SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

"
THE UNION OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHIES.*
In old India, as elsewhere, the minds of the leading men were of
many complexions ;
so that we have great idealists, great thinkers of the
atomic school, great nihilists, and great preachers of doctrines wholly
agnostic. It is the custom to gather a certain group of these teachingstogether,
with the title of the Six Philosophies ; while all others, consi
dered as heterodox, are outside the pale of sympathy, and, therefore, to be
ignored. Chiefest among the outcast philosophies is the doctrine of
Prince SiddhSrta, called also Sakya Muni, and Gautama Buddha. Of
the others, it would be hard to find many students of more than three
namely, the Vtdanta, Sakya, and :
Yoga while the Vaiseshika, Nyaya, and
first Mimamsa are little more than a name, even to professed students of
Indian thought. They have their followers, doubtless ;
but there has not
been found one among them of such mental force as to give them a
modern expression, or to show that they bear any message to the modern
world. We shall speak, here, only of the three most popular among the
orthodox schools : and this chiefly in connection with a single note
worthy book, the Bhagavat Gita, or Songs of the Master." If we
were asked, off hand, to which of the three schools the Bhagavat Gita
belonged, we should most likely answer, off-hand, that it was, undoubtedly
a text-book of the Vedanta, and indeed one of the weightiest works of the
V6danta School. For is it not commented on by the Great Sarikara,
chief est light of the Vedanta, and does he not quote from it as of divine
authority, a fully inspired scripture ?
Yet, for all this,
I think there are other aspects of the Bhagavat Gita
which show that this answer is too simple ;
and that, while the Songs of
the Master undoubtedly form a bulwark of Vedantic orthodoxy, there is
very much in them which belongs to the Sankhya,and even more that is
the property of the Yoga School. It seems pretty certain that the Bhagavat
Gita has grown up gradually, beginning with a ballad on Krishna and
Arjuna, much of which is preserved in the first book, and which suggests
all through, the burden of Krishna s admonition : Therefore fight, Oh
son of Kunti ! It seems likely that the next element in the structure of
the Bhagavat Gita is drawn from the great Upanishats,
the Katha
Upanishat more especially. And this suggests a very interesting
* Extract from the Madras Mail, 2yd December 1897 by Charles
Johnston, M.R.A.S., B.C.S,, RET.