A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2.11.2

c2.11.2

If we may say so without exaggeration, there is no piece of literature in the whole realm of Indian Philosophy, except possibly the Bhagavadgītā, which is so truly religious as the Upanishads, and demands from young India an intellectual justification of her faith in the light of modern thought. Those who have observed the course of the development of European thought during the last half century know how very much it owes its existence, its inspiration, and its fulfilment to the establishment of the Gifford Lectures. It is a good sign of the times that the University of Calcutta should have risen to the occasion, and been a pioneer in establishing Lectureships by means of which a similar ambition might be fulfilled in India. The Upanishads well deserve to constitute a very important chapter in the World's Philosophy of Religion. It will not be possible hurriedly to estimate the contribution which the Upanishads are likely to make to the formation of tendencies in Contemporary Thought. The trend of the present volume is to show how all the teachings of Upanishadic Philosophy converge towards the realisation of the mystical goal. We do not wish to enter here into any philosophical disquisition about the nature and meaning of Mysticism; nor have we any desire to discuss how the Mystic criterion of reality compares with those of the Idealist, the Pragmatist, and the Realist.