The Development of Indian Thought

Author(s): P. T. Raju
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Oct., 1952), pp. 528-550
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT1
BY P. T. RAJU

I. INTRODUCTION: NATURE AND BEGINNINGS OF

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

That the interest of Indian philosophybegins where that of West-

ern ends may be regardedas differentiatingthe general tendencies of
the two traditions. Westernphilosophy,except for certain contempo-
rary developments, took and has been taking as much interest in
problems of ultimate reality as the Indian; but the two traditions
approachthe problemin two differentways, so that what to Indian
philosophy has been a plan or theory of practice for the realization
of ultimate reality is for Western thought only a speculative con-
struction of a hypothetical reality, which is to introduce order and
harmonyinto our conceptualunderstandingof the world. Kant ad-
mitted as much when he demandedthat the Supreme Being should
be treated merely as the Supreme Ideal of Reason, which was to be
only regulativebut not constitutive of our experience. Hegel indeed
rejected Kant's position and treated the Ideal of Reason as constitu-
tive also; but his treatment has all the appearanceof a speculative
construction,and when set against the backgroundof EuropeanPhi-
losophy in general,lacks that tone of spiritualintensity which touches
the innermostdepths of our being and refusesto be classedalong with
the experiencesof the phenomenallevel.
Westernphilosophystarted in Greecewith two trends, the Orphic
and the Olympic, the former concernedwith man's inner spirit and
encouraginga religious quest, the latter with outward nature and
leading up to scientific enquiry.2 The two trends remainedblended
till the time of Plato;3 then in Aristotle the formerrecededinto the
background,though it came to be of absorbinginterest in Plotinus,
got detached afterwardsfrom the latter and passed over into Chris-
tian theology.4 The Western philosophical tradition on the whole
continuedto exhibit a scientific and speculativeinterest.
But Indian philosophystartedwith a predominantlyreligiousbias,
not in the sense of engrossmentwith creeds and dogmas, but in the
1 The Woodward Lecture given at Yale University on February 8, 1950, under
the auspices of the Department of Philosophy.
2 See W.
Marvin, History of European Philosophy, 204 foil.
3 Even in Plato, it must be said, it is not so much the spiritual as the human-
istic interest that is maintained on a par with the scientific, and even made to
dominate it.
4W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus, I, 10.
528

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 529

sense of understanding the world in terms of man's innermost reality,

spiritual by nature. Its greatest achievement is the discovery of the
identity of the innermost reality or the Self (dtman) with the Abso-
lute or the ultimate reality.5 From the beginning to the present day,
Indian philosophical activity on the whole has not diverged from this
tradition; and all the distinctions between idealism and realism,
pluralism and monism, fall within it and maintain their connection
with it.
It is difficult to decide whether the belief that ultimate reality is
to be found in the innermost depths of our heart 6 was born in pre-
Aryan India and spread towards the countries of the Aryans in the
West or whether it was common to all the Aryan peoples, one branch
of which entered India and brought and elaborated the idea, while the
others, dispersed over western Asia and the continent of Europe,
neglected and forgot it in the course of time. The Orphic religion in
Greece may be cited as evidence for the view that the belief was
prevalent among the Aryans of those parts, but that it was gradually
pushed to the background and given up by the nations of Europe and
ceased to be of philosophical interest.
In support of the former opinion, it is said that the earliest Aryans
were nature-worshippers, looking outward for explanations of exist-
ence. The intense inwardness of Indian philosophy and religion was
alien to them. Hence the Indian religion cannot be the religion of
the Aryans later encumbered by Dravidian beliefs, but the Dravidian
religion stimulated and modified by the Aryan invaders.7 The Rigveda
Samhitd, which is regarded as the earliest part of the Vedas, consists
largely of hymns addressed to forces and gods of nature and furnishes
very little evidence of man's search for an inner reality; whereas the
excavations of Mohenjo-Daro reveal the prevalence of the practice of
yoga (meditation),8 which constitutes such a search. The civilization
of Mohenjo-Daro was, according to many scholars, two thousand
years earlier than that of the Rigveda.
The Vedas were originally three in number: the Rigveda, the
Sdmaveda and the Yajurveda; but the Atharvaveda was later added
as the fourth. Each Veda is divided into four parts, the Samhitas or
the collections of hymns, the Brahmanas or rules for the performance
of sacrifices, the Aranyakas or the forest treatises, which were a sort
5 ChdndogyaUpanishad,Ch. VI. See also MdndukyaUpanishad.
6 Cf. Dahara Vidydof ChdndogyaUpanishad,Ch. VIII.
7 Sir CharlesElliot, Hinduismand Buddhism,I, xiv. Also Keith, Religionand
Philosophyof the Veda, I, 51 sqq.
8
Marshall,Mohenjo-Daroand the Indus Civilisation,I, 52.

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530 P. T. RAJU

of appendicesto the Brdhmanas,and the Upanishadsor philosophical

treatises. The Vedas had at first to do with sacrifices,and belonged
to the four classesof priestswho were conductingthem.9 All centered
on the same thing and developed out of the same tradition; and the
processof developmenttook the form of turning the outward search
for the highest God into the inner search for our deeper reality and
ended with the final identificationof the two. The result was defi-
nitely achieved and formulatedin the Upanishads.
The process of inwardization might have taken some fourteen
hundredyears, from about 2000 B.C. to 600 B.C. It is wrong to say
that there are no philosophicalspeculationsin the earlierparts of the
Vedas. The Ndsadiyahymn of the Rigveda raisesthe question,What
was in the beginning,Being or Non-being? Abstractspeculationwas
continued most seriously in the Upanishads,1?and later gave rise to
the theories of Nothingness (ucchedavdda) and the Void (Sunya).
But the interest of the Rigveda in such speculationsis not prominent,
and the philosophicalideas are not definitely formulatedby it. The
growth of philosophicaland spiritual interest can be traced mainly
from the Brdhmanasto the Aranyakasand the Upanishads." And
some of the Upanishads like the Brahaddranyakaare part of the
Aranyakas themselves.
The Upanishadicseers generallyseem to be aware of a three-fold
view of the universe: ddibhautikaor as physical nature, ddidaivikaor
as the habitat of divine beings, and ddhyatmikaor as spiritual. If we
apply the idea of evolution to these three views, we may say that the
Vedic religion developed from the worship of natural forces to that
of presidingdeities and then turnedinward. In some places, we come
across a five-fold interpretationof the universe, adding to the above
three adhiyajnamor interpretationof everything as an act of sacri-
fice, and adhiprajamor interpretationin terms of the sexual inter-
courseof cosmic forces and the generationof the world.l2 This five-
fold interpretationmay be regardedas an extensionof the three-fold;
and in both the adhydtmam (spiritual) occupies the highest place,
becauseit is an interpretationthroughman.
II. THE PERIODS OF PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENT

