ABSTRACT
The Indian traditions (sampradāyas) were reflective from the beginning and became philosophies. There were more traditions, but those reviewed here are the most important. It is out of these traditions that contemporary thought arose after the advent of the British. It has several strands. (1) Indian religions were at first severely criticized by the Christian missionaries, who attacked first the external and popular forms, and later began studying the deeper philosophical thought. One aspect of contemporary philosophical thought is its more reflective evaluation of the traditions than was made by Christian religious criticism. (2) After the missionaries began studying the Indian philosophical doctrines, the Vedas, and the Sanskrit language, European scholars like Max Müller, Paul Deussen, A. B. Keith and then a host of others discovered the historical and intellectual significance of this Indian heritage and revealed not only the common religious roots, but also the philosophical similarities between the Indian and European forms of thought. These similarities and common roots have been taken up for study by the Indian thinkers themselves. who began expounding the traditional philosophies in terms of the recent philosophical concepts. Their expositions sound as if they were the old traditions themselves, but they have become richer by the incorporation of new Western developments. (3) The most outstanding of the contemporary thinkers do not take in Western ideas wholesale and indiscriminately, but ask themselves how the traditional philosophies of India are to be oriented towards the new doctrines and the new ideas of reality. These questions enable the philosophers to retain the spirit of traditional systems and yet be conscious of the developments in science and philosophy of the West. (4) Because of the task of the orienting and of the re-orienting of the old and the new, contemporary Indian thought appears to be making little progress; but if philosophy is understood as a way of life, and if the way of thought is to be adjusted to it and has to throw light on it, then philosophy cannot be completely new in any old culture. For although our theories can change quickly, human nature and historical cultures cannot be transformed so quickly. (5) However, it should be observed that some younger philosophers, influenced by communist philosophies, look to the West for liberating Indians from their traditional philosophies, and think that the acceptance of this heritage is due to the backwardness of Indian culture, and that if India is to progress, it has to accept some new materialistic or sceptical philosophy as a guide to life. Such philosophers may perhaps dominate the philosophical circles of India in the future. But the foremost of the Indian thinkers now still think that the traditional philosophies contain important truths and that they can be, and ought to be reconciled with the truths that the new materialistic and sceptical philosophies wish to bring to the forefront.
