A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2.10.3

c2.10.3

The very acute analysis of the epistemology of Self-consciousness, which we meet with in the Upanishads, can easily hold its own against any similar doctrine even of the most advanced thinker of to-day, thus nullifying once for all the influence of that ill-conceived and half-thought-out bluster of an early European writer on the Upanishads that " they are the work of a rude age, a deteriorated race, and a barbarous and unprogressive community." Our presentation of the problems of Upanishadic philosophy would also lay to rest all the charges that are made against it on the supposition that it is a block-philosophy and does not allow of any differentiation inside it. For is it not a familiar charge that we hear made against Indian philosophy, that it is all Pantheism, Determinism, Karmism, A-moralism, and Pessimism? It would be out of place here to answer each and all of the charges that have been thus made against Indian Philosophy in general, and Upanishadic Philosophy in particular. If our present work brings to the notice of these critics the variety and wealth of Upanishadic ideas on every conceivable subject in the domain of philosophy, it should have fulfilled its *raison d'etre*. Thus, to say that the Upanishads teach only "an unreal morality, or a mere Antinomianism”, would entirely miss the mark, because it would be a flank-attack and not directed against the main body of Upanishadic doctrine.