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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s23: XXXII Is the World an Illusion?

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s23

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XXXII Is the World an Illusion?

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The doctrine of avidyā with its subjective note suggests a misleading view of the nature of the phenomenal world, that it is an illusion, a creation of the mind. Śaṃkara frequently traces the whole plurality of appearances, including that of Īśvara, to avidyā.⁴ But the nature of Brahman is not affected in any way, simply because our imperfect knowledge takes it to be so. The moon is not duplicated simply because those of defective vision see two moons. “The whole empirical reality, with its names and forms, which can be defined neither as being nor as non-being, rests upon avidyā; while in the sense of highest reality, Being persists without change or transformation. A change resting merely on words can alter nothing in the indivisibility of the real.”¹ When confronted by the difficulties of creation and the finiteness of God, Śaṁkara says: “When by the teaching of non-separateness through sentences like ‘That art thou,’ the consciousness of non-separateness is awakened, then the wanderings of the soul and the creative function of God cease; for the whole tendency of the world to division springs from false knowledge and is removed by perfect knowledge. Whence then the creation? Whence the responsibility for not having brought forth the good only? For saṁsāra, which has as its characteristics the doing of good and evil, is a misconception produced by non-discrimination of the determination caused by avidyā, and consisting in the aggregate of the instruments of activity formed by names and forms; and this misconception, even like the attachment to division and separation by birth and death, does not exist in the absolute sense.”² Again: “By that element of plurality which is the creation of avidyā characterised by name and form, which is evolved as well as non-evolved, which is not to be defined either as existing or non-existing, Brahman becomes the basis of this entire changing world, while in its true real nature it remains unchanged beyond the phenomenal universe.”³ This view, when exclusively emphasised, suggests that there is no plurality at all apart from the individual’s avidyā. All change and motion, all growth and evolution, all science and speculation, are reduced to dreams, shadows and nothing more. The explanation of Brahman’s causality of the world confirms the suspicion. In his anxiety to show that Brahman remains unaffected by the changes of the world,⁴

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¹ D.S.V., p. 302.

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² Pārthasārathi Miśra. " Atrānirvacanīyavāde nā'nupapattir dūṣaṇam."

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⁴ Ekatvam . . . pāramārthikam mithyājñānavijṛmbhitam ca nānātvam (S.B., ii. I. 14).

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¹ Cp. S.B., ii. 1. 31; ii. 1. 14; ii. 3. 46; ii. 1. 27.

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² Cp. also avidyākṛtaṁ kāryaprapañcam. The universe of effects is the product of avidyā (S.B., i. 3. 1).

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³ S.B., ii. 1. 27.

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⁴ S.B., ii. 1. 28; ii. 1. 9.

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Śaṃkara says that the world is attributed¹ to Brahman as the snake to the rope. “A man may in the dark mistake a piece of rope for a snake and run away from it, frightened and trembling. Thereon another man may tell him, ‘Be not afraid, it is only a rope, not a snake,’ and he may then dismiss the fear caused by the imagined snake and stop running. But all the while the presence and the subsequent absence of his erroneous notion as to the rope being a snake make no difference whatever to the rope itself.”² The stars do not actually twinkle, though they appear to do so. The light they project is quite steady, though the disturbances in the earth’s atmosphere through which the light passes so affect our vision as to give them a constantly flickering appearance. Even so the semblance of variableness in Brahman is a fancy occasioned by our distorted vision.³ Some of the illustrations used by Śaṃkara, when literally interpreted, suggest that all distinction and difference are but a mirage produced by human imagination. Differences are a make-believe of human thought which, like a prism, breaks up the pure unity into difference, where, in truth, the variety and the mind which knows it are both unreal. But it is a mistake to stress metaphors beyond what they are able to bear, and Śaṃkara urges that the illustrations used are intended only to suggest some points of resemblance and not perfect identity.⁴

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¹ Adhyāropitam.

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² S.B., i. 4. 6. See also S.B. on Kaṭha Up., iii. 14; iv. 11.

