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he considered that he had nothing more to do. He was not writing a philosophy in the modern sense of the term, but giving us the whole truth as taught and revealed in the Upani@sads and not simply a system spun by a clever thinker, which may erroneously appear to be quite reasonable, Ultimate validity does not belong to reason but to the scriptures.

He started with the premise that whatever may be the reason it is a fact that all experience starts and moves in an error which identifies the self with the body, the senses, or the objects of the senses. All cognitive acts presuppose this illusory identification, for without it the pure self can never behave as a phenomenal knower or perceiver, and without such a perceiver there would be no cognitive act. S'a@nkara does not try to prove philosophically the existence of the pure self as distinct from all other things, for he is satisfied in showing that the Upani@sads describe the pure self unattached to any kind of impurity as the ultimate truth. This with him is a matter to which no exception can be taken, for it is so revealed in the Upani@sads. This point being granted, the next point is that our experience is always based upon an identification of the self with the body, the senses, etc. and the imposition of all phenomenal qualities of pleasure, pain, etc. upon the self; and this with S'a@nkara is a beginningless illusion. All this had been said by Gau@dapâda. S'a@nkara accepted Gau@dapâda's conclusions, but did not develop his dialectic for a positive proof of his thesis. He made use of the dialectic only for the refutation of other systems of thought. This being done he thought that he had nothing more to do than to show that his idea was in agreement with the teachings of the Upani@sads. He showed that the Upani@sads held that the pure self as pure being, pure intelligence and pure bliss was the ultimate truth. This being accepted the world as it appears could not be real. It must be a mere magic show of illusion or mâyâ. S'a@nkara never tries to prove that the world is mâyâ, but accepts it as indisputable. For, if the self is what is ultimately real, the necessary conclusion is that all else is mere illusion or mâyâ. He had thus to quarrel on one side with the Mîmâ@msâ realists and on the other with the Sâ@mkhya realists, both of whom accepted the validity of the scriptures, but interpreted them in their own way. The Mîmâ@msists held that everything that is said in the Vedas is to be interpreted as requiring us to perform particular kinds of action,

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or to desist from doing certain other kinds. This would mean that the Upani@sads being a part of the Veda should also be interpreted as containing injunctions for the performance of certain kinds of actions. The description of Brahman in the Upani@sads does not therefore represent a simple statement of the nature of Brahman, but it implies that the Brahman should be meditated upon as possessing the particular nature described there, i.e. Brahman should be meditated upon as being an entity which possesses a nature which is identical with our self; such a procedure would then lead to beneficial results to the man who so meditates. S'a@nkara could not agree to such a view. For his main point was that the Upani@sads revealed the highest truth as the Brahman. No meditation or worship or action of any kind was required; but one reached absolute wisdom and emancipation when the truth dawned on him that the Brahman or self was the ultimate reality. The teachings of the other parts of the Vedas, the karmakâ@n@da (those dealing with the injunctions relating to the performance of duties and actions), were intended for inferior types of aspirants, whereas the teachings of the Upani@sads, the jñânakâ@n@da (those which declare the nature of ultimate truth and reality), were intended only for superior aspirants who had transcended the limits of sacrificial duties and actions, and who had no desire for any earthly blessing or for any heavenly joy. Throughout his commentary on the _Bhagavadgîtâ_ S'a@nkara tried to demonstrate that those who should follow the injunctions of the Veda and perform Vedic deeds, such as sacrifices, etc., belonged to a lower order. So long as they remained in that order they had no right to follow the higher teachings of the Upani@sads. They were but karmins (performers of scriptural duties). When they succeeded in purging their minds of all desires which led them to the performance of the Vedic injunctions, the field of karmamârga (the path of duties), and wanted to know the truth alone, they entered the jñânamârga (the way of wisdom) and had no duties to perform. The study of Vedânta was thus reserved for advanced persons who were no longer inclined to the ordinary joys of life but wanted complete emancipation. The qualifications necessary for a man intending to study the Vedânta are (1) discerning knowledge about what is eternal and what is transitory (_nityânityavastuviveka_), (2) disinclination to the enjoyment of the pleasures of this world or of

