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Yoga provides to Sankhya a carefully structured complementary system of mental and physical exercises that it believes is a necessary pre-condition to moksha. On one essential point, however, Yoga differs from Sankhya, and that is in its acceptance of a personal god, who directs the cyclical evolutionary process from creation to dissolution.
The practice of dharma, through ritual action sanctified by the Vedas, is the principal focus of the Purva Mimamsha. Jaimini (circa 400 BCE), was its chief theoretician.
the Charvaka Lokayatika school which provides a fascinating insight into the intellectual eclecticism of these times, and the degree of ‘deviation’ from conventional thinking that was tolerated.
the Charvakas openly denied the existence of god or of any supernatural forces, and argued a well thought-out materialism. The external world, they asserted, exists objectively, and is governed by verifiable laws and not by any supra-natural force.
There is no soul that survives death; the body returns to the four basic elements that constituted it. Nothing remains to transmigrate or be reborn. The Vedas are bereft of all sanctity since they suffer from the three errors of internal contradiction, untruth, and meaningless repetition.
However, it can equally be argued that the real purpose of the Charvakas was to make an individual responsible for his own life without the crutches of an external deity or agency.
Essentially, Brihaspati was a rebel. He was against superstition, ritualism, caste, scriptural authority, and Brahminical hegemony. Religion, he said, is an instrument in the hands of the priests to exploit the common person, and god is only the invention of the rich. It is this injustice and oppression that we need to fight in our present lives, instead of condoning matters by believing—as the priests would want us to do—that our miseries are due to deeds done in past lives.
Brihaspati and the Charvaka school predated Marx—who famously said that religion is the opium of the masses—b...
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In the midst of these structured schools of philosophy, replete with complex concepts and clinical analyses, there was an undercurrent of simplistic devotional fervour, which had no inhibitions in looking for succour towards a personal god. This cult of bhakti, which believed in the manifestation of god, had adherents not only among the Shaivite and Vaishnavites, but also a host of other sects, many of whom worshipped local deities.
This human yearning for a more accessible deity in human form was something that Shankara could not ignore.
Buddha’s enduring concern was with dukkha, or suffering, inherent in incarnate life. On receiving enlightenment while meditating under the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya (Bihar), he enunciated the four noble truths and the eightfold path to liberation. The four truths, simply put, were that there is suffering, there is a cause of suffering, there can be cessation of suffering, and the eightfold path is the way to the cessation of suffering. The eight steps, or the middle way, which he enunciated were right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right
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There is nothing like an enduring self, Brahman or Atman, said the Buddha; in this state of non-self (anatta) what exists is only the body (rupa) and the mind (nama). Everything that we see is an aggregate (samghata); all is inherently unsubstantial (nairatmaya). Moreover, even the self, at the level of body and mind, is eternally transient and impermanent (anityatva). He further said that the reality that we see around us has no transcendental substratum (svabhava); it is in constant flux (samtana), and all experience is a series of impressions, conceived and extinguished in the same instance
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Mahavira is accepted as the principal icon of the Jaina faith. Like the Buddha, he was born in a royal family, in the Muzzafarpur district of Bihar in 599 BCE, and died at Pawapuri in 527 BCE. Around the age of thirty, he too, like the young prince of Kapilavastu, left home to search for truth. After twelve years of intense penance and meditation, he acquired kevala jnana or infinite knowledge.
As against the assertions of absolute truth, Jainism consciously postulates a doctrine of uncertainty.
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.
To achieve this end, Jainism advocates a path of extreme asceticism, and an equally rigorous emphasis on non-violence.
Jainism is ambivalent on the question of god, but believes that divinity lies in the obtaining of infinite knowledge or kevala jnana.
The important thing was that all these argumentations were not confined to hermitages or monasteries or to a handful of disciples, but acquired a larger momentum and popularity that permeated to people at large who, even if not involved in the finer metaphysical nuances, were more than aware of the broad contours. The depth, robustness of argument, courage of conviction, and sanction to dissent and, where necessary, synthesise, is what made the philosophical canvas leading up to Shankara different.
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.
Shankara asserted that Brahman and Atman are the same. Human beings, who have the faculty of reflection and will, are more than the sum of their body and mind. There is in each of us an observer—sakshin—who stands apart from the incessant but transient preoccupations of the mind.
Tat tvam asi—That thou art.
Aham brahm asmi—I am Brahman.
‘What is eternal cannot have a beginning and whatever has a beginning is not eternal.’
the fundamental distinguishing human feature is mind and intellect, collectively called the manas, which interprets and structures what is received through the senses. The manas is located in an internal organ called the antahkarana, which has four identifiable segments. When merely an indeterminate cognitive faculty, it is called mind or manas; when that cognitive ability leads to understanding, it is called buddhi or intellect; when, as a consequence of such understanding, it creates self-consciousness, it is ego or ahamkara; and when, beyond the ego, it is in a state of higher concentration
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Shankara recognised two kinds of knowledge: para vidya or higher knowledge, and apara vidya or knowledge of a lower order. These two levels coincided with his dual levels of reality, one paramarthik or transcendental, and the other vyavaharik or practical. Now, if the indefinable maya had the powers to create the relative reality of the empirical world, it also could, create, at the vyavaharik level, an Ishwara or God as its efficient cause.
If Brahman is without attributes, nirguna, Ishwara is saguna, with all the attributes that allow for personal worship.
Knowledge is the corrosive that melts the veil, removes the error of perception, and dissolves the avidya engulfing us.
The right guru gives soul and depth to knowledge, for mechanical knowledge is not enough; knowledge must lead to understanding, understanding to contemplation, and contemplation to the wisdom to differentiate between the eternal and the ephemeral—nitya-anitya viveka.
Satyam jnanam, anantam brahma: Knowledge is truth, Brahman is eternal.
Dr Radhakrishnan quips, ‘the highest intelligence consists in the knowledge that intelligence is not enough.’
Shankara described intuition as that one infallible step which lies beyond reason.
There exists a function of our faculty of knowing which we feel is more penetrating, less mediated, more satisfactory than the ordinary operations of the mind. We call this intuition, insight, and at times experience.
the ceaseless volatility of the mind, and the illusions of I-ness created by the ego, are major stumbling blocks to a realisation of our true selves.
Shankara accepts the utility of Yoga, both for its physical exercises, and for the training of the mind. Apart from asana or postures and breathing or pranayama, the self-restraining disciplines of yama and niyama, and the mind-control steps—pratyahara or withdrawing the mind from the senses, dharana or steadying the mind, dhyana or focussed contemplation, and samadhi or deep meditation—have his approval.
