Samkara's Advaita Vedanta: A Way of Teaching (Routledge Hindu Studies Series)

by Jacqueline Suthren Hirst

Yet while many secondary sources mention that was a teacher, or acknowledge the importance of the teacher in what he writes, very few pay further attention to the point.2 It is the intention of this book to remedy the deficit.

For this is vitally important, because their knotty problem is to make known to human beings the ultimate reality that transcends words.

According to this tradition, there is no second to brahman, the reality that grounds the cosmos. Brahman, which is non-dual, the sole reality, simply is self-reflexive consciousness, the self.

describes Advaita’s position as non-realist.

From a conventional perspective, argues rather strongly for a realist position, which

holds that the world must be of such a kind for experience to be possible in the way it is.

Sometimes, then, seems to make rather conflicting statements about the status of the world, partly because at some times he speaks from a conventional perspective, at others from an ultimate one.

The whole point of his commentaries, consequently, is to teach the means of removing the cause of to those who want to turn away from the world of rebirth.

Advaita as both philosophia perennis, the perennial philosophy, whose truth, it claims, is found in many different traditions,17 and as the acme of ‘the Hindu view of life’ (Radhakrishnan, 1927). His life’s work, on his own admission, was dedicated to showing the robustness of Indian philosophy in the face of European criticism

My conclusion suggests that a reading of ’s work as ‘not untextual’ and ‘not unphilosophical’ may be helpful in checking polarizations of approaches here, but this is a matter for later.

his idea is simple. The human condition rests on a series of misidentifications, confusions about who we really

that it affects the way we see ourselves.

While it remains, liberation from the world of rebirth is impossible; brahman is not truly known. But to know brahman is a person’s highest end, so the entrammelling misconceptions must be removed.

provides the Advaitin teacher with guidelines for bringing a pupil to the liberating knowledge of brahman. At

As the hypothetical discussion unfolds, it shows that such a pupil is still deeply affected by the confusions of the human condition.

designed to help the pupil relate the scriptural passages about the self to his own experience and to come to understand that this true self is non-different from brahman.

‘avidyā’ is grammatically the opposite of ‘vidyā’, which means ‘knowledge’. So avidyā is ignorance, in ’s context, ignorance of our true nature.

positive misidentification, not just the absence of knowledge (cf. Matilal, 1980).

For , avidyā is ‘the seed of the whole world of rebirth’ (BSBh 1.1.1, p.

avidyā is primarily a fundamental error rather than a quasi-material substance. It is then an epistemological rather than an ontological category.

Epistemology problem...is it ethical?

Superimposition (adhyāsa) is the outcome of avidyā.

use ’s terminology, you have superimposed silver (or some quality of silver) on what is not silver,

‘There is never any doubt that [superimposition] is the presentation of the attributes of one thing in another’ (BSBh 1.1.1,

mutual superimposition,

Rather, within the conventional world, we can distinguish correct perception from misperception, largely because misperceptions can be sublated, that is, they can be corrected by further information so that the misperception disappears.

This process then becomes an analogy for the human condition and liberation from

Vital bc it means salvation

‘the general characterization of the process of false attribution is persuasive: it is readily testable in experience’

‘worldly misperception’ helps make sense of the human condition and the model it generates is plausible because we have all had experience of such misperception.

for it entailed that the nature of the whole world is avidyā.

function precisely within the context of this world. So too do both the scriptural injunctions prescribing ritual activity and those parts of the Veda that are to do with liberation from this world.

accepts the charge, but not its implications. He argues that all activity, including the functioning of the s, requires an agent, but agency only arises from the misidentification of the self with the body, senses and mental faculties

So, in his Advaitin view, all activity is based on superimposition or failure to distinguish the self from that which is superimposed upon it, including agency, which is what ‘learned men’ call avidyā.

For , the analysis and solution is not deducible by human reason alone, but is compassionately given by scripture.

importance of scripture

construct the framework of superimposition.

So it is that, having established the human condition as one of beginning-less superimposition due to false understanding (mithyājñāna), turns to a study of the Vedānta texts as carried out in the Brahmasūtras.

who is fit to study it; what its subject matter is; what the relation between the text and the subject matter is; and what its purpose is.

The method of the Vedāntin commentator is to take each word of the text in turn to explain its meaning.

So in explaining this first sūtra, indicates what each word does not mean, in his opinion, before giving his own explanation.

brahman. The question is: what is this prerequisite? We noted above that the

the understanding of dharma, the goal of , should precede understanding of brahman, the goal of Vedānta, or not.

In replying to this question, makes clear one of the most basic distinctions in his thinking and shows that his closest fellow exegetes are in many ways his greatest opponents.

The s were chiefly concerned to reflect on the language of the Veda as it pertained to sacrificial or ritual actions of various kinds.

Not every statement in the Veda is in the form of a command, of course. Some are positive injunctions, others are prohibitions, but yet others are mantras (formulae for use in the ritual) or figurative or descriptive statements of various kinds.

What he does reject is the view that action of any kind can yield liberation either in and of itself or in conjunction with knowledge.

For , it is knowledge alone that yields, indeed is, liberation. It is therefore the , the section of the Veda dealing with knowledge, especially the , which is of prime importance to him.

In ’s view this means that the goal of the , abhyudaya, happiness or prosperity of various kinds, is dependent on actions that may or may not be performed.

Knowledge, however, is dependent only on the nature of the object that is known and the correct functioning of the means of knowledge

but only one of those ideas is correct, that is, is a form of knowledge or true cognition.

Knowledge of brahman, similarly, is dependent not on the mental choice of the one who knows brahman, but on the eternal nature of brahman.

Rather, it is being brahman, knowing brahman, not as an object, but as being identical with one’s true self, that is, self-reflexive consciousness beyond subject–object duality.