Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 1.djvu/72

lxii pantheism of India, which is destined sooner or later to become the faith of the people. x.'

This may seem strong language, and, in some respects, too strong. But I thought it right to quote it here, because, whatever may be urged against Schopenhauer, he was a thoroughly honest thinker and honest speaker, and no one would suspect him of any predilection for what has been so readily called Indian mysticism. That Schelling and his school should use rapturous language about the Upanishads, might carry little weight with that large class of philosophers by whom everything beyond the clouds of their own horizon is labelled mysticism. But that Schopenhauer should have spoken of the Upanishads as 'products of the highest wisdom' (Ausgeburt der höchsten Weisheit), that he should have placed the pantheism there taught high above the pantheism of Bruno, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Scotus Erigena, as brought to light again at Oxford in 1681 , may perhaps secure a more considerate reception for these relics of ancient wisdom than anything that I could say in their favour.

Greater, however, than the influence exercised on the philosophical thought of modern Europe, has been the impulse which these same Upanishads have imparted to the religious life of modern India. In about the same year (1774 or 1775) when the first MS. of the Persian translation of the Upanishads was received by Anquetil Duperron, Rammohun Roy was born in India, the reformer and reviver of the ancient religion of the Brahmans. A man who in his youth could write a book 'Against the Idolatry of all Religions' and who afterwards expressed in so many exact words his 'belief in the divine authority of Christ ,' was not likely to retain anything of the sacred literature of his own religion, unless he had perceived in it the same