The Bloomsbury Research

Handbook of Vedānta
 Bloomsbury Research Handbooks in Asian Philosophy

Series Editors

Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Lancaster University, UK

Sor-hoon Tan, National University of Singapore

Editorial Advisory Board

Roger Ames, Professor of Philosophy, University of Hawai’i, USA; Doug Berger,

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Southern Illinois University, USA; Carine
Defoort, Professor of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Belgium; Owen Flanagan, James
B. Duke Professor of Philosophy, Duke University, USA; Jessica Frazier, Lecturer
in Religious Studies, University of Kent, UK; Chenyang Li, Professor of Chinese
Philosophy, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Ronnie Littlejohn,
Professor of Philosophy, Director of Asian Studies, Belmont University, USA; Evan
Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia, Canada

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The Bloomsbury Research
Handbook of Vedānta

Edited by
Ayon Maharaj
 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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Names: Maharaj, Ayon, editor. Title: The Bloomsbury research handbook of Vedānta / edited by Ayon
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Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Series: Bloomsbury research handbooks in Asian
philosophy | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This handbook brings together
a distinguished team of scholars from philosophy, theology, and religious studies to provide the first
in-depth discussion of Vedanta and the many different systems of thought that make up this tradition
of Indian philosophy. Emphasizing the historical development of Vedantic thought, it includes chapters
on numerous classical Vedantic philosophies as well as the modern Vedantic views of Sri Ramakrishna,
Sri Aurobindo, and Romain Rolland. The volume offers careful hermeneutic analyses of how Vedantic
texts have been interpreted, and it addresses key issues and debates in Vedanta, including religious
diversity, the nature of God, and the possibility of embodied liberation. Venturing into cross-philosophical
and cross-cultural territory, it also brings Vedanta into dialogue with Saiva Nondualism as well as
contemporary Western analytic philosophy. Highlighting current scholarly controversies and charting new
paths of inquiry, this is an indispensable research guide for anyone interested in the past, present, and
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| ISBN 9781350063242 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350063259 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Hindu philosophy.
| Vedanta. | Advaita. | Vis´is?t?a¯dvaita. | Dvaita (Vedanta) | Philosophy, Modern. | Philosophy and
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 Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors vii

Acknowledgments xii
Note on Sanskrit Transliteration xiii

Introduction: The Past, Present, and Future of Scholarship on Vedānta

Ayon Maharaj 1
Chapter Summaries 33

Part 1 Classical Vedānta

1 Contemplating Nonduality: The Method of Nididhyāsana in

Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta Neil Dalal 45
2 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge (Dharmabhūtajñāna) in the Later
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta of Veṅkaṭanātha Marcus Schmücker 75
3 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta: An Analytic Defense of Realism in
Mādhva Vedānta Michael Williams 105
4 Accomplishing the Impossible: Jīva Gosvāmī and the Concept of
Acintya in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta Ravi M. Gupta 131

Part 2 Modern Vedānta

5 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy of Anekānta Vedānta Jeffery D. Long 157

6 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology of a “Psychic Being” in Support of a
Metaphysical Argument for Reincarnation Stephen Phillips 179
7 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling: Romain Rolland’s Vedāntic
Critique of Psychoanalysis and His Call for a “New Science of the
Mind” Ayon Maharaj 197

Part 3 Key Themes, Concepts, and Debates in Vedānta

8 Making Space for God: Karma, Freedom, and Devotion in

the Brahmasūtra Commentaries of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and
Baladeva Andrew J. Nicholson 227
vi Table of Contents

9 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity: Grounding the Many

Divinities in the Unity of Brahman Ankur Barua 255
10 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue: The World and Embodied
Liberation in Advaita Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā Klara Hedling 281

Part 4 Hermeneutic Investigations

11 Seeing Oneness Everywhere: Sri Aurobindo’s Mystico-Immanent

Interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad Ayon Maharaj 309
12 On the Style of Vedānta: Reading Bhāratītīrtha’s Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā
in Light of Mādhava’s Jaiminīyanyāyamālā Francis X. Clooney, S.J. 341
13 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation of Śaṅkara’s Advaita
Vedānta Daniel Raveh 367

Part 5 Cross-Cultural Explorations

14 A New Debate on Consciousness: Bringing Classical and

Modern Vedānta into Dialogue with Contemporary Analytic
Panpsychism Anand Jayprakash Vaidya 393
15 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario: Śrīharṣa’s Skeptical
Advaita in the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya Ethan Mills 423
16 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom: A Contemporary
Cross-Cultural Remapping of Vedānta Arindam Chakrabarti 445

Index 472
 Notes on Contributors

Ankur Barua’s primary research interests are Hindu studies and the comparative
philosophy of religion. He teaches and researches at the Faculty of Divinity,
University of Cambridge, various historical, philosophical, and conceptual
aspects of the Hindu traditions as they have developed in the Indian subcontinent.
In recent years, he has also been investigating how somewhat divergent ideas of
“Hinduism” as a “world religion” were formulated, interrogated, and articulated
during the colonial centuries in British India, and how some of these ideas
were received, repackaged, and reconstituted in Britain and Europe. Further, an
integral part of his academic research is the comparative study of religions: in
particular, the question of whether Christian terms such as “grace,” “creation,”
and “God” have any Hindu analogues, and Hindu terms such as dharma, karma,
and saṃsāra have any Christian equivalents.

Arindam Chakrabarti did his doctoral work in philosophy of language at

Oxford under Sir Peter Strawson and Sir Michael Dummett. Since 1984, he has
taught at the University of Calcutta, the Asiatic Society Calcutta, University
College London, University of Washington Seattle, University of Delhi, and at
the University of Hawaii Manoa for twenty-two years. In 2018 he joined the
Stony Brook Philosophy Department as the first occupant of the Nirmal and
Augustina Mattoo Chair of Indic Humanities. He is the author of Denying
Existence: On the Logic of Singular Negative Existential Sentences (Synthese
Library Series, 1997) and Realisms Interlinked: Objects, Subjects and Other
Subjects (Bloomsbury, 2019). He has also recently edited the Bloomsbury Research
Handbook of Indian Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art. Apart from more than a
hundred articles in journals and anthologies, and six Bengali monographs on
philosophy, he published the first Sanskrit book on modern Western theories of
knowledge in 2005. He has supervised fifteen successful PhD students in the past
twenty years in the areas of comparative philosophy of the body, epistemology,
metaphysics, and philosophy of mind.

Francis X. Clooney, S.J. is the Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor

of Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School. His primary areas of
scholarship are theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil
traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology,
a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological
learning deepened through the study of traditions other than one’s own. He
has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, and
viii Notes on Contributors

the dynamics of dialogue in the contemporary world. Professor Clooney is the

author of numerous articles and books, including most recently His Hiding
Place Is Darkness: An Exercise in Interreligious Theopoetics (Stanford, 2013), The
Future of Hindu-Christian Studies: A Theological Inquiry (Routledge, 2017), and
Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: How and Why Deep Learning Still
Matters (University of Virginia, 2019). During 2010–2017 he was Director of
the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. He has
received honorary doctorates from the College of the Holy Cross (2011), the
Australian Catholic University (2012), Heythrop College, University of London
(2017), and Regis College, University of Toronto (2019). In 2010 he was elected
a Fellow of the British Academy.

Neil Dalal is Associate Professor of South Asian Philosophy and Religious

Thought at the University of Alberta. He received his PhD in Asian Cultures
and Languages from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MA in East-West
Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dalal’s interests
include philosophy of mind, contemplative psychology, and meditation practices
found in classical South Asian yoga systems. His current research focuses on
the intersections of contemplative practices, textual study, and embodiment
in Advaita Vedānta. He is the codirector of Gurukulam (The Orchard/Sony
Pictures), and coeditor of Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics (Routledge
Press, 2014).

Ravi M. Gupta is the Charles Redd Professor of Religious Studies and Director
of the Religious Studies Program at Utah State University. He is the author or
editor of four books, including The Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta of Jīva Gosvāmī
(Routledge, 2007). He has completed an abridged translation of the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa (with Kenneth Valpey), published in 2017 by Columbia University Press.
Professor Gupta received his DPhil at Oxford University and subsequently taught
at the University of Florida, Centre College in Kentucky, and the College of
William and Mary. He has received four teaching awards, a National Endowment
for the Humanities summer fellowship, three research fellowships at Oxford,
and a book award. He is a permanent research fellow of the Oxford Centre for
Hindu Studies and a past president of the Society for Hindu Christian Studies.
His current research focuses on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s Sanskrit commentaries,
and he codirects the international Bhāgavata Purāṇa Research Project.

Klara Hedling, originally from Sweden, has studied abroad completing all of
her degrees (BA, MA, MPhil) in Scotland, Canada, and England. She completed
her BA at the University of Glasgow, where she majored in philosophy. Having
become increasingly interested in the philosophical and spiritual traditions of
India, she pursued her MA in Indian philosophy at Brock University, Canada.
Most recently, Klara graduated with an MPhil in classical Indian religion and
Sanskrit from the University of Oxford, where she specialized in Śaivism and the
tantric traditions. This year Klara is beginning her PhD studies at the Department
 Notes on Contributors ix

of Philosophy of the University of New Mexico, where she will continue working
on the nondual Śaivism of Kashmir, particularly Abhinavagupta and the
Pratyabhijñā school.

Jeffery D. Long is Professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Elizabethtown

College, where he has taught since receiving his doctoral degree from the
University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He is the author of A
Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism, Jainism: An Introduction, and
the Historical Dictionary of Hinduism, as well as the editor of Perspectives on
Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, and Scientific and the coeditor of the Buddhism
and Jainism volumes of the Springer Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. He edits
the Lexington Books series Explorations in Indic Religions: Ethical, Philosophical,
and Theological. In 2018 he received the Hindu American Foundation’s Dharma
Seva Award for his work to promote accurate and sensitive portrayals of Hindu
traditions in the American education system. His forthcoming projects include
Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds and Indian Philosophy: An
Introduction, both of which are to be published by Bloomsbury.

Ayon Maharaj (Swami Medhananda) is Senior Research Fellow in

Philosophy at the Vedanta Society of Southern California in Holly-
wood, USA. He is also a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. His
current research focuses on cross-cultural philosophy of religion,
Vedāntic philosophical traditions, Indian scriptural hermeneutics, and the
philosophies of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo. He
received his BA (2002) and PhD (2009) from the University of California at Berkeley.
He was also a Fulbright Fellow at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2006–7) and
a visiting student at Oxford University (2000–1). He is the author of two books,
Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-Cultural Philosophy of
Religion (Oxford University Press, 2018) and The Dialectics of Aesthetic Agency:
Revaluating German Aesthetics from Kant to Adorno (Bloomsbury, 2013). He is
currently writing a book entitled Swami Vivekananda’s Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism
as well as editing a special issue on “Vedāntic Theodicies” for the International
Journal of Hindu Studies. He has published over two dozen articles in such journals
as Philosophy East and West, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Journal of Religion,
History of European Ideas, and Journal of World Philosophies.

Ethan Mills is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee

at Chattanooga, USA. He is the author of Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical
India: Nāgārjuna, Jayarāśi, and Śrī Harṣa (Lexington, 2018) as well as articles
in journals including Philosophy East and West, Asian Philosophy, Comparative
Philosophy, and The International Journal for the Study of Skepticism. He is
coediting, with Matthew Dasti, a volume called Skepticism in India (Brill).
He teaches courses including Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Asian
philosophy, philosophies of India, world philosophy, skepticism East and West,
personal identity, and popular culture and philosophy.
x Notes on Contributors

Andrew J. Nicholson is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and

Asian American Studies and Department of Philosophy at the State University of
New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on
Indian philosophy, global intellectual history, and the philosophy of religion. His
book Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History
(Columbia University Press, 2010) won the American Academy of Religion’s
prize for Best First Book in the History of Religions. His second book is Lord
Śiva’s Song: The Īśvara Gītā (SUNY Press, 2014), a translation from Sanskrit of
an eighth-century philosophical work. His current research interests include
the history of Bhedābheda Vedānta philosophy, Hindu traditions of theistic and
anti-theistic argumentation, the history of yoga, and Indian ethical and political
thought.

Stephen Phillips is Professor of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University

of Texas at Austin (appointed 1982), and has been visiting professor of
philosophy at the University of Hawaii, Manoa (1995), and Jadavpur University,
Kolkata (2008). He received a PhD from Harvard University (1982) after having
attended Harvard College (AB 1975) and the Sri Aurobindo International
Centre for Education, a yoga ashram school in South India. Author or coauthor
of eight books, including Aurobindo’s Philosophy of Brahman (Brill, 1984) and
Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy (Columbia University
Press, 2009), he has more recently written Classical Indian Epistemology: The
Knowledge Sources of the Nyāya School (Routledge, 2012). With Matthew
Dasti, he published The Nyāya-sūtra: Selections with Early Commentaries
(Hackett, 2017). Phillips teamed with N.S. Ramanuja Tatacharya to translate
and explain in 750 pages the perception chapter of the monumental fourteenth-
century Tattva-cintā-maṇi by Gaṅgeśa (American Institute of Buddhist
Studies, 2004 and Motilal Banarsidass, 2008); a translation of the entire text, in
three volumes, is under contract with Bloomsbury (London), and is scheduled
to appear in 2020. A short text on Vedāntic and Naiyāyika natural theology will
also appear soon, coauthored with Nirmalya Guha and Matthew Dasti. Phillips
is editor or coeditor of several anthologies and has published more than sixty
papers in scholarly journals.

Daniel Raveh is Professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He is the author

of three books: Exploring the Yogasūtra: Philosophy and Translation (Continuum,
2012), Sūtras, Stories and Yoga Philosophy (Routledge, 2016), and Daya Krishna and
Twentieth-century Indian Philosophy (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Raveh’s articles
on Vedānta, classical and modern, include “Ayam aham asmīti: Self-consciousness
and Identity in the Eighth Chapter of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad vs. Śaṅkara’s
Bhāṣya” (2008), “Silence or Silencing? Revisiting the Gārgī-Yājñavalkya Debate in
Chapter 3 of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad” (2017), “That in the Martyā which
is Amṛta: A Dialogue with Ramchandra Gandhi” (2018), and “Sri Aurobindo:
Translator of the Ineffable” (2019).
 Notes on Contributors xi

Marcus Schmücker is a senior researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and
Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. He
studied Indology, philosophy, and Islamic studies at the University of Hamburg
and Vienna. From 1992 to 1995, he was a research fellow at the Institute for
Theology of Religions at the University of St. Gabriel (Mödling, lower Austria).
In 1997, he completed his doctoral thesis, “Neither Determinable as Being
nor as Non-Being: Vimuktātman’s Doctrine of the Reality of the World”
(Vienna, 2002). Since 1996, he has been doing research at the Institute for
Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Working at the intersection between theology and philosophy, he is interested
primarily in the traditions of Advaita Vedānta and Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. In the
past few years, his research has focused especially on the works of Veṅkaṭanātha
(aka Vedāntadeśika) written in Sanskrit and Maṇipravāḷa. His forthcoming
publications include “Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa: Changing Forms and the Becoming
of a Deity in Indian Religious Traditions” (Studies in Hinduism, vol. 5, edited
by Marcus Schmücker), and “God and Time: An Interdisciplinary Approach,”
edited by Marcus Schmücker and Michael Williams.

Anand Jayprakash Vaidya is a professor of philosophy and director of the Center

for Comparative Philosophy at San Jose State University in Northern California.
His research focuses on the analytical, cross-cultural, and empirical study of
the mind, ways of knowing about reality, critical thinking, and social justice.
At present he is working on the relation between classical Indian epistemology
and philosophy of mind in relation to contemporary work in analytic and
phenomenological philosophy.

Michael Williams studied Sanskrit and Indian philosophy at the universities

of Oxford and Cardiff. He is currently a research associate at the Austrian
Academy of Sciences in Vienna where he works on the project “Religion and
Reason in the Vedānta Traditions of Medieval India.” He has previously worked
on a project to critically edit the Nyāyabhāṣya of Vātsyāyana at the University of
Vienna, and has taught Sanskrit and philosophy at the University of Manchester.
His publications have focused particularly on the philosophical theologies of
Vaiṣṇava devotional traditions in South India, innovation in Hindu intellectual
traditions, the influence of Navya-Nyāya on philosophers in early modern India,
and metaphysical debates between philosophers during the early modern period.
 Acknowledgments

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta was a group effort from start to
finish. I am grateful to all the contributors for writing such excellent chapters and
for carefully revising their chapters in light of extensive peer review feedback. I
would also like to thank all the anonymous peer reviewers, who wrote detailed
reports on each of the chapters. For help with certain aspects of this handbook,
I benefited from conversations and email exchanges with Michael S. Allen,
Peter Heehs, Signe Cohen, Paolo Magnone, Swami Vedarthananda, and Palash
Ghorai.
I am very grateful to Colleen Coalter, my commissioning editor at
Bloomsbury, for her unfailing support, wise guidance, and kindness throughout
the process. Becky Holland, the editorial assistant, also helped in numerous
ways. Judy Napper deserves special thanks for her meticulous copyediting of the
entire manuscript.
I dedicate this book to my revered Ācāryas—Swami Bhajanananda, Swami
Nityasthananda, Swami Atmapriyananda, and Swami Sarvapriyananda—who
live and breathe Vedānta.
 Note on Sanskrit Transliteration

Throughout this handbook, Sanskrit words have been transliterated using

the standard International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration scheme. As
this handbook aims to be useful to specialists while also being accessible to
nonspecialists, several stylistic policies have been adopted. Sanskrit terms are
generally italicized and in lowercase, with the following exceptions. Names
of philosophical schools (e.g., “Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta”) and names of deities
(e.g., “Rāma,” “Kṛṣṇa”) are capitalized but not italicized. Likewise, the terms
“Brahman” and “Ātman,” which refer to the ultimate reality, are capitalized and
not italicized. However, when the term “ātman” refers to the jīvātman (i.e., the
individual soul), it is italicized and in lowercase. All Sanskrit book titles (e.g.,
“Bhagavad-Gītā”) are italicized, with the exception of Vedic scriptures (e.g., “Ṛg
Veda,” “Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad”), which are not italicized.
Sanskrit compound words—such as “dharma-samanvaya”—are sometimes
hyphenated in order to facilitate comprehension. Whenever an author refers to
a plural Sanskrit noun in an English sentence, an italicized “s” is added to the
end of the word. For instance, when an author refers to more than one jīva, the
word will be written as “jīvas,” even though the final “s” is not part of the Sanskrit
word. The rationale behind this policy is that nonspecialists may have difficulty
recognizing the grammatically correct plural forms of Sanskrit terms.
Throughout the handbook, titles of Sanskrit texts are given in Sanskrit first,
and then an English translation of the title is provided in parentheses after the
first occurrence of the title in a given chapter. Finally, I have asked contributors
to supply in the endnotes of their chapters the original Sanskrit passages of
cited Sanskrit texts that are not widely available or known, such as Vyāsatīrtha’s
Nyāyāmṛta and Bhāratītīrtha’s Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā.
xiv
 Introduction
The Past, Present, and Future of Scholarship on Vedānta
Ayon Maharaj

“Vedānta,” which means the “end” or “culmination” (anta) of the Vedas, originally
denoted the Upaniṣads, the ancient Vedic texts which concern the ultimate reality,
Brahman/Ātman, and the means to attain salvific knowledge ( jñāna) of this ultimate
reality.1 The Upaniṣads declare that our true transcendental Self (Ātman) is intimately
related to, or in some sense ontologically akin to, the divine reality Brahman. We are
ignorant of our true nature as the divine Ātman due to our attachment to worldly
pleasures, which leads us to identify with the superficial body-mind complex.
Therefore, according to the Upaniṣads, we must renounce sense pleasures and worldly
attachments, and engage in meditative practices, in order to break our identification
with the body-mind complex and attain knowledge of our true divine nature.2
Eventually, the term “Vedānta” widened in meaning to encompass the “three
pillars” (prasthānatrayī) of Vedānta: namely, the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad-Gītā, and
the Brahmasūtra. The Gītā (c. 200 BCE–100 CE), perhaps the most popular and
influential scripture in India’s history, embeds Upaniṣadic doctrines within a broad
philosophico-theological framework that strives to harmonize the paths of jñāna and
bhakti (theistic devotion) and emphasizes the spiritual value of unattached action.3 The
Brahmasūtra (c. 300 BCE–400 CE) is a compilation of 555 highly laconic aphorisms
(sūtras) which attempt to reconcile the various teachings of the Upaniṣads.4 These
foundational Vedāntic scriptures, in turn, were interpreted in a variety of ways, leading
eventually to the emergence of numerous competing schools or sects (sampradāyas)
within the broader philosophical tradition of Vedānta.
Vedānta has been, without a doubt, one of the most dominant and influential
traditions in the history of Indian philosophy. Indeed, the importance of Vedānta
extends far beyond its pivotal role in shaping Indian intellectual life for at least a

I am grateful to Michael S. Allen, Ankur Barua, and Ravi M. Gupta for their very helpful feedback
on earlier drafts of this introduction. For elucidation of some aspects of Vallabha’s philosophy, I am
grateful to Sharad Goswami and Maitri Goswami.
2 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

millennium. For many present-day Hindus, Vedānta furnishes the philosophical basis
of their religious beliefs and practices. Vedānta has also had a far-reaching impact on
Indian society, culture, and politics.5 Major nineteenth-century social and religious
reformers—including Rammohun Roy, Debendranath Tagore, and Keshab Chandra
Sen—justified their progressive agendas by drawing upon Vedāntic ideas. Some of the
leading figures of India’s cultural renaissance, including Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
and Rabindranath Tagore, articulated their worldviews and artistic visions on the basis
of Vedānta. Twentieth-century political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas
Chandra Bose, and Bipin Chandra Pal, in their fight to end British rule in India, also
found inspiration in Vedāntic thought. As several scholars have shown, Vedānta has
even permeated Western thought and culture in various ways, especially since Swami
Vivekananda first spread the message of Vedānta in America and England in the final
decade of the nineteenth century (Goldberg 2010; Long 2014).
Not surprisingly, then, Vedānta has taken center stage in both past and present
scholarship on Indian philosophy. This pioneering research handbook brings together
sixteen chapters by leading international scholars on key topics and debates in various
Vedāntic traditions. All but one of the chapters were newly commissioned for this
volume.6 The handbook has three distinguishing features. First, while Indian and
Western scholarship on Vedānta since at least the 1700s has been overwhelmingly
dominated by the study of Advaita Vedānta, this collection highlights the full range of
philosophies within Vedānta, including not only Advaita but also Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita,
Bhedābheda, Acinytabhedābheda, and numerous modern Vedāntic configurations.
Second, it emphasizes that Vedānta, far from being a static tradition, is a dynamic
and still vibrant philosophy that has evolved significantly in the course of its history.
Third, this handbook explores the broader significance and contemporary relevance
of Vedāntic philosophy by bringing it into dialogue with other Indian philosophical
traditions as well as Western philosophies.
A comprehensive history of the voluminous scholarship on Vedānta since the early
centuries of the Common Era would be a valuable but immensely ambitious project
spanning several books. For the modest purposes of this introduction, I will sketch
in four sections a very brief—and necessarily selective—survey of some of the main
trends and phases in the history of scholarship on Vedānta up to the present. This high-
altitude historical survey will help us discern both continuities and discontinuities
between past scholarship and contemporary approaches to Vedānta. As we will see, the
entire history of Vedāntic scholarship reflects a shifting and complex dialectic between
what Bradley L. Herling (2006) calls “myth” and “logos.”7 That is, in both Indian and
Western interpretations of Vedānta, the use of rational methods of exegesis, analysis,
and argumentation has tended to be intertwined with various ideologically driven
agendas and myths. In the fifth and final section of this introduction, I will explain the
organization and aims of this handbook.

I.1 The Emergence of Competing Vedāntic Sampradāyas

Scholarship on Vedānta can be said to have begun in the first few centuries of the
Common Era, when early Indian thinkers established competing schools (sampradāyas)
 Introduction 3

of Vedānta by articulating and defending a particular systematic interpretation of the

Vedāntic scriptures. Some of the earliest Vedāntins, including Bhartṛprapañca, seem to
have been proponents of the Bhedābheda school, which propounds the simultaneous
“difference and non-difference” between the individual soul (jīva) and Brahman
(Nicholson 2010: 28–30). Another early Vedāntic commentator was Gauḍapāda
(c. 500 CE), who composed a verse commentary on the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad
defending the standpoint of Advaita Vedānta. Śaṅkara (c. 700–800 CE), who belonged
to the Advaitic lineage of Gauḍapāda, wrote massively influential commentaries on
the entire prasthānatrayī and attempted to refute the Bhedābheda interpretation of
Bhartṛprapañca. Meanwhile, Bhāskara, who was an approximate contemporary
of Śaṅkara, defended a Bhedābheda interpretation of the Brahmasūtra in explicit
opposition to Śaṅkara’s Advaitic interpretation.
Such polemical infighting among commentators within the Vedāntic fold only
intensified in subsequent centuries. By the sixteenth century, numerous Vedāntic
sampradāyas were established. Four of the most important traditional Vedāntic
sampradāyas8 are as follows, with their founder(s) or earliest known exponent(s) listed
in parentheses:

1. Advaita Vedānta (Gauḍapāda, Śaṅkara)

2. Viśiṣṭādvaita (or Śrīvaiṣṇava) Vedānta (Rāmānuja)
3. Mādhva (or Dvaita) Vedānta (Madhva)
4. Bhedābheda Vedānta (Bhartṛprapañca)
(a) Aupādhika Bhedābheda (Bhāskara)
(b) Svābhāvika Bhedābheda (Nimbārka)
(c) Acintyabhedābheda/Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism (Caitanya)
(d) Śuddhādvaita/Puṣṭimārga (Vallabha)

These Vedāntic sampradāyas diverged on a number of doctrinal points, including the

nature and interrelationship of Brahman, the individual soul (jīva), and the universe
(jagat); the nature of liberation (mukti); and the spiritual practices (sādhanas) necessary
for attaining liberation. It should be noted that the four subschools of Bhedābheda Vedānta
also differed on various points of doctrine, though they all accepted the simultaneous
difference and non-difference of the jīva and Brahman.9 Exponents of different Vedāntic
sampradāyas defended their views as the only correct ones, insisting that their sampradāya
alone represented the one and only true Vedānta. Consequently, prior to the medieval
period, Vedāntins of different sampradāyas did not actually see themselves as belonging
to a common school or tradition known as “Vedānta” (Nicholson 2010: 3).
During the medieval period, however, all of these Vedāntic schools, in spite of their
numerous doctrinal differences, were grouped under the broad label of “Vedānta” or
“Uttara Mīmāṃsā” and were distinguished from other major Vedic schools of Indian
philosophy, especially Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, and Pūrva Mīmāṃsā. Pūrva
(“Earlier”) Mīmāṃsā was a philosophical school that provided both a methodology
for interpreting Vedic injunctions regarding rituals and a philosophical justification
for the beliefs on which ritualism was based (Chatterjee and Datta 1939: 313–40).
According to this school, those who correctly perform the Vedic rituals will reap the
fruits of these rituals in this earthly life as well as in heaven after the death of the body.
4 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

The Vedānta school was also known as Uttara (“Later”) Mīmāṃsā, not only because
it accepted, adapted, or developed many Pūrva Mīmāṃsā doctrines but also because
it went beyond Pūrva Mīmāṃsā by emphasizing the transiency of the fruits of Vedic
ritualism and the superiority of the knowledge of Brahman, which affords eternal
liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
It is well beyond the scope of this introduction to discuss all the doctrines of the
various Vedāntic sampradāyas and their subschools. The first four chapters of this
handbook provide detailed discussions, respectively, of Advaita Vedānta, Viśiṣṭādvaita
Vedānta, Mādhva Vedānta, and Acintyabhedābheda Vedānta. Here, I will only outline
very briefly the views of some of the major Vedāntic schools on six key points of
doctrine.10

I.1.1 The Nature of Brahman

Advaita Vedānta is the only Vedāntic school that holds that Brahman is ultimately
devoid of all attributes (nirguṇa). According to this school, the personal God (īśvara) is
the same attributeless Brahman associated with the unreal “limiting adjunct” (upādhi)
of lordship. Hence, for Advaita Vedāntins, the personal God is real from the empirical
(vyāvahārika) standpoint but unreal from the ultimate (pāramārthika) standpoint.11
All of the other Vedāntic schools are theistic, in that they hold that Brahman is
essentially personal and endowed with attributes (saguṇa) such as omniscience and
omnipotence. It should be noted, however, that these theistic schools of Vedānta
sometimes differ in subtle ways regarding which precise attributes Brahman possesses.
Moreover, many of these theistic Vedāntic schools—including Viśiṣṭādvaita,
Mādhva Vedānta, and some Bhedābheda subschools like Acintyabhedābheda and
Śuddhādvaita—conceive saguṇa Brahman specifically as Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa.
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, Mādhva Vedānta, and many (but not all) schools of
Bhedābheda Vedānta maintain that Brahman is exclusively personal. The theistic
schools of Śuddhādvaita and Acintyabhedābheda are unique in accepting the
impersonal (nirguṇa) Brahman as a real but minor aspect of the Supreme Person Kṛṣṇa
Himself. According to Caitanya’s Acintyabhedābheda school, the impersonal Advaitic
Brahman of the Upaniṣads is the “peripheral brilliance” (tanubhā) of Kṛṣṇa.12 Similarly,
Vallabha’s Śuddhādvaita holds that the “akṣara” Brahman contemplated by jñānīs is
nothing more than Kṛṣṇa’s “foot” (caraṇam), from which the entire universe emerges.13
These schools thereby turn the tables on Advaita Vedānta, which ontologically
privileges nirguṇa Brahman over the ultimately unreal īśvara.

I.1.2 The Ontological Status of the World

Advaita Vedānta is the only Vedāntic school which holds that the world does not exist
from the ultimate standpoint. All the other Vedāntic schools take the world to be real,
though some of them—such as Bhāskara’s Aupādhika Bhedābheda—consider the
world to be, in some sense, less real than Brahman.14 Interestingly, Vallabha’s follower
Giridhara was the first to designate Vallabha’s school of Bhedābheda as “Śuddhādvaita”
(“pure nondualism”) in polemical contrast to what he perceived to be the incomplete
 Introduction 5

nondualism of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta, which—he claimed—compromised the

nonduality of Brahman by positing māyā, the source of this unreal world appearance,
as a power apart from Brahman.15

I.1.3 The Relation Between Brahman and the World

All Vedāntic sampradāyas grapple in various ways with the problem of explaining how
the perfect, pure, and infinite Brahman can relate to an imperfect, impure, and ever-
changing world. Advaita Vedānta is unique among Vedāntic traditions in explaining
Brahman’s relation to the world by appealing to a dual-standpoint ontology. From the
empirical standpoint, both īśvara and the world are real, and īśvara is both the material
(upādāna) and the efficient (nimitta) cause of the world. However, from the ultimate
standpoint, nondual Brahman alone exists, so there is no world and, hence, no relation
whatsoever between Brahman and the (nonexistent) world. Accordingly, Advaitins
subscribe to vivartavāda, the doctrine that the world is an illusory appearance (vivarta)
of Brahman.
In contrast to Advaita Vedānta, both Viśiṣṭādvaita and Bhedābheda subscribe
to pariṇāmavāda, the doctrine that Brahman, or some aspect of Brahman, actually
transforms into the world. Viśiṣṭādvaita and all the various schools of Bhedābheda
agree that Brahman is both the efficient and material cause of the world. However, each
Vedāntic school explains the precise relationship between Brahman and the world in
a subtly different way. For instance, according to Viśiṣṭādvaita, Brahman stands to the
world as the soul (śarīrī) to the body (śarīra), with the latter being entirely dependent
for its continued existence on the former. According to Bhedābheda Vedānta, Brahman
is both different and non-different from the world. The Śuddhādvaita subschool of
Bhedābheda upholds the paradoxical doctrine of avikṛta-pariṇāma, the view that
Brahman transforms into the world while somehow still remaining unchanged
(avikṛta). According to Acintyabhedābheda, the world is a transformation of Kṛṣṇa’s
energy (śakti), which is both different and non-different from him.16
Mādhva Vedānta is the only theistic school of Vedānta that rejects pariṇāmavāda.
According to Mādhva Vedāntins, there is an ontological difference (bheda) between
Brahman and the world, and Brahman is the efficient but not the material cause of
the world. Brahman alone is independent (svatantra), while the world is entirely
dependent upon Brahman for its existence and preservation.

I.1.4 The Relation Between Brahman and the Individual Soul

Advaita Vedānta holds that the individual soul (jīva) is absolutely identical with
Brahman but appears to be a limited entity apart from Brahman because it is associated
with an unreal limiting adjunct (upādhi). All schools of Bhedābheda maintain that
Brahman is both different and non-different from individual souls. Bhedābhedavādins
explain the relation between Brahman and individual souls as the relation of a whole
and its parts, invoking analogies like fire and its sparks and the ocean and its waves.
Interestingly, the Aupādhika Bhedābhedavādin Bhāskara appears to come close
to Śaṅkara in maintaining that the individual soul is, in its essence, identical with
6 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Brahman but is limited and subject to suffering when it is associated with limiting
adjuncts (upādhis). Crucially, however, while Śaṅkara takes these upādhis to be unreal,
Bhāskara takes them to be real and, hence, holds that the individual soul is actually
subject to suffering and bondage until its upādhis are removed.
In Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, individual souls, like the world, relate to Brahman as the
body stands to the soul, with the former being intimately connected with, yet entirely
dependent on, the latter. Mādhva Vedānta holds that individual souls are “reflections”
(pratibimbas) of Brahman in that they depend entirely on Brahman for their existence
and remain eternally different from Him.