The history of Indian philosophy may be roughly divided into

seven periods. There must at first have been a religionof nature with
9 Ghate, Lectureson the Rigveda, 24 foil.
10
ChdndogyaUpanishad,VI, 2, and Taittiriya Upanishad,II, 7.
11See Belvalkarand Ranade, CreativePeriod.
12
Taittinya Upanishad,I, 3.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 531

worship of natural forces. But this period has to be reconstructed by

our historical research and can only be an inference. Further, we are
not to lose sight of the discovery of the yogic or contemplative religion
of the pre-Vedic Mohenjo-Daro civilization. Then began the period
in which the two forms of religion interfused, which might be dated
from the time of the Brdhmanas. The worship of the presiding deities
of the natural forces already began in the Rigvedic period; but so far
we have no evidence of a separate period for this process. If the Rig-
veda is accepted as beginning about 2000 B.C., the period of the inter-
fusion of nature worship and meditative religion might be said to
begin 1500 B.C. The Brahadaranyaka, one of the earliest of the pre-
Buddhistic Upanishads, is assigned to 900 B.C. So from 1500 to 900
B.C., the Vedic Aryans must have been making inchoate attempts to
formulate a religion of the inner spirit, from which time we may say
the third period or the age of strong philosophical ferment starts.
The Upanishads contain discussions on samsara (world-flux), trans-
migration, the law of karma (action), the immortality of the soul,
higher and lower knowledge (knowledge of the inner spirit and knowl-
edge of the external world), the supremacy of the Absolute Spirit and
its identity with the knowledge of it, along with discussions of sacri-
fices and forms of meditation. Mahavira and Buddha were born in
the 6th century B.C. This was an age of intense search for inner
reality, out of which arose very diverse speculations about its nature.3
Towards the beginning of the 2nd century B.C., schism arose within
Buddhism, which resulted in controversies within the sects and later
assumed great philosophical importance.14 The period from the be-
ginning of the Upanishads to about the 1st century A.D. was the age
of the formation of philosophical ideas.15
Then begins the fourth period, namely, of philosophical systema-
tization. The Prajiidpramitds, which formed the foundation for all
the Mahayana schools of Buddhism, were written towards the end of
the 1st century B.C. and the beginning of the 1st century A.D. some-
where in the Andhra country. The systematizations were at first
generally stated in the form of Sutras (aphorisms), which were easy
to remember and communicate at a time when writing was little in
vogue. The Buddhists were pioneers in system-building. The great
13 See B. M. Barua, History of the Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy.
14 See Kathdvattu or Points of Controversy.
15 The dates in this
paper are not to be taken as exact. There is no unanimity
of opinion about them, and sometimes the differences between dates given by
scholars amount to several centuries. The following books may be consulted for
dates: P. Masson-Oursel, Comparative Philosophy; Radhakrishnan, Indian Philoso-
phy; and Dasgupta, History of Indian Philosophy.

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532 P. T. RAJU

Madhyamikaand Vijnanavadasystems of MahayanaBuddhismseem

to be much earlierthan the Vedantic,though the Vedantic ideas were
earlierthan theirs. Of the orthodoxschools,all the aphorismsexcept
the currentSankhya Aphorismsseem to have been written between
the 1st and the 4th century A.D. The SdhkhyaAphorismsbelong to
as late as the 15th century A.D. But scholarsare of the opinion that
there must have been an originalbook of SdnkhyaAphorismsbelong-
ing to early times but lost; for Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya
system, belongedto the Upanishadicage. By about the 7th century
A.D. commentarieson all the aphorismshad been written, though
many of them have been lost. None on the VeddntaAphorismsbefore
Sankara (8th century A.D.) has yet been found.16
The age from the 1st century B.C. to the 4th centuryA.D. may be
regardedas the main sutra (aphoristic) period in Indian philosophy,
during which the schools built up their philosophicalsystems. The
elaborationof the systems was carriedon for the next five hundred
years, which is the fifth period; after it philosophicalactivity in India
gave birth to no new philosophicalsystems. Subsequentactivity con-
sisted of new commentaries,particularlyon Veddnta Aphorisms,by
Ramanujaand others fromsectarianpoints of view, and of the growth
of polemical literature, the age of which may be called the sixth
period. From about the sixteenth century to the advent of the
British, Indian philosophywas on the whole a blank, after which the
seventh period characterizedby researches in Indian philosophy
adopting Westernmethods began.17
III. NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL DEVELOPMENT

If we call Western philosophy the Socratic or Platonic tradition,

we may call Indian philosophy the Vedic or Upanishadic tradition.
From the time of the discoveryof inner reality and the equatingof it
to the Brahmanor the Absolute,Indian philosophyhas had a peculiar
development. First, its philosophicalspeculationswere speculations
about the inner spirit; and so for the Indians of the time, philosophy
was the same as religion and theology. In this respect, Indian phi-
losophy and religion offer a significantcontrast to Islam and Christi-
anity. The latter religionswere at first revelationsto individualsand
16 The composition of the aphorisms might be said to begin earlier, and the
earliest limit may be the 5th or the 6th century B.C. for Vaiseshika Aphorisms.
The aphoristic literature contains many later additions and interpolations, which
render fixing their dates extremely difficult.
17 The division into seven periods is made only roughly. One may find it con-

venient to divide the development into more periods, and may add a new period of
contemporary thought.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 533

were presented to their followers in the shape of unreasonedcreeds

and dogmas. Their theologies were later accretions,which were de-
veloped by the application of the non-Christian and non-Islamic
philosophiesof Plato and Aristotle. But in India, philosophyand re-
ligion grew hand in hand and even now cannot be completely sepa-
rated. It will not be very far from the truth to say that an Indian
belonging to a particularreligious sect belongs also to a particular
school of philosophy. And we should not forget that there was no
founderof Indian religion as there was a founderof Islam or Christi-
anity. Hinduism gives no definition of itself. It consists only of
disquisitionson inner truth and of techniquesfor its realization. So
far as such techniques are contained in Islam or Christianity, the
Hindu has no objection to treat them as part of his own religion,
adopt all new methods of realization which they may contain, and
develop his own philosophicalside accordingly. The word Hindu or
Hind is only a corruptform of Sind, which was the Aryan name for
the river Indus, mispronouncedby the early invaders. Hinduismwas
an appellation given by aliens to the religion of the people round
about the Indus. The Indians themselves,even the Buddhists,called
their religion Aryamataor Aryadharma(the Way of the Aryans).
For the same reason,namely, that Indian philosophyand religion
were a searchfor inner reality, there was no differencebetween meta-
physics and psychology. And ethics, if we have no objection to use
the term in this connection,was concernedwith conductand discipline
requisitefor realizingthe inner reality.18
Vedicreligion,after the developmentof its own inwardness,spread
by inwardizingand incorporatingall other religions with which it
came into contact. All of them took pride in tracing their originsto
the Vedas and the Upanishads. Some of them, Saivism, Saktism and
Vaishnavism,had their own scripturescalled the Agamas, to which
they give even now as high a place as to the Vedas. Yet they later
began writing commentarieson the original Upanishads and wrote
their own Upanishadsand addedthem to the list.19 Thus both in the
past and the present, no religion can be alien to the Indian, provided
it emphasizesthe truth of inwardness. The Vedic or the Upanishadic
traditionin philosophyis the tradition of the truth of inwardness.
With the growthand spreadof Buddhismand Jainism,the intensi-
ficationof inwardnessbecamemore and moreone-sided. The inward-
18 In this connection see the author's
article, "Indian Philosophy: Its Attitude
to the World," The Vedanta Kesari, XXI, 169.
19These have been collected and separately published by the Theosophical
Society, Adyar, Madras, India, as Saiva Upanishads, Sakta Upanishads, and Vaish-
nava Upanishads.

