Opinions of Western Scholars on Vedanta Philosophy
Sir William Jones (1645-1749), Supreme Court Judge, Calcutta and Philosopher, (The Works of Sir William Jones, London, pp 20, 125, 127)
“That which is impossible to read Vedanta or the many fine compositions in illustrations of it, without believing that Pythogoras and Plato derived their sublime theories from the same fountain with the sages of India”.
Victor Cousin (1792-1867), French Philosopher(Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy by Max Muller, Longmans, Green and Co, London, New York and Bombay, 1902, pp 9,10)
“When we read with attention the practical and philosophical monuments of the East, above all, those of India which are beginning to spread in Europe, we discover there many a truth, and truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which the European genius has sometimes stopped, that we constrained to bend our knees before the philosophy of the East, and to see in this cradle of the human race the native land of highest philosophy”.
Frederich Schelegal, (1772-18129), German Philosopher and Indologist, (On Indian Language, literature and Philosophy, p 471)
“It cannot be denied that the early Indian possessed a knowledge of the true God, all their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear and severely grand, as deeply conceived and reverentially expressed as in any human language in which men have spoken of their God”.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German Philosopher, (Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy by Max Muller, Longmans, Green and Co, London, New York and Bombay, 1902, p 8)
“ In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death”.
Frederich Max Muller (1823-1900), (Three Lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy by Max Muller, Longmans, Green and Co, London, New York and Bombay, 1902, p 7)
“We still say ‘what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ (Mark 8: 36 of Bible). And how can we even claim to have a soul to lose, if we do not know what we mean by soul. But it seems strange to you that the old Indian philosophers should have known more about soul than Greek or Medieval or modern philosophers, let us remember that however much the telescopes for observing the stars or heavens have improved, the observatories of soul have remained the same”.
