Engagement with sanskrit philosophic texts

Abstract

This chapter has two parts, first a pedagogical complaint that will serve to introduce part two which concerns indological and philosophical hermeneutics. The first part is focused on a particular problem with English translations that do not acknowledge how the Sanskrit texts have been understood by Sanskrit commentators and others in the classical culture. The second part presents a general characterization of the methods of indology and of philosophy, and shows how in one sense, not appreciated by some within indology, philosophic engagement trumps context and placement of a work within a stream of intellectual history.