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RELEASE AND PROGRESS
mokşa, we may well ask whether we have any qualifications at all for the understanding of that remote doctrine-fixed as we are to our pursuit of artha, kāma, and dharma, and feeling fully satisfied to be this way.
And so here we hit upon another of the fundamental differences between the philosophies of the modern West and the traditional East. Viewed from the standpoints of the Hindu and Buddhist disciplines, our purcly intellectual approach to all theoretical matters that are not directly concerned with the trivarga would seem dilettante and superficial. Through the course of its evolution during comparatively modern times, Western thought has become completely exoteric. It is supposed to be open to the approach and accredited investigation of every intellectual who can meet the general requirements of a) a basic education, and b) some specialized intellectual training to enable him to keep up with the argument. But this was not the way in Plato's ancient time. Mndeis åyewuÉTONtos cioitw turv OTÉYTV: "Nobody untrained in mathematics may cross this my threshold." 25 Plato is said to have inscribed this warning above his door in homage to Pythagoras and the contemporary revolutionary mathematicians of Sicily-such men as Archytas of Tarentum; whereas in modern times, a high-school education and four years of college are supposed to open an access to the sanctum sanctorum of ultimate Truth. India, in this respect, is where Plato was; and that is another of the reasons why the professors of the European and American universities were justified in refusing to admit Indian thought to their temple of "philosophy."
26 Tzetzes, Chiliades 8. 973.
