Book Title: Recent Vedanta Literature
Author(s): George Burch
Publisher: George Burch

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Page 25
________________ 92 GEORGE BURCH review), and it is completely overcome in the exclusively emotional teaching of Caitanya. The book concludes with a criticism of this philosophy and a consideration of Western parallels. The author discusses Plotinus, Spinoza, Hegel, Bradley, Royce, Bosanquet, Fichte, and Schelling. He omits, however, the system which would seem to be the closest Western analogue of the philosophy under discussion, that namely of Bhaskara's contemporary, Scotus Erigena." The omission is understandable, since his work is not available in English and consequently little known in India. Erigena's great synthesis is characterized by an insistence on the equal reality of nature as one and nature as many, the mutual necessity of each for the other, and the correlative processes of the eternal division of the one into the many and the eternal resolution of the many into the one. This is just the principle of dualistic non-dualism, or pluralistic monism, if I understand it correctly. The whole of reality is found neither in the unity of Brahman nor in the plurality of individuals but in the eternal dynamic process by which each becomes the other. Vedantic pluralism (Dvaita, literally "dualism") is explained and vigorously defended in a book by Naga Raja Sarma of Madras." This formidable work of 695 closely printed pages is hardly for beginners, but it is a thorough introduction to the subject. . A person desiring only a cursory glimpse may get it by reading the 338-word concluding sentence. But this sentence is not typical, and the style of the book is clear and easy enough. It is not improved, however, by the author's carping criticisms of other schools; and his sarcastic references to the best known contemporary popularizer of Indian philosophy (whom he never calls by name) can only detract from the merits of the book even for readers who would agree with him on the issues involved. The title, Reign of Realism in Indian Philosophy, indicates 15 In suggesting that Erigena is a Western equivalent of dualistic nondualism I retract the suggestion, proposed in my paper "The Christian Non-Dualism of Scotus Erigena" (Proceedings of the Indian Philosophical Congress, 1953, pp. 149-154), that he should be considered a Western equiv. alent of non-dualism, a suggestion based on an inadequate knowledge of the Vedanta schools. 16 R. Naga Raja Sarma, Reign of Realism in Indian Philosophy (Madras, 1937).

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