Indian Philosophy v1.c7.s3.7

v1.c7.s3.7

The Vedic statements are āptavacana, or sayings of the wise, which we are called upon to accept, if we feel convinced that those wise had better means than we have of forming a judgment on the matter in question. Generally, these Vedic truths refer to the experiences of the seers, which any rational rendering of reality must take into account. These intuitional experiences are within the possibility of all men if only they will to have them.¹ The appeal to the Vedas does not involve any reference to an extra-philosophical standard. What is dogma to the ordinary man is experience to the pure in heart. It is true that when we reach the stage of the later commentaries we have a state of philosophical orthodoxy, when speculation becomes an academic defence of accepted dogmas. The earlier systems also call themselves exegetical and profess to be commentaries on the old texts, but they never tended to become scholastic, since the Upaniṣads to which they looked for inspiration were many-sided² After the eighth century philosophical controversy became traditional and scholastic in character, and we miss the freedom of the earlier era. The founders of the schools are canonised, and so questioning their opinions is little short of sacrilege and impiety. The fundamental propositions are settled once for all, and the function of the teacher is only to transmit the beliefs of the school with such changes as his brain can command and the times require. We have fresh arguments for foregone conclusions, new expedients to meet new difficulties and a re-establishment of the old with a little change of front or twist of dialectic There is less of meditation on the deep problems of life and more of discussion of the artificial ones. The treasure that is the tradition clogs us with its own burdensome wealth, and philosophy ceases to move and sometimes finds it hard to breathe at all. The charge of unprofitableness urged in general against the whole of Indian philosophy may have some point when applied to the wordy disquisitions of the commentators who are not the inspired apostles of life and beauty which the older generation of philosophers were, but professional dialecticians conscious of their mission to mankind. Yet even under the inevitable crust of age the soul remains young, and now and then breaks through and sprouts into something green and tender. There arise men like Śaṃkara or Mādhava, who call themselves commentators, and yet perceive the spiritual principle which directs the movements of the world.