I.1.5 The State of Salvation

Most Vedāntic schools agree that our salvation consists in attaining liberation
(mukti) from the suffering-filled cycle of birth and death. However, followers
of Acintyabhedābheda hold that the supreme salvation is not mukti but bhakti,
the supreme love of Kṛṣṇa, which nonetheless entails mukti as an “incidental by-
product” (tuccha-phala) (Nelson 2004: 349). Vedāntic schools often differ on two key
soteriological questions. First, what is the precise nature of salvation? Second, is it
possible to attain jīvanmukti, the state of liberation while living?
Regarding the first question, there are only two schools of Vedānta—namely,
Advaita Vedānta and Aupādhika Bhedābheda—that hold that no sense of individuality
remains in the liberated state. According to Advaita Vedānta, liberation consists in
knowledge of our identity with nondual Brahman, which entails that our sense of
being an individual—which is itself a product of ignorance—does not remain in the
state of liberation. According to the Aupādhika Bhedābheda of Bhāskara, Brahman
becomes individual souls through upādhis, and since liberation consists in the total
eradication of these upādhis, the liberated soul would be one with Brahman and no
longer an individual. Again, it should be noted that the key difference between Advaita
Vedānta and Aupādhika Bhedābheda on this issue is that the latter, but not the former,
takes upādhis to be real.
All the other Vedāntic schools hold that individuality remains in the liberated
state. For most theistic schools of Vedānta, the highest salvation for an individual
soul consists in residing eternally in a superterrestrial realm—conceived variously
as Vaikuṇṭhaloka, Viṣṇuloka, or Goloka—with a nonphysical body, blissfully serving,
and communing with, the personal God (Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa). While Mādhva Vedānta
maintains that the liberated soul remains eternally distinct from God, other theistic
schools of Vedānta posit a more intimate relationship between the liberated soul and
God. Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntins, for instance, hold that the liberated soul becomes “one
with God in knowledge and bliss but not in power” (Tapasyānanda 1990: 59).
We can now briefly consider the second question regarding the possibility of
jīvanmukti. Advaita Vedānta is well known for accepting the state of jīvanmukti. For
Advaitins, all that is necessary for liberation is knowledge of our identity with nondual
Brahman, which seems to be compatible with bodily existence. Nonetheless, as Lance
E. Nelson (1996) and Klara Hedling (Chapter 10 in this volume) have shown, the
metaphysics of Advaita Vedānta makes it difficult, if not impossible, to accept fully the
 Introduction 7

possibility of jīvanmukti. Since this world and our embodied existence are a product of
ignorance, the liberating knowledge of Brahman—which is tantamount to the removal
of ignorance—seems to be logically incompatible with continued bodily existence.
Hence, many post-Śaṅkara Advaitins hold that even the jīvanmukta has a “trace of
ignorance” (avidyā-leśa), which is responsible for the prārabdha-karma (the karma
that has not yet fructified) that sustains his physical body.
Non-Advaitic schools of Vedānta adopt a variety of stances toward jīvanmukti. For
instance, Viśiṣṭādvaitins as well as followers of Nimbārka’s Svābhāvika Bhedābheda
reject outright the possibility of jīvanmukti. Nonetheless, Viśiṣṭādvaitins do accept the
possibility of attaining the high spiritual state of a sthitaprajña (a person of settled
knowledge) while still in the body, and they maintain that complete liberation is assured
for the sthitaprajña after death. Similarly, Madhva rejects the possibility of jīvanmukti
but accepts the possibility of attaining the direct and immediate knowledge of God
(aparokṣa-jñāna) while still in the body, which is a precondition for full liberation
after death. The later Mādhva thinker Vyāsatīrtha complicates matters, however, by
explicitly equating aparokṣa-jñāna with jīvanmukti (Sheridan 1996: 107). Meanwhile,
followers of Caitanya’s Acintyabhedābheda fully accept the possibility of jīvanmukti.
A key source text in this tradition is Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 1.2.187,
which defines the “jīvanmukta” as “one whose activities are performed with body,
mind and speech in servitude to Hari” (Gosvāmin 2003: 59).

I.1.6 Scheme of Spiritual Practices

Since the various schools of Vedānta hold differing conceptions of both Brahman
and salvation, they naturally differ on which spiritual practices lead to salvation and
the relative priority of these practices. It is also important to note that while many
Vedāntic schools use the same terms to refer to certain types of spiritual ­practice—
especially the terms bhakti-yoga (the practice of devotion), karma-yoga (the practice
of unattached action), jñāna-yoga (the practice of knowledge), and dhyāna-yoga
or simply yoga (the practice of meditation)—these schools often characterize these
practices quite differently. For instance, while Advaita Vedāntins understand jñāna-
yoga as a practice involving reflection and meditation on Upaniṣadic statements about
the identity of the individual soul with nondual Brahman, Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntins
understand jñāna-yoga as the practice of meditating on one’s own eternal individual
soul and discriminating between the soul and the body-mind complex.
According to Advaita Vedānta, jñāna-yoga is the only direct path to liberation.
Nonetheless, karma-yoga and bhakti-yoga may lead indirectly to liberation by purifying
and concentrating the mind, thereby making one eligible to practice jñāna-yoga, which
alone leads to liberation. For Advaitins, then, karma-yoga and jñāna-yoga cannot
be practiced at the same time, since they are meant for different grades of spiritual
aspirant.
Other schools of Vedānta—including many Bhedābheda schools and
Viśiṣṭādvaita—reject this Advaitic position, advocating a combination of jñāna-yoga
and karma-yoga (jñāna-karma-samuccaya). Within the Bhedābheda tradition, there
is a considerable diversity of views regarding spiritual practice. For instance, while
8 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Bhāskara’s Aupādhika Bhedābheda gives no importance at all to bhakti-yoga, Caitanya’s

Acintyabhedābheda maintains that bhakti-yoga is the highest spiritual practice.
According to Acintyabhedābheda, bhakti-yoga alone leads to the highest salvation,
while other practices like jñāna-yoga and karma-yoga may be helpful at a preliminary
stage but are by no means necessary (Kapoor 1976: 178–9).
According to Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, the simultaneous practice of karma-yoga and
jñāna-yoga in a devotional spirit eventually culminates in the spiritual realization of
one’s eternal soul and its utter dependence on God (ātmāvalokanam), which in turn
makes one eligible to practice bhakti-yoga—that is, constant meditative recollection of
God—which, by God’s grace, leads directly to salvation.17
Within the Vedāntic tradition, there is also a wide range of views concerning the
question of whether, and the extent to which, God’s grace is necessary for salvation.
Devotional schools of Vedānta like Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śuddhādvaita, Acintyabhedābheda,
and Mādhva Vedānta strongly insist on the necessity of God’s grace for attaining
salvation. Other Vedāntic schools, such as Bhāskara’s Aupādhika Bhedābheda, do not
emphasize God’s grace at all. While it is often assumed that Advaita Vedānta accords
no importance to God’s grace, Malkovsky (2001) has shown that Śaṅkara, at numerous
places in his commentary on the Brahmasūtra, explicitly states that the grace of īśvara
is necessary for liberation.
It should also be noted that Vedāntic schools are by no means monolithic, and it
is often the case that different thinkers and traditions within a particular Vedāntic
school hold differing views on a variety of issues. For instance, in medieval India, two
subschools emerged within Viśiṣṭādvaita—namely, the Teṅkalai and the Vaḍagalai—
which took different stands on the “grace versus works” question, with the Teṅkalai
school arguing that God’s grace alone is sufficient for salvation, and the Vaḍagalai
school arguing that God’s grace must be combined with self-effort (Mumme 1988).

I.2 Vedāntic Doxographies in Medieval India

It would be misleading to suggest that sectarian polemics among the various Vedāntic
sampradāyas was restricted to an early period in India’s history. In fact, such polemical
disputation among Vedāntins has continued unabated even up to the present,
especially among traditionally trained Indian pundits belonging to different Vedāntic
lineages. However, during India’s medieval period, a new doxographic methodology
emerged within Vedāntic thought—one that played a decisive role in paving the way
for modern formations of “Hinduism” and “Vedānta” as broad, syncretic worldviews
encompassing and harmonizing innumerable philosophical and theological systems
(Nicholson 2010: 144–65; Halbfass [1981] 1988: 349–68; Barua, Chapter 9 in this
volume).
Vedāntic doxographers, instead of rejecting outright philosophical traditions
other than their own, reconceived these traditions as inferior stages in elaborate
hierarchical schemas culminating in their own preferred Vedāntic system. Most of
these medieval Vedāntic doxographies were developed by Advaitins such as Mādhava
and Madhusūdana Sarasvatī. Non-Advaitic medieval doxographies include the
 Introduction 9

Viśiṣṭādvaitin Veṅkaṭanātha’s Paramatabhaṅga (Refutation of Other Views) and the

Acintyabhedābhedavādin Baladeva’s Tattvadīpikā (An Illumination of Reality).18
The Advaitin Mādhava’s (1978) highly influential Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha
(A Compendium of All Philosophies; c. fourteenth century) presented a hierarchical
schema of sixteen philosophical schools beginning with the materialist philosophy
of Cārvāka and the non-Vedic schools of Buddhism and Jainism and culminating,
predictably, in Advaita Vedānta. For Mādhava, non-Advaitic schools were not so
much wrong as they approximated, to varying degrees, the one perfect and absolutely
true philosophy of Advaita. Significantly, while we might expect Mādhava to place
Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta and Madhva’s Dvaita Vedānta just below Advaita
Vedānta, he actually placed these schools much lower in his schema, just after Jainism
and before the theistic traditions of the Pāśupatas and the Śaivas. Mādhava’s relegation
of Viśiṣṭādvaita and Dvaita to inferior positions suggests that he considered these
schools to pose the greatest threat to Advaita Vedānta (Nicholson 2010: 160–1).
The Caturmatasārasaṃgraha (A Synopsis of the Essence of Four Schools), composed
by the Śaiva-influenced Advaita Vedāntin Appaya Dīkṣita (1520–93) (Appaya
Dīkṣita 2000), is a unique doxographical account of four Vedāntic schools arranged
hierarchically: Dvaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Śivādvaita, and Advaita. Unlike Mādhava,
Appaya viewed Vedānta as a unified philosophical tradition encompassing four major
schools, which have varying degrees of truth (Duquette 2014; Pollock 2004: 769).
Appaya’s doxography, although much less influential than Mādhava’s, is nonetheless
historically significant, since it anticipated the hierarchical accounts of Vedāntic
traditions presented by modern Vedāntins such as Swami Vivekananda and Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan centuries later.
Medieval Vedāntic doxographies had two major historical consequences. First,
these doxographies helped establish Vedānta as a dominant and influential Indian
philosophical tradition by casting non-Vedāntic schools such as Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika,
Yoga, and Sāṃkhya as inferior approximations to Vedānta. Second, as we will see
shortly, since earlier generations of Western Indologists and Indian thinkers often relied
heavily on Advaitic doxographies such as Mādhava’s Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha, these
doxographies played a major role in establishing the hegemony of Advaita Vedānta
in scholarship on Vedānta since the late eighteenth century (Nicholson 2010: 160–1).

I.3 1740–1890: Advaita, Monotheism, “Pantheism,”

and the Beginnings of Western Indology
In the eighteenth century, scholarship on Vedānta began to evolve considerably for
at least two main reasons. First, European scholars and missionaries started to study
Vedāntic texts in the original Sanskrit and to translate them into Western languages.
Second, many indigenous Indians—especially those belonging to the newly formed
Brāhmo Samāj—drew upon Vedāntic ideas in order to reform and modernize
Hinduism from within and to develop a bulwark against the increasingly strident
criticisms of Christian missionaries (Halbfass [1981] 1988: 197–216; Hatcher 2008).
As we will see, early interpretations of Vedānta in both India and the West reflect a
10 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

complex intertwinement of myth and logos: the increasing reliance on sophisticated

historical and philological methods often went hand in hand with theological biases
and ideological agendas of various sorts.
One of the earliest Western accounts of Indian philosophical systems is contained
in a 1740 letter of the French Jesuit missionary Jean François Pons, which was widely
read by European scholars as soon as it appeared in a volume of missionary writings
in 1743 (Aimé-Martin 1843: 642–8).19 In this letter, Pons provided a synopsis of the
“school of Vedânta” (l’école de Vedântam) and claimed, tellingly, that “Sankrâchâry”
was its “founder” (Aimé-Martin 1843: 646). He noted further that the vast majority of
Brahmins and sannyāsins in India subscribe to Śaṅkara’s school. According to Pons,
the Vedānta school maintains that “nothing exists” apart from the nondual “I or Self ”
(Aimé-Martin 1843: 646). He added, “The key to the salvation of the soul is contained
in the words that these false sages must ceaselessly repeat with a measure of pride
surpassing Lucifer’s: ‘I am the Supreme Being.— Aham ava [eva] param Brahma’”
(Aimé-Martin 1843: 646). Pons’s ideological agenda becomes evident here: by conflating
the entire “school of Vedānta” with the Luciferian doctrine of Advaita Vedānta and
taking it to be the metaphysical foundation of the Hindu religion as a whole, he sought
to justify fledgling missionary efforts to convert Hindus to Christianity.20
In 1784, the British philologist Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society of
Bengal, thereby inaugurating the discipline of Indology, the historico-philological
study of Indian texts in the original Sanskrit (Halbfass [1981] 1988: 62–4). As we will
see, however, early British interpretations of Vedānta, far from being ideologically
neutral, were shaped heavily by Christian theological commitments and Advaita
Vedānta.
In 1785, Charles Wilkins published the first English translation of the
Bhagavad-Gītā, claiming in his preface that the scripture upholds the monotheistic
doctrine of the “unity of the Godhead” and rejects the “polytheism” of the Vedas
(Wilkins 1785: 24). In 1794, Jones presented the first sustained exposition of
Vedānta in English (Jones 1807: 229–52).21 Relying on late medieval Advaitic
doxographies, Jones presented “Védánta” as one of the six Vedic philosophical
traditions—alongside Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, and Pūrva Mīmāṃsā—
and contrasted these traditions with “heterodox” (i.e., non-Vedic) philosophies
such as Buddhism and Jainism (Jones 1807: 234–5).22 Jones mentioned that he
studied the Brahmasūtra, along with Śaṅkara’s commentary, under the guidance of
a traditional Indian pundit in the Advaitic tradition (1807: 235). Tellingly, instead
of acknowledging the existence of non-Advaitic commentaries on the Brahmasūtra,
Jones took the “incomparable” Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta to be the authoritative and
right understanding of Vedānta as a whole (1807: 239). However, Jones’s supposedly
Śaṅkaran understanding of Vedānta is, in fact, highly idiosyncratic. Influenced by the
philosopher George Berkeley, Jones interpreted Vedānta as a theistically grounded
subjective idealism. The “fundamental tenet” of Vedānta, according to Jones, is
that matter “has no essence independent of mental perception, that existence and
perceptibility are convertible terms, that external appearances and sensations are
illusory, and would vanish into nothing, if the divine energy, which alone sustains
them, were suspended but for a moment” (1807: 238–9). Venturing into comparative
 Introduction 11

philosophy, he then noted that this Vedāntic view has been defended “in the present
century with great elegance” by Berkeley, who famously maintained that esse est
percipi (Jones 1807: 239). Jones’s interpretation of Vedānta, then, was based on two
highly tendentious interpretive moves. First, like Pons before him, Jones uncritically
accepted Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta as the authoritative interpretation of Vedānta and
did not even acknowledge alternative interpretations. Second, he (mis)interpreted
Śaṅkara’s philosophy in a Berkeleyan manner as a “system wholly built on the purest
devotion” (1807: 239–40)—that is, as a subjective idealist philosophy grounded in
a monotheistic faith in the “supremacy of an all-creating and all-preserving spirit,
infinitely wise, good, and powerful” (1807: 250).
In 1811, the Baptist missionary William Ward published a book on “the
philosophical systems of the Hindoos,” which included the first English translation
of the Vedāntasāra, a fifteenth-century text outlining the philosophy of Advaita
Vedānta. He claimed that the Vedāntasāra expresses in condensed form the
Vedāntic philosophy of the Brahmasūtra and the Gītā (Ward [1820] 2009: 171).
Like Pons and Jones, Ward simply conflated Vedānta with Advaita Vedānta and did
not so much as mention non-Advaitic traditions of Vedānta. Ward, like Jones, also
interpreted Advaita Vedānta as a subjective idealist philosophy that takes the world
to be an “illusion” (Ward [1820] 2009: 183–7). However, while Jones claimed that
Śaṅkara’s subjective idealist system (like Berkeley’s) is grounded in monotheism,
Ward explicitly criticized Vedānta—by which he meant Advaita Vedānta—for
conceiving the ultimate reality as a mere impersonal “abstraction” rather than as
the supreme personal God (Ward [1820] 2009: xxxiii). While Ward simply may not
have been aware of non-Advaitic traditions of Vedānta, his conflation of Vedānta
with Advaita Vedānta also served his ideological agenda. By claiming that no Indian
philosophical system accepted the supreme monotheistic God, Ward was able to
justify Christian missionary efforts in India. Since the “Hindoo can have no idea
that the Almighty is accessible,” Christian missionaries like Ward himself had a
sacred duty to save the benighted Hindus by bringing them into the Christian fold
(Ward [1820] 2009: xlvi).
In 1827, the British Sanskritist H.T. Colebrooke delivered an important and
influential lecture on Vedānta at the Royal Asiatic Society. Notably, unlike Ward
and Jones, Colebrooke acknowledged that there are “several sects” of Vedānta, the
most prominent of which is Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta (Colebrooke 1829: 2). While
Colebrooke relied on Śaṅkara’s commentary in his exposition of the Brahmasūtra,
he also noted that there are many other commentaries in non-Advaitic traditions of
Vedānta, including the commentaries of Rāmānuja, Vallabha, Bhaṭṭa Bhāskara, Madhva,
Nīlakaṇṭha, and Vijñānabhikṣu (Colebrooke 1829: 7–8). Interestingly, Colebrooke, in
stark contrast to Pons, Ward, and Jones, claimed that the notion that “the versatile world
is an illusion (máyá) … does not appear to be the doctrine of the text of the Vedántá”
(1829: 39). He found “nothing which countenances” subjective idealism “in the sūtras
of VYÁSA nor in the gloss of S´ANCARA” (1829: 39). According to Colebrooke, the
subjective idealist interpretation of Vedānta was a “later growth” found in the “minor
commentaries” and “elementary treatises” of post-Śaṅkara Advaitins (1829: 39).23
Colebrooke, then, was one of the first scholars not only to acknowledge non-Advaitic
12 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

traditions of Vedānta (if only in passing) but also to champion a non-illusionistic

interpretation of both the Brahmasūtra and Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta.24
Śaṅkara also loomed large in indigenous Indian expositions of Vedānta during this
period as well as in contemporary Christian missionary responses to these expositions.
The great Indian socioreligious reformer Rammohun Roy (c. 1774–1833) sought to
reform Hinduism by clarifying its rational basis in the Vedānta of the Upaniṣads
and purging Hinduism of what he perceived as its inauthentic and pernicious
elements, particularly polytheism, idol worship, and rituals (Hatcher 2008: 19–32;
Green 2016: 79–81). In his Bengali and English writings, Rammohun argued that the
Brahmasūtra and the Upaniṣads propound a rational monotheism. In his Translation
of an Abridgment of the Vedant (1816), he summarized the Brahmasūtra and claimed
that its main purport is to establish the “unity of the Supreme Being, and that He alone
is the object of propitiation and worship” (Ghose 1901: i). Rammohun also translated
several Upaniṣads into English. Tellingly, in the titles of his English translations of the
Upaniṣads, he indicated that he followed “the Commentary of the Celebrated Shankar-
Acharya” (Ghose 1901: 85), even though his interpretations of the Upaniṣads actually
deviated quite significantly from Śaṅkara’s Advaitic commentaries. For Rammohun,
the main aim of the Upaniṣads was to inculcate worship of the formless personal God.
Hence, in implicit contrast to Śaṅkara, Rammohun maintained that the Upaniṣads
affirm the reality of the world and do not teach that renunciation of the world is
necessary for salvation (Killingley 1981). Recognizing the enormous intellectual and
cultural prestige of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta, Rammohun tacitly reinterpreted it as
a world-affirming theology of monotheism. Founding the influential Brāhmo Samāj
in 1828, he sought to undermine the conversion efforts of Christian missionaries in
India by recasting Hinduism as an ancient Vedāntic monotheism rivaling Christianity
(Halbfass [1981] 1988: 197–216).
Several charismatic individuals, including Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905),
helped make the Brāhmo Samāj a formidable cultural and religious force in ­nineteenth-
century Bengal.25 Debendranath, following in Rammohun’s footsteps, organized widely
attended meetings for Brāhmos and propagated the monotheistic message of Vedānta
through various channels (Hatcher 2008: 33–48). However, in contrast to Rammohun,
Debendranath and his followers contrasted the monotheistic, world-affirming doctrine
of the Upaniṣads with what they perceived to be Śaṅkara’s world-negating philosophy
of Advaita Vedānta. According to Debendranath, the true and original Vedānta of
the Upaniṣads propounds a non-pantheistic monotheism, according to which we are
all “servants and worshippers” of the Supreme Lord, who is the efficient but not the
material cause of this very real world (Tagore [1849] 1928: 57–8).
Not surprisingly, Christian missionaries perceived Vedāntically inspired reform
movements such as the Brāhmo Samāj as a major threat to their conversion efforts.
In response, missionaries strived to show that the increasingly popular monotheistic
interpretation of Vedānta was mistaken and newfangled. For instance, in a polemical
tome published in 1839, the Protestant missionary Alexander Duff argued that
Hinduism is nothing but a “stupendous system of pantheism” (Duff 1839: 37). Duff, like
many of his contemporaries, understood the Vedāntic basis of Hinduism in terms of
Advaita Vedānta. Accordingly, he argued that Vedānta is nothing but the blasphemous
 Introduction 13

pantheistic doctrine that we are all one with Brahman, a “frigid passionless abstraction”
(Duff 1839: 63) devoid of any “moral attributes” (Duff 1839: 58). Like the missionaries
Pons and Ward, Duff portrayed Vedānta as a “pantheistic” Advaitic system in part as
a means of justifying Christian missionary efforts to bring Hindus into the Christian
monotheistic fold.
The nineteenth-century German reception of Vedānta had two major strands which
ran in parallel: first, a tendency to interpret Vedānta through the lens of “pantheism”;
second, a tendency to equate Vedānta with the subjective idealism of Advaita Vedānta.
Between 1785 and 1789, numerous European philosophers—including G.E. Lessing,
F.H. Jacobi, and Moses Mendelssohn—became embroiled in what came to be known
as the Pantheismusstreit (“pantheism controversy”), revolving around the question
of Spinoza’s alleged pantheism and the philosophical and religious implications of
pantheism more generally (Beiser 1987: 44–91). In 1808, Friedrich Schlegel published
Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (On the Language and Wisdom of the
Indians), a pioneering comparative study of Sanskrit and German, toward the end of
which he discussed Indian philosophy. Schlegel, a fresh convert to Catholicism writing
in the wake of the Pantheismusstreit, claimed that Vedānta—embodied in the doctrines
of the Bhagavad-Gītā—is nothing but “pure pantheism” (1808: 148), a doctrine “as
destructive to morality as even materialism” (1808: 152).26
Friedrich Schlegel’s brother, A.W. Schlegel, soon became interested in Indian thought
as well. More committed to philological rigor than his brother, A.W. Schlegel learned
Sanskrit thoroughly and in 1818 was appointed chair of Indology at the University
of Bonn. In 1823, A.W. Schlegel published a Latin translation of the Bhagavad-Gītā,
which marked a significant hermeneutic advance from his brother’s approach. In the
preface to his translation, Schlegel emphasized the need for careful and patient study
of Indian textual sources and cautioned against premature attempts to determine the
“spirit” of India, be it pantheistic or otherwise (Herling 2006: 157–202). Building on
A.W. Schlegel’s Latin translation, the philologist and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt
published a sophisticated article in 1826, in which he engaged in a technical linguistic
analysis of the original Sanskrit verses of the Gītā and generally refrained from making
the kind of value judgments to which Friedrich Schlegel and others were prone
(Herling 2006: 264–78). A year later, the famous philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, who had
no knowledge of Sanskrit, published a lengthy polemical critique of Humboldt’s essay
on the Gītā and argued—in the vein of Friedrich Schlegel—that the Gītā, and Indian
thought more generally, propounded a philosophically crude form of “pantheism”
(Hegel [1827] 1970). On the basis of this caricature of Indian philosophy, Hegel felt
justified in banishing Indian thought from the “history of philosophy,” which he
claimed originated in Greece (1971: 121). As numerous scholars have shown, Hegel
played no small role in promoting Orientalist dismissals of Indian philosophy and the
subsequent neglect of Indian philosophy in Western academia.27
In stark contrast to Hegel, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was
profoundly impressed with Vedāntic thought and even incorporated elements of it into
his own philosophical system, which combines subjective idealism with a metaphysics
of will. Schopenhauer had no knowledge of Sanskrit, so his initial acquaintance with
Vedānta was based on his reading of the Oupnek’hat (1802), the French Indologist
14 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Anquetil-Duperron’s Latin rendering of Prince Dara Shikoh’s Persian translation of

the original Sanskrit Upaniṣads. Anquetil’s work was also a pioneering contribution
to comparative philosophy, since he attempted to demonstrate conceptual affinities
between Vedānta and the ideas of numerous Western philosophers such as Kant and
Spinoza (Halbfass [1981] 1988: 64–8). Unbeknownst to Schopenhauer, the Oupnek’hat
also contained passages from Śaṅkara’s commentaries on the Upaniṣads and did not
clearly distinguish Śaṅkara’s text from the original Upaniṣads (App 2014: 140–1).
As a result, Schopenhauer thought that the Upaniṣads themselves propounded the
Advaitic doctrine of the unreality of the world. Tellingly, in the very first section of his
masterpiece Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation)
(1818), Schopenhauer claims that the “basic truth” of subjective idealism—that the
“world is my representation”—is the “fundamental tenet of the Vedanta philosophy,”
citing as evidence the passage from William Jones’s 1787 essay quoted earlier
([1818] 1969: 3–4).
Many later nineteenth-century accounts of Vedānta reflect a similar pattern of
equating Vedānta with Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta and then either condemning it (like
Hegel) or embracing it (like Schopenhauer). The German philosopher F.W.J. Schelling
(1775–1854), in lectures delivered between 1845 and 1846, praised the Indian
philosophy of “Vedanta”—by which he meant Advaita Vedānta—for its doctrine of
“Maja,” according to which “the world is an illusion” (Schelling 1857: 482). At the same
time, Schelling, from his Christian standpoint, faulted Vedānta for lacking a truly
“positive” monotheistic conception of God’s “factuality” (Halbfass [1981] 1988: 105).
In The Philosophy of the Upanishads (1882), the British scholar A.E. Gough argued,
against Colebrooke, that Śaṅkara was a subjective idealist and that Śaṅkara’s
interpretation of the Upaniṣads is the “natural and legitimate” one (Gough 1882: viii).
Referring approvingly to Hegel’s dismissal of Vedānta as a crude “pantheism” (1882:
6 n1), Gough made the sweeping verdict that Western thought is far superior to Indian
thought, which has “little intellectual wealth” (1882: xii).
In Das System des Vedânta (1883), the influential German Indologist Paul
Deussen followed Gough in defending what he took to be Śaṅkara’s subjective idealist
interpretation of the Brahmasūtra. While Deussen acknowledged the existence of
non-Advaitic commentaries on the Brahmasūtra, he admitted that he had not studied
any of them because they were not available to him ([1883] 1906: 28). Nonetheless, he
confidently asserted that Śaṅkara, with rare and very minor exceptions, is “nowhere
in contradiction to the Sûtra’s” ([1883] 1906: 28; my translation). According
to Deussen, Vedānta holds that the attributeless (nirguṇa) Brahman is the sole
reality and that “the whole world is only an illusion (mâyâ)” ([1883] 1906: 466; my
translation). However, unlike Gough, Deussen followed Schopenhauer—his favorite
­philosopher—in embracing the subjective idealist philosophy of Vedānta and noting
its affinities with Kant’s philosophy ([1883] 1906: 57).
At the same time, Deussen was pioneering in his efforts to develop a rigorous
historico-philological method for studying the Vedāntic scriptures. As Nicholson
notes, Deussen’s “attempt to establish the chronology of the different Upaniṣads was
ambitious and largely successful; his periodization is accepted by scholars today, with
a few modifications” (2010: 137). Moreover, instead of adopting a monolithic view
 Introduction 15

of the Upaniṣads, he traced the development of ideas from the earlier to the later
Upaniṣads—a project still pursued by contemporary scholars.
In sum, then, scholarship on Vedānta between 1740 and 1890 exhibited both
a strong bias toward Śaṅkara’s Advaitic interpretation of Vedānta28 and a complex
dialectic between an incipient scholarly method aiming at rigor and objectivity
and a persistent tendency to interpret Vedānta in the service of various ideological
agendas. Interestingly, however, scholars defended numerous different interpretations
of Śaṅkara’s Advaita philosophy—as monotheistic and world-affirming (Roy), as
realist (Colebrooke), and as subjective idealist (Pons, Jones, Gough, Deussen, among
others). At the same time, the influential Brāhmo Samāj—under the leadership of
Debendranath—militated against the prevailing tendency to conflate Vedānta with
Advaita Vedānta, explicitly contrasting the monotheistic doctrine of the Upaniṣads
with the nontheistic and world-denying philosophy of Advaita Vedānta.

