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2 ajfana-timira-samanim nydya-manjarim ruciram prasavitre prabhavitre vidyd-tarave namo gurave. Nydaya-kanikd, introductory verse. 108 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. commentary is a great work, and it is possible to collect from it some of the main features of his views. As to the method of Vacaspati’s commentary, he always tries to explain the text as faithfully as he can, keeping himself in the background and direct- ing his great knowledge of the subject to the elucidation of the problems which directly arise from the texts and to explaining the allusions and contexts of thoughts, objections and ideas of other schools of thought referred to in the text. The Bhamati commentary on Sankara’s Bhdsya is a very important one, and it had a number of important sub-commentaries. The most important and earliest of these is the Vedanta-kalpa-taru of Amalananda (A.D. 1247-1260), on which Appaya Diksita (about A.D. 1600) wrote another commentary called Veddanta-kalpa taru-parimala’. The Vedanta-kalpa-taru was also commented on by Laksminrsimha, author of the Tarka-dipika, son of Konda- bhatta and grandson of Rangoji Bhatta, towards the end of the seventeenth century, and this commentary is called Abhoga. The Abhoga commentary is largely inspired by the Vedanta- kalpa-taru-parimala, though in many cases it differs from and criticizes it. In addition to these there are also other commentaries on the Bhamati, such as the Bhamati-tilaka, the Bhamati-vilasa, the Bhamati-vyakhya by Sriranganatha and another commentary on the Vedanta-kalpa-taru, by Vaidyanatha Payagunda, called the Vedanta-kalpa-taru-majijari. Vacaspati defines truth and reality as immediate self-revelation (sva-prakasata) which is never contradicted (abadhita). Only the pure self can be said to be in this sense ultimately real. He thus definitely rejects the definition of reality as the participation of the class-concept of being, as the Naiyayikas hold, or capacity of doing work (artha-kriya-karitva), as the Buddhists hold. He admits two kinds of ajfiana, as psychological and as forming the material cause of the mind and the inner psychical nature of man or as the material world outside. Thus he says in his commentary on the Sankara- 1 Amalinanda also wrote another work, called Sastra-darpana, in which, taking the different topics (adhikaranas) of the Brahma-siitras, he tried to give a plain and simple general explanation of the whole topic without entering into much discussion on the interpretations of the different siitras on the topic. These general lectures on the adhikaranas of the Brahma-sitras did not, however, reveal any originality of views on the part of Amalananda, but were based on Vacas- pati’s interpretation, and were but reflections of his views, as Amalananda himself admits in the second verse of the Sastra-darpana (Vdcaspati-mati-vimbi- tam ddarsam prarabhe vimalam)—Sri Vani Vilasa Press, 1913, Srirangam, Madras. xt] Vacaspati Misra 109 bhasya, 1. iii. 30, that at the time of the great dissolution (maha- pralaya) all products of avidya, such as the psychical frame (antahkarana), cease to have any functions of their own, but are not on account of that destroyed; they are at that time merged in the indescribable avidya, their root cause, and abide there as potential capacities (siksmena Sakti-riipena) together with the wrong impressions and psychological tendencies of illusion. When the state of maha-pralaya is at an end, moved by the will of God, they come out like the limbs of a tortoise or like the rejuvenation during rains of the bodies of frogs which have remained inert and lifeless all the year round, and then, being associated with their proper tendencies and impressions, they assume their particular names and forms as of old before the maha-pralaya. Though all creation takes place through God’s will, yet God’s will is also determined by the conditions of karma and the impressions pro- duced by it. This statement proves that he believed in avidya as an objective entity of an indescribable nature (anirvacya avidya), into which all world-products disappear during the maha-pralaya and out of which they reappear in the end and become associated with psychological ignorance and wrong im- pressions which had also disappeared into it at the time of the maha-pralaya. Avidya thus described resembles very much the prakrti of Yoga, into which all the world-products disappear during a maha-pralaya together with the fivefold avidya and their impressions, which at the time of creation become associated with their own proper buddhis. In the very adoration hymn of the Bhiamati Vacaspati speaks of avidya being twofold (avidya- dvitaya), and says that all appearances originate from Brahman in association with or with the accessory cause (sahakari-karana) of the two avidyas (avidya-dvitaya-sacivasya). In explaining this passage Amalananda points out that this refers to two avidyds, one as a beginningless positive entity and the other as the preceding series of beginningless false impressions (anya pirvapiirva-bhrama- samskarah). There is thus one aspect of avidya which forms the material stuff of the appearances; but the appearances could not have been appearances if they were not illusorily identified with the immediate and pure self-revelation (sva-prakasa cit). Each individual person (jiva) confuses and misapprehends his psychical frame and mental experiences as intelligent in themselves, and it is by such an illusory confusion that these psychical states 110 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. attain any meaning as appearances ; for otherwise these appearances could not have been expressed at all. But how does the person come in, since the concept of a person itself presupposes the very confusion which it is supposed to make? To this Vacaspati’s reply is that the appearance of the personality is due to a previous false confusion, and that to another previous false confusion (cf. Man- dana). So each false confusion has for its cause a previous false confusion, and that another false confusion and so on in a beginning- less series. It is only through sucha beginningless series of confusions that all the later states of confusion are to be explained. Thus on the one hand the avidya operates in the individual person, the jiva, as its locus or support (asraya), and on the other hand it has the Brahman or pure self-revealing intelligence as its object (visaya), which it obscures and through which it makes its false appearances to be expressed, thereby giving them a false semblance of reality, whereby all the world-appearances seem to be manifes- tations of reality!. It is easy to see how this view differs from the view of the Samksepa-sariraka of Sarvajfiatma Muni; for in the opinion of the latter, the Brahman is both the support (asraya) and the object (visaya) of ajfiana, which means that the illusion does not belong to the individual person, but is of a transcendental character. It is not the individual person as such (jiva), but the pure intelli- gence that shines through each individual person (pratyak-cit), that is both obscured and diversified into a manifold of appearances in a transcendental manner. In Vacaspati’s view, however, the illusion is a psychological one for which the individual person is responsible, and it is caused through a beginningless chain of illusions or confusions, where each succeeding illusory experience is explained by a previous illusory mode of experience, and that by another and so on. The content of the illusory experiences is also derived from the indescribable avidya, which is made to appear as real by their association with Brahman, the ultimately real and self-revealing Being. The illusory appearances, as they are, cannot be described as being existent or non-existent; for, though they seem to have their individual existences, they are always negated by other existences, and none of them have that kind of reality which can be said to defy all negation and contradiction; and it is only such uncontradicted self-revelation that can be said to be 1 It is in the latter view that Vacaspati differs from Mandana, on whose Brahma-siddhi he wrote his Tattva-samiksd. x1] Sarvajnatma Muni III ultimately real. The unreality of world-appearances consists in the fact that they are negated and contradicted; and yet they are not absolutely non-existent like a hare’s horn, since, had they been so, they could not have been experienced at all. So in spite of the fact that the appearances are made out of avidya, they have so far as any modified existence can be ascribed to them, the Brahman as their underlying ground, and it is for this reason that Brahman is to be regarded as the ultimate cause of the world. As soon as this Brahman is realized, the appearances vanish; for the root of all appearances is their illusory confusion with reality, the Brahman. In the Bhamati commentary on Sankara’s commentary, II. ii. 28, Vacaspati points out that according to the Sankara Vedanta the objects of knowledge are themselves indescribable in their nature (anirvacaniyam niladi) and not mere mental ideas (na hi brahma- vadino nilady-akaram vittim abhyupagacchanti kintu anirvacaniyam niladi). ‘The external objects therefore are already existent outside of the perceiver, only their nature and stuff are inde- scribable and irrational (anirvdcya). Our perceptions therefore refer always to such objects as their excitants or producers, and they are not of the nature of pure sensations or ideas generated from within, without the aid of such external objects. Sarvajnatma Muni (a.p, goo).