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534 P. T. RAJU

ness presented by the Vedic religion (also called Brahmanism) did

not lose its relations to the existing social structure. Social duties
were strictly enforced; and the way for the realizationof the inward
truth was chalkedout for each individual through the orderof castes
and dsramas(stages of life). The four castes had their own duties.
The four stages of life-of the student, house-holder,forest-dweller,
and ascetic-were meant for disciplining the individual gradually,
without neglect of social duties, for the realizationof the inner spirit.
Society thereforedid not become weak. But Buddhismand Jainism,
in their first fervorand enthusiasmas rebelliouspreachersof the truth
of inwardness,completely ignored the social side of man's life on
earth. Their later followers seem to have overlookedthe fact that
the lower strata of society, as it then existed, were so utterly lacking
in mental and moral discipline,were so ignorant,illiterate and super-
stitious, that they were unfit to receive the truth in its nakedness;
with the result that large numbersof men and women became monks
and nuns, and corruptiongrew within the monasteries,to which these
religionswereconfined.20We read that Nagarjuna,the greatestof the
Buddhist philosophers,had to expel several thousandsof monks and
nuns from the order; and the orthodoxHindu fold revolted. Further,
the inwardnesswhich these religionspreachedwas nothing new to the
orthodoxreligion. All that was considerednew and good in Buddhism
was thereforequietly absorbed. Buddha therefore was made one of
the incarnationsof Vishnu; and Gaudapada(7th century A.D.), the
teacher of the famous Sankara,wrote his M .indukyaKdrikdsfor the
orthodoxfold (smdrta), incorporatingsome of the best developments
of Buddhistphilosophy. Then began the decline of Buddhism,which
could not justify its existence in the land of its birth, from which it
was practically expelled by about the sixteenth century. Jainism
would have met the same fate, had it not been for its development
of a social structurelike the Hindu and adoption of many forms of
Hindu life, which gave it a social foundation. It was thus that re-
ligious progresscontributedto the philosophicalin India.
IV. THE SCHOOLS AND THEIR PROBLEMS

It has been usual to speak of one materialist school, the Char-

vaka, two heterodoxschools,Jainism and Buddhism,and six orthodox
schools,Nyaya, Vaiseshika,Sankhya,Yoga, Mimamsa,and Vedanta.
But these schools do not exactly correspondto realism, idealism,
pluralism,dualism or monism. A school may or may not correspond
to one or more of these classifications. But it may be said that the
20 See Bu-ston, History of Buddhism,Part II, 78.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 535

general development of Indian philosophy has been from a form of

pluralism to a form of absolutism, the motive behind the drive being
the eager desire to know the ultimate reality so that our life may be
directed towards its realization. The highest good to be achieved
must be the highest truth; otherwise, if the two are different, truth
would make the realization of the good impossible. The problem of
truth therefore became central to all systems; and the advocates felt
it necessary to interpret this world in terms of the Truth either as a
form of truth, as neither truth nor falsity, as both, or as falsity only.
Hence arose intricate systems of logic, epistemology and theories of
illusion. And in this context they developed their theories of judg-
ment and meaning.
As the good is for the self and is a state of self or self-realization,
the theories of self and its relation to the external world and the Abso-
lute, whenever it is admitted, became very important. Every system
of philosophy was at the same time a philosophy of life, developing
its logical, epistemological, psychological and metaphysical doctrines
with reference to the practice leading to the realization of life's aim.
Practice involved an activistic or dynamic conception of reality and
the idea of an eternally accomplished reality involved a static con-
ception. And the schools struggled hard to harmonize the two, though
some overstressed the one and others the other. We read that during
the time of Buddha and Mahavira, the schools divided themselves
into two camps, one maintaining the necessity of activity and a corre-
sponding activistic conception of reality as a process or flux, and the
others maintaining the necessity of inactivity and a corresponding
conception of reality as static being. The conception of reality as a
pure process seems to have had its origin in the conception of the year
(samvatsara) as the origin of the world, a conception later generalized
into that of time as the origin of the world. Time was even personi-
fied and a temple was built for worship to Mahdkala (The Great
Time) in the city of Ujjain. This idea was later incorporated by the
Vaishnava philosophies, according to which the primary creative
energy, out of which even time came, became symbolized as the wheel
(chakra) in the hands of the godhead. Even according to Jainism,
Nyaya and Vaiseshika, time is a substance. With this activist con-
ception was associated the doctrine of karma (activity), according to
which the whole world, which is humanistic and plastic, is governed
by the law of action. For the early Mimamsa school, even God was
unnecessary; in a world of action, man, without the help of God, can
be the master of his own destiny and shape his future by his own
deeds. Though this doctrine of action (karma) was misused and
abused by less philosophical minds, its truth was recognized to be so

