Indian Philosophy v1.c3.6

v1.c3.6

Particular parts of Indian philosophy have been studied with great care and thoroughness by many brilliant scholars in India, Europe and America. Some sections of philosophical literature have also been critically examined, but there has been no attempt to deal with the history of Indian thought as an undivided whole or a continuous development, in the light of which alone different thinkers and views can be fully understood. To set forth the growth of Indian philosophy from the dim dawn of history in its true perspective is an undertaking of the most formidable kind, and it certainly exceeds the single grasp of even the most industrious and learned scholar. Such a standard encyclopædia of Indian philosophy requires not only special aptitude and absolute devotion, but also wide culture and intelligent co-operation. This book professes to be no more than a general survey of Indian thought, a short outline of a vast subject. Even this is not quite easy. The necessary condensation imposes on the author a burden of responsibility, which is made more onerous by the fact that no one man can attempt to be an authority on all these varied fields of study, and that the writer is compelled to come to decisions on evidence which he himself cannot carefully weigh. In matters of chronology, I have depended almost entirely on the results of research carried on by competent scholars. I am conscious that in surveying this wide field, much of interest is left untouched, and still more only very roughly sketched in. This work has no pretensions to completeness in any sense of the term. It attempts to give such a general statement of the main results as shall serve to introduce the subject to those to whom it may not be known, and awaken if possible in some measure that interest for it to which it is so justly entitled. Even if it proves a failure, it may assist or at least encourage other attempts.