Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism's Greatest Thinker

by Pavan K. Varma

Hinduism, for most within its fold, is a way of life. It has no one Pope, no one text, no inflexibly prescriptive ritual, no mandatory congregation, and no one presiding temple. It is precisely for this reason that it has continued to flourish from time immemorial, sanatan and anant, because what is ubiquitous but not constrained by the brittleness of form, is by definition imperishable.

When religions are largely reduced to rituals, there is always the danger that the form will become more important than the substance.

‘Who are you?’ To this, according to lore, Shankara recited a shloka: ‘I am neither the earth, nor water, nor fire, nor air, nor sky, nor any other properties. I am not the senses and not even the mind. I am Shiva, the undivided essence of consciousness.’

The Narmada is a beautiful river. Although now its flow at Omkareshwar is tamed because of the dams built upstream, it is still a majestic river, quite unique for several reasons. It is the only major river in India that flows from east to west; also the only river where temples have been built on both banks, giving it the name of Ubhay Tat Tirtha.

Did the Sringeri Matha choose this site because Shankara lived here, or in the vicinity? The area where it is located has a preponderant presence of residents from South India.

Shankara’s inclination towards the Shakti sect, and to the concept of ‘Divine Mother’, as is evidenced by the fact that all the four mathas he established are called shakti peeths (or the seat of Shakti), is well known.

I am Brahma alone. And, this entire world has been spread out by pure consciousness. All this, without residue, has been superimposed by me through nescience which consists of the three gunas (sattva, rajas and tamas). Thus, he in whom there is firm knowledge in respect of the eternal, blemishless supreme (Brahma) which is unexcellable bliss, is the preceptor, be he a chandala or a brahamana. This is my conclusive view.

Manishapanchakam

there was a good deal of wrangling over

Shankara established the mathas with the specific aim of creating institutions that would develop and project the Advaita doctrine. His aim must also have been to give Hinduism, as a whole, an organisational structure, in a manner similar to what Buddhism had done through its monasteries. Until the mathas were set up, Hinduism was a pervasive way of life—which

It must be remembered that Shankara, while uncompromisingly an advocate of the non-dual Vedantic doctrine, in which rituals, prayer, bhakti and temples were not of fundamental importance at the level of para vidya (ultimate knowledge), simultaneously sanctioned these religious practices as preparatory steps within the rubric of apara vidya, practical knowledge. In this sense, he became the guardian not only of the Vedantic doctrine, but of Sanatana Dharma, Hinduism in its entirety, both in practice and philosophy. It is also significant that he established his mathas in what constitutes, broadly, India today. This puts paid to the colonial theory, unfortunately endorsed by many ignorant Indians, that the idea of India was a British creation, and prior to their advent, India was just a geographical expression with no binding unity.

In one corner of the temple’s parikrama is a statue of Shankara, seated on a pedestal, with his four principal disciples sitting at his feet. In this statue, Shankara’s face is depicted with startling clarity, and with features quite different to his standard portrayal. His face, outlined with a saffron cloak around his shaven head, has well delineated eyes, a prominent nose and clearly outlined lips with the suggestion of a beatific smile that simultaneously conveys realism and a deep sense of spirituality and vairagya or detachment.

The snow-bound Himalayan peaks create a feeling that the temple is situated in their lap, a small plateau at the edge of awe-inspiring valleys plummeting below. To reach Kedarnath by foot must have been a feat. I did the journey in forty minutes by helicopter from Dehradun.

In the face of that reality, all human divisibility ceases. The essential unity of things is illustrated by the demolition of geographical barriers. The aarti at the temple is in Kannada, a language from the state of Karnataka in the south. The idol of Vishnu at Badrinath has no distinguishing features. The head priest there is a Shaiva ascetic from the Nambudiri community of Kerala. At Kedarnath, the shrine is that of Shiva, but the deity itself is so remarkably devoid of explicit identification that it could represent any deity, or even the entire cosmos.

