H. P. Blavatsky's early reception of Hindu Philosophy

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is generally recognized as one of the major popularizers of Eastern philosophy in the West, yet not much detailed work on her specific use and knowledge of Hindu philosophy exists. This chapter explores the way the notion of the “six schools of Hindu philosophy” was used and received in Blavatsky’s early work, such as Isis Unveiled (1877) and during her time in India before the publication of The Secret Doctrine (1888). It shows how Blavatsky’s work was a part of the Oriental Renaissance in the sense that the East, here the notion of the six schools of Hindu philosophy, clearly became a part of her esoteric tradition, but also that Hindu philosophy ultimately became just one aspect to be integrated into the syncretistic project of Theosophy, which in many respects framed the continued Oriental Renaissance in the West.