I.4 1890 to the Present: Modern and Contemporary Trends

in the Study of Vedānta

Some nineteenth-century approaches to Vedānta persisted until about the first half of
the twentieth century. For instance, scholars like Deussen (1905: x, 1908), Richard Garbe
(1895), and Robert E. Hume (1921) continued to defend Śaṅkara’s nondual illusionistic
interpretation of the Upaniṣads. Christian missionaries and writers also continued to
write about Vedānta, though they tended to move away from the polemical stance
of earlier Christian missionaries to a more inclusivist understanding of Vedānta as a
presentiment of, and preparation for, Christianity.29 Not to be outdone, some modern
Vedāntins like Swami Vivekananda (CW8: 214–19) and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
(1927: 32) turned the tables on Christian missionaries by incorporating Christianity
into their own broader Vedāntic frameworks.30
Moreover, beginning in the final decade of the nineteenth century, several radically
new approaches to Vedānta began to emerge. The Indologist George Thibaut’s
pioneering and still widely cited English translations of both Śaṅkara’s and Rāmānuja’s
commentaries on the Brahmasūtra appeared in three volumes from 1890 to 1904
(Thibaut 1890, 1896, and 1904). Thibaut’s remarkable 128-page introduction to
his 1890 translation was one of the first attempts in the history of Vedānta scholarship
to employ a sophisticated historico-philological method in order to determine the
original meaning of the Upaniṣads and the Brahmasūtra (Thibaut 1890: ix–cxxviii).
Notably, Thibaut sided with Rāmānuja against Śaṅkara in arguing that neither the
Upaniṣads nor the Brahmasūtra upholds Śaṅkara’s Advaitic “distinction of a lower and
a higher Brahman” or his doctrine of māyā as a “principle of illusion” (Thibaut 1890:
xci, cxiii–cxxvii).
Thibaut helped inaugurate an independent scholarly approach to the Vedāntic
scriptures that has become a major strand of scholarship on Vedānta. In the wake of
Thibaut, numerous scholars have attempted to discern the original meaning of the
Upaniṣads,31 the Gītā,32 and the Brahmasūtra33 on the basis of careful historical and
16 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

philological analysis. Notably, while interpretations of the Vedāntic scriptures prior

to 1890 tended to be biased toward Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta, these later scholarly
studies often challenge Śaṅkara’s interpretations, pointing out where he seems to
read his own Advaitic views into the texts. For instance, Chapter 11 by Ayon Maharaj
in Part 4 of this handbook shows how Sri Aurobindo developed an original and
hermeneutically sophisticated interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad in explicit opposition
to Śaṅkara’s Advaitic interpretation.
The Indian monk Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), who delivered popular lectures
on Vedānta in the United States and England between 1893 and 1901, was also pivotal
in ushering in new approaches to Vedānta. Contemporary scholars have tended to
assume that Vivekananda did little more than champion a modernized form of Advaita
Vedānta as a kind of universal religion.34 It is certainly true that Vivekananda often
presented a hierarchical account of Dvaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, and Advaita as progressive
stages in Vedāntic thought.35 This dimension of Vivekananda’s thought can be seen
as reviving the medieval Advaitin Appaya Dīkṣita’s doxographic approach to various
Vedāntic schools in Caturmatasārasaṃgraha.
Vivekananda’s doxographic presentation of Vedānta anticipated twentieth-century
Vedāntic doxographies of various sorts. For instance, as Ankur Barua notes in
Chapter 9 of this handbook, Radhakrishnan (1927: 32) presented a broad Advaitic
doxography that encompassed all the world religions, viewing theistic religions as
valid but inferior stages toward the summit of nonduality.36 By contrast, Satis Chandra
Chatterjee ([1963] 1985: x) rejected the Advaitic doxographic approach in favor of a
nonhierarchical presentation of the various Indian philosophies as “complementary”—
and therefore equally valid—perspectives on one and the same “many-faced” Reality. In
a Vivekanandan vein, Chatterjee then argued that all the classical Indian philosophies
find their reconciliation in the expansive Vedāntic philosophy of Sri Ramakrishna
([1963] 1985: 77–152).
However, Advaitic doxography was only one dimension of Vivekananda’s
multifaceted approach to Vedānta. In fact, I will make the case that Vivekananda helped
pave the way for five key developments in Vedānta scholarship from the twentieth
century up to the present. First, Vivekananda, like Thibaut, called for the study of
Vedāntic scriptures “from an independent and better basis than by blindly following
the commentators” (CW3: 233). Indeed, he anticipated later scholars in observing that
“all the great commentators … were at times ‘conscious liars’ in order to make the texts
suit their philosophy” (CW7: 36). Adopting an “independent” hermeneutic approach,
he suggested new and provocative interpretations of passages from the Upaniṣads, the
Gītā, and the Brahmasūtra (Maharaj 2020).
Second, Vivekananda challenged mainstream interpretations of key concepts in
Advaita Vedānta—arguing, for instance, that the Advaitic doctrine of māyā should be
understood not as a principle of “illusion” but as a “statement of facts—what we are and
what we see around us” (CW2: 89). Taking Vivekananda’s lead, numerous scholars since
the twentieth century have adopted new approaches to Advaita Vedānta, often arguing
against the common interpretation of Advaita as a world-negating and quietistic
philosophy that leaves little scope for theistic devotion or ethical action.37 Meanwhile,
other scholars—including Hedling, in Chapter 10 of this handbook—have taken a
 Introduction 17

more critical stance toward Advaita Vedānta, identifying philosophical problems and
aporias in fundamental Advaitic doctrines such as avidyā and jīvanmukti.38
Third, Vivekananda was prescient in challenging the hegemony of Advaitic
interpretations of Vedānta, reminding us that “it would be wrong to confine the word
Vedanta only to one system which has arisen out of the Upanishads” (CW3: 324–5).
He was one of the first to promote the in-depth philosophical study of non-Advaitic
traditions of Vedānta, which has become a prominent strand in Vedānta scholarship.39
Since the early twentieth century, scholars have begun to study in detail a wide range of
Vedāntic traditions, including Dvaita,40 Viśiṣṭādvaita,41 Bhedābheda,42 Śuddhādvaita,43
Acintyabhedābheda,44 and Śivādvaita.45 Numerous contributions to this handbook
focus on key figures and texts in non-Advaitic traditions of Vedānta, including the
chapters on the Viśiṣṭādvaitin Veṅkaṭanātha (Schmücker, Chapter 2), the Mādhva
Vedāntin Vyāsatīrtha (Williams, Chapter 3), the Acintyabhedābhedavādin Jīva
Gosvāmī (Gupta, Chapter 4), and the Viśiṣṭādvaitin Rāmānuja in comparison with the
Acintyabhedābhedavādin Baladeva (Nicholson, Chapter 8).
Fourth, contrary to the common view that Vivekananda was essentially a follower
of Śaṅkara, several recent scholars have argued that Vivekananda actually developed a
sophisticated and original philosophy of “practical Vedānta”—based on the teachings
of his guru Sri Ramakrishna—that differs from Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta in significant
respects, particularly in its emphasis on serving God in humanity and its expansive
conception of God as the impersonal-personal Infinite Reality.46 Vivekananda’s creative
reconfiguration of Vedānta paved the way for the original Vedāntic syntheses of prominent
twentieth-century Indian thinkers such as K.C. Bhattacharyya (1909 and 1956), Sri
Aurobindo ([1940] 2005), Radhakrishnan (1932), and Rabindranath Tagore (Barua 2018).
For instance, the philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo, who was strongly influenced by
Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, developed an original Vedāntic worldview that
contrasted sharply with Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta, which he saw as world-denying and
philosophically untenable. According to Sri Aurobindo, this world is a real manifestation
of the impersonal-personal Saccidānanda, so we should not strive to escape the world but
to accelerate its evolution toward the spiritual consummation of the divinization of all
life.47 The chapters in Part 2 of this handbook examine respectively the modern Vedāntic
outlooks of Sri Ramakrishna (Long, Chapter 5), Sri Aurobindo (Phillips, Chapter 6), and
Romain Rolland (Maharaj, Chapter 7).
Fifth, like Anquetil-Duperron before him, Vivekananda—who studied Western
philosophy at Scottish Church College in Kolkata—frequently compared Vedānta with
various Western views, including the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Kant, and Hegel
and the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin. Even more significantly, Vivekananda
was one of the first to critique Western thought from a Vedāntic standpoint. He argues,
for instance, that Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the will has fatal flaws at the level of
both ontology and soteriology that could have been avoided if Schopenhauer had
adopted a consistently Vedāntic position (Maharaj 2017). Likewise, Vivekananda
argues that a complete theory of the “causes of evolution” has to take into account
not only Darwin’s principles of natural selection and the survival of the fittest but also
the spiritual principle of the progressive manifestation of the inherent divinity of all
creatures (CW7: 151–7).48
18 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Vivekananda’s forays into comparative philosophy and religion as well as his

Vedāntic critiques of Western theories were prescient. The twentieth century witnessed
a proliferation of studies comparing Vedānta not only with Western thought but also
with non-Vedāntic traditions within Indian philosophy such as Nyāya, Cārvāka, and
Buddhism.49 Most of these studies compared Advaita Vedānta with Western philosophy,
theology, and religion. However, in the past few decades, scholars have significantly
widened their comparative horizons, focusing on non-Advaitic traditions of Vedānta
as well.50 Three chapters of this handbook are comparative in nature, bringing Vedāntic
traditions into dialogue with Jainism (Long, Chapter 5), the nondual Śaiva tradition
of Pratyabhijñā (Hedling, Chapter 10), and Pūrva Mīmāṃsā (Clooney, Chapter 12)
respectively.
Very recently, some scholars of Vedānta have begun to participate in a movement
away from comparative philosophy and toward “cross-cultural” or “global” philosophy
(Mills 2009; Ganeri 2016). Instead of simply comparing Vedānta with Western
philosophy, these scholars attempt to illuminate cross-cultural philosophical problems
by drawing on the conceptual resources of both Indian and Western traditions. Evan
Thompson (2015), for instance, sheds new light on the self and its relation to the brain
by combining the latest neuroscience research with insights from both Advaita Vedānta
and Buddhism. In a similarly cross-cultural vein, Ethan Mills (2018) expands the
global canon of philosophical skepticism by examining the original skeptical positions
of Nāgārjuna, Śrīharṣa, and Jayarāśi. The three chapters in Part 5 of this handbook are
interventions in cross-cultural philosophy, discussing Vedāntic traditions in the light
of key themes in Western philosophy, including panpsychism (Vaidya, Chapter 14),
mystical experience and skeptical scenarios (Mills, Chapter 15), and dream-skepticism
(Chakrabarti, Chapter 16).
There are two other features of recent scholarship on Vedānta that should be
mentioned. Since about the 1940s, numerous scholars have engaged in detailed
historiographical and ethnographic investigations of both classical and modern
Vedāntic traditions. Among the earliest historiographers were Hajime Nakamura and
Paul Hacker. While Nakamura ([1950–6] 1983) was one of the first to examine the
history of early Vedānta up to the Brahmasūtra, Hacker (1953) argued, on the basis
of historical and philological evidence, that Śaṅkara’s philosophical views evolved
from the quasi-realist position of Upadeśasāhasrī to the full-blown māyāvāda of
his later commentaries on the Vedāntic scriptures. Moreover, Hacker wrote several
controversial, but highly influential, articles arguing that “Neo-Hindus” such as
Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo defended Vedāntic positions that were tacitly shaped
by Western values and ideals (1978: 510–608).51
Taking Hacker’s lead, numerous scholars have examined how Vedānta was received,
interpreted, and often critiqued by the West in the course of history, and conversely,
how the self-articulations of modern Hindu figures were shaped in part through a
complex process of assimilating, and critically responding to, Western ideas and
values.52 In a similar vein, Herling (2006), Robinson (2006), Nicholson (2010), and
Adluri and Bagchee (2014) have uncovered the ideological assumptions informing
various Western interpretations of Vedānta.
 Introduction 19

Very recently, scholars have also begun to turn their attention to what Michael S.
Allen (2017: 294) has called “Greater Vedānta”—that is, Vedāntic texts and sources
beyond the canonical Sanskrit philosophical texts through which the various Vedāntic
traditions have been studied and passed down. Instead of focusing exclusively on
the Sanskrit scriptural commentaries of the founding ācāryas of different Vedāntic
traditions, contemporary scholars are beginning to examine a much broader range
of Vedāntic texts, including narratives, songs, and dramas as well as “vernacular”
Vedāntic works composed in local languages such as Hindi, Bengali, or Tamil.53
Daniel Raveh’s contribution to this handbook (Chapter 13), for instance, focuses on
Śaṅkaradigvijaya, a classic biography of Śaṅkara not usually studied alongside his
philosophical commentaries. The study of a “greater” Vedāntic corpus, which is still
in a nascent stage, promises to yield deeper insight into how Vedāntic traditions have
evolved in the course of history and how they have impacted local and global cultures
through a wide variety of channels.
The brief history of Vedānta scholarship sketched in these sections should not be
read as a simplistic narrative of progress from the interpretive benightedness of early
scholars to the enlightened, ideology-free approaches of contemporary scholars. Of
course, there are numerous respects in which scholarship on Vedānta has progressed
a great deal, especially in terms of historico-philological sophistication, our vastly
greater knowledge of Vedāntic textual sources, and our increasing attentiveness to
the ways that various ideological commitments and prejudices have informed past
interpretations of Vedānta. At the same time, we should not commit the presentist
fallacy of assuming that our own contemporary scholarly methods are free from
distorting prejudices or straightforwardly superior to earlier methods in every respect.
Rather, as Hans-Georg Gadamer has taught us, all interpretations of texts—including
our own—are informed by Vorurteile (“prejudices” or, more literally, “pre-judgments”)
([1960] 2006: 271–2). From a Gadamerian perspective, we make interpretive progress
not by overcoming or eliminating all our pre-judgments—which is, in any case, an
impossibility—but by becoming progressively aware of our own pre-judgments and by
striving to distinguish the distortive pre-judgments from those that are hermeneutically
fruitful. Contemporary scholars of Vedānta, therefore, would do well to turn their
critical scrutiny on themselves and to historicize and interrogate their own methods.

I.5 The Structure and Aims of This Handbook

Since the philosophical tradition of Vedānta—with its many schools and ­subschools—
is vast, no handbook of Vedānta can pretend to be truly comprehensive. Nonetheless,
this handbook does strive to highlight the sophistication, depth, and complexity of a
wide range of Vedāntic traditions. As this is a research handbook, each of its sixteen
chapters not only provides an accessible overview of a particular figure, text, or topic
within Vedānta but also makes an original and in-depth contribution to the existing
scholarship. As a result, many of the chapters are somewhat longer than is typical
of chapters in philosophical companions and handbooks. Since there is a separate
20 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

“Chapter Summaries” section written by the contributors themselves, I will not discuss
the chapters in detail here but only explain briefly the organization and underlying
rationale of the handbook.
This handbook is divided into five parts, each of which not only represents the
state of the art in scholarship on particular traditions or themes within Vedānta but
also points the way toward the future of Vedānta studies. The chapters in Parts 1
and 2 concern traditions in classical Vedānta and modern Vedānta respectively. This
periodization into “classical” and “modern” Vedānta is meant to be taken in a very
rough and strictly nonnormative sense. It is, of course, difficult—if not i­mpossible—
to demarcate precisely where “classical” Vedānta ends and “modern” Vedānta begins.
At the same time, there are a number of salient differences in the language, style,
methodology, and focus of earlier Vedāntins like Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Vyāsatīrtha
and nineteenth- and twentieth-century Vedāntins like Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda,
and Sri Aurobindo. These differences, I believe, justify at least a rough historical
division into classical and modern periods of Vedānta.
Part 1 on “Classical Vedānta” spans almost a millennium, with chapters respectively
on four major Vedāntic schools. Each of these four chapters first provides a brief
nontechnical overview of the main doctrines of a particular Vedāntic school and then
examines a key theme in that particular school in greater depth. Neil Dalal (Chapter 1)
carefully examines the nature and status of the contemplative practice of nididhyāsana
in Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta. Marcus Schmücker (Chapter 2) provides an in-depth
discussion of the concepts of soul and qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna)
in the later Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta of Veṅkaṭanātha. Michael Williams (Chapter 3)
discusses the Mādhva Vedāntin Vyāsatīrtha’s analytic defense of realism in the
Nyāyāmṛta. Finally, Ravi M. Gupta (Chapter 4) examines the philosophical and
theological nuances of the concept of acintya in Jīva Gosvāmī’s Acintyabhedābheda
Vedānta. Obviously, there are many schools and subschools of classical Vedānta
that are not covered in Part 1, including the Bhedābheda schools of Nimbārka and
Vallabha, the Śivādvaita school of Śrīkaṇṭha and Appaya Dīkṣita, and many others.
The hope is that the in-depth discussions in Part 1 of key figures in four of the major
classical Vedāntic traditions will encourage scholars to continue to work collectively
toward examining the full range of classical Vedāntic traditions in all their depth,
complexity, and richness.
Part 2 on “Modern Vedānta” contains three chapters on innovative Vedāntins of
the modern period. Jeffery D. Long (Chapter 5) sheds new light on the harmonizing
Vedāntic philosophy of Sri Ramakrishna by examining it from the perspective of the
Jain doctrine of anekānta. Stephen Phillips (Chapter 6) reconstructs Sri Aurobindo’s
metaphysical argument for reincarnation in The Life Divine and finds the basis of Sri
Aurobindo’s argument in his novel psychology of a “psychic being.” Ayon Maharaj
(Chapter 7) discusses the French writer Romain Rolland’s fascinating early twentieth-
century debate about mystical experience with Sigmund Freud, in which Rolland
explicitly draws upon the Vedāntic ideas of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.
It is worth noting two points about this section of the handbook. First, there are
countless other modern Vedāntins that could have been discussed in this section,
including Swaminarayan (1781–1830), Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975),
 Introduction 21

Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), Saccidānandendra Sarasvatī (1880–1975), Ramana

Maharshi (1879–1950), and Mātā Amṛtānandamayī Devī (b. 1953). As with Part 1,
Part 2 should be seen as paving the way for future scholarly work on the vast landscape
of modern Vedāntic thought. Second, each chapter in Part 2 consciously resists the still
common tendency to label modern Vedāntin thinkers as “Neo-Vedāntins.” Recently,
a number of scholars have argued that the catch-all label “Neo-Vedānta” is misleading
at best and pernicious at worst, not only because it fails to capture the nuances of
the specific philosophical views of modern Vedāntins but also because it is indelibly
colored by Paul Hacker’s polemical use of the term (Hatcher 2004; Madaio 2018;
Maharaj 2018: 45–50; Nicholson 2020; Long, Chapter 5 in this volume). According
to Hacker (1995: 251), “Neo-Vedāntins” like Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo clothed
what are essentially Western principles and values in superficially Indian garb in order
to promote Indian nationalism. Militating against Hacker’s thesis, each chapter in
Part 2 strives to demonstrate the depth and sophistication of the thought of modern
Vedāntins, highlighting their efforts to draw upon the resources of indigenous Indian
traditions.
Part 3 of the handbook contains three chapters on “Key Themes, Concepts, and
Debates in Vedānta.” The chapters by Nicholson (Chapter 8) and Barua (Chapter 9)
examine how key themes and concepts have been discussed and debated across
multiple Vedāntic traditions. Nicholson compares the differing approaches to karma,
freedom, and devotion in the Brahmasūtra commentaries of the Advaitin Śaṅkara,
the Viśiṣṭādvaitin Rāmānuja, and the Acintyabhedābhedavādin Baladeva. Barua
examines a variety of approaches to doctrinal and religious diversity in a vast range
of classical and modern Vedāntic traditions. Klara Hedling (Chapter 10) discusses
embodied liberation (jīvanmukti) and the ontological status of the world in the two
nondual Indian traditions of Advaita Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā. The aim of Part 3
is to encourage scholars of Vedānta to explore further the rich diversity of views on
various themes and concepts not only within a particular Vedāntic school, but also
across different Vedāntic schools, and across Vedāntic and non-Vedāntic philosophical
traditions.
Part 4, “Hermeneutic Investigations,” has three chapters which pay careful attention
to the nuances and challenges involved in reading and interpreting various texts in the
Vedāntic tradition. Of the three texts comprising the prasthānatrayī, the Bhagavad-Gītā
has received by far the most scholarly attention. To begin to redress this imbalance,
the chapters by Ayon Maharaj and Francis X. Clooney focus on the two other
textual “pillars” of Vedānta. Maharaj (Chapter 11) closely examines Sri Aurobindo’s
unique interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad, while Clooney (Chapter 12) discusses the
hermeneutic and stylistic nuances of Bhāratītīrtha’s Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā, a virtuosic
summation of the Brahmasūtra from the standpoint of Advaita Vedānta. Daniel Raveh
adopts a fresh approach to Śaṅkara’s Advaita by examining it through the narrative
lens of Śaṅkaradigvijaya, the famous medieval biography of Śaṅkara. These chapters
remind us of the centrality of textual interpretation in Vedānta and pave the way for
further hermeneutic work on the dizzying array of Vedāntic texts in a wide variety of
genres, including scriptural commentaries, independent philosophical treatises, plays,
poems, biographies, and songs.
22 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Part 5, “Cross-Cultural Explorations,” has three chapters which engage Vedāntic

ideas from global philosophical perspectives. Anand Jayprakash Vaidya (Chapter 14)
demonstrates the relevance of the Vedāntic views of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Sri
Ramakrishna to contemporary debates about consciousness and panpsychism in
analytic philosophy of mind. Ethan Mills (Chapter 15) argues that the Advaitin
thinker Śrīharṣa’s somewhat surprising appeal to nondual mystical experience is
best understood as a “skeptical scenario” in the contemporary analytic sense. Finally,
Arindam Chakrabarti (Chapter 16) examines from a cross-cultural standpoint the
themes of dream, māyā, and love in the Vedāntic thought of Śaṅkara, Vivekananda,
and K.C. Bhattacharyya. These chapters should encourage philosophically minded
scholars of Vedānta to venture beyond mere philosophical comparison and to adopt a
more cosmopolitan method that aims to address philosophical problems by drawing
upon the conceptual resources of both Vedāntic and global traditions.
The sixteen chapters of this handbook interact, and sometimes overlap, with
each other in fruitful and interesting ways. To aid the reader in drawing connections
among the chapters, each contributor has referred to themes and arguments in other
chapters wherever they deemed appropriate. An attentive reader of the handbook
will notice certain recurring themes in the handbook, three of which I will note here.
First, apart from Dalal’s and Raveh’s chapters on Śaṅkara, almost all the other chapters
also engage, to a certain extent, the Advaita Vedānta of Śaṅkara and his followers,
often as a philosophical foil against which various thinkers—including Rāmānuja,
Veṅkaṭanātha, Vyāsatīrtha, Jīva Gosvāmī, Baladeva, Abhinavagupta, Sri Ramakrishna,
and Sri Aurobindo—developed their own positions. Second, numerous chapters
examine different approaches to the ontological status of the world and its relationship
to the ultimate reality, with Advaitins like Śaṅkara and Śrīharṣa denying the ultimate
reality of the world and other thinkers, both classical and modern, defending the
reality and divinity of the world. Third, besides Long’s chapter on Sri Ramakrishna,
parts of numerous other chapters also discuss Sri Ramakrishna’s views on issues like
the problem of evil (Nicholson, Chapter 8), religious pluralism (Barua, Chapter 9),
consciousness (Vaidya, Chapter 14), and the world (Chakrabarti, Chapter 16).
Several chapters also discuss Sri Ramakrishna’s influence on other thinkers—namely,
Vivekananda (Chakrabarti, Chapter 16), Rolland (Maharaj, Chapter 7), and Sri
Aurobindo (Maharaj, Chapter 11). The recurring presence of Sri Ramakrishna at
various points in this handbook, though not planned, is nonetheless serendipitous,
since it highlights one of the many ways that contributors have sought to bring classical
and modern Vedāntic figures into productive dialogue.
The future of Vedānta scholarship looks bright, and it is our hope that this research
handbook will serve as a resource and guide for both scholars and students interested
in exploring the riches of one of India’s most important philosophical traditions.

Abbreviation
CW Vivekananda, Swami ([1957–97] 2006–7), The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda: Mayavati Memorial Edition, 9 vols. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
 Introduction 23

Notes
1 For attempts to date the Upaniṣads, see Chapter 2 of Cohen (2018) and Nakamura
([1950–6] 1983: 9–44).
2 See Witz (1998: 196–207) for a helpful discussion of the various meditative practices
taught in the Upaniṣads—namely, upāsanās, vidyās, and dhyāna.
3 Malinar (2007: 15) suggests 100 CE as the approximate date of composition of
the Gītā, though other scholars suggest date ranges extending into one or two
centuries BCE.
4 See Nakamura ([1950–6] 1983: 435–6) for an approximate dating of the Brahmasūtra.
5 For in-depth discussions of the impact of Vedānta in India, see Nakamura ([1950–6]
1983: 1–4), Halbfass (1988), Hatcher (2008), and Nicholson (2010).
6 Chapter 7 (Maharaj’s essay on Romain Rolland) is a revision of a previously
published article.
7 Herling builds on Lincoln (1999), which first developed this dialectic between myth
and logos.
8 One of the schools I do not discuss here (for lack of space) is the Śivādvaita Vedānta
of figures like Śrīkaṇṭha and Appaya Dīkṣita. Scholars have only recently begun to
examine this school. See, for instance, Duquette (2014 and forthcoming).
9 For a helpful overview of Bhedābheda Vedānta and its various subschools, see
Nicholson (n.d.).
10 For the ensuing doctrinal overview of various Vedāntic schools, I have relied
primarily on Srinivasachari (1934), Sharma (1962), Kapoor (1976), Lipner (1986),
and Tapasyānanda (1990).
11 For Śaṅkara’s views on īśvara, see his commentary on Brahmasūtra 2.1.14.
12 See Caitanyacaritāmṛta 1.3.
13 See Vallabha’s Prakāśa autocommentary on verses 98 and 102 of the second chapter
(“Sarvanirṇayaprakaraṇam”) of his Tattvārthadīpanibandha.
14 For discussion of this point, see Nicholson (n.d.).
15 See verse 28 of Giridhara’s (2000) Śuddhādvaitamārtaṇḍaḥ. It is not widely known
that Vallabha himself never used the term “śuddhādvaita,” preferring instead to refer
to his school as “Brahmavāda.”
16 For details, see Gupta’s contribution to this volume (Chapter 4).
17 For a helpful discussion of the Viśiṣṭādvaitic approach to spiritual practice, see Lipner
(1986: 99–119).
18 Nicholson (2010: 39–66) provides an illuminating discussion of the
Bhedābhedavādin Vijñānabhikṣu’s doxographic method.
19 Pons’s letter is discussed in App (2014: 125–6) and Rocher and Rocher (2012: 188).
As Halbfass ([1981] 1988: 39–42) notes, an even earlier account of Vedānta is
contained in the Jesuit missionary Roberto De Nobili’s Latin treatise Informatio
de quibusdam moribus nationis indicae (1613), where he summarizes Śaṅkara’s,
Rāmānuja’s, and Madhva’s sects of Vedānta.
20 See also Halbfass ([1981] 1988: 44–53) on the early Jesuit reception of Vedānta.
21 As Halbfass ([1981] 1988: 63) notes, Jones also published the first English translation
of an Upaniṣad—namely, the Īśā Upaniṣad—in 1799 (Jones 1799: 423–5).
22 See Nicholson (2010: 166–84).
23 Colebrooke may have had in mind, among others, Prakāśānanda (fl. 1505),
who defended a subjective idealist form of Advaita Vedānta in his book
Vedāntasiddhāntamuktāvalī.
24 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

24 For further details on Colebrooke, see Rocher and Rocher (2012).

25 Another highly influential later Brāhmo figure, whom I do not have the space
to discuss here, is Keshab Chandra Sen (1838–84). For a detailed treatment,
see Stevens (2018).
26 For discussion, see Herling (2006: 117–56) and Halbfass ([1981] 1988: 74–8).
27 For discussions of Hegel’s reception of Indian thought, see Halbfass ([1981] 1988:
84–99), Bernasconi (2003), Herling (2006: 203–54), and Rathore and Mohapatra
(2017).
28 For a thorough discussion of the sociohistorical context in which Advaitic
scholarship began to flourish in early modern India, see Minkowski (2011).
29 See, for instance, Slater (1897) and Urquhart (1928). See further references in
Halbfass ([1981] 1988: 51–2).
30 For discussions of modern Vedāntic responses to Christianity, see Paradkar (1969),
Halbfass ([1981] 1988: 52–3), and Coward (1987).
31 See, for instance, Aurobindo ([1920] 2012: 3–98, [1924] 2011: 3–91), Radhakrishnan
(1923: 106–220), Thieme (1965), Richard H. Jones (1981), Clooney (1994), Cohen
(2018), and Maharaj’s contribution in Chapter 11 of this volume.
32 See Aurobindo ([1922–8] 1997), Mainkar (1969), Zaehner (1969), Minor (1982),
Malinar (2007), and Maharaj (2015).
33 See Dasgupta (1922: 36–46), Modi (1943–56), Nakamura ([1950–6] 1983: 404–532),
Ghate (1981), Adams (1993), and Maharaj (2020).
34 For reductive views of Vivekananda, see Frazier (2015: 2) and Neevel (1976: 54–5).
35 See, for instance, CW1: 393–404. For non-Śaṅkaran interpretations of Vivekananda’s
“ladder theory,” see Maharaj (2020) and the section on Vivekananda in Barua’s
contribution to this handbook (Chapter 9).
36 See also Deussen (1908), who not only translated into German Mādhava’s
Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha but also explicitly concurred with Mādhava that Advaita
Vedānta is the pinnacle of Indian philosophical thought (191).
37 See Radhakrishnan (1926: 445–658), Hacker (1978: 59–292), Malkovsky (2001), and
De Smet (2013). See also Dalal (Chapter 1, this volume) and Raveh (Chapter 13, this
volume).
38 See Chapter 10 by Hedling in this handbook as well as Aurobindo ([1940] 2005:
20–8, 428–98), Ingalls (1953), Das (1954), Nelson (1996), Framarin (2009),
and Rao (2011).
39 For more comprehensive bibliographies of the scholarship on various Vedāntic
traditions, see Karl Potter’s online bibliography (https://faculty.washington.edu/
kpotter).
40 See, for instance, Glasenapp (1923), Sharma (1960–1), Mesquita (1997), Sarma
(2005), McCrea (2015), Williams (2017 and Chapter 3 in present volume).
41 Srinivasachari (1928), Lipner (1986), Bartley (2002), Freschi (2015), and Schmücker
(Chapter 2 in this volume).
42 See Srinivasachari (1934) and Nicholson (2010: 24–66).
43 Glasenapp (1934) and Narain (2006).
44 Elkman (1986), Gupta (2007, Chapter 4 of this volume), Edelmann (2012),
and Okita (2014).
45 Duquette (2014) and McCrea (2014).
46 See Rambachan (1994), Chatterjee (1995), Dasgupta (1999), and Maharaj (2019).
47 See Phillips’s (Chapter 6) and Maharaj’s (Chapters 7 and 11) contributions to this
volume.
 Introduction 25

48 For a helpful discussion of Vivekananda’s views on evolution, see Brown (2012:

131–54).
49 See Deussen (1917), Raju (1937), Radhakrishnan and Raju (1960), Clooney (1993),
Gupta (1998), and Mills (2018).
50 See, for instance, Barua (2009), Edelmann (2012), and Clooney (2013).
51 For an English translation of these articles, see Hacker (1995).
52 See Halbfass ([1981] 1988), King (1999: 118–42), Hatcher (2008), and
Nicholson (2010).
53 See Dobe (2015: 182–222), Allen (2017), Steinschneider (2017), and Raveh’s
contribution to this volume (Chapter 13).

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 Introduction 27

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32
 Chapter Summaries

Chapter 1 Contemplating Nonduality: The Method

of Nididhyāsana in Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta

Neil Dalal

The threefold process of listening (śravaṇa), logical reflection (manana), and

contemplation (nididhyāsana) is central to Advaita Vedānta’s method of learning, and
designed to lead the Advaitin toward liberating knowledge; however, relatively little
is known about the contemplative method of nididhyāsana. This chapter explores the
structures and practices of nididhyāsana. It analyzes how Śaṅkara, the eighth-century
systematizer of Advaita Vedānta, grounded nididhyāsana in a method of language and
a particular trajectory of philosophical inquiry. The study isolates several elements
of continuity as well as subtle differences in Śaṅkara’s understanding of nididhyāsana
practices, as reflected in his interpretations of key passages in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad and the Bhagavad-Gītā as well as in his own Upadeśasāhasrī. These case
studies show that nididhyāsana is fundamentally different from meditation practices
of controlling the mind or other contemplative practices that presuppose a dichotomy
of theory and practice. They further demonstrate that an accurate reading of Śaṅkara
cannot attribute any independent epistemological function to nididhyāsana wholly
separate from Upaniṣadic study.

Chapter 2 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge (Dharmabhūtajñāna) in

the Later Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta of Veṅkaṭanātha

Marcus Schmücker

Through an examination of the Sanskrit and Maṇipravāḷa works of Veṅkaṭanātha

(1269–1368), a famous representative of the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta after
Rāmānuja, this chapter shows how Veṅkaṭanātha develops a cognitive model that tries
to mediate between the eternal individual self (jīvātman) and the changeable world
by means of a knowledge called “qualifying knowledge” (dharmabhūtajñāna). The
ontological and temporal dimensions of this mediating qualifying knowledge, which
34 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

is an attribute of the self, are explained in a series of steps and with the help of some
examples. After describing the concepts of substance (dravya) and state (avasthā),
the author explains in what sense the individual self (ātman) is an eternal substance
(dravya) and how it is related to its outwardly directed knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna),
which is also defined as a substance, albeit as a qualifying substance of the basic
individual self (ātman). Presupposing this basic ontology and having highlighted
the interdependence of these two substances, the author demonstrates how, for
Veṅkaṭanātha, the self is able to reflect diachronically on its own states as they happened
in the past, or on possible states in the future. Accordingly, Veṅkaṭanātha argues that
knowledge of unawareness during sleep is merely knowledge of a particular state of
being unaware—that is, knowledge of the “prior absence” (prāgabhāva) of knowledge.
The final section examines Veṅkaṭanātha’s account of why, and how, God Himself has
the same kind of knowledge (namely, dharmabhūtajñāna) as the individual soul.

Chapter 3 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta: An Analytic Defense of

Realism in Mādhva Vedānta

Michael Williams

This chapter focuses on the thought of the sixteenth-century Mādhva Vedānta

philosopher Vyāsatīrtha. In his highly influential work, the Nyāyāmṛta, Vyāsatīrtha
defended the reality of the world of everyday experience against the nondualistic
(Advaita) stream of Vedānta philosophy. So far as Vyāsatīrtha is concerned, the
world of our everyday experience is real; our perceptions reveal to us a pluralistic
world of objects that truly exist, and neither metaphysical inferences nor scripture
have the power to contradict these perceptions. In this chapter, the author provides
an analysis of Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of the central Vedāntic concept of “existence”
(sattva), based on his own translations of the Nyāyāmṛta. This part of the Nyāyāmṛta
shows Vyāsatīrtha at work as an analytic thinker, developing an original theory of
existence and nonexistence that can provide a robust challenge to the thesis of the
Advaita Vedāntins that the world of our everyday perceptions is simply an illusion.

Chapter 4 Accomplishing the Impossible: Jīva Gosvāmī and the

Concept of Acintya in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta
Ravi M. Gupta

This chapter traces the concept of acintya, inconceivability, through the writings of
Jīva Gosvāmī (c. 1517–1608), an early expositor of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta. After
outlining the life and work of Jīva Gosvāmī as well as the foundational tenets of
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism, the author argues that acintya is used in two related ways: to
describe the relationship between Kṛṣṇa and His energies (śakti) as well as to describe
 Chapter Summaries 35

Kṛṣṇa’s confounding activities (līlā). The former usage serves to resolve the tension
in scriptural statements that alternately affirm difference (bheda) and nondifference
(abheda) between God and the world, while the latter usage of acintya has the effect of
deepening the devotee’s wonder and devotion for the Lord. The chapter also discusses
debates surrounding the concept of acintya and distinguishes it from the Advaita
notion of anirvacanīya.

Chapter 5 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy of Anekānta Vedānta

Jeffery D. Long

This chapter aims to shed new light on the Vedāntic worldview of the Bengali mystic Sri
Ramakrishna (1836–86). The author argues that the central features of Sri Ramakrishna’s
Vedānta are its worldview pluralism (dharma-samanvaya) and its rootedness in direct
experience (anubhava) of the nature of ultimate reality. As a thoroughgoingly pluralistic
philosophy, Sri Ramakrishna’s thought could be designated with the term Anekānta
(or pluralistic) Vedānta. The use of the term anekānta to designate this philosophy
should bring to mind, for those familiar with classical Indian thought, the Jain position
of anekāntavāda: that is, the Jain doctrine of the complex (literally, “non-one-sided”)
nature of existence. The use of this term here is not intended to suggest either that
Sri Ramakrishna was influenced directly by Jainism, or that his philosophy amounts,
substantively, to a traditional Jain view of reality. Jainism affirms a pluralistic realism—
“pluralism” here referring not to the diversity of worldviews, but to the ontological
claim that reality consists of a variety of diverse types of entity. There is, in fact, no
evidence, at least of which this author is aware, that Sri Ramakrishna engaged deeply
with Jain thought; and Sri Ramakrishna’s worldview, while certainly having affinities
with that of Jainism, is also different enough from the view of this tradition so as not to
be confused or conflated with it. The use of the term anekānta, though, is intended to
draw attention to affinities between Sri Ramakrishna’s pluralism and a similar stance
developed by Jain thinkers throughout the centuries: a stance highlighted by modern
Jain thinkers (and other modern Indian philosophers, like Bimal Krishna Matilal) who
have advanced the idea that anekāntavāda amounts to an expression of “intellectual
ahiṃsā,” that is, of nonviolence applied to the realm of philosophical discourse.