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536 P. T. RAJU

importantthat all the schools found it necessaryto give a place to it

in their philosophies. So far as this line of thinking goes, the Mi-
mamsa, in its stricter forms, conceived man as essentially a part of
the world of action and said that, after enjoying the destiny built up
by his own actions,man again enters the flow of reality and is carried
by its current till he builds up again a new destiny for himself.
Indeed, this destiny was at first the popular heaven for this school.
But the other schools admitted the possibility of man rising above
this flow and fatigue. Jainism accepteda life of activity and a reality
interfusedby activity and time, and exhortedman to rise above both.
Buddhismdefendednot only a life of activity but also a reality which
is through and through a mere flux, and gave the same advice. But
while Jainism remained realistic and pluralistic from the beginning
to the end, Buddhismgave rise to a series of systems starting from a
kind of realism and pluralism and ending with a kind of absolutism
or absolute idealism. We find mention of eighteen schools of Hina-
yana (southern) Buddhism and two main schools of Mahayana
(northern) Buddhism,and several crossingsof the two in India, and
several modifiedforms of some of these in China and Japan.
The Nyaya school separatedtime from pure change and activity
and, along with the Vaiseshika school, developed a realistic and
pluralisticphilosophy. The Sankhya school started with the dualism
of spirit and matter and conceivedmatter to be eternally prone to be
dynamic and creative; but in its latest form in the hands of Vijna-
nabhikshu, it accepted God and tended towards absolutism. The
Yoga school of Patanjali was very similar to the Sankhya, but
accepted God from the very beginning, though stopping short of
absolutism. But all the Vedantic systems-and we have eleven avail-
able-are absolutisticin generaloutlook. God is central to their con-
ception of the world, though he is sometimes understoodas imper-
sonal; and the worldof finite individualsand matter is understoodby
them as the manifestationof the sakti (energy) of God or the Abso-
lute. And whether the system is monistic or pluralistic,realistic or
idealistic, dependedon how the relation is understoodbetween sakti
(energy) and the Absolute. Some understoodit as non-difference,
some as identity, some as identity-cum-difference,some as that be-
tween body and soul, and some as difference. Thus the conception
of sakti (energy) became important and, from the very beginning,
there were some who regardedit as all-important, and that of the
underlyingAbsolute, though true, as of secondaryimportancefor us.
These systems are the Sakta systems, one of the standard works of
which,PrapanchasdraTantra,is attributedto the great Sankara. But

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 537

others attached primary importance to the Absolute, either as Siva or

Vishnu; and we have several schools of Saivism and Vaishnavism.
All the schools of Saivism, Saktism and Vaishnavism had their own
authoritative scriptures called Agamas, besides the Vedas and the
Upanishads.
An eternally self-fulfilling Absolute is for us the identity of the
actual and the ideal. Whether such an Absolute is personal or im-
personal, all Vedantic systems conceded its truth. Where there is
disparity between the ideal and the actual, there is need for realiza-
tion and so for practice and activity. That the ideal is realizable,
that the actual can be made to coincide with the ideal, must be a
presupposition of our activity, which, otherwise, would be a purpose-
less blind rush. The realizability of such an ideal means peace. But
so long as the object remains different from the subject, the ideal
remains different from the actual; and ultimate realizability of the
ideal therefore means the coincidence of subjectivity and objectivity.
The realm of the spiritual in our experience begins with such coinci-
dence. And all phases of experience in which this coincidence is re-
flected are reflections of the spiritual. This is the realm of satisfac-
tion, bliss and balance of personality. This is the realm of peace, not
empty peace, though unfortunately it is the fashion to dispose of
philosophies of peace, whether Christian, Hindu or Buddhist, as phi-
losophies of quietism, dangerous for people to adopt. It is true that
some philosophies of peace took undesirable extreme forms; but it is
now our duty to extricate and utilize the elements of truth contained
in them. And almost all Indian systems, whether theistic or atheistic,
realistic or idealistic, pluralistic or monistic, have a spiritual aim and
outlook, with the exception of the materialism of the Charvakas.
That is why, if the Vedantic systems are taken as the highest forms
of Indian philosophy, to the ultimate formulation of which earlier
philosophical ideas were utilized by the Indian thinkers, the approach
of Indian philosophy may be treated as inward. This point becomes
clear if we compare the Sankhya conception of the world of mind and
objects as issuing out of the ego with the Buddhist idea of the ego be-
ing constructed out of material and mental elements (aggregates).
The former is an inward and the latter an outward approach. It will
perhaps be said that the latter is analytic and so scientific and the
former only synthetic and so unscientific. It may at once be admitted
that the analytic method is very useful. But whenever our analysis
is imperfect and incomplete, the unity which would be the result of
reconstruction with the factors obtained by such analysis would be in-
complete and inadequate; and when the attempt is made to press man

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538 P. T. RAJU

into the mould of such an idea, it may end in disaster. The difference
between actual man and our ideal or ideological man may be danger-
ously great. Man is not merely material, not merely biological, not
merely mental, but also spiritual. It is now our moral duty to dis-
cover what truth our religions contain; and if they contain any truth
at all, it must be the spiritual truth within man. If this truth tran-
scends the distinction between subject and object, actual and ideal,
we would ex hypothesi be attempting an impossible task of conceptu-
alizing, in our analysis, the spiritual in man. So it is in principle
impossible to construct a thoroughly adequate ideal or ideological con-
cept of man. In the second place, to fit actual man to an inadequate
concept would, as F. S. C. Northrop indicates in his study in Ideologi-
cal Differences and World Order,21result in unbalance of personality
and schizophrenia. In the third place, if our concept of man is too
greatly influenced by our political, social and economic ideologies, the
result of applying such a concept would be moral and political dis-
aster on a scale involving misery to milions.
Hence a philosophical approach from within man to the world
outside is not only possible but also necessary. Verification of the
adequacy of our concept to reality involves no moral danger at the
material and merely biological levels; but at the human level it does.
Hence the check or antidote to the outward approach to an under-
standing of man is the inward. Hence we have as much need of phi-
losophies with an inward approach as of those with the outward. Any
excesses committed by the one would be corrected by the other.
In India, religion was the practice of philosophy and philosophy
was the reflective process of life in its drive towards the actualization
of the ideal. Philosophy has always been a philosophy of life; but it
would be wrong to overlook the overwhelming logical and metaphysi-
cal interests of the later followers of the schools and the work of the
New Nyaya (Logic) and its influence on the still later philosophical
development.
V. INDIAN PHILOSOPHY FROM THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY UP TO 1784
Muslim conquests began in the eleventh century. Unlike the
earlier invaders, the Muslims entered India not merely with the inten-
tion of conquering and founding kingdoms but also with a zeal for
iconoclasm and establishing their new religion. They were intolerant
of the religions of the people they conquered and cared little about
understanding their philosophical ideas. There was none among the
21 P. 425.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 539

