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Sarvajfiatma Muni was a disciple of Suresvardcarya, the direct disciple of Sankara, to whom at the beginning of his work Samk- sepa-sariraka he offers salutation by the name Deveévara, the word being a synonym of the word sura in Suresvara. The identification of Devesvara with Suresgvara is made by Rama Tirtha, thecommentator on the Samksepa-sariraka, and this identification does not come into conflict with anything else that is known about Sarvajfiatma Muni either from the text of his work or from other references to him in general. It is said that his other name was Nityabodhacarya. The exact date of neither Suresgvara nor Sarvajfiatma can be definitely determined. Mr Pandit in his introduction to the Gauda- vaho expresses the view that, since Bhavabhiti was a pupil of Kumirila, Kumiarila must have lived in the middle of the seventh century, and, since Sankara was a contemporary of Kumiarila (on the testimony of the Sakara-dig-vijaya), he must have lived either in the seventh century or in the first half of the eighth century. Inthe 112 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. first volume of the present work Sankara was placed between A.D. 780-820. The arguments of Mr Pandit do not raise any new point for consideration. His theory that Bhavabhiti was a pupil of Kuma- rila is based on the evidence of two manuscripts, where, at the end of an act of the Malati-Madhava, it is said that the work was written by a pupil of Kumirila. This evidence, as I have noticed elsewhere, is very slender. The tradition that Sankara was a contemporary of Kumarila, based as it is only on the testimony of the Sankara-dig- vijaya, cannot be seriously believed. All that can be said is that Kumirila probably lived not long before Sankara, if one can infer this from the fact that Sankara does not make any reference to Kumiarila. Hence there seems to be no reason why the traditionally accepted view that Sankara was born in Samvat 844, or A.D. 788, or Kali age 3889, should be given up. Taking the approximate date of Sankara’s death to be about a.D. 820 and taking into con- sideration that Suregvara, the teacher of Sarvajfiatman, occupied his high pontifical position for a long time, the supposition that Sarvajiiatman lived in A.D. goo may not be very far wrong. More- over, this does not come into conflict with the fact that Vacaspati, who probably wrote his earlier work the Nyd@ya-siici-nibandha in A.D. 842, also wrote his commentary on Mandana’s Brahma-siddhi when Suresvara was occupying the pontifical position. Sarvajiiatma Muni was thus probably a younger contemporary of Vacaspati Misra. In his Samksepa-sariraka he tries to describe the fundamental problems of the Vedanta philosophy, as explained by Sankara. This work, which is probably the only work of his that is known to us, is divided into four chapters, written in verses of different metres. It contains. in the first chapter 563 verses, in the second 248, in the third 365 and in the fourth 63. In the first chapter of the work he maintains that pure Brahman is the ultimate cause of everything through the instrumentality (dvara) of ajfana. The ajfana, which rests on (asraya) the pure self and operates on it as its object (visaya), covers its real nature (Gcchadya) and creates delusory appearances (viksipati), thereby producing the threefold appearances of God (Ivara), soul (jiva) and the world. This ajfiana has no independent existence, and its effects are seen only through the pure self (cid-dtman) as its ground and object, and its creations are all false. The pure self is directly perceived in the state of dreamless sleep as being of the nature 1 See Arya-vidya-sudha-kara, pp. 226, 227. x1] Sarvajndima Muni 113 of pure bliss and happiness without the slightest touch of sorrow; and pure bliss can only be defined as that which is the ultimate end and not under any circumstances a means to anything else; such is also the pure self, which cannot be regarded as being a means to anything else; moreover, there is the fact that everyone always desires his self as the ultimate object of attainment which he loves above anything else. Such an infinite love and such an ultimate end cannot be this limited self, which is referred to as the agent of our ordinary actions and the sufferer in the daily concerns of life. The intuitive perception of the seers of the Upanisads also confirms the truth of the self as pure bliss and the infinite. The illusory impositions on the other hand are limited appearances of the subject and the object which merely contribute to the possibility of false attribution and cannot therefore be real (na vastavam tat). When the Brahman is associated with ajfana there are two false entities, viz. the ajfiana and the Brahman as asso- ciated with the aidana; but this does not imply that the pure Brahman, which underlies all these false associations, is itself