A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2.10.1

c2.10.1

5. The Upanishads and Contemporary Thought.—The comparison of Upanishadic Philosophy with Kant suggests the parallelism, in a number of points, of the philosophical thought of the Upanishads with the tendencies of Contemporary Thought. Time was when Upanishadic Philosophy was compared with the doctrine of Plato and Parmenides; time was yet again when it was compared with the philosophies of Kant and Schopenhauer; we, however, who live in the world of Contemporary Thought can scarcely afford to neglect its parallelisms with the tendencies of the thinking world of to-day. Anybody who will take the trouble to read the argument of the present work will see how very provocative of thought it would be for one who is interested in the tendencies of contemporary philosophy. Here, in the Upanishads, we have doctrines of Absolute Monism, of Personalistic Idealism, of Pluralism, of Solipsism, of Self-realisation, of the relation of Intellect to Intuition, and so forth,—doctrines which have divided the philosophic world of to-day. Had it not been for the fact that Comparative Philosophy, like a virgin consecrated to God, bears no fruit, the parallelism of Upanishadic Philosophy with the tendencies of Contemporary Thought would have even invited a volume on Comparative Philosophy. What we, however, would much rather like to have is a constructive than a comparative philosophy.