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Itis not therefore necessary that much should be said in separate sections re- garding the Vedantic doctrines of these two great teachers. But still a few words on Padmapada’s philosophy may with advantage be read separately. Padmapada says that maya, avyakrta, prakrtt, agrahana, avyakta, tamah, karana, laya, Sakti, mahasupti, nidra, ksara and akasa are the terms which are used in older literature as synonymous with avidyad. It is this entity that obstructs the pure and independently self-revealing nature of Brahman, and thus, standing as the painted canvas (citra-bhitti) of ignorance (avidya), deeds (karma) and past impressions of knowledge (parva- prajna-samskara) produce the individual persons (jivatvapadtka). Undergoing its peculiar transformations with God as its support, it manifests itself as the two powers of knowledge and activity (vijfiana-kriya-sakti-dvayasraya) and functions as the doer of all actions and the enjoyer of all experiences (kartrtva-bhoktrtvaika- dharah). In association with the pure unchangeable light of Brah- man it is the complex of these transformations which appears as the immediate ego (ahamkara). It is through the association with this ego that the pure self is falsely regarded as the enjoyer of experiences. This transformation is called antahkarana, manas, buddhi and the ego or the ego-feeler (aham-pratyayin) on the side of its cognitive activity, while on the vibratory side of its activity (spanda-saktya), it is called prana or biomotor functions. The asso- ciation of the ego with the pure dtman, like the association of the redness of a japd flower with a crystal, is a complex (granthi) which manifests the dual characteristics of activity of the avidya stuff and the consciousness of the pure self (sambhinnobhaya-ripatvat). On the question as to whether avidya has for both support (asraya) and object (visaya) Brahman Padmapada’s own attitude does not seem to be very clear. He only says that avidya mani- fests itself in the individual person (jiva) by obstructing the real nature of the Brahman as pure self-luminosity and that the x1] Padmapdda 105 Brahman by its limitation (avaccheda) through beginningless avidya is the cause of the appearance of infinite individual persons. But Prakasatman introduces a long discussion, trying to prove that Brahman is both the support and the object of avidya as against the view of Vacaspati Misra that avidya has the Brahman as its object and the jiva as its support (asraya). This is thus one of the fundamental points of difference between the Vivarana line of interpretation and the interpretation of the Vacaspati line. In this Prakasatman agrees with the view of Suregvara and his pupil Sarvajfiatman, though, as will be noticed, Sarvajfiatman draws some nice distinctions which are not noticed by Suregvara. Padmapada draws a distinction between two meanings of false- hood (mithy 4), viz. falsehood as simple negation (apahnava-vacana) and falsehood as the unspeakable and indescribable (anirvacani- yata-vacana). It is probably he who of all the interpreters first described ajfiana or avidya as being of a material nature (jadatmika) and of the nature of a power (jadatmika avidya-sakti), and inter- preted Sankara’s phrase “‘ mithya-jfiana-nimittah” as meaning that it is this material power of ajfana that is the constitutive or the material cause of the world-appearance. Prakasatman, however, elaborates the conception further in his attempts to give proofs in support of the view that avidya is something positive (bhava-riipa). These proofs have been repeatedly given by many other later writers, and have already been dealt with in the first volume of the present work. Padmapdada is also probably the first to attempt an explanation of the process of Vedantic perception which was later on elaborated by Prakasatman and later writers, and his views were all collected and systematized in the exposition of the Vedanta- paribhasa of Dharmaraja Adhvarindra in the sixteenth century. Describing this process, Padmapada says that, as a result of the cognitive activity of the ego, the objects with which that is con- cerned become connected with it, and, as a result of that, certain changes are produced in it, and it is these changes that constitute the subject-object relation of knowledge (j#atur jfieya-sambandhah). _ “The antahkarana, or psychical frame of mind, can lead tothe limited expression of the pure consciousness only so far as it is associated with its object. The perceptual experience of immediacy (aparoksa) of objects means nothing more than the expression of the pure consciousness through the changing states of the antahkarana. The ego thus becomes a perceiver (pramatr) through its connection 106 The Sankara School of Vedanta [CH. with the underlying consciousness. Prakasatman, however, elab- orates