________________
RECENT VEDANTA LITERATURE
79
unyielding pressure of logic leads relentlessly away from Bhattacharya's original and colorful conclusions to the old truth of strict non-dualism. Bhattacharya's most striking speculation, the theory of alternative absolutes, is not even mentioned. Malkani says (p. viii):
It has always been my practice to read an author, then forget what he has written, and then rethink the same problem for myself. The same is true in this case. In particular, I may mention here that there is no clear indication, in the paper referred to, of what Prof. Bhattacharya meant to convey by the most important level of knowledge, namely the knowledge of truth. I have no misgivings on that point myself; and so I have put forward what I consider to be the Vedantic point of view on the subject, which I accept.
The book is written in a singularly clear and lucid style, so that the difficulty of the thought is not aggravated by any difficulty of language. But the author also tries to make the thought itself easy to comprehend. He says (p. vi):
Without subscribing to the doctrine of degrees of truth and error, I have thought it advisable to make the approach to truth less arduous and less upsetting to our common truth-values. I have so to say upgraded the knowledge, sugared the pill, and made error appear less erroneous, till we come to the concluding phase, where no compromise between truth and error is possible. We rise gradually to truth, step by step, till we reach the top and are able to kick the ladder by which we got there.
This book provides an excellent introduction to Vedanta for persons who approach it from the point of view of philosophy, rather than from that of history or literature.
The book begins with a summary of its conclusions (p. xvi):
Vedantic epistemology seeks to establish that our knowledge of the objective world, whether physical or mental, is erroneous; that there are levels of knowledge, so that the negation of one level leads directly to the one above it; that the only true knowledge is the knowledge of a super-sensible or metaphysical reality; that this reality is not a distant or an unknowable reality, but that it is our very Self; and lastly, that the Self is self-revealing, and therefore the only reality that is fit to be known for what it truly is.
These conclusions are established by an analysis of common experience, with no reference to any uncommon or mystic experience.
