rajeev@sfsup.UUCP (S.Rajeev) (03/18/86)
> I have a question, > Was Shankara the originator of Advaita ? If so, > How do you account for Vishwa roopa darshana in Bhagavad gita? ..... > > I have no doubt that Shankara was responsible for revitalising Hinduism, > but I think he only propagated the right ideas from vedas/upanishads. > > Ramakrishna, M.V. You are quite right in observing that Advaita ideas did not originate with Sankara; indeed, the quintessential advaita phrase "tat tvam asi" (you are That: the Brahman) is from the Chandogya Upanishad. However, the Upanishads, reflecting their multiple authors, present a mutliplicity of points of view. Supporters of all of the ancient schools of thought (Sankhya, Vaiseshika, Nyaya, ...) and even the materialistic Charvakas could quote Upanishadic passages that supported their beliefs. Sankara's contribution was to bring together in a single logical framework all the advaitic ideas from the older writings. In fact, it is his synthesis that has come to be called Advaita: so in some sense he did indeed invent it. The eminent Indologist A.L. Basham has this to say about Sankara: "Sankara was an orthodox brahmin, for whom all the Vedic literature was sacred and unquestionably true. To harmonize its many paradoxes, he had recourse to ... a double standard of truth. On the everyday level was truth the world was produced by Brahma.... On the highest level of truth ... the world was Maya, ... a figment of the imagination. Ultimately the only reality was Brahman, the impersonal World Soul of the Upanishads... "Sankara's greatness lies in his brilliant dialectic... He reduced all the apparently self-contradictory passages of the Upanishads to a consistent system, which ... has remained the standard philosophy of Hinduism to this day..." [This excerpt is from "The Wonder that was India", which is the best book, in my opinion, on the subject of pre-Muslim India for the general reader. Basham, apparently a Briton, passed away recently. I recommend his book whole-heartedly. It appeared originally as a Fontana paperback, but there is an Indian edition published by Rupa and Co., 15 Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Calcutta 700 073, for Rs. 60 (in 1981). By the way, I have no connection whatsoever with Rupa & Co. or Fontana or Basham.] Sri Rajeev.