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³ S.B., ii. 3. 46.

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⁴ S.B., iii. 21. 17–19.

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Many later Advaitins have adopted a subjectivist interpretation of the world. Vācaspati is of opinion that avidyā belongs to the knowing subject, and, like a film over the eye, conceals the nature of the object.⁵ Madhusūdana Sarasvatī holds that ignorance is the cause of this illusory world, and, by virtue of this ignorance, we regard Brahman as its material cause.⁶ “The apparent universe has its root in the mind (citta) and does not persist when the mind (citta) is abolished.”⁷ Citsukhī, Advaitasiddhāntamuktāvali and Yogavāsiṣṭha make out a strong case for solipsism, and declare that our consciousness gives birth to the world, which sinks into non-being with the cessation of subject-object consciousness.¹

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⁵ Jīvāśrayam brahmaviṣayam. He thinks that the different forms imposed on Brahman are due to the modifications of the inner organ, and thus has to admit the existence of modifications and their objects.

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⁶ Asya daityendrajālasya yad upādānakāraṇam Ajñānaṃ tad upāśritya brahma kāraṇam ucyate. (Advaitasiddhi, p. 238).

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⁷ Cittamūlo vikalpo 'yam cittābhāve na kaścana (Vivekacūḍāmaṇi, p. 407).

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¹ See also S.S.S.S., xii. 17-19. Dṛṣṭisṛṣṭivāda, which holds that the world exists only so long as it is perceived, is upheld by Yogavāsiṣṭha. Manodṛśyam idaṁ sarvaṁ yat kiñcit sacarācaram, Manaso hy unmanībhāvāt dvaitaṁ naivopalabhyate. The whole world of movable and immovable things is the object of manas; by the suppression of it all duality ceases to be perceived. See the chapter on Jīvanmukti in Yogavāsiṣṭhasāra. Cp. also Saṁkṣepaśārīraka. "Tava cittaṁ ātmatamasā janitam parikalpayaty akhilam eva jagat." Nṛsiṁhatāpanī Up., "cid dhīdam sarvam" (ii. 1. 7). Tasmād vijñānaṁ evāsti na prapañco na saṁsṛtiḥ (Liṅga Purāṇa, quoted in S.P.B., i. 42). It is these that justify the remark of Vijñānabhikṣu: "Etenādhunikānāṁ vedāntibruvāṇām api mataṁ vijñānavādatulyayo-gakṣematayā nirastam" (S.P.B., i. 43).

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It is no wonder that the Western critics have adopted a similar view of the Advaita doctrine of the world. Edward Caird had in mind this interpretation of the world when he remarked: "The Brahman religion only rose to a pantheism which was an acosmism, to a unity which was no principle of order in the manifold differences of things, but merely a gulf in which all difference was lost."² As this view, which makes a tragic joke of life, renders meaningless many statements of Śaṁkara on the world of experience, and does violence to every canon of sound interpretation, we may here bring together certain considerations which support the phenomenal as against the illusory character of the world.

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² Evolution of Religion, vol. i, p. 263. For other similar criticisms of Western writers see Kirtikar: Studies in Vedanta, ch. ii.

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Avidyā by itself cannot be the cause of the world, since it is as dead as the pradhāna of the Sāṁkhya. Śaṁkara, who criticised the latter view, cannot be expected to support the theory of the creation of the world by avidyā. We have also to bear in mind Śaṁkara's criticism of the Buddhist chain of causation, which starts with avidyā. "Now avidyā is a mental fiction of a conscious subject. It is the first link in the twelve-linked chain of causation, which consequently must be regarded as taking for granted the aggregates of the mind and the body, without, however, showing how they come together."³ Śaṁkara rejects the theory that nothing exists, neither matter nor mind (śūnyavāda),⁴ as well as the theory that nothing exists for more moments than one (kṣaṇabhaṅgavāda).¹ The refutation of the Buddhist theory of subjectivism (vijñānavāda) is decisive on the question of the externality of the world to the thinking subject. Existence is not dependent on our mental modes: when the world is said to be of the form of knowledge (jñānasvarūpa), the metaphysical truth is described. Similarly Śaṃkara rejects all attempts to reduce waking experience to the level of dreams.² He does not admit that the world is a product of mere avidyā. Avidyā in Śaṃkara is not a mere subjective force, but has an objective reality.³ It is the cause of the whole material world (pṛthivyādiprapañca) which is common to all (sarvasādhāraṇa). Avidyā is positive in character, an objective force, beginningless⁴ and existing both in a gross and subtle form.⁵ Practically avidyā, māyā and prakṛti are identified.⁶

