Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

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THE CLAIMS OF SCIENCE
the masters of Hindu and Buddhist yoga. References to China and India, therefore, were added to our Western histories of thought, as footnotes, side-glances, or preliminary chapters, embellishing the story of “real” philosophy, which began with the Ionian Greeks, Thales, Anaximander, and IIcraclitus, in the sixth and fifth centurics B.C.14
In spite of the influence of this point of view, many remained reluctant, even in the first years of the present century, to confer on Hindu thought the dignifying title "philosophy.” “Philosophy,"they claimed, was a Greek term, denoting something unique and particularly noble, which had sprung into existence among the Greeks and been carried on only by Western civilization. To support this contention, they could refer to the authority of the giant Hegel, who, a full century before them, with a masterly intuition and thorough command of the information then available, had discussed India and China in his Philosophy of Religion and Philosophy of History. Hegel coined certain formulac that are still unsurpassed for the study of history, and have been corroborated by our most recent knowledge of facts and sources (which is vastly more than what was available to him). Second to none in his intuitive grasp, he yet banished India and China, together with their philosophies, from the principal chapters of his thought, regarding the achievements of those almost unknown civilizations as a kind of prelude to the rise of the curtain on “rcal" history, which began in the Near East, and "real" philosophy, which was an invention of the Greeks. Hegel's argument--and it is still the argument of those who entertain
14 Georg Misch, a pupil of Dilthcy and the editor of his mounds of posthumous manuscripts, who is now (1942) in Cambridge, England, has compared the steps and stages of Greek philosophy during the period before Plato with parallel developments in Chinese and Indian history. He has brought together from cach of the three traditions texts dealing with similar problems, and has presented thesc in a series of choice (German) translations, together with commentaries. (Georg Misch, Der Weg in der Philosophie, Leipzig, 1926.)
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