Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 20

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In her essay on "The Kaleidoscope of Indian Wisdom”, she had beautifully discriminated the spheres of Science and Religion and has mentioned the limitations of religious thinking and a need for philosophical thinking. While dealing with Indian philosophical schools she had classified them into Vedic and Non-Vedic instead of Astika and Nāstika as other schools did.
In her division she included Sānkhya and Yoga into Vedic trend, but really these two schools do not belong to the Vedic trend but to the Sramanic trend. According to some scholars even Nyāya and Vaišeșika schools do not fall under the category of Vedic trend. These two schools, however, accept the authority of V.das, but so far as their philosophies are concerned they have their independet origin. I am of the opinion that among the different schools of Indian philosophy it is only the Mīmāṁsā school which has purely a Vedic origin. Though Vedānta is also considered to be of Vedic tradition, but in my opinion Vedānta is not based on the Vedas only. In real sense it is based on the Upanişadas and the Upanişadas are neither the blind supporter of Vedic ritualism nor they accepts the materialistic approach of the Vedas. On the other hand, they criticise Vedic ritualism and their materialistic philosophy in the same fashion as the Jainism and Buddhism do. They are spiritualistic and rich in profound philosophical thought.
In this essay Dr. Charlotte Krause presents a brief survey of the central concepts of different Indian philosophies. While discussing these schools she has mentioned each and every branch in detail which were remain in course of time. While men-tioning the different branches of Vedānta she has listed some newly born subsects of Vedānta such as Ārya-samāja, Prārthanā-samāja and Brahma-samāja. In her lists of different shades of Vedānta, however, we do not find the names of Aurobindo school and the practical Vedānta of Rāmakrsna and Vivekānanda, but it was not on part of her negligence, really at that time they were not prominent. This essay shows her minute observation and detailed study of each