great Indian scholars of past
times. The Upani@sads, as we have seen, formed the concluding
portion of the revealed Vedic literature, and were thus called the
Vedanta. It was almost universally believed by the Hindus that
the highest truths could only be found in the revelation of the
Vedas. Reason was regarded generally as occupying a comparatively
subservient place, and its proper use was to be found in its
judicious employment in getting out the real meaning of the
apparently conflicting ideas of the Vedas. The highest knowledge
of ultimate truth and reality was thus regarded as having
been once for all declared in the Upani@sads. Reason had only to
unravel it in the light of experience. It is important that readers
of Hindu philosophy should bear in mind the contrast that it
presents to the ruling idea of the modern world that new truths
are discovered by reason and experience every day, and even in
those cases where the old truths remain, they change their hue
and character every day, and that in matters of ultimate truths no
finality can ever be achieved; we are to be content only with as
much as comes before the purview of our reason and experience
at the time. It was therefore thought to be extremely audacious
that any person howsoever learned and brilliant he might be
should have any right to say anything regarding the highest
truths simply on the authority of his own opinion or the reasons
that he might offer. In order to make himself heard it was necessary
for him to show from the texts of the Upani@sads that they
supported him, and that their purport was also the same. Thus
it was that most schools of Hindu philosophy found it one of their
principal duties to interpret the Upani@sads in order to show that
they alone represented the true Vedanta doctrines. Any one
who should feel himself persuaded by the interpretations of any
particular school might say that in following that school he was
following the Vedanta.

The difficulty of assuring oneself that any interpretation is
absolutely the right one is enhanced by the fact that germs of
diverse kinds of thoughts are found scattered over the Upani@sads

42

which are not worked out in a systematic manner. Thus each
interpreter in his turn made the texts favourable to his own
doctrines prominent and brought them to the forefront, and tried
to repress others or explain them away. But comparing the
various systems of Upani@sad interpretation we find that th