Samkara and Guadapada
Samkara, the writer of the Vedanta, was a Hindu philosopher eho lived between 788 and 820 AD. The advaita Vedanta is a reanalysis of the Upanishads. Samkara maintains that the Vedanta is simply a systematization of the Vedas. However, according to current analysis, it is a tricky issue whether the Vedanta is simply a systematization or an extension of the Vedas. Although the Upanishads is a disconnected document containing conflicting views, the Vedanta merges these views into a coherent whole. However, Samkara’s account of the Upanishads probably is closer to the original version than his predecessors. Many believe that the Vedanta with its Maya is simply a disguised form of subjective idealism of the Buddhist variety. Further it is held that Samkara adopted additional elements of Buddhism such as monasticism. However, Radakrishnan believes Maya goes beyond Buddhism. However, the Vedantist conception of moksa shares similarities with nirvana.
Guadapada was the first expounder of the Advaita Vedanta and was supposedly the teacher of Samkara’s teacher and lived in the late seventh century and early eighth century. He discussed many of the central topics of the Vedanta. Guadapada lived during a time when Buddhism was very popular and so he incorporates many elements of Buddhism. In contrast to Samkara’s work, Guadapada argues that dream experiences are equivalent to waking experiences. Dream experiences, with their convoluted framework, do not fall short of reality, but simply do not meet the conventions of ordinary experience. They form a separate class of experiences but are coherent. Waking and dream states are equally real within their own conventional frameworks. Since waking experience is on par with dream experience, Samkara concludes waking experience is in a sense unreal. Two other predecessors of Samkara were Bharthrari and Bhartrprapanca.
Atman
Samkara does not question the results of psychology and the sciences but asks what their presupposition is. The presence of the world implies there must be something which presupposes it that is a transcendent presence within oneself. This self is the Ātman. Like Descartes, Samkara finds self-certainty to be the foundation of the world. However, it is important to know that Ātman is really Brahman- i.e. all of reality. Samkara argues that the Ātman cannot be known directly since thought is part of the not-self that the Ātman presupposes. It escapes thought, but it does not entirely escape us. The self is both known and not known but is to be distinguished from both the world and thought. The self is not to be confused with consciousness since consciousness is subject to decay. The Ātman is “pure consciousness” or “mere awareness.” Descartes attempted to distinguish the self from the not-self and establish the former an existence in its own right. However, the world depends on Samkara’s Ātman, which is given a transcendent status.
Brahman
Samkara upholds the ontological argument. The cases of the finite push for something infinite beyond it. He demands that reality requires something that does not need the support of anything else. However, Samkara does not uphold a list- as many theologians do- of attributes of God. Samkara also rejects the cosmological argument- which is in favor of a first great cause. Samkara regards the causal nature of a thing to be svabhava and the effect to be visesa. Brahman is the great svabhava with the world its visesa. It is thus foundational and not contained in any point in space. It is “nowhere and everywhere,” it “is not a cause,” and it “is inexpressible,” is “not finitely comprehensible,” has “no qualities,” and “is related to nothing else.” It is described in negative terms but contains a positive character- it is non-being, but that does not imply it is nothing. But it is not to be regarded as a “blank.” It is not, but we cannot say what it is. There are thus both a positive and a negative description of Brahman. The negative description is that Brahman is transcendent cause and the positive description is that Brahman is all of reality. Brahman and Ātman have the same characteristics and in fact, Ātman is Brahman.
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Isvara
Samkara does not believe in a personal God except as an ideal copy of Brahman- that is, a copy of Brahman as it appears to the individual put through the categories of time and causality which is practically useful. As said earlier, the cosmological argument falls through for Samkara. The idea of an absolute beginning- an uncaused cause- is self-contradictory. Similarly, the question of the problem of evil cannot be ascribed to a benevolent God, nor can we instantiate a dualism between God and Satan. Ascribing personality seems impossible for reason. Ultimately, no rational argument for God as a supreme being is acceptable. Brahman becomes Isvara when shaped by phenomenal forms. This phenomenal copy, when we think of it, brings Brahman closer to our understanding and our worship. Usually, Samkara does not draw a sharp distinction between Brahman and Isvara. Isvara’s personality combines the qualities of Brahman and Prakrti.
Maya and Avidya
Samkara maintains that the precise relationship between Brahman and the world is transcendent since any attempt to explain the relationship applies finitary methods to something infinite. Thus, we cannot say that Brahman is the cause of the world. Nor can we say that Brahman manifests in itself or that it acts in the world. We cannot say that brahman transforms itself into the world either since if the whole is transformed into the world, then Brahman will become identical to the world and there is nothing transcendent in which we seek and if a part is transformed into the world, then Brahman can be partitioned making it not eternal. The word Maya registers this gap between appearance and reality. The illustration of Maya is the analogy of the rope and the snake. One sees a rope and mistakes it for a snake but we have no knowledge as to why this is so. We can say that Brahman appears as the world as the rope appears as the snake. Brahman does not depend for its existence on the world. The world is the vivarta, or perversion, of Brahman. vivarta thus signifies the way Brahman appears as the world of space and time. Another interpretation of Maya is that it is the “dividing force”, i.e. the “finitizing principle” that creates forms in the formless. As such it is neither identical to nor different from Brahman.
