A History of Indian Philosophy Vol. 4

PREFACE

The third volume of the present series was pubhshed in 1940. The manuscript of the fourth volume was largely ready at that time and it would have been possible to send it for publication at least by 1942. But the second world-war commenced in 1939 and although the Cambridge University Press was prepared to accept the manuscript even during war-time, the despatch of the manuscript from Calcutta to Cambridge and the transmission of proofs to and fro between England and India appeared to me to be too risky. In 1945, after retiring from the Chair of Philosophy in the Calcutta University, I came to England. But shortly after my arrival here I fell ill, and it was during this period of illness that I revised the manuscript and offered it to the University Press. This explains the unexpected delay between the publication of the third volume and the present one. The promises held out in the preface to the third volume, regarding the subjects to be treated in the present volume, have been faithfully carried out. But I am not equally confident now about the prospects of bringing out the fifth volume. I am growing in age and have been in failing health for long years. The physical and mental strain of preparing a work of this nature and of seeing it through the Press is considerable, and I do not know if I shall be able to stand such a strain in future. But I am still collecting the materials for the fifth volume and hope that I may be able to see it published in my life-time.

The present volume deals with the philosophy of the Bhdgavata-purdna, the philosophy of Madhva and his followers, the philosophy of Vallabha and the philosophy of the Gaudiya school of Vaisnavism. So far as I know, nothing important has yet been published on the philosophy of the Bhdgavata-purdna and that of Vallabha. Two important works by Mr Nagaraja Sarma of Madras and by Professor Helmuth von Glasenapp on the philosophy of Madhva have been published in English and German respectively. But so far nothing has appeared about the philosophy of the great teachers of the Madhva school such as Jaya-tirtha and Vyasa-tirtha. Very little is known about the great controversy between the eminent followers of the Madhva school of thought and of the followers of the



Sarikara school of Vedanta. In my opinion Jaya-tirtha and Vyasa-tirtha present the highest dialectical skill in Indian thought. There is a general belief amongst many that monism of Sahkara presents the final phase of Indian thought. The realistic and duahstic thought of the Sarnkhya and Xh€.yoga had undergone a compromise with monism both in the Puranas and in the hands of the later writers. But the readers of the present volume who will be introduced to the philosophy of Jaya-tlrtha and particularly of Vyasa-tirtha will realize the strength and uncompromising impressiveness of the dualistic position. The logical skill and depth of acute dialectical thinking shown by Vyasa-tlrtha stands almost unrivalled in the whole field of Indian thought. Much more could have been written on the system of Madhva logic as explained in the Tarka-tdndava of Vyasa-tlrtha. In this great work Vyasa-tlrtha has challenged almost every logical definition that appears in the Tattva-cintdmani of Gahgesa, which forms the bed-rock of the new school of Nyaya logic. But this could have been properly done only in a separate work on the Madhva logic. Of the controversy between the monists of the Sahkara school and the dualists of the Madhva school, most people are ignorant of the Madhva side of the case, though there are many who may be familiar with the monistic point of view. It is hoped that the treatment of the philosophy of Madhva and his followers undertaken in the present volume will give new light to students of Indian thought and will present many new aspects of dialectical logic hitherto undiscovered in Indian or European thought.

The treatment of the philosophy of Vallabha which is called visuddhddvaita or pure ...