Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c2.4

c2.4

It is easy to understand this attitude as a reaction against the still practically complete failure of western philosophers to realize that, if they claim to be students of the history of thought—as *a priori* they should be—they have omitted a substantial part of their duty, if they do not make themselves reasonably familiar with the main outlines of Indian philosophy. But it is unphilosophical to exaggerate or distort, even in a just cause. Indian philosophy has merits of its own far from negligible, which are merely obscured by attempts to parallel the Dialogues of the Buddha with those of Plato, and the undeserved neglect which it has suffered in the west is largely excusable by the unattractive form in which Indian ideas are too often clothed.