Samayasara OR Nature of Self

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 54

INTRODUCTION
liii
sophy we have nothing to quarrel about. He is at liberty to choose his own method of critical appreciation He may quite well regard the philosophy of Kant and Plato as the only genuine philosophy. But when he says that the philosophy of the Upanishads is the same as that of Plato we have to protest. This is an unwarranted philosophical attitude with certain European scholars who started the study of Indian thought with the unwarranted assumption that the Advaita Vedanta was the one fruit to produce which the whole of Indian life and culture conspired. This bias was further strengthened by the tendencies of European thought moulded by such German thinkers like Kant and Hegel. It requires no serious argument to show how unfounded the assumption is even if we admit for the sake of argument such an interpretation of the Upanishadıc philosophy. We cannot consistently explain the claims put forward by other systems of Indian philosophy that they are also resting on the Upanishadic authority. The real fact is that all the Indian systems whether orthodox or heterodox are based upon the fundamental concepts of Upanishadic thought and that all have the right to claim the authority of their source. This simple fact of History cannot be denied in the face of so much preponderating evidence. To maintain that the Upanishadic thought is the Indian counterpart of Plato or Kant is quite an unwarranted dogma sustained more by personal predeliction than by objective evidence. Further Prof. Deussen 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 abertation of Hellenic thought which was brought to its equilibrium by his friend and desciple 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