The Rig Veda, written sometime between 1200 and 900 BCE, has this remarkable hymn (Nasadiya Sukta) on creation: There was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water, bottomlessly deep? There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night or day. That one breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond. Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards with the creation of this universe? Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whence this creation has arisen—perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not—the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows—or perhaps he does not know.1

Rig veda’s verse on the universe. Translated by Wendy Doniger

The etymological meaning of Veda is sacred knowledge or wisdom. There are four Vedas: Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. Together they constitute the samhitas that are the textual basis of the Hindu religious system. To these samhitas were attached three other kinds of texts. These are, firstly, the Brahmanas, which is essentially a detailed description of rituals, a kind of manual for the priestly class, the Brahmins. The second are the Aranyakas; aranya means forest, and these ‘forest manuals’ move away from rituals, incantations and magic spells to the larger speculations of spirituality, a kind of compendium of contemplations of those who have renounced the world. The third, leading from the Aranyakas, are the Upanishads, which, for their sheer loftiness of thought are the foundational texts of Hindu philosophy and metaphysics. Because they come at the very end of the corpus of the Vedas, they are also collectively called Vedanta, or the end of the Vedas,

The word Upanishad literally means ‘to sit down near’ at the feet of a master or teacher who shares with his pupils spiritual truths or wisdom.

there are about twelve principal Upanishads attached to the Sama, Yajur and Atharva Vedas.

Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, and Brihadaranyaka. An important

but it is almost certain that no other religious tradition so far back in time had such a pronounced emphasis on the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself.

Satyam jnanam, anantam Brahma: Knowledge is truth and Brahman is eternal,

Above the senses is the mind, Above the mind is the intellect, Above that is the ego, and above the ego Is the unmanifested Cause And beyond is Brahma, omnipresent, Attributeless. Realizing him one is released From the cycle of birth and death.2 The Mundaka Upanishad also categorically proclaims the supremacy of the Atman or the self: The effulgent Self, who is beyond thought, Shines in the greatest, shines in the smallest, Shines in the farthest, shines in the nearest, Shines in the secret chamber of the heart. The flowing river is lost in the sea; The illumined sage is lost in the Self The flowing river has become the sea; The illumined sage has become the Self

From the Katha Upanishad

The Chandogya Upanishad explicates this beautifully in the story of Shvetaketu who asks Uddalaka, his father: what is wisdom? And, Uddalaka says to Shvetaketu: As by knowing one lump of clay, dear one, We come to know all things made out of clay: That they differ only in name and form, While the stuff of which all are made is clay; As by knowing one gold nugget, dear one, We come to know all things made out of gold: That they differ only in name and form, While the stuff of which all are made is gold; As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one, We come to know all things made out of iron: That they differ only in name and form, While the stuff of which all are made is iron— So through that spiritual wisdom, dear one, We come to know that all life is one. Having explained the unity of all things, the Chandogya sublimely puts an end to all notions of duality by pronouncing the foundational concept: Tat tvam asi: That thou art: In the beginning was only Being, One without a second. Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos And entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self. He is the truth; he is the Self Supreme. You are that, Shvetaketu; you are that. But camouflaging this fundamental and indestructible unity of the universe is the apparent multiplicity of the world. How do we then reconcile the two? The Shvetashvatara Upanishad provides the answer: From his divine power comes forth all this Magical show of na...

How can an ordinary mortal free herself from this world of sorrow and grief and apparent dualities? The Katha sums up the answer of the Upanishads: When the five senses are stilled, when the Mind Is stilled, when the intellect is stilled, That is called the highest state by the wise. They say yoga is this complete stillness In which one enters the unitive state, Never to become separate again. When all desires that surge in the heart Are renounced, the mortal becomes immortal. When all the knots that strangle at the heart Are loosened, the mortal becomes immortal. This sums up the teaching of the scriptures.