Muslim conquerors who could be a Kanishka or Minander for any

religion of the time.22 One or two who wanted to be so, like Dara of
Delhi, were not lucky. Hence the progress of Indian philosophy un-
der the Muslim kings was negligible. For the same reason, the need
for a synthesis of Hindu and Islamic philosophies was not felt at all.
Some of the Indian religions that sprang up under the influence of
Islam, like Sikhism in the Punjab and Virasaivism in the South, had
little to contribute to philosophy as such, though they introduced
modifications of the social structure.
Polemical literature started at the time of Nagarjuna, the great
Buddhist dialectician (2nd century A.D.). The greatest dialectician
of the Vedanta is Sri Harsha of the 12th century A.D. After him,
polemics became the fashion; and with the appearance of the New
Nyaya, which, though dry, helped a good deal in the logical analysis
of concepts, they were resorted to by all schools. What logical posi-
tivism and studies in the syntax of language are to contemporary
Western philosophy, such were the New Nyaya and polemics to the
Indian philosophy of the time. Philosophical activity became lifeless,
so much so that some of the greatest thinkers of the time were proud
to proclaim that they would attack or defend any doctrine except that
of the social codes. Regard for philosophy as the expression of the
inner spirit was lost. It was felt that life's ideal could be attained by
living up to the injunctions of the social codes. So far as Indian phi-
losophy was a philosophy of inwardness, its development had reached
its limits. Just as the science of physics, it is said by some, has be-
come a rounded system and can make no more progress, because the
limits of space and matter have been discovered; so it may be said
that the limits of intellectual systematization of ancient Indian philo-
sophical ideas were reached even before the fifteenth century. Pre-
occupation with polemics is the sign that the discovery of correspond-
ing entities and their concepts had come to an end, and philosophical
activity had lost itself in conceptual analysis, often without reference
to the facts meant by the concepts.
Probably Indian philosophy would have taken a new turn had the
political conditions permitted. In that age of constant communal
strife, wars, and insecurity to life and property, India could not re-
flect and find out what was defective in her life and thought. During
the Hindu period of her history, when wars were generally the con-
cern of the warrior caste only, she devoted her energies to the discov-
ery of the inner spirit and articulated its philosophy, remaining con-
22 Kanishka and Minander were foreign conquerors who became great patrons
of Buddhism and its philosophy.

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540 P. T. RAJU

tent with the social and political institutions that had grown up spon-
taneously as wave after wave of invaders entered India and settled
down. The ancient Indian was not averse to the values of this world;
but he did not care to develop a philosophy for them, and did not con-
sider the conquest of nature and utilizing it for his life here to be
worth making into a philosophical doctrine. So the idea of reforming
political and social institutions in conformity to the nature of the
world did not enter his philosophy. In face of the Muslim attacks, the
Hindu could think only of strengthening the caste system; for com-
munities where Buddhism was strong and the caste system weak fell
easy victims to the invader. Buddhism lingered on even in the South
up to the fifteenth century. And in spite of its being the religion par
excellence, if religion is essentially inwardness, it cannot but be said
that its after-effect on Indian life was enervation. The Muslims de-
stroyed Buddhist universities and libraries. Much of orthodox Indian
literature also perished. The Brahmins, who venerated their books,
piously concealed them in remote places; but scholarship became
scarce and much that was preserved could not be understood. Sayana
and Madhava, who flourished in Vijianagar in the fourteenth century,
made herculean efforts to revive ancient Indian literature and philoso-
phy by writing expository commentaries. The Vijianagar empire fell,
and later the Maharata empire rose. But during the whole period, no
original contribution was made to Indian philosophy. The main
reason is that the aim of Indian philosophy, with its interest in inner
reality, was fulfilled; and that the aim should be widened was not
yet realized.
VI. CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY

After the advent of the British into India, wars and communal
strife were by degrees put an end to, and peace and security to life and
prosperity were restored. The rulers wanted to govern their subjects
according to social laws of the latter themselves, without hurting their
religious sentiments. And so the Asiatic Society of Bengal was
founded in 1784. Its main aim was not encouragement of Indian phi-
losophy and literature, but to have a few guiding ideas for the practi-
cal use of the Indian Civil Service. The Christian missionaries also
began taking interest in Indian philosophy, but mainly to criticize and
get converts. And later the archeologists, the anthropologists, and the
philologists added their contributions. The first two were not of much
philosophical use; and the third, though useful for understanding the
growth of ideas, have often been misleading so far as interpretation of
systems goes.
In 1802 Alexander Hamilton was imprisoned in Paris during the

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 541

Napoleonic wars, and taught Sanscrit to Friedrich Schlegel, who wrote

On The Language and Wisdom of the Ancient Indians; and then the
historian Schlegel, in his Philosophy of History, acclaimed the discov-
ery of Sanscrit as second in importance only to the Renaissance. Du-
peron's translation of the Upanishads influenced Schelling and Schop-
enhauer, and also Hegel indirectly through Schelling. Yet Hegel's
reaction to Indian philosophy shows lack of both understanding and
appreciation. Later Deussen, whose System of the Vedanta is the
best of the earliest interpretations of Sankara, made a serious study
of Indian thought, and even wrote Elements of Metaphysics, which is
a reconciliation and synthesis of Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer and San-
kara. But the work made little impression on the current of Western
philosophical thought. The reason is that, in spite of the interest
Westerners have been taking for a century in Indian philosophy, few
disciplined in technical philosophy have taken to it. There are indeed
a few who have piously approached the subject, but their work is
mainly confined to the editing, translation and exposition of ancient
texts; and their activities and theories have not been seriously con-
sidered by Western philosophers as such.23
However, the cumulative result of all these activities is the Indian
Renaissance. It is mainly religious; and its tendency has been, on the
whole, revivalist and not creative. Attempts are made to discover ra-
tional grounds for ancient customs and beliefs, and to prove that our
ancient religions are scientific and not superstitious. The same eag-
erness to prove their rationality is manifest in the writings of the
Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist writers. This is the period of the Auf-
klarung in India.
Philosophical activity of the early decades of this century consists
of the discovery and editing of manuscripts, translations of ancient
texts, expositions without reference to Western parallels, comparative
interpretations, independent approaches to some Indian philosophical
views along some Western lines of thought, and developments of
purely Western philosophies. But present-day philosophical activity
is not confined to academic circles. The rise of national consciousness
coincided with the revival of interest in Indian philosophy. Indian
political leaders have generally been drawing upon ancient Indian
thought for presenting a way of action to their followers. B. G. Tilak
rendered invaluable service to India, infusing vigor into the outlook
of Indian youth, by interpreting the Bhagavad Gitd as preaching the
way of action. The importance of his work can be appreciated if we
23 See the author's article, " Research in Indian Philosophy: A Review," Jour-
nal of the Ganganatha Jha Oriental Research Institute, Vol. I, Parts 2, 3, and 4.

