A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s3.t1.4

c33.s3.t1.4

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.