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³ S.B., ii. 2. 19.

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⁴ S.B., ii. 2. 31.

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¹ S.B., ii. 2. 18–21 and 26.

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² Later Advaitins write as if there were no distinction between the two. Svayamprakāśa, in his commentary on Lakṣmīdhara’s Advaitamakaranda, says: “As the world of dreams in me is projected by illusion, so is the waking world in me projected by illusion.” See Pandit, October 1873, p. 128.

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³ A famous verse quoted in Siddhāntaratnamālā urges that “the soul, God, pure consciousness, the distinctness of the first two, avidyā and its connection with pure consciousness—these our six are said to be without beginning.”

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⁴ Anādibhāvarūpam yad vijñānena vilīyate

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⁵ Ātmany avidyā sānādiḥ sthūlasūkṣmātmanā sthitā (S.S.S., xii. 19).

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⁶ Cp. Lokācārya : Tattvatraya, p. 48, Chowkamba ed.

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Śaṃkara argues that the supreme reality of Brahman is the basis of the world. If Brahman were absolutely different from the world, if the Ātman were absolutely different from the states of waking, dreaming and sleeping, then the repudiation of the reality of the world or the three states cannot lead us to the attainment of truth. We shall then have to embrace nihilism and treat all teaching as purposeless.⁷ The illusory snake does not spring out of nothing, nor does it pass into nothing when the illusion is corrected. The root

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⁷ Yadi hi tryavasthātmavilakṣaṇaṃ turīyam anyat, tatpratipattidvārābhāvāt śāstropadeśānarthakyam śūnyatāpattir vā (S.B. on Māṇḍ. Up., ii. 7).

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Jīva īśo viśuddhā cit vibhāgaś ca tayor dvayoḥ
Avidyā taccitor yogaḥ ṣaḍ asmākam anādayaḥ.

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Tad ajñānam iti prājñā lakṣaṇam sampracakṣate.
(Citsukhī, i. 13).

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of the illusion is logical and psychological, and not metaphysical. The pluralistic universe is an error of judgment. Correction of the error means change of opinion. The rope appears as a snake, and when the illusion is over, the snake returns to the rope. So does the world of experience become transfigured in the intuition of Brahman. The world is not so much negated as reinterpreted. The conception of jīvanmukti, the idea of kramamukti, the distinction of values, of truth and error, of virtue and vice, the possibility of attaining mokṣa through the world of experience, imply that there is Reality in appearances; Brahman is in the world, though not as the world. If the world of experience were illusory and unrelated to Brahman, love, wisdom and asceticism could not prepare us for the higher life. In so far as Śaṁkara allows that we can realise the Absolute through the practice of virtue, he allows a significance to it. Unreal the world is, illusory it is not. The jīva is not a mere nonentity, for release is effected through the sublation only of the false self which is opposed to the nature of Ātman. As Vidyāraṇya says: "If the entire individual self were annihilated, release would not be beneficial to men."