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the after world (_ihâmutraphalabhogavirâga_), (3) attainment of peace, self-restraint, renunciation, patience, deep concentration and faith (_s'amadamâdisâdhanasampat_) and desire for salvation (_mumuk@sutva_). The person who had these qualifications should study the Upani@sads, and as soon as he became convinced of the truth about the identity of the self and the Brahman he attained emancipation. When once a man realized that the self alone was the reality and all else was mâyâ, all injunctions ceased to have any force with him. Thus, the path of duties (_karma_) and the path of wisdom (_jñâna_) were intended for different classes of persons or adhikârins. There could be no joint performance of Vedic duties and the seeking of the highest truth as taught in the Upani@sads (_jñâna-karma-samuccayâbhâva@h_). As against the dualists he tried to show that the Upani@sads never favoured any kind of dualistic interpretations. The main difference between the Vedânta as expounded by Gau@dapâda and as explained by S'a@nkara consists in this, that S'a@nkara tried as best he could to dissociate the distinctive Buddhist traits found in the exposition of the former and to formulate the philosophy as a direct interpretation of the older Upani@sad texts. In this he achieved remarkable success. He was no doubt regarded by some as a hidden Buddhist (_pracchanna Bauddha_), but his influence on Hindu thought and religion became so great that he was regarded in later times as being almost a divine person or an incarnation. His immediate disciples, the disciples of his disciples, and those who adhered to his doctrine in the succeeding generations, tried to build a rational basis for his system in a much stronger way than S'a@nkara did. Our treatment of S'a@nkara's philosophy has been based on the interpretations of Vedânta thought, as offered by these followers of S'a@nkara. These interpretations are nowhere in conflict with S'a@nkara's doctrines, but the questions and problems which S'a@nkara did not raise have been raised and discussed by his followers, and without these one could not treat Vedânta as a complete and coherent system of metaphysics. As these will be discussed in the later sections, we may close this with a short description of some of the main features of the Vedânta thought as explained by S'a@nkara.

Brahman according to S'a@nkara is "the cause from which (proceeds) the origin or subsistence and dissolution of this world which is extended in names and forms, which includes many

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agents and enjoyers, which contains the fruit of works specially determined according to space, time, and cause, a world which is formed after an arrangement inconceivable even by the (imagination of the) mind [Footnote ref 1]." The reasons that S'a@nkara adduces for the existence of Brahman may be considered to be threefold: (1) The world must have been produced as the modification of something, but in the Upani@sads all other things have been spoken of as having been originated from something other than Brahman, so Brahman is the cause from which the world has sprung into being, but we could not think that Brahman itself originated from something else, for then we should have a _regressus ad infinitum_ (_anavasthâ_). (2) The world is so orderly that it could not have come forth from a non-intelligent source. The intelligent source then from which this world has come into being is Brahman. (3) This Brahman is the immediate consciousness (_sâk@si_) which shines as the self, as well as through the objects of cognition which the self knows. It is thus the essence of us all, the self, and hence it remains undenied even when one tries to deny it, for even in the denial it shows itself forth. It is the self of us all and is hence ever present to us in all our cognitions.

Brahman according to S'a@nkara is the identity of pure intelligence, pure being, and pure blessedness. Brahman is the self of us all. So long as we are in our ordinary waking life, we are identifying the self with thousands of illusory things, with all that we call "I" or mine, but when in dreamless sleep we are absolutely without any touch of these phenomenal notions the nature of our true state as pure blessedness is partially realized. The individual self as it appears is but an appearance only, while the real truth is the true self which is one for all, as pure intelligence, pure blessedness, and pure being.

