Ironically, the anti-conceptual monism that modern Indians and Westerners
alike tend to regard as the perennial philosophy of India came to dominate
because of a recent turn in a long series of intellectual conflicts. The Muslim
and European conquests, which put Hinduism into a philosophical united front
for the first time in its long history, illustrate a deeper, more truly perennial
process: the creative episodes of division and alliance inside intellectual space,
each episode set off by the clashing of external political forces around its
organizational base.
External and Internal Politics: India • 271