
“Philosophy”, is the mother or father of all of the sciences. The following citation
corroborates us:
When the groups of “specialized” philosophers separate special fields of study, their
knowledge (the content or product of their studies) tends to also be special or
specialized; and the rational orientation needed to study them becomes so specialized
that it has to be appropriate or adequate for this field of study.” (Caballero Romero,
Alejandro E. Wk. Cit. p. 35).
Another important feature of science consists in the applicability and utility of its
results. Every bit of scientific knowledge, as a result of its objectivity, tends to be
applicable in immediate form to solving problems and the necessities of humanity.
Science without praxis, utility and application, would not have reason to exist. The
application of scientific knowledge gives origin to technology. Finally, science,
obligatorily and imperatively, should be at the service of humanity.
Science, and the substantial traits that differentiate it from the other forms of
knowledge, understood in this form permits us to support in categorical form the
existence of science in the Inka society; whose totality of knowledge and specialties
require major investigation and constant scrutiny with the participation of specialized
professionals from different fields of human knowledge. However, we return once
again to the master Valcárcel. This time, in order to clarify the content of Inka
science, he proposes:
“All of ancient Peruvian science is oriented toward an economic sensibility.
Astronomy observatories are discovered that are adequate to fix the equinoxes and
solstices just as the system of canals provided irrigation with absolute precision, all
of this knowledge leads toward the increase of natural resources utilizable by the
Inka people towards the conservation and expansion of life.”
The child takes its first steps in the world guided by the hand of a parent, it runs
through the fields not only out of mischief and the diversions of age but for a formal
exercise: they will learn to distinguish the beneficial herbs and the fruits from the
noxious, to know their names, and as every one does, they will learn the geographic
names of mountains, streams, rivers and fields. The child will come to possess its
natural environment at an early age, acting within it as an economic agent. They will
soon be a good collector, a small pastor, and a helper of the family in agricultural
tasks. Later, they will learn which are the best fields for the growing of corn and
which for the potato, which materials are necessary for the fabrication of fabric or for
ceramics, and which for preparing footwear as well as the best woods for the hafts of
tools. They will distinguish perfectly the spices and the variety of each kind of useful
plant. They will know the procedure to dehydrate meat or the potato or the olluco and
the washing of the quinua and tarwi. Already a worker in the field, in the domestic
workshop, the child will come to possess its own technical capability.
But, with all of this knowledge of the village, this traditional science, it will act as the
HAMAUT’A, true scientist, a professional of knowledge, director of investigation
and action. Not only the owner of a pile of truths conserved in the community and
transmitted as a cultural inheritance from one generation to another in a free and
wide form among all of the members of society, but also others of a restricted nature,
such as a family or group secret that can only belong to selected members.
The HAMAUT’A, functionary of the State, advisor of the State, is furthermore an
inventor, a creator. No fortress before Sajsawaman in Cusco utilized the system of
zigzagging bulwarks. It was its constructors who first introduced them. In the XVI
century their names were still remembered. Agricultural science had reached the
highest level, not only for the selection of seeds, the fertilizers of the soil, artificial
irrigation, protection against frost, the taking advantage of the slope of the
mountains, etc., but principally for the constant vigilant attitude in the entire process
of the agricultural economy. This permitted surprising progress in the domestication
of almost one hundred useful species with innumerable varieties of corn and
potatoes, in the defense against pest insects, in the reconditioning of the earth for the
alternation of crops, in the disuse of nearby fields in the case of infertility. This
explains why extensive areas were not irrigated; even trying to use them in the
present results in tremendous failure. In summary, only the science and the
technology of the ancients could convert Peru into an agricultural country,
conquering the almost insuperable obstacles that nature offers.
The complicated mechanism of our atmosphere, the irregularity of the rains and the
winds, the unusual changes of climate, the instability of the earth on the steep
hillsides, the deglaciation in full process, the frequency of seismic movement, and
volcanism are other factors that profoundly alter, and not with little frequency, the
economic process. All of which the antique Peruvian science had to encounter,
presenting immediate solutions. This is as admirable as the system of platforms that
retain the erosion of soils in declivity or the anti-seismic constructions in Cusco of
Pachacuti.
They knew how to control the water with excellent skill, grasping it in the gulleys or
the rivers and conducting it with discipline in the long canals and the rough passages
through the mountains and plains to utilize it in irrigation of still more reduced
parcels of land (the soil is gold in Peru). The canals are demonstrations of ingenious
science, such as those in Nasca, which capture the water of the subsoil and
audaciously carry it below to the river. Another case is offered by the temple of the
sun in Cusco, with irrigation canals and underground channels. In other examples, it
is necessary to admit the application of the physics principle of communicating
glasses (Muyumarca within the fortress of Sajsawaman in Cusco or
Marchahuamachuco in the mountains of the north). Great canals of one hundred or
more leagues irrigate grazing land; such as those that Garcilaso mentions in the
province of Condesuyo. Pharmacy, surgery, civil engineering, political science,
military science, and the science of customs, are some of the fields in which we
discover the superiority of pre-Columbian Peru without alluding to the esoteric
knowledge that has not been conserved or that is very difficult to discover.”
(Valcárcel E. Luis, Historia de la Cultura….pp.15-17).
To all expounded about the theme of Inka science by Valcárcel, one would have to
add the scientific knowledge related to medicine, such as cranial trepanation;
engineering in its various specialties, economics, politics, administration, law,
astronomy, biology, botany, zoology, ecology, planning, etc. which we will try to
elucidate in the following pages. Recognizing each scientific specialty requires an
independent investigation as the amplitude and profundity of the knowledge that is
involved and the unlucky presence of the Spanish up to the present has marginalized,
and tried to negate the nature, content, importance and scientific category of this
knowledge.
In synthesis, we have to admit the existence an Inka Science whose assortment of
knowledge presently maintains force and utilization, as in the case of medicine, with
the majority of the collective members of the Andean – Amazonian – Inka world.

1.5 TECHNOLOGY AND INKA TECHNOLOGY

It is easy to gather that all of science or the totality of scientific knowledge,
necessarily and obligatorily must have applicability and utility. There cannot be a
science eminently and exclusively theoretical. The so-called formal sciences,
considered as theoretical, such as mathematics and logic, etc. actually have great
importance because they have constituted the spinal column of all of the sciences. In
this way, the substantial knowledge of the science of mathematics is applied in the
process of scientific investigation to reach valid conclusions of universal projection
through the quantification and statistical demonstration of the results. Equally, logic,
once a discipline of philosophy and presently, a sovereign, autonomous science,
comes to convert itself into the architectural structure of science, integral to the
totality of the sciences and better yet the very process of scientific investigation.
Here we can infer that the totality of scientific knowledge alone could justify its own
reason for existing; as much for its objectivity as for its importance through its
praxis, application and utility. This implies that the application of scientific
knowledge gave origin to technology. Mario Bunge supports:
“It is the task of the technicians to employ scientific knowledge with practical ends,
and the politicians are responsible for science and technology being used in benefit to
humanity. Scientists can, in the end, only counsel about what can be done to use
science rationally, efficiently, and well…
Modern technology is more and more the same as, although not exclusively, applied
science. Engineering is applied physics and chemistry, medicine is applied biology,
psychiatry is applied neurology and psychology; and there should come a day when
politics becomes applied sociology…
But science is useful in more than this manner. Besides constituting the foundation of
technology, science is useful in the way that it is employed in the edification of
conceptions of the world that are in concordance with the facts, and in the way it
creates the habit of adopting a liberal and examining attitude, in which people
become accustomed to putting their affirmation to test and arguing correctly. No less
is the utility that science lends as a fountain of impassioned philosophical puzzles
and as a model of philosophical investigations.
In summary, science is valuable as a tool to tame nature and remodel society; it is
valuable in itself, as a key for the intelligence of the world and of the self. It is
efficient in the enrichment, the discipline and the liberation of our mind”. (Bunge.
Mario. La Ciencia, su Método y su Filosofía, pp. 34-36).
Francis Bacon described in detail the sense that “the totality of science acts in view
of the well being of humanity and is directed to produce, in ultimate analysis,
inventions that make life easier on earth for humanity”. Within the Inka collective
there was not a mere theory, a simple possibility; they managed to materialize, to
realize, all of the philosophical, scientific, technological principles existing in that
society and time, managing to materialize the ideal of the common good for all of the
Tawantinsuyanos. Science, and in the end technology, were put to the service of
humanity, of the entire society, to solve their multiple problems and necessities, and
as a consequence of this responsible, conscientious, beneficial attitude of their
governors, they managed to conquer all of the adversities of an inhospitable
environment and forge a society where the inhabitants developed their existence
within the ethical – moral canons and axiological principles innate to the human
being.
In support, the maestro Luis E. Valcárcel, in the article written in the journal La
Prensa de Lima, 14 of May, 1933, with the title of “Notes for the Philosophy of the
Incan Culture,” expresses: “The Technology. The Tawantinsuyos were a people of
technologists in the spenglerian sense, they never proceeded by accident, and in the
wisdom of their laws and the perfection of their acts they were able to clearly and
distinctly perceive their own way of “doing things” and of conducting themselves.
Their political science assured the predominance of the Inca in the middle of South
America. Pacific conquistadores, without paradox, within the imperial organization
they had with a nucleus at Kosko, with principalities of the Sierra and the Coast from
the south of Columbia until the Chilean and Argentinean meridian…
Thanks to their political practice, the Inka converted their enemies into allies and
associates… Engineers and architects of the empire multiplied their efforts in benefit
of the conquistadores… In all of the Inka creations lives a collective spirit, the
individual synthesis. The architectural façade, the statuary of gods, the totem dance,
the song of the harvest… the aqueduct or the terrace, are all works of the group and
not the individual. Arts of the collective, science of the centuries, magical secrets of
families, all transmitted as a social inheritance”.
In the voluminous synthesis that Valcárcel realizes about “Economy and
Technology”, he demonstrates the following: “They followed economic activity and
the sustenance of human existence as a fundamental of primordial importance; seeing
how they directed everything towards their conservation, growth and expansion.
Technology, in a broad sense, is nothing other than the employment of the best means
for the accomplishment of a proposed end. Technology, within the economy, is the
assortment of knowledge applied to better and more abundant production. These
“secure” techniques are verified technical procedures, that lead to the desired results,
in difference to the Empiricists, that every time try to a technique that may or may
not be efficient, possibly following the path of truth or going off course. The process
is constituted of linked acts, with perfect logic, that are repeated with identical
results. This is what constitutes a method. Technology is nothing but a collection of
methods.
Each form of production has its methodology: the cultivation of the earth, the
fabrication of vases, metallurgy, basketry, woodworking, as well as the materials of
bone, leather, and shell… All of these are technology or involve technical
procedures, or ergology, the science of the material part of culture (a better term than
“material culture”).
A culture, as poor as it might be, has technology just as it has an economy revealing
its domination over some small sector of productive activity. Sometimes it is
surprising to analyze certain complicated methods that contrast with the general
simplicity of the culture, such as the converting of poisonous plants into edible
resources (as in the case of yucca, of the Manihot Utillissima variety), or in the
ultimate perfection achieved in some of the arts, in tremendous contrast with the
entire primitive body of work belonging to the cultural group. The pictographs of the
region of the Loa River represent llamas with admirable artistic perfection that
compares with the Caves of Altamira in Spain. Many of them may have been
executed by people at the dawn of time.
When the gigantic human production of ancient Peru is examined across the
immense archaeological gamut, an unlimited variety of technical procedures is
perceived. Arts such as the textiles exhaust virtually all possibilities, registering the
entire scale of possible development from the most elemental fishing net or grinding
fibers to the goblelino style tapestry with four hundred threads per inch, and the rich
polychrome brocade. The Peruvian weaver, all said, had nothing to learn. Yet, this
technical perfection was achieved with a minimum of tools. They did not invent the
machine, and therefore we see the weaver, with their incipient loom, making the
most beautiful works, just like the agriculturalist with their tirapie working the earth
with optimum result. The ability of the worker, their intelligence, their manual skill,
their infinite patience, along with the thoroughness and love that they put in their
work, was able to conquer their lack of instruments.
The primordial objective that the Inkan state pursued in the economic order, which is
to say the supreme objective, was production that increased every time. Better
production in agriculture and in all of the other industries to meet the necessities of a
population in accelerating growth. As if they tried to conquer the fatalism of the
Malthusian law, the Inkas, with the application of their technology to the economy,
multiplied production in a surprising form, as never had been done before in the
history of humanity.
Thanks to this, not only did they never lack alimentation, but were able to store it as
a reserve for many years in advance. Within the borders of the Inkan empire, with a
population of no less than fifteen million inhabitants, they attained not only the
necessities for the living, but also for the gods and the dead without even cultivating
all available territories, as many of them rested for years. They achieved the miracle
of an economy of abundance.
Even more, the agricultural or industrial technology would not have been enough
without another technology: that of the government. The State, great manager, only
manager, with its statistical and administrative services, its levies and precepts, its
coactive discipline, and its creative dynamism that permitted the mobilization of the
entire population, annulled the unproductivity of unemployment, and parasitism. The
State, director of the economy, made the economic, political, and technical activities
indiscernible”. (Valcárcel, E. Luis, Historia de la Cultura Antigua del Perú. pp. 17-
18).
To study the fabulous and extraordinary Inka Technology developed in Tawantinsuyu
by its hard working, disciplined, and collectivist inhabitants in unity would be almost
impossible; as each architectural construction, feat of engineering (in its different
specialties), and the totality of the cultural manifestations that constitute expressions
of an elevated technology require an independent investigation with the participation
of professionals from different scientific specialties.
The investigations realized by Valcárcel and the studious Tamayo Herrera at different
times, demonstrate for us in objective form, authentically and scientifically, the
existence of an Inka technology. Despite the development of the centuries, it
continues motivating profound admiration and surprise in all of humanity.
Of all that was expounded, let us infer that Inka Technology was the result of an Inka
science and consequently, of an Inka philosophy. Subsequently, we present the
following quote: “Chavez Ballon considers Pachakuti and Thupa Inka Yupanki the
great constructors. For Rowe, it was likewise Pachakuti, Thupa Inka Yupanki and
Wayna Qhapaq. The constructions did not have a purely utilitarian objective for the
North American. They were built above all to be a reminder, to have historical
duration. They had a clear sense of history and of the future, wanting to show their
grandness by means of enormous and eternal works that made there memory
perennial to humanity (Rowe, comunicación personal, August, 1990)”. (Tamayo
Herrera, Wk. Cit. pp.160-161).

1.6 HISTORY AND INKA HISTORY

For the purpose of the present work, we are required to conceptualize the
significance of history with precision, as there is presently debate concerning its
origin, nature, and importance.
Herodotus- Before him there was no history. The writers of the logographs are a
product of fantasy more than critique. With Herodotus history began, and Cicero
named him “the father of history”(Enciclopedia UTEHA para la Juventud. Montaner
y Simon. S.A. Editores. Barcelona. España, 1957, Vol. 2, pp. 367-368).
The preceding quotes permit us to make some important inferences:
“The historic agent is the human, not only in its individual aspect but also its social
aspects”, this means that the human as a social and rational being is the agent,
administrator and actor of history. Just as the human is the creator of culture in all of
its manifestations, so the human creates history. Uniquely and exclusively we are
able to talk of the function of the human. Although it is feasible to speak of world
history, and biological history, etc; history as a science, in exceptional form, manages
to structure and systematize the human. With sufficient reason, the human is
considered as: “subject of the historic process, of material and spiritual evolution on
the earth; biosocially (representative of the homo sapien species) and genetically
intertwined with other forms of life that are separated from them by the capacity to
fabricate instruments of labor and possess a well articulated language, thought and
conscience.” (Edit. Progreso. Diccionario de Filosofia, p.213). Here we can gather
that history began with the human and that the human by its nature and as a social
being, is also a historic being.
With skill, the Encyclopedia of our quote sustains: “it would be an error to reduce
history to the lives of great people, (generals, monarchs, religious reformers and
brilliant thinkers)”; as the particular individual human isolated from their family at
the margin of their social class, removed from the masses, would be incapable of
making history. The individual and particular human, for all of the exceptional
qualities, capacities, aptitudes and attitudes that they have, could not make history,
much less, be able to be the subject of history. Therefore, let us gather that the human
considered as a social being, the masses, the social classes, and the people as a whole
are the administrators, the actors in history. This clarifies that the “individual genius,
leader, and conductor of history that acts as the indicator of the individual spirit of
the collective, of traditional spirit and innovator; is a mere channel for the
aspirations, inquietudes, yearnings, ideals, and necessities of the masses and the
peoples.
Undoubtedly, the “primordial object of History”, is not only constituted of “the facts
concerning politics, empires, wars and revolutions”, but also, the totality and
multiplicity of achievements, conquests, creations, discoveries, and cultural
transformations, as much material as spiritual, such as: the creation of the
instruments of production, of defense and attack; the different forms and relations of
production (collection of fruit, hunting, fishing); the discovery of fire; the discovery
of agriculture, the domestication of animals; the artistic creations, the religious and
mythological manifestations, the discovery of metals; the articulation of the different
forms of language and their systematization through writing; the evolution of human
thought: empirical,common, scientific, philosophical and technological, etc.
Accordingly, for history to have scientific categorization, such as study, narration,
description, interpretation and analysis of the “past events and memorable things”,
we should consider the other important factors, such as: environmental, social,
economic, political, educational, and other cultural manifestations.
History as a science, returning to the logic and theory of knowledge for an adequate
“critique”, with an interpretation and analysis, both external and internal of the
collected documents and of the facts, requires the participation of philosophy in the
role as the maximum expression of the rationality of humanity. History as a science
should have universal projection. Furthermore it should be useful for knowing the
past, with its teachings, positive or negative lessons, for taking conscience of the
present; and it should serve to project us toward the future. History as the totality of
the sciences has to be at the service of humanity. These are the only means that
guarantee its existence and manner of being.
Despite supporting that “Universal History is the history of humanity” which is a
very accurate scientific position; some lines later, the same Encyclopedia assumes an
anti-scientific position considering that history, “begins when humans, having arrived
at a state of maturity and reflection, record the facts in written form”; in this manner
there exists a flagrant contradiction in the conceptualization of the same author. If
“Universal History is the history of humanity”, then, this would imply that history
began with the emergence of the human with its two cardinal categories: sociability
and rationality. The invention of writing and the recording of the historical facts
through writing follow this as elements of the history of humanity.
To divide human evolution and the totality of its cultural manifestations into two
dominant phases: Prehistoric and Historic, would imply that the human reached the
category of being able to be called and considered as human, thanks to the invention
and utilization of writing. In other words, the multiplicity of cultural manifestations
resulting from the discoveries, inventions, conquests, transformations, achievements,
and constructions realized by humanity “before the invention and utilization of
writing”, are negated as historical facts. We consider that the evolution of the human
across the different eras to the present belongs to Universal History and as such, is
not susceptible to being divided into prehistory and history.
With singular surprise, we find the conceptualization of history in the encyclopedia
UTEHA, of Spanish edition, to be composed of observations made in relation to the
use of “artistic language”. They consider that, thanks to prose, “artistic dignity is
reached, converting it into the language of philosophy, of history…, of Herodotus”,
and they consider Herodotus as “father of History, and before him there was no
history.” This is an affirmation that we consider not only absurd, and erroneous, but
also completely unscientific and consequently inadmissible. Historically it is known
that Herodotus was one of the most important investigators of the transcendental in
the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa; whose territories he traveled with
frequency. He has special merit, having given abundant geographic and ethnological
data of all the places that he visited; but to consider that History as a science began
with the personality of this man, not only is a crass error, but an absurdly
inconceivable position that escapes the rational condition of any scholar.
Nevertheless, within the European – Western mentality and conception, this position
is correct, acceptable, and it can be observed in the totality of the cultural
manifestations. When Philosophy is spoken of as a form of knowledge, it is
 considered to begin in ancient Greece and that the first true philosopher comes to be
Socrates; in the case the science of Mathematics, Pythagoras is considered as the
father and initiator; Hypocrites as the father of medical science; Aristotle is the
founder of Politics and Logic; Christ as the initiator of a new millennium and since
then, Herodotus as the father and initiator of History with the aberrant affirmation
that “before him there was no history”.
With a panoramic vision of the pages of world, continental, and national history, we
are able to teach in objective form that history as a science has been written by
means of the representative of the dominant economic and political class of each
society, country and as such, have recorded their facts as the only facts of history.
The military, bellicose, warrior-like character of the facts, in which the military
leaders of armies, presidents of republics, the representatives of the clergy,
diplomatic representatives, etc. are presented as heroes, redeemers, liberators and
individualists, cannot be the entire truth. Forgotten, marginalized and consciously
sidestepped is the heroic participation of the masses, of the people in union.
Furthermore, other important factors are marginalized: environments, times,
economics, culture, etc. There is the urgent need to revise and rewrite an authentic
and true history of humanity, a national history, with a patriotic, Peruvian view that
revalues in its real dimension the extraordinary Andean – Incan civilization, whose
knowledge is indispensable for all of humanity as a paradigm and a teaching in its
integrated organization.
In synthesis, admitting that the “Universal History is the history of humanity” and
that “the historical agent is the human”, we have to support in categorical form the
existence of an INKA HISTORY, whose study, analysis, interpretation, and
systematization requires the participation of well-cultured Peruvians who are lovers
of there HERITAGE, specialized in different branches of knowledge. To write the
true and authentic History of Peru, we have to abandon the conformist, submissive
mentality and attitude toward Western and European categories and parameters that
are totally and completely incompatible with the reality and the bio-psycho-social
structure of the Andean-Inkan inhabitant.
To consider INKA HISTORY there is a need to define its two substantial features:
1st. The participation of the human as a “historical agent”. The human is an exclusive
actor, administrator, and creator of history. If this is valid, the human category of the
Andean-Inka cannot be negated, much less their rational and social condition; whose
actual origin is unknown, expressed by different theoretical positions whose
fundamentals are maintained in constant debate.
2nd. The “facts, occurrences, events and memorable things” that are in the historical
category and that have been stirred up and realized since the origins of the first social
organizations of the Coast-Andes-Amazon, to the emergence, organization, presence
and apogee of the Tawantinsuyana collective whose cultural manifestations are
summarily complex and profound with extraordinary levels of development. It is
enough to point out some examples of historical features found in various categories:
social, economic, political, educational, religious, and a military organization with a
unique administrative structure whose fundamental objective was to materialize the
axiological principle of the COMMON GOOD; the domestication of alimentary
plants that in quantity and quality supercede the other four continents together; the
domestication of animals; the totality of the constructions; ethical-moral and
axiological principles; the philosophical, scientific, technological conceptions, etc.
Among the cultural institutions of the Inka collective, we have wanted to occupy
ourselves with history, and many of our readers question this attitude with reason. To
speak of Inka Philosophy there is no need to deal with the theme of history.
Nevertheless, we consider the need to define and clarify some unscientific Western -
Hispanic conceptions that want to negate the existence of an Inka History, whose
facts, successes, occurrences, realizations and conquests are extraordinary, singular,
and exceptional in comparison to other cultures or civilizations of the world.
We have wanted to put special emphasis, because it is extremely vital, on the
adequate evolution of the present work since many historians consider that history
began the moment of the invention or systematization of writing. Accordingly we
have demonstrated this is a mistaken and unscientific position. An elemental
reflection permits us to infer that behind this position of viewing history, exclusively
in function of writing, there exists a philosophical foundation, ideological basis,
whose representatives have not wanted to expound on it with clarity or have
sustained it by means that at times are camouflaged. The occidental intellectuals,
with a colonialist and imperialist mentality, by means of their theory of history in
function of the invention of writing, have wanted to justify that all of the people
enslaved, subjugated, dominated, and exploited over many centuries by the
colonialist countries of Spain, England, France, Holland, etc. on the continents of
America, Africa, Asia, etc. lack writing and finally a history. This means that the
chroniclers, as a consequence of their limited knowledge, tried to justify the
atrocities committed by the hordes of western invaders towards the populations of
other continents. Furthermore there are still individuals pretending to be investigators
and intellectuals that express their delight in the fruition of such crimes in the name
of Western Christian civilization and/or culture. They attribute comptemptous
epithets, considering the invaded peoples as savages, primitive, etc.
In the hypothetical case that the Inka had not managed to utilize or systematize
writing, as the intellectuals and historians with Western-Hispanic mentality
mistakenly support; we should posit with certainty that the Tawantinsuyanos,
managed to forge and develop a true, authentic and extraordinary HISTORY, whose
achievements, advances and conquests will continue to be objectives, horizons and
ideals that direct the coming generations of humanity to the materialization of
ethical-moral and axiological principles such as the Common Good.
INKA HISTORY was a glorious, generous, humanitarian, fraternal history where the
principles of reciprocity, solidarity, brotherhood expressed through AYNI amd free
labor managed to forge a society that championed general well being and ceased to
know laziness, hunger, misery, and mendacity. Accordingly this is expressed in the
words of regret of a conquistador: Mancio Sierra de Leguizamo, who before dying
gave his testament in the city of Cusco, 1589 as a member of the Spanish invaders
lead by Francisco Pizarro. In this pathetic writing, he regrets his participation in the
genocide and ethnocide committed against the grand, exceptional, and extraordinary
Andean-Inkan society, when he manifests: “…understand your catholic majesty that
we have located kingdoms of such manner that in all of them there was not a thief, a
vicious man, nor a loafer, nor was there an adulterous woman. There was no evil
among them nor was it permitted. There weren’t any evil people living in false
morality, and the men had honest and advantageous occupations. The earth and the
mountains and the mines and pastures and hunting and wood and all types of
resources were governed and distributed, each one knew and had their home without
fear of another occupying it or taking it, nor were there lawsuits about this;
understand your catholic majesty that the purpose that moves me to give this account
is for the relief of my conscience and to put myself guiltily in it;…”.
Garcilaso de la Vega, confirms: “They call it the law of brotherhood that orders all of
the neighbors of each village to help each other to clear the fields and to seed, to
gather their crops, to build their homes and other things of this nature, all without
having to pay anything”. (Comentarios reales… Vol. II, p.72).

