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Three Myths About Indian Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Daya Krishna
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Extract

Indian Philosophy, like Indian culture, seems peculiarly prone to arouse either violent antipathy or violent enthusiasm. Rarely does it engender an attitude which tries to present and assess it coolly and calmly, without positive or negative emotion. Nothing perhaps stands more in the way of such an attitude than the universally accepted ideas which I wish to explore in this paper. These three ideas are treated as indubitable facts about Indian philosophy. They seem so self-evident to enthusiasts and detractors alike that to question them seems to question the very concept of Indian philosophy as it has been traditionally conceived and presented by almost every writer on the subject. Yet, it seems to me that the time has come to question the traditional picture itself, to raise doubts about the indubitable, to investigate the sacrosanct and the self-evident. Myths have always masqueraded as facts and many a time the emperor's nudity has only been discovered by a child's disingenuity.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Diogenes , Volume 14 , Issue 55 , September 1966 , pp. 89 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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Footnotes

*

Footnotes preceded by an asterisk were graciously contributed by Mlle Rita Régnier.

References

1 This article is dedicated to Dr. B. N. Consul and his staff without whose surgical help and skill it might never have been completed. Dr. Consul holds the Chair of Ophthalmology at the Medical College, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur India.

2 See G. C. Pande, Studies in the Origins of Buddhism (Allahabad University, Allahabad, India, 1957).

3 "A conflict of statements (in Vedanta-passages) regarding the world would not even matter greatly, since the creation of the world and similar topics are not at all what the scripture wishes to teach… the passages about the creation and the like form only subordinate members of passages treating of Brahman." A Source Book in Indian Philosophy, Ed. Radhakrishnan and Moore (Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 516.

4 See my article: "Three Conceptions of Indian Philosophy," in the forthcoming issue of Philosophy East and West (Hawaii, USA).

It has been asked what I mean by "philosophy proper." The only thing I wish to make clear in this context it that the Indian philosophical tradition is "phi losophical" in the same sense as is Western philosophical tradition.

5 I have been greatly helped in this paper by discussions with Dr. G. C. Pande, the outstanding scholar on Indian philosophy and culture and at present Tagore Professor of Indian Culture in the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, India. I am also thankful to Dr. S. K. Gupta of the Sanskrit Department in the University for bringing to my attention the different meanings of the term "Veda" in the tradition of classical Indian thought.