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542 P. T. RAJU

remember that, from the time of Buddha and Mahavira, who

preachedintense inwardnessand whose followers extolled renuncia-
tion, to the time of Tilak himself, the way of gnosis and the way of
devotion to God, with their ideas of self-surrender,passivity and the
techniques of love which their later followers developed and made
integral to their teachings,24were placed higher than the way of ac-
tion; with the result that Indians lost zeal for action and could not
react to social and political conditionsin the name of Law (religion,
duty).
India did react to political events even before the time of Tilak;
but the religious and philosophical sanctions for the activity were
sought elsewhere,and the activity had to be sustained artificiallyby
intelligent guidance. The extreme forms of non-injury and compas-
sion preachedby Buddhism and Jainism made the Indian incapable
of facing what was painful and dreadfuleither to himself or to others.
The worship of Sakti (the energy aspect of the Godhead) and the
spiritual discipline associatedwith it were therefore revived and re-
sorted to, as adequateantidotes. Sivaji, the founderof the Maharata
Empire, was a worshiper of Sakti Bhavani; and the emperors of
Warrangalbeforehim of Sakti Kakati; and many of the ancient kings
and emperorswere similar worshipers. It was a worship adopted by
the soldiers (viras). The vira or heroic form of worship inured the
worshiperto the dreadfuleither on the battle-field or the cremation
ground,and by exciting his emotionsand forcingthem into controlled
channelsof activity, made spiritual devotion and concentratedactiv-
ity highly effective.
The same Sakti worship was adopted by the revolutionaryparty
of Bengal and was advocatedand practisedby AurabindoGhose,who,
now in Pondichery,has becomeso inwardthat he has severedall con-
nections with the political and social life of the country. The philos-
ophy of Aurabindois a form of monism like the Sakta and the Saiva.
The world, accordingto him, is real and is a transformationof the
energy aspect of the Godhead (Absolute). Without power of control
over this energy, one cannot realize the Absolute. This control gives
the power of control over the world. Hence control over nature,
which is an aspect of this energy, is necessaryfor man. The result
is an affirmativeattitude to the worldand its values. He who realizes
the Absolute becomes the Superman. But this Supermanis not the
Superman of Nietzsche, who is egotistic and aggressive,but a self-
ruler. Final realizationresults in man becomingone with the Abso-
lute. Therein man does not force the world into unity with himself,
24Bhandarkar,Saivismand Vaishnavism,86.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 543

but surrenders his own petty individuality, which is the result of limi-
tations, before the Lord. He knows that he is only an instrument in
the hands of the Lord, an occasion only for the happening of the
events of the world.
Aurabindo believes in a knowledge higher than the perceptual and
the intellectual, which he calls intuitive. Intuition is integral knowl-
ledge, knowledge of reality in itself, while the intellectual is relational
knowledge. Following the Bhagavad Gitd, he believes that higher
and deeper than the self of the individual can be discovered the
Supermind, the Overmind and the Supreme Mind, the nature of
which is existence, knowledge and bliss.
Another writer who has advocated the doctrine of the Superman
and who keenly felt the need for an affirmative and assertive attitude
to the world is Sir Mohammed Iqbal. But Iqbal's Superman, unlike
the one of Aurabindo, is aggressive, not merely self-assertive but
tyrannical, and, though acknowledging the supremacy of God, does
not surrender his ego to him. Opposed to the doctrine of killing de-
sire and action to attain one's desire, Iqbal glorifies desire and action
and exhorts man not to stop the tide of surging life, the origin of
which is hidden in desire. Matter is not something to be shunned: it
is the habit of Allah (God). It is spiritual through and through, and
a negative attitude to it is in principle impossible. Reality is of the
form of ego. It is an eternal Now, pure duration in which the distinc-
tions between past, present and future are lost. But Iqbal rejects
Bergson's view that intellect cannot comprehend reality. He is prac-
tically accepted as the official philosopher of the Muslim League and
Pakistan.
One of the marvelous experiments made in the history of the world
in the field of politics is that of Mahatma Gandhi.25 Rarely have love
and truth been adopted either as a creed or as a policy to compel a
foreign nation to yield. True, we have to take into consideration the
fact that the moral sensitivity of the world has become greater.
Whatever in done in the shape of political and economic conquest is
now done in the name of imparting the higher culture and civilization
of the conquerors to the conquered. However outrageous in practice
may be the idea of the white man's burden, it is noble in theory; and
the British rulers in India, bred and brought up in the Christian doc-
trine of pacifism and non-retaliation, whatever they might have done
25 For his philosophicaland religiousideas, see his Autobiographyand Young
India. Several works on his life and ideas have appeared, of which see C. F.
Andrews, Mahatma Gandhi's Ideas. Radhakrishnan'sbook also will be useful.
The authortried to discovera metaphysicalsystem in his article, "The Idealismof
Mahatma Gandhi,"in The VisvabharatiQuarterly,Vol. VI, Part III, New Series.

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544 P. T. RAJU

as a matter of policy, could not, all of them, remain unmoved by

Mahatma Gandhi's operational philosophy. Yet it is the first experi-
ment on a colossal scale. And it is in the interest of the world to see
that its effectiveness is not lost in the future-which means the pres-
ervation, as living forces, of the highest moral ideals the world has so
far been able to frame.
According to Mahatma Gandhi, Truth is identical with God, who
is Love. This view is not new to philosophy and religion. But he
adds, and here lies his contribution to the philosophy of life: Because
God is Truth, we must persist in Truth, which is called satyagraha.
And because God is Love, we must persist in Love also, the negative
form of which is non-injury. Persistence in truth (satyagraha) and
non-injury are intimately connected. God does destroy beings; but
he destroys them in love and for their benefit. He alone can know
whom and when to destroy; but we, finite creatures, do not have such
knowledge. Hence it is given to us only to stick to Truth, so far as
our knowledge goes and whatever be the consequences, and act in
Love.
Philosophical foundations for the caste system were sought for
and explained by Dr. Bhagavan Das in his Laws of Manu, who made
use of the principles enunciated by Plato in his Republic. Dr. Bha-
gavan Das is more interested in social problems than in metaphysics
and system-building, which he however gives in his Science of Peace.
Like most contemporary Western philosophers, he deprecates the
negative attitude to the world and adopts the affirmative. Dr. Bha-
gavan Das claims to be a monist, but rejects Sankara's conception of
the Absolute, which, he says, is a mere ego excluding the world. But
the Ego is not the world; and so the form of experience in the Abso-
lute will be "I-This-Not." In the first part, namely, "I-This," the
relation is affirmative; but by the addition of " Not," this affirmation
is negated. The Absolute is thus made to contain both affirmation
and negation.
Another writer and thinker who saw the harm which the negative
attitude to the world had wrought in India and who with all the force
of his pen and imagination combatted it, is Rabindranath Tagore.
Even if the world is Maya and is ultimately unreal, he would say, it
is the painting on the canvas and not the canvas that is more inter-
esting. Tagore is a humanist and a theist. He was greatly influenced
by the Vaishnavism of Bengal and formulated a philosophy of per-
sonalistic absolutism.26 The Absolute is a person. Personality is
26 See his Sadhana,Creative Unity, Personality,and Religionof Man. See also
the author'sarticle, "The Idealismof RabindranathTagore,"in The Visvabharati
Quarterly,Vol. V, Part III, New Series.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 545