1.7 INKA WRITING: THE KHIPUS

Writing is another historical-cultural feature of ultimate importance that requires
better investigation within the canons of objectivity and scientific principles since
many detracting intellectuals and historians of the Andean world and its cultural
manifestations skillfully negate the existence of Inka writing and at the same time,
divorce the category of writing from the khipus.
We consider the theme of Inka writing to be of ultimate importance for the
development of the present work since the intellectuals and the historians that defend
the European countries have tried to justify the presence of the invaders. They do not
simply try to negate the existence of writing in the extraordinary society of the Inkas,
but justify with ideological, philosophical support the entire process of colonization
with abominable consequences for the Andean inhabitants and the consequent
destruction of all of their cultural manifestations utilizing the cross and the sword as
powerful instruments.
The ideological and philosophical support of the defenders and representatives of the
colonizing-imperialist countries consists of the supposed fact that the presence of the
supposed conquistadores was necessary in the new continent. They had brought
culture and civilization, expressed in the form of language, religion, writing, etc. to
these primitive, savage, barbarous, idolatrous, peoples. People ignorant of writing
and therefore, lacking history. This is theme that we have developed with sufficient
amplitude under the topic of “History and Inka History” and along these lines we
will dedicate ourselves to making the digressions necessary to demonstrate the
existence of an Inka writing.
The historic evolution of writing lets us synthesize by returning to two collections of
books edited in Spain. In this manner we have: “Of all the inventions humans have
achieved, maybe none are as transcendent for the culture of humanity as writing. It
had its origin in the necessity to communicate and to give permanence to thoughts
and, like all human inventions, has suffered great transformations along the centuries.
It cannot be considered as a mnemonic system, like the khipus, or cords with knots
(Peru and China), manpun, and pearls embroidered in belts (North America), or
flowers attributed with diverse meanings in floral arrangements (Malayan
archipelagos), etc.,…For in reality these were procedures for recording and not
properly writing systems. (Diccionario Enciclopédico ESPAS Vol. 5, Dante-España.
Espasa-Calpe, S.A. Madrid, 1982, p.694).
“Writing is a representation of words or ideas by means of graphic symbols. It
constitutes the important and decisive change of the human in its transit from
barbarism to civilization. It is treated as a recent cultural advance…
Evolution. Maybe the most remote antecedents of writing have been looked for in
certain artifacts utilized by the primitive human to record determined things. It is
known that many primitive peoples of recent times resort to such artifacts. The
message-sticks of the Australian aborigines serve as eloquent examples, the glass
bead belts of the indigenous North Americans and the knotted cords (quipus) of the
indigenous Peruvians. The first important advance over these mnemonic procedures
consisted probably in pictography, which permitted the transmitting of messages by
means of a series of images. Gradually the contours of these images were
abbreviated and stylized and many signs acquired metaphoric value (the sun for
example would signify “brilliance”) and the names of certain images where
combined to represent the sounds of the words of the spoken language. This stage of
linguistic development corresponds to the primitive cuneiform and Egyptian
hieroglyphics writing systems, in which symbols are represented in place of sounds.”
(Gran Diccionario Enciclopédico Durvan, Vol. 5, Edit. Durvan. España).
The preceding quote permits us to make some reflections: writing has its origin in the
“necessity to communicate”. It is known, thanks to the science of communication,
that communication proper did not exclusively begin with the human considered as a
social and rational being; but includes the moment in which living beings of the same
nature and biopsychic structure interrelated. Consequently, communication comes
before the human itself. Furthermore, there are different forms of communication:
verbal, written, and imitative. In its turn, written communication is not limited only
and exclusively to the use of an alphabetic or phonetic writing, as the two quotes
coincidentally sustain very well. To try to negate the theme of communication with
relation to the inhabitants of the Tawantinsuyana collective would be a veritable
aberration since Inka history teaches us that in this society, there was already a level
of familial nucleus, as well as a social stratification: governors and governed, they
practiced direct, personal, and appropriately, interpersonal communication on a daily
basis
When it is supported that writing had its origins to “give permanence to thoughts,” it
is indubitable that the human, in addition to writing, has had to utilize different
means to exteriorize, to make perennial and evoke the multiple states of mind such
as: feelings, emotions, necessities, beliefs, and since then, thoughts. For this they
have had to utilize the varied forms of artistic expression, such as: painting
(pictographic writing), ceramics, sculpture, textiles, metallurgy, even the complex
architectural constructions of multiple use: religious, political, social, administrative,
educational, cultural, etc. Writing, after having “suffered great transformations across
the centuries”, has arrived at its highest expression through books; which constitute
necessary elements, useful and ultimately important to give “permanence to
thoughts” and to exteriorize all of the mental and psychological states of the human.
When it is said: “the mnemonics, such as the quippos or cords with knots (Peru and
China) cannot be considered as systems of writing, because in reality they were
methods of recording and not proper writing systems”, the quote motivates our
commentary, not recognizing one of the important functions of writing; which
consists precisely in being utilized as a “mnemonic element”; since: “mnemonic
technique: is the art of augmenting the faculties and reach of the memory, a method
of forming an artificial memory” (Diccionario Enciclopédico Ilustrado de la Lengua
Española, Vol. III, p.2297).
In actuality, there exists different systems of writing beside the alphabetic/phonetic
one of general use in the western world. Other systems of writing are utilized in Asia,
an example of the symbolic is presently in use in the countries of China, Japan,
North and South Korea, North and South Vietnam, Thailand, etc.; not to mention the
writing utilized in the countries of the Arab block such as: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, etc.
When it is expressed that “writing is a representation of words or ideas by means of
graphic symbols,” one refers as much to pictographic writing or hieroglyphic as to
phonetic. Furthermore, of the “graphic symbols”, one uses signs, figures, forms,
ciphers, etc. Among these forms of writing, we can mention: the writing in relief for
the blind invented by the French professor Luis Braille; the alphabet utilized in
Morse code, found in the electrical telegraphic system that utilizes a conventional
alphabet of points and lines, invented by the North American painter and physicist
Samuel Morse; the quantification of human thought through numbers or codes: 1,2,3,
…, that come to constitute the support and vertebral column of mathematical
science; the representation of the science of Geometry through forms and figures,
such as: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, etc.; the quantification of human thought
through roman numerals; the representation of musical notes through symbols and
figures; the system of signals used in the highway, train, and other transportation
systems to indicate the way or to warn of other elements such as: dangerous
situations, bridges, crossings, distances, destinations, etc.; the tendency of the
majority of the natural and social sciences to utilize a formalized and symbolic
language with universal application, a fact that has permitted the accelerated
development of the sciences themselves with logical and mathematical support; the
totality of the systematized scientific formulas at the present in the sciences of all of
the specialties, etc, etc.,
When one refers to the use of the “quippos” or “quipus” of the ancient Peruvians in
the dictionaries edited in Spain, we do not encounter contradictions, but even better,
coincidences. When the khipus are considered as: “procedures of recording” or
“certain artifacts utilized by the primitive human to record determined things”, they
refer to one of the vital functions of writing and coincidentally of the book as well.
Here we clarify that the qualifications of “primitive human” and “Indians”, with
relation to the inhabitants of the exceptional Andean-Inkan culture and civilization
deserves our total and absolute rejection for the considerations we have sustained
with sufficient amplitude throughout the present work.
To make the current theme of writing and the khipus concrete, we should begin with
their development, supporting ourselves in the works realized by different historians
and the information received by the chroniclers since the arrival of the Spanish
invaders. In this manner William Burns Glynn, in a succinct but extremely important
work, sustains the following: “Based on the premise that the Inka did not know a
phonetic writing system, it is habitual to support the theory that in the Incan empire,
people transmitted messages across great distances by means of a spoken language. It
is also supported that the ancient Peruvians employed an embryonic system of
representation to communicate, using ideographic signs and artifacts such as the
Quipu, to aid memory.
If we support ourselves with the evidence that within the process of oral
communication the distortion of messages occurs with frequency and that the more
intermediaries there are, the greater the distortion; then how does one admit that in a
great empire with ten million inhabitants and with an extension of almost two million
square kilometers they were able to impart numerous perfect dispositions with such
an inefficient means of communication? If we detain ourselves in the history of
communication we see that communication’s progress across time has contributed to
the progress of civilization. How can we consider that with the limited means of
communication by symbols with determined ideographic value based on the
mnemonic technique of cords, the Inka could build an empire of such splendor,
power, and culture. These simple facts bring us to consider that the Inka community
might have worked with a system of writing that was efficient, effective and finally
alphabetic…” The author finishes supporting the thesis: “As the reader will see, this
study permitted us to corroborate our conviction: There existed a superior pre-
Hispanic writing system”. (Burns Glynn, William. La Escritura de los Incas, pp: 1-
2)”
After transcribing the point of view of many chroniclers, William Burns deduces the
following conclusions:
“-There was a writing system whose symbols differed from the
codification of ours.
-The written language could be transferred to quipu, therefore the system
should have been convertible, and there was the possibility of an
erroneous interpretation in the conversion.
-The symbols may appear to us as decorative figures; considering that
the word quecha-quelca signifies: to draw, to paint or to write.

A conjunction of references permits us the following progression of events:

-There existed, many years prior to the conquest, a writing system
consisting of letters.
-Through wars or to meet the interests of the empire, the letters were lost,
were prohibited or kept secret.
-To transmit past knowledge or to give orders, the Inkas authorized the
writing of them in baculos, tablets or fabrics and then made them
perennial in quipus.” (Burns Glynn, William, Wk. Cit. pp.8-10).

Finally, William Burns G. supports the following thesis: “In this brief investigation,
new focuses have been presented with respect to the study of pre-Hispanic writing in
Peru that brings us to convert the hypothesis of this work into a thesis: THE INCAS
EMPLOYED AN ADVANCED WRITING, whose alphabet has some peculiarities
such as: it consists of few symbols; its sounds do not have double values as do some
of the letters of Spanish, and another very appreciable idiosyncasity is that its letters
represent numbers at the same time that they represent letters…
The collection of positive indications that we have encountered: an alphabet,
symbols, and a letter-number correlationl, permit us to solidify the following
conclusions:
1. The ancient Peruvians managed to possess an ALPHABET OF TEN
CONSONANTS (they did not write vowels).
2. The CONVENTIONAL SIGNS of the writing that represent the voices of
their language consist basically in GEOMETRIC FIGURES.
3. The Inka society ADOPTED DIVERSE MATERIALS FOR WRITING:
textiles, stone, clay; leaving in them names, messages, stories of occurrences,
etc.
4. They established a relationship between letters and numbers which places
the Peruvian invention of writing on the threshold of the fabulous.
5. With the consonant – number system it may be possible to DECIPHER
THE QUIPU”. (Burns Glynn, William, Wk.Cit. p.31).
Despite the important investigations and valuable contributions to objectively and
scientifically demonstrating the existence of an Inka writing system, nevertheless, we
should express our discrepancy with relation to the first supported conclusion:
“managing to achieve an ALPHABET OF TEN CONSONANTS (they did not write
vowels).” Concerning the reference to the quantity of consonants, it could have been
of a higher or lower quantity. Also, when it is supported that “they did not write
vowels”, we must deduce that this is mistaken; as all languages and dialects,
necessarily and obligatorily have to structure themselves in function of the vowels,
whose quantity can vary in accord with the nature and the complexity of the same.
The Tawantinsuyana collective had a highly elevated grade of cultural development
and a scientific organization integral to the socio-economic, political, educational and
administrative aspects. They not only utilized “GEOMETRIC FIGURES” as
conventional symbols of writing, as in the case of the TOCAPUS: but, also resorted
to the use of symbols, colors, formulas, symbols and codes, as encountered in the
case of the khipus and other materials of writing, that sadly and unfortunately
“Atahualpa, the church and the Spaniards, in certain times gave order to destroy”.
(Burns Glynn, W. Wk. Cit.p.31). Furthermore, the amautas, the intellectual class and
governors of Cusco and all of the Tawantinsuyu, were murdered by the same forces
mentioned by Burns Glynn.
Accordingly, the same author supports that in a vast territory with millions of
inhabitants, communication could not be based in a solely oral modality, but must be
written. This demonstrates the existence of THE CHASKIS.
The Inkas, demonstrating their human categories as actor and administrator of
different cultural manifestations, managed to achieve and implant an efficient system
of communication, utilizing the chaskis (messengers).
It is indubitable that alphabetic writing is not of universal use; there are other
systems of writing, as in the case of the Asian countries such as: China, Japan, Korea,
India, Iran, Iraq, etc. Consequently, the symbols, signs, and geometric figures used to
quantify human thought in the field of mathematics, is on an equal ground with the
khipus and their variety of knots, colors, and forms which constitute another
structure of writing.
Historically, the investigators and specialists in the science of Linguistics have
supported the existence of the Inkan writing. Among the linguists we have Ernest W.
Middendorf who posits: “The cultivation of language and its teachings were one of
the obligations of the amautus, or the wise men. This group, that should not be
confused with the priesthood, included the most educated of the dominant social
group and the flower of all the empire. One part of it was occupied with astronomy
and its applications to the division of time into years and months, the arrangements
of the religious holidays that were celebrated at the solstices. Similarly this
knowledge was applied to agriculture in order to determine the fitting time to sow the
fruits of the countryside; others of the amautu directed the education of the young
Inkas, initiating them in the religion of idolatry (worship of the sun) and teaching the
sons of the nobility the language of the court. Others were put in charge of statistics,
taxes, the accounting of the empire, taking note of the laws, decrees, important
political events and other occurrences by means of the recording system of knots that
they would have known how to create and decipher without delay”. (Middendorf W.
Ernest Gramática Keshua. pp. 8-9).
Intellectuals and investigators of global stature, such as Carlos Radicati Di Primeglio,
Luis E. Valcárcel, and Mercedes Anaya de Urquidi, support in categorical form the
existence of an Inkan writing system. Furthermore, we can infer that the use of the
khipus had not been exclusive to the governing class or the nobility. Carlos Radicati
Di Primeglio refers to this when he makes mention to the “bundle of threads used by
the Indians in their confession before Father Acosto and the document of the
idolaters from the Archbishop Archive of Lima in the XVIII century, where there
appears “an Indian carrying a quipo of cords to give information about his
possessions.”
The most important historians of Republican Peru also assert that the khipus have
been utilized as a veritable system of writing by the Inka and that it is superior to
alphabetic writing. In the National Congress of Ethno-History, organized by the
Special Commission: 500 years of European Invasion and Andean Resistance of the
Concejo Province of Qosqo, held in the city of the same name, in the UNSAAC
audotoruium from the 5th to the 9th of October in 1992, this preceding thesis was
sustained by the participating doctors: Virgilio Roel Pineda, Juan José Vega,
Edmundo Guillen Guillen, Julio Roldan Aquino, Hernán Amat, Frederico Kauffman
Doig, etc.
Presently, in the science of Logic, there is a extreme interest in the study of the
theme: “natural language and formalized language,” The first is known as current or
natural language, because it is innate to the human being and the second is used in
the field of the sciences where it is recommended to utilize formalized or symbolic
language that permits the simplicity and precision of scientific expressions. Among
the principal characteristics and differences of the two forms of language we can cite:
“The first property that should be observed is that the natural languages are before
anything oral and spoken, while the formalized languages are before anything
written. Many natural languages, such as those of primitive tribes, lack a written
form. On the other hand, all formalized languages always have a very special
writing, they are before anything written. One cannot conceive of a formalized
language that is not written.
Secondly, the natural languages have an extremely wide expressive range that
permits them to express anything.
The natural languages are permitted to express emotions, knowledge, orders,
warnings, requests, feelings, attitudes, etc. Therefore at times they can be vague. The
excess of expressive range makes it impossible to be free of ambiguities. On the
other hand, the formalized languages only express knowledge. All of them, without
exception, have been created for scientific ends, to express knowledge in the most
efficient manner possible.
Thirdly, the natural languages have a phonetic scripture, while the formalized
languages have an ideographic scripture. The phonetic scripture reproduces the
sounds of the spoken word in written form. The spoken words directly express
things, situations and ideas. To do this, it places high value on the use of sound.
However, the written words of the natural languages do not directly express things,
situations or ideas, but express the spoken words. For this reason, they are called
phonetic writing systems. This comes from Greek, where “phone” signifies voice.
Phonetic writing systems reproduce oral language and it is by this indirect method
that it manages to express things, situations and ideas. On the other hand, the
formalized languages are ideographic, that is to say that they directly express through
their symbols: things, situations and ideas. For example, the number one is expressed
in a natural language by using the word “one”. This word has a determined sound.
The written word “one” expresses this spoken sound, and through the spoken sound,
expresses the number one. In contrast, arithmetic has a formalized language, and in
this language, to express the number one, a symbol is employed that does not
reproduce any sound, but that directly refers to a spoken number. This symbol is the
figure “1”.
Fourthly, the natural languages have an incomplete grammar and rules full of
exceptions, while the formalized languages always have a complete grammar and
rules that never have exceptions. The grammar that we have studied in our early
years… is the grammar of our respective languages, that is to say, a natural language.
So, despite the fact that the study of grammar is difficult enough, because it is
composed of an infinity of rules, we also have to deal with a grammar extremely
imperfect and incomplete…In contrast, in the formalized languages there are never
any doubts. In them everything is foreseen. In these languages it is not possible to
write a phrase like the anterior because it is one without sense…
But we have not explained why this type of language is called formalized. It could
have been called symbolic language or exact language or any other similar title,
because in effect, all formalized language is symbolic and precise. Nevertheless, it is
called formalized because its most important property is that of revealing the form of
propositions and inferences”. (Miró Quesada, Francisco. Lógica, pp. 49-52).
The science of Logic is extremely dialectical and forms the vertebral column of the
totality of the sciences. Now it is required to make some observations with relation to
the previous quote:
The signs, symbols and figures that formalized language utilize can be read in
different languages because formalized scripture is universal; just as in the case of
the number “1”.
Formalized language, in addition to it primary use in the scientific fields, can be used
to express knowledge, orders, warnings, feelings, emotions, and attitudes; such as the
case of the symbols and signs utilized in the means of communication, transportation
by land, sea and air; situations of danger through the color “red”, death with the color
“black”, etc.
The ideographic writing of the formalized system permits the accelerated
development of the sciences and technologies, a fact that overflows in benefit to all
of humanity for its universal application.
Logic as a science is considered as the theory of inferences, and the totality of the
sciences are structured on the basis of true or false propositions. Neutral or
intermediary propositions do not exist.
This superficial analysis of Logic related with natural language and formalized
language permits us to infer that the khipus utilized in the Andean-Inkan society were
a true system of ideographic writing utilized with an elevated level of scientific and
technological precision. Let’s not forget that the Inka were enemies of lost time,
speculations, and metaphysical meditations such as: the origin of the soul, the origins
and the gender of the angels, etc.
In conclusion, the Inkas managed to structure a formalized language with an
ideographic, symbolic, and scientific writing system of universal validity that was
superior to the phonetic or alphabetic writing brought and implanted by the
Spaniards.
The superiority of the Inka’s ideographic, symbolic writing with scientific content is
supported by the totality of the present sciences, with all of its specialties, which at
the present tend to structure an ideographic writing as an expression of formalized
language for universal use. With this formal language it is capable of overcoming
barriers, obstacles and limitations of cultural and idiomatic character.

2. ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS AND

ADVENTUROUS LUCUBRATIONS
The glorious history and the extraordinary, powerful, and fabulous accomplishments
of the Andean – Inkas are still found tightly coiled in myths, beliefs, prejudices, and
suppositions that are far from objective, scientific explanations. In the majority of the
cases, the gigantic, complex structures such as: fortresses, sanctuaries, dwellings,
aqueducts, terraces, bridges, temples, roads, baths and fountains, still have not been
satisfactorily and convincingly explained despite the elevated level of the advanced
social and historical sciences. Many researchers that have studied the works of the
great Inka collective have concluded systematizing theories that escape scientific
objectivism.
Equally, when we try to understand the integrated organization of the exceptional
Andean civilization, we bump into theories not only concordant, but also
contradictory among intellectuals representative of the colonialist and imperialist
countries. They express a specie of phobia, even hate, for the Andean – Inka and their
cultural manifestations. On the other hand, we have the patriotic attitude of
intellectuals heartfully identified with Peru and its cultural legacy. The struggle
between these two groups will continue in our country of profound contradictions. It
is a struggle between the intellectuals suffering the syndrome of colonialism,
habituated to the easy task of copying, plagiarizing, and tracing the different foreign
cultural manifestations and the intellectual patriots, honest and sincere, defenders of
the Andean-Inkan world and its cultural manifestations. They are disposed to
demonstrating the universal force and value of Peruvian history. This is the case of
Luis E. Valcárcel, whose profound investigation of the Tawnatinsuyana collective
and the groups of its social predecessors has permitted us to know the true
importance of this society whose work still continues to be motive of admiration and
surprise for all of humanity. In this patriotic labor, special mention is needed of the
Higher Academy of the Quecha Language of Peru, with headquarters in the city of
Cusco, as well as all of the academies of the Quechua language with seats in all of
the capitals of the departments of Peru. We should also mention all of the cultural
institutions that are identified defenders of the Andean-Inkan continental nationality,
existing along the length and width of America and the world.
The majority of the chroniclers, historians, and other investigators have managed to
systematize their theories at the level of hypothesis; far from a rational, objective,
and scientific-philosophical perspective. We conclude that the better part of the pan-
Andean cultural manifestations require constant investigation with the participation
of researchers and intellectuals with different specialties of human knowledge and
that these results have to be put to the service of all of humanity to solve vital
problems and satisfy the different necessities that presently burden it.
The Tawantinsuyana collective, in its integrated organization and the totality of its
cultural manifestations, is still found surrounded by enigmas, secrets, and questions
that continue to challenge and invite all intellectuals and researchers of the world. It
has been 500 years since the Spanish adventurers and invaders first confronted the
Tawantinsuyana culture. As a natural consequence of their absolute negation of the
philosophical and scientific-technological knowledge existent in Europe, and the fact
that the majority of the invaders were individuals recruited from the prisons,
persecuted by the law, evaders of justice, incapable of comprehending and realizing
values or ethical-moral principles; it is no surprise they were not able to rationally
explain what they encountered in the Tawantinsuyana. This motivated the following
reasoning on their part:
“The Inca Kings of Peru made MARVELOUS constructions such as fortresses,
temples, royal homes, gardens, roads, and other constructions of excellence as
demonstrated today by the ruins that they have left, even though one can only see the
foundations which once made up the entire edifice.
The major construction, and most superb, that was ordered built to show the power
and majesty of the Inca, was the fortress of Cusco, whose grandiosities are incredible
to anyone who has not seen them. When they have been seen and examined with
attention they make one imagine and even believe that they were made by some form
of enchantment and that demons made them and not men;… (Inca Garcilaso de la
Vega, Comentarios Reales de los Incas, Vol. III, p.68).
Nevertheless, 500 years later, at the beginning of a new century and millennium, the
inhabitants of the world, with all of their scientific-technological advances and
professionals of high specialization, cannot reveal the totality of the enigmas,
mysteries and secrets that many of the cultural manifestations contain. As a result
they resort to new theories involving extraterrestrial beings as the creators of these
“MARVELOUS edifices”.
“Sacsahuamán and Tiahuanaco withhold a plethora of prehistoric secrets about which
there have been numerous explanations that are superficial and not at all convincing.
It is also certain that we find vitrified sand in the Gobi desert with Iraqi
archaeological excavations. Who can explain to us why this same vitrified sand has
appeared in the Nevada desert after experimental atomic explosions?...
If the zeal to discover our past is sufficient incentive for modern and intensive
investigation, perhaps our modern instruments can intervene with their rules of
calculation . Be as it may, until now no scientist has been able to explain, even with
the most modern instruments, Tiahuanaco or Sacsahuamán, the Gobi desert or,
employing radiation, the legendary Sodom and Gomorra. The cuneiform texts and
the tablets of Ur, all of the most ancient books of humanity, inform without exception
about the “gods” that sailed the skies with boats, about “gods” that arrived from the
stars wielding horrible arms and then returned to the stars. Why don’t we search for
these ancient “gods”? Our radio astronomy sends signals to the Cosmos and tries to
capture symbols of alien intelligences. Well then, why don’t we first look for, or at
the same time, the prints of these alien intelligences in a place much closer: our own
Earth?”. (Daniken, Erich Von. Memories of the Future, pp. 58-59).
The archaeological remains on the plains of Nazca, as well as the ruins of
Tiahuanaco, Sacsayhuaman and others, have not been explained with convincing
scientific reason despite the participation of professional archaeologists and other
specialists with the most advanced technological instruments presently available. The
lucubrations of Daniken given in the large quote that we have transcribed uniquely
relates with the archaeological remains of the Tawanatinsuyana world. It obligates us
to ratify ourselves in our preceding affirmation: that the collectivity of the Andean –
Inka world and it’s cultural manifestations continue to be immersed in many
enigmas, secrets, and questions that strongly spur us to permanently pursue the route
of investigation.
Nevertheless, we return to the teachings of Universal History. We find the people of
the Tawntinsuyana organized through elevated principles such as: collective work,
the spirit of solidarity, actions of reciprocity, a fraternity in search of the COMMON
GOOD and SOCIAL JUSTICE with a common denominator of discipline. They have
been capable of eroding mountains, building gigantic and marvelous works that have
remained stolid across the centuries and have challenged the passing of time. The
archaeological remains still stand along the length and width of the Tawantinsuyana
territory.
The master Luis E. Valcárcel supports us when he refers to the Andean – Inkan
collective: “In all of the creations of the Inka there lives a collective spirit, a
synthesis. The architectural facades, the statues of Gods, the totem dance, the harvest
songs, the regal cloth with the history of Mayta, as well as the sown field or the
herds, the aqueduct, or the terrace are all works of the group and the individual. The
collective arts, the sciences of the centuries and the secret magic of the family is all
transmitted as a social inheritance”. (Valcárcel E. Luis. LA PRENSA of Lima-Perú,
Sección Segunda. 14 de mayo de 1933).

