The Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies v2.c15.4

v2.c15.4

A few words of explanation and advice as to how to use this book may be in order. Perhaps the first and foremost thing that needs to be said is that this volume is not intended to be analytically definitive: it invites the attention of philosophers and scholars rather than making such attention unnecessary. The thinking behind the preparation of this volume has been that philosophers without extended training in Sanskrit and Indian studies are not in a very good position to appreciate the contributions made by classical Indian philosophy toward the solution of perennial philosophical problems. This is partly due to the fact that the tradition in which the Indian schools arise and grow is foreign to Western philosophers, but our thinking is that this fact is an avoidable hazard. It is also partly due to the type of translations that have been produced by Indian and Western Sanskrit scholars; these translations, while usually accurate, are not always philosophically perspicuous, which is to say that they do not always bring out what a professional philosopher will find most interesting and identifiable in the material. The production of an acceptable translation is, and ought to be, a serious and extensive scholarly problem, and the summaries in Part II of this book are in no way intended as surrogates for such translations. Nevertheless, we think that philosophers should be provided with a tool for introducing Indian thought into their courses on problems of philosophy, history of thought, etc., and that the translations and other materials currently available to them do not make it really possible for them to work up Indian thought without more training than most philosophers are willing or able to expose themselves to. Our aim here, then, is to provide the philosopher with an account of the systematic thought of India which is less detailed than an accurate translation, but more detailed than the standard introductory textbook on Indian philosophy.