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If there were not a Brahman, then we could have neither empirical being nor illusion. As Śaṁkara says: "A barren woman cannot be said to give birth to a child either in reality or in illusion."¹ If the world be regarded as baseless, as not rooted in any reality, as having its origin in non-being, then we shall have to repudiate all reality, even that of Brahman.² The world has the real for its basis (āspadam), for "not even the mirage can exist without a basis."³ That kind of dream which God creates, and of which God is the substance, is no dream at all.⁴ If we are able to penetrate the real through this world, it is because the world of appearance bears within it traces of the eternal. If the two are opposed, it will be difficult to regard them even in the relation of the real and the apparent. The world is not the Absolute, though based on it. What is based on the real, and is not the real itself, can only be called the appearance or phenomenon of the real. While the world is not the essential truth of Brahman, it is its phenomenal truth, the manner in which we are compelled to regard the real as it presents itself within our finite experience. But all this does not touch the question of the practical reality of the world.¹

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¹ S.B. on Gauḍapāda's Kārikā, i. 6.

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² Yad ihāsatām eva janma syāt brahmaṇo 'satvaprasaṅgaḥ.

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³ Na hi mṛgatṛṣṇikādayo 'pi nirāspadā bhavanti (S.B.G., xiii. 14). See also S.B. on Chān. Up., vi. 2. 3; Māṇḍūkya Up., i. 7.

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⁴ In later Advaita, the comparison of the world to a dream has been stretched to the breaking-point. Advaitamakaranda says: "In this protracted dream which the world is, projected in that great sleep of ignorance regarding the self, flash forth the glimpses of paradise, emancipation and so forth." Ātmājñānamahānidrā jṛmbhite 'smiñ jaganmaye Dīrghasvapne sphuranty ete svargamokṣādivibhramāḥ (18).

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¹ What Berkeley says in another connection holds good of Śaṃkara. "What therefore becomes of the sun, moon and stars? What must we think of houses, rivers, mountains, trees, stones, nay, even of our own bodies? Are all these but so many chimeras and illusions of the fancy? . . . I answer, that by the principles premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force" (*Principles of Human Knowledge*, p. 34).

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Śaṃkara’s views on mokṣa confirm this view of the world. He urges that mokṣa does not mean the disappearance of the world, since then the world should have disappeared when the first case of mokṣa occurred. If mokṣa should involve the annihilation of plurality, the right way to go about realising it is not to displace avidyā by vidyā but to destroy the world.² Śaṃkara distinguishes jīvanmukti, or the state of release, while one is alive, from videhamukti, or the release obtained when the liberated shakes off his body. The presence of the body makes no difference to the state of release, which is in essence one of freedom from worldly bonds. The state of release consists not in the persistence or annihilation of plurality, but in the incapacity of the pluralistic universe to mislead us. For the jīvanmukti obviously the world of plurality, including his own body, does not perish; only he has the right perspective regarding it. In the state of release the world of plurality does not disappear, but is lit up by another light. There is no more the blindness born of desire, which sets and keeps the unhappy victims hunting in vain for what is not to be found in the chain of saṃsāra. The false ideas of the independence of selves and objects and their activities are undermined when the truth of the oneness of self with Brahman is realised.¹ Avidyā is not so much imagination as failure to discriminate (aviveka) between reality and appearance. Śaṁkara does not dispute the obvious fact that we seem to ourselves to be knowing, feeling, willing individuals, but denies the theory founded on these facts that the finite selves are real subjects being actually what they purport to be. The real accepts the phenomenal. Appearances belong to reality. This is the truth suggested by the hypothesis of ananyatva or non-difference, advocated by the Advaita. Rāmānuja criticises it thus: "Those, however, who maintain the non-difference of an effect from its cause, on the ground that the effect is unreal, cannot establish the non-difference they seek to make out, for there can be no identity between what is true and what is false. If it were as they maintain, either Brahman would be unreal or the world would be real."² The Advaitin does not maintain that Brahman devoid of all changes is, as such, one with the changing world. Nor does he suggest that the Brahman which sustains the changing world is as unreal as the latter. He holds that the phenomenal world is unreal, *i.e.* has no real existence apart from Brahman. The non-difference (ananyatva) is interpreted by Śaṁkara to be non-existence, as something different from its cause.³ Vācaspati makes the meaning clear by making out in his *Bhāmatī* that non-difference does not affirm identity, but only denies difference.⁴ Discussing the question of causality and its metaphysical truth of identity, Śaṁkara says that the effect is identical with the cause, and not the cause with the effect.⁵ While Monism (ekatvam) may swallow up all distinctions and differences, in Advaitism (non-dualism) the gulf between the relative and the absolute is bridged over in a comprehensive affirmation. Śaṃkara’s interpretation of the Upaniṣad passage, that the modifications of clay have for their reality clay, enforces the truth that the world is substantially Brahman and depends on it. Whenever he denies the reality of effects he qualifies his denial by some such phrase as “different from Brahman” or “different from the cause.”¹ Nowhere does he say that our life is literally a dream and our knowledge a phantasm.

