पृष्ठम्:तैत्तिरीयोपनिषद्भाष्यम्.djvu/१०

excellent so far as they go. Shri Shankar misunderstood is repellent; and partial understanding does not , merely because partial, lead one to adopt an attitude of mind the very reverse of what Shri Shankar intended. Dualistic philosophers, on the other hand, are still more difficult to understand, because of their want of consistency and logicbut misunderstanding is and unfortunately , quite easy most attractive. A person has only to assent to the platitude that there are two sides of every question as there are to a railway: station to be delighted to find he is a philosopher and a very broad minded scholar. If We wish to understand Shri Shankar's philo. sophy we must go straight to the fountain-head, think out, and ponder over all he has so say, and never to turn aside or be infu. enced by criticism from however exalted a quarter it may come, until we have formed our opinion on the meaning and contents of the work by original study. Criticisms come afterwards, and the more of them the better, especially if they proceed from all points of the intellectual compass. We should keep an open mind and let them confirm, modify, or reverse our opinion as the case may be. But we must read the original first. The majority of the people, if they read at all especially such works as Shi Shankar's, read the criticisms first, form their faith second-hand, and never really reach the point of original perusal. Those that study the Vedanta with the mere idea of criticising its teachingsonly look at the apparent superficial discrepancies that they meet at the outset, and condemn the whole system. From then the truths of Vedanta will ever remain hidden; for, they only see in it what they only wish to see, and hence make no progress in understanding the deeper truths . It is only such persons that criticise the Vedanta so freely; and, generally speaking, the greater the ignorance of the subject the louder and more incisive is the criticism. These critical sciolists go to the fountain-head of wisdombut without drinking of it, pick up only the pebbles and stones scattered near it. The perverse misrepresentations of controversialists have been such as would drive an advocate to despair, unless he were inspired