Chapter 6 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology of a “Psychic Being” in

Support of a Metaphysical Argument for Reincarnation

Stephen Phillips

This chapter argues that in The Life Divine (1940), the philosopher-mystic Sri
Aurobindo puts forth a novel argument for reincarnation, an argument not
countenanced in the classical Indian schools. The argument supplements a claim
36 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

found in the Yogasūtra and elsewhere which Sri Aurobindo endorses—namely, that
through yogic practice one can develop the power (siddhi) to remember past lives.
The argument also depends on yogic or mystic experience to warrant its first and
most important premise, but overall the reasoning is highly abstract. The premises
are: first, Brahman the Absolute is saccidānanda, “Existence-Consciousness-Bliss”—
which is supposed to be a mystical claim backed up by Sri Aurobindo’s own special
experience along with that of Upaniṣadic rishis, other yogins and yoginis, and so on;
second, if Brahman is saccidānanda, our world has to be meaningful; third, if there is
no individual survival of death, then our world cannot be meaningful; and fourth and
finally, reincarnation is the best mechanism for individual survival such that a theory
of reincarnation is better than any other candidate (four of which are surveyed). This
chapter scrutinizes these premises as well as other ideas surrounding Sri Aurobindo’s
conclusion that rebirth is real, especially the notion of a “psychic being,” that is, of a
developing, reincarnating individual soul. The author expounds the occult psychology
proposed by Sri Aurobindo, detailing its resonances with tantric and Vedāntic views.
The chapter opens with a summary of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and the importance
of the concept of the psychic being, and closes with the argument summarized and
evaluated.

Chapter 7 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling: Romain

Rolland’s Vedāntic Critique of Psychoanalysis and His Call for a
“New Science of the Mind”

Ayon Maharaj

This chapter examines the largely neglected Vedāntic dimension of the thought of the
celebrated French writer Romain Rolland (1866–1944) by focusing on his fascinating
epistolary debate with Sigmund Freud concerning the nature and value of mystical
experience. In a 1927 letter, the French writer Romain Rolland asked Freud to analyze
the “oceanic feeling,” a religious feeling of oneness with the entire universe. I will
argue that Rolland’s intentions in introducing the oceanic feeling to Freud were much
more complex, multifaceted, and critical than most scholars have acknowledged. To
this end, I will examine Rolland’s views on mysticism and psychoanalysis in his book-
length biographies of the Indian saints Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda,
which he wrote just after he mentioned the oceanic feeling to Freud in 1927. I will
argue that Rolland’s primary intentions in appealing to the oceanic feeling in his 1927
letter to Freud—intentions less evident in his letters to Freud than in his biographies of
Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda—were to challenge the fundamental assumptions
of psychoanalysis from a Vedāntic perspective and to confront Freud with a mystical
“science of the mind” that he felt was more rigorous and comprehensive than Freud’s
psychoanalytic science.
 Chapter Summaries 37

Chapter 8 Making Space for God: Karma, Freedom,

and Devotion in the Brahmasūtra Commentaries of Śaṅkara,
Rāmānuja, and Baladeva

Andrew J. Nicholson

This chapter examines the portrayal of God (īśvara) and God’s relation to karma
in the Brahmasūtra (BS) and in the commentaries by Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and
Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa. BS 2.1.33 famously asserts in response to an objection
from an anti-theist that God’s creation is just play (līlā), a spontaneous activity that
lacks any objective beyond itself. However, BS 2.1.34 states that God is dependent
(sāpekṣa) on karma. This seems to be a contradiction. How can a spontaneous and
free activity be restricted by karma? How can God be dependent on something
outside of Himself? Does this mean that the God of Vedānta is not omnipotent?
Though Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja approach this aporia only indirectly, Baladeva
Vidyābhūṣaṇa (eighteenth century CE) explicitly attempts to reconcile the tension
between these two sūtras. He goes well beyond earlier Vedānta commentators’
portrayal of God’s activity by arguing that God does at times disregard worshippers’
karmic histories, and that in fact His willingness to disregard karma should be
considered a virtue, not a defect.

Chapter 9 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity: Grounding

the Many Divinities in the Unity of Brahman

Ankur Barua

A central preoccupation of Vedāntic thought is the interrogation of competing systems

of metaphysics and epistemology which are, in turn, pivoted around soteriological
concerns. Vedāntic worldviews, across their divergent formulations, point to the
indivisible reality in and beyond worldly multiplicity, and therefore the question of
the location of the doxastic others—what we might today label religious others—
becomes vitally significant. In premodern Vedāntic schools, a variety of standpoints
were developed to subsume doctrinal rivals within one’s own exegetical universe. Thus,
foundational figures such as Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and others, and broader devotional
traditions such as Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism, developed a range of exegetical-conceptual
tools through which they sought to encompass rival standpoints from within the
perspective of their own Vedāntic system. Some influential figures associated with
Hindu modernity have creatively reworked these classical materials to articulate their
distinctive visions of the transcendental significance of the religious traditions of
humanity. Thus the modernist reconfigurations of figures such as Swami Vivekananda,
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and others represent Hinduism, conceived through
Vedāntic prisms, variously as the quintessence of human spirituality, an embodiment
38 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

of universal moral values, or as a pointer to the transcendental source of all religions.

The author’s study of these conceptual maneuvers indicates certain deep continuities
between the “traditional” and the “modern,” as well as some marked shifts over the
longue durée of Hindu religious history.

Chapter 10 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue: The World and

Embodied Liberation in Advaita Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā

Klara Hedling

This chapter provides a comparative study of the doctrine of jīvanmukti (embodied

liberation) in Advaita Vedānta and the Pratyabhijñā system of the nondual Śaivism of
Kashmir. It argues that since Advaitins take the world to be an illusory manifestation
(vivarta) of Brahman, the notion of jīvanmukti appears to be a logical contradiction.
Neither Śaṅkara nor the post-Śaṅkara Advaitins were entirely successful in resolving
the contradiction and, as a result, they struggled to uphold a coherent doctrine of
jīvanmukti. The Pratyabhijñā philosophers, on the other hand, regard the world as a
real manifestation (ābhāsa) of Consciousness. Hence, their metaphysical framework
fully supports the notion of jīvanmukti both as a logical possibility and as the highest
goal. In the Pratyabhijñā, we find a logical justification of jīvanmukti that is grounded
in the ontology of the world. Nonetheless, there are also certain aspects of the
Pratyabhijñā doctrine that stand in apparent tension with the view that jīvanmukti is
the highest goal.

Chapter 11 Seeing Oneness Everywhere: Sri Aurobindo’s Mystico-

Immanent Interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad

Ayon Maharaj

This chapter examines the Bengali philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo’s highly original
and sophisticated commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad—which was first published in
1924—and brings him into dialogue with both traditional and modern commentators.
Militating against the reductive view that he simply read his own mystical experiences
into the Īśā Upaniṣad, the author argues that Sri Aurobindo consciously strove to
avoid eisegesis by adopting a “hermeneutics of mystical immanence.” According to
Sri Aurobindo, the fundamental principle of the Īśā Upaniṣad is the reconciliation of
opposites. This chapter makes the case that Sri Aurobindo’s distinctive reading of the
Īśā Upaniṣad in the light of this principle provides new ways of resolving numerous
interpretive puzzles and difficulties that have preoccupied commentators for centuries.
Drawing on the hermeneutic insights of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Francis X. Clooney,
the author demonstrates that Sri Aurobindo combines a traditional commitment
to the transformative power of scripture with a historico-philological method
 Chapter Summaries 39

favored by recent scholars. On this basis, the author contends that Sri Aurobindo’s
unduly neglected commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad deserves a prominent place in
contemporary scholarly discussions.

Chapter 12 On the Style of Vedānta: Reading Bhāratītīrtha’s

Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā in Light of Mādhava’s Jaiminīyanyāyamālā
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

The Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā of Bhāratītīrtha (fourteenth century) is a manual in the

Advaita Vedānta tradition, distinguished stylistically by its great succinctness and
by its commitment to the summation of each adhikaraṇa of the entire Brahmasūtra
(BS), adding nothing extraneous to the set of adhikaraṇas first proposed by the
sūtrakāra Bādarāyaṇa. It thus articulates a version of Advaita realized only by way of
close attention to the 192 adhikaraṇas of BS, rather than by way of generalizations
on Ātman and Brahman, avidyā and māyā, and so on. As a scholastic treatise, the
Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā presents a clear mode of study of the Vedānta, commendable
by virtue of its fidelity to the structure of BS and to case-reasoning as a distinctive
form of Vedānta thinking. Yet it also suffers the possible drawbacks of a narrowness of
focus and a refusal both to generalize its tenets and to return directly to the Upaniṣads,
the ostensible original source of Advaita. Brilliant as a small treatise, it therefore also
raises large questions about what ought to be counted as “real Advaita.” The chapter
compares this distillation of BS with the Jaiminīyanyāyamālā of Mādhavācārya (also
fourteenth century, possibly a bit later than Bhāratītīrtha), which similarly distills the
900 adhikaraṇas of Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsāsūtra. Through this comparison, we take note of
the different ways in which dharma and Brahman, two very different objects of study,
are nevertheless studied by treatises of the same style.

Chapter 13 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation of

Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta

Daniel Raveh

This chapter rereads and rethinks the Śaṅkaradigvijaya (SDV), a premodern

hagiography of Śaṅkara written in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.
The author focuses on two pivotal episodes of the SDV, the episode of Śaṅkara in the
king’s body (and the debate with Maṇḍana and Ubhaya-bhāratī that precedes it), and
Śaṅkara’s poignant encounter with an “untouchable” caṇḍāla on a narrow lane leading
to the river Gaṅgā. Both episodes raise questions about identity and identification,
embodiment and disembodiment, borders and border-crossing, knowledge of body
and body of knowledge. The author reads these episodes opposite Śaṅkara’s own texts,
namely the Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya and his commentaries on several Upaniṣads and the
40 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Bhagavad-Gītā, thereby creating a dialogue between two Śaṅkaras, the philosopher-

commentator and his namesake, the protagonist of the hagiography. The first episode,
the author argues, elucidates the intriguing concept of jñāna-niṣṭhā—“steadfastness
in knowledge,” or more literally “being within knowledge,” which occurs in Śaṅkara’s
commentary on the Bhagavad-Gītā. The second episode, i.e., the canḍāla episode, adds
a social dimension to Śaṅkara’s metaphysical notion of advaita. The author’s analysis
draws on the writings of contemporary theorists Daya Krishna and Mukund Lath.

Chapter 14 A New Debate on Consciousness: Bringing Classical

and Modern Vedānta into Dialogue with Contemporary Analytic
Panpsychism

Anand Jayprakash Vaidya

One of the most salient questions in cross-cultural philosophy concerns the nature
of consciousness: What is consciousness and where does it come from? This chapter
examines panpsychism, a theory that maintains that everything is consciousness.
Panpsychism is an old view of consciousness that can be found in both Western and
Eastern philosophy. Recently the position has gained new attention within Western
analytic philosophy. The author’s goal is to draw Western analytic philosophy into
conversation with three Vedāntic traditions: Advaita Vedānta, Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta,
and Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta. It is argued that contemporary work in
analytic philosophy focusing on panpsychism can benefit from engaging with
Indian philosophy, and vice versa. In particular, by drawing these two traditions into
conversation, the author articulates a new debate about the nature of consciousness.
The new debate focuses on the question: Which illusion, if any, should we accept? On
the one hand, one can hold that the self is real, but that consciousness is an illusion. On
the other hand, one can hold that the self is an illusion, but that consciousness is real.

Chapter 15 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario: Śrīharṣa’s

Skeptical Advaita in the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya

Ethan Mills

Noting that the Advaita Vedānta philosopher Śrīharṣa (c. twelfth century CE) has
been read as a skeptic, this chapter focuses on one of his distinctive contributions,
particularly concerning the relation between his mysticism and his skepticism. In his
philosophical masterpiece the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, Śrīharṣa refers to his own
mystical experiences of nondualism, which fit William James’s characterization of
mystical states as ineffable and having a noetic quality (i.e., they seem to be states of
knowledge). Śrīharṣa’s experiences also possess another characteristic often attributed
to mystical experience: a feeling of oneness. But his appeal to these experiences
 Chapter Summaries 41

does not form any part of a philosophical argument in favor of dogmatism about
nondualist metaphysics. Nor does Śrīharṣa straightforwardly accept scripture (śruti)
as a means of knowledge. Rather, the author argues that for Śrīharṣa, the possibility
of nondual mystical experiences functions as a skeptical scenario meant to dislodge
confidence in one’s everyday metaphysical assumptions. Much like skeptical scenarios
in contemporary Western epistemology involving dreaming, computer simulation, or
brains-in-vats, Śrīharṣa’s point is that the possibility of nondualism leads us to question
the ultimate truth of everyday dualistic beliefs. Śrīharṣa’s work became an impetus for
Navya Nyāya and it remains a source of philosophical treasures that can still enrich us.

Chapter 16 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom:

A Contemporary Cross-Cultural Remapping of Vedānta

Arindam Chakrabarti

Could each of us, a self with a sense of individual identity and free will, actually
be illusory, a no-one? Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) thought that our sense of
individual selfhood is riddled with contradictions and is the root of our suffering.
He praised Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because it imaginatively
disrupts our smug “scientific”/“practical” confidence in the reality of the external
world. This chapter unpacks the Advaita Vedāntic concept of māyā that primarily
applies to the contents of dreams, hallucinations, and illusions. We rehearse the
classical Indian metaphysical debate between (Buddhist) anti-realists and realists
around the ineliminable possibility that any current waking experience is actually
part of a dream, if not my dream, possibly the dream of a collective mind or God.
Śaṅkara’s refutation of Buddhist idealism makes his position compatible with empirical
realism. We then analyze Vivekananda’s and K.C. Bhattacharyya’s (1875–1949) totally
different, but equally modern and original, approaches to the concept of māyā. Moving
from metaphysics to ethics, the chapter ends by discussing Sri Ramakrishna’s and
Vivekananda’s philosophically complex notion of selfless love (prema) as the only way
out of the “prison-house” of māyā, tracing the roots of this notion to the Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad. The enlightened living liberated person, instead of denigrating or dismissing
the world as unreal, may end up loving—even worshipping—the world of plurality as
a real manifestation of God, just as Sri Ramakrishna’s “vijñānī” does.
42
 Part One

Classical Vedānta
44
 1

Contemplating Nonduality: The Method

of Nididhyāsana in Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta
Neil Dalal

Advaita Vedānta articulates a philosophical position of radical nondualism based

on the Upaniṣadic formulation of absolute reality (Brahman). Advaitins understand
Brahman as transcending individuality and empirical plurality. They seek to
establish that the Self (Ātman) is in reality nondual Brahman by tying a metaphysics
of Brahman to a theory of personal consciousness. This endeavor depends upon
systematized theories of language and epistemology and specific methods of teaching
and contemplative practice intended to culminate in liberating nondual knowledge.
Surprisingly, it is difficult to provide great detail on Advaita’s contemplative method
known as nididhyāsana without reconstructive speculation. Even though nididhyāsana
ostensibly plays a pivotal role in Advaita praxis, detailed discussions of how to do it are
mostly absent in early Advaita literature, such as Śaṅkara’s commentaries, and rare
even in the most prolix of later texts.
The scarcity of contemplative instruction in early Advaitin texts is conspicuous,
different from similar traditions like Pātañjala Yoga or Mahāyāna Buddhism, and
likely an intentional omission. There are a few likely reasons. The śāstra genre, sacred
literature dealing with specialized traditions of learning, along with its commentaries,
often does not give detailed instruction for practice, assuming the teacher will provide
it through oral instruction. Second, nonduality is already present and innate according
to Advaita Vedāntins. Construing contemplation as a practice by which one gains
liberation or achieves nondual experiential states depends on ­ presuppositions—
such as that liberation is distant—which contradict the innateness of nonduality.
Such presuppositions also contradict Advaita’s view of the Upaniṣads as a means of
knowledge. As I will argue below, Advaita’s method collapses the dichotomy of theory
and practice that is intrinsic to both ritual practice and yogic meditation methods.
The question of “how to do contemplation” is thus inherently problematic. Third,
the doctrine of nididhyāsana has a number of ambiguities, tensions, and paradoxes.
Advaita’s liberation (mokṣa) is ultimately indeterminable—receding just out of reach of
the horizon of reason and words. Mokṣa resists verbalization or objectification. There is
a metaphysical uncertainty about it, for on the one hand a liberating cognition may be
46 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

able to remove self-ignorance, but on the other it is problematic to reduce ever-present

liberation to a cognition which is a product and a temporal event. If nididhyāsana is
the penultimate precursor to this liberating knowledge or identified as this knowledge
itself, then it shares some of the same obscurities. Thus, articulating a contemplative
process that cultivates or maintains self-knowledge is difficult at best. Yet ironically,
language provides the key for understanding nididhyāsana because Śaṅkara holds the
counterintuitive position that words, in the form of key Upaniṣadic passages, are the
sole means of recognizing Brahman.
Though a handful of academic publications discuss nididhyāsana, none systematically
examine Śaṅkara’s understanding of the practice across his commentaries.1 This study
fills this gap by analyzing how Śaṅkara idiosyncratically grounds nididhyāsana in a
method of language and a particular trajectory of philosophical inquiry. The chapter
further isolates several elements of continuity as well as subtle differences in textual
expressions of nididhyāsana practices. These case studies show that nididhyāsana is
fundamentally different from meditation practices of focusing or controlling the mind,
and that an accurate reading of Śaṅkara cannot wholly separate nididhyāsana from
Upaniṣadic study or attribute any independent epistemological function to it.
Deciphering nididhyāsana requires an adequate understanding of Advaita’s
philosophy and method. This chapter thus begins with a brief historical sketch of
Advaita Vedānta and then provides a philosophical introduction to Advaita philosophy
for the nonspecialist through a case study of one “great sentence” (mahāvākya)
from Taittirīya Upaniṣad (TU) 2.1.1—“Brahman is existence, consciousness, and
limitless” (satyaṃ jñānaṃ anantaṃ brahma). The following section explains Advaita’s
foundational verbal methods for indicating Brahman, which form the architecture
underlying nididhyāsana. The chapter then analyzes case studies of nididhyāsana,
focusing on Śaṅkara’s interpretations of key passages in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad
(BṛU), Upadeśasāhasrī (US), and the Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG). Together these case
studies provide the main elements to reconstruct nididhyāsana according to Śaṅkara.
Despite continuities across these case studies, the precise relationship between
nididhyāsana and immediate self-knowledge in terms of causation and chronology
remains ambiguous in Śaṅkara’s writing. The final section explains these ambiguities
and provides an overview of contentious differences that post-Śaṅkara Advaitins
developed about the nature of nididhyāsana. The conclusion summarizes the method
of nididhyāsana and argues that an accurate understanding of Śaṅkara’s nididhyāsana
from the inside out requires us to expand our assumed boundaries of Upaniṣadic texts.

1.1 A Brief Historical Overview of Advaita Vedānta

Advaita Vedāntins trace their lineage back through Bādarāyaṇa (c. first century BCE),
the author of the Brahmasūtra (The Aphorisms on Brahman), to the individuals in
Upaniṣadic narratives, and ultimately to īśvara (roughly “God”) as Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa
or Dakṣiṇāmūrti, a teaching form of Śiva. The historical record of Advaita Vedānta,
however, is obscure prior to Gauḍapāda (sixth century CE), who was Advaita’s earliest
extant author. He composed the Gauḍapādakārikās (Verses of Gauḍapāda), which
 Contemplating Nonduality 47

explain the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad. According to tradition, he was the teacher of Śaṅkara’s
teacher named Govinda. Gauḍapāda is well known for his theory of ajātivāda (that the
world is never actually born), his disputes (and potential similarities) with Mādhyamika
Buddhism, and his meditative “yoga of non-contact” (asparśayoga) based on the idea
that the mind has no contact with external objects.2
The tradition finds its most sustained early philosophical articulation in the works
of the preeminent eighth-century Advaitin, Ādi Śaṅkarācārya (hereafter Śaṅkara),
and his elder contemporary Maṇḍanamiśra. Maṇḍanamiśra composed an important
text titled the Brahmasiddhi (The Proof of Brahman). Śaṅkara composed our earliest
extant commentaries on the Upaniṣads, Brahmasūtra, and Bhagavad-Gītā, which
constitute Advaita’s triple canon, as well as an independent work, the Upadeśasāhasrī
(A Thousand Teachings). Śaṅkara attempted to establish his philosophy of nondual
Brahman and to systematize Advaita exegesis by reconciling the diverse passages of
Upaniṣadic texts. His work is the most influential for Advaita’s teaching tradition and
monastic lineages. Śaṅkara’s direct disciples, particularly Padmapāda and Sureśvara,
expanded upon his commentaries.
Two important subschools of Advaita eventually emerged in the post-Śaṅkara
tradition: the Vivaraṇa subschool, a moniker derived from Prakāśātman’s (1000 CE)
Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa (Elucidation of Five Parts), a subcommentary on Padmapāda’s
Pañcapādikā (Five Parts), and the Bhāmatī subschool named after the famous
polymath Vācaspati Miśra’s (950 CE) Bhāmatī (The Lustrous) subcommentary on
Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra commentary. These two subschools agreed for the most part,
but diverged on several subtle issues, such as the precise relationship of consciousness
to the cognizing individual, conceptions of īśvara, whether the individual is the locus
of ignorance, and the epistemological importance of nididhyāsana. From the twelfth
century onward, a technical body of Advaita literature arose in dialogue with other
Indian philosophies. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Advaitins such
as Śrīharṣa (1150 CE) and Citsukha (1220 CE) disputed with Naiyāyika logicians,
whose realist metaphysics (which affirms the reality of distinctions) and theory of
consciousness as a non-intrinsic property of one’s Self, threatened to undermine the
nonduality of Advaita’s Brahman.
In the following centuries, Advaitins such as Vidyāraṇya, Dharmarājādhvarin,
Nṛsiṃhāśrama, Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, and Appayya Dīkṣita flourished and
composed numerous independent works and commentaries. These Advaitins were
versed in the analytical method of Navya-Nyāya, the school of New Logic. From
the sixteenth century their primary opponents were dualist Vaiṣṇava philosophers.
Madhusūdana’s Advaitasiddhi (The Proof of Nonduality) was a powerful riposte to
such critiques, and perhaps the most influential Advaita text of that period. Other
Advaita texts in these centuries, like Madhusūdana’s Gūḍhārthadīpikā (Illuminator of
the Hidden Meaning of the Gītā), include more robust constructions of devotional
practice (bhakti) to īśvara. In other cases, texts such as Vidyāraṇya’s Jīvanmuktiviveka
(The Discrimination of Liberation-in-Life) incorporate yogic doctrines that emphasize
nondual states of absorption and the elimination of mind and latent memory traces.
Śaṅkara purportedly established the Daśanāmī (Ten Names) renouncer orders
and four monasteries (maṭhas). These monasteries and several smaller ones continue
48 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

to flourish today. In the modern period, Advaita Vedānta has expanded far beyond
its orthodox confines. Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), for example, popularized
Advaita in India as the basis for an inclusive Hindu identity, and in North America as
an Indian grounding for American metaphysical traditions and New Age movements.
He formed the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, and emphasized multiple paths
to liberation, universal inclusivism, and nondual experience. Ramana Maharshi
(1879–1950), an Advaitin saint and mystic known for his penetrating questioning of
­self-identity, continues to inspire contemporary Advaitins. Other teachers, like Swami
Chinmayananda (1916–93), brought Advaita around the world. Recent decades
have also witnessed the rise of nontraditional Advaitins in North America who
teach nonduality with less emphasis on the textual tradition. Advaita Vedānta is not
static. Its streams of thought continue to evolve due to the encounter with different
philosophical, theological, and sociopolitical contexts; yet the tradition as a whole
demonstrates a significant degree of philosophical continuity from past to present.

1.2 Defining Brahman: Existence, Consciousness, and Limitless

Advaita Vedānta is traditionally viewed as a body of knowledge and teaching

methodology leading to liberation. The qualified teacher employs particular methods
to reveal the wisdom of the Upaniṣads to the student (śiṣya). The subject matter of
Advaita deals with the relationships between the individual (jīva), the universe
(jagat), God (īśvara), and nondual Brahman. The jīva, jagat, and īśvara all depend
upon Brahman for their existence. The fundamental thrust of Advaita is that the Self
(Ātman) is Brahman, the sole reality of all things. It is one (ekam) without a second
(advitīyam), nondual (advaita), infinite existence, and pure consciousness.
At face value, nonduality conflicts with an individual’s limited ­ self-identity—
an individual is certainly not the whole. Advaitins reconcile this contradiction by
analyzing the individual as an unreal product of primal ignorance (avidyā). In his
commentary (bhāṣya [bh]) introducing the Brahmasūtra (BrSū), Śaṅkara outlines a
theory of mistaken self-identity due to a foundational epistemic failure. One mistakes
the non-self, consisting of the body-mind complex, for the true Ātman and the Ātman
for what is not Self. This mutual superimposition projects subjective agency and veils
one’s fundamental nondual nature. Śaṅkara compares the way the Ātman, as pure
consciousness, takes on the non-intrinsic attributes of mind and body to a crystal
assuming the color of a flower behind it.3 Like the crystal, the mind-body is a conditioning
adjunct (upādhi) that provides a locus of individuation, but it is a false construct and a
source of suffering and fear due to its intrinsic limitations.4 Individuals strive to reach
an unlimited state of wholeness through known ends like material gains, social status,
and fleeting pleasurable experiences, yet always fall short due to misunderstanding their
self-identity. One discovers wholeness only through liberation (mokṣa)—the direct
understanding of one’s Self as Brahman. Advaitins claim this knowledge negates primal
ignorance, superimposition, suffering, and the karmic cycle of rebirth.
Brahman is notoriously difficult to conceptualize because it lacks distinction and
properties, but Śaṅkara employed key Upaniṣadic sentences to define Brahman. One
 Contemplating Nonduality 49

such sentence, “Brahman is existence (satyam), consciousness (jñānaṃ), and limitless

(anantam)” (satyaṃ jñānaṃ anantaṃ brahma) from Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1.1,
provides a concise threefold definition. According to Śaṅkara, what is real (satyam)5
“does not change the nature that is ascertained to be its own; and a thing is said to be
unreal (anṛtam) when it changes the nature that is ascertained to be its own.”6 The
primary distinction here is change. What is genuinely real exists in past, present, and
future without negation. A classic Advaita illustration of this, based on Chāndogya
Upaniṣad 6.1.4, is a causal substance such as clay shaped into new names and forms,
like a pot or plate. The latter effects arise and resolve back into their cause. They have
no existence apart from their metaphysical ground, the persisting clay content. Clay
is therefore the reality (satyam). Not only does the clay possess more reality than
either the pot or the plate because it continues through each form, but the individual
existence of either artifact is entirely ontologically dependent upon its clay content.
The clay is analogous to Brahman which is the underlying existence of the universe.
For Śaṅkara, each temporal artifact is simply a name (nāma) and form (rūpa), and
unreal because it can be reduced to its cause.
The term “limitless” (anantam) in combination with satyam defines Brahman as
limitless existence. To explain this the Advaitin may extend the analysis of causality in
the clay-pot illustration to the universe in order to isolate its metaphysical ground. This
entails questioning the possibility of isolating the universal of existence, the essential
being-ness underlying all changing forms. Through several eliminative trajectories,
such as the inability to isolate pure existence through mereological r­eductions—
the process of reducing wholes to their parts—Advaitins conclude that existence is
formless and not limited by macro-forms, small indivisible atomic entities, or by space
and time. This pure existence is the substantive, which appears to take on transient
qualifying properties of names and forms. In this way Advaita reduces qualified
existence to Brahman, which is irreducible nondual existence.
Anantam also negates any limitation of time on Brahman. Brahman is the underlying
reality of time without temporal limits and undergoes no change whatsoever.
Brahman’s intrinsic nature as pure existence resists any duality, causality, properties, or
qualification, and thus entails a type of infinitude. Brahman is therefore not an object
because all objects are limited and within duality. Despite this, all objects are within
Brahman. To exclude anything from Brahman would place a limit on it, contradicting
its nature as anantam. As the limitlessness of satyam and jñānaṃ, anantam is this very
wholeness which one seeks. The later Advaita tradition tends to identify anantam
with ānanda, the complete ever-present fullness of one’s Self which is not lacking in
any way.7
For Advaitins, names and forms like the pot or plate, or more broadly the empirical
world, present an ontological difficulty. These effects are unreal in that they don’t exist
independently like Brahman and are not a second thing apart from Brahman, yet
are not nonexistent like the horn of a hare or self-contradictory like a square circle.
Furthermore, they are not subjective illusions because we perceive these effects with
intersubjective agreement. In several contexts, Śaṅkara describes the empirical world
of names and forms as holding a unique ontological position as “indeterminable
as that (Brahman) or something else (other than Brahman)” (tattvānyatvābhyām
50 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

anirvacanīya).8 He claims that this is analogous to the relationship of foam and water.
The foam is not water yet is not different from water.9
The existence of the phenomenal empirical world alongside that of nondual
Brahman is in fact an illusory false reality; but its indeterminable appearance sets up
a two-truths (or two-tiered) system of reality: (1) the empirical world of transaction
and intersubjective agreement (vyāvahārikasattā); and (2) absolute nonduality
(pāramārthikasattā). The world and Brahman possess an asymmetrical ­relationship—
the world is dependent upon Brahman for its existence, yet Brahman has no
dependence on the world even though immanent within it. Post-Śaṅkara Advaitins
identified this indeterminable world appearance as māyā and expanded the māyā
doctrine by equating it with beginningless ignorance (avidyā).10 Even though most
Advaitins are realists regarding the empirical world, in that it exists independent of
one’s mind, they argue that absolute nonduality undercuts the world’s reality. From the
nondual standpoint the world is unreal, simply an appearance (vivarta). Ultimately
there is only Brahman, which never undergoes genuine transformation (pariṇāma)
into the world.
Māyā is also the cosmic causal creative power wielded by īśvara. Advaitins theorize
īśvara as Brahman with attributes (saguṇa brahman).11 Īśvara is both the material
and efficient cause of the universe. The world, whether manifest or unmanifest, is
therefore not other than īśvara, resulting in a form of panentheism (from the empirical
standpoint). Īśvara is also the “knower of the field” (kṣetrajña)—the core of subjectivity
present in all living beings which is Brahman.12 Advaita’s primary intention, however, is
to establish nonduality, not to analyze the world as illusory or to provide a cosmogonic
story of world causation, because an adequate causal account for a less-than-real
world is unlikely. One may view māyā as a postulate by elimination to account for the
world’s ontological inexplicability, intended to direct one toward the unity of reality.
In Advaita’s final philosophical position, there is only Brahman without any parts or
attributes (nirguṇa), and without any real causation for the world’s emergence.13
The term jñānaṃ in Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.1.1 rules out the possibility that nondual
Brahman is either an inert entity like clay or a distant mediate entity. Jñānaṃ generally
refers to mental cognition and presupposes an individual knower; however, if Brahman
is an agent of knowing it must be subject to time and change. Here, anantam and
satyam intervene to negate any finite nature of jñānaṃ. According to Śaṅkara, jñānaṃ
does not refer to cognition or mind, but to pure non-intentional consciousness (cit). As
pure consciousness, jñānaṃ is unchanging (satyam) and infinite (anantam). It is not a
known object nor affected by causal relationships. As the essential nature of Brahman,
consciousness is not dependent on anything else for its existence. It is self-established
(svataḥ siddhaḥ) and self-illuminating (svaprakāśaḥ)—the invariable satyam of the
knower underlying every phenomenological experience.
Advaitins position consciousness as the presupposition of all epistemological
knowing and the true locus of one’s subjective being.14 Consciousness is the witness
(sākṣin) of cognition. This consciousness is different from the inner instrument, the
mind, which assumes the forms of objects in cognition. The sākṣin allows all cognition,
from sensory perception to internal mental states like pleasure and pain, to be known
without the mediation of another mental mode. It is transparent, pre-reflective, and
 Contemplating Nonduality 51

immediate. Advaitins contend that consciousness cannot become its own object yet
does not require a second- or higher-order cognition to reveal itself. Consciousness is
self-illuminating in all cognition. In other words, it is always experientially immediate
while simultaneously remaining the non-object of knowledge—a position of intrinsic
reflexivity. As a non-object, it resists qualification and eliminative reduction.
Furthermore, consciousness cannot admit its own absence. One cannot deny that one
is conscious because the dismissal of consciousness presupposes its very existence.
Advaita’s direct-access theory of consciousness accounts for the immediacy of
cognition. Advaitins argue that if cognition is not immediately revealed by the sākṣin,
then it would need a second cognition for the first to be known; but the second would
need a third, leading to a fallacy of an infinite regression of mental modes.
Advaitins contend that consciousness is constant through all experiences occurring
in the three states of waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep. Consciousness
continues even in deep dreamless sleep where the ego resolves into ignorance and
subject-object distinctions collapse. The absence of cognition and agency in sleep does
not entail the lack of consciousness, insofar as consciousness, on the Advaita view,
is not intrinsically intentional. It can exist without representing a cognitional object.
Advaitins view this non-intentional and unchanging consciousness as not only the
ultimate essence underlying the individual, one’s self-existence, but as the single Self
(Ātman) of all sentient beings from a blade of grass to īśvara. They further equate this
consciousness with nondual Brahman.15 This forms the basis of Advaita’s soteriological
project. Brahman’s existence is not distant, but immediate and intrinsic to every
phenomenological experience as the Ātman. As I will explain below, nididhyāsana
targets this first-personal ontology of consciousness.

