The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c40.s13.36

v2.c40.s13.36

The final judgement passed on the Upaniṣads cannot, therefore, be in doubt :¹ they are the products of the indigenous philosophy of India, most interesting expositions of early and acute efforts to grasp the nature of the universe and man’s place in the cosmos, of vital importance for the understanding of Indian philosophy and religious life in later times, since the conceptions which they enunciate have for the rest of Indian intellectual progress preponderant weight and influence. In comparison with the rest of Indian philosophy they excel in interest no less than in literary form and in freedom of thought : the deadly defect of the Buddhist dialogues, interminable repetition and dullness accentuated by the heaping up of synonyms or quasi-synonyms, is only nascent in the Upaniṣads, which again are happily exempt from the painful duty imposed on Çaṅkara of expounding his idealism in the form of commentaries on texts which he must take as binding upon him and expressing one consistent doctrine, in face of the fact that obviously they do nothing of the sort. On the other hand, regarded as serious contributions to the solution of the fundamental problems of philosophy, the value of the Upaniṣads must be considered to be comparatively small : moreover they became known to the western world at a time when the development of philosophy had reached a point at which it could acquire little or nothing of great value from the Upaniṣads : to measure the exact effect of their influence on Schopenhauer would be extremely difficult,² especially having regard to the fact that he knew them only in a version which often completely misrepresented their sense ; but in the long run Schopenhauer himself represents merely a back current in the course of the stream of philosophy to its unattainable goal.