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RECENT VEDANTA LITERATURE
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carelessness in style. I take it that the superfluous references to obscure British philosophers are due to the fact that the book was a Ph. D. thesis at Calcutta, where such evidence of wide reading is expected. He says in a note to the preface (p. vii):
It was my first, and therefore a bold, attempt at presenting my thoughts in a systematic way. But now when it is coming through the press I find in it many inaccuracies and not a few points which ought to have been established with greater rigour of logic .... I hope to publish another volume later where my claims will be more modest and logical
When this promised volume appears it should be of interest not only to Indians but to philosophers everywhere who are concerned with the perennial problem of reconciling the presumed unity of truth with the notorious diversity of philosophies.
All the books so far considered, even the last, in spite of its originality, are in the general context of non-dualist Vedanta. But this is only one school of Vedanta. Besides non-dualism there are also qualified non-dualism, dualistic non-dualism, and dualism (Advaita, Visishtadvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Dvaita). Comprehensive expositions of qualified non-dualism and dualistic non-dualism are given in two books by P. N. Srinivasachari, formerly principal and professor of philosophy at Pachaiyappa's College in Madras.
The philosophy of Visishtadvaita " is set forth with clarity, scholarship, enthusiasm, and literary elegance. The author does not call Visishtadvaita "qualified non-dualism," as it is usually translated, and he repeatedly protests against the word "pantheism," by which it is sometimes described. He retains the Sanskrit word, which he translates in the glossary as "panorganismal monism." But whatever he calls it, he makes abundantly clear what it is.
Visishtadvaita, as the philosophy of the widespread Vaishnava religion, is probably the most popular philosophy of India, and in it the distinction between philosophy and religion becomes blurred. The phrase "qualified non-dualism" suggests that it differs only slightly from non-dualism, but actually the two philos
18 P. N. Srinivasachari, The Philosophy of Visistädvaita, 2nd ed. (Madras, 1946).