1.3 A Contemplative Grammar: Nididhyāsana’s Underlying Method

Śaṅkara and his disciples are ambivalent about yoga practices. They strove to undermine
the importance of action as an independent methodology for liberation because
nonduality is not a distant entity to be attained or reached.16 One is already eternally
free but unaware of that fact. That being said, Śaṅkara accepted the importance of yogic
practices, and ritual actions to a lesser degree, as providing the necessary conditions
for knowledge to take place.17 Śaṅkara places these actions in a specific category of
cultivating mental purity (antaḥkaraṇaśuddhi), which provides students the proper
qualification (adhikāra) for liberation. Just as one may have to open her eyes and turn
her head to perceive an object, the Advaitin must possess a prepared mind to recognize
Brahman; though, in theory, if a student is already sufficiently qualified, they need not
undergo any practice. The ideal qualified student possesses a fourfold set of qualities
(sādhanacatuṣṭaya) consisting of: (1) discrimination (viveka); (2) dispassion (vairāgya);
(3) the sixfold wealth (śamādiṣaṭkasaṃpatti) of mental control (śama), control of the
organs of action and perception (dama), withdrawal (uparati), fortitude (titikṣā), focus
(samādhāna), trust (śraddhā); and (4) the desire for liberation (mumukṣutva).18
Yogic practices like meditation, the yoga of action (karmayoga), and upāsana are
part of these preliminary practices. Upāsana is an umbrella term for various conceptual
52 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

meditations that incorporate complex homologies and identities to practice visualized

meditations on īśvara. It employs intentional superimposition to establish conceptual
and embodied identities with īśvara. Meditating on such identities often acts to ritually
deify the Advaitin.19 Karmayoga is a sophisticated devotional practice derived from
the Bhagavad-Gītā by which the Advaitin learns to gracefully accept the results of
actions by seeing them within the greater ritual order of cause and effect that is īśvara.20
Through the practice of karmayoga, one performs action as an offering (arpaṇa) to
īśvara and accepts the results of action as īśvara’s grace (prasāda).21 These two pillars of
karmayoga, described as skill in action (BhG 2.50) and evenness of mind (BhG 2.48),
cultivate internal renunciation and freedom from suffering caused by desire.22 This
psychological orientation extends inward so that one’s inner mental life, neuroses and
all, are also included in īśvara’s ritual order. It also extends outward to ritualize life
by recognizing īśvara as manifest in all actions and results. Through karmayoga the
Advaitin develops acceptance and equanimity regarding their self, mundane activities,
and intersubjective relationships.
Even though rituals, devotion, and meditation may develop requisite qualifications
such as concentration, detachment, equanimity, and ethical virtues, they inherently
fall short as independent means to generate self-knowledge. They are only indirectly
instrumental and fundamentally separate from knowledge itself. The natural but
mistaken assumption that liberation is distant encourages action, but the more one
attempts to gain liberation the further it recedes. Action, whether ritualistic or yogic,
is superfluous because it cannot reveal the Self and cannot produce something infinite.
This quagmire is not intractable, though, because both bondage and liberation are just
figurative—no change occurs in reality. One becomes Brahman simply by knowing
Brahman.23
A continuous theme in Śaṅkara’s accepted works is the inability of most means
of knowledge (pramāṇas) to negate ignorance of Brahman. Perception (pratyakṣa)
presupposes a subject-object duality and cannot grasp Brahman because the sense
organs only see outward. Other means of knowledge such as inference (anumāna),
postulation (arthāpatti), non-cognition (anupalabdhi), and comparison (upamāna)
are all dependent on perception to reveal new knowledge according to all schools that
accept such knowledge sources. They require duality and therefore also fail to reveal
Brahman. Extraordinary mystical experiences (anubhava or samādhi), imagination
(vikalpa), and memory (smṛti) also fall short because they are not independent means
of knowledge.24 The only remaining option is testimony (śabda) in the form of the
Vedas.
According to Śaṅkara, the Vedas are eternal and authorless texts; however, he
formulates a break in the Vedic literature reflecting his distinction of knowledge and
action. The first portion (karmakāṇḍa), including the mantra and brāhmaṇa sections,
elaborates ritual action. The second portion (jñānakāṇḍa), comprising the Upaniṣads,
reveals ultimate knowledge. For Śaṅkara, the eternal and authorless Upaniṣads alone
possess the capacity to generate direct knowledge of Brahman. The Upaniṣads
ostensibly reveal Brahman unlike the way they describe rituals and their results or the
karmic repercussions of conduct, which all rely on injunctions and a theory–practice
dichotomy—an orientation that considers the texts a map for reaching a goal or a
 Contemplating Nonduality 53

recipe to produce a result. The Upaniṣads instead generate direct understanding of

Brahman akin to visual perception without requiring further action.
Advaita’s emphasis on Upaniṣadic testimony as a means of knowledge is
counterintuitive because language is incapable of directly designating the infinite
and indescribable reality of Brahman; however, Upaniṣads can reveal direct
knowledge because Brahman is already immediately known as one’s Self and simply
misapprehended or unrecognized. They simply remove misapprehensions of one’s Self
so that it stands self-revealed as nondual. Śaṅkara embraces particular verbal methods
crystallized in pithy Upaniṣadic sentences that affirm nonduality, which post-Śaṅkara
Advaitins identify as mahāvākyas (great sentences).25
Mahāvākyas act as highly condensed mnemonic devices and are the foundation
of nididhyāsana. An analysis of their internal structure is necessary to understand
nididhyāsana because their structure constitutes nididhyāsana’s architecture.26 But
mahāvākyas are difficult to understand and require methodological keys to unlock
their language and reveal their hidden content. The most important methods Śaṅkara
employs include continuity and discontinuity (anvaya and vyatireka), secondary
indication (lakṣaṇā), and negative language (neti neti). Śaṅkara does not clearly codify
these methods, but it may be most accurate to describe his (and Sureśvara’s) primary
method as continuity and discontinuity.27 Post-Śaṅkara Advaitins often discuss this
method as lakṣaṇā instead; however, for the sake of this brief discussion, I argue below
that we consider all three as part and parcel of a single continuous method.
Anvaya and vyatireka is a method of discriminative reasoning to determine the
relationship of what persists and what does not persist between two things. It reveals
whether one term is independent of another. For example, in the analogy of the clay and
its forms above, we can see that when a particular form of clay (such as a pot) occurs,
then clay occurs (anvaya). And when that particular form (pot) is absent (vyatireka)
after being shaped into a plate, then clay still occurs. One may apply this method, for
example, to consciousness and mental states. Consciousness is continuous through
the discontinuous states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep and never subject to its
negative instance of vyatireka.
Mahāvākyas like “I am Brahman” (ahaṃ brahmāsmi) or “You are that” (tat tvam asi)
are identity statements that form an equation consisting of two or more co-referential
terms that are in grammatical apposition. The equation’s lack of logical c­ ongruence—
identifying the limited I (aham) with nondual Brahman, or you (tvam) with that (tat)
universe (or īśvara) for example—prods the reader to use the anvaya and vyatireka
method to resolve the equation. In the case of tat tvam asi, tvam negates the mediacy of
tat as existence external to one’s Self.28 And tat negates any subjective limitations to the
consciousness referred to in tvam. The apposition thus restricts what does not persist
between the two terms to reveal what is continuous and numerically identical—namely,
pure consciousness and undifferentiated existence. When properly understood, the
sentence generates a single partless cognition of self-identity as Brahman.
Lakṣaṇā employs a theory of metonymy which distinguishes between literal
denotative meanings (mukhyārtha or vācyārtha) and implied connotative meanings
(lakṣyārtha). The identity statement’s contradictory juxtaposition triggers a particular
form of secondary implication termed jahadajahallakṣaṇā, in which a portion of the
54 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

primary meaning is rejected while another part is retained.29 The prominent Advaita
example is “This (person that you see now) is that Devadatta (whom you knew in the
past)” (so ’yam devadattaḥ).30 Here, the primary referents of “this” and “that” cannot
be identical because “this” and “that” refer to different locations and times; Devadatta
in the past somewhere else and Devadatta here and now. The two Devadattas are
not completely identical because of their relationships to time and place, nor are
they completely separate. The import of the sentence creates a cognition of a single
Devadatta substantive that is not connected to a specific time or place. Advaitins may
read mahāvākyas like tat tvam asi or satyaṃ jñānaṃ anantaṃ brahma through this
method.31
The particular form of implication (lakṣaṇā) in which words mutually restrict each
other’s meaning is similar to (if not the same as) anvaya and vyatireka and negative
language (neti neti). Neti neti strips away all qualifications to personal identity and the
external world.32 Negative language cannot lose all reference, however, otherwise it
lapses into nihilism or infinite regression. Textual instances of negation usually follow
positive statements about Brahman which provide an explicit positive proposition of
continuity.33 Lakṣaṇā and anvaya-vyatireka similarly depend on negation through
mutual restriction, but simultaneously indicate the intrinsic nature of Brahman
without falling into total nihilism. We may thus view all three as different iterations of
a unified method despite their nuanced differences.34 This method threads the needle
of indicating Brahman’s presence without making it an object. We may conceptualize
it as the “contemplative grammar” that structures the process of nididhyāsana.35
Nididhyāsana is the epistemological practice of recognizing the meaning of mahāvākyas
through this method.

1.4 The Root Text of Nididhyāsana in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad

Śaṅkara only occasionally mentions nididhyāsana specifically by name and does not
employ other terms for contemplation with regularity. The case studies in the following
sections take nididhyāsana as a relatively narrow category of contemplation with
common overlapping features. Śaṅkara encounters several other terms that intimate
contemplative processes, but usually opts to retain these terms in his commentary
instead of reducing them to a single systematic term like nididhyāsana. Comparing
and contrasting the degree to which the methods underlying these terms overlap with
nididhyāsana is beyond the scope of this chapter. Yet it is important to note them in order
to have a sense of the potentially far richer contemplative landscape of Śaṅkara’s Advaita.
These terms include repetition (āvṛtti),36 continuous flow of recognition (smṛtisantāna
or smṛtisantati),37 practice/repetition of knowledge (jñānābhyāsa or abhyāsayoga),38
restraining the mind (manonigraha),39 “yoga of non-contact” (asparśayoga),40 absorbed
contemplation (saṃrādhana or samādhi),41 repeated contemplation (parisaṅkhyāna),42
unwavering yoga of devotion (ananyayoga bhakti),43 meditation (dhyāna)44 or yoga of
meditation/contemplation (dhyānayoga),45 deep meditation (ādhyāna),46 yoga of the
Self (adhyātmayoga),47 remembering (anusmaraṇa),48 thinking over (anucintaṇa),49
 Contemplating Nonduality 55

always contemplating self-knowledge (adhyātmajñānanityatva),50 and forms of the

verbs upa-√ās or pari-upa-√ās.51
The root passage for nididhyāsana occurs in the Yājñavalkya and Maitreyī dialogue
of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Maitreyī questions Yājñavalkya about the means to
attain immortality. He gives the following response:

Oh Maitreyī, the Self should be seen, should be heard, should be reflected on,
and should be contemplated upon. By seeing the Self by listening, reflecting, and
contemplating, all this is known. (BṛU 2.4.5)52

This passage forms the root text for Advaita Vedānta’s threefold learning methodology
composed of listening (śravaṇa), logical reflection (manana), and contemplation
(nididhyāsana).53 They are to culminate in seeing (darśana) the Self and understanding
the world. Śaṅkara provides the following commentary on the passage (italics refer to
the source text):

Therefore, the Self, my dear should be seen—deserves to be seen, should be made

an object of seeing (knowing). First it should be heard—from the teacher and the
Vedas. Then it should be reflected upon according to reasoning. Then it should
be contemplated—it should be meditated on with certainty. Indeed, in this way,
by the means of listening, reflection, and contemplation, it [the Self] is seen.
When these [three] have become as one, then correct knowledge of the oneness of
Brahman becomes clear, not otherwise by listening alone. (BṛUbh 2.4.5)

The triple process derived from BṛU 2.4.5 appears to be an established set of
soteriological methods by Śaṅkara’s time.54 He often cites the passage or refers to it in an
abbreviated form as “listening, etc.” (śravaṇādi).55 Śravaṇa is listening to the Upaniṣads
taught by a qualified teacher. It appears to consist of exegetically investigating those
texts with a teacher. Manana consists of reflecting on those texts through forms of
logical inquiry, such as inferential reasoning and logical fallacies, that are in keeping
with the Upaniṣads. Logical reflection strengthens the teaching of the Upaniṣads by
negating doubts about the possibility of nonduality, particularly when there is conflict
between what is determined by the Upaniṣads and some other means of knowledge.
Based on the case studies below, I propose a general definition of nididhyāsana as
the repeated contemplation of nondual knowledge refined by śravaṇa and manana.
It is a process of pulling the mind away from external objects to metaphorically rest
on Brahman. This process provides stability in holding the vision of nonduality in
all circumstances by reducing dispositional patterns that contradict nonduality. This
stability ostensibly allows deeper experiential access to the benefits of self-knowledge.
Śaṅkara simply glosses nididhyāsitavyaḥ as “to be contemplated on with certainty
(niścayena dhyātavyaḥ).” This pithy remark points out the basic derivation of
nididhyāsana, from the desiderative form of the verb root √dhyai (to meditate, to think
about), reduplicated with the prefix ni. The desiderative form of the verb expresses a
strong desire or committed intention to contemplate. The prefix ni indicates certainty
56 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

(niścaya).56 His commentary also implies a chronology or relationship of dependency

between the three, with listening as the initial and primary activity, followed by reflection
and contemplation of what was heard. The last line of his commentary, that all three are
to be approached as one, underscores the importance of contemplation as part of the
process, yet rules out viewing it as a completely separate means of knowledge.57
After telling Maitreyī the triple method for knowing Brahman in BṛU 2.4.5,
Yājñavalkya describes the process with a series of analogies such as the sounds of a
drum (BṛU 2.4.7), a conch (BṛU 2.4.8), and a vīṇā (a stringed musical instrument)
(BṛU 2.4.9). The various sounds that each emit when played are not distinguishable
from the instrument in that one cannot capture the sound without capturing its source.
These analogies explain the inherence of Brahman in all things manifest in the world.
They describe the manifestation of the world, and exemplify how all objects in the
world exist due to Brahman and have no existence apart from Brahman. They are
simply modifications of Brahman, their source. Yājñavalkya provides another series of
analogies in BṛU 2.4.11 which identify Brahman, conceived as the source remaining
even after cosmic dissolution, with Brahman conceived as the source of the individual:

It is like this. As the ocean is the point of convergence of all the waters, so the skin
is the point of convergence of all sensations of touch; the nostrils, of all odours;
the tongue, of all tastes; sight, of all visible appearances; hearing, of all sounds;
the mind, of all thoughts; the heart, of all sciences; the hands, of all activities; the
sexual organ, of all pleasures; the anus, of all excretions; the feet, of all travels; and
speech, of all the Vedas. (BṛU 2.4.11)58

In his commentary on BṛU 2.4.11, Śaṅkara uses these analogies to outline a

contemplative process mirroring world dissolution in which one resolves experience
back into the Self:

Moreover, the world is Brahman not only during its manifestation and preservation
alone because of nonexistence apart from consciousness, but also in the time of
dissolution—like water bubbles, foam, etc. do not exist apart from water. In this
manner, name, form, and action which are the effects of that [i.e., Brahman] do not
exist apart from consciousness even when resolving into it. Therefore, Brahman is
to be accepted as one only, nothing but consciousness, and homogenous. Thus [the
text] provides an example for explaining dissolution. The meaning is that, just as
the ocean is the one point of convergence, one meeting point, single dissolution,
undivided union of all the waters—rivers, reservoirs, ponds, etc., likewise, so too
this example, as skin is the one point of convergence of all touch such as soft,
hard, rough, slippery, etc. which are belonging to air. The word “skin” refers to
the universal of touch which is the tactile field. The particulars of touch enter
into it [skin] like water into the ocean. They become nonexistent apart from it.
Indeed, they are only mere forms of it. So too, that universal of touch denoted by
the word “skin” [converges] in the intention of the mind, in the universal of mental
objects, like particulars of touch in the tactile field. Skin becomes nonexistent
apart from that convergence [in mind]. So too, mental intention also converges
 Contemplating Nonduality 57

in the universal of the sphere of the intellect. It becomes nonexistent apart from
it. Having become only consciousness alone, it [the intellect] resolves into the
higher Brahman which is nothing but consciousness like the water resolves into
the ocean. In this way, when by a succession of steps, sounds, etc., along with their
instruments of perception, resolve into pure consciousness; then Brahman, which
is pure consciousness, homogenous, without end, boundless, and constant, remains
like a lump of salt [dissolved in water] because there is no conditioning adjunct.
Therefore, the Self alone is to be accepted as one without a second. (BṛUbh 2.4.11)

Śaṅkara explains that one must resolve or converge the particular into the universal
which is its locus, the place from which it arises and returns. This process begins with
the sense objects. All touch is non-separate from the universal sense organ, skin.
So too, all sounds merge into the ear, all smells into the nose, etc. Each sense organ
perceives its respective objects, in all their variety, while remaining one and the same.
Objects are unified in what perceives them, namely the sense organ, which remains
changeless with reference to the changing sense objects. The mind perceives all the
sense organs, along with all their changes, such as when the eyes are blind, blurred, or
clear. Therefore, the mind is the locus of the sense organs and one should resolve the
senses into it. If the mind does not perceive the senses, then they would be a nonentity.
The higher intellect perceives the mind in its various forms, such as desire, resolve,
doubt, and emotions. Therefore, one merges the mind into the higher intellect. Finally,
the intellect is merged with Brahman. All cognition is dependent on Brahman, as pure
consciousness, for their existence. Through this process one is left only with Brahman,
the ultimate locus and untouched source of all things. These successive steps negate all
conditioning properties until only nondual consciousness remains. The second portion
of the mantra recommends a similar contemplative process to the organs of action:
grasping, procreation, excretion, walking, and speech. One is to merge the organs of
action in prāṇa, which constitutes the subtle body. Prāṇa is then merged in Brahman.
How exactly one accomplishes this merging is not clear.59 It looks to be an
embodied analytical knowledge process by which one focuses on the higher object
through understanding its higher hierarchical position or deeper ontological reality
in phenomenal experience. Concentrating on the higher object naturally excludes
the lower particular, yet simultaneously includes the particular within the larger
underlying universal signified by the higher object. This method does not clearly entail
a yogic process of withdrawing cognitions by one’s meditative willpower; however,
it is plausible that the analytical process naturally neutralizes cognition as it ascends
through the hierarchical schema.
Śaṅkara does not identify this process as specifically nididhyāsana, perhaps
because it is not fundamentally separate from śravaṇa. The underlying method of
anvaya and vyatireka, evident here in the process of merging, is the same for both.
To posit a sharp distinction between the two is artificial and may grant too much
epistemological independence to nididhyāsana. However, in my reading, the deepening
contemplative process in this passage, and its culmination of resolving all objects so
that only consciousness remains, is more aptly described as nididhyāsana with its
aspect of certainty.
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1.5 The Parisaṅkhyāna Contemplation in the Upadeśasāhasrī

The Upadeśasāhasrī’s prose section (gadyabandha [USG]) consists of three chapters,

which appear to parallel the triple process of śravaṇa, manana, and nididhyāsana.
They are rare textual instances where Śaṅkara details the advice he would share with
a student. The first chapter describes the qualifications of the ideal student and the
proper teacher, and explains the primary intention of the Upaniṣads, including the
means to liberation and the identity of the individual and Brahman. The second chapter
narrates a discussion between teacher and student. It describes the student’s process
of philosophical reflection through his questions and the teacher’s resolution of his
doubts. The third chapter details a form of contemplation named parisaṅkhyāna.60
In the first passage of Chapter 3 (USG 112), Śaṅkara claims that the parisaṅkhyāna
contemplation destroys merit (puṇya) and demerit (pāpa). He explains that ignorance
causes faults (doṣas), which in turn cause activity of the mind, speech, and body. The
fruit of this activity is desirable and undesirable results of karma. Śaṅkara presents
the parisaṅkhyāna contemplation as a means to destroy karmic results, thereby
releasing one from karma. Parisaṅkhyāna neutralizes afflictive effects of prārabdha-
karma (karma that has begun). The Advaitin requires parisaṅkhyāna when afflicted by
situations or objects even after studying the Upaniṣads.61
Śaṅkara does not identify parisaṅkhyāna as a basic form of meditation nor does
he discuss any mental states, experiences, or worship as part of the process. The basic
premise behind the contemplation is discriminating between the perceiver and perceived
or the Self and not-Self, and the repeated recognition of the perceiver as Brahman in
reality. The first two chapters detail this discrimination, which is then pithily contained
in words like “non-object” and “unconnected” in the passage below. The corollary of
this affirmation is the impossibility of any connection of the Self with mental afflictions
and their causes. In USG 114–15 Śaṅkara specifies the following contemplation:

The wise person who is afflicted by sounds, etc. which are being experienced
should repeatedly contemplate in the following manner. (USG 114)

Sound, whether sound in general or particular forms such as musical notes,

pleasing and favourable praise, etc. and disagreeable speech which is untrue,
disgusting, insulting, and abusive, cannot touch me and make me its object because
I am unconnected. I am of the nature of the seer, unconnected, without change,
unmoving, imperishable, fearless, absolutely subtle, and not an object. Words are
thus not the cause for gain or loss. Therefore, what can sound, whether praise,
blame, pleasing or unpleasing, etc. do to me? Pleasing words may make a person
who lacks discrimination thrive and unpleasing words may destroy him because
he takes words as his Self. But for me, who possesses discriminative knowledge, it
is unable to make even a hair’s breadth [of difference]. (USG 115)

The contemplator understands that sounds cannot affect him or her by recognizing
the Self as free and unattached. As the witness, consciousness must be other than the
objects of experience. The Advaitin cannot gain or lose anything from objects or
perceptions because the Self is intrinsically whole. Śaṅkara proceeds to repeat this
 Contemplating Nonduality 59

teaching for each type of sense perception through the remainder of USG 115. Touch
manifests as sickness, pain, hot or cold, etc., vision as pleasurable and ugly sights, taste
as pleasant and unpleasant tastes, and smell as pleasurable or disgusting. All have no
effect on the Self.
In USG 116 he writes:

Moreover, sound and other sense perceptions and external [objects] take the form
of the body, and the form of the ear and other sense organs which apprehend them,
and the form of the twofold inner instrument [mind and intellect] and their objects,
because they are mutually connected and combined in all actions. That being so, for
me who am a wise person, there is no enemy, friend, or indifferent person.

Sounds and other external objects, including their associated pains, pleasures, and
their impressions, are transformed into the body and sense organs and have the mind
and higher intellect as their locus. Thus, they are of the mind and not the true Self.
There is no friend or foe for the wise man, and no one can connect the wise man with
anything pleasant or unpleasant or with any results of action in the form of merit or
demerit. The wise person understands that he is free from old age, death, and fear
because nothing exists outside the Self. In the conclusion of USG 116, the final passage
of the chapter, Śaṅkara affirms the dependence of parisaṅkhyāna on the Upaniṣads,
stating that “All the Upaniṣadic sentences concerning the nonduality of the Self should
be contemplated in depth because duality is not real.”
The purpose of Śaṅkara’s parisaṅkhyāna is to neutralize mental affliction through a
novel method of intentionally pointing to one’s self-nature, rather than using willpower
to withdraw the mind from its sources of affliction. Parisaṅkhyāna shifts one’s focus
toward the Self, which automatically dismisses or negates objects of perception.
Mental afflictions naturally cease to disturb the practitioner who makes this vision
unshakeable. The Advaitin may take any thought, emotion, or experience to direct
their intention toward that which witnesses the experience—the awareness underlying
every cognition. This is particularly effective when directed toward afflictive states like
anger, pain, or destructive desires.
Śaṅkara discusses a similar method in his commentary on Kena Upaniṣad 2.4,
which states, “[Brahman] is known when known in every cognition. Indeed [by that
knowledge] one gains immortality.” He writes that,

By the word bodha are meant the cognitions acquired through the intellect. The
Self, that encompasses all ideas as its objects, is known in relation to all these
ideas. Being the witness of all cognitions, and by nature nothing but the power of
consciousness, the Self is indicated by the cognitions themselves, in the midst of
cognitions as pervading them. There is no other door to its awareness.

Wherever the mind wanders, the contemplator recognizes consciousness as

revealing the cognition. Through this process, the objects, along with the emotions
associated with them, such as attraction, aversion, grief, and anger, cease to disturb
the contemplator because the contemplator learns to transform such distractions into
contemplative supports.
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1.6 Dhyānayoga: The Bhagavad-Gītā’s Yoga of Meditation

Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad-Gītā contains a contemplation emphasizing yogic meditation

with epistemological insight.62 Kṛṣṇa’s discourse is not perfectly chronological, moving
back and forth between preparation, the nature of contemplation, and its results.
The early verses of Chapter 6 explain the subsidiary limbs for contemplation. The
contemplator should be a karmayogī in order to cultivate a controlled and peaceful
mind which does not obstruct itself. BhG 6.10–13 describe meditation fundamentals
such as residing in a solitary location, constructing one’s seat, bodily posture, keeping
the eyes steady, and focusing the mind. This meditation is not secular, however. The
contemplator should fix his or her mind on Kṛṣṇa (BhG 6.14–15). Śaṅkara interprets
Kṛṣṇa here not as an individual deity or the cause of the world but as the Highest
Lord (parameśvara), synonymous with nondual Ātman.63 BhG 6.18–19 and 6.24–26
elaborate the contemplation:

When the restrained mind abides in the Self alone, then the person who is without
attachment to all desires is called absorbed. (BhG 6.18)
Like a lamp placed in a windless spot does not flicker—such is the simile said for
a yogin whose mind is controlled and who practices contemplation of the Self.
(BhG 6.19)
Having totally given up all desires produced from mental intention and completely
restraining the field of senses with the mind; (BhG 6.24)
One should gradually withdraw with a steadfastly held intellect. Having made the
mind abide in the Self he should not think of anything else. (BhG 6.25)
Wherever the skittish unsteady mind wanders, he should restrain it and bring it
under control of the Self alone. (BhG 6.26)

Like all forms of meditation, the contemplator must restrain the mind from distraction
and fix it on a particular object without deviation, like a steady flame. The key point in
BhG 6.18–19 is the mind abiding single-pointedly on the Ātman, not any other object.
Verses 6.24–5, which should be read together, further explain the contemplation.
BhG 6.24 reiterates the preliminary steps of (1) renouncing desires and (2) withdrawing
the group of sense organs (from their sense objects). BhG 6.25 provides two additional
steps comprising contemplation itself: (3) with the intellect endowed with steadiness
one should slowly withdraw; and (4) having made the mind abide in the Self, one
should not think of anything else.
A close reading of BhG 6.25 provides further clues. The first two quarters have
three key phrases, “gradually” (śanaiḥ), “one should withdraw” (uparamet), “with
a steadfastly held intellect” (buddhyā dhṛtigṛhītayā). Śaṅkara glosses śanaiḥ as “not
all at once” (na sahasā). The contemplation is a gradual process taking time with a
sequence of steps.64 Unlike the ability to prevent the mind from becoming distracted
in BhG 6.24, the withdrawing (or resolving) in BhG 6.25 by which the mind is fixed
in the Self is a higher knowledge process through the intellect, similar to iterations of
 Contemplating Nonduality 61

nididhyāsana above in the BṛU and USG.65 On BhG 6.26, Śaṅkara explains that to make
the mind abide in the Self, one should recognize each distraction as an appearance by
ascertaining their true reality.
Śaṅkara’s reference to objects as appearances is the direct recognition that
their existence depends on unqualified Brahman. He identifies this contemplative
process earlier in BhG 6.23 as knowing through negation (saṃjñitaṃ viparītalakṣaṇena).
This contemplation deconstructs all phenomena by recognizing what remains
unchanging.66 Seeing objects as non-separate from their ultimate substratum is the
recognition of undifferentiated existence, and entails seeing the existence of objects as
one’s own self-evident existence, which is self-luminous consciousness. This epistemic
perspective shift is analogous to realizing the unchanging gold content of a variety of
ornaments. In each case one withdraws from sense objects by progressively resolving
the mind, with all its components, into the Self so that it is finally “fixed on the Self.”
The Advaitin should practice it continuously. When fully absorbed in this knowledge
there are no more boundaries to circumscribe either undifferentiated being or self-
luminous consciousness. Then there is nothing other than the Self.
BhG 6.20–3 describe the results of this contemplation. By seeing the Self, one
rejoices in the Self (BhG 6.20). He knows infinite happiness beyond the senses
and intellect and does not deviate from reality (BhG 6.21). He is not shaken by
calamity when established in the Self (BhG 6.22). And this yoga breaks all association
with suffering (BhG 6.23). These verses describe one who has assimilated knowledge
through contemplation. He is of firm insight (sthitaprajña) and possesses stability in
nondual knowledge (jñānaniṣṭhā) even in calamitous experiences. Śaṅkara does not
describe the phenomenology of this limitless happiness. It is beyond the sense organs
(not objective), though the intellect grasps it. Śaṅkara interprets it as anantam, the
intrinsic fullness of Brahman, rather than a blissful but transient mental state.
Śaṅkara does not specify whether the BhG’s contemplation is experientially nondual.
Even if it hypothetically culminates in a nondual state, the focus is not mental cessation
but seeing the Self. Total cessation may contradict verses 6.29–31, which articulate a
way of appreciating self-knowledge by maintaining the “vision of sameness everywhere”
(sarvatra samadarśanaḥ). Samadarśana is the fruit of knowledge, but also a kind of
contemplative practice of holding nonduality within empirical experience. This is
compatible with perceiving objects and maintaining one’s understanding within dualistic
experience. For Advaitins the BhG’s intention is epistemological and metaphysical, an
understanding that the basis of all objects and beings is the same Brahman. It is not
primarily a phenomenological endeavor to attain nondual experiences.
Verses 6.30–1 add a theological perspective by bringing īśvara back into
contemplative practice. They point out the non-difference of īśvara and all objects and
that īśvara is the Self of all beings. Śaṅkara elevates devotion (bhakti) to a form of
nididhyāsana in the context of understanding īśvara as Brahman and one’s Self. This
type of contemplation, also known as the unwavering yoga of devotion (ananyayoga
bhakti), is knowledge-dependent rather than emotion-dependent.67 Its primary focus
is not emotional attachment or surrender to īśvara because that entails duality. For
Śaṅkara, this bhakti is the highest devotion because it unifies īśvara, Brahman, and the
individual.68
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1.7 The Chronology of Nididhyāsana: Some Ambiguities

Śaṅkara’s conception of nididhyāsana leaves several unresolved ambiguities and

potential problems. For example, Śaṅkara does not clarify the placement of
contemplation within a chronology of Advaita disciplines involving textual study and
gaining self-knowledge. The question is whether to see contemplation, or a particular
form of it, as occurring before or after the rise of correct knowledge. Is nididhyāsana
a means to knowledge of Brahman, the culmination of that knowledge itself, or
something used to stabilize that knowledge after the fact? Is it for the one desirous
of liberation or one already liberated-while-living? If prior to knowledge, then how
does it differ from śravaṇa and manana? If after knowledge, then what purpose can
it have for a liberated person? Across his commentaries, he appears to endorse both
chronological positions, albeit reluctantly in some contexts.69 Epistemologically it
makes more sense for Śaṅkara to downplay the importance of nididhyāsana and to
position it prior to liberation; yet he cannot totally discount the problem of continuing
problematic dispositions for the jīvanmukta, especially if perfect qualification
(adhikāra) is virtually unattainable prior to liberation itself.70 He is ambivalent on
these questions though, and is perhaps intentionally reticent to avoid imposing a
precise chronology of liberation, which presupposes an indirect and direct knowledge
distinction—a distinction that threatens the authority of the Upaniṣads and loses sight
of Brahman’s ever-present reality.71
Textual instances where Śaṅkara accepts contemplation after self-knowledge,
even if tentatively, complicate the common assumption that nididhyāsana is a means
and therefore prior to self-knowledge; however, Śaṅkara does not explicitly position
nididhyāsana before or after a liberating cognition. He is also ambiguous about who
exactly requires nididhyāsana. Perhaps attempting to systematize nididhyāsana’s
chronology with reference to a liberating cognition is a misguided endeavor, though, if
Śaṅkara locates the immediacy of knowledge in textual study. He may even claim that
the Advaitin gains immediate (aparokṣa) knowledge the first time the teacher unfolds
a mahāvākya, even though that immediacy remains obstructed and seemingly distant.
This position of locating aparokṣa knowledge in śravaṇa resists vexing questions about
nididhyāsana’s precise epistemic positionality by undermining any emphasis on a
sudden epistemological event of immediacy produced by nididhyāsana.
I suspect that Śaṅkara’s ambiguity about the process of liberation is intentional.
Underlying nididhyāsana’s chronological dilemma is that Advaita’s mokṣa is not wholly
compatible with a causal epistemology. Just as self-illuminating awareness is not a
result to be accomplished, so too one does not accomplish self-knowledge. Liberation’s
seeming leap to nonduality is merely the return to one’s intrinsic nature. Mokṣa, in the
form of brahmavidyā, is independent of any world-based causal processes. Yet while
Śaṅkara agrees that there is no problem in reality, he accepts the intersubjective fact
that individuals do not know themselves as liberated and, hence, experience suffering.
Śaṅkara thus holds a seemingly paradoxical position that the individual is liberated
yet ignorant of this fact. The Advaitin thus requires an arduous process of removing
ignorance of Brahman to solve a less-than-real problem. Toggling between empirical
and absolute perspectives underlies this indeterminability of liberation. In theory
 Contemplating Nonduality 63

there must be epistemological and experiential changes in the Advaitin’s maturation

of knowledge; however, Śaṅkara likely resists emphasizing this process because it
encourages the fallacy that Brahman is distant and to be gained. The Advaitin who
attempts to assess how close she is to mokṣa or who seeks an impartite nondual cognition
of Brahman has already undermined her study process by making liberation distant.
Śaṅkara is clearly critical of contemplation after correct verbal knowledge, if this
position assumes that contemplation produces a new immediate knowledge. An
epistemology of new knowledge vitiates the Upaniṣads as a pramāṇa and implies
two types of self-knowledge, indirect verbal knowledge and directly occurring self-
knowledge. As part of verbal testimony, nididhyāsana is not a mode of action like
meditation, visualization, worship, or ritual, and does not create any new unique
knowledge distinct from textual knowledge. Śaṅkara thus undermines any temptation
we may have to assume a fundamental difference between indirect propositional
knowledge from śravaṇa, which is simply conceptual and theoretical, and direct
nonpropositional knowledge from nididhyāsana, which is immediately experienced;
however, we may distinguish knowledge with obstacles from stable knowledge
without obstacles. This distinction validates a process of study and knowledge that
takes time and is experiential in some sense. There is some change in the state of one’s
self-knowledge with repeated contemplation. Nididhyāsana’s purpose is to neutralize
problematic psychological dispositions. This process of maturating clarity establishes an
epistemic resilience toward afflictive situations that might otherwise vitiate one’s vision
of nonduality. An accurate understanding of Śaṅkara cannot conflate this deepening
clarity with an epistemological parokṣa (direct)/aparokṣa (indirect) distinction.
Nididhyāsana cultivates clarity of self-knowledge by removing subconscious
saṃskāras and/or neutralizing their virulence so that self-knowledge is not subject to
disruption. Dispositions will not interfere with an individual’s steadfastness in self-
knowledge when nididhyāsana disempowers the dispositions from reinforcing notions
of duality. In this way nididhyāsana brings self-knowledge alive, so to speak, without
any obstruction or obstacles. This negative dialectic is the most favorable reading of
Śaṅkara. The texts provide immediate knowledge of Brahman from the beginning
in śravaṇa. Then manana and nididhyāsana remove epistemic and psychological
obstructions to the immediate availability of that knowledge.
This conceptual trajectory is compatible with sudden liberation, which aligns with the
innateism of nonduality; but it allows for a more gradual view of liberation as maturing
clarity. Gradualism aligns with the possibility that the mutual superimposition of not-
Self onto Self produces several layers of self-identity and varied memory impressions
that the Advaitin deconstructs over time through repetition. The student’s qualification
or lack thereof provides the variable factor that determines the speed of knowledge
assimilation.
The ambiguities we find in Śaṅkara are endemic to Advaita as a whole, and led
to differences among post-Śaṅkara Advaitins who held differing views on the relative
relationships among listening, reflection, and contemplation. Are all three equal? Is
nididhyāsana a mode of textual study or is textual study a mode of nididhyāsana?
Which is principle and which is subsidiary? Advaitins probe these questions through
Mīmāṃsā’s hermeneutical theory of mode (aṅga) and mode-possessor (aṅgin), which
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attempts to untangle principal and subordinate rituals. In the Advaita case, however,
what criteria should constitute the principal (the aṅgin) is disputed. On one hand,
it could be epistemic dependency, which privileges listening as the root cause of the
others. On the other hand, one could assert nididhyāsana as principal because of its
temporal primacy as penultimate or coterminous with liberation, or due to epistemic
primacy if it awakens the immediate intuition of Brahman.
We may chart a spectrum across early Advaitin philosophers based on the degree to
which they grant agency to either testimony or nididhyāsana (and other yogic practices).
Sureśvara was perhaps the most conservative early Advaitin with regard to yogic
practice. He grants full instrumentality to the Upaniṣads, and focuses more on śravaṇa
and manana. Sureśvara tends to identify nididhyāsana as culminating knowledge
itself and, in some cases, rejects any need for nididhyāsana, especially after liberating
knowledge.72 Padmapāda and the Vivaraṇa tradition also focus on the authority of the
Upanishads, making them principal and nididhyāsana subsidiary.73 On the other side,
Advaitins like Maṇḍanamiśra and Vācaspatimiśra emphasize the individual’s mind as
instrumental. This instrumentality of mind grants more agency to nididhyāsana as a
yogic technique to establish an immediate cognition of Brahman (brahmasākṣātkāra),
thereby diminishing the independent capacity of śravaṇa to culminate in liberation.
Even though they accept the authority of Upaniṣadic testimony, they view testimony
as limited to indirect knowledge. This position extends to greater acceptance of a
parokṣa/aparokṣa distinction of knowledge.74 Even though much has been made of
this difference, Maṇḍanamiśra and Vācaspatimiśra are still quite close to Śaṅkara.75
Like Śaṅkara, they argue for the importance of negation and claim that nididhyāsana
is not subject to original injunctions for action, is not a form of imagination, and does
not deal with unseen objects or future results. Vācaspati also links contemplation with
the anvaya and vyatireka method. Their immediate cognition of Brahman is still just
the removal of ignorance and not a new product.

