World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 542

Paul Hacker's Philosogical Confrontation
- Professor S. V. Bokil Acharya Yajneshwar Shastri is an internationally known figure in the field of Indology and Indian philosophy. Naturally, I was immensely pleased and felt rather greatly honoured in receiving invitation to contribute a paper when a felicitation volume is being contemplated and published in his honour. Suddenly my mind went back to the seminar on East and West held at Goa University a few years ago when I had presented my reflections in a talk. I had given on Paul Hacker, the German Indologist and a scholar of Indian Philosophy, especially of Advaita Vedanta. I had based my reflections mainly on the book which was edited and published in 1995 by late professor Wilhelm Halbfass, professor of Indian philosophy then at the University of Pennsylvania '(1). The book contained Paul Hacker's essays duly translated in English from original German text and thus made accessible easily to all of us 2 (2). Among the thinkers who have had their roots in Christian thoughts but who were involved in serious studies of classical Indian philosophy, Paul Hacker is an interesting figure worth our serious attention. Though, an Indologist and an 'uncommon Orientalist, his passage to India is of a significant note for philosophers and scholars of Indian philosophy. As an Indologist, his major interest was in Vedanta thought, more specifically, in Advaita Vedanta school of Shankaracharya. All his work being in German, remained rather unknown to Indian scholars, until recently, i.e. until 1995 when the book I mentioned was published. Realizing the importance of the book and myself being the Chief Editor of Indian Philosophical Quarterly at that time, I managed to get review of the book published in IPQ’ (3) in order to bring the book to the attention of the scholars. Later on as stated above, I spoke on the book at Goa University. I know that what I had said at that time was rather vague and almost unsystematic. This paper tries to say what I want to say, more systematically with as much clarity as is possible. I expect les of success and more of criticism in this task. I do not know even whether my paper will contribute anything to 'Harmony' which this volume aims at.
Before I get to the contents of the Essays, I shall mention how importantly this work has been received in the academic circles. Lambert Schmithausen of the University of Hamburg thinks that, "this collection of Paul Hacker's essays contains all those which I personally consider to be his most brilliant and fascinating ones. They have been translated in here from German for the first time and will thus receive, at last, the attention they highly deserve, now that they will be accessible to a larger public".
Professor Eliot Deutsch from Hawaii considers, "It to be a very useful collection of the writings of one of the most important 20th century Indologists”. He adds that the editor's introduction is especially helpful, placing
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