limitation of the unlimited; it is the infinite pressed into the moulds

of thought. God is the unity underlying the plurality of the world,
not a bare unity, not even an organic unity, but a creative unity.
Just as a poem is not a construction according to the rules of metre
and rhyme, not an organic unity of the words and ideas that consti-
tute it, but an expression or creation, so also the world is the expres-
sion of a creative unity, which is God. The Supreme Person is the
Law of all laws, and the ordinary laws are the reflections of his unity
in the manifold.
The nature of this unity is Love and can be realized only through
love and devotion. Love is not to be understood as opposed to knowl-
edge, but as its completion. In knowledge as such, the duality of sub-
ject and object is not overcome; but in love, while the knowledge of
the loved is not lost, the duality is transcended.
The Theosophical Society started by Mrs. Annie Besant attracted
a number of enthusiastic Indian scholars into its fold. But what is of
greater importance is her discovery of a religious genius, J. Krishna-
murti. She introduced him to the world as a divine incarnation; but
Mr. Krishnamurti has of late disclaimed his divinity and even severed
his connections with the Theosophical Society. He is an iconoclast,
opposed to all forms of tradition, authority and system-building. Yet
he is not an individualist, atheist, or negativist. He does not claim to
offer any system of philosophy that is to supplant the existing sys-
tems; yet he is systematic in his criticisms, and a careful eye can de-
tect a system of philosophy in them.27
Reality, according to Krishnamurti, is a life-process without end;
it is infinity. It is a unity; duality is due to ignorance and is the
cause of strife, the craving for understanding and the building up of
intellectual systems. The illusory " I " or the ego, which is one of the
poles of this duality, is dissolved by the development of self-conscious-
ness, which is the grasping of the basic facts of existence. Reality,
however, is not the same as self-consciousness; it is higher than self-
consciousness and free from it. The development of self-conscious-
ness is only a method for realizing the truth. Yet the realization of
truth does not involve self-annihilation; for reality is of the nature
of life, love and spontaneity.
Of all the academic philosophers, Professor S. Radhakrishnan is
the most popular and well-known. His writings have a peculiar
charm and perspicacity of style and wield great influence on the edu-
cated mind both in India and outside. In all of them he upholds the
27 See his Talks; Lilly Heber, Krishnamurti and the World Crisis; and the
author's article, " The Idealism of J. Krishnamurti," Triveni, Vol. XIII, No. 2.

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546 P. T. RAJU

primacy of spiritual values. He is a humanist, but religious and

metaphysical; and in consonance with the philosophical atmosphere
in which he was born and bred, he is an absolutist, but with emphasis
on human values and is opposed to the negative attitude which the
ancient philosophical tradition in general took to them.
Sir S. Radhakrishnan is known more as a liaison officer between
East and West than as the founder of a new system. He is a follower
of Sankara, though he tones down the negativism of most of Sankara's
followers. The Absolute is beyond the bounds of thought; but as
human beings, we can understand it only by humanizing it; and the
Absolute humanized, pressed into our conceptual forms, becomes a
person, God or Isvara. Yet God is not a mere appearance of the Ab-
solute. The Absolute is the matrix of infinite possibilities; and one of
the possibilities actualized is this world. God is the Absolute viewed
from the standpoint of this actuality; apart from it, he is the Abso-
lute. The world comes to exist in and through the act of self-assertion
of the divine self in the form " I am." But the moment the " I" is
affirmed, the infinitude of Non-Being as the not-I confronts it. But
the opposition has to be overcome: the not-I has to return to the " I."
The " I " in the process of this return becomes a " Me." And " when
the creator and the created coincide, God lapses into the Absolute."
The world is not unreal or pure Non-Being. Professor Radhakrishnan
is inclined towards treating it as both Being and Non-Being. But in
the Absolute Non-Being is overcome.
While God is the truth for our intellect, the Absolute is the truth
for intuition. There are various forms of knowledge: intuition, in-
tellect, instinct, etc. Of all these intuition occupies the highest place.
Intuition is integral experience and intellect is discursive knowledge.
Intuitive knowledge is not non-rational; it is only non-conceptual.
Like Kant's a priori, it is the presupposition of the intellectual.
Professor Radhakrishnan upholds the doctrine of sarvamuktivdda
or simultaneous salvation, after some of the followers of Sankara. The
Mahayana Buddhists, though they did not believe that individual sal-
vation was impossible, exhorted their saints not to enter Nirvana until
the whole creation entered it. Professor Radhakrishnan's argument
is that, so long as the world lasts, God must continue as God, and the
individual, as the creature of God, must remain with God, until the
latter enters the Absolute. Hence individual salvation is in principle
impossible.28
See his Eastern Religions and Western Thought, Idealist View of Life, and
28

Indian Philosophy. Also, The Philosophyof Radhakrishnan,ed. Schilpp (1952).

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 547

VII. CONCLUSION

A bird's-eye view of the development of Indian philosophy is given

here without disentangling the motives that guided it. It might have
been noticed that the general tendency of Indian philosophy has been
absolutistic; its drive is towards absolutism; and its absolutism is an
absolutism of spirit. From the beginning the Upanishadic tradition
took seriously the essential teaching of all religions, namely, that God
or ultimate reality is to be realized in the core of our hearts, not on
faith and trust, not as somebody's revelation or exhortation to
frighten evildoers and drive away evil thoughts from our minds, but
as a psychological and philosophical truth; and devised a technique
for realizing him. If God is the highest truth, he is the highest value;
that is why the value of religion, for the Indian, does not lie in its
social effects.
Another peculiar feature of Indian philosophy and religion is their
indifference to a personal God. The Absolute is continuous in sub-
stance with ourselves, if not identical with them. And its realization
is to be effected, according to all schools, only by freeing oneself from
the bonds of karma (action), not necessarily by giving up all activity
in this world, but by making ineffectual the latent forces which the
performance of action, in ignorance of one's true nature, assures.
These forces are the propensities (samskdras), which bind themselves
into a knot (granthi) and constitute the individual. The self in ig-
norance identifies itself with that central knot (hrdayagranthi) and
thinks itself to be limited. It is not we who are really living this life
of finitude; it is these forces that are living through us, with the
knotted combinations of which we are identifying ourselves. The
remedy for finitude therefore lies in dissociating ourselves from these
knots, when they simply cease to be. Our finite selves are thus knots
of knots of these creative universals, which are not abstract concepts
but dynamic forces, producing the world of subject and object, enjoyer
and enjoyed (bhokta and bhogya), at every stage and phase of their
activity.
The operations of these forces are spiritual laws, which, at the
lower levels of experience, form the ordinary psychological and physi-
cal laws. The uniformity in the activity of these forces is due to their
being the expressions of the same spirit which sustains them. Hence
even those systems that admit a personal God feel it necessary that
he should function as such a spirit. Primacy is given to such func-
tion; and so even systems that did not accept a personal God could
retain their spiritual appeal. The Purva-Mimamsa, which is un-

