A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s3.t1: (a) The Doctrine of Nonduality and Illusion

A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s3.t1

Language: English

(a) The Doctrine of Nonduality and Illusion

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Of these interpretations the most interesting is that which holds that all reality, as we know it, is a mere illusion. This view is preserved for us in a definite shape in the *Gauḍapādīya Kārikās*,³ 215 memorial verses written by Gauḍapāda, whom tradition makes out to be the teacher of Govinda, teacher of Çaṅkara, and therefore of *c.* 700 A.D. There is no doubt that this work, of which the first part deals with the short *Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad*, is strongly influenced by the nihilistic school of Buddhism. It shares with it a rich store of metaphors and similes, designed to make plausible the doctrine of illusion, such as the phenomena of dreams, the Fata Morgana, the rope mistaken in the dark for a stick, nacre mistaken for silver, the reflection in the mirror. In its last section, the Alātaçānti, it adds the brilliant picture of the circle of sparks which a boy makes when he swings a torch without altering the glowing end of the torch, giving a parallel to the manifestation of unreal phenomena from the real absolute. The idea is found in the Buddhist *Laṅkāvatāra* and the *Maitrāyaṇīya Upaniṣad*, but we need not accept the theory that in this doctrine of illusion we have a borrowing from the Buddhists. The idea is suggested strongly in certain passages of the Upaniṣads; it was probably developed by an Aupaniṣada school, affected the growth of Buddhism, and in turn was affected by the brilliant if rather wasted dialectic of Nāgārjuna. Gauḍapāda's existence has indeed been questioned and his Kārikās made out to be those of north-west Bengal (Gauḍapāda), the work being placed before the Sūtra, but this is clearly untenable.¹

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³ Ed. ĀnSS. 10, 1911; trans. P. Deussen, *Sechzig Upanishad's des Veda*, pp. 537ff. Cp. Vidhusekhara Bhattacarya, IHQ. i. 119 ff., 295 ff., who contends that the *Upaniṣad is based on the Kārikās*. For the school see M. Sarkar, *System of Vedantic Thought and Culture*; Hiriyanna, POCM. 1924, pp. 439 ff., on Bhartṛ-Prapañca.

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¹ M. Walleser, *Der ältere Vedānta* (1910).

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The full defence and exposition of the illusion theory with its insistence on Advaita, absence of any duality, is due to Çaṅkara, who may have been born in 788 and may have died or become a Sannyāsin in 820, and who, at any rate, worked *c.* A. D. 800. The biographies alleged, absurdly, to be by Ānandagiri, his pupil, the *Çaṅkaravijaya*,² and Mādhava's *Çaṅkaradigvijaya*³ are worthless, and many works attributed to him are probably not his. But many commentaries on the Upaniṣads, one on the *Bhagavadgītā*,⁴ and the *Bhāṣya*⁵ on the *Brahma Sūtra* are genuine, nor need we doubt the ascription of the *Upadeçasāhasrī*,⁶ three chapters in prose and nineteen in verse, or various shorter works, including lyrics of considerable power and the *Ātmabodha*⁷ in sixty-seven stanzas with commentary. Philosophically, Çañkara is remarkably ingenious in his key to the Upaniṣads, the finding of a higher and a lower knowledge, which similarly allows him to conform to the whole apparatus of Hindu belief on the lower plane, while on the higher he finds no true reality in anything; his logic, it has well been said, starts by denying the truth of the proposition A is either B or not B. His dialectical skill is very great, and, though he doubtless misrepresents Bādarāyaṇa, he does more justice to the Upaniṣads in so far at least as they seem to consider that at death the soul when released is merged in the absolute and does not continue to be distinct from it. In style Çañkara's *Bhāṣya* is unquestionably far advanced from the dialogue tone of the *Mahābhāṣya* or the *Bhāṣyas* of Vātsyāyana or Çabarasvāmin. It has taken on the style of a lecture, with longer sentences, longer and more compounds, more involved constructions, fewer verbal and more nominal forms. But it is still far removed from the formalism of the later philosophical texts, and the author is not unwilling to show his command over the more difficult and unusual grammatical usages.

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² Ed. BI. 1864-8.

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³ Ed. ĀnSS. 22.

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⁴ B. Faddegon, *Çamkara's Gītābhāṣya* (1906).

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⁵ Ed. ĀnSS. 21; trans. G. Thibaut, SBE. xxxiv and xxxviii; cf. Kokileswar Sastri, *Advaita Philosophy* (1924); ii. 1 and 2 ed. and trans. Belvalkar, Poona, 1923.

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⁶ Ed. *Pandit*, iii-v.

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⁷ Ed. Hall, Mirzapore, 1852.

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Çañkara is credited with the authorship of the text or a comment on the *Hastāmalaka*¹ which in fourteen verses plays on the refrain which asserts that the self as the form of eternal apprehension is all in all. To pupils of his are attributed expositions of his system; thus Padmapāda wrote the *Pañcapādikā*² on the first five books, and was commented on by Prakāçātman; Sureçvara wrote in prose and memorial verses the *Naiṣkarmyasiddhi*³ to prove that knowledge alone achieves release, and a paraphrase, the *Mānasollāsa*,⁴ of the *Dakṣiṇāmūrtistotra* of his master. His pupil Sarvajñātman wrote the *Saṁkṣepaçārīraka*,⁵ a summary of the *Bhāṣya*, while *c.* 850 Vācaspati Miçra wrote the *Bhāmatī*,⁶ which is invaluable for its knowledge of Buddhist views *inter alia*. Mādhava again in his *Pañcadaçī*,⁷ written in part with Bhāratītīrtha, and *Jīvanmuktiviveka*⁸ definitely supports Çaṅkara's views. From a different standpoint Çrīharṣa, the poet, in his *Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya*,¹ sought, by proving all other views to be contradictory, to establish that all knowledge is vain and that the doctrine of Çaṅkara is therefore unassailable. Other treatises are innumerable, especially in the later Middle Ages, but the *Vedāntasāra*² of Sadānanda (*c.* 1500) is of importance because it shows the elaborate confusion of Sāṁkhya tenets with the Vedānta to form a complex and ingenious but quite unphilosophical whole. The *Vedāntaparibhāṣā*³ of Dharmarāja is well known as a manual of the modern school.