Schopenhauer on Self, World and Morality: Vedantic and Non-Vedantic Perspectives

One could imagine that Arthur Schopenhauer would have been charmed by witnessing the Director of the Indian Division of the Schopenhauer Society, the indefatigable Dr. Arati Barua, placing a garland on his photograph as students chanted sloka s from the Upanishads in Sanskrit, all in recognition of the anniversary of Schopenhauer’s 227th birthday. Yet, it is easier to suppose that the cosmopolitan Schopenhauer would have found the context in which these events occurred to be of even greater significance, because it took place in an international conference the theme of which was, “Self, World and Morality: Schopenhauer and Indian Philosophy with a Special Reference to the Upanishads,” held 23–25 February 2015, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, organized by Indian Division of Schopenhauer Society (IDSS). This supposition is straightforward for the obvious reasons. It is well-known that in the Preface to the first edition of his principal work The World as Will and Representation , Schopenhauer made it clear that the Vedas, made accessible through the Upanishads, played a crucial role for the understanding of his philosophy. In the Preface, he also mentions that a good reader would know Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, a better reader would also be familiar with Plato, and the best reader was one reader who was also blessed by the “ancient Indian wisdom” found in the Vedas. This Kant-Plato-Vedas - informed reader, Schopenhauer claimed, would be in “the very best position to hear what I have to say”. In December 1818, when his principal work first appeared, one might wonder whether any of Schopenhauer’s first readers stood in the “best position” to hear him.