THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UPANISADS BY S. RADHAKRISHNAN WITH A FOREWORD BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND AN INTRODUCTION BY EDMOND HOLMES " AUTHOR OF THE CREED OF BUDDHA," ETC. LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY {All rights reserved) Atfl> ITOKCMO DEDICATION TO THE REV. W. SKINNER, M.A., D.D., ETC. INDIAN PHILOSOPHY BY S. RADHAKRISHNAN George V Profe*or of Phflo*ophy b the Uomratjr of Calcatta i Demy 8v. Two 0ob. 21*. each SOME PRESS OPINIONS " We are fortunate in that Professor Radhakrishnan is evidently deeply read in the Philosophy of the West, and shows considerable blend of acquaintance with general Western literature ; a happy Eastern conceptions with Western terminology makes the book intelligible even to the inexpert, and, it need hardly be added, instructive.'* The Times " In this very interesting, Incid, and admirably written book . the author has given us an interpretation of the Philosophy of India written by an Indian scholar of wide culture." Daily News. 44 It is among the most considerable of the essays in interpre- tation that have come from Indian scholars in recent years. English readers are continually on the look-out for a compendium of Indian thought wntten by a modern with a gift for lucid statement . Here is the book for them." New Statesman. 41 The first volume takes us to the decay of Buddism in India after dealing with the Vedas, the Upanisads, and the Hindu con- temporaries of the early Buddists. The work is admirably done*" BBRTRAND RUSSELL in the Nation. "This book marks an epoch in speculative thought. It is probably the first important interpretation of the Eastern mind from within." Glasgow Herald. 44 A most systematic account of the subject. In every section and subsection of the book we find a very readable exposition- succinct and yet complete of the subject matter concerned. The accounts are uniformly vivid, dispassionate, and well balanced." MAHAMAHOPJtoHYlYA DR. SANGANATH JHA in the Hindustan Review. 44 Brilliant performance. As an attempt to give a true philo- sophical interpretation of Indian thought, it is of very great value." Dr. B. M. BARNA in the Hindu. 14 A standard work on the subject." Indian Social Reformer. " Not a formal history and a dry intellectual discussion of ideas, but a work of feeling as well as of thought, an exposition of living interest. The is excellent." The " English Quest. As a work of philosophical interpretation and criticism, it is an epoch-making publication . indispensable to every student of Indian philosophy." The Mysore University Magazine. 44 It sets forth the philosophic background of Indian religions and social life with a fulness of knowledge and concreteness of detail that is perhaps unique. Many things which in the ordinary text- books are obscure and even unintelligible here become rational. The book is one of deep and exact scholarship."-Ho/6om Review. 44 Professor Radhakrishnan's beautifully written story of the changing thought of the Vedic teachers, the Jainat, and the Buddhists will more than repay the study of any specialist, but, beyond this, it is of absorbing interest to those of us who do not wish to make ourselves out to be either philosophers or Orientalists. A delightful volume." Time* of India. PREFATORY NOTE I AM much obliged to Dr. Rabindranath Tagore and Mr. Edmond Holmes for their kindness in writing the Foreword and the Introduction to this reprint of the section on the Upanisads from my Indian Philosophy. The different, though not opposed, estimates brought together in this book will, I trust, help the reader to appre- ciate the meaning and value of the teaching of these ancient scriptures of India. S.R. CALCUTTA, March 1924. FOREWORD NOT being a scholar or a student of philosophy, I do not feel justified in writing a critical appreciation of a book dealing with the philosophy of the Upani$ads. What I venture to do is to express my satisfaction at the fact that my friend, Professor Radhakrishnan, has undertaken to explain the spirit of the Upaniads to English readers. It is not enough that one should know the meaning of the words and the grammar of the Sanskrit texts in order to realise the deeper significance of the utterances that have come to us across centuries of vast changes, both of the inner as well as the external conditions of life. Once the language in which these were written was living, and therefore the words contained in them had their full context in the life of the people of that period, who spoke them. Divested of that vital atmosphere, a large part of the language of these great texts offers to us merely its philological structure and not life's subtle gesture which can express through suggestion all that is ineffable. Suggestion can neither have fixed rules of grammar nor the rigid definition of