Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s8.41

v2.c26.s8.41

Gauḍapāda’s work bears traces of Buddhist influence,¹ especially of the Vijñānavāda and the Mādhyamika schools. Gauḍapāda uses the very same arguments as the Vijñānavādins do to prove the unreality of the external objects of perception. Both Bādarāyaṇa and Śaṃkara strongly urge that there is a genuine difference between dream impressions and waking ones,² and that the latter are not independent of existing objects. Gauḍapāda, however, links the two, waking and dreaming, experiences together.³ While Śaṃkara is anxious to free his system from the subjectivism associated with vijñānavāda, Gauḍapāda welcomes it.⁴ Unwilling to accept the vijñānavāda as final, he declares that even the subject is as unreal as the object, and thus comes perilously near the nihilist position. In common with Nāgārjuna, he denies the validity of causation ⁵ and the possibility of change. “There is no destruction, no creation, none in bondage, none endeavouring (for release), none desirous of liberation, none liberated; this is the absolute truth.”⁶ The empirical world is traced to avidyā or, in Nāgārjuna’s phrase, saṃvṛti. “From a magical seed is born a magical sprout; this sprout is neither permanent nor perishing. Such are things and for the same reason.”⁷ The highest state beyond the distinctions of knowledge cannot be characterised by the predicates of existence, non-existence, both or neither. Gauḍapāda and Nāgārjuna regard it as something which transcends the phenomenal.⁸ In addition to these points of doctrine, there are affinities in phraseology which point unmistakably to the influence of Buddhism. The use of the word “dharma” for a thing or entity, “ saṃvṛti ” for relative knowledge, and “ saṃghāta ” for objective existence, is peculiarly Buddhistic.¹ The simile of the firebrand circle is often used in Buddhist writings as a symbol for unreality.²