All this is full. All that is full. From fullness, fullness comes. When fullness is taken from fullness, Fullness still remains.

This sense is breathtakingly captured by the first shloka of the Isha Upanishad, about which Mahatma Gandhi is believed to have said that he would happily forego every scripture in Hinduism if he could keep just this one shloka:

But while the west may have been unaware of the Upanishads, in India they became the pivot of the unfolding philosophical discourse. The most authoritative text as part of this process was the Brahma Sutra by Badarayana written around 450 BCE.

A sutra ‘is a short sentence or aphorism, shorn of all verbiage and designed to convey the essence of a religious or philosophical idea in the smallest space.’3 In terms of the brevity of expression, and the intensity of thought compressed within it, the Brahma Sutra probably has no parallel in literary or philosophical discourse. For instance, the first sutra simply says: Athato brahma jigyasa (Hence now a deliberation on Brahman).

salvation, sadhana. The principal means is jnana or knowledge of the identity with, and non-difference from, Brahman, and meditation on this reality. Such meditation must transcend the ephemeral multiplicity of the phenomenal world. ‘Just as light which has no form appears to be endowed with different forms because of the object which it illumines,’ says the sutra, ‘Brahman which has no attributes appears as if endowed with attributes,’4 on account of ignorance. Brahman is non-dual pure consciousness, unconditioned and unblemished. That is why it cannot be circumscribed by definition and the Upanishads adopt the negative mode of description: neti, neti, not this, not this. To understand this is the means for release.

The last chapter dwells on the fruits of salvation, phala. In sum, it is the possibility of salvation through knowledge and anubhav in this very life. But if Brahman is the only reality, and jnana consists in understanding our total identity with it, how do we deal with the phenomenal world and the actions it makes incumbent on human beings? How do we reconcile the transitory and unreal nature of things with the concrete and unavoidable requirements of daily life, work and activity? The answer to this is provided in the Bhagavad Gita, on which too Shankara wrote an authoritative and insightful commentary.

nishkama karma, of action, without attachment or thought of reward, done without selfish desire in a spirit of surrender.

we can rid ourselves from the negative emotions produced by action if we act without thought of reward, and with detachment and in the spirit of surrender.

But, Arjuna, like any mortal, was not content with only metaphysical assertions. He wanted the assurance of a divinity that he could identify with, a personal god, far more accessible than the attribute-less Brahman.

On why we need a divine figute because we cannot fathom atman and brahman

This derogation of the attribute-less or nirguna Brahman into a devotional theism was a concession made to the human urge to see divinity in a personalised form.

Typical explaanations in hindub texts use grand words annd confuse. WHy cant the keepbtthings simple

The Yoga Sutra begins with this aphorism: Yogah chitta vrittih nirodha: Yoga is restraining the mind from discursive thought. This restraint, it believes, can be brought about by discipline, both physical and mental. In the sutra, discipline is outlined as an eightfold path, starting from yama (self-restraint), niyama (virtuous observances), asana (posture), pranayama (consciously controlling breath), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentrating the mind), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (a trance-like state in which there is complete union with the subject of meditation).

Nirvana, in the Buddhist sense, is negative, an emptiness where all cravings and aversions have ceased. Vedanta is positive, where, after one has transcended the limitations of body and mind, what is left is the union with Brahman and the rekindling of the flame of unalloyed joy.

Budhism and Hinduism difference

There was one aspect of Buddhism, though, that greatly influenced Shankara. The three ‘jewels of Buddhism’, the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha—the last being the order of monks especially created by the Buddha for the preservation and propagation of his teachings. Shankara realised the immense value of the sangha, and sought to emulate this by creating his own order of monks through the mathas he set up at Sringeri, Puri, Dwaraka and Joshimatha.

