A History of Indian Philosophy v2.c19.2

v2.c19.2

The philosophical elements in the various Purāṇas will be taken in a later volume. The *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha-Rāmāyaṇa* may be included among the *purāṇas*, but it is devoid of the general characteristics of the *purāṇas* and is throughout occupied with discussions of Vedāntic problems of a radically monistic type, resembling the Vedāntic doctrines as interpreted by Śaṅkara. This extensive philosophical poem, which contains twenty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty-four verses (ignoring possible differences in different manuscripts or editions) and is thus very much larger than the *Śrīmad-bhagavad-gītā*, is a unique work. The philosophical view with which it is concerned, and which it is never tired of reiterating, is so much like the view of Śaṅkara and of Vijñānavāda Buddhism, that its claim to treatment immediately after Śaṅkara seems to me to be particularly strong. Moreover, the various interpretations of the *Vedānta-sūtra* which will follow are so much opposed to Śaṅkara's views as to make it hard to find a suitable place for a treatment like that of the *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha* unless it is taken up immediately after the chapter dealing with Śaṅkara.