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INTRODUCTION
49
impossible without a serious study of the Buddhist philosophy as expounded by the school of Dinnāga and Dharmakīrti). Be that as it may, we too take leave of Mimāmsä and proceed on to Vedānta.
5. VEDANTA Gandhi's account of the Vedānta philosophy is most illuminating and for various reasons. Neither in the case of Sankhya-Yoga, nor in that of Nyaya-Vaiseșika (nor in that of Mimāṁsā) did Gandhi encounter strong contemporary champions, but a good part of India's Hindu populace happens to be the adherent of one Vedanta sect or another (and a majority of scholars working in the field of Indian philosophy happen to be the sympathizers of Advaita Vedānta). Gandhi therefore thought it necessary to carefully analyse the respective philosophical standpoints of Sankāra--the chief advocate of Advaita Vedānta-and Rāmanujā-the chief advocate of Višiştādvaita Vedānta-, devoting relatively much greater attention to the former. And by way of introducing his subject he quoted long passages from the famous Chāndogya Upanişad dialogue between Uddālaka Āruņi and his son śvetaketu. We are thus enabled to work out for ourselves a comparative estimate of the old-Upanişadic teaching, Sankara's teaching and Rāmānuja's teaching on the fundamental questions of philosophy. In the course of his exposition of Sankara's philosophy Gandhi explicitly touches upon the problem of the relation in which this philosophy stands to the teaching contained in the old Upanişads. He rightly points out that Sankara's followers with their distinction between 'lower' and 'higher' truths find no difficulty in both accepting and repudiating the teaching of old Upanişads which seldom lend clear support to the idealist-illusionist philosophy of Sankara. As a matter of fact, in Gandhi's present lecture-series most of such remarks as can be construed as critical-remarks that are certainly few and far between-are concentrated in the
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