Advaita and Neoplatonism

A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy

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Foreword

This is a study in comparative philosophy. The systems selected for comparison are Advaita and Neoplatonism. The author of this work, Dr. J.F. Staal, came from Holland as a Government of India scholar in 1954 and worked in the University Department of Philosophy for three years, registering himself as a candidate for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The present publication constitutes the thesis which he wrote in part fulfilment of the conditions for the degree which was awarded to him.

The present study does not conform to the usual type of comparative philosophy which contents itself with comparing two or more systems as object-philosophies. Dr. Staal, as a Westerner, approaches Advaita through a comparable tradition in the West - the tradition of impersonalism - which is to be found in Neoplatonism. And, his approach, further still, is from the standpoint of existentialism cum phenomenology which is a dominant contemporary trend in that part of Europe whence he hails. The experience he gained in British and American Universities subsequent to his stay in India, he says, has somewhat changed his perspective. The pages of this work will speak eloquently to the great change which India has evidently made in his outlook.

The treatment of the metaphysics of Advaita from the phenomenological standpoint attempted here is quite interesting. It does not follow the usual sequence of topics that is almost the rule in the Advaita classics. Dr. Staal avoids what he regards as the epistemological bias of later Advaita. Although references to post-Śaṅkara writings are not absent, the main sources on which this study relies are the works of Śaṅkara. After sketching

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the principal doctrines of Advaita, Dr. Staal turns to a comparison of these with the teachings of Plotinus and his followers. Here, what he does is to select only such topics as would be helpful in an understanding of Śaṅkara's Advaita. This is a justifiable procedure because the author's principal aim is, as he observes, to study Advaita. While the similarities between the two systems are pointed out, their dissimilarities are also discussed. Dr. Staal shows that these differences result from the different traditions from which Advaita and Neoplatonism arose and to which they belong, respectively. Regarding the question of the possible influence of Indian thought on Neoplatonism, Dr. Staal contents himself with appending a note summarising the discussions of other scholars.

It is regretted that there are several printing mistakes. A list of corrections of the major ones is added at the end.

Madras, December 15, 1961

T.M.P. Mahadevan