All creation is illusory mâyâ. But accepting it as mâyâ, it may be conceived that God (Îs'vara) created the world as a mere sport; from the true point of view there is no Îs'vara who creates the world, but in the sense in which the world exists, and we all exist as separate individuals, we can affirm the existence of Îs'vara, as engaged in creating and maintaining the world. In reality all creation is illusory and so the creator also is illusory. Brahman, the self, is at once the material cause (upâdâna-kâra@na) as well as the efficient cause (nimitta-kâra@na) of the world.

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[Footnote 1: S'a@nkara's commentary, I.i. 2. See also Deussen's _System of the Vedânta_.]

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There is no difference between the cause and the effect, and the effect is but an illusory imposition on the cause--a mere illusion of name and form. We may mould clay into plates and jugs and call them by so many different names, but it cannot be admitted that they are by that fact anything more than clay; their transformations as plates and jugs are only appearances of name and form (_nâmarúpa_). This world, inasmuch as it is but an effect imposed upon the Brahman, is only phenomenally existent (_vyavahârika_) as mere objects of name and form (_nâmarûpa_), but the cause, the Brahman, is alone the true reality(_pâramârthika_) [Footnote ref 1].

The main idea of the Vedânta philosophy.

The main idea of the advaita (non-dualistic) Vedãnta philosophy as taught by the @S'a@kara school is this, that the ultimate and absolute truth is the self, which is one, though appearing as many in different individuals. The world also as apart from us the individuals has no reality and has no other truth to show than this self. All other events, mental or physical, are but passing appearances, while the only absolute and unchangeable truth underlying them all is the self. While other systems investigated the pramanas only to examine how far they could determine the objective truth of things or our attitude in practical life towards them, Vedãnta sought to reach beneath the surface of appearances, and enquired after the final and ultimate truth underlying the microcosm and the macrocosm, the subject and the object. The famous instruction of @S'vetaketu, the most important Vedânta text (mahâvâkya) says, "That art thou, O S'vetaketu." This comprehension of my self as the ultimate truth is the highest knowledge, for when this knowledge is once produced, our cognition of world-appearances will automatically cease. Unless the mind is chastened and purged of all passions and desires, the soul cannot comprehend this truth; but when this is once done, and the soul is anxious for salvation by a knowledge of the highest truth, the preceptor instructs him, "That art thou." At once he becomes the truth itself, which is at once identical with pure bliss and pure intelligence; all ordinary notions and cognitions of diversity and of the

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[Footnote 1: All that is important in S'a@nkara's commentary of the _Brahma-sûtras_ has been excellently systematized by Deussen in his _System of the Vedanta_; it is therefore unnecessary for me to give any long account of this part. Most of what follows has been taken from the writings of his followers.]

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many cease; there is no duality, no notion of mine and thane; the vast illusion of this world process is extinct in him, and he shines forth as the one, the truth, the Brahman. All Hindu systems believed that when man attained salvation, he became divested of all world-consciousness, or of all consciousness of himself and his interests, and was thus reduced to his own original purity untouched by all sensations, perceptions, feelings and willing, but there the idea was this that when man had no bonds of karma and no desire and attachment with the world and had known the nature of his self as absolutely free and unattached to the world and his own psychosis, he became emancipated from the world and all his connections with the world ceased, though the world continued as ever the same with others. The external world was a reality with them; the unreality or illusion consisted in want of true knowledge about the real nature of the self, on account of which the self foolishly identified itself with world-experiences, worldly joys and world-events, and performed good and bad works accordingly. The force of accumulated karmas led him to undergo the experiences brought about by them. While reaping the fruits of past karmas he, as ignorant as ever of his own self, worked again under the delusion of a false relationship between himself and the world, and so the world process ran on. Mufti (salvation) meant the dissociation of the self from the subjective psychosis and the world. This condition of the pure state of self was regarded as an unconscious one by Nyâya-Vais'e@sika and Mîma@msâ, and as a state of pure intelligence by Sâ@mkhya and Yoga. But with Vedânta the case is different, for it held that the world as such has no real existence at all, but is only an illusory imagination which lasts till the moment when true knowledge is acquired. As soon as we come to know that the one truth is the self, the Brahman, all our illusory perceptions representing the world as a field of experience cease. This happens not because the connections of the self with the world cease, but because the appearance of the world process does not represent the ultimate and highest truth about it. All our notions about the abiding diversified world (lasting though they may be from beginningless time) are false in the sense that they do not represent the real truth about it. We not only do not know what we ourselves really are, but do not also know what the world about us is. We take our ordinary experiences of the world as representing