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548 P. T. RAJU

doubtedlyVedic, has no place for God at first. The Sankhya was re-
garded as. an orthodox system in spite of its being atheistic. The
Buddhistswere treated as ndstikasor unbelievers,not becauseof their
atheism, but because of their denial of authority to the Vedas. But
none of the schoolslost its spiritual value. All of them admitted the
truth of these forces, whether they regardedthe forces as expressions
of the inner spirit or as extraneousto that spirit.
The Purva-Mimamsapostulated apurva or the potential state of
the results of action; and with that concept it was able to relate to-
gether human lives and their activities. Some Indian philosophers
did not accept the concept in that form, but felt that dharmaor good
action and adharmaor evil action could also become potential. In
Buddhist philosophy,the concept of Dharma was renderedmost pro-
found and was treated as the deepest and all-inclusive reality and
called Dharmakdyaor Dharmadhdtu. Good action is what is accord-
ing to law, and evil action is what is against law; and in Buddhism,
the law of reality and reality became identical. Thus Dharma is not
merely the propertyof the thing but the thing as well, not merely the
uniformbehaviorof a substancebut the substanceas well, not merely
the force latent in a body but the body as well, not merely the poten-
tial but also the actual, not merely the actual but also the ideal.29
The Purva-Mimamsaand the other orthodoxsystems did not develop
such a profoundphilosophy of Dharma. But the concept of apurva
(potential state of the results of action) is very akin to that of Alaya-
vijnana (storehouseof consciousness)of the Buddhists, which is the
storehouseof all the dharmasin their potential state, and which, in
its pure state, is the same as the Brahmanof the Upanishads. To In-
dian philosophy,which took religion as a matter of inward search, a
concept like that of the Upanishadic Brahman or that of the Bud-
dhistic Dharmawas on the whole more suited than that of a personal
God; for what Indian philosophy wanted to discoverwas a spiritual
reality that could account for the processesof creation and salvation
in terms of the principleof sufficientreason. That is why Indian re-
ligion is not tied down to any set of dogmas dictated by man. It is
a system of spiritual discipline for the discovery of God within,
grafted on to all kinds of extraneous worship and ritual, which it
treats as mere externals,to which it can affordto be indifferent,and
which can thereforebe reformedand made progressiveso as to suit
better not only the spirituallife within but also the social life outside.
This is how Hinduism grew and expandedfrom the early Vedic times
29See the author'sarticle, " The Buddhist Conceptionof Dharma,"The Annals
of the BhandarkarOrientalResearchInstitute, Vol. XXI, Parts III and IV.

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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN THOUGHT 549

to the time of the absorption of Buddhism. And it can grow and ex-
pand similarly, provided sincere and sympathetic support is given.
Almost all the contemporary Indian philosophers and political
leaders are anxious not to break completely with the spiritual past.
Mahatma Gandhi's colossal experiment in politics is an example to
the point. Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru strongly feels the need for
reconciling the phenomenal life of the world with the inner spiritual
life of the individual.30 The glamor of Western scientific civilization,
which set out to conquer nature for man, but in the process has learnt
how to destroy and perhaps forgotten how to live, is lost on the Indian
mind; though its rationalism, so far as it is humanistic, has retained
its appeal. Yet Indian leaders think that Indian philosophy should
not merely confine itself, as in the past, to its spiritual fastness but
must come down and look after human interests also.
One contemporary Indian attitude to philosophy contains two
points, which must be of interest not only to Indians but also to West-
ern thinkers. First, as Mahatma Gandhi says, philosophy divorced
from life is like a dead body without life. True, ancient Indian phi-
losophy was a way of life; but the life of which it was a way was that
of the infinite spirit and not that of the finite. Even Western philos-
ophy is a way of life, because its concepts have operational meanings,
so far as the empirical world is concerned: the life with which it is
concerned is that of the finite spirit. It is a mere way of thought only
so far as the life of the infinite spirit is concerned. But Indian philos-
ophy, in its turn, is a way of thought so far as the life of the finite
spirit is concerned.3 Indian philosophers encouraged any theory of
the world and its creation, provided it upheld the truth of the inner
spirit; and so many theories cannot but be intellectual constructions.
If we contrast the Platonic and the Upanishadic traditions, we find
that the merits of each are the defects of the other and that the in-
terest of each begins where that of the other ends. They are not and
should not be opposed. Each is a complement of the other, standing
in need of synthesis with it and of expansion in its direction.
The second point of interest is the need felt and expressed for such
expansion and progress of Indian philosophy. This progress is to be
effected by relating our ancient spiritual knowledge to the knowledge
of modern science, by linking the ultimate purposes of our ancient
sages with the complex life of modern man, not by denouncing it but
by making those purposes reflected in each of its details. There are
people who think that any progress of Indian philosophy would mean
30 Discovery of India, 682.
31 This differentiationis true only comparatively.

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550 P. T. RAJU

rejectionof our ancientVedic tradition,the losing of what we had and

the gaining of nothing but intellectual conceit and a false sense of
self-importance.This criticism amounts to a virtual condemnation
of all modern Western philosophers,who in their activity were free
and untrammeledby any scripturalauthority. On the other hand, we
should not overlookthe possibility of the followersof any particular
scripturebecoming conceited, narrow-mindedand fanatical in their
own way. It is indeed humility and the realization of one's limita-
tions that are requisite for progressand new acquirements. No re-
sponsible observerof the political and social situation in India and
the internationalsituation outside will err in decidingwhich alterna-
tive is correctand needs workingup immediately. Those who advo-
cate philosophicalprogressare anxious that the primacy of spiritual
values should be maintained,but add that their intimate relation to
the human and scientificvalues be depicted. The presentis no longer
an age of isolation in politics, religion or philosophy; and future phi-
losophy will naturally be a world-philosophy,not merely a national
one. If there is to be any phlosophicalprogresseither in India or the
West that is to have lasting influenceon life and thought, it will have
to comprehendboth inner and outer life and take the form of a syn-
thesis of East and West. Otherwise,philosophy in the West will re-
duce itself to the logical analysisof the basic categoriesof the sciences,
which will eventually divide and distributeit among themselves; and
in the East it will be shoved to some remote cornerswhich scientific
education does not reach.
Such trends of thought are indicative of a hopeful future. But it
has to be admitted that twentieth-centuryIndia has not made much
of a new contributionto philosophy. Yet she has been active in re-
understandingour ancient philosophy with methods of approachin-
corporatedfrom the West. A few attempts at constructionare either
without much interest or confinedto the old circle of ideas. The re-
sult is inevitable. For, as has been already said, the developmentof
the Upanishadictradition which is the philosophyof the inner spirit,
had reached its summit in the sixteenth century. And little can be
addedto it that will be new and interesting. If philosophyis to have
fresh life, it must discovernew fields for its activity. The future and
progressof Indian philosophy lie in a synthesis of the Platonic and
Upanishadictraditions,call it synthesis of East and West, or of spirit-
uality, and humanism and science. Such syntheses are the present
need not only of India but also of the West.
University of Rajputana,Jaipur,India; Visiting Professor
of Philosophy,University of Californiaat Berkeley.

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