3. THE PROGRESSIVE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN

THOUGHT
The different cultural manifestations of the Andean – Inka world, such as the
economy, politics, education, religion, philosophy, science, technology, art, morality,
law, games, etc., whose existence not only has been diminished and side-stepped, but
ignored, negated and disdained by the representatives of the western world and the
Hispanic colonialist intellectuals. This obligates us to return to the title used by one
of the distinguished and prominent Peruvian thinkers: Francis Miró Quesada, when
he considers “a historical observation of logic”, he concludes positing:
“All of this proves that human reason is the same across history and that it possesses
a special type of ascendant motion that within a common trend continues progressing
in a manner each time more indefinite and with uncontainable strength”. (Miró
Quesada, Francisco. Lógica, pp. 36 -37).
The previous quote concerning the evolution of Logic, once considered as a sub-
discipline of philosophy and presently as an autonomous science that has motivated
the emergence of new logical disciplines, permits us to understand nature, evolution
and the progressive, spiral, historic and ascendant orientation of human thought. It
implies that the human (considered in its unity as an inhabitant of earth, of the
cosmos, of a concrete reality, of a specific geographic environment with its peculiar
features of facilities and adversities, of opportunities and difficulties, of possibilities
and contradictions) in the satisfaction of its multiple necessities has been permitted to
originate and systematize different cultural manifestations. The human with its innate
quality of rational thinking, on confronting the physical world and the environment,
gave origin to culture. Although it is easy to infer that in the first phases of the
evolution of the human, considered as a social and rational being, the different
cultural manifestations were simple and elemental; but apart from then, human
thought and its cultural manifestations begin to evolve and develop in an ascendant,
progressive, spiral and historical form until arriving at the levels, categories and
qualities, with width, amplitude and profundity of indefinite and uncontainable
proportions right up to the present.
To appreciate the nature of human reason (that is the same across history and that
possesses a type of ascendant movement that within a common trend goes on
progressing in an indefinite manner and with uncontainable strength) we will take a
look at the philosophical conceptions about: the universe, nature, society, and the
human as proposed by two human collectives that belong to spatial temporal realities
completely different and removed from one another.
In 1855, the boss NOAH SELTH of the Swamish tribe of the northwestern United
States, pronounced a discourse directed towards the european settlers, in response to
an offer to buy the territory of the Swamish that the president Franklin Pierce had
proportioned to them. This discourse was qualified universally as: “The most
beautiful and profound declaration that had ever been made about the environment,”
it was written under the title “the earth does not belong to humans”. We transcribe its
substantial aspects here:
“The Great Chief in Washington says that he wants to buy our lands. The Great Chief
sends us words that come close to changing our friendship.
Let us consider the offer, as we know that if we do not do so, the white man will
come with his firearms and take our lands. The Great Chief in Washington can trust
in what Chief Seattle says with the same certainty with which our white brothers can
trust in the change of the seasons. My words are as immutable as the stars.
Who can sell or buy the heavens or the warmth of the earth? This idea seems strange
to us. We are not owners of the fresh air or of the brilliance of water. How will they
buy these things from us? We will decide suitably. They should know that each
parcel of this land is sacred for my people. Each resplendent leaf, each sandy beach,
each mist in the dark forest, each clearing, and each insect and its buzzing are sacred
in the memory and experience of my people. The sap that circulates through the
veins of the trees carries the memory of the redskins.
The dead of the white men forget their natal earth when they go to walk among the
stars. Our dead never forget the kind earth because it is mother of the red skins, we
are part of the earth, and likewise it is a part of us.
The crystalline water that runs in these rivers and arroyos is not only water, but it is
the blood of our ancestors. If we sell them these lands, they should remember that
they are sacred and should teach their sons that they are sacred and that each fantastic
reflection in the clear waters of these lakes speaks of the occurrences and memories
of the life of my people. The whisper of the water is the voice of the father of my
father.
The rivers are our brothers, they calm our thirst; they carry our canoes and feed our
sons. If we sell our lands, you should remember and teach your sons that the rivers
are our brothers and your brothers; you should give the rivers the friendly treatment
that you would give to any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our way of life. They treat one
piece of land the same as any other. He is a stranger that arrives in the night to take
what he needs from the earth. The earth is not his sister, but his enemy. After he has
conquered the land, he abandons it and continues on his way, he leaves behind the
graves of his fathers without any care. He dispossesses his brothers of the earth
without care. As much the tombs of his fathers as the heritage of his brothers is
forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the heavens, as if they were
objects that can be bought, exploited, and sold like sheep or colored beads. His
appetite devours the earth, leaving behind only a desert…
I am a redskin and I do not understand. We prefer the gentle whisper of the wind over
the surface of the lake, the smell of the wind purified by the midday rain or perfumed
by the aroma of pines. The air has an inestimable value for the redskin since all
beings share the same breath, the animal, the tree, and the human, all breathe the
same air…
You should teach your sons that the earth below our feet is the ashes of our
grandfathers. To respect the earth teach your sons that the earth is enriched with the
lives of our ancestors. Teach your sons what we have taught ours; that the earth is our
mother, all that happens to the earth will happen to the sons of the earth. When the
men spit on the ground, they spit on themselves.
This we know: The earth does not belong to man; but man belongs to the earth. This
we know. Everything is connected.
All that happens to the earth happens to the sons of the earth. Man has not woven the
fabric of life; he is only a thread. All that he does to the fabric he does to himself.
Not even the white man, whose god walks and talks with him as a friend to a friend,
will be free of the common destiny. Maybe we will be brothers in the end. We will
see. We know something that the white man will maybe discover someday: our God
is the same God. You can think now that He belongs to you, just like how you want
our lands to belong to you; but it cannot be so. He is the God of men and His
compassion is equal for the redskin and the white man. The earth has an inestimable
value for Him, and to hurt the earth is to show disrespect towards the Creator. The
whites will also be extinguished, maybe before the other tribes. They contaminate
their beds and one night will die drowned in their own waste.
But they will walk towards their destruction surrounded by glory, inspired by the
strength of God that brought them to this earth…Where is the thick forest? It
disappeared. Where is the eagle? It disappeared.
End life and begin survival.”
The content of the discourse of chief Seattle of the Swamish tribe not only
constitutes the “most beautiful and profound declaration that had ever been made
about the environment”, but is a true and authentic defense and message with
philosophical, scientific, theological, and teleological content about the importance
and significance of the environment for man and all forms of life, including animal
and vegetable. In the discourse there appears a cosmic vision and an integrated
philosophical perspective comprising the universe in which the multiplicity of
natural phenomena ( such as the earth, the sun, the moon, the rivers, the mountains,
the lakes and the ponds, the totality of animal and vegetable beings, including the
human itself) belong to the same reality. The life of the human, as well as its
continuation in the unfolding of the centuries, depends on the natural elements such
as the earth, the sun, the water, the air. The human also imperatively requires animal
and vegetable life. The primary and ineluctable task of humanity is to care, protect
and defend “mother nature with the totality of its constituent elements”.
In the discourse of Chief NOAH SEALTH, theological and teleological content is
equally discussed. It is theological since the earth, the water, the air, the rivers,
animals and vegetables are elevated to the category of deities and sacred elements
that deserve reverence and veneration on the part of humanity because they are
fountains of life. It is teleological because the native Americans consider that the
totality of the natural elements and the different forms of life have the supreme end
of guaranteeing the continued existence of humanity composed of all of the
nationalities and ethnic groups of the world.
In addition, this discourse, formulated more than a century ago by the chief of one of
the most important native North American communities, is a true allegation of
denunciation, rejection and repudiation against the depredatory, destructive attitude
of the white men, the North American colonists, and their zeal to profit and
accumulate inordinate quantities of riches. This is just like the Euro-Spaniard
invaders who dedicated themselves to destroying entire communities with their
manifestations of genocide and ethnocide. The colonizing invaders from five
hundred years ago are like those from one hundred years ago and from all times.
They all have the same spirit, the same mentality, an equal attitude, a similar
objective; the common denominator being the destruction of the environment, human
groups, and their cultural manifestations.
Also, it seems that this discourse has a pedagogical attitude, when the Chief of the
Swamish tribe supports: “Teach your sons what we have taught our sons; that the
earth is our mother. All that happens to the earth will happen to the sons of the earth.”
Here he fulfills one of the classical principles of the science of pedagogy, being that
the first school is the home and the first teachers are the parents; meaning the
children are educated and formed wholly in the heart of the home, here they are
converted into individuals fitting the category of people capable of learning and
understanding ethical-moral and axiological principles. This is a pedagogical
principle and educational attitude that the parents of the “civilized” family at the end
of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI century, with all of the extraordinary
scientific-technological advances, have abandoned, backed down from and betrayed
as a consequence of their Dionysian and Faustian spirit.
Finally, a futurist message with prophetic content is found in the discourse when the
Chief proclaims: “All that happens to the earth happens to the sons of the earth…
They contaminate their beds and one night they will die drowned in their own waste.
But they will walk towards their destruction surrounded by glory… Where is the
thick forest? It disappeared. Where is the eagle? It disappeared. End life and begin
survival.” In the last decade of the XX century, as a consequence of the depredatory,
destructive attitude of the civilized human with colonialist mentality, many forms of
vegetable life and species of animals have been extinguished. Truly life has been
terminated and the survival of humanity has begun.
Now we will examine the progressive evolution of human thought, from a view
eminently Andean – Inkan, through an illustrious intellectual and defender of the
native cultural manifestations, the distinguished economist Virgilio Roel. He
expounds: “One of the angles that characterize the indigenous philosophical thought
is their integrated and united vision of the universe. The Inca or Tawantinsuyana
people never had what is called the geocentric viewpoint in the west (the earth is in
the center of the universe), the ethnocentric perception (a certain people are the
center of the universe), the homocentric perspective (the human is at the center of the
universe), or the individualist perspective (the individual is at the center of the
universe); we repeat that western thought has always followed one of these
perspectives; very far off course from the thought of the Indian that sees the universe
as an infinite and dazzling unity…
Roel, in: “The Wise and Grand Fundamentals of Indian Religion”, explains
UNIVERSAL HARMONY: “As a derivation of existentialism, the existential attitude
of the Indian is not in struggle against nature but in harmony with it.
The Indians consider nature to be nothing more than Pachmama which not only gives
us life itself, but also protects us, permits us to develop, takes care of us, and is happy
in its florid fields when we are in harmony with it; but it also knows how to become
sad when we break its rules; then it can send us violent rays, hail and snow, or can
make us sick. Sickness comes from breaking a natural ordinance, and therefore
health returns when we correct this error and return to obeying the natural laws. But
as the people are born from Pachamama, it is logical and conceivable that nature has
feelings and needs love and care, for this reason, in addition to searching for
harmony in the natural order, it is important to love the plants, animals, mountains. In
order to love them, we should express our feelings, giving them our food and our
drink, and we should sing to them and recite them verses of love and praise at the
same time that we ask them that we shall continue to be propitious and that they shall
continue protecting us and giving us health and life.
IDENTIFICATION WITH NATURAL THINGS AND BEINGS. If people upon
dying return to the breast of Pachamama, then life also returns to her. Therefore,
nature is completely full of the life of the fields, the grottos, the streams, the
mountains, the rocks…
The Inca believed that in all of nature there is a vital force; that life dwells in the
birds, in the plants, in the animals, in the highest elevations, in the rocks. For this
reason they carved rocks with rocks, to not harm them; for this reason they made
walls of rocks perfectly worked so that they fit together, that they would support one
another. In them they put love, because it was necessary to love the rocks as one
would love their parents, their brothers, their community, the people. The author of
our quote, categorically supports that: THE EARTH DOES NOT BELONG TO US,
BUT THE REVERSE, WE BELONG TO THE EARTH.”(Roel, Virgilio, Cuadernos
Indios # 2).
A panoramic vision of Universal History objectively demonstrates for us that the
distant cultures of the Eastern world such as China and India; the thinkers of ancient
Greece; the members of the Swamish tribe of the United States of North America,
and likewise the integrated collectives of the Andean-Inkan world all coincidentally
elevated the universe, nature, the physical world, the environment, the earth and the
other natural phenomenon, such as the sun, the rivers, the air, the lakes, the
mountains, and furthermore, the different forms of animal and vegetable life to the
category of deities and sacred beings. Consequently, they should not be destroyed or
depredated, but better protected and respected to the point of veneration. A cosmic
vision and philosophical conception of the preceding quoted social groups show us
that human reason is the same across history, and is found in constant, ascendant,
progressive, spiral, dialectic evolution and development.
To finish the content of the present theme and to illustrate its consequent importance,
we return to three philosophers of different times and spaces. Thus we have
Confucius, of China, whose true name is “K’ong futseu, master K’ong (in the Latin
of the Jesuits: Confucius). He was born and died in Lu (Chang-tong) (551-479)”.
(Brehier, Emile, Historia de la Filosofia, T.I. p.203). From a moral viewpoint,
Confucius affirmed: “Don’t do unto another what you would not want done unto
you”. (Wk. Cit. p. 204). Later, 450 years later, Christ was born in Judea, Palestine.
He was/is considered as the redeemer, the Messiah. He expressed of humanity:
“Love your neighbor as you would love yourself”. Similarly, in approximately the
middle of the XIV century on the New Continent, the great statesman Pachakuteq, in
reference to the moral attitude of humanity, expressed the following thoughts: “Envy
is an insect that gnaws and consumes the insides of the envious”; “He who has envy
and is envied, is doubly tormented”; “He who envies another, harms himself”.
(Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios Reales. Vol. II, p.196). On the necessity and the
possibility of knowledge, the master Socrates, born in Athens, Greece in 469 B.C.E.
supported: “The human can only know what is within it’s power. Nothing of external
nature and the world are within human control, only the soul. It is only the soul that
the human can have true knowledge of. The principal function of knowledge is to
know oneself: “Know thyself” (Edit. Progreso, Historia de la Filosofia, Vol. I, p.71).
The great statesman Pachakuteq similarly expressed: “The doctor or the herbalist that
ignores the virtues of the herbs or that knowing some of them does not procure
knowledge of all of them, knows little or nothing. It benefits one to work until you
know all, as much the beneficial as the harmful. Only then does one deserve the title
that one seeks”; “He who tries to count the stars, still not knowing the vast numbers,
has a dignified smile”. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Ob. Cit. p. 197). Although all of the
thoughts expressed here use different words and terms, they carry the same message;
the first ones are from the moral point of view, and the second are from the
perspective of knowledge, wisdom. In synthesis, we are demonstrating that within
the canons of human rationality, human reason is the same. It has the same nature
and its development is progressive, spiral, dialectic, and historical.
The similar nature and progressive development of human thought, demonstrates for
us in objective form that philosophy, science, technology and the totality of the
cultural manifestations of the human are universal. Culture is the fruit and product of
the actions and attitudes of the human in the face of nature, the cosmos. Furthermore,
the categories of culture and civilization, such as the levels of philosophical,
scientific, technological, artistic, and religious knowledge, cannot be exclusively
unique manifestations of the occidental world, much less, of decadent, medieval
Spain, which tries to defend and justify the Hispanic intellectuals while negating the
native, authentic Andean – Inkan and Amazonian cultural manifestations of the New
World.