the lexicon so easily available to the scholar. Suggestion has its unanalysable code which finds its depth of explanation in the living hearts of the people , who use it. Code words philologicaUy treated appear childish, and one must know that all those experiences which are not realised through the path of reason, but immediately through an inner vision, must use some kind of code word for their expression. All poetry is full of such words, and therefore poems of one language can never be properly translated into other languages, nay, not even re-spoken in the same language. ., For an illustration let me refer to that stanza of Keats* u x PHILOSOPHY OF THE UPANISADS "Ode to a Nightingale/' which ends with the following lines :-^ The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. All these words have their synonyms in our Bengali language. But if through their help I try to understand these lines or express the idea contained in them, the result would be contemptible. Should I suffer from a sense of race superiority in our own people, and have a low opinion of English literature, I could do nothing better to support my case than literally to translate or to paraphrase in our own tongue all the best poems written in English. Unfortunately, the Upaniads have met with such treat- ment in some parts of the West, and the result is typified disastrously in a book like Cough's Philosophy of the Upani$ads. My experience of philosophical writings being extremely meagre, I may be wrong when I say that this is the only philosophical discussion about the Upaniads in English, but, at any rate, the lack of sympathy and respect displayed in it for these some of the most sacred words that have ever issued from the human mind, is amazing. Though many of the symbolical expressions used in the Upaniads can hardly be understood to-day, or are sure to be wrongly interpreted, yet the messages contained in these, like some eternal source of light, still illumine and vitalise the religious mind of India. They -are not associated with any particular religion, but they have the breadth of a universal soil that can supply with living sap all religions which have any spiritual ideal hidden at their core, or apparent in their fruit and foliage. Religions, which have their different standpoints, each claim them for their own support. This has been possible because the Upaniads are based not -upon theological reasoning, but on experience of spiritual life. life is it And not dogmatic ; in opposing forces are recon- ciled id$as of non-dualism and dualism, the infinite and the finite, do not exclude each other. Moreover, the Upani?ads do not represent the spiritual experience of any one great PHILOSOPHY OP THE UPANISADS xi individual, but of a great age of enlightenment which has a complex and collective manifestation, like that of the starry world. Different creeds may find their sustenance from them, but can never set sectarian boundaries round them ; generations of men in our country, no mere students of philosophy, but seekers of life's fulfilment/ may make living use of the texts, but can never exhaust them of their fresh- ness of meaning. For such men the Upaniad-ideas are not wholly abstract, like those belonging to the region of pure logic. They are concrete, like all truths realised through life. The idea of Brahma when judged from the view-point of intellect is an abstraction, but it is concretely real for those who have the direct vision to see it. Therefore the consciousness of the reality of Brahma has boldly been described to be as real as the consciousness of an amlaka fruit held in one's palm, And the Upanisad says : Yato vaco nivartante aprSpya manasa saha Anandam brahmago vidvan na bibheti kadacana. From Him come back baffled both words and mind. But he who realises the joy of Brahma is free from fear. Cannot the same thing be said about light itself to men who may by some mischance live all through their life in an underground world cut off from the sun's rays ? They must know that words can never describe to them what light is, and mind, through its reasoning faculty, can never even understand how one must have a direct vision to realise it intimately and be glad and free from fear. We often hear the complaint that the Brahma of the Upaniads is described to us mostly as a bundle of negations. Are we not driven to take the same course ourselves when a blind man asks for a description of light ? Have we not to say in such a case that light has neither sound, nor taste, nor form, nor weight, nor resistance, nor can it be known ? through any process of analysis Of course it can be seen ; but what is the use of saying this to one who has no eyes ? He may take that statement on trust without understanding in the least what it means, or may altogether disbelieve it, even suspecting in us some abnormality.