also false, since this might lead to the criticism that, everything being false, there is no reality at all, as some of the Buddhists contend. A distinction is drawn here between @dhara and adhisthana. The pure Brahman that underlies all appearances is the true adhi- sthana (ground), while the Brahman as modified by the false ajfana is a false G@dhara or a false object to which the false appearances directly refer. All illusory appearances are similarly experienced. Thus in the experience ‘‘I perceive this piece of silver”’ (in the case of the false appearance of a piece of conch-shell as silver) the silvery character or the false appearance of the silver is associated with the ‘‘this” element before the perceiver, and the “this” element in its turn, as the false object, becomes associated with the false silver as the ‘‘this silver.” But, though the objectivity of the false silver as the ‘‘this”’ before the perceiver is false, the “this” of the true object of the conch-shell is not false. It is the above kind of double imposition of the false appearance on the object and of the false object on the false appearance that is known as parasparadhyasa. It is only the false object that appears in. the illusory appearance and the real object lies untouched. The inner psychical frame (antahkarana) to a certain extent on account of its translucent character resembles pure Brahman, and on account of this similarity it is often mistaken for the pure self and the pure DI 8 114 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. self is mistaken for the antahkarana. It may be contended that there could be no antahkarana without the illusory imposition, and so it could not itself explain the nature of illusion. The reply given to such an objection is that the illusory imposition and its conse- quences are beginningless and there is no point of time to which one could assign its beginning. Hence, though the present illusion may be said to have taken its start with the antahkarana, the antahkarana is itself the product of a previous imposition, and that of a previous antahkarana, and so on without a beginning. Just as in the illusion of the silver in the conch-shell, though there is the piece of conch-shell actually existing, yet it is not separately seen, and all that is seen to exist is the unreal silver, so the real Brahman exists as the ground, though the world during the time of its ap- pearance is felt to be the only existing thing and the Brahman is not felt to be existent separately from it. Yet this aj#ana has no real existence and exists only for the ignorant. It can only be removed when the true knowledge of Brahman dawns, and it is only through the testimony of the Upanisads that this knowledge can dawn; for there is no other means of insight into the nature of Brahman. Truth again is defined not as that which is amenable to proof, but as that which can be independently and directly felt. The ajfiana, again, is defined as being positive in its nature (bhava- riipam) and, though it rests on the pure Brahman, yet, like butter in contact with fire, it also at its touch under certain circumstances melts away. The positive character of ajfana is felt in the world in its materiality and in ourselves as our ignorance. The real ground cause, however, according to the testimony of the Upanisads, is the pure Brahman, and the ajfidna is only the instrument or the means by which it can become the cause of all appearances; but, ajnana not being itself in any way the material cause of the world, Sarvajfiatman strongly holds that Brahman in association and jointly with ajfidna cannot be regarded as the material cause of the world. The ajfana is only a secondary means, without which the transformation of appearances is indeed not possible, but which has no share in the ultimate cause that underlies them. He definitely denies that Brahman could be proved by any inference to the effect that that which is the cause of the production, existence and dis- solution of the world is Brahman, since the nature of Brahman can be understood only by the testimony of the scriptures. He indulges in long discussions in order to show how the Upanisads xI] Sarvajhatma Muni 115 can lead to a direct and immediate apprehension of reality as Brahman. The second chapter of the book is devoted mainly to the further elucidation of these doctrines. In that chapter Sarvajfiatma Muni tries to show the difference of the Vedanta view from the Buddhist, which difference lies mainly in the fact that, in spite of the doctrine of illusion, the Vedanta admits the ultimate reality to be Brahman, which is not admitted by the Buddhists. He also shows how the experiences of waking life may be compared with those of dreams. He then tries to show that neither perception nor other means of proof can prove the reality of the world-appearance and criticizes the philosophic views of the Samkhya, Nyaya and other systems.