The System of the Vedanta according to Badarayana's Brahma-Sutras and Cankara's Commentary c7.s1.2

c7.s1.2

That the latter does not in fact correspond to the nature of the subject, is due to several causes. To begin with, the tendency of the Brahmasûtras is chiefly polemical. The controversy with the opponents of the Vedânta teaching, which we, in following out our present aim, only introduce when it sheds new light on the system itself, is put in the foreground by our authors; while the most essential dogmas not seldom receive a subordinate treatment, just because they are not new and strange to Indian thought, as they are to us, but are matters of common currency and to a certain extent self-evident. Moreover it is the chief endeavour of the philosophers of the Vedânta to derive all their teachings directly from the Veda, and only in passing and as an appendix to show their rational basis although this is by no means lacking; thus what is really the fundamental idea often appears as a dependent thought. Besides this it is characteristic of Indian philosophers, that on the one hand they exhibit wonderfully profound conceptions reached by no other people of antiquity, and at the same time, on the other hand, a total lack of feeling for æsthetic form; in consequence of this they constantly allow themselves to drift without organising their material and are chiefly guided by the desire to find a *pro and contra* for every question, thus satisfying a highly developed taste for dialectic disputation, whether this leads to an explanation of the subject, or merely hinders and confuses it.⁹³ The consequence is, that the same fundamental thoughts are dealt with again and again to the point of weariness, without a true insight into their connection with the system as a whole, and thereby an insight into the thoughts themselves, being gained after all.