CHAPTER III
1. PHILOSOPHY AND INKA PHILOSOPHY
Previously, we referred to the conceptions formulated by some authors whose
prestige is unarguable in the field of philosophy. To constitute the central theme of
the present work, we try to transcribe the concepts of some of the authors most
representative, for their past analyses, of philosophical thought in order to
demonstrate the existence of an Inka philosophy. These thinkers are philosophers,
meaning:
“(Greek “fileo”: amor and “sofia”: wisdom.) A science concerned with the universal
laws to which humans are subordinated. This includes the state of being (meaning
nature and society) just as much as human thought and the process of knowing.
Philosophy is one of the forms of social consciousness and is determined, ultimately,
by the economic relationships of society. The fundamental question of philosophy as
a special science is based on the problem of the relationship between thought and
being, between consciousness and matter. Every system of philosophy consists of a
developed, concrete solution to a given problem, even if the “fundamental question”
is not clearly formulated in the system”. (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit. p.231).
To demonstrate the importance of the central hypothesis of the present work: “The
Existence of an Inka Philosophy”, we appeal to authors whose prestige is unarguable.
The doctor Armando Barrionuevo Sánchez manifests: “Still, the historic process
cannot bind philosophy in formula. There isn’t any way of producing a complete and
satisfactory definition. On the other hand, it may be possible to obtain one that would
be the most representative possible of philosophy. This is what Hessen gives us, as a
consequence of a historical analysis of the content of philosophical works:
“philosophy is the spiritual attempt of the human to arrive at a universal conception
derived by means of theoretical and practical self reflection of its evaluative
functions”.
This formula has the following ideas:
1) It is an attempt. It is not an achieved and definitive result. It is more of a
force and attitude. Philosophy is like a traveler, the purpose is not in the goal,
but in the effort to come closer to it.
2) Totality of objects. An appropriate answer to the question: With what is
philosophy concerned?, could be “Everything”. Nothing can be left out of its
range. For this, philosophy is the ultimate in freedom. It does not recognize
borders nor bindings. One can imagine, reflect, verify, clarify, divagate. One
can do everything up to and including poetry, a poetry of its own kind, as
Wahl, Marcel and others have recognized. Philosophy is as free in method as
in content.
3) Conception of the universe. This is a notion of philosophy that not only
refers the world-universe, nature, but also to the feeling of life.
4) Reflection to know. Philosophical knowledge requires theoretical
reflection. One of the irrepressible aspirations of Philosophy arriving at the
truth, elaborating a painting of all of reality.
5) Reflection to live. It is also true that philosophy aspires to give a course
to human conduct, discovering the sense and the destiny of the human life.
Reflection to know, and reflection to live, or act, corresponds to the
theoretical and practical evaluative functions of the spirit.
6) Philosophy is a function of the spirit. It is called a cognizant subject. Ego,
consciousness, spirit, reason, etc.; that which knows is a being of thought. In
conclusion, philosophy affirms: “In synthesis, philosophy is characterized by
two formal notes: rationality and universality. Its content nurtures a
conception of the spirit and a conception of the universe; it is this knowing to
know that brings seriousness and profundity. Philosophy is problematic,
because problems are it primary subject, at the same time, it is free because
there is no method or object that can try to exclude itself from the
philosophical task”. (Barrionuevo S. Armando. Introducción a la filosofía,
pp. 124-131).
Presently, the conceptual nature and importance of philosophy continues to be in
debate and discussion. In the development of the history of philosophical thought, we
find a multitude of concepts and it would be unnecessary and almost impossible to
cover them in their totality due to the quantity of existing philosophers. Nevertheless,
the preceding conceptions permit us to infer some substantial “categories and
constants” of philosophy, such as the following:
It is an eminently rational form of knowledge. The support and foundation of
philosophy, necessarily and obligatorily, should be supported in reason. Philosophy
does not exist at the margins of human reason; implying that the human as an
inhabitant of the earth, member of the European, American, Asian, African or
Oceanic continent, is capable of practicing and creating philosophy.
It is a universal knowledge, general, ecumenical. It concerns itself with universal
problems such as the conception of the universe, the problems of humanity, the
world, nature and human thought as well as the moral and axiological conduct of the
human, etc.
Philosophy is a science whose rational and universal nature should reveal a concrete
reality and the unique structure of an inhabitant in a given reality which can then be
projected towards universality. Therefore, European philosophy differs from Asian,
African, and American philosophies. Concrete reality, the environment with its
singular structure, presents the human with different and multiple problems,
contradictions, difficulties, alternatives, and possibilities. The human as a complete
and unique being, an actor in reality with a complex variety of necessities, assumes
different actions and reactions in the process of originating multiple cultural
manifestations, among them philosophy.
Philosophy is an attempt at knowing all things: the universe, nature, society, as well
as the human and its moral and axiological conduct. Furthermore, knowledge of
systematic and objective content should be converted into an instrument for the
transformation of reality. Philosophy as an accumulation of theoretical knowledge,
without application, action and praxis, lacks importance. Philosophy can only
guarantee its existence, continuation and importance by being put to the service of
humanity and the entire society. The essential purpose should be to search for the
“universal happiness” of humanity with full satisfaction of material and spiritual
necessities.
Philosophy, as a cultural manifestation, is the result of the social consciousness of the
human. Only the human considered as a social being can adequately and objectively
systematize philosophical knowledge. The totality of environmental, socio-economic,
cultural, political, educational and religious factors influence the philosophical
undertaking.
Philosophy should be understood as the result of collective minds. The human
considered as a social being, member of a social class, of a determined society, is
capable and able to create philosophy; in any other condition, philosophy would be
converted into simple personal conjecture, an individual position or opinion.
Synthesizing, we propose the following concept: “Philosophy is a science composed
of a collection of knowledge that is rationally, methodically and systematically
developed by the human in an attempt to explain universal problems related with
behavioral existence within the ethical-moral and axiological canons.
Having made the necessary elucidations about the concept of philosophy, we
formulate the following interrogations: Is it possible to sustain the existence of an
Andean-Inkan philosophical thought? Who were the principle representatives of the
Inka Philosophy? What philosophical problems did the Andean-Inkas manage to
investigate? Now we should formulate other questions in relation with the origin of
the universe, nature, the human, and the existence of the soul or spirit, etc.. These are
also questions that could be called philosophical. We consider it necessary to
demonstrate the vital importance that the questions and the theme of the present work
contain with wider amplitude and profundity.
We should support in categorical form the existence of an Inka-Philosophy as a direct
consequence of the interaction and the harmonious coexistence between the human
and the Andean environment whose vital and practical dimension materialized
through a sui-generis civilization in the world with levels of extraordinary,
harmonious integrated development in all of the spiritual and material manifestations
of culture. They managed to achieve the COMMON GOOD. It is a civilization
without parallel throughout all of the existence of humanity. As proof of this, it is
sufficient to point out that the Andean-Inkan inhabitants managed to satisfy their vital
necessities (such as alimentation, shelter, clothing, and health) through the
implementation of collective work, solidarity, and reciprocity. This includes the
concept of AYNI within the canons of fraternity and brotherhood. The Inka managed
to achieve “universal happiness,” an essential end of philosophy as proposed by
Kant, considering that they conquered hunger, misery and homelessness.
The profoundly humanistic thought of Christ, formulated over two thousand years
ago, proposes an idealistic philosophical conception of loving one’s neighbor: “Love
one another as I have loved you”: John: Ch. 15.12. This is similar to the
revolutionary thought expressed two hundred years ago from a materialistic point of
view by Carl Marx – Fredrick Engels: “Social Property over the means of
production, the suppression of the exploitation of man by man with relations among
the workers characterized by friendly collaboration and mutual help, as well as the
equal and fair distribution of production”. These ideas were practiced, executed, and
realized by the inhabitants of Tawantinsuyana in their family and social life. These
are thoughts that in the civilized world, at the beginnings of a new century and
millennium, continue to be mere literary expressions and theoretic propositions that
are almost impossible to reach as utopias and illusions.
To demonstrate the existence of an Inka philosophy, we return to the categories and
constants utilized to typify Western philosophy. Among these we have:
Philosophy as a rational knowledge; derived from “human rationality”. In actuality,
thanks to the totality of the sciences that study the human as a biological, social,
historical and cultural reality, the human is objectively known to be an eminently
rational being. The human as inhabitant of the earth, be it from the African,
European, Asiatic, Oceanic or American continents, is rational and consequently
capable of creating philosophy, science, technology, art and the totality of the cultural
manifestations.
Philosophy as a universal conception. The Andean- Inkan inhabitants tried to explain
and answer all of the universal, general and ecumenical problems; such as: the
universe, nature, the earth, life in its various forms, ethical-moral and axiological
conduct of the human, etc. They conceptualized the universe and the totality of the
existing phenomenon as a unity with a globalized and synthesized vision. It is
sufficiently verified in the writings of the chroniclers and historians that the Andean
inhabitants managed to structure a cosmic vision and a philosophical conception of
the universe and the earth characterized by a global and eminently dialectic nature.
They had a philosophy that was submitted to the laws of constant development and
change as we have demonstrated in the preceding pages.
Referring to the conception and the “integrated and united vision of the universe” of
the Andean – Inkan world, Virgilio Roel sustains: “For the Incas, Pachamama,
(which is all of the universe), unified space and time. Everything in existence is a
part of her or comes from her. The past has generated the present (and therefore, is
the present); in the same manner as the present will form the future, (and therefore, is
the future); in this manner Pachamama unifies the past with the present and the
future. Likewise, the dead that in their moment were developed by Pachamama,
return to her and in her breast return to life (and therefore do not die); but
Pachamama contains the seed of all of the beings that will be born in the future, just
as she cares harmoniously for the existing beings. In this manner, Pachamama
contains in her breast the beings of the past and the beings of the future at the same
time that she protects and cares for the living. Everything in the universe contains the
vital stamp of Pachamama, in her is concentrated all of space, all beings and all of
time.
From this we understand that Pachamama is all of the universe, it is all of infinite
space (and all that exists within it). In the same manner, Pachamama also contains
the past, the present and the future. In this consists the integrated and united vision of
the universe belonging to the Andean – Amazonian vision, a vision that the
indigenous still preserve today…
As a derivation of the anterior, the indigenous existential attitude is not about the
struggle against nature but about harmony with it”. (Virgilio Roel, Cuadernos Indios
# 2. p.3).
We should describe in detail that the word PACHA, within the Andean – Inkan
philosophical conception, is comprised as much of the earth (kay pacha), the
universe (hanan pacha), the interior, subterranean world (ukhu pacha); time with its
three dimensions: the future (khepa wiñay), present (kay wiñay), and past (ñaupaq
wiñay). When they speak of life in its different forms: human, animal and vegetable,
they expressed, and the inhabitants of the Andean – Amazonian world still presently
express: life (kay pacha, kay kausay), death (huj pacha, wañuy pacha), etc. Here we
can infer that their conception of universe has unity and totality where the
multiplicity of objects, phenomenon, facts, and knowledge maintain and conserve a
permanent interrelation, in addition to being found submitting to the dialectic laws.
Philosophy as reflection. The Inka, as the product of an elevated level of rational
development, managed to know the universal laws of nature, the cosmos, human
society, as well as the animal world and vegetable world. Consequently, they did not
dedicate themselves to depredation, destruction or simple exploitation. Rather, they
dedicated themselves to protecting, transforming and maintaining nature. They
considered that their existence depended on the presence of the continuity of the
forces, material elements and the forms of life existing in Pachamama or Mother
Nature. They elevated it to a religious level that deserved profound respect and
veneration. In conclusion, the Inka were the first ecologists in the development of the
History of Humanity. They reflected in order know as much about the material world
as the spiritual and the integral structure of the human. This is a fact that is justified
with the attitude of profound respect, consideration and affect that they practiced in
their daily personal, familial, and social relations. The human reached its true form of
“human being” with the materialization of its innate rights and the satisfaction of
their vital necessities. Everyone, the governors and the governed, the rulers and the
ruled, were considered as sons of one father: the sun: inti tayta; of one mother: the
earth: pacha mama.
Philosophy as reflection for life. The Inka managed to conceptualize that knowledge
as pure knowledge, theory as mere theory, lacks importance and reason for being.
With the simplicity of mature humans, balanced, capable of apprehending and
realizing values in their personal, familial, and collective conduct, the Inka did not
waste time (which they considered extremely precious and valuable) on metaphysical
speculations or fantastic lucubrations. Accordingly, philosophical, scientific,
technological, artistic, and religious knowledge had to be at the service of humanity,
of society and the materialization of the common good. Their philosophical
conception of the universe, the world, life, and the human, endowed them with a
complex of ethical-moral and axiological principles to develop and practice a
collective mentality, a social consciousness and an attitude of humanitarianism. The
“Repenting Words of a Barbarous Conquistador- Mancio Sierra de Leguizamo”
corroborate us when he says: “Understand your catholic majesty (referring to the
king of Spain, Felipe II), that we have found kingdoms in which there is not a thief, a
vicious man, a lazy person, or an adulterous woman, There is no evil, nor did they
permit it among themselves. There are no evil men living in morality, and the people
have honest and beneficial occupations. The earth and mountains and mines and
pastures, the hunting, wood, and all kind of resources are governed and shared in
such a way that every one knew and had their own home without fear that another
would occupy it or take it, and there were not any lawsuits about this;…” (Roel,
Virgilio, Cuadernos Indios, # 2, p.11).
To understand the real dimension and objectivity of the Tawantinsuyana collective, it
is deserving to quote reiteratively the amauta Jose Carlos Mariategui when he
sustains: “In the empire of the Inka there were groups of agricultural and sedentary
communes with their highest interest being economic. All of the historic testimonies
concur in the assertion that the Inka people were hardworking, disciplined,
pantheistic, and simple living with material well-being… The collectivist
organization, governed by the Inka, strengthened in the Indians an individual
impulse; an impulse that evolved in them extraordinarily, of great advantage to their
economic regimen. It was a habit of a humble and religious obedience to their social
role. The Inkas took all possible advantage of the social utility of this virtue in their
people. They used it to increase the value of the vast territory of the empire by
constructing roads, canals, etc., extending it and submitting the neighboring tribes to
their authority. Collective work, the strength of the community, was fruitfully
employed to social ends”. (Mariátegui. José Carlos, 7 Ensayos de Interpretación de la
Realidad Peruana, p.13). We can infer then that: “The political, juridical, moralistic,
artistic, scientific, philosophical, and religious ideas are distinct forms of social
consciousness” (Afanasiev, Victor, Ob. Cit. p.338), and as such each has an original
and unique manner of reflecting the material and economic conditions of a society.
“In the Andean cosmology, the creator Wirakocha is who created the sun, the moon
and the stars, and he puts them into the sky. Before creating the human, all was in
darkness the Uru myth explains. The Urus belonged to the first humanity before the
Sun.
In anthropogeny, there is the direct making of the human by the hand of god,
employing stone as a material, meaning that the human began as a stone sculpture.
There is also indirect creation in which eggs of gold, silver and copper fall from the
sky which on arriving to earth, turned into humans of distinct social categories.
Finally, there is creation by remote control, where the human beings come from
caverns, the fountains or the craters of volcanoes or the bottom of lakes.
Finally, Valcárcel, when he occupies himself with the Inka cosmic vision, concludes:
“The Incas (that crowned the cultural development of ancient Peru) represent a great
syncretism in the religious, in the artistic, in mythology and in their cosmic vision.
The discovery of the magnificent pre-Inca works of art caused a devaluing of the
Inka art: it did not have the color of the Nasca work, nor the perfection of the
sculpture found with the Mochica culture, the superior textiles of the Paracan culture,
nor the magnificence of the Chavin or Tihuanacan sculpture. Was it decadence?
Nothing could be more inexact: the Inca ascended more, much more, on the arduous
road of human progress. They comprehended that nothing was lasting if it was not
supported on a firm economic base. Therefore they directed the majority of the
wealth of their energies toward achieving a social structure that assured for all
humans a dignified life, protected from all danger, during which all human activities
were able to expand without fear”. (Valcárcel, E. Luis. Wk. Cit: pp. : 72-73).
Juan Antonio del Busto D., on developing the theme of philosophy, expresses: “Inca
Philosophy emanated from the Amautas. “They were the philosophers” (says
Garcilaso) as much for their vision of things as for being friends of wisdom, but (as
Luis Felipe Guerra affirms) their immediate sources were the myths and religious
conceptions.
Quechua philosophy revolved around divinity, the universe and life. The point of
departure could have been the belief in a creator god or an imposer of order, of
universal and spiritual essence, feasibly of anthropomorphic representation:
Huircocha. He made the universe (which he divided into three parts as we will see
later), forming also the first generation of humans. But later he abandoned the human
lineage, leaving it in a natural law that overstepped the limits of birth and death: new
humans sprouted from the dead as reincarnations. In this Quechua philosophy, with
an existential point of view, there are pre-humans, humans, and post-humans or
humans to be born, living humans, and the dead. “The three existences”. The first life
is latent and expectant, the second bound to the laws of this world, the third separated
from the body. This separation, however, is not given at the moment of death. The
“immortal spirit”, according to Garcilaso, takes a year to proceed. The Incas and the
nobles delayed their course by means of mummification; by these means the
purification of the body was impeded and the soul did not need to abandon the body.
But even so, the soul finished to proceed on to the spirit world. This liberation of the
soul could be the garcilasic “universal resurrection”, after which “there was another
life… with punishment for the evil and rest for the good.”
“The Andean paradise.” If the Quechua paradise was quietude, tranquility and “rest”,
we find oursrlves before an “Andean nirvana.” There is no pleasure, but, there isn’t
pain either. This would better explain the Indian stoicism. In this world in which the
Indian lives, if they suffer they do not complain, if they experience pleasure they also
remain silent. Their personal philosophy is not optimistic nor pessimistic: the future
must be carried out, good or bad, it will arrive. Never break into strident cries nor
burst into raucous laughter. Live, work, feel healthy and be happy: do not have fear
of death.
“The maker”. The archaic god, creator of the cosmos, was Huiracocha. He was who
“made” all in existence, for this he is recognized as “the maker”. On making the
universe (as Valcárcel indicates) he employed only three elements: water, earth, and
fire. The first and the last would be elements that the deity would use as punishments
(floods, rains of fire); the earth, on the other hand, would be the origin of life. The air
did not participate at all, maybe because it was not recognized as existing”. (Busto
Duthurburu, José Antonio del, Perú Incaico, pp.: 182-184).
The totality of the preceding quotes permit us to sustain the existence of an INKA
PHILOSOPHY in categorical form. A philosophy whose vital dimension,
application, and practice has permitted the integrated, equilibrated evolution of the
Tawantinsuyana collective and its materialization of ethical-moral and axiological
principles of: general well-being, social justice, etc. Furthermore, the Inka managed
to conceptualize the following philosophical principles:
The existence of the universe as a unity and totality, independent of the
consciousness of the human. They conceptualized all phenomena and objects as
interrelated and exercising reciprocal influences. We quote as an example: inti tayta
or father sun, the earth or pacha mama, are considered as fountains of life, health,
and production for all living beings.
The union of the universe and the earth. The universe as a totality, as a complex that
integrates all bodies which are found in constant movement. The sun, the moon, and
the earth were known as member elements of the universe that exercise mutual
influences and that are found in constant change and evolution.
Space, time, and movement as universal properties of all that exists. All phenomena
and objects, are known by one word: PACH and finally as philosophical categories.
The daily practice of axiological principles. This included: reciprocity, solidarity, and
mutual collaboration expressed through AYNI as norms and forms of conduct in the
family and social life of the Andean-Inka human.
Profound respect and special consideration for humanity. An example is the
reverence that was paid to RUNA and WARMI, to man and woman as actors of the
universe, and the earth, and directors of culture with all of its manifestations and with
the totality of its member elements, such as: philosophy, science, technology,
religion, art, etc. All of which should have been (necessarily and imperatively) at the
service of humanity, to benefit the human and its well-being.

2. THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF

PHILOSOPHY
From the moment of the appearance of the human on the face of the earth until today,
we have not managed to discover an absolute, eternal truth in infinite space and time.
At the end of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI century, philosophy itself
feels incapable of formulating alternatives with consistent, solid solutions for
universal, general problems such as the origin of the cosmos, nature, and the human
itself. Despite the extraordinary scientific-technological advances humanity has
encountered in the beginning of a new century and millennium, it has not found
solutions and answers to the mass of problems that weigh heavily on it. Humanity
feels overwhelmed by the multitude of problems and contradictions in the universe,
nature and its own existence. Here emerges the fundamental, central problem of
philosophy. Accordingly, the following authors can illustrate:
“Philosophy is the most ancient science. History knows many philosophical systems
that emerged in diverse historical conditions and countries and were created by
representatives of diverse social groups and classes. How does one orient themselves
in the middle of this variety of systems, how do we clarify their scientific value and
determine the place of each one in the history of philosophical thought? For this it is
necessary, before anything, to see by what fashion one or another philosophical
system, one or another philosopher, resolves the fundamental problems of
philosophy.
If we attentively observe the world that surrounds us, we can note that all of its
objects and phenomena are material or ideal and spiritual. That which objectively
exists is that which exists outside of the consciousness of humanity or independently
of it ( the objects and the phenomena that are produced on the earth, the innumerable
bodies of the universe, etc.) are material phenomena. That which exists in the
consciousness of the human constitutes the domain of its psychic activity (thoughts,
emotions, feelings, etc.) and have relation with the realm of the ideal of the spiritual.
What connection exists between the material and the spiritual? Is the ideal a product
of the material or is it the contrary? The character of this connection, of the
relationship existing between thought and being (being is a concept of philosophy
that signifies nature, the external world, reality), between the spiritual and the
material, is the constitution of the fundamental problem of philosophy.
This relation is the fundamental problem of philosophy because the answer that it
gives leads to the solutions of all of the other philosophical problems: the unity of the
world, the laws of its evolution, its essence and the ways of knowing the world, etc.
It is impossible to create a philosophical system and draw a portrait of the world
without resolving the fundamental problem of philosophy since there is nothing in
the world outside of the material and the spiritual.
This problem presents two aspects. The first tries to resolve if matter is first or
consciousness. That is to say, if matter engendered consciousness or the contrary. The
second aspect gives answer to the question of whether or not the world is knowable,
if human reason is capable of penetrating the mysteries of nature, of knowing the
universal laws, of knowing the laws of its evolution. If we reconsider the content of
this question, it is not difficult to understand that one can only give two diametrically
opposed solutions: to recognize either matter or consciousness as being first.
Therefore in the antiquity of philosophy two fundamental tendencies were formed,
materialism and idealism.
The philosophers that consider matter as primary and consciousness as secondary, a
product of the material, belong to the field of materialism (from the Latin expression
"materialis"). For them, matter is eternal, it has never created anyone, supernatural
forces do not exist in the world; and consciousness is a product of the historic
evolution of matter, a property of a material body extraordinarily complex: the
human brain.
The philosophers that consider the spirit, consciousness, as primary are placed in the
field of idealism. According to them, consciousness has existed before matter and has
created it, meaning it is the primary base of all that exists. The opinions of the
idealists are divided before the question of how consciousness “creates” the world.
The so-called subjective idealists consider that reality is the consciousness of an
isolated individual, of a subject. The objective idealists affirm that the world is
“created” by truly objective consciousness (existing outside of the human). In the
distinct philosophical systems this creative consciousness appears as “absolute idea”,
as “universal will”, etc., it is not difficult to see a God in them.
The opinions of the philosophers were also divided on resolving the second aspect of
the fundamental problem of philosophy.
The world is knowable affirm the materialists. The knowledge of humanity about the
world is reliable, reason is capable of penetrating the internal nature of things, of
knowing their essence.
Many idealists negate the ability to truly know the world. They have received the
name of agnostics. (From Greek a: no, and gnosis: knowledge). Others, although
they consider that the world is knowable, differ on the essence of cognition. They
affirm that the human does not know the objective world, nature, but only their own
ideas and feelings (subjective idealist) or a mystic “idea”, the “universal spirit”
(objective idealists)”. (Afanasiev, Victor. Manual de Filosofia, pp. 7-9).
George Politzer is more explicit when considering the “Fundamental Problem of
Philosophy”. He asserts: “When the philosophers have proposed to explain the things
of the world, nature, the human (in the end all that surrounds us), they have seen the
necessity to make distinctions. We ourselves verify that there are things and objects
that are material, that we see and touch. Furthermore, there are other things that we
do not see and that we cannot touch or measure, such as our ideas.
We classify things in this manner: on one hand, those that are material; on the other,
those that are not material and that belong to the domain of the spirit, thoughts, and
ideas.
This is how the philosophers have met each other in the presence of matter and the
spirit.” (Politzer, Georges. Wk.Cit. p.18).
The existence of phenomena, material and immaterial objects, gives origin to the two
currents of philosophy: Materialist and Idealist, found throughout the evolution of
the General History of Philosophy. Afanasiev and Politzer recognize the existence of
the two realities; both are authors of the materialistic philosophy tendency. The
philosophers of idealist tendency also admit both realities. Nevertheless, the
discrepancy, the struggle, the irreconcilable fight, emerges when one tries to assign
and establish the origin, the primary category to one of these realities. Meaning, to
say that matter is primary and the spiritual is secondary, or vice versa. This
fundamental problem of philosophy has not been satisfactorily resolved over the
course of history and up to the present at the beginnings of the new century and
millennium.

3. THE CONSTANT DILEMMA OF PHILOSOPHY:

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM
Initiating Philosophy as a result of “admiration: Thaumatzein” as Plato supports; but
above all, as a product of the attempt to rationally and methodically explain universal
problems, the fundamental currents of philosophy emerge that are supported in the
evolution of the centuries until the present and they are: materialism and idealism.
Nevertheless, other thinkers have supported the thesis about the existence of a third
position known as eclecticism, conciliatory between materialism and idealism. Then,
it is easy to infer that in philosophy there does not exist a simple dualism, but a
trilogy of philosophical currents.
Referring to the philosophical currents, we can formulate a group of questions that
permit us to make the following precisions and clarifications. Which of these
philosophical currents appeared originally? No philosopher has explained this in a
solid and well supported form to this day. Maybe, for didactic and methodological
reasons, to understand the significance and importance of the preceding question, we
can formulate the same question with relation to the origin of humanity. Who
appeared first: man or woman? This is a question which has remained latent across
all of the existence of humanity, challenging investigators of all scientific specialties
to respond and explain in a rational, coherent, and satisfactory form.
Apart from biblical explanations, since the religious are incompatible with the
philosophical task, we should posit that our personal reflections induce us to support
that, to guarantee the continuity of humanity, it is necessary, obligatory and
imperative to integrate and complement. The existence of humanity can only and
exclusively be guaranteed with the presence of man and woman. Contrarily, the
disappearance of either man or woman, would implicate the extinction of humanity.
In the case of philosophy, in a similar manner, the currents of philosophy, materialist
and idealist, must complement one another despite abysmal, irreconcilable, necessary
and inexorable differences. The essence and nature of Philosophy itself, is a rational
contradiction between the two currents. We know that materialism as much as
idealism try to rationally explain universal problems related to the cosmos, nature
humanity, etc.; nevertheless, none of them has reached an absolute, insuperable,
unarguable truth.
Here we can gather the following question: Which of the currents has discovered an
absolute truth? The answer is categorical: none. This implies that the questions
related to ecumenical, general problems maintain force in the present. In the
hypothetic case that one of the currents, we will suppose materialism, has managed
to discover an absolute, insuperable, unarguable truth, it would imply the
disappearance of the other philosophical current or vice versa. The discovery of an
absolute truth on the part of one of the philosophical currents would motivate the
unnecessary existence of the other current since the universal problem or problems
would already have been resolved. At the same time, the disappearance of one of the
currents would imply the disappearance of philosophy itself. Philosophy in itself
would have no reason to exist as a rational and universal form of knowledge since
the problems belonging to the area of investigation will have been resolved. Also, the
losing current of philosophy would have no reason to exist. Simply, problems to
investigate , to solve, would not exist. Consequently, philosophy itself would lack
content, importance and its presence would be useless, insubstantial. It would be
impossible for humanity to occupy itself, to dedicate itself to the philosophical task
as a form of rational knowledge concerning universal problems.
Furthermore, the discovery of an absolute, insuperable, unarguable truth in the field
of philosophy would negate its own dialectic, dynamic, changing and scientific
nature. Philosophy is enemy, therefore, of all dogmas, sacred principles, unarguable
and immutable truths. We ratify our affirmation: “In the field of philosophy and the
sciences, insuperable, unarguable truths are not admitted because philosophy and the
sciences are by there own natures eminently dialectic; meaning that they are found in
permanent, constant evolution and change. None of the philosophical currents,
materialist or idealistic, have managed to achieve the ultimate truth, consequently,
the two currents across time will continue to exist. In this manner, materialism and
idealism, tend to guarantee the existence of Philosophy as a form of knowledge”.
(Pacheco Farfán, Juvenal. Introducción a la Filosofia. Universidad Nacional de San
Antonio Abad del Cusco. 1986).
An elemental, logical inference permits us to affirm that the continuation of the
permanent contradiction between materialism and idealism guarantees the
permanence of philosophy, just as the integration of man and woman guarantee the
permanence of humanity. While humanity exists as a thinking, rational being,
desirous of explaining universal problems, philosophy will continue to exist with its
two currents: materialism and idealism. The philosophical task is innate to the nature
of humanity.

