Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 49

INTRODUCTION
in the face of so much preponderating evidence. To maintain that the Upanișadic thought is the Indian counterpart of Plato or Kant is quite an unwarranted dogma sustained more by personal predilection than by objective evidence. Further Prof. Deussen is justified in maintaining that Plato-Kantian idealism is the best system of philosophy. In spite of the beauty of conception and grandeur of diction Plato's idealism is but a temporary aberration of Hellenic thought which was brought to its equilibrium by his friend and disciple Aristotle. Similar is the case of Kant's transcendental agnosticism. It is but an episode in the career of modern thought quite unconnected with the course of modern culture. As against Deussen's obiter dictum we take the liberty to state that the idealism of Plato or Kant is distinctly of a modern thought and marks but the refuge of the defeated intellect sustained more by personal mysticism than by logical necessity. Champions of such a philosophy of the type of Deussen always make the mistake of believing that any other form of philosophy will be incompatible with the highest aspirations of religious and moral culture. In short, they think that the only alternative to such an effective idealism is an impossible materialism. It is because of this assumption that they try to escape into some form of idealism. The birth of idealism is very often due to such intellectual confusion. In order to safeguard the eternal values of life from the alleged menace of materialism some thinkers propound the doctrine of idealistic metaphysics which ultimately results in nullifying the very eternal values. It ends in repudiating the distinction between truth and error, good and evil and beauty and ugliness. Let us go back to Deussen. He makes the astounding proposition that the true religious philosophy must have as its background something of the Kantian transcendentalism. He says in so many words that the value of a religion consists in its allegiance to a philosophy to which the concrete world is an illusion or māyā and life is but a mockery. There may be some kind of religious satisfaction resting on such a metaphysics. But we doubt very much if the Upanişadic religion is of much value only because of this attitude. Again he seems to think that modern Christianity has its value because of its metaphysical idealism which he assumes to be its foundation. We are quite sceptical about this. Neither the founder of Christianity nor his followers ever believed that the concrete world of reality is but an illusion or an appearance. We rather think that the success and popularity of Christian religion are entirely due to its grasp of concrete life and its emphasis upon the value of human personality. Take away these, it would cease to have any value and with that perhaps it would cease to be a religion. We can only look with dismay when Deussen connects modern Christianity with Kantian idealism. His congratulations on Upanişadic thought because of its similarly to Kantian Idealism we are rather prone to decline because his attitude is corroborated neither by historical development nor by philosophical evidence of later thought in India.
The Chandogya Upanisad.-The Upanişad belongs to the Samaveda as evidenced by "Chandas.” It is one of the oldest Upanişads and is divided into