Purva-Mimamsa in its Sources c3.1

c3.1

The idea of a History of Indian Philosophy first dawned upon my mind when I began a study of Mādhavācārya’s Sarvadarśanasamgraha in the year 1908. This idea deepened when as Curator of the Government Oriental MSS. Library at the Deccan College Poona, in 1912, I was called upon to make a Descriptive Catalogue of Sāmkhya and Yoga MSS., as well as to complete the work of my predecessor in the office, Dr. S. K. Belvalkar, on Nyāya and Vedānta MSS., and to see through the press proofs of the Descriptive Catalogue of Veda and Brāhmaṇa MSS.. When he was away on study leave for a Doctor’s Degree at Harvard, Dr. Belvalkar in his studies of Greek and European Philosophy at Harvard was also contemplating a similar History of Indian Thought. I was very happy to see that our ideas had entirely coincided, and when he returned to India at the beginning of the last war, we made a scheme of a History of Indian Philosophy and submitted it to the Bombay University, under whose patronage two volumes have appeared, and a third may appear sometime hence. It was apparent, however, after we had spent a number of years on this scheme, that the work of a History of Indian Thought was a task to be attempted only on a co-operative basis. In the meanwhile, works from the pen of Sir S. Radhakrishnan and Dr. S. N. Das Gupta had already appeared. So, when at the First Philosophical Congress at Calcutta Sir S. Radhakrishnan and myself met together in 1925, we formulated a scheme for an Encyclopaedic History of Indian Philosophy on behalf of the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, which had been founded in 1924. This scheme received the support of many great scholars in and outside India, but there came in the way another difficulty, namely, that of adequate financial support for such a large undertaking. It was due to this particularly, that an adequate fulfilment of the task remained pending. One volume of the Series was published years ago; another, though ready, could not be brought out on account of financial stringency; but this volume which was first projected on behalf of the Encyclopaedic History and which was undertaken by the late Dr. Sir Ganganatha Jha is being offered to the world to-day.