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In explaining the nature of the perceptual process he gives us the same sort of account as is given by his pupil Dharmaraja Adhvarindra in his Vedanta-paribhasa, as described in the tenth chapter in the first volume of this work®. He considers the self to be bliss itself (sukha-riipa) and does not admit that there is any difference between the self and bliss (sa catma sukhan na bhidyate)*. His definition of ajfana is the same as that of Citsukha, viz. that it is a beginningless constitutive cause, which is removable by true knowledge®. There is thus practically 1 Vedanta-tattva-viveka, p.12. The Pandit, vol. xxv, May 1903. This work has two important commentaries, viz. Tattva-viveka-dipana, and one called Tattva- viveka-dipana-vyakhya by Bhattoji. 2 Vedanta-tattva-viveka, p. 15. 3 yada antahkarana-vrttya ghatavacchinnam caitanyam upadhiyate tada antahkarandvacchinna-ghatavacchinna-caitanyayor vastuta ekatve "py updadhi- bhedad bhinnayor abhedopadhi-sambandhena aikyad bhavaty abhedaity antahkara- navacchinna-caitanyasya_ visayabhinna-tad-adhisthana-caitanyasyabheda-siddhy- artham urtter nirgamanam vacyam. Ibid. p. 22. 4 Ibid. p. 29. 5 andady upadanatve sati jiiana-nivartyam ajnanam, nikhila-prapancopadana- brahma-gocaram eva ajhanam. Ibid. p. 43. 218 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. no new line of argument in his presentation of the Vedanta. On the side of dialectical arguments, in his attempts to refute “‘ differ-. ence” (bheda) in his Bheda-dhikkara he was anticipated by his great predecessors Sriharsa and Citsukha. Appaya Diksita! (A.D. 1550). Appaya Diksita lived probably in the middle of the sixteenth century, as he refers to Nrsimhagrama Muni, who lived early in that century. He was a great scholar, well-read in many branches of Sanskrit learning, and wrote a large number of works on many subjects. His grandfather was Acarya Diksita, who is said to have been famous for his scholarship from the Himalayas to the south point of India: the name of his father was Rangaraja Makhindra (or simply Raja Makhindra). There is, however, nothing very noteworthy in his Vedantic doctrines. For, in spite of his scholarship, he was only a good compiler and not an original thinker, and on many occasions where he had opportunities of giving original views he contents himself with the views of others. It is sometimes said that he had two different religious views at two different periods of his life, Saiva and the Vedanta. But of this one cannot be certain; for he was such an all-round scholar that the fact that he wrote a Saiva commentary and a Vedantic commentary need not lead to the supposition that he changed his faith. In the beginning of his commentary Sivarka-mani-dipika on Srikantha’s Saiva commentary to the Brahma-siitra he says that, though the right interpretation of the Brahma-siitra is the monistic interpre- tation, as attempted by Sankara and others, yet the desire for attaining this right wisdom of oneness (advaita-vasana) arises only through the grace of Siva, and it is for this reason that Vyasa in his Brahma-sitra tried to establish the superiority of the qualified Brahman Siva as interpreted by Srikanthacarya. This shows that even while writing his commentary on Srikantha’s Saiva-bhasya he had not lost respect for the monistic interpretations of Sankara, and he was somehow able to reconcile in his mind the Saiva doctrine of qualified Brahman (saguna-brahma) as Siva with the Sankara doctrine of unqualified pure Brahman. It is possible, 1 He was also called Appayya Diksita and Avadhani Yajva, and he studied Logic (tarka) with Yajfiesvara Makhindra. See colophon to Appaya Diksita’s commentary on the Nydya-siddhanta-manjari of Janakinatha, called Nydya- stddhanta-mafyjart-vyakhyana (MS.). xI] Appaya Diksita 219 however, that his sympathies with the monistic Vedanta, which at the beginning were only lukewarm, deepened with age. He says in his Sivarka-mani-dipika that he lived in the reign of King Cinnabomma (whose land-grant inscriptions date from Sadagiva, maharaja of Vijayanagara, A.D. 1566 to 1575; vide Hultzsch, S.J. Inscriptions, vol. 1), under whose orders he wrote the Sivarka- ‘mani-dipika commentary on Srikantha’s commentary. His grandson Nilakantha Diksita says in his Siva-lilarnava that Appaya Diksita lived to the good old age of seventy-two. In the Oriental Historical Manuscripts catalogued by Taylor, vol. m1, it is related that at the request of the Pandya king Tirumalai Nayaka he came to the Pandya country in A.D. 1626 to settle certain disputes between the Saivas and the Vaisnavas. Kalahasti-garana-Sivananda Yogindra, in his commentary on the Atmarpana-stava, gives the date of Appaya Diksita’s birth as Kali age 4654, or A.D. 1554, as pointed out by Mahamahopadhyaya Kuppusvami Sastri in his Sanskrit introduction to the Siva-lilarnava. Since