4. THE POSSIBILITY OF A MATERIALISTIC

CURRENT OF INKA PHILOSOPHY
The panoramic vision of some aspects and vital topics of the materialistic current of
pre-Socratic philosophy of ancient Greece and of the principal theoreticians before
this time have taught us about the content of this philosophical current and its
founding as a result of the intent to rationally and objectively explain general and
universal problems.
Furthermore, to demonstrate in categorical form the existence of the Andean-Inkan
philosophical conception or thought, in the first pages of the present work we
proposed to support that the Tawantinsuyana social groups and collectives managed
to systematize a philosophical conception that could be typified as materialist, and in
parallel an idealist conception.
We have been able to observe that the first materialist philosophers of ancient
Greece, in their intent to rationally explain universal problems, had managed to
conceptualize the “primary principals, elements and essence of things in the kingdom
of the material”, meaning they considered that the origin or source of all existing
things in the universe, nature and humanity itself, are in the water, the earth, the air,
fire, etc. Despite the elemental nature of the answers to the universal problems, the
pre-Socratic Greek thinkers in the pages of the history of philosophy are considered
as “philosophers” from the occidental viewpoint, and with due justice, since they are
true and authentic initiators of philosophical thought, Greek and occidental, although
it is easy to infer limitations, deficiencies and even errors that they committed in
those first years that are incompatibles with the true dialectic nature of philosophy in
its totality.
It is certain that in the Andean-Inkan collectives we do not find philosophical,
scientific, technological, and artistic donations from individual, personal, isolated
subjects; despite the fact that many chroniclers and historians support that the
“hamaut’as”, constituted a group of philosophers, lovers of wisdom and truth
charged with advising the Inka government in its multiple activities. Exceptionally,
there is mention of some Inkas whose thoughts, sentences, maxims and axiological
and ethical-moral principles we shall evolve in succeeding pages. Case in point being
Pachakuteq and others.
Utilizing, as example and paradigm, the philosophical attitude of the pre-Socratic
Greek materialists and the answers that they offered through the process of analogy,
we want to formulate ourselves some questions: Did the Inka consider the sun as
source and origin of all in existence? Why did they consider the earth and water as
the primary principles or essential elements of all in existence in the natural
universe? What conception did they have about humanity, its origin and death? These
questions permit us to scrutinize the adequate answers, beginning with the
mythological, religious conceptions and information of the chroniclers and going to
the theories of the historians.
The materialist conception of the pre-Socratic Greeks and the mythological
conceptions of the first inhabitants of the Andean-Inkan world maintain a lot of
similarity.
We see as an example the theory of the Greek materialist Anaximandro when he
supports: “Formation of the world: Our earth, which primitively was liquid, evolved
the process of disassociation and differentiation in such a manner that out of the
water living beings were formed. They were in the beginning protected by a spiny
covering; this surface tore later and from there came new forms. This includes the
human which owes its origin to these primitive forms. The immediate ancestors of
them were fish, that first lived in the water like the sharks; then, after being able to
exist in the dry element, came onto land. We already find here the first glimmer of
evolutionary theory”. (Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk. Cit. p.48).
Now we observe the narration of one of the myths related with the origin of the
Peruvians: “The father Buenaventuras Salinas, dealing with the myths of creation,
says that the ancient Peruvians believed that, 1, the first human that inhabited the
earth was formed of filth and foam from the sea and the flood, this signifies
Viracocha.This first man is called Huari Viracocha Runa that was created together
with the woman named Huarami”. (Valcárcel. E. Luis, Historia del Perú Antiguo,
Vol.4. p.42).
An elemental proceeding from analogy permits us to establish that the first Greek
materialists: Tales and Anaximandro and the different Andean mythologies, consider
“water” as the origin of all of existence in the cosmos and nature, including the
different forms of life and especially human beings.
Now, we return to the historical donation of Garcilaso de la Vega, we believe it an
imperative obligation to transcribe his most important works: “Comentarios Reales
de los Incas” to confirm our hypothesis about the materialist philosophical
conception of the Andean-Inka world and its later interpretation. Although, it is
necessary to clarify that these quotes are related with religious conception which
occupied a place not only very important, but preponderant in the development of the
common life of the collectives and in all of their material and spiritual activities. For
this reason it requires better study and interpretation. So when there is reference to
the theme of “Idolatry and the gods they adored”, he says: “To better understand
idolatry, life and customs of the Indians of Peru, it will be necessary for us to divide
the centuries into ages: we will call them those that lived before the Incas and then
we will say those who governed as kings, so that one will not confuse one with the
other, nor will the customs or the gods of one with the other…
Many other Indians had diverse nations in that first age that selected their gods with
some more consideration than those in the past because they adored some things
from which they received some advantage, such as those who adored deep springs
and great rivers because they gave them water to irrigate their sown fields.
Others adored the earth and called it mother, because it gave them fruits; others
adored the air for the breath it gave them. They said that the human lived within it;
others adored fire for heating them and cooking their food; others worshipped sheep
for the many herds they raised on their lands; others the great cordilleras of the Sierra
Nevada for their altitude and admirable grandiosity, and for the rivers that came from
them for irrigation; others corn, or zara as they called it, because it was their common
bread, others worshipped other vegetables, according to what was most abundant in
their regions.
Those on the coast of the ocean, other than the infinity of gods they had, or maybe
the same that we have spoken of, adored in common the ocean and they called it
Mamacocha, which means Mother Ocean, remembering that the mother sustained
them with its fish…
In this manner , they had gods not only for the four elements (water, earth, air, fire),
each one in itself, but also many composed and formed of them, as vile and
unworldly as they may be”. (Garcilaso de la Vega. Vol. I, pp. 35-37).
Our mestizo chronicler, on dealing with: “The idolatry of the second age and it’s
origin,” in the substantive part refers to: “what we call the second age and the
idolatry that was used first by Manco Capac Inca. He was the first that raised the
monarchy of the Inca Kings of Peru… Likewise we say that he taught the natural law
and established the laws and precepts for a moral life to the common benefit of
everybody, so that they would not be offended with his honors and palaces. He taught
them his idolatry and ordered that they take and adore the sun as their principal god,
persuading them of it with its beauty and resplendence. He told them that
Pachacamac (which is the sustainer of the world) hadn’t dominated in vain over all of
the stars of the sky, turning them into servants. He told them this only so that they
would worship it and take it as their god. The Sun represented the many benefits
there were everyday, and ultimately it had given them their sons and turned them into
men. They had seen this from experience, and they continued to see it with the
passage of time. On the other hand, the Inka disillusioned them with the lowness and
vileness of their many gods, asking them why they would hope to have things so vile
aid them in their necessities or how these gods could deserve to receive animals like
those that the father Sun received every day…
The Indians, convinced of the reasoning of the Inca, and much more with the
benefits that had been given to them, became disillusioned with their own vision and
they received the sun as their only God, without the company of a father or brother”.
(Garcilaso de la Vega, Vol. I, pp. 69-70).
The preceding quote, permits us to obtain the following premises:
One can appreciate that since the government of Mano Capac Inca, the
Tawantinsuyana collective tended to implant a religion sustained in dualism, with
belief in two gods: the “Sun and Pachacámac”; leaving to the side the traditional
beliefs in animals, plants, etc, and every form of pantheism.
Manco Capac Inca is considered as initiator and administrator of the teachings
related with the natural laws, principles and moral precepts with the objective of
achieving the common good, supported in values such as solidarity and reciprocity.
One can appreciate two fundaments of considering the “Sun” as principle god: the
esthetic criterion, such as the “beauty and the resplendence” which it presents daily,
and on the other hand, the utilitarianism, pragmatism, and practicality of the
astronomical sun, when they refer to the “many benefits there were each day” and
“much more with the benefits that had been given to them”. The last conception is
narrowly related with the pragmatic, practical and utilitarian mentality of the
Andean-Inkans, incompatible with subjective metaphysical lucubrations.
Our previous affirmations are consolidated by Garcilaso himself when he refers to
the “principal celebration of the Sun” and says: “This name Raymi sounds much like
Easter or solemn celebration. Among the four celebrations that the Inca Kings
celebrated in the city of Cusco, which was another Rome, there was the worship that
was made towards the Sun in the month of June, which was called Intip Raymi,
which means: the solemn passage of the sun. It was called Raymi, which signified
the same, and if other celebrations were called this name it was because of this
celebration, to which the name Raymi rightfully belonged; celebrating it with the
solstice of June.
They had this celebration of the Sun in recognition of worshipping it in its full
splendor, the only and universal God, that with its light and virtue raised and
sustained all of the things of the earth”. (Garcilaso de la Vega. Vol. II, p.157).
The last paragraph of this quote is ultimately clear when it considers that the sun as
an ultimate god, only and universal, with its light and virtue raises and sustains all of
the things of the earth. Within this totality of things, undoubtedly, humanity itself is
considered to belong. Then the human is considered as a part, an element of the
earth, whose existence obeys the beneficial light of the sun god; just like the totality
of objects and living beings such as animals, plants, etc. It is necessary to clarify the
expression of gratitude by the Andean-Inka human towards the sun with divine
category for the kindness and benefits that they and all things of the earth received.
The same mestizo chronicler expresses:
“The sacrifices that the Inca offered to the sun were many and diverse, including
domestic animals big and small. The principal and most esteemed sacrifices were
lambs, then sheep, and then rams. They sacrificed domestic rabbits and all of the
birds that were edible and fatty, all of the grains and vegetables, even the coca herb
and fine clothing, all of which they burned instead of incense and offered in thanks
for what the sun had raised to sustain humanity. They also offered in sacrifice a lot of
the brew which they drank, made of water and corn, and in the ordinary meals, when
they brought it to drink after eating (while they ate they never drank), the first glasses
were used to soak the tip of the middle finger and looking at the sky with reverence
they stuck out the finger with the drop of drink stuck to it, offering it to the Sun in
thanks for giving it to them to drink, and with their mouth they gave two or three
kisses to the air, that, as we have said, was among the Indians a sign of worship.
Making this offering with the first glasses, they drank without any more ceremony”.
(Garcilaso de la Vega, Vol. I, pp. 88-89).
“The sun was considered as a fertilizing god of the earth and they believed it made
certain women fecund, as happened in the coast of Ishmay (Lima) with a woman
raised by Pachacamac. They imagined a god that also gave health, life and peace. All
of which was exteriorized in their orations: “Oh Sun! May you be in peace and
safety, light these people; do not let them become sick, keep us healthy and safe.”
They adored the sun, also, as an eternal being. They knew its image with the name of
Punchao, meaning, master of the day or creator of light…
They had it stuck in their head that their god had his family in which the moon
carried out the role of a spouse and the stars a court. Being the symbol of the life of
nature in its entirety, they expressed permanent gratitude…
The female god, the moon, sister and wife of the sun, was the master of the ocean, of
the wind, of all wives and of the sapaincas and of the ñustas, on the part of the
women. As queen of the sky, she was linked and identified with Mamapacha and
Mamacocha. Sun and Moon, creatures of Ticsi Huiracocha, according to the beliefs
of the puquinas, they were the progenitors of the Inca ethnicity. Many superstitions
revolved around the moon”. (Espinoza Soriano, Waldemar, LOS INCAS…pp.449-
450).
Finally, José Tamayo Herrera, making a reflection on the divination of the sun within
the Andean-Inka collective, manifests: “I reason now like a person of the XX
century, near to the year 2,000. It was not a mistake that the Inka adored the sun.
Modern science and astronomy have demonstrated that the earth and humanity live
in the atmosphere of the sun, and that the solar rays, as much those of perceivable
wavelength as the ultraviolet and infrared, make life possible on earth, which is
permanently flailed by solar wind. The Inkas, witnesses of the luminosity of the sun
in Qosqo (already Arguedas has spoken: Of this luminosity and this light), a cold
mountain environment, where the sun gave all heat and life itself. For a pantheistic
culture such as the Andean, it was natural that they would be impressed by the
luminosity and the life that the sun brought to those stratospheric mountains, almost
the highest on the earth”. (Tamayo Herrera, José. Historia General del QOSQO. Vol.
I. p.148).
At the same time as they personified the sun and its rays as male deities: “There were
feminine gods, which they believed to be responsible for watching over humanity.
They expressed thanks to them, the ocean and the earth, the two grandest and most
prodigious sources of food resources that were of an inexhaustible fecundity. They
named them Mamacocha and Mamapacha: mother ocean and mother earth,
respectively.
The feminine gods were linked heavily with agrarian culture and fishing. But also it
is necessary to consider among them the moon, which with the two previously
mentioned formed a trio of pan-Andean female deities. They were worshipped for
their ñustas, pallas and coyas of the Inca ethnicity. They had an infinity of temples,
but the most conspicuous was on the island of Coati and in the llacta of Cusco. The
Incas also dedicated to them a celebration: the Coyarrami”. (Espinoza Soriano, Los
Incas…p.458).
The divine hierarchy and its importance varied from one Andean-Inkan collective to
another. It varied according to the zones, regions, and food products that they
obtained. With this knowledge, it is easy to infer that the inhabitants of the coastal
communities would give more importance to the female deity Mamaqocha: mother
ocean, for the variety of food products, such as fish, that served them as daily
subsistence. On the other hand, in the communities located in the zones and regions
of the Peruvian sierra, the primary economic activity was agriculture. Here they
considered Mamapacha, or mother earth, as the source of life and all of existence.
The inhabitants of the Andean sierra and the city of Qosqo, sacred capital of
Tawantinsuyana, cultural and political capital of the Andean world, prioritized
Mamapacha: mother earth, for all of the goodness, benefits and virtues they were
offered through the food products such as vegetables and animals. The following
quote illustrates this for us:
“Pachamama (Mother Earth) was a ubiquitous and powerful divinity from the high
plain of Titicaca. In her belly germinated a seed, her blood alimented sown fields and
in her lap matured sustenance. She had powers and demands and they were not far
from her authority to reward and punish. Her worship penetrated the people rapidly
and it became universal according to the movement of the widening of the empire; it
did not extinguish during the colonial period and today continues presiding over the
sowing, the harvest, and construction as in other times”. (Lara, Jesús, p.46).
Now we have established the divine category and singular importance that
Mamapacha, Pachamama or Mother Earth has and the nobility of agricultural labor,
known also by the name of jailli. The following poem was sung particularly during
the labor of the sowing as well as during and after the harvest.
The chroniclers observed in the Jailli a behavior associated with the heroic.
Ondegardo, Garcilaso, Cabello Valboa, and Cobo render impressive images with the
people singing as they go to the jobsite in order to harmonize the rhythm of the song
with the movements of the body and the thajlla and to celebrate, with song and
dance, the benefits of the harvest. Waman Puma relates and draws with magisterial
strokes scenes of the sowing and the harvest and presents the people as singing…
A chorus of laborers intoned the stanzas and other women and children that assisted
in the work responded with a refrain.
Ayau jailli! Is a poem taken from the collection of Mendez (Armando). The chorus of
laborers begin the song:
Ayau jailli, ayau jailli!
Kayqa thajlla, kayqa suka!
Kayqa maki, kayqa junp’i!
Ea el triunfo! Ea el triunfo!
He aquí el arado y el surco!
He aquí el sudor y la mano!
The chorus of women responded:
Ajailli, qhari, ajailli! Hurra, varon, hurra!
The dialogue continues in which the men neglect the princesses, the beautiful
maidens, at the same time as the seed is sown. The refrain, more than an answer,
appears a stimulus, a consideration of the strength of the men.” (Lara, Jesús, Wk. Cit.
pp. 360-362).
With the finality of exacting and adding information about the theme we are dealing
with, we make the following quote:
“Pachamama: the Quechua root of the earth: the human plant.
One of the most characteristic elements of the Quechua conception of the world is
the ancestral and mystic cult of Pachamama. As Luis Dalle says “the earth for the
Quechua campesino is an animated being, a dwelling of the gods, a deity that for its
generousness demands offerings and that reacts as a living, rational being” (Luis
Dalle “The Dispatch”). Metraux says “the mother earth is a typical Andean deity
whose worship was the most important within the popular region, more than the Sun
and other Inca deities. For this reason its cult is found intact from Ecuador to
Argentina and remains much later, after the majority of the gods of the Inca pantheon
were forgotten.” The earth, according to Dalle is a living being. Or, as J.V. Núñez del
Prado differentiates, it is a material place that the spirit Pachamama lives within,
separating the material concept of the earth (Allpa) from the spirit of the earth:
Pachamama, a deity that claims worship and with which the life of the indigenous is
intertwined, a feminine deity of fertility, specialized in agriculture, genesis, the
female pole of life.
The earth and its spirit: Pachamama, is venerated not only as a source of agricultural
production, but also as a generous deity which was depended on for food and the
maintenance of life itself. In its name the rites of payment, la ch’alla were sponsored.
The t’inka, the kintusqa, the despacho, the churacuy, and the qoyni are all varied
rituals of the same magical cult”. (Tamayo Herrera, José. Rev. TEQSE n.1 pp 6-7).
With all that has been discussed to the present, we can synthesize that the Andean-
Inkan inhabitants knew how to demonstrate great wisdom and knowledge about
nature, the environment, and the ecological world with its flora and fauna. They
managed to understand the exceptional importance that Pachamama or Mother Earth
possessed. To guarantee the very existence of humanity they not only dedicated
themselves to conquering it, dominating it, and exploiting it; but to caring for it,
protecting it, and elevating it to the category of divinity. The gigantic works such as
the constructions of the palaces, temples, roads, terraces, bridges, store houses,
lodges, and fortresses did not serve to destroy or depredate nature, but rather, the
wise Inka knew how to integrate and adapt to environmental conditions; building an
extraordinary culture and civilization in intimate harmony and concordance with
nature and its different manifestations. The gigantic constructions such as:
Sajsaywaman, Ollantaytambo, P’isaq, and Machupijchu, are living examples of the
synthesis and syncretism of geography, orthography, architecture, art, civil
engineering, hydraulic engineering, religious concept, military and political science,
and the philosophy of the gigantic Tawantinsuyana. The presence, existence and
resistance of these fabulous monuments continue challenging the evolution of time
for the admiration of humanity of all generations.
Within the totality of the natural or material elements, they considered there to be
“primary principles”, elements that constitute the essence of things. The Inka were
also occupied with the problem of the human and its soul, as we have seen with
sufficient amplitude in the previous pages of this work. In this respect, it will suffice
to know the positions of the two authors that we have been utilizing: a chronicler and
another historian. The chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega manifests:
“The Amautas believed that the human was composed of the body and the spirit. The
spirit was immortal and the body was made of earth because they saw it convert into
such, and so they called it Allpacamasca, which means animated earth. To
differentiate themselves from the beasts, they called themselves Runa, which is man
of understanding and reason, and the beasts in common they called llama, which
means beast. They described the body as vegetative and sensitive, because they saw
it grow and feel, but they observed that it did not reason. They believed that there
was another life after this, with penalty for the evil and rest for the good. They
divided the universe into three worlds: they called the sky Hanan Pacha, which
means high world, where they said the good go to be awarded for their virtues; they
called our world of generation and corruption Hurin Pacha, which means low world;
they called the center of the earth Ucu Pacha, which means inferior world of far
below, where they said the evil go to stay, and to better clarify it they gave it another
name, which is Zupaipa Huacin, which means House of the Demon. They did not
understand the other life as spiritual, but imagined it as bodily, just as this one is.
They said that the repose of the high world was to live a quiet life, free of the work
and grief that come to pass in this life. On the contrary, they held that the life of the
lower world, what we call the inferno, was full of illness and pain, grief and labor
that is suffered without rest or any contentment. In this manner, this present life is
divided in two parts: it gives everyone that has been good rest and contentment, and
pain and labor to those who have been wicked”. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Wk. Cit. Vol.
I, pp. 86-87).
The quote that we have finished transcribing serves to make some inferences:
The human as a totality, a unity, is composed of two spheres or elements: one is
material and organic, it is part of the earth mother or pachamama and that after
having finished its vital cycle of birth, growth, reproduction and death, it returns to
the heart of the earth. The human is part of the earth. The human belongs to the earth,
and consequently, the human is not owner of the earth. The other element is spiritual
and eternal. After death, the human occupies one of the worlds of this universe
according to their behavior on the terrestrial earth: the good to be rewarded for their
virtues, deserving eternal rest; while the evil are sanctioned to suffer illness, pain,
grief and labor.
The Inka differentiated humans according to the quality of their actions: good or bad,
positive or negative; therefore they considered there to be a complement to the
ethical-moral and axiological principles. For this reason, the subjects governed by
reason gave themselves the title of RUNA and for the individuals incapable of
learning and practicing values they used the term LLAMA.
They considered that once the subjects were dead, they passed to a new form of life
where they had the same necessities and fulfilled the same functions as they had
exercised while living. For this reason, the dead were buried with the best clothes,
portions of food, instruments of labor, arms of war, musical instruments, etc. One
only has to look at burials of the governing Inka for clarification:
“When the Inka or some curaca (governor) died, the most favored servants and most
loved women were killed or left buried alive, saying that they wanted to go and serve
their Kings and masters in the other life; because, as we have already said, they held
in their religion that after this life there was another one similar to this that was
bodily and not spiritual…”. Making a clarification about the subjects that offered
themselves to accompany or to be buried together with the Inkas, Garcilaso says: “It
is certain that they offered themselves to death and many times there were many that
halted the superiors, who would tell them that there were enough going, but that in
time, little by little, as they would die, they would go to serve there masters”.
(Garcilaso de la Vega, Wk. Cit. Vol. II, p. 127).
Finally, for the importance that the theme of the human has, we complement with the
following quote that we consider to be very important: “Death for them was simply
the passage from this to another life. Therefore, nobody was tormented by it. They
were sure that there descendants and their ayllu would care for their mummified or
desiccated cadaver, bringing it food, drink, and vestments throughout the years of the
future. In this aspect, the only thing that distressed them was being burned or
pulverized, because this would signify their total disappearance.
They did not have the slightest idea of celestial paradise, neither of the inferno, of
purgatory nor of the existence of devils in the style of the Old World. Neither did
they think of the resurrection of the dead”. (Espinoza Soriano, LOS INCAS…p.
467).
Of the totality of the books of the chroniclers and historians consulted on the theme
of the human, such as in the two preceding quotes, we can gather that the Andean-
Inkas had a philosophical conception eminently materialistic about the origin, nature
and death of the human. They considered the human as an integral part of the earth.
The human is product of the earth and returns to becomes part of the earth. With
none of the consulted authors have we been able to find an idealist conception about
the human, meaning a conception sustained in the creation of an image and
replication of a divine being, a god.
Furthermore, of all discussed to now about the possibility of the materialist
philosophical conception of the Andean-Inka world, we want to transcribe some
substantial paragraphs of the master Luis E. Valcárcel concerning Inkan thought
related with the condition of the “Economic Culture” of ancient Peru. On initiating
his exposition, he establishes the following analogy: “There is an invincible tendency
in each one of the orders of culture to dominate the others. In certain historical
phases or in determined cultural entities, there appears an order with a raised profile,
with an elevated tone that puts it on better terms than the others. It appears as if all of
the activities are subordinated to this one group, all other groups are put to its
service, debilitating their own value.
In the history of western culture we find extremely clear confirmation of this
phenomena when we perceive the supremacy of the religious (by means of their
establishment, the church), emerge in the Middle Ages with a vigor and an
incomparable omnipotence. All were left subject to it: science, philosophy, law,
morality, art, and economy. The religious dominated and were capable of arming
villages and armies for enterprises of great force such as the Crusades and was also
capable of the more lasting, absolute subjugation of consciousness”. (Valcárcel E.
Luis. Historia de la Cultura Antigua del Perú, pp.26-27).
Continuing his important exposition, Valcárcel establishes: “A detailed analysis of
the abundant assembled data drive us to discover and proclaim the economic
predilection of the Inca. The heap of information permits us to support that few or
none of the cultures in the world possessed an organization as complete to prepare
the human, in the best conditions, with the end of acquiring the conservation, the
growth and the expansion of its life, obtaining the means for this with the most
certain formula for taking advantage of the natural resources of their geographic
environment…
If the economy holds the life of the human in the end, not only should they
understand it in regard to food, housing and vestment, but also health and sex. These
are all the primary necessities that the cultural activity of economics tries to satisfy as
unique and undeniable needs to conserve the existence of the human species… The
State, The Church, The Army, The Family, all of the establishments and entities that
polarize the cultural activity, coordinate their interests and powers to acquire, above
all a growth of production, the development of social capital, the minimum of
debilitation, the moderation of consumption, justice in distribution, rapidity in
transportation, the perfection of agricultural and industrial technology, the
preparation of qualified workers, the suppression of squandering, and social security.
Under the sign of economy, the entire society, without contradictions or conflicts,
coordinates all of its acts, and advances majestically leaving in its passage a print that
the centuries will not erase.
The Sun in the sky and the Inca on the earth assumed the undertaking, the only
economic undertaking that created utopia: no more hunger or misery, no more fights
for bread, no more hate among those that have and those that do not have”.
(Valcárcel E. Luis, Wk. Cit. pp. 28-30).
Then, the master Valcárcel occupying himself with “ALIMENTATION”, expresses:
“Among the primordial necessities of humanity that the Economy should satisfy,
nutrition and reproduction figure as the most primary. A rich scientific and
philosophical bibliography contains every type of investigation and speculation about
the role that sex has in the life of the human; to such a point that the Psychoanalytic
school determined it as the axis of human existence. Alimentation has not had such
luck, despite its unarguable priority. The books and articles are few that are dedicated
to elucidating the question that we here try to discuss, placing it in a place of
precedence in the examination of the economic process that has been completed of
the antique culture of Peru.
Formulating the basis of a philosophy of alimentation, one can understand as
excessive those who consider physical life too crude and rude and estimate that the
human is above all a spirit. Saying this might cause some to tentatively jump to the
accusation of materialism. Nevertheless, the truth should not be denied of the fact
that without nutrience, there is no life. The human can inhibit the reproductive
impulse, but it is impossible to abstain from alimentation for more than a very
limited time without death. This truth, it will be said, has its value and is an adequate
force in the strictly biological field, but what does it have to do with the History of
Culture? Those who reason thusly, also put economics in its entirety outside of this
field, without bearing in mind the definitive affirmation of Seligmann (LXXIX) who
says: “The point of departure of all human activities is the existence of necessities:
To satisfy hunger and thirst, to assure shelter and to provide dress”… Consequently,
all study of culture has to understand this about the economy and begin treating the
demand of alimentation in first analysis. Such a method is universally recognized,
although the essential purpose – alimentation- appears forgotten; such as when the
decisive importance of agriculture is established in the general process of human
evolution but special attendance is not dedicated to the role that alimentation plays as
the essential objective of production”. (Valcárcel E. Luis. Wk.Cit. pp. 46-47).
Then, in a wide analysis about the extremely important themes of: economy,
production, agriculture, and alimentation, Valcárcel concludes with special emphasis,
formulating a true recognition for the rational beings of all latitudes, spaces and
times when he says: “The Inca were philosophers of alimentation; all of their cultural
life revolved around it. Thanks to their intelligent organization, Peru enjoyed several
centuries of well being”. (Valcárcel E. Luis, Wk. Cit. p.51).
The literal version of some of the more transcendental aspects of this very valuable
contribution from amauta Valcárcel permits us to infer that the ideo-philosophical
conceptions of the Andean-Inkas about the human were eminently materialistic. They
considered economic activity as the primary, obligatory and imperative human task.
We can sustain categorically that all living beings: vegetable, animal and everything
within the zoological scale of the humans, guarantee human existence and continuity,
they are required for alimentation, to take in nutrience. Alimentation is an imperious
necessity which no living being can renounce.
This would imply renouncing a natural, universal law established with the
appearance of life itself. Simply, without alimentation, it would be inconceivable to
think about the existence of living beings.
The economic, productive, agricultural and alimentary mentality of the inhabitants of
the New World, members of the Tawantinsuyana, continues to be a true lesson and
example to all of the collectives of the world today and the upcoming generations
that can take the Inka mentality as a teaching and paradigm for solutions to the
unique problems found throughout the evolution of their existence.
Two patriotic intellectuals, whose merits cannot be doubted, corroborate our thesis.
Castro Pozo sustains: “The Inca society, … with the base of agricultural collectivism
of the ayllus, obligatory labor and the distribution of production, realized the
maximum of social security for all ages and resolved the serious economic problems
of the times, diminishing the economic liabilities of their population.
In the family’s homes in the village of the ayllu and in the llacta there was not
anyone that did not work…
The Inca society took advantage of all of the vital energy of its population!” (Castro
Pozo, Hildebrando, Del Ayllu al Cooperativismo Socialista, pp. 68-69).
As far as Amauta Mariategui is concerned, he supports: “In the empire of the Inkas, a
grouping of agricultural and sedentary communes, the most interesting thing was the
economy… Collective labor and team work were employed fruitfully to social ends”.
(Mariategui, José Carlos. Siete Ensayos…p.13).
It is necessary to reiterate that the preoccupation and primary activity of economic
character in the Tawantinsuyana collective was to find general well being, as much
material as spiritual, for all of its inhabitants. The chroniclers, and likewise, the
historians of different nationalities recognize that the Andean-Inka were the only
inhabitants of the world that conquered hunger, misery, unemployment and the
exploitation of human by human.
Collective and obligatory labor, the common strength, held as final objective the
finding of the common good for all of the population without a marginalized or
marginalizing group, discriminated or discriminating; where the production in its
totality, the economy, is at the service of the human and the people as a whole.
The Andean-Inka collective, with a pragmatic mentality as partisans of obligatory
and collective work, enemies of laziness, did not have the patience to waste time on
metaphysical speculations, fantastic lucubrations. The amautas or philosophers,
accessories and counselors of the Inka, reasoned within the materialist conception
that the primary task and the first ineluctable, imperative and sacred duty of the
human considered as a member of a family and of a collective, was to work and
produce in order to guarantee life and to satisfy their vital necessities, such as:
alimentation, shelter, dress, health, education, etc. With certainty the master
Valcárcel, after having investigated the entire span of the existence of the
Tawantinsuyana collective, has qualified its inhabitants as: “PHILOSOPHERS OF
ALIMENTATION, PHILOSOPHERS OF LIFE.”