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it correctly, and proceed on our career of daily activity. It is no doubt true that these experiences show us an established order having its own laws, but this does not represent the real truth. They are true only in a relative sense, so long as they appear to be so; for the moment the real truth about them and the self is comprehended all world-appearances become unreal, and that one truth, the Brahman, pure being, bliss, intelligence, shines forth as the absolute--the only truth in world and man. The world-appearance as experienced by us is thus often likened to the illusory perception of silver in a conch-shell; for the moment the perception appears to be true and the man runs to pick it up, as if the conch-shell were a real piece of silver; but as soon as he finds out the truth that this is only a piece of conch-shell, he turns his back on it and is no longer deluded by the appearance or again attracted towards it. The illusion of silver is inexplicable in itself, for it was true for all purposes so long as it persisted, but when true knowledge was acquired, it forthwith vanished. This world-appearance will also vanish when the true knowledge of reality dawns. When false knowledge is once found to be false it cannot return again. The Upani@sads tell us that he who sees the many here is doomed. The one, the Brahman, alone is true; all else is but delusion of name and form. Other systems believed that even after emancipation, the world would continue as it is, that there was nothing illusory in it, but I could not have any knowledge of it because of the absence of the instruments by the processes of which knowledge was generated. The Sâ@mkhya puru@sa cannot know the world when the buddhi-stuff is dissociated from it and merged in the prak@rti, the Mîmâ@msâ and the Nyâya soul is also incapable of knowing the world after emancipation, as it is then dissociated from manas. But the Vedânta position is quite distinct here. We cannot know the world, for when the right knowledge dawns, the perception of this world-appearance proves itself to be false to the person who has witnessed the truth, the Brahman. An illusion cannot last when the truth is known; what is truth is known to us, but what is illusion is undemonstrable, unspeakable, and indefinite. The illusion runs on from beginningless time; we do not know how it is related to truth, the Brahman, but we know that when the truth is once known the false knowledge of this

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world-appearance disappears once for all. No intermediate link is necessary to effect it, no mechanical dissociation of buddhi or manas, but just as by finding out the glittering piece to be a conch-shell the illusory perception of silver is destroyed, so this illusory perception of world-appearance is also destroyed by a true knowledge of the reality, the Brahman. The Upani@sads held that reality or truth was one, and there was "no many" anywhere, and S'añkara explained it by adding that the "many" was merely an illusion, and hence did not exist in reality and was bound to disappear when the truth was known. The world-appearance is mâyâ (illusion). This is what S'añkara emphasizes in expounding his constructive system of the Upani@sad doctrine. The question is sometimes asked, how the mâyâ becomes associated with Brahman. But Vedânta thinks this question illegitimate, for this association did not begin in time either with reference to the cosmos or with reference to individual persons. In fact there is no real association, for the creation of illusion does not affect the unchangeable truth. Mâyâ or illusion is no real entity, it is only false knowledge (_avidyâ_) that makes the appearance, which vanishes when the reality is grasped and found. Mâyâ or avidyâ has an apparent existence only so long as it lasts, but the moment the truth is known it is dissolved. It is not a real entity in association with which a real world-appearance has been brought into permanent existence, for it only has existence so long as we are deluded by it (_prâtîtika-sattâ_). Mâyâ therefore is a category which baffles the ordinary logical division of existence and non-existence and the principle of excluded middle. For the mâyâ can neither be said to be "is" nor "is not" (_tattvânyatvâbhyâm anirvacanîyâ_). It cannot be said that such a logical category does not exist, for all our dream and illusory cognitions demonstrate it to us. They exist as they are perceived, but they do not exist since they have no other independent existence than the fact of their perception. If it has any creative function, that function is as illusive as its own nature, for the creation only lasts so long as the error lasts. Brahman, the truth, is not in any way sullied or affected by association with mâyâ, for there can be no association of the real with the empty, the mâyâ, the illusory. It is no real association but a mere appearance.

