A History of Indian Literature v1.c8.s9.95

v1.c8.s9.95

For the historian, however, who pursues the history of human thought, the Upaniṣads have a yet far greater significance. From the mystical doctrines of the Upaniṣads *one* current of thought may be traced to the mysticism of the Persian Sufism, to the mystic-theosophical logos-doctrine of the Neo-Platonics and the Alexandrian Christians down to the teachings of the Christian mystics Eckhart and Tauler, and finally to the philosophy of the great German mystic of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer.³ What Schopenhauer owed to the Indians he has himself told us often enough. He himself calls Plato, Kant and “the Vedas” (by which Schopenhauer always means the Upaniṣads) his teachers. In his manuscript written for University lectures he wrote: “The results of that which I intend to present to you, agree with the oldest of all views of life, namely, the Vedas.” He calls the opening up of Sanskrit literature “the greatest gift of our century,” and prophesies that Indian pantheism might become the popular belief in the Occident also. The agreement of his own system with that of the Upaniṣads appears to him absolutely marvellous, and he tells us “that each of the separate and detached sayings which constitute the Upaniṣads might be taken as a conclusion from the idea communicated by himself, although on the other hand the same is by no means to be found there already.” It is well known that the Oupnek’hat used to lie open on his table and that before retiring to rest he performed his “devotions” in it. And he says of this book: “It is the most satisfying and elevating reading (with the exception of the original text) which is possible in the world; it has been the solace of my life and will be the solace of my death.”¹ The fundamental doctrine of the Upaniṣads, however, is the same which, according to Schopenhauer, “was at all times the ridicule of fools and the endless meditation of sages,” namely, the doctrine *of Unity*, *i.e.* the doctrine “that all plurality is only apparent, that in all the individuals of this world, in whatever endless number they may present themselves after and beside one another, yet only one and the same, truly existing Being, present and identical in them all, manifests itself.”² And if Ludwig Stein, who once said: “The philosophy of the present is Monism, that is the interpretation of all that happens in the universe,” as one unity³ is right, then this “philosophy of the present” was already the philosophy of the ancient Indians three thousand years ago.