An isolated, aggressive and pessimistic person, Schopenhauer was one of the greatest philosophers of the 19th century. His cynicism, much of which was rooted in the manner he was raised, taught him an early lesson that individual will is nothing but a whim. He even believed that the world does not exist and was just a figment of one’s imagination. For him the world and the existence of human beings were absurd, rife with mundane activities, desires and conflicts which neither render anything, nor serve any purpose. He wished to rise above all these, to lead a life devoid of worldly desires and bereft of any relationships. He chose a lonely life for himself, trying to understand the humiliation of existence and how it could be mitigated. He immersed himself exploring Buddhism and Indology and was particularly charmed by the ‘Upanishads’ (philosophical texts) which he described as “the production of the highest human wisdom”. Calling the Sanskrit literature as "the greatest gift of our century", he studied it deeply and incorporated it in his masterpiece ‘The World as Will and Representation.’ Thus, the ‘Upanishads’ and other eastern philosophical texts gave him purpose and a higher level of discernment of life, so much so that, he once said “It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death!”.