he lived seventy-two years, he must have died some time in 1626, the very year when he came to the Pandya country. He had for his pupil Bhattoji Diksita, as is indicated by his own statement in the Tantra- siddhanta-dipika by the latter author. Bhattoji Diksita must there- fore have been a junior contemporary of Appaya Diksita, as is also evidenced by his other statement in his Tattva-kaustubha that he wrote this work at the request of King Keladi-Venkatendra, who reigned from 1604 to 1626 (vide Hultzsch’s second volume of Reports on Sanskrit Manuscripts)*. It is said that Appaya Diksita wrote about four hundred works. Some of them may be mentioned here: Advaita-nirnaya, Catur-mata-sara-samgraha (containing in the first chapter, called Nydaya-muktavali, a brief summary of the doctrines of Madhva, in the second chapter, called Naya-mayikha-malika, the doctrines of Ramanuja, in the third chapter the decisive conclusions from the point of view of Srikantha’s commentary called Naya-mani- mala and in the fourth chapter, called Naya-manjari, decisive conclusions in accordance with the views of Sankaracarya) ; Tattva- muktavali, a work on Vedanta; Vyakarana-vada-naksatra-mala, a work on grammar; Purvottara-mimamsa-vada-naksatra-mala (containing various separate topics of discussion in Mimamsa and 1 See Mahamahopadhyaya Kuppusvami Sastri’s introduction to the Siva- lilarnava, Srirangam, 1911. 220 The Sankara School of Vedanta [cH. Vedanta); Nydya-raksa-mani, a commentary on the Brahma-sitra following the monistic lines of Sankara; Veddanta-kalpa-taru- parimala, a commentary on Amalananda’s Veddanta-kalpa-taru, a commentary on Vacaspati’s Bhamati commentary; Stddhanta- lesa-samgraha, a collection of the views of different philosophers of the monistic school of Sankara on some of the most important points of the Vedanta, without any attempt at harmonizing them or showing his own preference by reasoned arguments, and comprising a number of commentaries by Acyutakrsnananda 'Tirtha (Krsna- lamka@ra), Gangadharendra Sarasvati (Siddhanta-bindu-sikara), Ramacandra Yajvan (Gadhartha-prakasa), Visvanatha ‘Tirtha, Dharmaya Diksita and others; Sivarka-mani-dipika, a com- mentary on Srikantha’s Saiva-bhasya on the Brahma-sitra; Siva- karnamrta; Siva-tattva-viveka; Siva-purana-tamasatva-khandana ; Sivadvaita-nirnaya; Sivananda-lahari-candrika, a commentary on Sankara’s Sivananda-lahari; Sivarcana-candrika; Sivotkarsa-can- drika ; Sivotkarsa-manjari; Saiva-kalpa-druma; Siddhanta-ratna- kara; Madhva-mukha-bhanga, an attempt to show that Madhva’s interpretation of the Brahma-sitra is not in accordance with the meaning of the texts of the Upanisads ; Ramanuja-mata-khandana; Ramayana-tatparya-nirnaya; Ramayana-tatparya-samgraha; Ra- mayana-bharata-sara-samgraha; Ramayana-sara; Ramayana-sara- samgraha; Ramayana-sara-stava; Mimamsadhikarana-mala Upa- krama-parakrama, a short Mimamsa work; Dharma-mimamsa- paribhasa; Nama-samgraha-malika; Vidhi-rasayana; Vidhi-rasa- yanopajivani ; Vrtti-varttika, a short work on the threefold mean- ings of words ; Kuvalayananda, a work on rhetoric on which no less than ten commentaries have been written ; Citra-mimamsd, a work on rhetoric; Jayollasa-nidhi, a commentary on the Bhagavata-purana; Yadavabhyudaya-tika, a commentary on Venkata’s Ydadava- bhyudaya; acommentary on the Prabodha-candrodaya nataka, etc. Prakasananda (a.p. 1550—1600). It has been. pointed out that the Vedanta doctrine of monism as preached by Sankara could not shake off its apparent duality in association with maya, which in the hands of the later followers of Sankara gradually thickened into a positive stuff through the evolution or transformation of which all the phenomena of world- appearance could be explained. The Vedantists held that this maya, x1] Prakdsdnanda 221 though it adhered to Brahman and spread its magical creations thereon, was unspeakable, indescribable, indefinable, changeable and unthinkable and’ was thus entirely different from the self- revealing, unchangeable Brahman. The charge of dualism against such a system of philosophy could be dodged by the teachers of Vedanta only by holding that, since Brahman was the ultimate reality, maya was unreal and illusory, and hence the charge of duality would be false. But when one considers that m@ya is regarded as positive and as the stuff of the transformations of world-appearance, it is hardly intelligible how it can be kept out of consideration as having no kind of existence at all. The positive character of maya as being the stuff of all world-appearance has to be given up, if the strictly monistic doctrine is to be consistently kept. Almost all the followers of Sankara had, however, been inter- preting their master’s views in such a way that the positive éxist- ence of an objective world with its infinite varieties as the ground of perceptual presentation was never denied.