Pilate's poser and Tennyson's flower

It is not difficult to discern derivations from the Theosophical literature in the system-building of Sri Aurobindo. But in the “Papers on Theosophy” [CWSA Vol. 12] he has been unsparing in his criticism of the movement and its methods. The series could well have taken off to become another The Life Divine, as the chapter captioned ‘Sat’ takes up the Pilate's poser to arrive at the Vedantic affirmations. It also dwells in between on the ‘intellectual history of the European continent.’

While privileging the epistemological preference for the fundamental over the particular, he takes a dig at the inductive approach by citing a Tennysonian line. He also values an intense and enthusiastic religious approach than the high philosophic or a dry scientific. In volume after volume one senses the theme that Buddhism is anathema. In The essays on the Gita, the nihilistic Buddhist philosophy is deprecated in the manner Kant rebutted Hume. Of course, Buddhism, as it is practiced today, is altogether a different concoction.