Between the certainties of Advaita, which asserted the pervasive presence of Brahman signifying sat chid ananda, and the certainties of Buddhism, which denied the existence of anything permanent amidst an ocean of impermanence and sorrow, was the deliberate ambivalence of Jainism. Although twenty-four Tirthankars or spiritual teachers had preceded him, Mahavira is accepted as the principal icon of the Jaina faith.

Jainism compared

In support of such a deliberate doctrine of relativity, Jainism cites the parable of seven blind men examining an elephant, and depending on what part they are in touch with, arriving at a different conclusion of what it is. More formally, Jainism sought to debunk the proponents of ‘one-sidedness’ by its saptabhangi or seven-step theory, whose purpose is to establish that knowledge of reality is relative. The seven possibilities that the saptabhangi doctrine outlines are: maybe, it is; maybe, it is not; maybe, it is and is not; maybe, it is inexpressible; maybe, it is and is inexpressible; maybe, it is not and is inexpressible; maybe it is and is not and is inexpressible. The one word that is common to all seven viewpoints is ‘maybe’. In Jainism, ‘maybe’ is the antidote to dogmatism, and, in particular that of Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics.

Ambivalance and uncertainity in jainism

Shankara’s contribution to global metaphysics is the creation of a structure of thought that is rigorously consistent, internally cohesive and groundbreaking in projecting the non-dual reality of the cosmic play.

Shankara’ contribution

It is true that Shankara looked upon the Upanishads as irrefutable. However, the Upanishads themselves did not constitute a self-sustaining or logically elucidated body of thought. They were a compilation of pronouncements based in parts on profound intuition, but also a compendium of several other views, a great deal of obiter dicta, including conventional theism. Beyond the breathtaking glimpses they provided of the absolute, there was no attempt towards the structuring of a coherent philosophy.

Shankara gives structure to Upanishads

Everything in the cosmos is an emanation of Brahman, but it is beyond all activity and purpose as per our finite ways of thinking. Unchanging, it has no need to evolve or develop, grow or diminish. In its passivity, it’s potentiality itself; in its aloofness, it’s omnipotent; in its apparent purposelessness, it’s infinite intelligence; and, in its indefinability, it’s definitiveness itself. It is. Nothing without it is. And yet, in its undifferentiated fullness, it’s path is supremely overarching, beyond all compulsions of choice or will. Like the sun, it continues to shine even if there were no object to be illumined. Its uniformity (ekarasa) has no parts; its identity is division-less (akhanda). In this sense, it is self-luminous, without the need of predication, conditionality or qualification. In Shankara’s words, Brahman is ‘eternally pure, intelligent and free, never changing, one only, not in contact with anything, and devoid of form.’

Brahman

Quite to the contrary, therefore, Shankara’s Brahman is positivity itself, pure being, characterised by existence (sat), consciousness chitta and bliss (ananda): satchittananda. To some this may appear contradictory. If, on the one hand, you say that Brahman is inexpressible and indefinable, how can you then ascribe to it such expressly defined features? Shankara gives a twofold answer. Firstly, these features are inferred from what Brahman is not. It is not non-existent, so it is sat, existence par excellence, unchanging through all the kalas (periods of time); it is not devoid of consciousness, so it is chitta, pure consciousness, the nature of absolute knowledge; and, it is not of the nature of distress, so it is ananda, bliss supreme, the nature of absolute happiness. Secondly, the being of Brahman is experiential, not intellectual. The cognitive process, where the mind intervenes, can teach us intellectually about Brahman, but cannot provide the sublime experiential moment, where thought ceases and intuition takes over. We shall discuss this process in greater detail later, but suffice it to say at this stage that for Shankara, Brahman was absolute plenitude, a fullness that, once experienced, leaves an individual in no doubt about the certainty of its being.

Shankara’s explanation on Brahman and the contradiction, Look at the prefixing with not. That is neti neti Shankara has taken the pains tonexplain so much instead we are more enraptured to divinity and miracles. None of these like satchitananda, tat tvam asi is being told or if it is it is lost in all the ritualism