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In what sense is the world-appearance false?

The world is said to be false--a mere product of mâyâ. The falsehood of this world-appearance has been explained as involved in the category of the indefinite which is neither _sat_ "is" nor _asat_ "is not." Here the opposition of the "is" and "is not" is solved by the category of time. The world-appearance is "is not," since it does not continue to manifest itself in all times, and has its manifestation up to the moment that the right knowledge dawns. It is not therefore "is not" in the sense that a "castle in the air" or a hare's horn is "is not," for these are called _tuccha_, the absolutely non-existent. The world-appearance is said to be "is" or existing, since it appears to be so for the time the state of ignorance persists in us. Since it exists for a time it is _sat_ (is), but since it does not exist for all times it is _asat_ (is not). This is the appearance, the falsehood of the world-appearance (_jagat-prapañca_) that it is neither _sat_ nor _asat_ in an absolute sense. Or rather it may also be said in another way that the falsehood of the world-appearance consists in this, that though it appears to be the reality or an expression or manifestation of the reality, the being, _sat_, yet when the reality is once rightly comprehended, it will be manifest that the world never existed, does not exist, and will never exist again. This is just what we find in an illusory perception; when once the truth is found out that it is a conch-shell, we say that the silver, though it appeared at the time of illusory perception to be what we saw before us as "this" (this is silver), yet it never existed before, does not now exist, and will never exist again. In the case of the illusory perception of silver, the "this" (pointing to a thing before me) appeared as silver; in the case of the world-appearance, it is the being (_sat_), the Brahman, that appears as the world; but as in the case when the "this" before us is found to be a piece of conch-shell, the silver is at once dismissed as having had no existence in the "this" before us, so when the Brahman, the being, the reality, is once directly realized, the conviction comes that the world never existed. The negation of the world-appearance however has no separate existence other than the comprehension of the identity of the real. The fact that the real is realized is the same as that the world-appearance is negated. The negation here involved refers both to the thing negated (the world-appearance) and the

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negation itself, and hence it cannot be contended that when the conviction of the negation of the world is also regarded as false (for if the negation is not false then it remains as an entity different from Brahman and hence the unqualified monism fails), then this reinstates the reality of the world-appearance; for negation of the world-appearance is as much false as the world-appearance itself, and hence on the realization of the truth the negative thesis, that the world-appearance does not exist, includes the negation also as a manifestation of world-appearance, and hence the only thing left is the realized identity of the truth, the being. The peculiarity of this illusion of world-appearance is this, that it appears as consistent with or inlaid in the being (_sat_) though it is not there. This of course is dissolved when right knowledge dawns. This indeed brings home to us the truth that the world-appearance is an appearance which is different from what we know as real (_sadvilak@sa@na_); for the real is known to us as that which is proved by the prama@nas, and which will never again be falsified by later experience or other means of proof. A thing is said to be true only so long as it is not contradicted; but since at the dawn of right knowledge this world-appearance will be found to be false and non-existing, it cannot be regarded as real [Footnote ref l]. Thus Brahman alone is true, and the world-appearance is false; falsehood and truth are not contrary entities such that the negation or the falsehood of falsehood will mean truth. The world-appearance is a whole and in referring to it the negation refers also to itself as a part of the world-appearance and hence not only is the positive world-appearance false, but the falsehood itself is also false; when the world-appearance is contradicted at the dawn of right knowledge, the falsehood itself is also contradicted.