English
Anandajfiana’s Tarka- samgraha is another important work of negative criticism of the Vaisesika categories and in that sense a continuation on a more elaborate scale of Citsukha’s criticisms of the Vaisesika categories. The importance of the Vaisesika was gradually increasing, as it was gradually more and more adopted by Vaisnava realistic writers, such as Madhva and his followers, and it was supposed that a refutation of the Vaisesika would also imply a refutation of the dualistic writers who draw their chief support from Vaisesika physics and metaphysics. . Anandajfiana, also called Anandagiri, was probably a native of Gujarat and lived in the middle of the thirteenth century. Mr Tripathi points out in his introduction to Anandajfiana’s Tarka- samgraha that Anandajfiana was a spiritual head of the Dvaraka monastery of Sankara, of which Suregvaracarya was the first teacher. He was a pupil of two teachers, Anubhitisvartipacarya and Suddhananda. Anubhiitisvariipacarya wrote five works, viz. (1) a grammatical work called Sarasvata-prakriya, (2) acommentary on Sankara’s commentary on Gaudapada’s Mandikya-karika, (3) a commentary on Anandabodha Yati’s Nya@ya-makaranda, called Nyaya-makaranda-samgraha, (4) a commentary, called Candrika, on Anandabodha’s Nyaya-dipavali, and (5) another commentary, called Nibandha, on Anandabodha’s Pramana-mala. Nothing is known about his other teacher, Suddhananda, who is different from the other Suddhananda, the teacher of Svayamprakaga of the XI] Dialectic of Sankara and Anandajiiana 193 seventeenth century, author of the Advaita-makaranda-tika. One of the most distinguished of Anandagiri’s pupils was Akhandananda, author of the Tattva-dipana, a commentary on Prakasgatman’s Panca-padika-vivarana, as he refers to him as Srimad-adnanda- Sailahva-pancasyam satatam bhaje in the fourth verse of his Tattva- dipana. Anandagiri wrote a large number of works, which are mostly commentaries. Of these his [savasya-bhasya-tippana, Kenopanisad- bhasya-tippana, Vakya-vivarana-vyakhya, Kathopanisad-bhasya- tika, Mundaka-bhasya-vyakhyana, Mandikya-Gaudapadiya-bhasya- vyakhya, Taittiriya-bhasya-tippana, Chandogya-bhasya-tika, Tait- tirtya-bhasya-varttika-tika, Sastra-prakasika, Brhad-aranyaka- bhasya-varttika-tika, Brhad-aranyaka-bhasya-tika, Sariraka- bhasya-tika (called also Nydya-nirnaya), Gita-bhasya-vivecana, Paticikarana-vivarana, with a commentary called Tattva-candrika by Rama Tirtha, a pupil of Jagannathasrama (latter part of the fifteenth century), and Tarka-samgraha have already been printed. But some of his other works, such as Upadesa-sahasri-vivrti, Vakya-ortti-tika, Atma-jnanopadesa-tika, Svariipa-nirnaya-tika, Tripuri-prakarana-tika, Paddartha-tattva-nirnaya-vivarana and Tattvaloka, still remain to be printed. It will thus be seen that almost all his works are but commentaries on Sankara’s commentaries and other works. The Tarka-samgraha and Tattvaloka (attributed to ‘‘Janardana,”’ which was probably the name of Anandagiri when he was a householder) seem to be his only two independent works!. Of these the manuscript of the second work, in which he refutes the doctrines of many other philosophers, including Bhaskara’s parinama doctrines, has, un- fortunately, not been available to the present writer. The Tarka- samgraha is devoted almost wholly to a detailed refutation of the Vaigesika philosophy. The book is divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, dealing with the criticism of substances (dravya), he starts with a refutation of the concepts of duality, reality (tattva), existence (sattva), non-existence, positivity (bhdva) and negativity (abhava). Anandojfiana then passes on to a refutation of the definition of substance and its division into nine kinds (according to the Vaisesika philosophy). He then criticizes the first substance, earth, and its diverse forms, as atoms (paramdanu) and molecules (dvyanuka), and its grosser formsand their modified states, 1 See Mr Tripathi’s introduction to his edition of the Tarka-samgraha, Baroda, 1917. DIL 13 194 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. as bodies, senses and sense-objects, and continues to criticize the other substances such’as water, fire, air, and the theory of creation and dissolution, akasa, time, space, self (aiman) and manas. In the second chapter he goes on to the criticism of qualities (guna), such as colour (ripa), taste (rasa), smell (gandha), touch (sparsa), the effects of heat on the transformations of objects through mole- cular or atomic changes (pilu-paka and pithara-paka), number (sankhya), measure (parimana), separateness (prthaktva), contact (samyoga), separation (vibhaga), the nature of knowledge, illusion and dreams, the nature of right knowledge and its means (pramana and prama), perception (pratyaksa), inference (anumdna), con- comitance (vydptz), reason (hetu), fallacies (hetv abhasa), examples (drstanta), discussions, disputations and wranglings, testimony of the scriptures (gama), analogy (upamana), memory, pleasure, pain, will, antipathy (dvesa), effort (prayatna), heaviness, liquidity (dravatva), virtue, vice, etc. In the third chapter he refutes the notion of action, class-concept or universality (jatz), the relation of inherence (samavaya) and different kinds of negation. The thesis designed to be proved in all these refutations is the same as that of Sriharsa or Citsukha, viz. that in whatsoever manner the Vaisesikas have attempted to divide, classify or define the world of appearances they have failed. The conclusion at which he arrives after this long series of criticisms and refutations reminds us of Anandabodha’s conclu- sions in his Nya&ya-makaranda, on which a commentary was written by his teacher Anubhitisvariipa Acarya, to which reference has already been made when Anandabodha’s views were under dis- cussion. Thus Anandajfiana says that an illusory imposition cannot be regarded as existent (sat) ; for, since it is non-existent in the sub- stratum (adhisthana) of its appearance, it cannot be existent any- where else. Neither can it be regarded as absolutely non-existent (atyantasat); for, had it been so, it would not have appeared as immediately perceived (aparoksa-pratiti-virodhat); nor can it be regarded as existent and non-existent in the same object. The only alternative left is that the illusory imposition is indescribable in its nature!. This indescribability (anitrvacyatva) means that, in which- ever way one may try to describe it, it is found that none of those ways can be affirmed of it or, in other words, that it is indescribable \ parisesyad anirvacyam Gropyam upagamyatam sattvadinam prakdranam prag-ukta-nyadya-badhanat. Tarka-samgraha, p. 135. x1] Dialectic of Sankara and Anandajfiana 195 in each and every one of those ways!. Now, since all appearances must have something for their cause and since that which is not a real thing cannot have a real thing as its material cause (na ca avastuno vastu upadanam upapadyate), and, since they are all in- describable in their nature, their cause must also be of that nature, the nescience of the substratum?. Hethen asserts that this nescience (ajfana), which is the material out of which all appearances take their form, is associated with Brahman ; for Brahman could not be regarded as omniscient or the knower of all (sarva-jfia) without its ‘association with ajfana, which is the material stuff of the all (the knower, the means of knowledge, the objects and their relations)’. Everything else that appears except the one reality, the self, the Brahman, is the product of this ajfiana. This one ajfana then can explain the infinite kinds of appearances, and there is not the slightest necessity of admitting a number of ajfidnas in order to explain the diversity or the plurality of appearances. The many selves are thus but appearances pro- duced by this one ajfana in association with Brahman’. It is the one ajfdna that is responsible for appearances of the dream state as well as of the waking state. It is the one ajfana which produces all kinds of diversity by its diversity of functions or modes of opera- tion. If there is only one reality, which through one ajfiana appears in all diverse forms of appearances, how is the phenomenon of self-consciousness or self-recognition to be explained? To this difficulty Anandajfiana’s reply is that both the perceiving and the perceived self are but false appearances in the antahkarana (an ajnana product), and that it does not in any way infect the one true self with any kind of activity. Thus there is the one Brahman and there is one beginningless, indescribable ajfiana in connection with it, which is the cause of all the infinitely diverse appearances through which the former appears impure and suffers bondage, as it were, and again appears liberated, as it were, through the e yena yena prakarena paro nirvaktum icchati tena tenatmana ’yogas tad-anirvacyata mata. Tarka-samgraha, p. 136. 2 tasmad ripyadi-karyasyanirvacyatvat tad-upadanam api adhisthanajnanam upadeyam. Ibid. p. 137. 3 pramanatah sarvajfatve pi pramatrtvasya pramana-prameya-sambandhasya cajnana-sambandham antarenasiddheh tasmin ajhanavattvam avasyam dsrayita- vyam anyatha sarvajnatvayogat. Ibid. pp. 137, 138. oak 4 ekas tavad atma dvayor api advayoh sampratipanno ’sti, tasya svajfandd eva avivada-siddhad ekasmad atiriktam sarvam pratibhati;...samastasyaiva bheda- . bhanasyadparamarthikasyaikajnana-samarthyad eva sambhavan ndjidna-bhede hetur asti. Ibid. pp. 138, 139. 13-2 196 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. realization of the Vedantic truth of the real nature of the selft. In fact there is neither bondage nor emancipation.