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CHAPTER IV
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SYSTEMS
OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
In what Sense is a History of Indian Philosophy possible ? It is hardly possible to attempt a history of Indian philosophy in the manner in which the histories of European philosophy have been written. In Europe from the earliest times, thinkers came one after another and offered their independent speculations on philosophy. The work of a modern historian consists in chronologically arranging these views and in commenting upon the influence of one school upon another or upon the general change from time to time in the tides and currents of philosophy. Here in India, however, the principal systems of philosophy had their beginning in times of which we have but scanty record, and it is hardly possible to say correctly at what time they began, or to compute the influence that led to the foundation of so many divergent systems at so early a period, for in all probability these were formulated just after the earliest Upanişads had been composed or arranged.
The systematic treatises were written in short and pregnant half-sentences (sūtras) which did not elaborate the subject in detail, but served only to hold before the reader the lost threads of memory of elaborate disquisitions with which he was already thoroughly acquainted. It seems, therefore, that these pithy halfsentences were like lecture hints, intended for those who had had direct elaborate oral instructions on the subject. It is indeed difficult to guess from the sūtras the extent of their significance, or how far the discussions which they gave rise to in later days were originally intended by them. The sūtras of the Vedānta system, known as the Sārīraka-sūtras or Brahma-sūtras of Bādarāyana for example were of so ambiguous a nature that they gave rise to more than half a dozen divergent interpretations, each one of which claimed to be the only faithful one. Such was the high esteem and respect in which these writers of the sūtras were held by later writers that whenever they had any new speculations to