Since Maya is deceptive in character, it is called avidya or false knowledge. Avidya is the subjective apparatus that causes life to turn into a dream. Avidya is that cognitive device that pluralizes the absolute into many appearances. The whole world is traced to avidya or false knowledge, but does this mean it is an illusion or a creation of the mind? The answer is no. Brahman is still what is real- which continues without change or transformation and is not affected by avidya. All of waking experience- being reduced to a dream- does not affect the reality of the whole. The “supreme reality of Brahman” is the basis of the world and there is to some extent reality in appearances. Avidya is not purely subjective but also contains an element of the objective. Maya and avidya really are the same thing except seen from different sides- avidya being seen from the subjective side and Maya being seen from the objective side.
Comparison with some Western views
Samkara’s theory of knowledge comes the closest to Kant. Both assert a phenomenal world that wedges itself between us and the real world. Rather than positing a thing-in-itself, Samkara constitutes the illusion of the world within experience. The Vedanta can also be compared to that of Henry Bergson- which deals with a creative evolutionary process in man. However, Radhakrishnan argues that Samkara does not believe the growth of intellect forms a static sequence. Radhakrishnan thinks that the Vedanta shares the most similarity to that of Bradley’s relationless monism. For Samkara admits that the way we perceive things is not reality. However, unlike Bradley’s perspective of reality as being complete and perfect, Samkara stops at the inharmony of reality.
Ethical Behavior
The final goal of the Vedanta is to obtain Brahman, which eventually creates happiness. As long as someone thinks he is an individual soul, a clinging to existence occurs- but when the person realizes he is all of reality, he stops being unhappy. We cannot often change the world with our bodies, but we can change the world with our minds. Good behavior helps achieve this end, and bad behavior does the opposite. The key insight of the Vedanta is a lack of egoism and a devotion to society. Vedic rituals are less important than the obtainment of salvation. To obtain Brahman, one should ease his desires. The virtues are tranquility, restraint, resignation, concentration, and progression in mind. Samkara retains belief in caste in a milder form. Two objections to Samkara’s ethics are considered. First, if the world is an illusion, why not engage in bad morals? The first objection goes away if we realize the world is not purely illusory. Second, if Brahman is all that exists, there is no motive for ethical behavior. That is, moral values are not ultimately real since it is not necessary to obtain Brahman. However, obtaining Brahman will help negate further negative behavior. Also, acting morally can help one realize Brahman; moral action in the world can help abolish avidya.
Jiva
The jiva is the self as it exists with memories, ideas, and preferences and the Atman is the pure self. The object of self-consciousness is not the Atman but the jiva. The jiva is considered to be the same thing as the Atman- that is, it is the Atman conditioned by the object. It is conditioned by Buddhi, or the intellect. In addition to the jiva and the Atman, there is the organic body, the life organs, and the subtle body. There is also the saksin or the witnessing self. The witness self helps maintain the identity of the individual in a series of mental ideas. It is difficult to determine the exact relationship between the jiva and the Atman. The Atman lies in the background and moves the jiva. This may seem unusual but it must be remembered that a motionless item can move something else such as a magnet and iron.
Moksa
Moksa was available to individuals for all time. Moksa is not the “abolition” of the self but is the realization of its “infinity” and “absoluteness” by the “expansion and illumination of consciousness.” The form with which the world is experienced changes and there is a recognition of the oneness with Brahman. When one obtains Moksa, he becomes released. The world is not dissolved but a new state of mind is obtained. The plurality of appearances and the distinction of things disappears; One sees himself in all things. Appearances are somehow transmuted into another form and blended together. This merging into the absolute is in some sense beyond description. Moksa brings about pure happiness and the person can continue to live in the world, but his attachments go away. Samkara believes that Moksa is not consistent with work for the world since all activity presupposes plurality.
Karma and Future Life
Samkara assumes karma. Karma is a force which accompanies a person’s moral actions and which can accumulate from lifetime to lifetime. Even when past deeds are resolved, new karma can accumulate. Moral life continually generates and regenerates until moksa is obtained which makes future birth impossible. When one gets rid of avidya, karma is removed. Actions done with expectations yield karma, while actions done for their own sake do not. However, the world is not deterministic determined solely by a person’s karma. A person is responsible for his own acts and karma only assists his behavior. Until moksa is obtained, people are bound up in the continual process of samsara and are born again and again. No new arguments were advanced by Samkara to defend future life. But when a person dies, a “seed” is left behind which creates a new organism. Samkara is against the materialistic view that the soul is just the body which dies when the latter is destroyed. The soul is independent of the body and must survive when the body is destroyed.
Idealism Studies 