5. THE POSSIBILITY OF AN IDEALISTIC

CURRENT OF INKA PHILOSOPHY
The panoramic but substantial knowledge of the idealistic philosophical current in
the development of the History of Philosophy permits us to formulate the hypothesis
that in the Andean-Inka collective a philosophical thinking was also conceptualized
within the canon of idealism. If this is true, to unravel and systematize this Andean-
Inkan current, we do not have available the primary reliable, direct, and written
sources as we have inherited from the Greeks, Romans, and other western cultures.
Nevertheless, it is easy to infer from history, as in the case of Socrates and Jesus
Christ, as we have shown with sufficient amplitude in the preceding pages, that to
philosophize it is not necessary or imperative to bequeath a written work
systematized through books. Furthermore, supporting ourselves in the investigations
of distinguished national and foreign historians, we have sustained in categorical
form that the pan-Andeans managed to systematize and make perennial their multiple
cultural manifestations through an ideographic, symbolic, form of recording known
as the Khipus.
To sustain the thesis that we formulate, we feel obligated to return in consultation to
the chroniclers and historians that left us their corresponding work. We transcribe
textually some quotations that can better illustrate:
They adored the Sun as a visible God to which they offered sacrifices and held great
celebrations…, the Inka kings and their amautas, who were the philosophers, traced
with natural light the true ultimate God, Our Master, that created the sky and the
earth, soon we will see in the arguments and maxims what some of them said of the
Divine Majesty, which they called Pachacamac: a name composed of Pacha, which is
world-universe, and of Camac, present participle of the verb cama, which means to
animate. From this verb is deduced the name cama, which means animates.
Pachacamac signifies he that animates the world-universe, and all belongs to him and
the entire meaning denotes he that makes the universe animates it as a part of
himself…
They held Pachacamac in higher veneration than the Sun, as I have said, they did not
dare to speak his name, but they spoke the name of the Sun all the time. Questioned
who was Pachacamac, they said that he was the one who gave life to the universe and
sustained it, but that they did not know him because they had never seen him, and
therefore they did not make him temples or offer him sacrifices, more than they
adored him in their heart (that is, mentally). They had an unknown God”. (Garcilaso
de la Vega, Inca. Comentarios Reales de los Incas. Vol. I, p.72).
“Pachacuti Inga Yupanqui reigned seventy years and conquered extensively. His
primary victory was that his older brother, that had seniority in life over his father
and with his will administrated the army, was reckless in a battle he had with the
Changas, which was the nation that possessed the Andaguaylas valley which was
thirty leagues from Cuzco on the road to Lima, and being reckless, he withdrew with
few people remaining. Seeing this, the younger brother, Inga Yupanqui, to make
himself leader, lied and said that being alone and very distressed, the creator
Viracocha had spoken to him and complained to him that being the universal master
and creator of everything, and having made the sky and the sun and the world and
humans, and having all under his power, he was not receiving his deserved respect.
Before, the people gave equal veneration to the sun, thunder, the earth, and other
things, none having anymore virtue than what he gave them; and he told Inga
Yupanqui that in the sky, where he was, they would call him Viracocha
Pachayacháchic, which means universal creator… and since that day, Viracocha was
taken as universal master. Since that time the statue of Viracocha was put higher than
the sun and thunder and the other guacas. Although Inca Yupanqui appointed farms
and lands and herds to the sun and to thunder and to the other gods, he never
assigned anything to Viracocha, reasoning that he was the Universal Master and
creator and it was therefore not necessary”. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Inca. Comentarios
Reales de los Incas. Vol. II. p.90).
Previously, the mestizo chronicler Gracilazo de la Vega quoted the Fater Blas Valera,
transcribing the thought of “Tupac Inca Yupanqui”, who sustains: “Many say that the
Sun lives and that it is the maker of all things; it is fitting that one who makes
something is present during the creation of the things they create, but many things
are made while the sun is absent. Therefore, it is not the maker of all things; and one
can infer that it is not alive given that is always returns without rest: if it were a
living thing it would rest as we do, or if it were free it would visit other parts of the
sky, which it never does. It is like a tied animal, that always makes the same circle, or
it is like the dart that always goes were you send it and not where it wants”.
(Comentarios Reales de los Incas, Vol. II, pp. 97-98).
The same chronicler, when discussing the prince Huayna Capac, son of Tupac Inca
Yupaqui, that conquered the kingdom of Quitu and the provinces of Quillacenca,
Patsu, Otaullu and Caranque, supports: “He ordered to return their army to the
province called Passau, which was the end and limit of his empire to the north, and
having dismissed the army, he returned to Cozco, visiting his kingdoms and
provinces, giving favors and administering justice to those who asked. On this trip,
during one of the years of his visit, he arrived at Cozco in time to celebrate the
principle celebration of the Sun that was called Raymi. The Indians said that during
one of the nine days of the celebration, with new liberty from the custom they had of
not looking at the Sun (which was prohibited as an irreverence toward their god), the
Inca gazed at it, or close. The Sun permitted it and the Inca continued for some space
of time looking at it. The High Priest, who was one of his uncles, was at his side. He
asked him: “What are you doing Inca? Don’t you now it is not licit to do that?”
The King lowered his eyes then slightly raised them again with the same freedom
and fixed them on the sun. The High Priest said: “Look, Only Master, what you do is
prohibited for the rest of us. We are prohibited to look with liberty on Our Father the
Sun, for it would be irreverent. You give a bad example to all of your court and all of
the empire that is here to celebrate in the veneration and adoration that they owe to
your father, the one and supreme master. Huayna Capac, turning to the priest, told
him: “I want to ask you two questions to respond to what you have said to me. I am
your King and Universal Master, would any of you be daring enough to order me to
rise from my seat and leave?” The priest responded: “Who would be so foolish as
that?” The Inca replied: “And would some curaca of my vassals, as rich and
powerful as he might be, not obey me if I ordered him to go for the relay from here
to Chili?” The priest said: “No Inca, there isn’t anyone who wouldn’t obey you until
death for all that you ask.”
The King said then: “Then I tell you that our Father the Sun has another greater
master, more powerful than anyone, that has ordered the sun to make this same path
that each day he follows without stop. If he was the supreme ruler, one time or
another he would stop walking and rest to his liking, even though there was no
need…”
The Indians, so superstitious and timid in their idolatry, took as a bad omen that their
King had looked at the sun with such liberty. Huayna Capac took this from what he
had heard his father, Tupac Inca Yapanqui, say about the sun, which is almost the
same according to what was told of his life”. (Garcilaso de la Vega. Wk. Cit. Vol. III.
pp.160-161).
We can corroborate the preceding citations about the idealist philosophical
conception of the Inkas by mentioning the investigations of some contemporary
historians. Thus we have Dick Edgar Grasso and his investigation into “Incan
Astronomy”, referring to the chronicler Polo de Ondegardo, he says: “After
Virachocha (who was held as supreme master of everything and adored with the
highest honor), they also adored the Sun, the stars, the thunder, and the earth, which
they called Pachamama, and many other different things”…
“The way of praying to Viracocha, the Sun and the stars was the same: they opened
their hands and made a certain sound with the lips (like someone kissing), then they
asked what each deity wanted and offered them a sacrifice. However, they said
something different when they spoke with the great Ticci Viracocha, because to him
they attributed omnipotency and command over all, including the other huacas,
which as masters or local deities, each one in its own house, acted as intercessories
between the people and Ticci Viracocha”.
After Viracocha and the Sun, the third most important huaca of veneration was
thunder which was called by three names: Chuqui-illa, Catuilla, Intuillapa…”.
(Ibarra Grasso, Dick Edgar. Ciencia Astronómica y Sociología Incaica, pp. 35-36).
In the last pages, the previously quoted author supports the following; “An important
clarification now: in Cuzco there was not only the Temple of the Sun, which is
generally supposed to be Coricancha, but there was also another equally important
temple dedicated to the god Huiracocha…
We make note here that in the last quote, Polo (de Ordegardo, Juan) repeated by
Acosto (Joseph de), etc., says directly that Huiracocha held in Incan religion a
position superior to the Sun, something that almost always is passed by as it is
preferred to follow the idea that the supreme god of the Incas was the Sun, but
Garcilaso is practically the only one that tells us this out of everyone. Garcilaso also
tells us that among the Inca, the god Pachacamac was considered as superior and
creator of everything, including the sun. Was Pachacamac the same thing as
Huiracocha? It would appear that if so, they were distinct in origin but were later
unified”. (Ibarra Grasso, Dick Edgar, Wk. Cit. p.52).
The historian Valcárcel concerning “The High Altar of Coricancha”, considers that:
“No other modern author has realized a study as detained as that of Robert Lehmann
Nitsche and as he notes, none of the historians and archaeologists give him the
recognition that he deserves on mentioning the drawing of Juan de Santa Cruz
Pachacuti Salcamaygua.
It is evident that the drawing is imperfect and incomplete, but it is the best document
that we have about what the structure of religious thought of the Inca could have
been like. In it, the entities that form what we have called “the greater state of the
gods” figure greatly: the sun, the moon, Venus, Lightning, the Rainbow and the
constellation of the Gold Cat. There is the original pair of humanity: the man and the
woman, like the tree, the Mallqui, which we have referred to in double significance
as the mummy and the mystic tree. There is the earth or Pachamama and the ocean
or Mamacocha.
Other constellations appear and above all, the ovoid symbol representative of Apu
Kon Titi Wira Cocha, master of the universe, erected after the religious reform of the
Inca Pachacuti”. (Valcárcel E. Luis. Historia del Perú Antiguo. Vol. 4. p.165).
For the investigator Carlos Milla Villena, the theme of the Temple of Coricancha
motivated two principle points of interest: “the architecture and the religious” and
mentioning the previously quoted chronicler, he supports: “The chronicler Pachacuti
writes… about the only God, Creator of the universe. Its omnipresence manifests in
the three worlds of its creation: The world of below, UCKU PACHA, the world
around us, KAYPACHA, and the world of above, HANAN PACHA. In the Andean
world, the creator did not have representation and could not exist within its creation
contained in the three worlds, the three adjacent circles enclosed in an elongated
Oval.
The same chronicler Pachacuti Salcamaygua, when referring to the Inka “Manco
Capac”, tells us: “This Inca is attributed with having ordered made a flat plate of fine
gold in an ovoid shape that signified that there was a maker of the sky and the earth.
It was fixed in a great house that was called Coricancha Pachayachachicpac Uasin”.
(Valcárcel, 1971: Vol. IV, p. 455).
Finally, quoting Guaman Poma de Ayala, he adds: “They knew there was one true
God as three distinct people. The first was called Yayan Illapa (Hanan), resplendent
father or lightning bolt; the second: Chaupi Churi, resplendent middle son and then
the third, Sullca Churin”. (Milla Villena Carlos. Génesis de la Cultura Andina,
p.233).
In synthesis, we can infer an agreement in the preceding citations that the Inkas
reached a conceptualization of the existence of a supreme being that governed inti
tayta or father sun, mama killa or mother moon, mama qocha or the ocean, illapa or
lightening bolt and thunder, mama pacha or mother earth, etc. This being, supreme
god, and universal creator of the world was known by the name of “APU KON TITI
WIRACOCHA”, whose literal meaning is: Supreme Master, Fire, All, Earth, Water.
In this manner, the people of Tawantinsuyana with their profoundly spiritual
vocation believed in the existence of a universal being, invisible, a master of the
world, more important than the sun, a creator of humanity, of the animals, of the
plants. This being was known as “Wiracocha” or “Pachacamac”. It was a being
considered as the origin, the maker, and the creator of life and all in existence in the
universe.

6. SOME CATEGORIES IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL

CONCEPTION OF THE INKA.
Having covered the possible structure of Inka Philosophy and the consequent
philosophical currents, we will try to submerge ourselves in other categories that
permit us to comprehend the philosophical thought of the Inka with better
objectivity.
The Tawantinsuyana inhabitant, considered as a social and rational being, equal to
the populations of European, Asian, African, and Oceanic people, has assumed the
same human attitude and disposition of spirit before the cosmos, nature, the world,
society and humanity itself. As profound knowers of the universe and nature, with its
totality of physical phenomena and objects, living beings and the laws that regulate
them, they knew how to make the development of their own existence adequate.
They made their daily activities adapt to natural contingencies which they elevated
to a sacred, divine category, as in the case of Intitayta or father sun, Pachamama or
mother earth, Mamaquilla or mother moon, etc.
Garcia Morente, citing Plato, adds: “… the first virtue of the philosopher is their
ability to admire. Thaumatzein (as they say in Greek), which the word
“thaumaturgy” comes from. To admire, to feel that divine inquietude that exists
while others remain tranquil without even glimpsing that there is a problem. One
with a philosophical disposition is always in a state of inquietude, perceiving even in
the smallest thing problems, mysteries, and the unknown that others do not see”.
(Garcia Morente, Wk. Cit. p.17).
The people of the Andes undoubtedly possess this primordial disposition to explain
rational problems of the surrounding world and the universe with rigor. They have
had to attain a philosophy properly systematized, structured, and coherent. They
have had to utilize a collection of philosophical categories that permits them to
differentiate from the other forms of knowledge such as: scientific, religious, artistic
and common.
We should not forget that the Andean – Inkas, conceptualized the universe as a
totality, as a unity. Within this totality, this unity, they established multiple territories,
spheres, or parcels to objectively and scientifically explain the nature of phenomena
and objects.
“As all organized societies, the Inkas should have had a “weltanschauung”, a total
cosmic vision integrated and complex, expressed in a series of matrices or mental
pleats, that in some cases were concepts, and in others, institutions, emotional
impediments, rejections or magical practices.
All of them conformed to a unique mentality”. (Tamayo Herrara, José. Historia
General del Qosqo, Vol. I. p. 154).
In the present work we will try to systematize some substantial philosophical
categories that we consider extremely important within the integral structure of the
philosophical thought of the Inka. Thus we have:

6.1 CONCEPTIONS OF THE SOUL OR SPIRIT

Using the theories systematized by the pre-Socratic philosophers of ancient Greece
as a point of departure, we can appreciate that the theme of the “soul or spirit” has
been the cause of permanent preoccupation. Many times, both terms have been used
as synonyms, equivalent, to refer to the same reality. Here we have an explanation of
the significance of the two words according to the philosophical dictionary: “SOUL.
A term employed sometimes as synonymous with psyche. In the representations of
the primitive human, the soul was considered as something material, (shadow, blood,
breath, etc.). In religion, the soul is understood as a certain immaterial force,
incorporeal and immortal, that has its own existence independent of the body in the
world of the “beyond”. In idealist philosophy, the soul is identified with
consciousness. For Plato, it is the eternal idea; for Hegel, it is the inferior sensorial
manifestation of the spirit in nexus with matter. In the dualist doctrines, the soul is
understood as something independent that exists as a pair with the body (Descartes,
Spencer, Wundt, James). In pre-Marxist materialism (Democritus, metaphysical
materialism), the soul was understood as something derived, secondary, dependent
on the body, but seen this way, the soul and psychic activity, is reduced to elemental,
mechanical or physical-chemical processes. It was not rare that some materialist
philosophers came to admit that all things possess a soul (Hylozoism)”. (Rosental,
M.M. Wk. Cit. pp.19-20).
On the other hand, when the spirit is referred to, it is affirmed to be: “(from Latin:
“spirit”, literally: gust, fine air, vapor, breath, smell). A concept that, in the broad
sense of the word, is identical to the concepts of the ideal, of consciousness as a
supreme form of psychic activity; in the strict sense of the word, it is equivalent to
the concept of thought.
We can infer that the conception of the soul and the spirit consists of an immaterial
reality, independent of the objective world, whose origin, nature and destiny have
been the theme of philosophical reflections in the development of human thought.
We will quote some examples: Tales of Mileto, on developing his theme of theology
and sustaining that all of the things of the world are under the control of gods, and in
particular: “attribute soul to inmán, meaning life, because it attracts to iron”.
(Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk. Cit. p. 47). Anaximenes, considering air as the original
source of all things, textually expresses: “Air covers all: it is the soul and also the
general means of the infinite worlds of the universe”. (Rosental M.M., Wk. Cit. p.
26). Empedocles, “in addition to talking about the world of bodies, also discusses the
world of the spirits or of the souls.” He establishes his thesis: “These should have
originally been among the gods; but because of some fault, these spirits fell to the
earth and in the form of souls they have had to make a long peregrination through a
series of reincarnations,…”.(Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk. Cit. p.63). Furthermore,
the pre-Socratics and the post-Socratics, as in the case of Plato, say: “…the soul is
something totally different than the body, and in this life the thing that constitutes
our sense of self is nothing other than the soul and only the soul, and the body is
nothing but the shadow or image that accompanies us… The origin of the soul is in
the hands of the demiurge”. (Hirschberger, Johannes, Wk. Cit. pp.118-119). In this
manner, the theme of the soul or the spirit has always constituted and constitutes a
philosophical problem, whose scrutiny continues to the present day.
“The spirits of nature had a hierarchy: the greater spirits dwelled in the snow-
covered peaks. They were the Apus, such as Apu Sallcantay, the highest mountain of
Cusco. He was the Sovereign Spirit of the whole region. At his side were the minor
spirits that resided in the mountains of less altitude, they are Auquis or Huamanis.
Each community or ayllu had its Apu and Auquis that formed its orthographic
perimeter and came to be the defending and protecting sentinels of the village.
Together with the spirits of nature, it is necessary to consider the spirits of the dead
that also act over the living for good or for bad. The spirit of the recently dead is an
object of living terror. Magic is put in play to impede them from leaving their tombs,
because if they do it would be a danger to the village…
The Founding Spirit, for all of the villages, is the Wari. He has created all of the
human groups organized into villages and communities.
Popular religion has survived the catastrophe of the Empire and the disappearance of
colonialism. Of course, its present existence is a mottled mix with a deformed
Christianity”. (Valcárcel, E. Luis. Historia del Perú Antiguo. Vol. I. p. 59).
In the preceding pages, the author of our quote made the following remarks: “Many
practiced magic with the dead, always in a defensive sense, because there was the
constant belief that spirits were harmful for the people, as if death would
contaminate them. Hence, during burials they had careful ceremonies: in many cases
the body was tied and in all circumstances, they took great care in the giving
funerary offerings made up of whatever belonged to or was important to the
deceased in life: objects, food, vestments. Also, ceramic work and textiles
exclusively funereal were included that were distinguishable not only for their
advanced technique and artistic quality, but for the symbolism that they contained.
Many of these combined symbols that can be interpreted as true messages to the
World Within, the obscure and mysterious world that receives the dead and
transforms them into a new life.
The divinities represented were, in many cases, carriers of precious fruits, pepper,
yucca, potato and other foods, solicited by the living to have occult powers for
agricultural production, with which the dead, in Ukju Pacha, maintained a close
relation. The divinities were able to intercede so that nothing would fail them…”.
(Valcárcel E. Luis. Wk. Cit. pp. 61-62).
Utilizing the process of analogy between the western philosophical conception,
especially the Greek, and the Andean-Inka philosophical conception, we can infer
that both cultures managed to systematize a collection of conceptions with relation
to the “soul, spirit, or nuna.” Within the mental structure of both groups, there are
different explanations for the origin, the nature and final destiny of the soul, spirit or
nuna.
A common feature that both cultures attribute to the soul, spirit, or nuna is its
immateriality and its presence in the human body while it is alive and its later
abandonment of the body at the precise moment of death.
Nevertheless, we can establish some differences among the conceptions of both
cultures about the theme motivating our commentary. If it is true that the westerners
support the immortality of the soul or spirit, then they also sustained that these
beings, according to their behavior and actions realized across the physical structure
of the human and its permanence on the earth, were deserving of reward or
castigation. They believed that the good spirits or souls, according to their behavior,
and generous, positive actions, would go to the sky to reside permanently and enjoy
an eternal life along with the celestial being: God. Contrarily, the souls or spirits of
the evil, accustomed to doing frequent wicked deeds in comparison to their
counterparts, were destined to the inferno, considered a place of eternal punishment,
to suffer torment. The Andean-Inkas conceptualized the immortality of the “nuna”
according to the their own conditions as they were in life, occupying the same social
role, as in the case of the governors, fulfilling the same social function; concepts that
motivated them to bury the dead with their best clothing, with their instruments of
labor, adorned with different jewels, adornments and accompanied by different kinds
of food, drinks, etc. In the mentality of the Tawntinsuyana inhabitant, there existed
the firm conviction that death represented the passing of the “nuna” to the better
conditions of eternal life.
The Andean-Inka collective, despite the well-documented inequalities within the
organization of the social hierarchy, as a consequence of the there being no
recognized form of slavery or a system of exploitation of human by human,
conceptualized the eternal life of the “nuna” according to the conditions of terrestrial
life.
Finally, death itself was motive of a divergent conceptualization among the
Spaniards and the inhabitants of the pan-Andes. To begin with, death was
synonymous with terror, pain, suffering, and consequently they feared death. For the
pan-Andeans, death was considered as a normal, natural occurrence that implied the
passing on to better conditions of eternal life.
 6.2 SPACE AS A CATEGORY IN THE INKA
PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION
It is certain that all social and cultural organization has a singular vision (unique
to the cosmos, to nature, to the world) of the totality of phenomena and objects that
exist, and they demonstrate this through the evolution of their development. Then
we should formulate the following question: Did the Andean-Inkas have a
consciousness, some kind of conception of space?
Concerning the theme of space, we have the following elemental explanation: “If we
attentively observe the objects that surround us, we see that each thing is not only in
movement, but that it possesses extension, dimensions. Some are larger, some
smaller, but all have a length, width and height. They occupy a certain place, and
have volume. Nevertheless, the objects of nature not only have extension, but also
are situated in a certain place. Some are closer or farther, taller or shorter, more to
the left or more to the right with relation to us.
The universal property of material bodies is that they possess extension, occupy
a determined locale and are situated in a certain manner among the other objects
of the world. This constitutes the philosophical concept of space”. (Afanasiev,
Victor, Manual de Filosofia, p.65).
Now that we understand space as a category of philosophy within the western
conception, we now take a look from the point of view of the Inka.
We should respond affirmatively to the initial question and sustain that within the
conception of the universe as a unity, a totality, the Inka considered the categories of
space and time as integral elements of unity and totality. Pablo Macera develops this
in didactic form:
“For the Incas, Space and Time were associated, they were lovers. They are
described through the word PACHA:
a) First division of space: Kai-Quipa-Ñaupa
The key concept for the Inca idea of Space and Time is Kai, which signifies Here (in
space), and the Present (in time). Together with Kai there was Quipa (Behind-
Future) and Ñaupa (Ahead-Past).
It is disconcerting for the European vision of the world that Ñaupa that which is
ahead, serves to name the Past, while Quipa (Behind) serves to name the future. But
it is so. This is how it was in Tahuantinsuyo. It is because the future is coming, it is
going to enter into our world that is the present here (Kai) and now.
b) Second Division of Space: Hanan-Kay-Ucu.
The universe was also divided into three sections:
1) Hanan Pacha (The Above World: residence of the gods).
2) Kaypacha (The Present-Here World: habitation of the humans).
3) Ucupacha (The Subterranean World: habitation of the dead and the forces
of fertility).
These three worlds were not isolated but entered into relationship thanks to the
intermediary agents among which one of the most important was the Inca. As the
son of God he communicated between the Hanan Pacha and the Kaypacha. But once
he died, he converted into Illapa Inca, serving to relate the world below with the
Here-Present.
 c) The Third Division of Space: Hurin-Hanan.
The actual Here –Present world (Kai) could be divided into Hanan and Hurin
(Above and Below). This was a hierarchic division. For example, under the second
dynasty, the Hanan neighborhood in Cuzco was more important than the Hurin
neighborhood. The Suyos of the Empire were also ordered in function of Hanan and
Hurin. There was, as we have seen, two Hanan Suyos and two Hurin Suyos.
d) Fourth Division of Space: Collana-Payan-Cayao.
Space and Society, in their turn, were divided into another three categories in order
of importance: 1) Collana. 2) Payan. 3) Cayao. According to Wachtel they were
respectively designated as: 1) The conquering Incas (Collana). 2) The conquered
population (Payan). 3) A mixed group of servants (Cayao).
e) The Fifth Division of Space: The ceques.
Within Cuzco, Space and Society were divided combining all of the previous criteria
by means of the Ceques. The Ceques were imaginary lines that divided Cuzco from
the center in all directions. Within these imaginary lines were located sacred sites.
Each Ceque was in the care of an Ayllu. The Ceques were divided in to Suyos and
into groups of Collana-Payan-Cayao.” (Historia del Peru, pp. 125-126). With a
valuable contribution by Macera, concerning the division of space within the
Andean-Inkan philosophical conception, we want to make some corrections about
the writing of the Quechua words. Therefore we have:
- Kai: Here. The correct form: Kay: to be. Adj. d. This, those. Pron.
This, those.
- Quipa: Behind-Future. The correct form: Qhepa: behind, future,
posterior, after, coming, upcoming.
- Ucupacha: Subterranean world: habitation of the dead and the
forces of fertility. The correct form: Ukhu pacha: within, below,
profound, deep. The world below, the center of the earth, the eternal
dwelling place of the spirits or the souls.
- Ceques: Imaginary lines that divide the world beginning at the
center of Cusco. The correct form: Seques: lines, demarcations of a
geographic environment. A type of boundary for the ayllus and
communities including the suyos.
Tamayo Herrera, quoting Macera, manifests: “Nevertheless, an important fact is
noted. Ñaupa means both antique and future, tradition and modernity. Likewise
Q’epa means that of the past and that of the future, meaning that in the hard nucleus
of this there appears to be an eternal return, renovated, different, but anchored in the
most distant tradition. Which would coincide with Marx when he says: “to find new
things in that which exists from the greatest antiquity” or equally, the ancient can be
the new (Flores Galindo, 1987: 244-248). Or as Mariátegiu said: The Inka past has
entered into our history, recovered not by the traditionalist, but by the
revolutionaries. The defeat of colonialism is composed of this fact. The revolution
has recovered our most ancient tradition”. (Wk. Cit. Vol. I, pp. 155-156).
It has been demonstrated in categorical form that the Inka collective, within a
unitary and integral conception of the universe, nature, and the world, managed to
conceptualize with precision, clarity and objectivity the existence of space as a
philosophical category. But not as an abstract, metaphysical, philosophical category,
isolated and independent of the material world, society, the collective group,
economic activity and reality. There classsification was an important, transcendental
element, vital to life in its diverse forms, and to the human, considered as a social
being, administrator and actor in its environment, whose permanent, constant, daily
relations are the origin of culture with the totality of its material and spiritual
elements. For this reason they considered themselves as elements or integral parts of
nature, of mother earth or Pachamama.

