Abstract

Many schools of Indian philosophy stress the importance of knowledge on the path to liberation, but what kind of knowledge is meant? Is it the kind of knowledge that can be had through philosophical thinking, through a path of intellectual inquiry? In this presentation I will sketch the position of Niścaldās, a late Advaita Vedāntin whose magnum opus, The Ocean of Inquiry, though not well known today, was once referred to by Vivekananda as having “more influence in India than any that has been written in any language within the last three centuries.” For Niścaldās, the central practice on the path to liberation is inquiry, an intellectual process of raising and removing doubts which, I argue, is closely related to the dialectical method employed throughout Indian philos­ophy. The practice of inquiry presupposes a high level of moral and spiritual qualifications, but once these qualifications are met, philosophical thinking itself becomes, for Niścaldās, a spiritual practice. This practice is the chief means for bridging the gap between purely theoretical awareness and a deeper, liberating knowledge.