it by supposing that the antahkarana goes out to the objective spatial positions, and assumes the spatial form of the objects perceived. Hence what Padmapada conceived merely as the change of the antahkarana states through the varying relation of the antahkarana with its objects, is interpreted in the definite meaning of this relation as being nothing more than spatial super- position of the antahkarana on its objects. In inference, however, there is no immediate knowledge, as this is mediated through relations with the reason (Jinga). Knowledge however would mean both mediate and immediate knowledge; for it is defined as being the manifestation of the object (artha-prakasa). On the subject of the causality of Brahman Padmapada says that that on which the world-appearance is manifested, the Brahman, is the cause of the world. On this point Prakasatman offers three alternative views, viz. (1) that, like two twisted threads © in a rope, maya and Brahman are together the joint cause of the world, (2) that that which has maya as its power is the cause, and (3) that the Brahman which has ma@ya supported on it is the cause of the world, but in all these the ultimate causality rests with Brahman, since maya is dependent thereon. Brahman is sarva-jna (omniscient) in the sense that it manifests all that is associated with it, and it is the Brahman that through its maya appears as the world of experience. The doctrines of avaccheda-vada and pratibimba- vada explained in the first volume of the present work are also at least as old as Padmapada’s Pafica-padika, and both Padmapada and Prakasatman seem to support the reflection theory (prati- bimba-vada), the theory that the jiva is but a reflected image of Brahman!, Vacaspati Misra (a.p. 840). Vacaspati Misra, the celebrated author of a commentary called Bhamation Sankara’s commentary , is the author of a Tattva-samiksa, a commentary on Mandana’s Brahma-siddhi; he also commented on the Samkhya-karika, Vidhi-viveka, Nyaya-varttika, and he was * See volume 1, pp. 475, 476. These two doctrines were probably present in germinal forms as early as the ninth century. But gradually more and more attention seems to have been paid to them. Appaya Diksita gives a fairly good summary of these two doctrines in the Parimala, pp. 335-343, Sri Vani Vilasa Press, Srirangam, without committing either himself or Vacaspati to any one of these views. x1] Vacaspati Misra 107 the author of a number of other works. In his Nydya-siicini- bandhahe gives his date as 898 (vasv-anka-vasu-vatsare) , which in all probability has to be understood as of the Vikrama-samvat, and con- sequently he can safely be placed in a.D. 842. In his commentary called Bhamati he offers salutation to Martanda-tilaka-svamin, which has been understood to refer to his teacher. But Amala- nanda in commenting thereon rightly points out that this word is a compound of the two names Martanda and Tilakasvamin, belong- ing to gods adored with a view to the fruition of one’s actions. Tilakasvamin is referred to in Yajfiavalkya, 1.294 as a god, and the Mitaksara explains it as being the name of the god Karttikeya or Skanda. Udayana, however, in his Nya@ya-varttika-tatparya-pari- suddhi (p.g), a commentary on Vacaspati’s Tatparya-tika, refers to one Trilocana as being the teacher of Vacaspati, and Vardhamana in his commentary on it, called Nydya-nibandha-prakasa, con- firms this: Vacaspati himself also refers to Trilocanaguru, whom he followed in interpreting the word vyavasaya (Nydya-siitra, 1. i. 4) as determinate knowledge (savikalpa)+. It is however interesting to note that in the Nya@ya-kanika (verse 3) he refers to the author of the Nyaya-mafjari (in all probability Jayanta) as his teacher (vidya- taru)?. Vacaspati says at the end of his Bhamati commentary that he wrote that work when the great king Nrga was reigning. This king, so far as the present writer is aware, has not yet been histori- cally traced. Bhamati was Vacaspati’s last great work; for in the colophon at the end of the Bhamaiti he says that he had already written his Nyaya-kanika, Tattva-samiksa, Tattva-bindu and other works on Nyaya, Samkhya and Yoga. Vacaspati’s Vedantic works are Bhamati and Tattva-samiksa (on Brahma-siddhi). The last work has not yet been published. Aufrecht, referring to his work, Tattva-bindu, says that it is a Vedanta work. This is however a mistake, as the work deals with the sphota doctrines of sound, and has nothing to do with Vedanta. In the absence of Vacaspati’s Tattva-samiksa, which has not been published, and manuscripts of which have become extremely scarce, it is difficult to give an entirely satisfactory account of the special features of Vacaspati’s view of Vedanta. But his Bhamati ut trilocana-gurinnita-marganugamanonmukhath yathamdanam yatha-vastu vyakhyatam idam tdrsam. Nyaya-varttika-tatparya-tika, p. 87. Benares, 1898.