avada and D@r@s@tis@r@s@tivada....474
16 Vedanta theory of Illusion....................................485
17 Vedanta Ethics and Vedanta Emancipation.......................489
18 Vedanta and other Indian systems..............................492

INDEX............................................................495

1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

The achievements of the ancient Indians in the field of philosophy are
but very imperfectly known to the world at large, and it is unfortunate
that the condition is no better even in India. There is a small body
of Hindu scholars and ascetics living a retired life in solitude, who
are well acquainted with the subject, but they do not know English and
are not used to modern ways of thinking, and the idea that they ought
to write books in vernaculars in order to popularize the subject does
not appeal to them. Through the activity of various learned bodies and
private individuals both in Europe and in India large numbers of
philosophical works in Sanskrit and Pali have been published, as well as
translations of a few of them, but there has been as yet little
systematic attempt on the part of scholars to study them and judge their
value. There are hundreds of Sanskrit works on most of the systems of
Indian thought and scarcely a hundredth part of them has been translated.
Indian modes of expression, entailing difficult technical philosophical
terms are so different from those of European thought, that they can
hardly ever be accurately translated. It is therefore very difficult
for a person unacquainted with Sanskrit to understand Indian philosophical
thought in its true bearing from translations. Pali is a much easier
language than Sanskrit, but a knowledge of Pali is helpful in
understanding only the earliest school of Buddhism, when it was in its
semi-philosophical stage. Sanskrit is generally regarded as a difficult
language. But no one from an acquaintance with Vedic or ordinary literary
Sanskrit can have any idea of the difficulty of the logical and abstruse
parts of Sanskrit philosophical literature. A man who can easily
understand the Vedas. the Upani@sads, the Puranas, the Law Books and
the literary works, and is also well acquainted with European
philosophical thought, may find it literally impossible to understand
even small portions of a work of advanced Indian logic, or the
dialectical Vedanta. This is due to two reasons, the use of
technical terms and of great