56 The Religion of the Veda

present themselves, one after another, and one be- side another, thcre is manifested one and the same true being. Therefore the Upnnishads are in his eyes the fruit of the profoundest insi[.;ht that the world has ever seen; almost supc.-1'l1um:u1 thought, whose authors can scnrcely be iinagined to have been mere men.

Schopenhauer unquestionably caught with lynx- like perspicacity, through the murky medium of the Oupnekhat, the spirit of the Upanisl1zuli=, which are now before us in many editions of their Samkrit originals. It is what is known in philosophy as monism——the most uncompromising, periervid monism that the world has ever seen. Nor is his estimate of the religious or philosophical quality of the Upanishads to be brushed aside lightly. Pro- fessor Deussen, one of the profoundest living students of Hindu philosophy, himself a trained philosopher, does not fall far behind Schopen-

‘ hauer when he says that the thought of the

Upanishads has not its equal in India nor per- haps anywhere else in the world; that to these thinkers came, if not the most scientific, yet the most intimate and immediate insight into the ultimate mystery of being. This is not far behind Schopc-:nhauer's estimate; both estimates reflect pretty nearly the position of the Hindus