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² S.B., iii 2. 21.

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¹ Brahmātmadarśinam prati, samastasya kriyākārakaphalalakṣaṇasya vyavahārasyābhāvam (S.B., ii. i. 14).

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² R.B.,i . i. 19.

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³ Tadvyatirekeṇābhāvaḥ (S.B., ii. i. 14).

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⁴ Na khalv ananyatvam ity abhedam brūmaḥ kiṁ tu bhedaṁ vyāsedhāma (*Bhāmatī*). In the same spirit the Ṭīkākāra says: "The world is not identical with Brahman, only it has no separate being apart from or independent of its underlying cause." "Kāraṇāt pṛthak sattāśūnyatvaṁ sādhyate, na tv aikyābhiprāyeṇa."

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⁵ S.B., ii. i. 7.

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¹ Brahmavyatirekeṇa or Kāraṇavyatirekeṇa (S.B., ii. 2. 3, and Gauḍapāda’s Kārikā, i. 6).

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Since Śaṃkara repudiates the conception of a concrete universal as the ultimate category, it is thought that he dismisses the world as meaningless. Śaṃkara’s Brahman, which has no other, nothing independent of it, seems to be an abstract unity, a sort of lion’s den where all that enters is lost. Śaṃkara holds that we cannot construe the relation between Brahman and the world in any logical way, but he is as insistent as any advocate of the theory of the concrete universal that nothing is real apart from the ultimate reality. Though the world and Brahman are not regarded as complementary elements in a whole, they are not set in absolute antagonism. And yet great scholars have rushed to this conclusion.² Śaṃkara’s view that the problem of the relation of reality and appearance remains for us finite souls a riddle, is the result of greater maturity of thought. We need not condemn human wisdom as illusory if it is unable to lift the veil which covers all ultimate beginnings.

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² Deussen’s interpretation is well known. Max Müller observes: “It must be clear to everyone who has once mastered the framework of the true Vedānta philosophy as I have here tried to explain it, that there is really but little room in it for psychology or cosmology nay, even for ethics” (S.S.P., p. 170).

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The question is, are the appearances beyond which we have to penetrate to the truly real, actual states of the real, though possessing only a derivative and secondary sort of being, or are they simply the ideas with which the finite mind of man conceives the true reality in accordance with its own nature? In other words, is relative being a true modification of the original reality, or is it a distortion of the genuine being by the finite understanding of man? The former is the view of Rāmānuja, which is akin to the theory of Hegel, who regards the relative world as a real self-expression of the Absolute. One view of Spinoza’s philosophy admits the position.¹ The latter view is represented by the Yogācāra Buddhists, who, like Kant and more thoroughly Schopenhauer, regard the empirical world as a subjective appearance in consciousness, shaped according to the categories of space, time and causality among others. There are some passages in Śaṁkara which lead us to think that he tended to regard the world as a mere human presentation of the genuinely real, and others where he is inclined to make the world of experience objective and independent of the finite individual. To understand Śaṁkara’s position, we should consider the relation of avidyā to māyā.

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¹ Pandit Kokileśvar Śāstri attributes a similar view to Śaṁkara. See his *Advaita Philosophy*.

Cites (9)