Description
ABOUT THE BOOK : In this fourteenth-century text ‘A Compendium of all the Philosophical Systems’ (of India) the author reviews the sixteen philosoiphical systems current in India and gives the principal arguments by which their followers endeavour to maintain them. In the course of his sketches he frequently explains at some length obscure details in the different systems. The systems are arranged from the Advaita-point of view. They form a gradually ascending scale-the first, the Charvaka and Bauddha, being the lowest as the farthest removed from Advaita, and the last Sankhya and Yoga being the highest as approaching most nearly to it.
The present translation was orgianally published serially in the Banaras Pandit between 1874 and 1878 and was carefully, revised and republished in book form later and a second edition was printed in 1894.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR : Professor Edward Byles Cowell was the first professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge University, Born in Ipswich, he became interested in Oriental languages at the ages of fifteen, when he found a copy of Sir William Jones’s works in the public library. He was the principal of a Sanskrit College from 1858 to 1864 in Calcutta. He returned to England to take up an appointment as the first professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge. He was made an honorary member of German Oriental Society (DMG) in 1895, was awarded the Royal Asiatic Society’s first gold medal in 1898.