A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s3.t1.1

c33.s3.t1.1

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