The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s13.1

v2.c40.s13.1

What judgement are we to pass on the main thought of the Upaniṣads? Are they really the expressions at an early date of the deepest principles of philosophy, or are they merely of historical value, interesting pictures of the early thought of man, important not *per se*, but because of their dominating influence on the future philosophy and life of India? The two interpreters, who have of recent times been most impressed by the nature of that philosophy as idealism, have passed the most diametrically opposed views on the question: Gough was impressed with the necessity of explaining the defects of the subject of which he treated by the admixture of blood among the Indians, and the corrupting influences of a low order of civilization, while Deussen¹ is lost in admiration of the Upaniṣads, as was Schopenhauer before him: ‘Eternal philosophical truth’, he says, ‘has seldom found more decisive and striking expression than in the doctrine of the emancipating knowledge of the Ātman.’ He claims² that Yājñavalkya had anticipated the view of Schopenhauer regarding immortality as indestructibility without continued existence; he regards the view of the nature of the self as an anticipation of the doctrine of Kant; he defends the doctrine of transmigration as the best expression of the true state of matters in the terms of empirical thought, while recognizing that such an expression is misleading: nay, he argues that the Kantian argument regarding immortality, based on the realization of the moral law within us, points not to ordinary immortality, but rather to the process of transmigration, and transmigration has been solemnly upheld as philosophic doctrine at the present time by competent authorities.