Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines

...respects, as we shall have to explain in its proper place in a more precise manner.

To stick here to what concerns the Orientalists: Western scholars who study the languages, history, and cultures of the East, often from a purely academic or "outsider" perspective whom one might call "official," we will further point out, as a preliminary observation, one of the abuses most frequently arising from the use of this "historical method" original: "méthode historique"; a scholarly approach that analyzes ideas strictly as products of their time, often ignoring their eternal or metaphysical validity. to which we have already alluded: it is the error which consists in studying Eastern civilizations as one would study civilizations that have long since disappeared. In the latter case, it is obvious that one is forced, for lack of anything better, to settle for approximate reconstructions, without ever being sure of a perfect match with what actually existed in the past, since there is no way to perform direct verification. But it is forgotten that Eastern civilizations—at least those which interest us at present—have continued down to our own day without interruption, and that they still have authorized representatives Traditional masters or scholars who possess an unbroken chain of oral and written transmission. whose opinion is worth incomparably more for their understanding than all the scholarship in the world. However, to think of consulting them, one would have to avoid starting from that singular principle that one knows better than they do what to think about the true meaning of their own concepts.

On the other hand, it must also be said that Easterners, having—and rightly so—a rather unfavorable idea of European intellectuality, care very little about what Westerners, in a general way, may or may not think of them. Thus, they do not seek in any way to disabuse them; on the contrary, through a somewhat disdainful politeness, they withdraw into a silence that Western vanity easily mistakes for approval. This is because "proselytism" proselytism: the act of attempting to convert others to one's own beliefs or point of view. is totally unknown in the East, where it would be, moreover, without purpose and could only be regarded as a proof of pure and simple ignorance and incomprehension; what we shall say later will show the reasons for this. Regarding this silence for which some reproach Easterners, and which is yet so legitimate, there can only be rare exceptions in favor of some isolated individual presenting the required qualifications and the desired intellectual aptitudes. As for those who abandon their reserve outside of this specific case, one can only say one thing: it is that they generally represent rather uninteresting elements, and that, for one reason or another, they expose only deformed doctrines under the pretext of adapting them to the West; we shall have the opportunity to say a few words about this. What we wish to make understood for the moment, and what we have indicated