Indian Philosophy v1.c3.2

v1.c3.2

Ignorance of the subject of Indian thought is profound. To the modern mind Indian philosophy means two or three “silly” notions about *māyā*, or the delusiveness of the world, *karma*, or belief in fate, and *tyāga*, or the ascetic desire to be rid of the flesh. Even these simple notions, it is said, are wrapped up in barbarous nomenclature and chaotic clouds of vapour and verbiage, looked upon by the “natives” as wonders of intellect. After a six-months’ tour from Calcutta to Cape Comorin, our modern æsthete dismisses the whole of Indian culture and philosophy as “pantheism,” “worthless scholasticism,” “a mere play upon words,” “at all events nothing similar to Plato or Aristotle, or even Plotinus or Bacon.” The intelligent student interested in philosophy will, however, find in Indian thought an extraordinary mass of material which for detail and variety has hardly any equal in any other part of the world. There is hardly any height of spiritual insight or rational philosophy attained in the world that has not its parallel in the vast stretch that lies between the early Vedic seers and the modern Naiyāyikas. Ancient India, to adapt Professor Gilbert Murray’s words in another context, “has the triumphant, if tragic, distinction of beginning at the very bottom and struggling, however precariously, to the very summits.”¹ The naive utterances of the Vedic poets, the wondrous suggestiveness of the Upaniṣads, the marvellous psychological analyses of the Buddhists, and the stupendous system of Śaṃkara, are quite as interesting and instructive from the cultural point of view as the systems of Plato and Aristotle, or Kant and Hegel, if only we study them in a true scientific frame of mind, without disrespect for the past or contempt for the alien. The special nomenclature of Indian philosophy which cannot be easily rendered into English accounts for the apparent strangeness of the intellectual landscape. If the outer difficulties are overcome, we feel the kindred throb of the human heart, which because human is neither Indian nor European. Even if Indian thought be not valuable from the cultural point of view, it is yet entitled to consideration, if on no other ground, at least by reason of its contrast to other thought systems and its great influence over the mental life of Asia.