A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2.5

c2.5

the older Upanishads becomes hardly convincing. As regards the Vedānta, also, we have tried to work out systematically in what respects all the later Vedāntic systems, the monistic, the qualified-monistic, and the dualistic, could be traced to the Upanishads as to a parent. Indeed, when we recognise that all the great commentators, Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Madhva have made the Brahma-sūtras the pivot for their philosophical speculations, and when we remember also that the Brahma-sūtras were an aphoristic summary of the doctrines of the Upanishads, it would seem a little strange why we have not discussed the arguments of these philosophers at even greater length than we have done. There are however two reasons why we have not done so. In the first place, we wanted to take recourse to the objective method of presentation, going to the Texts of the Upanishads themselves, unbiassed by any theological interpretations of the Commentators whether on the Upanishads or the Brahma-sūtras. And, in the second place, it was thought desirable that a full discussion of all the theologico-philosophical points would best be reserved for a later volume on Vedānta philosophy proper. Indeed the Vedānta Philosophy stands to the Upanishads almost in the same relation in which the Philosophy of the Schoolmen stood to Aristotle. We might say about the theological disquisitions of these Commentators what Bacon said about the arguments of the Schoolmen, borrowing the idea from Ariston, that they “resemble more or less a spider’s web, admirable for the ingenuity of their structure, but of little substance and profit”: τοῖς μὲν ἀραχνίων ὑφάσμασιν εἴκαζεν, οὐδὲν μὲν χρήσιμους, λίαν δὲ τεχνικούς. This might be a little harsh judgment; but it shows how there is a fundamental difference in the methodologies of the Upanishads and the Vedānta.