6.3 TIME AS A CATEGORY IN

PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTION
Beginning to deal with a theme, we formulate a question; Did the Andean-Inka
have a consciousness, some conception of time?
The following quote illustrates for us, with sufficiency, the conception of time as a
philosophical category.
Macera makes the following digressions about time in the Inka Empire:
a) Pachacutec- Time develops in cycles. The Inca believed that
every certain number of years, the universe was menaced by great
adversity. These were times of disruption, changes. They called these
times Pachacutec. The name of Inca Yupanqui appears to be related
with these ideas.
b) The Calendar- The time of the Inca was organized the same as
Space. To divide Time they had two cycles of the Sun and the Moon
and perhaps the movement of other celestial bodies (the star Sirius).
They had “solar clocks” to determine the times of the harvests. These
were towers or columns known by the name of Sucancos”. (Macera,
Pablo, Historia del Perú, p. 126).

Despite the fact that this quote confirms the existence of the philosophical category
of time for us, we opt to widen our view, appealing to new authors that recognize it
with objectivity.
We have sustained since the beginning of the present work that the hamaut’as and the
Inkan collective were not partisans of wasting time on metaphysical pondering or
speculations. The rational explanation of universal or philosophical problems, was
exclusively supported and founded in relation to the socio-economic and political
organization of society. In this way, “time” as a philosophical category is
conceptualized in relation to social organization and the economic structure, such as:
production, sowing, harvests, etc.
Pablo Macera and Juan A. Ossio, as profound thinkers of the Andean-Inka collective,
authorize us to sustain with certainty that the Inka inhabitants did manage to
conceptualize time as a philosophical category. It is true that they assumed full
consciousness of time in its three phases: past, present, and future; nevertheless, they
managed to divide time into cycles and millennia, always related with natural, social,
economic, and political occurrences. An example of this is the case of the pachakutis
or revolutions, which according to the philosophical conception of the Inka,
happened every five hundred or thousand years, with grand transformations,
modifications, and radical changes in nature and the integral organization of the
Tawantinsuyana society.
The Inka calendar, equally, was closely related with economic activities, production
and work, in addition to the occurrences of the principle celebrations. Accordingly,
Valcárcel develops, quoting the chronicler Guaman Poma and manifesting: “…there
was an astrologer of Uchujmarka, Lucanas, who referred to some things about stars
and the calendar.
For example, the hour was called “UJ WAYKUCHI”, which means to cook; the week
is “UJ KAUNAJ”, which means to support, a support or staff. The month we already
knew was KILLA or moon and a half-month was CHEJTA KILLA. In the names of
the month, it was habit to add two forms of suffixes: KI, as in Jatun Kus-ki, and KIS
as in KAMAY-IKIS. Both being names of months.
The Inka calendar is a typical agricultural calendar. The astrologer from
Uchuymarka, the Indian Rukana Piyumpa, speaks of the sun ascending and staying
in its seat in January, and returning to do the same in its “other seat” in August.
Surely he was referring to some observatory or intiwatana, in which he could see
with precision the moment in which the star of the day did not project a shadow as
during the equinoxes.
I have here the enumeration of the months that have particular interest, because in it
the positions are more apparent than in other lists:
1. January-KAPAJ RAYMI-KAMAY KILAA-or: Greater Passover, month
of the “work”.
2. February- PAUKAR WARAY – JATUN POKOY KI- “Florid Surface” –
The greater period of maturation.
3. March -PACHA POKOY KILLA-month of the maturation of the earth
(or mature time)
4. April –INKA RAYMI-KAMAY KILLA- Passover of the King, month of
the “work”.
5. May –JATUN KUSKI-AYMORAY KILLA. Month of the Aymoray song
or the harvest.
6. June –HAUKAY KUSKI KILLA- Month of joys.
7. July –CHAJRAKUNAKUY KILLA- Month of preparing the fields for
sowing.
8. August –CHAJRAYAPUY KILLA- Month of sowing on the farms.
9. September –KOYA RAYMI KILLA- The Passover of the Queen.
10. October –UMA RAYMI- The Passover of water or rain.
11. November –AYAMAR AY KILLA- Month of duty to the dead.
(Procession)
12. December –KAPAJ INTI RAYMI –Greater Passover of the Sun.”
(Valcárcel, E. Luis. Historia de la Cultura Antigua del Perú, pp. 169-170).

Just like the philosophical category of Space, the conception of Time within the
Andean-Inka collective is not abstract or metaphysical. It is not far and isolated from
the unified, integrated conception of the universe, reality, society, and the human, but
is better considered as an element integrated within this totality and unity. Something
else always related with the preponderant activity of the collective is agricultural and
livestock production. The economy, as chroniclers and historians of all times and
nationalities sustain, has been the fundamental preoccupation of the Tawantinsuyana
inhabitants. Valcárcel accordingly sustains: “The Incas were philosophers of
alimentation: all of their cultural life revolved around it”. (Historia de la Cultura
Antigua del Perú, p. 51).
In effect, within the conception of Time, in addition to dividing the year in months as
we have already seen, the Inka divided it into SEASONS, such as: “Chirau pacha:
Spring; Ruphay pacha: Summer; Haukay pacha: Autumn; Qasay pacha: Winter”.
(Manya, Juan Antonio. Hablando Quechua con el Pueblo, pp.26).
The preceding quotes, demonstrate in objective and coherent manner, that the Inkas
had a precise conception of the category of time.

7. THE POSSIBILITY OF SOME

PHILOSOPHICAL DISCIPLINES IN THE INKA
CONCEPTION
We begin formulating these questions: Is it possible to speak of or support the
existence of philosophical disciplines within the Andean-Inka conception? If they
exist, which or what philosophical disciplines did they manage to develop, not only
as a special form of thought, properly systematized, but also as a praxis in familial
and social relations? Philosophy as a form of knowledge, of rational support for the
universal problems despite conserving its unity and totality, has given origin to
diverse disciplines whose presence and existence are undeniable at the present in
western mentality:
“With relation to the “manifest division of philosophy” found throughout the History
of Philosophy, there have appeared diverse criteria tending to systematize its
problems. In its most remote antiquity, philosophy did not establish any divisions.
Think for example, of the pre-Socratics. They did not clearly or consciously notice
that some determined problems belonged to Logic, others to Ethics, etc. This
signifies that a division of philosophy had not been born, it had not arrived at
specialization; philosophy simply covered all of the problems referring to the cosmos
without distinguishing them with precision. It was not until later that philosophy was
divided into three great branches: Logical, Physical, and Ethical…
Another criterion that served as a base to this triumvirate and traditional division of
philosophy consists in affirming that philosophy deals with large kinds of problems:
theoretical problems and practical problems. Already Aristotle speaks of the
theoretical sciences as being autonomous, without needing more than pure reason for
their development. They are found within everything (for example, metaphysics). He
also proclaims the practical sciences (Ethics and Politics) as inferior to the
theoretical, because they require the people for there development, meaning that they
are not sufficient in themselves…
With the purpose of founding and critically explaining each one of the areas of
culture (science, morality, art, religion, etc.), philosophy created a series of sciences,
or special disciplines, that include the following: (simply enumerated)
a)Ethics, b) Logic, c) Esthetics. The following are also considered as
being philosophical disciplines:
a) Metaphysics, b) Ontology, c) Axiology, d) Philosophical
Anthropology, e) The Philosophy of History”. (Escobar Valenzuela,
Gustavo. ETICA, pp, 19-24)
If this is true, the quoted author agrees in the essential aspect of the proposed theme,
nevertheless, it would be a mistake to consider Logic as a philosophical discipline. In
actuality, Logic is already an autonomous and sovereign science whose category is
universally recognized.
To demonstrate our hypothesis, we will only occupy ourselves with the philosophical
disciplines of: Ethics (or Morality) and Axiology.

7.1 ETHICS AND MORALITY

To begin, we should point out that Ethics and Morality are not synonymous terms for
the substantial differences that exist in each of their natures, objectives, and the
categories that they contain as a form of philosophical knowledge.
Ethics is held to be: “(from Greek “ethos”: customs, habits). Ethics is one of the most
antique theoretical disciplines, whose object of study is morality. Ethics emerged in
the period when slavery was being established to detach the moral conscience from
the spontaneous, new custom of the society. It is one of the fundamental parts of
philosophy, a “practical” science about how to proceed, different than the purely
theoretical knowledge about what is in existence”. (Rosental, M.M. Wk. Cit. pp.209-
210).
Also, Ethics is considered to: “find its object of reflection in the cultural area called
morality. The objective that corresponds with Ethics in the discipline of philosophy is
to elucidate, reflect, and found a human experience that is moral. Morality has been
and will continue to be one of the genuine and necessary creations of humanity.
Since humanity organized into societies, it has had to create rules and prescriptions
that regulate behavior, giving place to morality.
Before this human phenomena, the task of Ethics consists in explaining the reason
for being, origins, the meaning of evolution, etc. In its meditations, Ethics
investigates what is good conduct and what conditions human institutions should
meet to moralize the individual”. (Escobar Valenzuela, Gustavo. Etica, pp.22).
Escobar also says: “Morality takes on a historic character. Already it has been made
apparent that Ethics has to split from history to be able to establish some conclusions.
Morality begins when the human first begins to form societies, to abandon its purely
animal nature and begins to feel itself as a member of a community. It is then that the
human is impelled to create laws and norms of behavior that permit it to regulate its
relations with the other members of the community”. (Escobar Valenzuela, Gustavo.
ETICA, pp. 52).
“As for the definition of morality, many concepts have been formulated about it,
among them are:
a) Morality is a collection of norms accepted freely and consciously, that
regulate the individual and social conduct of humanity.
b) Morality is a system of norms, rules, and duties that regulate the actions
of humans among themselves.
c) Morality is a collection of rules that society orders an individual to
observe while within it. A moral human is one who lives in concordance with
the customs of their society and whose punishment is separation from it.
d) In the end, morality is the collection of norms and forms of life through
which the human aspires to realize the value of the good.
Appreciating these definitions, the essential elements of morality stand out. This
includes before anything, a complex of norms, without which, it would be impossible
to conceive. These norms have as a common purpose the formation of the conduct of
the human in society; furthermore, they should be realized in a conscious and free
form, and interiorized by the subject. By means of the norms, the individual tries to
arrive at a realization of the value of the good. In this way, morality is closely linked
with the value of the good”. (Escobar Valenzuela, Gustavo, Wk. Cit. pp. 44-45).
After the conceptual digressions we have made, we ask: Is it possible to sustain the
existence of Inka Ethics and Morality?
One of the great conquests and achievements of the Tawantinsuyana society is
having systematized a collection of norms and moral principles whose rigidity and
strictness guaranteed familial, social, and collective relations with total success. The
application and practice of moral norms did not concede any flexibility, no
exceptions, in any case. All of the members of the collective (including the Inca, who
personified the Inka State, the members of the governing class, and the people in
their collectivity) were submitted to the moral norms whose rigor and severity were
inviolable, impassable.
For the profundity and the amplitude of this theme, which requires an independent
investigation, we only textually quote a few passages from the important work of
Garcilaso de la Vega, the “Real Commentaries of the Incas”, when he refers to topics
related with Inka morality:
“THE INCA Manco Capac (along with teaching his vassals to cultivate the earth, to
build houses, to dig irrigation ditches, and to do the other things necessary for human
life) went on instructing them in civility, sociability, and brotherhood that each had to
maintain according to what reason and the natural law taught. He persuaded them
with such efficiency that among them there was perpetual peace and concordance.
Anger and the passions were never aroused, they treated another as they would like
to be treated, because it was not permitted to want a law for oneself and another for
the others. Particularly, he ordered them to respect the women and the daughters,
because disrespect of women was among them more barbarous than any other vice.
He put the death penalty on adulterers and murderers and thieves. He ordered them
not to have more than one woman…”. (Vol. I, p. 58).
From the preceding quote we can infer some premises:
The role of the Inka, of the governor, is eminently pedagogical. He supported his
position in the teaching of the primordial activities related with the vital necessities
of the human such as: alimentation, shelter, and dress.
This inculcates ethical-moral principles such as “civility, sociability, and
brotherhood”. He taught conformity to reason and the natural law that had to have a
general character. The need to achieve “perpetual peace and concordance was
observed by all members of the collective by avoiding privileges, “anger and
passions”.
The Inka established profound respect for humanity as a common norm for all of the
Tawantinsuyana inhabitants, and in addition to respect, special consideration for the
“women and daughters.” Precisely speaking, this teaching and established moral
discipline permits us to sustain in categorical form that in the Andean-Inkan world,
slavery was unknown and did not exist in any form. Meaning that the human never
had been treated as a mere instrument of labor, an animal of production, and that love
was able to dispose completely of the enslaved person and families with the absolute
law that to sell another person was to deserve death. The human reached the true
category of HUMAN BEING, with absolute respect for their own human condition,
their rights and the collective necessity of their duties.
The rigor and severity of the moral and juridical norms are verified with the
application of the “death penalty to the adulterers, murderers and thieves.”
To guarantee the continuity and permanence of the family unit, the basic cellular unit
of society, monogamous matrimony was established.
“They never had pecuniary penalty or confiscation of possessions, because they said
that removing the home and leaving the delinquents alive did not satisfy the need to
remove the bad of the republic. This only removed the homes of the wrongdoers and
left them with more liberty to do worse evils. If some curaca (political leader)
rebelled (which was the most rigorously punished crime among the Inca), or they
committed some other offense that deserved the death penalty, they told him they
would not take the estate of the successor. However, the guilt and penalty were also
applied to the father as a representative, as he likely held illegal ideas just as much as
his son.” (Vol. I, p.98).
This permit us to affirm that all of the delinquents and wrong doers in the Inka
collective were almost always punished with the death penalty because leaving them
in liberty would motivate an opportunity to commit “worse evils”; but with much
wisdom, the Inkas never established pecuniary and economic sanctions such as the
confiscation of property because this would motivate leaving the rest of the members
of the family bereft. Equally, it is important to especially mention the fact that the
offenses committed by the authorities, as in the “case of the curaca”, were deserving
of rigorous castigation and double sanction.
“And it happened many times that such delinquents, accused by their conscience,
would come to publicize their secret sins before justice, because in addition to
believing that their soul was condemned, they believed with certainty that for their
case and their sin, evils would come to the republic such as illness, deaths and bad
years or some other common or particular unfortunate event. They said that they
wanted to please their God with their death so that no more evils would be released
on the world for their sin”. (Vol. I. p.99).
In the development of the Universal History of Humanity, we consider the attitude of
self-accusation, self-censure, and public self-denunciation before those invested with
the administering of justice to be an exceptional case. The Tawnatinsuyanos did this
personally, obeying before all, the mandate of their own conscience; even though
they knew that as a consequence they would be sentenced to death; but with the
conviction that being sanctioned they would avoid evils, illnesses, deaths and bad
years for their fellows. This shows us the Inca inhabitant had an elevated level of
social conscience since they were disposed to sacrificing their own existence with the
fundamental objective of avoiding evil and finding the common good for the
collective.
“They never permitted the plundering of the villages they overtook; even though they
defeated them by the strength of arms”. (Vol. I. p.101).
The moral standing of the Andean-Inka human, capable of comprehending and
actualizing values, never permitted the humiliation of their neighbors. Along the
length and width of the pan-Andean world, in all of the conquered villages, they
never plundered, pillaged, or assaulted the property of the conquered, much less were
the women, children and men killed in cold blood, with fury, treachery. They never
took all of the possible advantages such as those the Western-Europeans took in all of
the invasions that they made, armed with the cross and the sword.
“Any judge, governor or other inferior minister that was found not maintaining
justice in there judicature or that had committed any other offense was castigated
more rigorously than any common person who might have committed the same
offense. The more superior the role of the minister, the more rigorous the
punishment. The Inkas said that they should not suffer that one chosen to do justice
would do bad or that one invested with punishing others would commit offenses.
This was offensive to the Sun and to the Inca, who had elected them, because they
were supposed to be better than all of their subjects”. (Vol. I, p. 103).
This is a teaching that should be universal for all groups and for all times. The
subject invested to administer justice, the governor and all of the governing, should
be example and paradigm of moral solvency, willing to submit the development of
their daily, personal, familial, and social existence to the ethical-moral and
axiological principals. In the case of committing whatever offense, they should
deserve double sanction in public and immediate form. The best teaching of justice
and moral conduct is in the practice and not the preaching.
“They never permitted that their soldiers rob or sack the provinces and kingdoms that
they had subdued by arms; and once they surrendered, they swiftly provided
governments of peace and ranked positions for the conquered in the military, as if
some of them were old soldiers of the Inca, from long ago, and the others were
faithful servants”. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Wk. Cit. Vol. II, p.75).
We return to cite the valorous, gentlemanly, profoundly human attitude of the
soldiers in the Tawnatinsuyana army, who in their position as conquerors of other
provinces and kingdoms, never assumed the cowardly attitude of robbing, pillaging
or dedicating themselves to the plundering of the property of the conquered. In
addition, the members of the conquered army were deserving of a series of
advantages, being named as functionaries of the Inka government, or at the same
time, they were all considered as soldiers of the same. In our information about
Universal History, no other society of the Western, Asian, or African world has
registered such original, singular and profoundly human accomplishments.
A European investigator from France, when referring to the substantial features of
the Inka, supports: “The Inka appears to the people as magnificent and formidable,
his immense power lies less in the material strength of his armies than in the moral
strength of religion and science. He is not only the leader, he is a sage. He has
followed the courses of the amautus that profess in Cusco, he has had the pleasure to
converse with them, sometimes teaching himself… He is the spiritual father of his
subjects, for which he should be feared and loved at the same time; his authority
went to the most secret conduct, to the very thought itself of the individual…
The most surprising is that the Inca did not abuse his power; without a doubt, he
looked to his people with some commiseration, something like “a loving look at his
animals”…, but masters are seen as bad when they martyr the beasts in their care; the
Inca is not one of these, and his great merit is not committing cruelty. The leaders of
the greater part of the neighboring tribes, sanguinary tyrants, were bad examples: on
the coast there was sodomy; in the eastern forests and on the plateau cannibalism
reigned…
The greatest merit of the Inca is that he gave his people morality…
What eulogy more beautiful could be made than the content in this testament of one
of the soldiers of the conquest, tormented by remorse: “The Incas govern their people
in such a manner that there isn’t a thief, a vicious man, a lazy man, an adulterous
woman or a wicked life…?”
As is apparent, the Inca was not the tyrant that some had imagined. Various shreds
are testimony to the greatness of his character and the nobility of his thought. Among
the bloodiest wars, he is always ready to listen to propositions of peace, respecting
the customs of the inhabitants and conserving their commanders in power; filling his
old enemies with gifts to attract them to him, demanding that the lands of the
widows, of the old and the infirm be cultivated by the indigenous communities; and
above all he is just. No one guilty, big or small, could hope to escape punishment…
Certainly, for the people, as the novelist has said of the pharaoh, the Inca was “god,
near to eternity”; but what a difference between the monarchs! While the king of
Egypt reduced his conquered enemies to slavery and pillaged their country, the
sovereign of Peru held great celebrations in their honor and sent them his engineers
to teach them the cultivation of the land… was there not something divine in the
conduct of the Inca?” (Baudin, Louis. El Imperio Socialista de los Incas, pp.124-
125).
Here a detracting investigator of the Tawantinsuyana collective has recognized the
value and importance of the moral structure of the Inka. We return now to a national
author.
The master Valcárcel, when dealing with the theme of the “Economy and Morality,”
supports: “Rarely are the close relationships existing among these two orders of
cultural activity so clearly presented as when we examine the life of ancient Peru.
The important tonic of the morality of the Inkas is nothing but the fruit of the
organization of their economy. They insured that the men were disciplined in a
regimen of work and justice so that their customs were set within a brand of mutual
respect. From the instant in which the individual is considered as a “person” and
never as a “thing” and when the State appreciates each person as a producer, a
positive figure in the mathematics of production, “human value” is established in
clear form, not in the abstract sense, but in the practical and realistic interpretation of
a creator of richness. The human is the end and means of his own happiness, entirely
tied to the other beings of his species, even up to doing an inconceivable selfish act.
For good or bad, the fortune is shared. No one escapes the injury of a bad crop: just
as none are excluded from the assistance of the state in such cases. Yet, still more
ostensible: no human, high as they may be in the hierarchy, has the right to
dispossess the most humble, depriving them of their vital resources. No one is so
powerful (not even the Inka himself) to accumulate so many goods in his hands that
some of the people suffer by him of unsatisfied needs.
There is no man, woman, child, elderly, sick, or invalid that suffers the anguish of
abandonment, misery or hunger. All, without exception have food, dress, and a home,
help and counsel, medicine, entertainment; the spouse and the father can die in
peace.
No one receives property as charity, it is not for charity but for the right that the
needy have to participate in the distribution. They are not social parasites but
equitable producers: there are no blind, lame, maimed, sick, or elderly that are so
disabled that they cannot do some kind of work to concur with their quota of social
production. The child of five and the old woman of eighty do their part in relation to
their abilities and this is enough. The ethics of work do not demand more of anybody
than they can give.
Whoever, being able to, does not give to the collective what they are having the right
to receive, are conducting themselves in an immoral form. If each one has their
known task, they are not obligated to do more nor are they permitted to help another
in declining their personal obligation. Each one should fulfill exactly with carrying
out the function that they have been entrusted with; if they exceed, they are invading
the field of another; if on the contrary, they do not complete their designated duties,
this deficit would disequilibrate the collective work. No more, no less: only this is
appointed.
The three cardinal maxims of the ancient Peruvian ethic (or their inverse, negative
precepts that complete the formula: no robbing, no lying, no idleness), refer entirely
to this double aspect that we are examining: economic-morality. In one community
with a socialist base, robbery passes the category of offense by some moral
aberration. Therefore, the statistics (the exact figures that constitute the equation of
the lives of millions of people) reveal a lie, a falsehood. The numbers pass the purely
ethical level to delinquency, they entail a social crime. Laziness, in a republic of hard
workers, like the Inca Empire, constitutes a crime. The violation of the ethical
precepts does not lead to simple sanctions of the same order, but extend to the
asministers that fix a penalty.
In the scale of duties, the obligation of work and loyalty to the community would
correspond with the first stage of economic duty. It is a duty that correlates with the
right to live. It is a basic duty in a society that looks within everything for the
collective good; the basic duty of a State that organizes itself with the objective to
secure a general economic level that is never below a healthy existence for all; the
basic duty of a primary law that establishes a order that converts the State into a great
enterprise of production. Within this order, the relations of reciprocity between the
individual and the group, between the groups and the State, are regulated by ethical
norms that are automatically fulfilled without hesitation and without conflicts. In the
great economic structure, the parts are not dislocated from their harmonious
composition, and in such a manner can present the slightly paradoxical image of
thousands of ayllus or sparse communities in an immense territory separated many
times by wide empty spaces, living in a certain autocracy, but at the same time,
having a strongly directed and planned organization of economy that encompasses all
groups in the imperial superstructure. The ethical contradictions that can emerge by
the conflict of duties toward the community and toward the State are resolved by
wisely avoiding such conflicts. Economy and morality move together inseparably, it
is not a permanent struggle, as in the cultures founded on individual property and
mercantilism”. (Valcárcel, E. Luis. Historia de la Cultura Antigua del Perú.13-15).
Valcárcel, on the topic of “The Theory of the Orders of Cultural Activity”, made the
significant reflection: “By the side of the Economy and in close relation with it,
appear the three other orders: Political, Law, and Morality, forming a unified
constellation directed toward the conduct of the human, meaning the relations
between the beings of the same species within a human group.
These relations are of a great variety that, nevertheless, can be controlled by two
powers: the State and the Society. In the first case, there emerges an organization in
which the Authority and the Law have coercive force that obligates the individuals to
follow a line of conduct from which they cannot leave, under penalty of punitive
sanction that reaches the imposition of death.
The state establishes an order in society, in which each person occupies their place
and should fulfill their role, understanding the concrete prescriptions of the written,
or merely traditional, law.
In the second case, society observes the conduct of the individual, and responds
according to what their behavior may be with prize or punishment: with prestige or
approval in one case and humiliation, exclusion and condemnation in the other.
Morality without Law lacks the backing of a coactive force. Every phenomenon
classified within this constellation of the four orders participates with the others, or
implicitly bring their participation to each of the others. Such is the case of property
in which economic, political, juridical, and moral elements intervene.
This constellation has to be viewed together with the concept of human coexistence,
one of whose essential manifestations is cohabitation for subsistence”. (Valcárcel, E.
Luis. Historia del Perú Antiguo. Vol. I. pp.23-24).
In effect, Baudin, like Valcárcel, demonstrates for us with clarity that the Andean-
Inka collective regulated itself by an assortment of highly elevated ethical-moral
precepts and axiological precepts. Among the most important we can infer:
The general, collective character of the moral norms regulate the familial and social
conduct of all of the populace, without distinctions for any class. As much the
governors as the governed were submitted to the same ethical-moral norms without
any difference, not recognizing some advantages or privileges that the governing
class could have. Contrarily, we are taught that the members of the ruling class, the
directors and close collaborators of the Inka, members of their class and all of the
representatives of their government, in the case of a violation or infringement on a
ethical – moral principle, were sentenced to suffer double penalty or more rigorous
sanctions in comparison to the common Inkan inhabitant.
The Inka and all members of the ruling class had managed to impose their authority
with the power, the weight of the law, the force of the sanctions and with their own
example. The government also operated, in complement to their functions of
authority, as docents, as a model of morality and the practice of the axiological
principles. Neither the Inka nor the other members of the government abused the
execution of their functions and possession of power.
As a reflection of the Inka socio-economic structure (an eminently collective
organization, with the fundamental object of achieving the COMMON GOOD), the
ethical-moral norms and axiological principles have the common denominator of
being collective, and are expressed through solidarity, reciprocity, fraternity, and
brotherhood. “Life in common demands the acceptance of duty by each individual
and the respect of their rights by all of society; in the measure by which the
individual and the social harmonize, conditioning each other reciprocally, solidarity
replaces antagonism and cooperation replaces the struggle.” (Ingenieros, José, Wk.
Cit. p.73).
All of the ethical-moral and axiological principles that regulate the individual,
familial and social conduct of the Inkas is synthesized in three maxims (ama quella:
don’t be lazy; ama suwa: don’t be a thief; ama Lllulla: don’t be a liar) whose
unavoidable, imperative complement assumes the responsibility of the State and all
of Inka society.
To understand the content of the ethical-moral thought of the Andean-Inkas allocated
by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega in his book “Comentarios Reales de los Incas”, we
transcribe textually the Inka moral precepts with the following translation by Runa
Simi, language mater of the pan-Andean sages, developed by don Faustino Espinoza
Navarro, who is profoundly knowledgeable of the Quechua language and founder of
the “Higher Academy of the Quechua Language of Qosqo”:
-“When the subjects and captains and curacas obey the King with good spirits, then
the kingdom enjoys total peace and quietude”.
-“Jealousy is an insect that gnaws and consumes the entrails of the envious”.
-“He who is envious and is envied, is doubly tormented”.
-“It is better that others, for your good, have envied you, rather than you having
envied them”.
-“One who envies another hurts themselves”.
-“He who has envy of the good takes bad from them for himself, as the spider does
in taking venom from the flowers”.
-“Intoxication, anger, and insanity run together; but the first two are voluntary and
changeable and the third is perpetual”.
-“He that kills another without authority or just cause condemns themselves to
death”.
-“He that kills his equal needs to die; for this the ancient Kings, our progenitors,
instituted that any homicide be castigated with violent death, and we reconfirm
this”.
-“In no manner should thieves be permitted; those who are able to earn a home
with honest work and possess it within good right, but still want to injure or rob
should not be tolerated; it is very just that those who were robbers be hung”.
-“The adulterers that disfigure reputation and the quality of another and take the
peace and quietude of others should be declared as thieves, and as a consequence
should be condemned to death, without any remittance”.
-“The noble and courageous man is known for the patience that he shows to his
adversaries”.
-“Impatience is a sign of vile and low spirit, bad learning and poor custom”.
-“When the subjects obey what they can without any contradiction, the Kings and
governors should make use of them with liberality and clemency; and in the other
case with rigor and justice, but always with prudency”.
-“The judges that receive gifts from businesses and the plaintiffs should be treated
as thieves and punished as such with death”.
-“The governors should watch two things with rapt attention. The first, that they
and their subjects guard and perfectly fulfill the laws of the Kings. The second
being that they counsel with vigilance and care for the common and particular
benefit of their province. The Indian that does not know how to govern their home
and family will know less how to govern the republic; this type should not be
preferred over others”.
-“The doctor or the herbalist that ignores the virtues of the herbs or that knowing
some, does not procure to know them all, knows little or nothing. It benefits one to
work until all is known, in this way the beneficial herbs as well as the noxious, to
deserve the title that is sought”.
-“One who tries to count the stars, still not knowing the quantity and knots of the
multitudes, bears a dignified smile”.
 In addition the ethical-moral maxims or principals written previously, we can
indicate some others, very important, whose authorship belongs to the collective of
the Andean-Inka world at present. These ideas maintain force in the farming
communities within the range of the ancient Tawantinsuyana nation. Here we have:
-“He who hates his fellow, is also the cause of hate”.
-“The richness of a person can end, only poverty has no end”.
-“As I cry now, you too shall cry some day”.
-“Love your fellow if you want them to love you”.
-“You do not want to speak to me or touch me for I am poor”.
-“I am walking by day, therefore, I cannot commit any sin”.
-“The place where you first see the light of day, there also will begin your love and
identification with this place”.
-“We should not trample or crush the rights of our fellows who are poor or younger
of age”.
-“With a single thought, a single heart, we should work to contribute to the
progress of our people and direct it forward”.
-“Poverty should not be the cause of shame, only the condition of a thief, liar, and
loafer are cause to be ashamed”.
-“In the raising of lambs, after having achieved sufficient development, they
abandon their parents and leave their command; equally our sons, after maturing,
abandon their fathers to become independent”.
-“Our sons are also like the young pigeons: once they have reached a sufficient
level of development, they become independent of their homes”.
-“The orders and mandates of the parents should be obeyed as though they were
mandates of God”.
-“The son that dares to cry to his parents will also be victim of the same from his
sons”.
-“To avoid living in hunger and scarcity, we should work with dedication”.
-“We should work hard for the well-being of the sons of our sons”.
We have compiled these preceding precepts in the Historic District of Acos, of the
Acomayo Province in the department of Qosqo and we can infer that the present
collectives of the Andean-Inkan world continue to practice these principles in there
familial and social relations.
To know some principles of ethical-moral content we appeal to Qosqoruna R.P. Juan
Antonio Manya, presently the president of the Higher Academy of the Quechua
Language of Qosqo, who gives us:
-“Any debt that is not paid is help that will not be returned.”
-“Work hard without looking at anyone.”
-“The man that lives well is like a beautiful flower.”
-“Select well the seed, so that the fruit will be good.” (Hablando Quechua con el
Pueblo, pp.10-15).
We recognize with complete objectivity and above all honesty, that the theme of the
Ethical-Morality of the Inka requires a lot of time, dedication, broadening and
profound study. We hope to continue another investigation to systematize the
principles, precepts, premises, and moral maxims of the fantastic Inka society, whose
moral teachings still maintain force regulating the conduct of the inhabitants of the
Andean-Inka world.