1.8 Conclusion: Summarizing Śaṅkara’s Contemplative Method

Across these different iterations of nididhysāsana, Śaṅkara pursues what is continuous,

constant, and therefore real within self-identity or external objects by distinguishing
it from what is unreal and transient. These contemplations move through particular
conceptual directions that employ distinctions such as particulars and universals,
subjects and objects, dependency, causality, subtlety, permanence, or pervasiveness. As
a knowledge contemplation, nididhyāsana is wholly dependent on understanding the
Upaniṣads first. For Śaṅkara the Upaniṣads alone convey nondual knowledge through
the anvaya and vyatireka method. This sophisticated form of discriminative reasoning,
pithily contained in mahāvākyas, determines the relationship of what persists and
what does not persist between two things. Tellingly, in each case study above, a process
of anvaya and vyatireka in the root text or Śaṅkara’s commentary precedes engaging
nididhyāsana. The sentence meaning uncovers the nondual nature of Ātman. Only then
can the contemplator return to the Ātman in nididhyāsana by revisiting the sentence
meaning. In accurately reading Śaṅkara, we cannot separate nididhyāsana from the
 Contemplating Nonduality 65

Upaniṣads or attribute any independent epistemological function to it, though it is true

that some other Advaitins grant nididhyāsana greater independence.
Nididhyāsana’s process seeks to isolate the core of subjective experience, one’s
most intimate sense of existence, through the logic that in any given experience,
what one objectifies is other than the subject of experience. This phenomenological
investigation of discriminating the seer from the seen ostensibly leads to the Ātman
as pure consciousness, that which witnesses and illumines all cognition and which has
no locus or boundaries. Alternatively, in approaching external objects, the Advaitin
recognizes the objects’ dependent ontological nature which points to pure existence.
The student should not stop at this point, but employ the anvaya and vyatireka
method to identify nondual existence as numerically identical with self-illuminating
consciousness. Either direction of contemplation, internal or external, leads to an
equation—the indiscernible identity of Ātman and nondual Brahman. This makes one
limitless (anantam).
Evident in this method is a gradual process of hierarchically subsuming particulars
into their higher sources. This widening process negates conceptual self-identities in
approaching the Ātman. The process is both exclusive and inclusive. Each sequential
step leaps to a broader, more universal source, which negates the previous more
particular one consisting of dependent effects yet includes it within the larger
universal which is its cause. This thereby excludes all identities as independent entities
but simultaneously includes them as ultimately non-separate from one’s Self, which
is Brahman, the absolute universal. Through this knowledge, the Advaitin maintains
a contemplative recognition of nonduality so that Brahman is immediately available
even in the face of afflictive experiences and mental disturbances.
If distracted and carried into an external object, the contemplator should shift
perspectives by recognizing the reality of Brahman making up the object and its
cognition. This turns the tables on distractions by allowing them to point back to their
substratum. One can thus harness the distraction’s power to lead the mind back to
the Ātman, resolving the distraction in the process. Each object, situation, emotion,
etc., becomes a contemplative link—a means to deconstruct subjective and objective
realities and to see oneself as unqualified Brahman. This metacognitive reframing
transforms objects, distractions, and afflictions into contemplative supports.
Properly understanding Śaṅkara’s nididhyāsana may come down to reconsidering
our own notions of what constitutes a text. We tend to view texts as static even if
changing over time, and bound by the written word. However, we may better
understand Śaṅkara if we drop our presuppositions about what binds a text. For
Śaṅkara, the boundaries of the text appear to expand beyond fixed written words to
include listening, logical reflection, and nididhyāsana. Textual knowledge infuses every
aspect of the Advaitin’s phenomenological life, even liberation itself. This is possible
because Śaṅkara views the texts from both a conventional and absolute perspective. All
empirical textual expressions are not different from the text. The absolute perspective
identifies Upaniṣads with their self-knowledge content, as Brahman itself. An accurate
understanding of Śaṅkara challenges us to expand our culturally conditioned notions
of texts, and to collapse presupposed dichotomies of text and practice or theory and
method. For Śaṅkara, the Advaitin’s experience of texts may naturally expand as he or
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she studies and contemplates self-knowledge. Early stages of study may mistakenly
presuppose a distinction between texts and contemplative practice, but this boundary
should recede the further one progresses. In nididhyāsana, only text-sparked
knowledge of Brahman remains.

Abbreviations
bh bhāṣya
BhG Bhagavad-Gītā
BrSū Brahmasūtra
BṛU Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad
TU Taittirīya Upaniṣad
US Upadeśasāhasrī
USG Upadeśasāhasrī gadyabandha

Notes
1 For other studies that shed light on nididhyāsana, see Halbfass (1983, 1991),
Satchidanandendra (1997), Bader (1990), Rambachan (1991), Suthren Hirst
(1996, 2005), Nakamura (2004), and Dalal (2009, 2016).
2 For a discussion of asparśayoga, see King (1992). King argues that asparśayoga
denotes both a particular set of meditative practices and a state of realization. For
further reading on Gauḍapāda, see Cole (1982), King (1995), Isayeva (1995), and
Comans (2000).
3 See BrSū 1.3.19.
4 Advaitins further divide the mind-body complex into its gross physical body
(sthūlaśarīra), its subtle body (sūkṣmaśarīra), and a causal body (kāraṇaśarīra)
composed of ignorance. The subtle body is further divided into the five organs
of action (karmendriyas), five organs of perception (jñānendriyas), physiological
functions (prāṇas), and the mind (composed of intellect, ego, mind, and memory).
5 The term satyam includes the meanings of “real” and “existence.”
6 Taittirīya Upaniṣad bhāṣya 2.1.1. All translations are by the author unless otherwise
noted.
7 Later Advaitins often identified Brahman as reality, consciousness, and fullness/bliss
(saccidānanda or asti, bhāti, and priyam). See, for example, Pañcadaśī Chapter 13.
Śaṅkara does not tend to identify ananta and ānanda, perhaps due to the possibility
of attributing positive characteristics to Brahman or conflating liberation with a
transient blissful mental state. For that reason, I translate ānanda as fullness rather
than bliss. We may also view ānanda as freedom from fear, desire, and suffering
to avoid any positive attribution. See Fort (1988) for a discussion of ānanda in
Śaṅkara.
8 See BrSū 2.1.14 and 2.1.27. There is some debate about how to interpret
tattvānyatvābhyām in Śaṅkara’s writing. The more common later Advaita phrase is
“indeterminable as real or unreal” (sadasadbhyām anirvacanīya). See Hacker (1995)
for a discussion of this phrase and its connections to māyā and nāma-rūpa.
 Contemplating Nonduality 67

9 See BṛU 2.4.10, BṛU 1.4.7, and USG 1.19. For further discussion see Comans
(2000: 239–46).
10 Advaita’s philosophical opponents often label Advaitins as māyāvādins—those who
espouse the doctrine of māyā; however, the term does not play a pivotal role for
Śaṅkara. He usually uses it to refer to something illusory, like a magic trick, and to
indicate that the magician is untouched by the trick. In other cases, he interprets it as
the creative power (māyāśakti) of īśvara. See Hacker (1995).
11 However, it is important to note that Śaṅkara often does not clearly differentiate
īśvara from Brahman.
12 See Bhagavadgītā Chapter 13.
13 See the chapters by Williams (Chapter 3), Gupta (Chapter 4), and Chakrabarti
(Chapter 16) in this volume for discussions of anirvacanīya and māyā.
14 For a detailed discussion see Gupta (1998).
15 See Chapter 14 by Vaidya in this volume for a discussion of Vedānta and pansychism.
16 Śaṅkara, for example, on BrSū 3.3.1 and 1.1.4 argues that none of the four types of
action, which include production, modification, purification, and gaining/reaching,
result in liberation.
17 For the sake of clarity, I use “yoga” as signifying preliminary practices like meditation
and distinguish it from nididhyāsana. For a discussion of Śaṅkara’s acceptance of
yoga, see Sundaresan (2003). Yogic meditation or similar practices like Upaniṣadic
upāsanas are forms of action that, for Śaṅkara, must always remain subsidiary to
knowledge and are unnecessary for the well-qualified student. We can broaden
the semantic range of “yoga” to include Advaita (as well as Buddhism) in a wider
discourse of yogic soteriologies, or to nididhyāsana more specifically with its
meditational aspects; however, I avoid this label here so the reader does not
conflate the knowledge and action dichotomy in the Advaita context. Furthermore,
some scholars like Fort (1998) use “Yogic Advaita” (in contrast to “traditional” or
“classical” Advaita) to refer to medieval Advaita texts like the Jīvanmuktiviveka that
intentionally incorporate elements of Pātañjala Yoga to a far greater degree than
Śaṅkara does.
18 Śaṅkara lists these early in his commentary on BrSū 1.1.1 as the prerequisites
implied by the word “thereafter” (atha), the first word of the first sūtra (athāto
brahmajijñāsā). Later Advaita Vedāntins standardized this list. See Śaṅkara on
BrSū 3.4.27–8 for the importance of ritual and mental purification for the emergence
of knowledge.
19 Upāsana’s use of superimposition without the negation of that superimposition, and
its dependency on the agent rather than the object of meditation, distinguish it from
nididhyāsana. See Dalal (2016) for further discussion of these differences.
20 This doctrine is derived from BhG 3.9–16, which discusses a cosmogonic sacrificial
wheel and its economy of food between deities and ritual agents. See Malinar
(2007: 81–90) for further discussion.
21 The term prasāda is difficult to translate. The contemporary practice of consuming
ritually sanctified food, termed prasāda, helps to makes sense of the term in
karmayoga. Just as an orthodox Hindu is to consume prasāda in a temple free from
aversion (dveṣa) and attraction (rāga), so too should one accept the results of action
which are authored by īśvara.
22 Karmayoga is another way of reconciling the apparent contradiction between action
and knowledge. Like removing a thorn with another thorn, karmayoga subverts
action by reconceiving it as a means of renunciation by removing attachment
68 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

to karmic results. It is important to note that karmayoga is, at its core, a type of
devotional practice. Śaṅkara, unlike most modern interpreters, makes no distinction
between karmayoga and bhaktiyoga (yoga of devotion) in his commentary on the
Bhagavad-Gītā.
23 See Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.2.9 as well as BṛU 4.2.4 and 4.4.25 in support of this.
24 There is scholarly debate about how to translate anubhava in the Advaita context and
what role it plays in Śaṅkara’s soteriology. Some translate anubhava as “experience,”
and may interpret it as a transcendent nondual experience akin to Patañjali’s
nondual absorption with no object (asamprajñāta-samādhi). The debate mostly
revolves around Śaṅkara’s use of anubhava in BrSūbh 1.1.2, and whether it is a
means of knowledge independent of the Upaniṣads. Arvind Sharma (1992, 1993),
for example, argues for this position. I believe this idea is unwarranted and lacks
a basis in Śaṅkara’s commentaries. Anubhava is more likely the culmination of
knowledge from the Upaniṣads—immediate self-knowledge—rather than the
instrument or source of knowledge. Furthermore, for Śaṅkara, it is more likely that
if nondual states occur then they are simply byproducts of this knowledge. For
further reading see Rambachan (1986, 1994), Halbfass (1988, 1991: 389–90), Michael
Comans (1993, 2000), and Dalal (2009: 308–22). For a discussion of anubhava in
Ramakrishna’s Vedānta see Chapter 5 by Long in this volume.
25 There are four primary mahāvākyas, one from each of the four Vedas: Aitareya
Upaniṣad 3.5.3: “Brahman is knowledge” (prajñānaṃ brahma); BṛU 1.4.10: “I am
Brahman” (ahaṃ brahmāsmi); Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.8.7: “You are that” (tat tvam
asi); and Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 1.2: “This Self is Brahman” (ayam ātmā brahma).
26 Śaṅkara specifically points to contemplating the knowledge-content of statements
such as Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.7.8: “You are that” (tat tvam asi) and TU 2.1.1:
“Brahman is existence, consciousness, and limitless” (satyaṃ jñānaṃ anantaṃ
brahma) as nididhyāsana. For example, see Śaṅkara on Brahmasūtra 1.1.4
and 4.1.1–2.
27 Anvaya and vyatireka can also be translated as “presence” and “absence” or “positive”
and “negative concomitance.” Śaṅkara also employs other similar Sanskrit terms like
vyabhicāra (variable) and avyabhicāra (invariable), and adhyāropa (superimposition)
and apavāda (de-superimposition). For other discussions of anvaya and vyatireka
see Cardona (1981), Halbfass (1991: 162–77), Mayeda (1992: 51–8), Comans (1996:
59–63), and Satchidanandendra (1997).
28 Tat has its antecedent as “existence” (sat) earlier in the chapter in Chāndogya
Upaniṣad 6.2.1. Śaṅkara elaborates his interpretation of tat tvam asi in Chapter 18 of
his US.
29 The secondary meaning in Advaita’s jahadajahallakṣaṇā is part of the word’s direct
reference, unlike other forms of lakṣaṇā. Jahadajahallakṣaṇā does not bring a new
meaning, as in the case of suggestion (dhvani), but negates aspects to reduce word
meaning to the most basic referent.
30 See Kunjunni Raja (1969: 251–54) and chapter 4 of Vedāntaparibhāṣā for more
discussion.
31 There is a scholarly debate whether Śaṅkara employs lakṣaṇā in his exegesis of
satyaṃ jñānaṃ anantaṃ brahma in part due to his use of the ambiguous compound
“lakṣaṇārtham.” Breaking the euphonic combination of the compound yields either
lakṣaṇa (definition) or lakṣaṇā (secondary indication). The question then is whether
Śaṅkara actually takes recourse to the metaphorical (secondary sense) aspect of
lakṣaṇā or defines Brahman by employing characterizations as a form of negation to
 Contemplating Nonduality 69

distinguish Brahman from all else. For the first view see Lipner (1997). For the latter
view see Bartley (2002: 111–23) and Suthren Hirst (2005: 145–51). My argument
for a single method focuses on anvaya-vyatireka and neti neti rather than the use
of metaphor, and is therefore more in line with Suthren Hirst’s argument. One may,
however, question to what degree jahadajahallakṣaṇā depends on metonymy and
a secondary denotative sense like other forms of lakṣaṇā if it only negates elements
from the basic referent.
32 Śaṅkara clearly emphasizes negative language as the method of understanding
Brahman and finds numerous supporting examples throughout the Upaniṣads, such
as Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.3.15, Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.1.6, and BṛU 2.3.6. The phrase neti
neti, “not (this), not (this),” occurs in BṛU 2.3.6, 3.9.26, 4.4.22, and 4.5.15.
33 For example, the immediate verses preceding neti neti in BṛU 2.3.6 speak of
Brahman as the subtle and gross bodies. They are then negated, yet Brahman still
remains as the “real of the real” (or “truth of truth”—satyasya satyam). Similarly,
in BṛU 4.5.15, the negation (almost verbatim to 2.3.6) is preceded by a discussion
indirectly pointing to the meaning of tvam. Yājñavalkya then describes this Self as
unperceivable. It is the absolute essence and source of all things yet it is also beyond
duality and a pure mass of undifferentiated awareness without interior or exterior.
One cannot “know” this source, the knower behind the knower, but it is obliquely
indicated through negation.
34 Śaṅkara views neti neti and anvaya and vyatireka as functioning synonymously.
See US 18.188–95, for example. Also see Śaṅkara’s commentaries on Gaudapāda
Kārikā 3.26, BrSū 3.2.22, and BṛU 4.4.25. As explained in note 31, the case of lakṣaṇā
is less clear and there is scholarly disagreement about equating lakṣaṇā with anvaya
and vyatireka. See Cardona (1981: 94–6) and Comans (1996, 2000: 289–91), who
argue that lakṣaṇā and anvaya and vyatireka are the same method. Others, such as
Mayeda (1992: 55), interpret lakṣaṇā as different from anvaya and vyatireka.
35 Dalal (2016).
36 BrSū 4.1.1.
37 BṛU 1.4.7 and 1.4.10.
38 BhG 6.35, 8.8, 12.9; and Śaṅkara on Gaudapāda Kārikā 3.31.
39 Gaudapāda Kārikā bhāṣya 3.41–2.
40 Gaudapāda Kārikā 3.39 and 4.2.
41 BrSū 3.2.24, Gaudapāda Kārikā bhāṣya 3.37, and BhGbh 6.19. Śaṅkara often uses
the related term samāhita, a synonym for yukta, in his BhGbh as a description of the
yogin engaged in contemplation.
42 USG, Chapter 3.
43 BhG 13.10.
44 BhG 13.24, Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.1, and US 13.17.
45 BhG Chapter 6 and 18.52.
46 BrSū 3.3.14.
47 Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.12.
48 BhG 8.9, Gaudapāda Kārikā bhāṣya 3.43.
49 BhG 8.8.
50 BhG 13.11.
51 See BṛU 1.4.7 and BhG 12.3 for examples.
52 This passage is repeated almost verbatim in BṛU 4.5.6, but the last line there is
slightly different: “When the Self is seen, heard, reflected on, and contemplated, all
this is known.”
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53 Śaṅkara associates a handful of Upaniṣadic sentences as paralleling the root text for
nididhyāsana. These include BṛU 1.4.7, 1.4.15, 3.5.1, 4.4.2, Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.7.1,
and Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 2.2.6 and 3.2.9. For example, see BrSūbh 1.1.4. and
BrSūbh 4.1.1, where Śaṅkara groups the passages together within the view of an
opponent who critiques contemplation as an action. Also see BrSūbh 2.3.39.
54 For example, in BṛUbh 2.5.1 Śaṅkara refutes Bhartṛaprapañca’s idea of identifying
sections of the text with each part of the triple process.
55 For examples, see BrSūbh 1.1.4, 3.2.21, 4.1.1, US 18.203–5, 18.210, 18.213, BṛU 3.5.1,
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.20, and Śaṅkara’s introduction to the Īśā Upaniṣad.
56 Śaṅkara’s interpretation of ni is his own speculation. This prefix possesses numerous
possible meanings. The term niścaya is itself ambiguous here. I translate niścayena
dhyātavyaḥ as “It should be contemplated with certainty” but niścayena could be
“ascertained,” “with conviction,” “resolutely,” “steadfastly,” or “unswervingly.” One
dividing line is that translations such as “certainty” suggest that the Advaitin has
already gained knowledge and has a sense of epistemological certification, while
those such as “resolutely” stress the yogic focus and quality of the mind in meditation
and may suggest that knowledge is not yet attained (see Suthren Hirst 1996: 63).
In commentating on the almost verbatim passage in BṛU 4.5.6, Śaṅkara does not
use the term nididhyāsana and immediately labels it with its parallel word “known”
(vijñāte). He glosses vijñāte as “ascertained as this and not otherwise” (vijñāte—evam
etat nānyatheti nirdhārite). This gloss, and the parallel use of vijñānena (or vijñāte) in
the last line of the root text, suggests “certainty” and an identity of nididhyāsana with
self-knowledge itself rather than a means to knowledge.
57 Also see Śaṅkara on BṛU 1.4.2, BrSū 1.1.4 and BrSū 4.1.1.
58 Olivelle (1996: 29).
59 In a similar passage the Kena Upaniṣad 1.3.13 states, “The wise person should
withdraw speech into the mind. He should withdraw that [mind] into the knowledge
self [the intellect]. He should place that intellect into the mahān [universal intellect].
He should place that [mahān] into the tranquil Self.” Śaṅkara glosses yacchet (the
third-person singular optative of the verb root √yam) with upasaṃharet, niyacchet,
and saṃyacchet. These verbs share the meanings of placing, restraining, excluding,
withdrawing, and controlling. Though often used in the contexts of meditation, they
connote a type of analytical knowledge here as well.
60 Parisaṅkhyāna literally means enumeration. It may also denote exclusion, as in the
case of an exclusionary injunction (parisaṅkhyāna vidhi). Śaṅkara occasionally uses
the term parisaṅkhyāna in the context of a parisaṅkhyāna injunction but it is not
clear whether this meaning is intended here. See Bader (1990: 78–80), who makes a
connection between the parisaṅkhyāna vidhi and anvaya-vyatireka because exclusion
is common to both. Also see Sundaresan (1998). For further discussion of this
contemplation see Dalal (2009: 233–45) and Mayeda (1992: 88–9).
61 Śaṅkara is ambiguous whether this contemplator has gained knowledge and is
liberated. He refers to the one doing parisaṅkhyāna as “one desirous for liberation”
(mumukṣu) in USG 112, but as a wise person (vidvān/viduṣaḥ) in USG 114. The
contemplator is a qualified student, but it is unclear what degree of intellectual clarity
about Brahman he or she possesses. The term mumukṣu implies knowledge is absent,
whereas the vidvān could be living-while-liberated.
62 Śaṅkara’s introduction to BhG Chapter 6 states that the chapter develops the
contemplation presented aphoristically in BhG 5.27–8.
 Contemplating Nonduality 71

63 Sometimes Śaṅkara identifies Brahman in the BhG as parameśvara (the Highest

Lord) who may be either with attributes (saguṇa) or without attributes (nirguṇa).
He is ambiguous with regard to interpreting the Brahman mentioned as the higher or
lower—with or without attributes—using them synonymously.
64 In his commentary on BhG 6.28 Śaṅkara states that the process is a sequence
(krama).
65 Śaṅkara glosses dhṛti only with the related and not very helpful word, dhairyeṇa.
Similar to the term niścaya in BṛU 2.4.5, dhṛti may refer here to yogic effort and
perseverance or clarity of knowledge required to maintain a contemplation of unity
in the face of duality.
66 Though Śaṅkara’s process in BhG 6.26 focuses on perceptions of external objects,
“resolving” potentially follows the trajectory of various metaphysical teaching models
Advaitins derive from the Upaniṣads, like the five sheaths (pañcakośa), three bodies
(śarīratraya), and three states (avasthātraya).
67 See BhGbh 13.10–11.
68 On BhGbh 7.17, for example, Śaṅkara describes the devotion of a knower of reality
as exclusively focused on īśvara because īśvara is his own Self, nondual, and therefore
the only appropriate locus of bhakti.
69 See Suthren Hirst (1996: 65–6) for a similar argument.
70 It is perhaps for this reason that, as Suthren Hirst (1996: 61) explains, Śaṅkara
prefers the pairing of scripture (śāstra) and reason (yukti). This pairing, which
maintains a focus on Upaniṣadic testimony and the anvaya and vyatireka method
as principal means, may reflect his ambivalence toward nididhyāsana by bypassing
its philosophical difficulties. Yet this pairing does not contradict a conception of
nididhyāsana as reducible to anvaya and vyatireka. Halbfass’s (1983: 54) claim that
the triple method is not significant in Śaṅkara’s writing may be overstated. This
implies the insignificance of nididhyāsana because śāstra and yukti only parallel
śravaṇa and manana. Yet Śankara often employs the phrase “śravaṇa etc.” (see
note 54) which includes nididhyāsana. He also emphasizes contemplative practices in
several instances and identifies nididhyāsana with several key Upaniṣadic sentences.
Nididhyāsana continues to be significant in later Advaita interpretations of Śaṅkara
when we view the tradition as a whole.
71 For related discussions in this volume, see Chapter 10 (Hedling) for a critique of
Advaita Vedānta’s theory of jīvanmukti and Chapter 13 (Raveh) for a discussion of
jñānaniṣṭhā.
72 For example, see verses 217–19 and 232–3 of Sureśvara on the Yājñavalkya Maitreyī
dialogue (Hino 1991). Sureśvara also departs from Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the
sentence “Having known just that Self, the wise brāhmin should obtain insight.
He should not ponder over many words, for that is wearying of speech” (BṛU 4.4.21).
Instead of admitting contemplation after knowledge like Śaṅkara, Sureśvara reduces
the knowledge process to śravaṇa and manana, and identifies nididhyāsana as stable
knowledge and liberation. Sureśvara spends 268 vārttikas on this line, and appears to
take his position to negate Maṇḍanamiśra.
73 Padmapāda discusses this in the ninth varṇaka of his Pañcapādikā (see
Venkatramiah 1948: 295–332). Also see Prakāśātman’s Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa
Chapters 58 and 59 (verses 402–23) in Gupta (2011: 480–7). Readers may consult
Gupta’s (2011: 91–106) summary of differences between Vivaraṇa’s and Bhāmatī’s
paths to liberation.
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74 Maṇḍana makes several statements in his Brahmasiddhi about the indirect nature
of verbal knowledge and the necessity of contemplation. See Sastri (1937: 12, 35,
and 134). For further discussion of Maṇḍana see Balasubramanian (1983), Thrasher
(1993), and Dalal (2009: 116–28). See Vācaspati on BrSūbh. 1.1.1 (Sastri and
Raja 1992, 75–9). See Rao (1984) for further discussion of Vācaspati and some of his
differences with the Vivaraṇa school and Sureśvara.
75 They hold somewhat of a middle ground between Śaṅkara and pre-Śaṅkara
philosophers like Bhāskara, Bhartṛprapañca, Brahmānandin, and Brahmadatta
who combined knowledge and yogic action (in some form of meditation or
contemplation) and knowledge. These philosophers were Śaṅkara’s adversaries and
fall outside of mainstream Advaita Vedānta subschools. See Nakamura (1983).

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Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (1998), “On Prasaṃkhyāna and Parisaṃkhyāna: Meditation in
Advaita Vedānta and Pre-Śaṃkaran Vedānta,” Adyar Library Bulletin 62.1, 51–89.
74 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (2003), “Yoga in Śaṅkaran Advaita Vedānta,” in I. Whicher and

D. Carpenter, eds., Yoga: The Indian Tradition, New York: Routledge, 99–129.
Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline (1996), “Strategies of Interpretation: Śaṃkara’s Commentary on
Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.1, 58–75.
Suthren Hirst, Jacqueline (2005), Śaṃkara’s Advaita Vedānta: A Way of Teaching, New
York: RoutledgeCurzon.
Thrasher, Allan (1993), The Advaita Vedānta of Brahmasiddhi, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidsass.
Venkatramiah, Devandahalli, trans. (1948), The Pañcapādikā of Padmapāda, Baroda:
Oriental Institute.
 2

Soul and Qualifying Knowledge

(Dharmabhūtajñāna) in the Later Viśiṣṭādvaita
Vedānta of Veṅkaṭanātha
Marcus Schmücker

The doctrine of the individual soul’s various types of cognition is central to the tradition
of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta. This chapter will focus on how this doctrine was developed in
the work of the early medieval Viśiṣṭādvaita philosopher and theologian Veṅkaṭanātha.
Before discussing Veṅkaṭanātha’s ideas, I will first provide a brief overview of some of
the main tenets of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta.

