Indian Philosophy
TUE religio-philosophical culture of the socio-economic System which is called Brahmanism may be traced to two sources, Aryan and non-Aryan. The Aryan Scriptures are the Vedas, including the Upanishads, the Hindu Gnosis. The others are called the Agamas. These two cultures, diverse in origin, in course of time blended and became " Hinduism," which is a mixture of Brahmanical and non- Brahmanical or indigenous beliefs and practices. The chief existent Agamie .communities are those called Vaislinava, Shaiva, and Shakta. The term Agama or Tantra is a title which covers the -Scriptures of each and all -of these Sects. It is a common mistake to identify the Tantra with the Scriptures of the Shakta Sect only. The author seems to lend his authority to this notion (p. 662), but it may be that he is merely stating a current usage in Bengal without approv- ing it.
Of the eleven chapters of which the work under review is composed, the first nine describe the six accepted Systems of Brahmanism. The tenth chapter treats of the Shaiva and Shakta Agamas and Vaishnava Theism subsequent to the date of Ramanuja. The eleventh and last chapter gives the author's conelusioni as regards the past and future develop- ment of Indian Philosophy.
The account of the Agamic systems is very brief. If this summary treatment is due to lack of space it would have been better to have-dealt with these systems in a third and separate volume . with that fullness which is demanded by the
importance and value of their religio-philosophy, and the general ignorance concerning them.
The bulk of this volume, then, consists of an account of the Six Brahmanical Systems. These may be grouped into three Standards and regarded as advancing stages in a process of Immanent Logic of the Reason working towards the Vedantie conclusion implicit in the first and second Standards, and explicit in the non-dualist Vedanta of the third. The Lord Shiva with the vast vision of the Cosmotheoros says in the Kularnava Tantra of the Shakta Agama : " The Six Doctrine; are My Six Limbs." That is to say, they form the unity which is His intellectual Body. He adds that he who separates those limbs severs the unity of such Body.
Though the author has, within the limits dictated by the nature of his work both described and compared the System,. notifying the points upon which they agree, or differ, there is yet room for a separate treatise dealing only with their comparative morphology, showing how they are related to one another considered as varying Standards of " One System in the logical, though it may not be the historical, sense. AS he rightly says, they are not unrelated Scriptures or collections of philosophical curiosities.
The author does not claim that his summary of each of the systems is complete, for, as he rightly says, almost every chapter deals with a subject to which a fully-equipped sPeeinl" ist devotes a lifetime of study. He does not then attempt to deal with secondary variations of opinion among the less important writers of the various schools. At this date, when so little is yet known of Hindu philosophy, it is well that he should deal with it on broad general lines. The System most alive to-day is the Vedanta. Of this standard the non-dualist Vedanta of the great scholastic shangkaracharyya is most known, and the portion of the author's work dealing with this philosophy is that to which the reader will perhaps first turn. But in order to under- stand this Vedanta even in the most general way, something must be known of the other and less advanced Standards, Whilst the non-dualist Vedanta of Shangkara, called Maya- vada, is most often spoken of, it is also much misunderstood.
This is the doctrine which is commonly said to teach that God and the Universe are " illusion." In a conversation which I had many years ago with a distinguished Bengali, he prided himself on the supposed fact that the Founder of modern Hinduism (as he called Shangkara) was (like himself) an Atheist. Many have said that the God of his System is illusory." Quite recently I read in the work of a Bengali exponent of this Vedanta that " the Vedantin has two Gods." It is obvious that a System so variously interpreted has been misunderstood. Though the Author himself speaks with discretion and skill on the subject of " illusion," I think that his term " Empirical Theism " may perhaps foster notions which he would not approve.
If we are rightly to interpret Shangkara, we have to remem- ber a fact often overlooked by those who write upon him. He was a religious man. The Professor calls him a saint. He was a worshipper who, according to tradition, was a devotee of the Divine Mother. Revelation was the basis of his system, which is therefore a scholasticism. If we deprive it of its religious basis and content it ceases to be Vedanta as Shangkara preached it. We cannot " weed out " the " tares " which are (to use the author's language) " theological obsessions," and leave the " wheat " of philosophy. These personal views of the author who looks forward to a " triumph over scholasti- cism " have not, however, affected that objective treatment of its subject which is a praiseworthy feature of his book. There is, however, a common tendency nowadays which his observa- tions may encourage, namely, to subordinate the theology of the Vedanta to its philosophy. It is the failure to keep in mind the former which leads to an erroneous interpretation of the latter." Practical considerations based on the fact that Shangkara was a man of religion will lend weight to the conclusion of the author against any subjectivism and nihilism which would make the world an unreality in the sense of a phantasm based on nothing.
The treatment of this subject by the author should help towards the correction of some popular errors and doubtful interpretations, for it must not be supposed that this matter is free from difficulty, even for the expert.
The last chapter (" Conclusions ") deals with the intellectual and moral aristocrats who stand by the old Indian ways, the futurist Radicals who would jettison all Indian cultural tra- ditions in the cause of " Progress," and the Hindu Modernists who, with the sympathies of the author, are seeking a middle path. In India there were in the earliest times free-thinkers (to use that term in a general sense), but for over a thousand years, and until quite recent years, there have been none. It is as though our own philosophical history had stopped abort on the death of St. Thomas Aquinas and all philosophy to-day was being taught by his commentators, a class of which the great Indian devotee, Chaitanya, said that whilst revelation was like the sun they were like the clouds. This chapter and its problems are full of interest, but call for a lengthier notice than can be given here.
Of this volume it may be said, as it was of the first, that it is not merely a dry intellectual discussion of ideas, but a work of feeling as well as of lucid thought, an exposition of living interest. In the making of it, the author has followed the Indian rule that an exponent of any system should so write as if he believed in its doctrine, though in fact he may not. In the case of a book such as this, this method implies also a truly objective treatment. There may be differences of °Pinion on particular portions of its subject matter ; the more so that Professor Radhakrishnan's history, as well as that of Professor S. N. Da.sgupta are pioneer enterprises extending over a very wide, and as yet not wholly explored, field. But the author, who is the present occupant of the Chair of Philosophy in the University of Calcutta, is to be congratulated on a solid piece of work.
JOHN WOODROFFE.
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