7.2 AXIOLOGY OR VALUES

Another important philosophical discipline that we consider deserving of special
attention within the Andean-Inkan philosophical conception is Axiology or the
collection of values that were shaped and materialized in the manifestation of daily
conduct in familial and social relations of the inhabitants. As a preview, we look at
the current understanding of Axiology or Values.
“( From Greek. axia: value, and logos: doctrine, word): The philosophical
investigation of the nature of values. Axiology emerges in bourgeoisie philosophy at
the end of the XIX century and the beginning of the XX, as an attempt to resolve
some complex questions of philosophy, relatives of the general problem of values.”
(Diccionario de filosofía. Edit. Progreso, p.33).
As soon as one refers to values, the following is supported: “social determinations of
the objects of the surrounding world that manifest there positive or negative
significance for the human and society (good and evil, beautiful and ugly, that are
contained in the phenomena of social life and nature). On the exterior, values
constitute the properties of an object or phenomena, but they are not true to the
nature of the object, they are not innate in virtue of the internal structure of the object
in itself, but because this object is incorporated into the sphere of the human social
being it is converted it into a vehicle of concrete social relations. In relativity to the
subject (the human), values constitute the objects of their interests, and in those
things that their consciousness is concerned with. These objects carry out the role of
daily points of reference in material and social activity and are designations of the
diverse practical relations humans have with surrounding objects and phenomena.”
(Wk.Cit. p.439).
When we formulate the existence of an Inka Axiology, we do not refer to it as a mere
philosophical investigation of the nature of values; but better, as a collection of
norms, precepts, and principles of moral values that the Andean-Inka inhabitants
practiced in the development of their individual, familial, and social existence that
presently maintain force within the Andean-Inkan collectives.
Admitting the eminently social nature of the human as a member of a family, a
group, it is easy to infer that the unraveling of conduct has tended to be submitted to
a collection of moral values that have permitted a harmonious, acceptable
coexistence such the one the Tawantinsuyana society has managed to achieve. In
effect, the manner by which a person conducts their life, the fundamental ends and
the means they select to reach them, the ideals and common objectives that they
accept as a model and guide to their individual existence (in sum, their actions
altogether), are always classifiable morally and axiologically. The practice of the
fundamental moral values is only possible within the family and social life of the
human, this has been demonstrated in all of the cultural manifestations of the pan-
Andean inhabitants.
Only the familial and social life of the human has permitted the emanation of the
duties and rights and the collection of moral values including: solidarity, reciprocity,
fraternity, brotherhood, and the common good; also social life has allowed the
differential conception of good and bad, the just and the unjust, the honest and the
dishonest, the dignified and the undignified, as well as dignity itself of the personal
being and of all humans. An illustrious Latin American thinker supports this.
“Without being a written law, the feeling of duty is superior to the revealing
mandates and the legal codes: it imposes the good and execrates the bad, orders and
prohibits. The moral conscience of the individual reflects on the moral conscience of
the society; in their name, actions are judged, they threaten them or they veto them...
In all races and in all times there has existed the feeling of duty, but it was
manifested concretely in duties variable with social experience, distinct in each time
and in each society, perfectible as morality itself. Simultaneously they have added the
laws recognized as justice and duties imposed for solidarity”. (Ingenieros, José. Wk.
Cit. pp.56-57).
Now then, in the preceding pages we have demonstrated with objectivity that the
Tawantinsuyana society managed to structure, develop and implant in their
inhabitants a complex of solid ethical-moral norms. We can gather that that this
collective managed to establish axiological principles and moral values that have
oriented and regulated the individual, familial and social conduct of its inhabitants
since the existence of ethical-moral norms is concomitant with the existence of
axiological and moral values. Furthermore, we should describe in detail that in the
Andean-Inka society, the axiological principles and moral values had not only been
established on a theoretical level, of conceptual nature as simple ideals or
unreachable and utopian objectives, but had also been materialized and practiced as
part of the unfolding of the conduct of the daily existence of all of the inhabitants in
an integral and general manner. We see the most important elements when appealing
to the mestizo Garcilaso de la Vega.
The Inka as governing protector and lover of the poor. “The most ancient and
respected said what they saw throughout the lands of the Inka’s vassals. They knew
for years that his laws were good and his government very tranquil; that he treated
the vassals as his own sons and not as his subjects;... and in sum, he certified all of
the republic that neither the rich nor the poor, the great or the small, would receive ill
treatment.
Advising, they mentioned that many neighboring provinces of the Inkas were
notorious for verifying these good qualities and submitting voluntarily to his empire
and leadership to enjoy the tranquility of his government...
The Inca received them with affability; ordering to give clothing to the old, the
majority of which the Inka dressed and as well as some of the others… With the gifts
and favors, the old Indians and young men were left so pleased and content that all
began to give great acclamations, saying: “Well seems the son of the Sun; only you
deserve the name of King; with much reason you are called lover of the poor, as we
were scarcely your vassals when you bestowed us with gifts and favors. Bless the
Sun, your father, and the people of all four parts of the world that obey and serve
you, because you deserve the name Zapa Inca, which is only Master”. (Comentarios
Reales de los Incas, Vol. II, pp.39-40).
For the generosity, kindness, and protection that the Inca thought to offer to all
of the governed, he is known by the name of “wajcha khuyaq”, which means
“lover and caretaker of the poor”. Accordingly, Jorge Basadre point out: “A
symbol of the spirit of social aid that the Incas had is in the periodic meals in the
public plazas, “with poor, travelers, foreigners, orphans, and sick” (says Guaman
Poma), “those that did not have anything to eat ate well and the extra was given to
the poor. No other nation in all of the world has had this custom and act of
compassion like the Indians of this kingdom”. (Historia del Derecho Peruano: p.126).
There was daily practice of the principles of solidarity, collaboration and
reciprocity with an absence of homelessness. Garcilaso supports: “The custom of
not asking anybody for charity is still kept in my times. Until the year one thousand
five-hundred and seventy when I left Peru, in all of its parts that I traveled through, I
did not see one Indian that asked for charity; only an old woman I knew in Cuzco,
who was called Isabel asked for it. She would walk from house to house telling dirty
jokes, like the gypsies, but did not do it out of necessity. The Indians scolded her
about it, and scolding her, they spat on the ground, which is a symbol of vituperation
and abomination; and finally the old woman did not ask the Indians but the Spaniards
instead. Since at that time there still was not minted money, they gave her corn in
charity, which is what she asked for. If she felt that they were wealthy, she asked for
a little meat; and if they gave it to her, she asked for a little bit of the brew that they
drank, and then, with her dirty jokes and making herself a scoundrel, asked for a little
bit of coca, which is the prized herb that the Indians carry in their mouths. In this
manner she walked through life lazy and depraved”. (Comentarios Reales… Vol.
II.p.69).
The most valuable bit of the preceding quote is the information about beggary, which
in the Andean-Inka collective was totally unknown. On observing the conduct of
Isabel, the pan-Andeans not only rejected her, but repudiated her with scornful and
quarrelsome expressions, spitting on the floor, as a “sign of vituperation and
abomination.”
We also find the spirit of solidarity, collaboration, and reciprocity when Garcilaso
manifests: “The Incas, in the Republic, never forgot the wanderers. On all of the
royal and common roads they ordered to make homes for lodging, which were called
corpahuaci. Here travelers were given food and all that they needed for the road from
the royal stores in every village. If they became ill, they cured them with great care
and comfort, in such a manner as in their own homes, but superceding what theirs
would have been able to provide”. (Comentarios Reales… Vol. II. p.69).
Something more about the spirit of solidarity of the Inka: “The old and the people
unable to work, such as the crippled, maimed and deformed, were not abandoned.
The people were obligated to make “particular places so that these people could be
cared for”…But those favored as such did not live lazily. They were dedicated to
making rope or blankets, raising rabbits or ducks, taking care of the homes and
children of the important. The old women had analogous tasks…
“The orphans never died of hunger” because Guaman Poma says that they had
their fields and they seeded “the ayllus to which they belonged.” As for the sick and
disabled (unco-runa), it is mentioned that they had their own fields, homes,
properties and assistance in their services”. (Basadre, Jorge. Historia del Derecho
Peruano, p.112).
The principle of brotherhood and fraternity was the common denominator of
every Inka economic activity and was practiced by all of its inhabitants. The
following quote corroborates us: “The agrarian law, that tried to divide and measure
the fields and distribute them among the neighbors of every village, was completed
with such ultimate diligence and rectitude that the measurers measured the fields
with their cords into units, which they called tupu, and they divided them among the
neighbors, apportioning each their part. The so called common law ordered that the
Indians all come together (except the old, the boys, and the sick) to make and work
on the projects of the republic, such as building the temples and homes of the Kings
or the masters, working the fields, making bridges, preparing the roads and other
similar things. They called it the law of brotherhood that ordered that all of the
neighbors of every village to help one another to deforest, seed, harvest their crops,
build their homes and other things of this nature; and it was so without paying
anyone”. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Wk. Cit. Vol. II. P.72).
In this nature, the spirit of solidarity, reciprocity, and collaboration was
complemented with the fraternal and brotherly attitude that was practiced in all of the
daily activities with a familial, communal character to reach the common good.
The Andean-Inka inhabitants, through collective, obligatory and disciplined work
without any exception, reached THE COMMON GOOD. Accordingly, Garcilaso
indicates: “Another law was called the domestic law. It was composed of two things:
first, that no one would be lazy. As we previously said, even the children of five
years were occupied in light tasks, appropriate to their age; the blind, crippled and
mute, if they did not have any other infirmities, were also made to work on diverse
things, the rest of the people, as long as they were healthy, were kept occupied in a
role to their advantage and among them it was very dishonorable to be publicly
castigated for laziness. After this, the same law ordered that the Indians would eat
and dine with open doors so that the ministers of the judges could enter liberally and
visit them. There were certain judges entrusted with visiting the temples, the public
places, buildings and the particular homes: they were called Llactacamayu. These
men, for themselves or for their ministers, visited homes often to see the care and
diligence that the man and woman had for their home and family, as well as the
obedience, solicitude and occupation of the children. They gathered and observed the
diligence in ornamentation, decoration and the cleanliness and tidiness of their
homes and their furnishings; from the clothing to the glasses and all of the other
domestic items. The fastidious were rewarded with public praise and the unfastidious
were castigated with flailing to the arms and legs or with other penalties that the law
ordered”. (Garcilaso de la Vega, Wk. Cit. Vol. II, p. 73).
The first part of the preceding quote teaches us that the Tawantinsuyana collective,
by means of the State and society, had managed to impose obligatory collective work
on all of the inhabitants of both sexes, of all ages, of all social functions: governors
or governed, healthy or invalid, children and the old. The work was obligatory but
collective with the common denominator being an iron discipline to achieve the
universal well being of all members. Laziness not only deserved moral sanction, but
legal as well, on the part of the functionaries of the State over all of the collective. It
is known through the chroniclers and the historians that the lazy were castigated in a
public manner, generally by capital punishment. One of the imposed axiological
maxims consisted of: “Pin mana llank’anchu, manna mikhunanchu,” whose
translation is: “one who does not work should not eat”. In this manner the member of
the Tawantinsuyana was impelled to comply with the imperative task of work to
guarantee their own subsistence, the well being of their family and that of the entire
collective. Only then did they have the right to alimentation.
We can infer that obligatory, collective, and disciplined work, as imposed in the
Andean-Inka collective, was one of the predominant factors by which they could
reach the COMMON GOOD and SOCIAL JUSTICE. These goals could only be
reached by the satisfaction of vital necessities such as alimentation, housing,
clothing, health, etc. Furthermore, to satisfy the cardinal needs of all of the
collective, superfluous production was accumulated in the kolkas, the storage sheds,
to be utilized in benefit of the public in times of hunger and crisis as a consequence
of adverse natural phenomena affecting production, as in the case of frosts, floods,
hails, cataclysms or in times of war.
In the second part of the previous quote, a legal disposition is referred to, stating that
the Inka families, during mealtime, should remain in their homes with the doors
open. Garcilaso supports that the “Llactacamayu”, a position equal to governor or
village administrator, had the obligation to visit the individual home, “to see the care
and diligence that the man and the woman took of their home and family, and the
obedience, solicitude and occupation of the children.” This implies that the
Tawnatinsuyana collective had elevated the family to the true category and
importance that it has for the integral formation of the children and as the basic and
fundamental unit of society. The presence of the functionaries of the Inka State in the
individual homes at meal time would appear at first sight as a type of assault against
privacy and the autonomy of the family; nevertheless, it is in accord with the
philosophy, ethical-moral principals and the eminently collective scale of values in
the Andean-Inka world whose fundamental, prioritized preoccupation was the
general well being of all of the members of the family and all of the society. One of
the ethical-moral and axiological principals that materialized was to guarantee,
defend and protect the family unit. Even more, the Inka family had been considered
as the first true school where the children are educated, making the parents the first
teachers. It would appear that the visitors to the private homes not only fulfilled the
function of evaluation of the family unit and the quality of the food, but over the
level of education of the children. This is indicated when “the obedience, solicitude
and occupation of the children” is referred to.
Equally, it is mentioned of the responsible parents, “the fastidious were awarded with
public praise and the unfastidious were punished”, in accord with the law. These are
teachings and lessons that the family and Inka society practiced as a form of modus
vivendi in the development of their daily existence, materializing the ideals of the
COMMON GOOD and SOCIAL JUSTICE.
Finally, during the World Congress of the Quechua Language: “Inka Faustino
Espinoza Navarro”, during the 20, 21 and 22 of June in the year 2000 in the city of
Cusco-Peru, organized by the Higher Academy of the Quechua Language, in which
we have had the honor to preside, the following goal was approved of unanimously:
“To rescue and put the axiological categories innate to humanity in service to all,
including:
- Kausay: a supreme axiological manifestation of the Andean-Inka
world, with profound respect to Mamapacha or Mother Nature and all
of the diverse forms of life.
- Munay: a manifestation of love and profound respect for the
dignity of the human between humans, as inhabitants of the planet
earth, with full respect to their fundamental and inalienable rights as
human beings.
- Llankay: the creative power of labor that dignifies and permits the
integral development of the human, for the full satisfaction of their
necessities.
- Yachay: the totality of wisdom and knowledge that permits the
human to know itself, to have full consciousness and identity with
their family-social group (AYLLU) and to discover the secrets of
nature in order to live in absolute harmony with it.
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