2.1 A Philosophical Overview of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta:

Ontology and Theology

In order to introduce the main ideas of Viśiṣṭādvaita1 Vedānta briefly, I will use
the central terms “ontology” and “theology.” Against their background, I will
describe certain key concepts that are deeply interconnected and indispensable for
understanding this important tradition of theistic Vedānta.
Whatever exists, i.e., what there is, is categorized either as material being (i.e.,
insentient, acit), as individual soul (i.e., sentient being, cit), or as the Highest Being
(i.e., God). These three are the three principal realities (tattvatraya). The Highest Being
is said to be inseparably connected to everything, i.e., sentient and insentient beings.
This doctrine of God’s inseparability (apṛthaksiddhi) from what He supports and
directs is grounded in the view that all sentient and insentient entities are consistent
elements of His body (śarīra). God’s greatness, perfection, excellency (atiśaya), and
so on—which are characterized by the fact that He is always and has always been
connected to everything—are possible only if what He is connected to also exists
eternally. “Inseparable” (apṛthak) means that God always exists in relational unity with
everything. But if the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tradition links what God supports and
directs to the concept of change, how is “eternity” to be understood? If everything
is accepted as having always been in unity with God, would not all things that are
directed and supported by Him have to be, in their essence (svarūpa), just as eternal
76 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

as God Himself is? How can God change and yet also be connected to something
eternally? The Viśiṣṭādvaitic solution is that nothing God directs can be assumed to be
a new creation, since a new creation would emerge from nothing.2 Moreover, what God
supports (ādheya) and directs (niyamya) never completely passes away. Nonetheless,
it must be able to change without God Himself being relativized in His eternal Being
(svarūpa). For the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tradition the ontological implication is
that the existence of an absolute nonbeing (atyantābhāva) is unacceptable. If such a
nonbeing were to exist, God would have had to create what He supports and directs
out of nothing, before the creation of the world—without any relationship to anything.
God Himself is Being and thus is the root of all that can be determined as being or
nonbeing. There is nothing that can exist outside of such a Being. Believing in a God
who is all-encompassing and all-pervading is only possible if one takes Him to be
imperishable Being. And it is such a Highest Being in which the individual soul takes
refuge (śaraṇāgati) and toward which it cultivates devotion (bhakti).
At the beginning of a new aeon (kalpāntara), i.e., a new creation (sṛṣṭi), God
remembers what existed in the past aeon. What He remembers is retained in His
memory, and what He subsequently promulgates becomes manifest through His
articulation (uccāraṇa). Even if it is stated that something which disappeared has now
reappeared, God does not manifest this in a way other than how it existed in the past
aeon (kalpa). This is because just as perfect and all-encompassing as God is, so, too,
does He preserve the Veda perfectly. If something disappears—because disappearance
and reappearance are necessary conditions of perpetual transformation (pariṇāma)—
it still exists in a subtle (sūkṣma) form in God’s knowledge (īśvarabuddhi). This is why
Viśiṣṭādvaitins maintain, for example, that the unchangeable Veda can be promulgated
in the beginning of a new aeon (kalpa) again by God.3
The next principal reality, i.e., the individual soul, is an agent referred to by the word
“I” (aham). In contrast to God, it is limited to the size of an atom (aṇu). It is defined
as a “knower” (jñātṛ) to which consciousness is added. Nevertheless, the ātman here
is not identical to some kind of empirical “I.” This ātman is denoted by the word “I”
(aham), but it cannot be proven by any means other than itself. Yāmuna was one of
the first Viśiṣṭādvaitins to use the term ahamartha, the referent of the word “I.” The
self is defined as self-illuminating (svayaṃprakāśa); it has the form of being conscious,
but is at the same time qualified by consciousness (Śrībh I 153.5: ātmā cidrūpa eva
caitanyaguṇakaḥ).
The third and final principal reality, i.e., insentient matter, encompasses, on the
one hand, the empirical human body (śarīra)—which is the “prakṛtic psycho-physical
complement”4 for the spiritual principle, i.e., the self—and, on the other hand, all kinds
of matter, for which primeval matter (prakṛti) also provides the basis. It is important
to note that these three principles are not entirely independent of one another. Rather,
even matter, like the human body, is ensouled by the individual ātman, which is carried
and present in the heart of the human being; in the same way, God Himself ensouls
matter (prakṛti) and the human bodies (śarīra) of the souls (ātman).
Concerning these three principal realities, I will examine one of the central topics
of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tradition—namely, that of the individual self (or soul) as it
was developed after Rāmānuja, especially in the work of Veṅkaṭanātha.5
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 77

2.2 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge (Dharmabhūtajñāna)

in Veṅkaṭanātha’s Thought: An Overview

With regard to the central topic of the individual soul in the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita
Vedānta, a number of studies have been written specifically on Rāmānuja’s concept of
soul and his doctrine that the individual self is endowed with qualities (dharmas).6
Veṅkaṭanātha followed Rāmānuja in further developing this notion of both the
individual self and the Highest Self (God) being endowed with qualities. However,
scholars have not yet examined Veṅkaṭanātha’s philosophically sophisticated views
on these issues in the depth and detail they deserve.7 Veṅkaṭanātha’s thinking not
only demonstrates a historical development in the Viśiṣṭādvaita school’s view about
concepts of knowledge but also provides valuable insight into how the school came to
reconcile an outer world of change and temporality with an eternal self.8
What, according to Veṅkaṭanātha, is the individual self?9 Before answering this
question in detail, I will briefly outline several key features of his concept of the
individual self. These begin with his ontological presuppositions about the fundamental
concepts of substance and state, without which the flow of cognitions—that is, the
states of the self ’s basic qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna) and its reflection
on past and future events—would not be understandable. Equally important is the
inseparability of self (consciousness) and qualifying knowledge—of the subjectivity
denoted by the word “I” and its relation to the world through outwardly directed
knowledge. The individual self could not have any access to the outer world without
the mediating principle of qualifying knowledge. Section 2.3 describes the concepts
of substance (dravya) and state (avasthā), which are fundamental to Veṅkaṭanātha’s
ontological thought. It is demonstrated that he not only explains how properties of
objects change, but even examines how the self ’s qualifying knowledge can change
and, thus, how the self is able to cognize things that undergo transformation, like clay
being shaped into a pot.
But what exactly is qualifying knowledge? Can the individual self, which is eternal,
be brought together with change? How is this opposition between the eternal self and
change coordinated in the flow of cognitions? To begin to answer these questions,
Section 2.4 explains in what sense the individual self (ātman) is an eternal substance
(dravya) and how it is related to its outwardly directed knowledge, which is also defined
as a substance, albeit as a qualifying substance of the basic individual self (ātman).
Presupposing this basic ontology and the interdependence of these two substances,
Veṅkaṭanātha presents an argument for the continuity of the self as denoted by the
word “I” (ahamarthānuvṛtti). Through its own qualifying knowledge, the self is able
to reflect diachronically on its own states as they happened in the past, or on possible
states in the future. As we will see in Section 2.5, since Veṅkaṭanātha presupposes
the continuity of one and the same self at different times, he holds that cognition
of unawareness during sleep is merely cognition of a particular state—that is, the
state of being unaware. In opposition to the Advaita Vedāntin’s doctrine of a timeless,
supraindividual Pure Consciousness, Veṅkaṭanātha argues that the self ’s qualifying
knowledge, in the process of cognition, is able to refer not only to the outer world,
78 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

i.e., objects with alternating properties, but also to what happened to the self itself
at an earlier time. A past state can be recollected, because it had existed in the past.
Thus, in Section 2.6, I argue that for Veṅkaṭanātha, cognition of having been unaware
is, in fact, cognition of “prior absence” (prāgabhāva). Against this background, we
can explain why Veṅkaṭanātha, like Yāmuna and Rāmānuja before him, accepts
yogyānupalabdhi—the non-cognition of something that is capable of being k­ nown—
as a valid means of cognition. In the discussion with the Advaitin, Veṅkaṭanātha can
therefore make clear that, for example, the knowing agent (jñātṛ) and nonbeing do not
contradict each other.
In this context, Veṅkaṭanātha repeatedly uses an argument that is essential
in describing the cognitive process, but is also of decisive importance for other
substances. What is meant is that each substance grounds itself, but is also grounded
by something else (svaparanirvāhaka). If the criterion is fulfilled that something is
established by itself and at the same time by something else, then also in the present,
something can be recognized that is at the same time absent, like a past event (atīta).
For a means of knowledge (pramāṇa) to be valid, it is therefore not necessary for its
object to be simultaneously present. In a present cognition, a present state (avasthā) of
dharmabhūtajñāna, we can become aware again that we have, or have not, recognized
something in the past. It is also made clear at this point that Veṅkaṭanātha’s reflections
are related to the issue of time (kāla), without whose beginningless continuity it would
not be possible to fall back on the past but also predict something for the future.
Finally, in Section 2.8, we will find that even though Veṅkaṭanātha clearly accepts
the difference between the plurality of individual selves and the one Highest Being
(called Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, the Highest Self [Paramātman] or Brahman), he nonetheless
maintains that this Highest Being has the same kind of qualifying knowledge (namely,
dharmabhūtajñāna) as the individual soul. The difference between the Highest Being
and the individual soul lies in His being omniscient (sarvajña) and all-pervading
(vibhu).
I will conclude Section 2.8 by comparing Veṅkaṭanātha’s concept of eternity with
that of the Naiyāyika Udayana. I will also examine Veṅkaṭanātha’s detailed account
of God’s qualifying knowledge in the course of his refutation of Udayana’s position.
According to Veṅkaṭanātha, God initiated the creation of the world in the order of the
different states of qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna)—cognition (jñāna), will
(icchā), and effort (prayatna).

2.3 What Exists and What Does Not Exist

I will begin with a more precise description of the above-mentioned key doctrine
developed in Rāmānuja’s work: that the universe of sentient and insentient beings
(cidacidvastu) constitutes the body (śarīra) of the Supreme Brahman, which is
the Self and Inner Ruler (antaryāmin) of this universe. Whatever forms Brahman’s
body (śarīra) qualifies Brahman. While transformation (pariṇāma) is accepted for
Brahman’s body, which passes from a causal state (kāraṇāvasthā) to an effected state
(kāryāvasthā), Brahman itself does not change. Thus, even if the body-possessor
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 79

(śarīrin), i.e., Brahman/Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, and the body (śarīra) are different, they
cannot be realized separately (pṛthaksiddhyanarha). The difference between the
states, with one being present, i.e., being manifest, and the other not, is the difference
between subtle (sūkṣma-) and gross states (sthūlāvasthā). When a state is present,
another state that can specify the same base is in a subtle state (sūkṣmāvasthā) and
not present. Thus, change is in fact only a transformation of the same base through
different states (avasthā). Rāmānuja defines the relation of cause and effect as a change
between two different states, i.e., a causal state (kāraṇāvasthā) and the effected state
(kāryāvasthā), holding that the fundamental base, i.e., Brahman, “assumes another
state” (avasthāntarāpatti).
If a state is not present, it nonetheless exists in a subtle state (sūkṣmāvasthā). If a
state is present, it is in a manifested state (sthūlāvasthā). This fundamental alternation
between two states implies a beginningless (anādi) and infinite (ananta) sequence of
states (avasthāsantāna). There is no possibility of one of these states being the first or
the last state. In other words, the states (avasthā/dharma) of a substance are alternating.
If states are alternating, they follow one another. Thus the same substance (dravya) can
have states that differ from each other and follow in a sequence, a sequence that in itself
is beginningless (anādi) and endless (ananta).
Like Rāmānuja, Veṅkaṭanātha uses the term pravāha, “flowing along,” for a sequence
(santāna); this flow implies that neither a single state of a substance can exist as its
only state, nor can different states (avasthā) exist simultaneously. He also speaks of the
“beginningless flowing along” (anādipravāha) or the “beginningless and endless flowing
along of the states [of a substance]” (e.g., NyP 306.11: avasthāpravāhasyānādyananta-
tvāt). Here he describes transformation (pariṇāma) by referring to substances. This is
like Rāmānuja’s phrase, “assuming another state” (avasthāntarāpatti). Ātreyarāmānuja,
Veṅkaṭanātha’s teacher, appeals to the same idea when advocating the identity of cause
and effect,10 which he claims involves a substance transforming from one state into
another. Such a transformation does not imply the nonbeing of the effect: before it
becomes manifest or visible, it is in a subtle state (sūkṣmāvasthā).11 Thus, Veṅkaṭanātha
explicitly characterizes substance (dravya) as a material cause (upādāna).12 Whenever
another state (avasthāntara) appears, the material cause is transformed—not in its
essence (svarūpa), but in its alternating states. In verse 58 (7.13) of the Tattvaṭīkā
(TṬ) he says, “Being the material cause [means] being connected with another
state” (avasthāntarayogitvam upādānatvam).13 The subsequent sentence―āgantuko
’pṛthaksiddho dharmo ’vasthā—is often repeated in Veṅkaṭanātha’s works:14

The state [of a substance] is a quality that is temporally limited15 [and] not
established as something separate [from its respective substance].

Thus, for Veṅkaṭanātha, a material cause is an entity that is qualified by sequential

states: the earlier state of a sequence is followed by a subsequent state. An example
is the substance clay, which changes when it is qualified by another occurring state
such as “potness” (ghaṭatva), which follows the state of being a lump (piṇḍatva).16
Each state is actualized at the moment it becomes present,17 as for example through an
instrumental cause (nimittakāraṇa)—in this case, the potter. Before the moment of its
80 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

actualization, the state cannot be absolute nonbeing (atyantābhāva). When it ceases to

be, a substance also assumes another state; once again, the state that is abandoned is not
absolute nonbeing either. Whatever appears is therefore not something that comes into
existence anew; it is the result of transformation, which is described as the substance
assuming another state (avasthāntarāpatti). But how exactly does Veṅkaṭanātha
describe the process of transformation from nonbeing to being?
Instead of saying that a substance is absolute nonbeing, which would be contradictory,
he defines substance as being in the state of “prior nonbeing” (prāgabhāva) or in the
state of “later nonbeing” (pradhvaṃsābhāva). Referring to the above example, one can
say that “prior nonbeing (prāgabhāva) of a pot is only another state of the substance
clay (mṛt).” Veṅkaṭanātha applies this concept of substance in many ways. For instance,
he describes perception in an analogous manner: if one perceives clay in its state of
being a lump (piṇḍatva), such a cognition is at the same time a yogyānupalabdhi of
another state of clay, like the following state of being a pot. We should recall that
yogyānupalabdhi is “the non-cognition of something that is capable of being known.”
The pot, which is capable of being known, is not known at present, but will be known
in the state following that of being a lump (piṇḍatva). Analogously, by means of
yogyānupalabdhi, an individual self is diachronically able to know another state of
itself that is not actually present.18 This is the case with “prior nonbeing” (prāgabhāva),
which is for Veṅkaṭanātha not only applicable to something material like the nonbeing
of the substance clay, but also to the cognition of having been non-aware in an earlier
state, such as deep sleep. It is knowable for the individual that his/her deep sleep existed
at an earlier time, namely, as the state of being non-aware.
So far, we can summarize Veṅkaṭanātha’s view as follows: his theory of the
individual self (ātman) and its qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna) is based on
his ontology of substance and state just outlined. Just as the different states of clay
(mṛt)—namely, as a lump (piṇḍa), as a pitcher (ghaṭa), or as a bowl (kapāla)—do not
contradict each other, or different units of time of the substance time (kāla) do not
contradict each other, different states of the qualifying knowledge of the individual
self do not contradict each other. Even if mutually opposing states occur at different
times, Veṅkaṭanātha sees no contradiction in the claim that qualifying knowledge
(dharmabhūtajñāna) serves as the basis, i.e., as a substance (dravya), for countless
states of cognition.19 In fact, he considers cognition through perception (pratyakṣa) or
inference (anumāna), as well as effort (prayatna) and enjoyment (bhoga), to be states
(avasthā) of dharmabhūtajñāna (cf. RTS [Rahasyatrayasāra], Chapter 5, 103, 4–6).

2.4 Basic Features of the Individual Self (Jīvātman) and its

Qualifying Knowledge

For Veṅkaṭanātha, the states of qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna)20 of an

individual self, even if they take place at different times, do not exist in an unrelated
manner, but follow continuously in succession (santāna). All cognitions, be they
past, present, or future, are based on one and the same substance—the qualifying
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 81

knowledge of the individual self (ātman). The different states of this knowledge require
an intermediary and individualizing factor. Therefore, the self as “I” facilitates the
recognition of mental states, even if they are unconscious, as in deep sleep. What is
permanent is the subject―the knower (jñātṛ), i.e., the ātman. The subject is aware
of its own experiences at particular times through its own qualifying knowledge.
But even if the meaning of “I”—understood as the last point of reference—is clear,
the question remains: how can the self-illuminating self, which is denoted as “I”
and is said to shine only for itself and therefore to be nonrelational and without the
possibility of self-reflection, remember itself, and, as a consequence, imply in a present
state a relation to a past state of one’s own self? This question seems justified, because
reflection presupposes temporality, i.e., the acceptance of a temporal interval based
on time. How does Veṅkaṭanātha address this problem? He postulates that the two
inseparable substances (ātman/ahamartha; dharmabhūtajñāna) are involved in the
process of knowing something that happened in the past. To this end, he appeals to
his fundamental concepts of substance and state in order to establish the necessary
difference between an earlier event—that is, an earlier state—and the present state.
Before I go on to examine the case of deep sleep, which for Veṅkaṭanātha is in fact
cognition of “prior nonbeing” (prāgabhāva), it is first necessary to understand some
features of these two substances, i.e., the self (ātman/ahamartha) and its qualifying
knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna).21
First of all, the individual self, which is an eternal substance (dravya), consists, in
its essence, of consciousness, which is expressed as self-luminosity (svayaṃprakāśa).
Its essence (svarūpa) is referred to by the word “I” (aham). Self-luminosity, which is
never affected by karma, is what characterizes both the individual self and the self
of God. Veṅkaṭanātha identifies self-luminosity and essence (svarūpa) in Chapter 5
(Tattvatrayacintanādhikāra) of the RTS (103, 23–104, 1) in the following words:

The essential nature of all souls in the form of the individual self and God is self-
luminosity for itself. For the illuminating essence of the dharmin,22 there is at no
time contraction or expansion [due to karma], including for the bound souls.23

Other important features of the individual self that it shares with God’s self are
“being conscious” and “being inward,” as denoted by the first-person “I.” In the same
chapter (RTS 99, 3–6), Veṅkaṭanātha states:

Being conscious and being inward are common characteristics of all groups of
the self, which have the form of individual self and of God. Being conscious is the
basis for knowledge. The definition of inwardness is that it appears for itself. Then
it appears as “I,” independent of qualifying knowledge.24

Inwardness (pratyaktva) of the self implies independence. But there are also other
qualities that define the individual self ’s essence. Veṅkaṭanātha explains these as
svarūpanirūpakadharma, “qualities that define the essence,” which stand in contrast to
the quality called nirūpitasvarūpadharma, “a quality of the essence, which is defined [by
the svarūpanirūpakadharma]” (cf. RTS [Chapter 5] 98, 8–10). These include, for example,
82 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

its being atomic (aṇutva), its being subordinate to God (śeṣatva), and other qualities.25
All of these essential qualities are eternal and have no relation to any alternating states
of the substance. It is clear from the internal structure of the self-illumination of the self
that no modification is possible, nor is any relation to the outer world.26
What kind of independent “I” does Veṅkaṭanātha have in mind? The
reference to the self by the word “I” does not imply―in contrast to the concept of
ahaṃkāra―any reification of consciousness, that is, the self. Indeed, in the PMBh
(Jīvatattvādhikāra 57, 4–5) Veṅkaṭanātha questions the use of “I” in the statement “Even
if there is in this way being conscious, is it proper [to have] I-ness? Have the śāstras not
said that I-ness is to be abandoned?” (ippaṭi cetanatvam uṇṭāṉālum ahantvam kūṭumō?
ahaṃkāram tyājyam eṉṟaṉṟō śāstraṅkaḷ colluvatu?). In the next sentences, he gives six
reasons for identifying self (ātman) and ahamartha:

The self is [identical with] the referent of the word “I,” because (1) all people who
define the self agree that the soul has the form of inwardness; because (2) being
inward is impossible for that which is not the referent of the word “I”; because
(3) the expression “giving up I-ness” has the meaning of [not] mistaking the
body for the self and [the giving up of] pride, etc.; because (4) among the special
tattvas, the word ahaṃkāra produced knowledge of “I” as something different
from the referent of “I” [i.e., the self]; because (5) it is pronounced; because (6)
of separating the self from the body by the knowledge of “I” as different from the
body, which relates to the word “this,” as said through I-knowledge in the sentence:
“This [body] is mine.”27

The six reasons Veṅkaṭanātha lists here underline the inwardness (pratyaktva) of
the self as “I” (aham). What is inward can only be the self as indicated by the word
“I.” It cannot be known in the same way that the senses perceive an object. Whatever
is directed to the exterior side of the body (śarīra) refers to the false concept of
“I,” that is, the ahaṃkāra. But this kind of I-ness does not give rise to knowledge
of the self. This is why Veṅkaṭanātha distinguishes (cf. TMK 2.3; NSi 186, 1ff.) the
self from the senses, the body, the mind (manas), and the breath (prāṇa). None
of these are identical with the “I” that denotes the self. Thus, in order to relate the
self to the external world, the individual self is specified by qualifying knowledge
(dharmabhūtajñāna). This is also defined as a specific substance, but it cannot exist
independently, even if it is different from its substrate. While the light of the inner
self shines for itself (svasmai), the self ’s qualifying knowledge, which reveals all of
the objects in the world, is likewise defined as self-luminous, but it shines only for
something else (parasmai), that is, its substrate.
In the case of the individual self (rather than of God), the clarity of its c­ ognitions—
i.e., the states of the qualifying knowledge—depends on its individual karma. The
less accurately the individual self recognizes itself due to its own karma, the more
limited (saṃkucita) is its cognition through qualifying knowledge. The less the self ’s
knowledge is influenced by karma, the more openly (vikāsita) it shines. He explains
the dharmabhūtajñāna of different eternal souls, as well as of the Highest Soul (i.e., the
Lord), as follows:28
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 83

This qualifying knowledge is for its own base self-illuminating when it is in the state
of illuminating objects. This [dharmabhūtajñāna] is eternally present for the eternal
souls and for the Lord.29 For other souls [i.e., baddhas], the [dharmabhūtajñāna],
according to their karma in the state of Saṃsāra, is manifoldly contracted or
expanded; in the state of being released, it is all-pervading, because it only
expands.30

In the same chapter of the RTS (Chapter 5), Veṅkaṭanātha describes the differences
between the self and qualifying knowledge as well as their common features. In this
passage, he repeats again that being conscious and being self-illuminating are common
to both substances. The self is defined as inward and independent; this means that
the result of self-illumination is only the self itself and nothing else. In contrast,
qualifying knowledge is characterized by an object and it illuminates something else.
For its own substrate (i.e., the self), this dharmabhūtajñāna is self-illuminating, while
it makes other objects appear. Thus, the understanding of both substances—namely,
dharmabhūtajñāna and the self—reflects a complex relation between the soul and
the world: on the one hand being inward for the self, and on the other hand being
outward for its qualifying knowledge, which is illuminating an object and dealing with
that object through the use of language in daily life. Even though both substances are
characterized in different ways, they form a unity in the process of knowledge. This
unity is a necessity if one and the same self is defined both as knowing about past events
and as relating, through cognition, to the outside world. Veṅkaṭanātha explains the
different functions of the self and its qualifying knowledge, which depend on each other
in the process of cognition, in the following passage of the RTS (Chapter 5, 104, 1–10):

The qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna) of each self is self-illuminating

for its own substrate, at the time of illuminating the objects [in the world].
Being conscious and being self-luminous are common to dharma [i.e., the
dharmabhūtajñāna] and dharmin [i.e., the self]. The differentiating quality of
qualifying knowledge is its being endowed with an object. The differentiating
quality of the essence of the self, which has the form of the dharmin, is to be
inward. As for knowledge, it is to illuminate something, i.e., make the use of
something fit for language, that is its own or something else. The definition of
self-illumination is illuminating itself, independently of other knowledge that is
connected with something that has an object. As for being characterized by an
object of the dharmabhūtajñāna, it is to illuminate something other than itself.
The definition of being inward for the self is to shine for itself. That is (atāvatu): it
means that the self itself is the result of its self-illumination.31

Remarkable in this context is Veṅkaṭanātha’s distinction between shining or

illuminating only by itself and illuminating for something else. A substance like the
self is unable to have any relation to the world; it can only perceive the world through
something else, such as the qualifying knowledge by its cognitions. The qualifying
knowledge, in turn, is similarly self-illuminating, but it too is illuminated by something
else; in this case, the different states are caused by whatever can be known.
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Veṅkaṭanātha demonstrates this double aspect for each kind of substance. It can
be applied from different perspectives: On the one hand, each substance illuminates
itself (svatas), but on the other hand, the substance is also illuminated by something
else (paratas). The self is only illuminated by itself, but can gain knowledge by means
of something else, such as the dharmabhūtajñāna, which in turn, as a substance, has
states and is related to the world.
To explain this double aspect, one must look more closely at the relationship between
the self (ātman), which is inward, and qualifying knowledge, which shines for the self
while being directed toward the outer world.32 Again one still must ask how, according
to Veṅkaṭanātha, the two substances interact despite their different functions, on the
one hand illuminating for the (singular) other (parasmai), i.e., for the self, but on the
other hand, illuminating for the outer world (arthaprakāśa).33 How does Veṅkaṭanātha
explain that qualifying knowledge through which one knows that one has known or
that one has not known? How can knowledge be known through another knowledge
without contradicting the concept of self-illumination? Veṅkaṭanātha discusses this
issue in many places, especially when he refutes the Advaitic position, which strictly
denies that what is self-illuminating can in turn be illuminated. In the Śatadūṣaṇī,
he criticizes the Advaitic position by arguing that it is impossible for the Advaitin to
explain how something that is defined as self-illuminating can be objectified.
To illustrate these difficulties, let us turn to a passage in the PMBh (57, 17–58, 3), where
Veṅkaṭanātha explains that something defined as self-illuminating (svayaṃprakāśa)—
that is, independent of another knowledge—can again become the object of knowledge.
In this context, he argues that using a valid means of knowledge (pramāṇa) implies
that such knowledge has an object of knowledge. If it establishes something as self-
illuminating, it is exactly that self-illumination which is objectified by this kind of
valid means of knowledge. Therefore, Veṅkaṭanātha holds the view that whatever is
self-illuminating must also be an object of knowledge. Defending his view against the
Advaitin, who refutes the possibility of recognizing what is able to illuminate itself,
Veṅkaṭanātha corroborates his view with the following arguments:

Some [i.e., Advaitins] say that self-illumination is not possible for the object of
knowledge. [We say:] It can be said to be self-illuminating, since it is shining also
independently of another knowledge, even if it is an object of another knowledge.
For the dharmabhūtajñāna, too, the case is the same. It is not possible to establish
by any means of knowledge something that is not an object of knowledge as ­self-
illuminating. The dharmin appears for itself; the dharmabhūtajñāna appears for its
own base [i.e., the dharmin] while illuminating an object.34

For Veṅkaṭanātha, something can be self-illuminating, but it can also become an

object of another knowledge without losing that self-illumination. As an example, he
alludes to two concepts he mentioned in earlier works (NSi, TMK); in both works
he denies that self-illumination is given up if it becomes an object (viṣayīkaroti) of
knowledge.
The possibility of being omniscient for a Highest Being can only be accepted if
each particular knowledge can be perceived. Thus, an omniscient being35 is able to
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 85

know each particular knowledge of its own whether or not it has been realized. Again,
the main idea here is that every substance is not only by itself and illuminative of
something else (parasya), but must also necessarily be known by something else.
Accordingly, Veṅkaṭanātha uses the compound svaparanirvāhaka, “grounding itself
and for/by something else,” when he refers to substance. This double aspect of being
by itself and likewise being by and for something else (parasya/paratas) is not only
the case for an individual self, it is also applicable to the unity of self and its qualifying
knowledge: even if both substances are characterized differently, they form a unity.
Such a unity, consisting of a qualified (dharmin) and a qualifier (dharma), that is, the
self and its qualifying knowledge, implies at the same time a relationship between the
interior self and the outer world, as well as the capability of being cognized from an
outer perspective: “Even if these two, i.e., qualifier and qualified, are self-illuminating,
they are cognizable by another knowledge, because they have a form that is qualified
by a special quality, such as being eternal, etc.” (RTS [Chapter 5] 104, 14–15).36 For
Veṅkaṭanātha, each substance has this kind of “inner perspective” and at the same
time, an “outer perspective.” For example, the self as “I” shines for itself, but in its
individuality is cognizable from the outer perspective as “thou” (cf. SAS [473, 7–8] on
TMK 4.1; cf. Schmücker 2011: 332ff.; 2020). Thus, on the one hand, there is access to
the world, because the dharmabhūtajñāna relating to objects in the world still qualifies
the individual self; contact with the outward world would not be possible if the self
alone, which is only self-illuminating, were to exist. On the other hand, and for the
same reason, it is also possible for the soul to be known from the outside, that is, by
another soul’s outward-directed dharmabhūtajñāna.
In order to show how he presents the same topic in his Sanskrit works, I will examine
in detail two verses (5–6) of the second chapter (jīvasara) of the Tattvamuktākalāpa
(TMK) that illustrate how Veṅkaṭanātha explains the relationship between these
two self-illuminating substances. First, he reiterates that these two substances have
different functions: while the self illuminates only for itself, its knowledge shines for
something else. In this passage, Veṅkaṭanātha also sees both substances as inseparable
in the mind, although in the process of cognition, each has its own way of functioning.
They are different but at the same time cannot exist independently, since otherwise
no cognition would be possible. Verse 5 of the second chapter of the TMK (230, 6–9)
contains an explanation of the utter difference between these two substances:

Concerning this topic (iha), the authoritative source declares that the self is
knowledge, but does not declare mere qualifying knowledge as being [identical
with the] self. Qualifying knowledge illuminates the object when the instigation
is followed by the effervescence of a perception, etc. The individual self still
experiences the complete attainment only for itself. Qualifying knowledge, however,
experiences complete attainment for itself and for the other [i.e. the self].37

In TMK 2.6 (232, 1–4) Veṅkaṭanātha explains the different functions of the two
substances, but also mentions the dependency of the cognitions of knowledge on
each other if both the self and its knowledge are defined as knowledge (jñāna). In
this context, Veṅkaṭanātha also mentions the possibility of recollecting an earlier state,
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such as remembering that it was oneself who slept, even though one had no waking
consciousness while deeply asleep. In this context, the act of remembering is the proof
that continuity is preserved. Such a recollection (pratyabhijñā) would not be possible
without the individual “I,” since otherwise one could not remember past experiences as
being one’s own. The self, as one and the same “self,” has various cognitions at different
times through the qualifying knowledge and is therefore able to be aware of what it
cognized earlier:

The self, in itself, is exclusively established by the word “I,” because it is said to be
self-luminous by the authoritative sources. Even in deep sleep, in the case of the
self being self-established, the recognition “I slept well” is unimpaired. In contrast,
the mind in [its] cognitions is not independent from something else. Furthermore,
through the exemplification of Vedānta [passages], the self, whose improvement
is for itself, independent of qualifying knowledge, which has its own object, is like
knowledge, because of being knowledge.38

Here Veṅkaṭanātha applies his key concepts of eternal substance and the transforming
states of the individual self (ātman) and its qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna).
He is able to unite the differences between various times of cognition into one and
the same basis due to the fact that the underlying self-illuminating substance and its
knowledge exist eternally: they also existed in a past time and, hence, prior to the
present time. Time (kāla), which plays an important role in Veṅkaṭanātha’s work,
brings about the continuation of the two transforming substances. As mentioned
above, time itself is also defined by Veṅkaṭanātha as a substance having a series of
states, namely, the chronological sequence of states of the eternal and all-pervading
substance (vibhudravya) “time.” This allows Veṅkaṭanātha to use temporal terminology
when describing the sequence of states of other substances as well, such as qualifying
knowledge. Even if time pervades other substances (dravya) that are defined as self-
illuminating, they do not cease to be self-illuminating because of this pervasion. When
describing the cognitive process of the individual self, Veṅkaṭanātha is thus not only
interested in proving the eternal self-illumination of the self, but also its continuity in
the process of cognitions through qualifying knowledge.
The self, denoted as “I,” is able, through recollection (pratyabhijñā), to know itself
as having been in a previous state. Moreover, objects are again recognizable, even
if a period of time has elapsed. Veṅkaṭanātha argues that this is possible because,
according to him, eternally lasting identity (expressed by the self-illuminating “I”
[aham]) belongs inseparably to transformation (expressed by the sequence of states,
i.e., cognitions, of qualifying knowledge). Recollection is possible because a past state
of qualifying knowledge can still be recognized.
Finally, it is important to point out the double aspect of interior (svatas) and exterior
(paratas): as a substance, qualifying knowledge is for itself (svatas) but at the same
time it is for something else (parasya/paratas). This is because it is possible both to
know something different, such as the world, and, if speaking temporally, to know that
something which happened earlier is happening in the present, or will happen in the
future. Every substance has these two aspects—as does, in this context, the process of
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 87

knowledge. I will demonstrate this in the following section by focusing on the example
of deep sleep, which can be remembered as a state of having been unaware.

2.5 A Discussion of “I Slept Well” (Ahaṃ sukham asvāpsam)

Prior to Veṅkaṭanātha, there had been a long tradition of debating the validity of the
concept of the eternal permanence of an individual self in contrast to that of pure
consciousness.
Veṅkaṭanātha, who argues for an “I”-consciousness, i.e., an individual
consciousness, offers a strong and extensive criticism of the Advaitic position, which
upholds the existence of a non-egological, eternal, and self-illuminating consciousness.
Veṅkaṭanātha demonstrates that the “self ” remains constant throughout the various
time modes. His opponent, who clearly represents the Advaitic position, argues that
the “individual self ” cannot continue to exist in deep sleep and, thus, also does not
continue to exist when redeemed. According to this Advaitic opponent, the “self ”
consists in a state of being ignorant. When the saṃsāric existence of an individual
self passes away, so does ignorance. The assumption that the individual self continues
to exist leads to conflicting conclusions. The presumed notion of the eternity of the
individual self is relevant for Veṅkaṭanātha’s (and even Rāmānuja’s) understanding of
redemption insofar as the individuality of the self (ahamartha) persists in redemption.
Individuality is not something that can be abandoned.39
For Veṅkaṭanātha, it is one and the same self that recognizes itself in the past and in
the present. If neither the individual self nor its qualifying knowledge were to continue
in deep sleep, the identificatory link between past and present would not be possible.40
The opponent, the Advaitin, for whom Pure Consciousness also exists eternally and
is unchanging, requests another means of cognition, since it is possible that the self is
not ascertainable through illumination when sleeping. Thus, the Advaitic opponent
asks: “What is the means of valid cognition for the self ’s continuity, even if it is not
shining at that time?” (ŚDū 121, 29 [vāda 26]: tadānīm aprakāśe ’pi tadanuvṛttau kim
pramāṇam). In response, Veṅkaṭanātha refers to recollection. Recollection is enabled
by continuousness, which is only acceptable when time is presupposed. In fact,
Veṅkaṭanātha takes time (kāla) to be a substance that persists through itself (svatas).
The individual self, together with its qualifying knowledge, can be distinguished from
a time in the past, because an intermediate time or an interval (madhyakāla) has
passed. This is why the individual self, with its knowledge, exists through different
times; it persists from an earlier time and continues through an intermediate time as
a carrier of memory, which becomes present in the present time. Veṅkaṭanātha replies
to the opponent with the following argument providing the background of his theory:

This is not the case, because its continuing is assumed even for the intervening
period by virtue of the memory of the self, which exists at earlier and later points in
time―[specifically] to the extent that its [continuous] illumination is possible even
if it can be distinguished at the present time from a time in the past, as in the case of
determining “I slept,” on the assumption of an interval that is distinguishable from
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an earlier and a later time (pūrvottarakālāvacchinnamadhyakālakalpanena), and

because, assuming that the [self] did not exist during such an interval, no carrier
of a mental impression would be present, and because the undesired consequence
[then] occurs that there is no longer an identificatory linkage.41

As we were able to see in the explanation of substance and state, even when one
and the same substance is eternal, it transforms because its states are alternating.
The case here is the same: the “I” continues while states of the dharmabhūtajñāna
transform through the flow of states. It is therefore possible to be aware of past states,
including a state of unawareness. Veṅkaṭanātha’s argument is again that the individual
self continues and, through its qualifying knowledge, can recollect what happened in
the past. He supports the notion that a temporal reference to the past presupposes
individuality, offering the thesis that no one else can carry out the recollecting act for
the individual self. This is not just any past, but the past of the particular individual self,
which exists inseparably from its qualifying knowledge.
This allows Veṅkaṭanātha to avoid the contradiction of equating the past and
present. Rather, the self continues (anuvṛtti) as substance throughout its transformation
through the flow of the states of its qualifying knowledge, which as a substance also
continues, thus establishing the connection between a past and a present state.

