Chapter 4.10 - Reality in Advaita Philosophy (Introduction)

Advaita is the culmination of upanishadic thought. Gaudapada revived the monistic interpretation in a systematic and clear manner. Agamshastra or Gaudapada-karika is an authentic treatise on advaitic Philosophy. Gaudapada lived, when Buddhism, Madhyamika Buddhism was widely prevalent in India. Shankara in his commentary on Gaudapadiya-karika credits Gaudapada for recovering the monistic interpretation from the upanishads. He must have lived in between 7^th and 8^th century CE. At that time Buddhist preceptors like Acarya Nagarjuna, and his immediate disciples like Aryadeva, Vasubandhu and others had well established the thoughts of unreality of the world and the like even among the ordinary people. Gaudapada used Nagarjuna’s dialects in a similar, method but in an advaitic the mould. Especially the major tenets of Advaita and Buddhism was the Philosophy of nonorigination. Gaudapada was enormously influenced by the Madhyamika Buddhism and he developed a new system of Advaita Vedanta in the upanishadic mould. So he is considered as a crypto Buddhist. Gaudapada was well versed in Buddhist doctrines and did not conflict with any other systems. In his writings, he liberally interprets Buddhist terminology and ideas to strengthen the Advaita Philosophy.^[1]

In the upanishads the macro cosmic and micro cosmic are identified. Brahman is the mysterious support of everything, the universal and transcendental substratum. This Brahman is Atman (the immanent), the inner controller–antryamin–of all things. It is Sat-cit-ananda. They are all one in substance. Brahman is the ground and support of the entire universe. Upanishadic conception of Brahman is that it (Brahman) is not a personal god, it is impersonal and super personal, especially beyond description. Brahman has no form and so it is all pervading beyond grasp and apprehension. It is the conscious and intelligent principle, which created the universe. It has no beginning and end, Anadi. Brahman is not an object of sense perception. It is atindriya–or trans sensuous. Therefore, one should depend on scriptures. Shruti or Shabda pramana is the source for the knowledge of the Brahman.^[2] Shankara argues that the Veda itself is the breath of the great being Brahman. Veda and god are beginningless, anadi, no end and no beginning. Advaita restates that jivatma is essentially non-different from the Paramitman or Brahman. This is spoken as jiva–brahmaikya, no-nseparateness of the jiva and the Brahman. The Atman is the witness or saksi of the three states viz. waking (jagrat), dream (svapna) and sleep (sushupti).^[3] The purpose of Vedanta, is to help one to get over this confusion, to understand the true nature of the Atman and realize it in one’s own experience, even more vividly than one experiences the object of the physical world.

Brahman the transcendental entity is existence, consciousness, bliss, and absolute and is identified with Atman, the true nature of the individual soul (jiva). Brahman is absolute in the sense that it is free from objectivity and duality. The world is mithya or indeterminable either as real (Sat) or as unreal (asat). The world is mithya or anirvacaniya because it is presented in cognition (drishyatvat) like silver that appears in a shell. The cognized silver cannot be real; for if it were so, it would not be sublated afterwards by the knowledge of the true nature of the substratum that is shell in the form ‘this is Shell’. Nor can it be unreal; for in that case it would never have been presented in the cognition of the form ‘this is silver’. An absolute never becomes an object of cognition. It cannot be real or unreal at once. Silver appears in a shell; appearance requires a material cause it should be of the same order as the subject. Hence it cannot be real but nithya like silver itself. That cause is Maya present in the consciousness (cit) delimited by the substratum shell that is misapprehended. When we take the world, exactly similar consideration applies. The latter is not real; for it is said to be annihilated by the direct experience of Brahman. It is not unreal;for it is present in.