The Upanishads and Life 1916 - Tapa blanda

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Indian philosophy reveals the central place which the Upanishads hold both in the thought of former days and at the present time. I have endeavoured in this volume to examine and appreciate the leading conceptions of the Upanishads, but my main purpose has been the more practical one of attempting to establish a relation between these conceptions and the life of the people. It seems to me that the admiration so fittingly given to these great legacies of the past, will be bestowed with more real discrimination, and have more real value, if the ideas of the Upanishads are brought to the test of application to present-day religious, ethical and social problems. A mongst a people with whom the intellectual tradition is so strong as in I ndia, every great movement must have a thought-basis, and my task has been to discover whether the Upanishads can supply an adequate basis of this nature. The conclusion which I have reached is that a certain amount of transformation of the ancient ideas is necessary, if India is to find sufficient intellectual support for the progress, which is even now being made in matters relating to religion and ethics, and I hope that those who do not quite: approve of this somewhat critical attitude, will do me the justice of believing that it has been reached after an honest attempt to carry a sympathetic and unprejudiced spirit into my investigation.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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