ABSTRACT
This chapter first sets out to explain why Humboldt’s praise of the Bhagavad Gītā elicited a negative rejoinder from Hegel. Hegel had already developed a conception of human history and the history of philosophy that excluded non-Western traditions. Hegel therefore had his own reasons to discredit the Bhagavad Gītā and to discount Indian systems of thought as forms of genuine philosophy. The chapter then goes on to explore a late reply to Hegel from Schelling, who worked to vindicate the Bhagavad Gītā and its doctrine of divine immanence. This discussion returns to the worry introduced in Chapters 1 and 2, that Indian pantheism is ultimately nihilistic. Schelling argued that it is not, on the grounds that everything is freely created by God.
