ABSTRACT
Indian Philosophy, like Indian culture, seems peculiarly prone to arouse either violent antipathy or violent enthusiasm. 1 Rarely does it engender an attitude which tries to present and assess it coolly and calmly, without positive or negative emotion. Nothing perhaps stands more in the way of such an attitude than the universally accepted ideas which I wish to explore in this paper. These three ideas are treated as indubitable facts about Indian philosophy. They seem so self-evident to enthusiasts and detractors alike that to question them seems to question the very concept of Indian philosophy as it has been traditionally conceived and presented by almost every writer on the subject. Yet, it seems to me that the time has come to question the traditional picture itself, to raise doubts about the indubitable, to investigate the sacrosanct and the self-evident. Myths have always masqueraded as facts and many a time the emperor's nudity has only been discovered by a child's disingenuity.
