Regarding the Upanishads.- Conflicting logic of tenured Indologists.

[Madhav Deshpande]

        S. Subrahmanya's recent response assumes that the modern
historical scholarship is monolothic.  For those who keep in touch with
it, this is far from the truth.
        Secondarily, while the classical authors are ahistorical in their
approach, is no reason for us to disregard history of thought.  We can do
so only in deliberate ignorance.
        The problem with post-Vivekananda spirituality is that it
deliberately ignores the serious differences on all core issues between
the major schools of Vedanta and other systems of Indian thought.  While
Raamaanuja felt no shame in authoring his Zataduu.sa.nii "hundred faults
with the doctrine of Maayaavaada", a modern visiting Swamy blandly told me
that all schools of Vedanta teach the same thing and that there was no
more any reason to study the differences between these schools.  If such
spiritual orientation is to guide the academic study of Sanskrit, we may
as well close down the universities and join the Swamis in their anything
goes movements.
                                        Madhav Deshpande