2.6 Cognition of “Prior Non-Being” (Prāgabhāva)

How does Veṅkaṭanātha explain the cognition that one had no consciousness at
another, earlier time? This is another way of putting the question posed earlier: how
is cognition that there is no cognition possible? If there is no object present, such as
when one is in deep sleep, how can one become conscious at a later point in time of not
having recognized anything in that earlier sleeping state?
One passage that discusses these questions is the twenty-first vāda
(saṃvidanutpattidūṣaṇavāda) of the Śatadūṣaṇī, in which Veṅkaṭanātha elaborates the
eternal continuity of the self ’s qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna, for which,
here, the term saṃvit is used) and counters the opponent’s rejection of transformation
(pariṇāma).
Veṅkaṭanātha holds the view that the individual self can determine that no cognition
was available to it at an earlier point in time. This does not mean that there was no self
at that earlier time; it shows, rather, that it is possible to remember that one did not
recognize something, such as while in the state of deep sleep.
The next discussion with the Advaitin clarifies that the latter’s arguments present
an insurmountable difficulty when combining nonbeing with eternal being. In this
context, Veṅkaṭanātha examines the problem of temporally successive states of
qualifying knowledge with regard to the individual self. To ensure dharmabhūtajñāna,
which has different states occurring at specific periods of time, he again applies his
basic concept that a substance is not only by itself (svatas), but also by something else
(paratas). In this context he explains that knowledge is not only by itself (svatas), but
can also be spontaneously proven by something else (paratas), namely, the cognizable
state of nonbeing.
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 89

The Advaitin opponent first argues that the suggestion of an earlier absence of cognition
is contradictory, because this requires maintaining that a prior nonbeing (prāgabhāva)
is actually recognized at the present point in time. For the Advaitin, the possibility of an
earlier nonbeing and the assumption of an agent of knowledge are mutually exclusive:
if there is somebody who knows, such as an agent, then it is contradictory to accept
nonbeing. Conversely, if there is nonbeing, then it cannot be assumed that there is an
agent who knows. Moreover, there is no qualifying knowledge without an object being
simultaneously known, because it is contradictory to accept something not present as an
object of knowledge. The opponent thus holds that it is not possible for both, i.e., nonbeing
and an agent, to occur simultaneously. Moreover, appealing to a succession of states does
not resolve this contradiction. According to the opponent, it is contradictory to consider
earlier nonbeing (prāgabhāva) to be an earlier state of a continuing yet transforming
substance. Finally, the opponent argues, it is impossible for something that is by itself
(svatas) to become the object of another knowledge (saṃvidantaraviṣayatvāyogāt). This
is precisely the thesis affirmed by Veṅkaṭanātha:

(Objection:) First, for knowledge, there is no cognition of its own nonbeing,

because if one’s own former nonbeing persists, there is no one who recognizes it,
and hence knowledge of previous nonbeing is not possible, because, by contrast,
the prior nonexistence (tad) cannot be cognized [at present] precisely due to the
absence of the object [i.e., prior nonexistence] when it is gone. Also, no knowledge
is possible by means of another cognition, because knowledge of nonbeing is
not possible without a corresponding object. And because it is not possible that
knowledge, which is the counterpart [of the prior nonexistence] and established
by itself, is the object of another knowledge.42

With regard to the last sentence, one can point out that for Veṅkaṭanātha the
cognition of prior nonbeing is indeed possible, because an earlier nonbeing does
not mean complete nonbeing (atyantābhāva). It is still a perceptible state, even if it
happened at another time; otherwise it would not be cognizable. This further means
that one can use a non-cognition of something which is capable of being known, a
yogyānupalabdhi, to prove this kind of unawareness. And this also implies that for such
cognition, it is possible to have an object that is not present.
Veṅkaṭanātha responds to the opponent by pointing out that the expression
“by itself ” (svatas) means through the qualifying knowledge that is a substance by
itself. Recollection has as its object the state of not being aware. Because of its object,
recollection is concurrently “through/by something else” (paratas). For the cognition
of an earlier nonbeing, there is no contradiction between the past and present, because
the knowing substance—namely, qualifying knowledge—persists through all three
times (past, present, and future):

[Answer:] This is not the case, for its apprehension occurs through itself and through
others. For the cognition which occurs through itself [in thought]―“For some
time, I recognized nothing”―also apprehends, in a general way, its own nonbeing
at an earlier time. And one should not ask, “How is it possible for one to make an
object of a prior nonbeing [of cognition] that has [already] passed?” because in
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cognitions, which are different from sense-cognitions like ours, etc., something is
also apprehended that is found in all three time periods (trikālavartinām).43

2.7 The Temporal Aspect of the Cognition of “Prior Nonbeing”

(Prāgabhāva)

How does Veṅkaṭanātha relate such a cognition of “prior nonbeing,” i.e., a state of the
basic qualifying knowledge of the individual self, to time? What has been recognized
earlier does not vanish; if it did vanish, then it could not be remembered. But again,
one can point to the temporal aspect, which was discussed when substance and state
were introduced: every state has its own time in which it has its being, and this state is
cognizable because of the fact that it has existed or does exist. If one perceives something
from the past, it is not the case that that means of cognition is invalid (apramāṇatva)
(cf. ŚDū 113, 15 [vāda 21]: na cātītasyāsato grahaṇād apramāṇatvam). It is indeed
possible to cognize something that one calls nonbeing, because it is something in the
past, insofar as even something that has vanished existed in its own time, i.e., the past
(atītasyāpi svakāle sattvāt).
In this context, Veṅkaṭanātha states that the validity of a means of cognition does
not require that an object and its cognition exist simultaneously. The absence of an
object of cognition does not mean the absolute nonbeing of that object. If this were
the case, it would not be possible to say that a cognition of something which is absent
is possible.
As in the case of the perception of something that happened in the past, perception
can be a valid means of cognition since only non-presence was negated, but not the fact
that something was recognized by perception. Here, Veṅkaṭanātha makes the absence
of the opposite the sole condition of cognition. Cognition, therefore, has an object
through qualifying knowledge; this is what makes it a valid cognition. However, the
simultaneous coexistence of knowledge with its object is not necessary. The absence
of consciousness is known by the cognition of another state, just as the non-cognition
of a pot is the cognition of an earlier state of what will become a pot, namely the state of
being a lump of clay (piṇḍatva):

This is because the validity of a means of cognition consists exclusively in the

absence of oppositionality while being perceived (gṛhyamāṇavaiparītyābhāva);
it does not require that cognition and object coexist. Otherwise, you would be
teaching that the silver fallacy, which exists at the same time as the indeterminate
silver, is also a valid means of cognition.
[If one objects,] “What, then, is this means of cognition that apprehends the
earlier non-being of knowledge?” [then the answer is that] it is only that which
apprehends the absence of a pot, etc.44

The absence of a pot would not have existed without the precondition of its
existence―just as the nonbeing of awareness is not possible without the precondition
of being aware. If the nonbeing of consciousness is also a state of qualifying knowledge,
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 91

continuity is assured by the mental impression (saṃskāra) that survives the phase of
the state of the absence of waking consciousness. The mental impression continues to
exist and is not negated or destroyed by another state of qualifying knowledge of the
individual self. If this were not the case, no continuity could be assured. For even after
deep sleep or after periods of time that are not experienced in full consciousness, it is
possible to recognize things exactly as they had existed earlier:

And deep sleep, etc., do not eradicate any mental impressions (saṃskārocchedakāḥ),
because if this were the case you would not remember something that was
perceived the previous day.
If one objects that the memory of it occurs in its clarity due to a memory
impression, the basis of which is the object, then this is not the case, because a
memory is observed with regard to mere things that are perceived in the darkness,
etc. Therefore, the cognition of its prior nonbeing (tatprāgabhāvaḥ) is explained
as [a cognition which is cognized] by itself. But, inasmuch as cognition can be
recognized, the [same] cognition of its prior nonbeing (tatprāgabhāvaḥ) is
demonstrated by something that is something else.45

Again Veṅkaṭanātha refers in this context to the double character of the qualifying
knowledge. On the one hand, knowledge occurs by itself, but on the other hand, it
is manifested by something else, that is to say, a state like the “prior nonbeing”
(prāgabhāva) of cognition. These assumptions must also be understood against the
background of Veṅkaṭanātha’s basic ontological presuppositions. Just as the past still
exists—because, as a past state, it does not vanish completely—something cognized
also does not fade away completely. It may be known again as something that was
cognized.
It is also noteworthy that in these contexts, he always reflects on the question of
time. Indeed, the eternity of the substance “time” (kāla) is also proof that nothing is
lost completely, even if something is not perceptible or does not exist in the present
time. But the flow of time, i.e., the fact that time passes, implies equally that one can
remember in the present something of the past that existed in its own time (svakāla).
Referring to memory, Veṅkaṭanātha affirms that a thing is remembered in just the way
it was cognized at an earlier time:

Therefore, the cognition of the earlier nonbeing of the cognition of future things
by virtue of a non-cognition of something which is capable of being known
(yogyānupalabhyā) develops in this way; however, for past things (atītasya), [a
cognition] develops by means of memory, inference, etc. For future things, too,
it occurs exclusively by means of inference, etc. Therefore, the earlier absence
(prāgabhāvaḥ) of knowledge is proven on the one hand by itself and on the other
hand by something different.46

Because knowledge is proven in two ways, through itself (svatas) and through
something else (paratas), the self is also able to have knowledge of time (kāla), even
though time itself is not temporal. The fact that one does not know what will occur
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at a particular time does not mean that no cognition is possible at all, but rather that
the non-cognition of something which is capable of being known (yogyānupalabdhi)
determines that something does not exist at present.
Let us briefly summarize Veṅkaṭanātha’s explanation of how one and the same
sentient being, i.e., the individual living soul (jīvātman) and the Highest Soul
identified as Brahman or Viṣṇu/Nārāyaṇa, can have by their qualifying knowledge,
as a basic substance, cognitions that refer to earlier states (for example, states of
having been non-aware). The notion of being qualified by knowledge refers to the
basic fact that whatever is qualified is also knowable as being objectified. Qualifying
knowledge, when affected by the outside world (paratas), results in a special state of
cognition.

2.8 God’s Qualifying Knowledge

According to Veṅkaṭanātha, God’s qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna) is also

a substance (dravya). It is a substance that is defined as a quality (dharma) of God’s
self and as having beginningless and endless states (avasthā). The act by which God
starts the manifestation of the world and by which He introduces a new world period
(kalpa) is repeated as many times as the time periods start and end, i.e., the succession
of the universe’s creation (sṛṣṭi), preservation (sthiti), and dissolution (pralaya). It is
through His own will (icchā) that God repeatedly manifests what already exists. The
manifestation of the universe is thus not unique, but is a series or succession of willing
acts (icchāsantāna) of God, who desires to create. These acts, which involve the change
from a non-manifested state to a manifested one, have continued from the beginningless
past and will continue into the endless future. The world that undergoes this endless
recurrence is, according to Veṅkaṭanātha, the same in name and form in each world
period. God’s having an eternal will means that the eternity of God’s will consists in
the eternal will of a succession (santāna/santati) of what has existed in the past, should
exist in the present, and will exist in the future. Each wish requires a previous wish
and a following wish. According to this view, God’s flow of the different states of His
dharmabhūtajñāna neither has a beginning nor is a finite act. God’s own will (icchā)47
is, in fact, one of the important states of His qualifying knowledge. Thus, Veṅkaṭanāṭha
establishes God’s creation based on the concept of the beginningless transformation of
substance and conceives divine qualifying knowledge, like the qualifying knowledge of
the individual self, in terms of a succession of states.
In this section, I will compare the concept of eternity in the Nyāya tradition with that
of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tradition. The debate between the two schools was based
on different understandings of causation. For the Naiyāyika, the universe is inferred as
an effect (kārya) and must have been produced by an agent or a creator called īśvara.
An agent that is the cause of the universe must be endowed with knowledge and the
capacity to create; it cannot be subject to the karma of souls. The views of the two
schools differ especially with regard to the challenging question of God’s creation.
The debate centers on the question of whether an eternal agent could produce a non-
eternal effect.
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 93

Before explaining Veṅkaṭanātha’s understanding of how an effect arises, I will

briefly discuss the Naiyāyika Udayana’s explanation of creation. In what sense does
Udayana understand God’s cognition to be an eternal cognition, and how does he try
to establish its eternality? He shows that God’s cognition, being eternal, has neither
a before nor an after, but is “an ever-existing single act that embraces all objects of
cognition” (Chemparathy 1972: 174). Such an act negates the plurality of acts in
cognition, but contains all objects of cognition and is therefore defined as omniscient.
This all-encompassing cognition is said to be uninterrupted since it is always in
conjunction with its objects, an idea that is intimately related to the concept of the
oneness of God’s act of cognition. Thus, for Udayana, the eternity (nityatvam) of the
cognition of God follows from the fact that it is not produced and remains unaffected
by whatever could imply manifoldness or non-eternity, as, for example, time. While
time is an eternal substance, it is divided by modes of time:

Nor does that [single] cognition [of God] cease to be valid through the differences
of time; for it does not cease to be independent. Or, if it were nevertheless invalid,
then the application of the principle would be too wide.48

Udayana demonstrates here that God’s cognition, which is accepted as valid, cannot
lose its validity at another point of time, since it is independent of any time factor,
indeed, independent of all causes. But how is it possible to arrive at an effect from
the independence of cognition? How does Udayana relate the next act, i.e., effort, to
cognition and what is to be created? He first posits a complex relationship between
cognition and effort (prayatna). If God’s cognition is independent, then what is effort?
Effort implies an activity that would be meaningless if it were not directed toward
something. If cognition is eternal, effort should be as well. If effort is non-eternal,
cognition is likewise. Udayana thus says that effort does not depend on cognition, but
nevertheless, that cognition is accomplished by effort. Effort ceases to exist if cognition
ceases to exist. This would also be the case if cognition were not to depend on itself,
but on an object (viṣaya):

And effort does not depend on cognition, which serves only for grasping itself
[and not a physical object], because it would be dependent, if it serves also to grasp
an object. Therefore, it is stated at length elsewhere that cognition is accomplished
very well through effort, and the ceasing of effort is accomplished due to the ceasing
of cognition. But due to the ceasing of cognition as an effect, effort ceases as an
effect and is not eternal. And if effort is eternal, cognition takes place eternally and
is not non-eternal, because through this [cognition] no grasping of an object of
this [effort] is possible.49

The difficulty with Udayana’s concept of eternity is that if one act is eternal, all
the others are eternal too. Conversely as well, if one act is non-eternal, all others
are non-eternal. If these acts are non-eternal, cognition is produced in dependence
on senses and objects, but if they are eternal, no effect can be produced. Therefore,
independence from an object is tenable only if all three are eternal. So again the
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question arises: How, then, is the creation of a non-eternal pot possible? And here is
where the next question arises. If God starts to create, He must be related to the bad
and good karma (adṛṣṭa) of the souls. How is this possible, if everything remains
in eternity? He must give a reason for the universe coming into being. The eternity
of cognition, will, and effort thus stand in clear contradiction to God’s guiding the
creation of the universe, because the universe is dependent not only on time and
space, which are universal causes, but also, and especially, on the merits and demerits
of souls.
As a matter of fact, Udayana tries to give a solution when he says that effort, but not
cognition, involves an inclination toward an object (viṣayapravaṇaḥ). An effort that
is not directed toward a determinate object is inconceivable. Hence, even though the
effort of God is eternal, it requires cognition, also eternal like God Himself, in order for
His effort to be inclined toward a determinate object.
I will now consider Veṅkaṭanāṭha’s view of dynamic eternity, whereby he develops a
concept of creation based on completely different presuppositions—in particular, the
concept of the beginningless transformation of substance.
Veṅkaṭanāṭha begins his refutation of Udayana by pointing out that cognition,
which is considered necessary for an effort, needs senses and a physical body. This is
why, for Udayana, the acceptance of karma is inevitable, because it is only karma that
causes a body. This may be countered—as we now know—with the argument that since
God’s cognition is eternal and capable of comprehending everything, it is therefore not
dependent on sense faculties. Against this, Veṅkaṭanātha asks for a reason—based on
inference and common experience—to believe that eternal cognition is present in the
agent. With respect to an agent, we can refer only to our common experience, and here
we only find cognitions that are non-permanent. The Naiyāyika can only prove that
effort is required for an agent who causes an effect, but it cannot be established that this
agent possesses eternal and uncaused knowledge.
How does Veṅkaṭanātha respond to Udayana’s view as outlined above? For this,
we find an example in verses 17 and 18 of the third chapter (nāyakasara) of the
Tattvamuktākalāpa (TMK) and also in the Īśvarapariccheda section of the later
Nyāyasiddhāñjana. In a dialogue with an opponent, Veṅkaṭanātha argues that God
cannot produce an effect without a body. His opponent holds the view that neither
the senses nor an object are necessary to produce an effect. Veṅkaṭanātha argues that
his opponent must accept an object of knowledge in order to avoid admitting an
unproduced contact (ajasaṃyoga) by which God is eternally connected to sentient and
insentient beings. The objection and response in verse 3.17 are as follows:

[Objection:] What is necessary [for the origin] of an effect, this should here be
enough; wherefore [do we need] something else?
[Response:] This is not the case, because the senses, etc. are necessary [for the
origin of an effect], even if there is, when knowledge, etc. arise, a restriction of the
object of knowledge.
[Objection:] Knowledge of the All-pervading [i.e., God] is eternal. It has no object,
which is restricted. Therefore something else is not necessary.
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 95

[Response:] This is not the case, because knowledge [is for you] non-eternal. How
else could you refute the unproduced contact?50

In his autocommentary on this verse, the Sarvārthasiddhi, Veṅkaṭanātha arrives at

the conclusion that the object of cognition is restricted by a causal complex. He argues
that different acts should be understood as states of a single divine knowledge. He
understands these acts as successive states that are dependent on each other without
being contradictory to one another. Veṅkaṭanātha’s description of the process starting
from a cognition conditioned by a causal complex and leading to an effort prompted
by the wish to act is thus exactly the opposite of Udayana’s. Veṅkaṭanātha justifies his
view by appealing to empirical evidence:

For an effort is restricted to an object (viṣayaniyamaḥ) due to the desire to create.

And this [desire to create] is at first [restricted] by cognition, which is caused by the
activity of getting something agreeable or avoiding something uncomfortable; and
the cognition has an object that is restricted by such a causal complex. How is it
possible that cognition has an object, if it is without a causal complex restricted by
an object? And what else is desired, if it has no object? And why should somebody,
who does not desire something, make an effort?51

Against the background of what has been said about the dharmabhūtajñāna and
its different states, one can say here that a divine act does not determine a subsequent
divine act. Each act as a state of the dharmabhūtajñāna is a kind of precondition for what
is given and what will follow. Veṅkaṭanātha’s opponent, in contrast, holds that anything
preceding God’s act of dharmabhūtajñāna would contradict His eternity. In response
to his opponent, Veṅkaṭanātha explains that accepting an object whose cognition is
uncaused is useless. His opponent, in accordance with his strict concept of eternity,
claims that an eternal being cannot be limited by either a causal complex or an object.
Again we see two directly conflicting concepts of eternity. According to Udayana,
only eternal cognition is possible. According to Veṅkaṭanātha, the beginninglessness
of the flowing along (anādipravāha) of different states of an eternal substance—in
this case, God’s knowledge—is necessary. Also in verse TMK 3.18, which is directed
against Udayana, Veṅkaṭanātha demonstrates that effort can have an object and refutes
the view that effort is necessarily independent. Only effort is capable of producing
an effect. In this case, effort will not become a cognition, even if the effort is directed
toward an object:

Why do you accept cognition and will? To be restricted to an object, both are
accepted, but effort does not need both [i.e., icchā/dhī]. Cognition [of God] should
be accepted as without a cause. In the same manner you should accept that effort,
by its very nature, has an object.
If it is said that effort, by its very nature, has an object, then it would be
cognition.
Where it is observed, let it be, because cognition does not cause an effort, which
is eternal. How is it possible for cognition to regulate effort?52
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Veṅkaṭanātha elaborates on the topic of this verse 3.18 of TMK in his later work
Nyāyasiddhāñjana (NSi 326, 2–328, 1), where he explains that effort can itself grasp
an object, but the dependency does not relativize the effort. Without being limited
by adṛṣṭa, undesirable consequences occur, which Veṅkaṭanātha again enumerates
when he says that without any limitation all effects would happen simultaneously,
because God’s eternal cognition, His will, and His effort would always have the totality
of objects as their content. God’s basic qualifying knowledge, which also contains
happiness and anger about every individual soul, cannot itself be connected to the
individual karma of each soul. Therefore all souls would be released simultaneously
without effort, because God could neither reward nor punish. At least no effect of
God’s qualifying knowledge would exist. But an effect would be necessary to create/
manifest the world again.

2.9 Conclusion

Even prior to Veṅkaṭanātha, philosophers in the tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta

conceived the individual self as a living being in the world―an agent (kartṛ) as well
as an enjoyer (bhoktṛ) and a knower (jñātṛ). During its stay in saṃsāra, the individual
self is caught in a saṃsāric body and, after release, it resides in eternal Vaikuṇṭha in
a divine body. The individual self, which is accepted as being eternal, not only lives
in the painful world from which it seeks liberation, but also in a world of manifold
changing material objects (acit) together with other selves (cit). This idea was taken
up by Veṅkaṭanātha, who strove to harmonize the opposition between the eternality
of the individual self, on the one hand, and the changeful nature of worldly objects, on
the other.
As we have seen, Veṅkaṭanātha not only tries to relate the eternal being of the
self to temporality by explaining how diachronic experiences are possible, but
also takes the plurality of individual selves into account and considers how they
are able to communicate with each other in daily life. To demonstrate this, I have
pointed out how Veṅkaṭanātha makes use of the key concepts of substance (dravya)
and ­state/quality (avasthā/dharma) in order to prepare the way for a proper
understanding of the individual self (jīvātman) and its qualifying knowledge
(dharmabhūtajñāna). This chapter has not only situated the topic of the individual
self in a broader context within Veṅkaṭanātha’s work, but has also provided some
insight into a few of his fundamental ontological presuppositions—above all, his
explanation of the relation between an eternal being, represented by the concept of
substance (dravya), and its transformation (pariṇāma), represented by a series of
states (avasthāsantāna).
As I have shown, Veṅkaṭanātha elaborated on a crucial question that had been
the object of debate in several philosophical schools before him, the question
of whether the self can be established independently—that is, by itself/for itself
(svatas/svasya)—while also being referred to across time and related to objects in
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 97

the world and to other selves. The apparent opposition between an eternal being and
its transformation raises the difficulty of proving that a self-illuminating self, which
Veṅkaṭanātha frequently characterizes as appearing or illuminating exclusively for
itself (taṉṉakku tāṉ toṉṟum/svasmai svayamprakāśa), can nevertheless be relational,
i.e., form a relational unity like body and soul (śarīraśarīribhāva). Referring,
by remembering, to knowledge that was gained in the past is only one example
through which he explains the relation between the individual self ’s eternality on
the one hand, and its ability to experience on the other. Based on these arguments,
Veṅkaṭanātha also illuminates how the Highest Self (God) is related to the world and
how He repeatedly starts His creation/manifestation through a sequence of states of
His qualifying knowledge.

Abbreviations
NKus Nyāyakusumāñjali, Udayana (1957), The Nyāya Kusumāñjali of Śrī
Udayanāchārya with Four Commentaries, Kāśi Sanskrit Series 30, ed. Sri
Padmaprasāda Upādhyāya and Sri Dhuṇḍirāja Śāstri, Varanasi: Chowkhamba
Sanskrit Series Office.
NSi Nyāyasiddhāñjana, Veṅkaṭanātha (1976), Veṅkaṭanāthārya Vedāntadeśika
viracitaṃ Nyāyasiddhāñjanam, ed. Śrīnivāsatātācarya, Madras:
Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā.
NyKul Nyāyakuliśa, Ātreya Rāmānuja (1938), Nyāyakuliśa or the Lightning-shaft of
Reason by Ātreya Rāmānuja, Philosophy Series, ed. R. Ramanujachari and
K. Srinivasacharya, Annamalai: Annamalai University.
NyP Nyāyapariśuddhi, Veṅkaṭanātha (1978), Nyāyapariśuddhi by Sri Vedantadesika
with a new commentary, ed. Uttamūr Śrīvātsya Vīrarāghavācārya, Madras:
Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā.
PMBh Paramatabhaṅga, Veṅkaṭanātha (1979), Paramatabhaṅgaḥ
(vaibhāṣikabhaṅgādhikārāntaḥ prathamo bhāgaḥ); with the commentary of
Vātsya Śrīnārāyaṇa, Madras: Rathnam Press.
RTS Rahasyatrayasāra, Veṅkaṭanātha (2000), Śrīmadrahasyatrayasāra, ed.
Ramadesikacaryar Swami, Srirangam: Sri Marutthy Laser Printers.
ŚDū Śatadūṣaṇī, Veṅkaṭanātha (1940), Veṅkaṭanātha, Śatadūṣaṇī, ed.
Aṇṇaṅgarāchārya. Conjeevaram: Śrīmadvedāntadeśikagranthamālā.
Śrībh Śrībhāṣya, Rāmānuja (1967), Bādarāyaṇapraṇīta-Brahmasūtrākhyaśārīrakamīmā-
ṃsābhāsyaṃ Rāmānujaviracitaṃ Śrībhāṣyam Sudarśanasūriviracita-
Śrutaprakāśikākhyavyākhyāsamudbhāṣitam, 2 vols. [each volume with separate
pagination: I contains Śrībhāṣya 1.1 to 1.2; II contains 1.3 to 4.4)], Madras:
Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā.
TMK/ Tattvamuktākalāpa, Veṅkaṭanātha (1973), Srimad Vedanta Desika’s
SAS Tattvamuktakalapa and Sarvartha Siddhi with Sanskrit Commentaries, ed.
Uttamūr Śrīvātsya Vīrarāghavācārya, Madras: Ubhayavedāntagranthamālā.
TṬ Tattvaṭīkā, Veṅkaṭanātha (1941), ed. Śrīkāñcī Prativādi-bhayaṅkaraḥ
Aṇṇaṅgarācāryaḥ, Conjeevaram: Śrīmadvedāntadeśikagranthamālā.
98 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Notes
1 It should be pointed out that the term “Viśiṣṭādvaita” has to be translated as “the
nonduality of qualified/differentiated Brahman” and not, as is still frequently the
case, as “qualified monism.” Moreover, the more general rendering of Viśiṣṭādvaita as
“Panentheism” is inappropriate (cf. Lipner 1986: 142).
2 Numerous scholars have rightly contrasted the Viśiṣṭādvaita “doctrine of creation”
with the Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. See, for instance, Bartley (2002: 74)
and Barua (2009: 97). Lipner (1986: 83) likewise speaks of the “existential ‘umbilical
cord’ between the originative cause (Brahman) and the finite,” which is incompatible
with Christian creatio ex nihilo.
3 Whatever is understood as language in this tradition is represented as Vedic
language, i.e., the Veda as the totality of all words (vedākhyaḥ śabdarāśiḥ). As such,
the Veda is not a separate reality alongside what exists as sentient (cit) and non-
sentient (acit) entities, but is inseparably connected to them. Thus, only that which is
expressed in the language of the Veda, and nothing beyond that, is accepted as having
existence. For this tradition, the eternity of the Veda, with its beginninglessly existing
words, sentences, etc., demonstrates that Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa is the supreme God. The
ultimate evidence for the existence of God is the insight that the unchangeability of
Vedic words and sentences is as eternal as God Himself; this then also governs the
important yet paradoxical assertion that God, who promulgates the Veda, is Himself
promulgated in the Veda. Not only does the Veda presuppose an imperishable being
with which God is inseparably connected, this is also recognized with the help of the
Veda and not by any other means of knowledge.
4 Cf. Lipner (1986: 39).
5 The following is based on Veṅkaṭanātha’s works written in both Sanskrit and
Maṇipravāḷa. Roughly the development of the theistic tradition of Viśiṣṭādvaita
Vedānta and especially Veṅkaṭanātha’s work was influenced from several directions.
Three of the most important textual influences were the Nālāyirat Tivviyappirapantam,
the “Four-Thousand Divine Compositions” of the Śrīvaiṣṇava canon, composed
by twelve Āḻvārs (sixth–ninth centuries); the Viṣṇupurāṇa and the Pāñcarātra
tradition; and above all, the tradition of the Upaniṣads. Topics in the Nālāyirat
Tivvyappirapantam were read from the perspective of Rāmānuja’s philosophy. The
thinker Parāśarabhaṭṭa wrote in both Sanskrit and Maṇipravāḷa, but there were
also a series of commentaries on the Tiruvāymoḻi written only in Maṇipravāḷa by a
succession of two teachers and their disciples (Nañcīyar, Nampiḷḷai, Vaṭakkuttiruvīti
Piḷḷai, Periyavāccāṉ Piḷḷai). Thus, there were two important strands in the tradition,
one writing in Sanskrit, the other, in Maṇipravāḷa. Certain representatives of the
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta wrote in Sanskrit, examining topics that had been discussed by
Rāmānuja. Since both strands were important, he not only used Sanskrit when arguing
with other traditions and expounding his own doctrines, but he also composed
works in Maṇipravāḷa. Here I examine two of Veṅkaṭanātha’s most famous works, the
Paramatabhaṅga (Refutation of Doctrines of Other Schools) and the Rahasyatrayasāra
(The Essence of the Three Secrets). The three secrets refer to the three mantras, i.e., the
Tirumantra, the Dvayamantra, and the Caramaśloka (Bhagavad-Gītā 18.66).
6 See, for example, Lipner (1986: 49–62) (chapter on “The essential self ”); (1986:
63–79) (chapter on “The contingent self ”). See also Bartley (2002: 7–68) (chapter on
“Rāmānuja on Realistic Metaphysics and Epistemology”) and Oberhammer (2008).
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 99

7 An exception is Mumme (1988: 38–69) (chapter on “The Nature of Soul”).

8 It should be pointed out that some Viśiṣṭādvaitins after Rāmānuja differed from
Veṅkaṭanātha in their understanding of qualifying knowledge (dharmabhūtajñāna).
Oberhammer (2018: 486–98), for instance, discusses Meghanādārisūri’s different
understanding of dharmabhūtajñāna.
9 The jīvātman is a major topic in Veṅkaṭanātha’s philosophical-theological and
polemical works: cf. the jīvapariccheda (Chapter 2), and the buddhipariccheda
(Chapter 5) of the Nyāyasiddhāñjana (NSi); the jīvasara (Chapter 2) and the
buddhisara (Chapter 4) of the Tattvamuktākalāpa (TMK) with the Sarvārthasiddhi
(SAS); the jīvatattvādhikāra (Chapter 2) of the Paramatabhaṅga (PMBh);
Śatadūṣaṇī (ŚDū), especially the vādas 20–27, which deal with his own view of the
individual self in opposition to the Advaita Vedāntic doctrine of consciousness;
several passages in the Rahasyatrayasāra (RTS). I focus here only on Chapters 3
(pradhānapratitantrādhikāra) and 5 (tattvatrayacintanādhikāra).
10 NyKul 143, 8–9: “The cause-substance itself, having assumed another state, is the
effect-substance.” kāraṇadravyam evāvasthāntarāpannaṃ kāryadravyam.
11 Cf. NyKul, chapter on the satkāryavāda, 147, 3ff.
12 NSi 7, 2: upādānaṃ dravyam. avasthāśraya upādānam.
13 Cf. the same expression in NyP 312–13 (Chapter 5, first part of the prameyādhyāya):
avasthāntarayogitvam eva hy upādānatvam; tad eva hi dravyalakṣaṇam. tathāpi na
guṇatvahāniḥ, apṛthaksiddhaviśeṣaṇatvātiriktaguṇatvādarśanāt.
14 Cf. NSi 357, 5–6; SAS to TMK V 2, p. 681, 8; 705, 8; ŚDū 203, 15 (vāda 53). But see
also the same meaning in his Maṇipravāḷa work RTS (Chapter 5) 106, 5: ivvaḷavu
avasthāntarāpatti vikāridravyattukku virudham aṉṟu.
15 I prefer to translate āgantuka, which literally means “accidental,” as “temporally
limited” because of the alternating of states, which also includes a time aspect such as
the earlier state, later state, etc.
16 Cf. NSi 357, 6–358, 2. Here, Veṅkaṭanātha describes the sequence of states of a
material cause as follows: “In particular, in regard to the essence (-svarūpāpekṣayā),
which is characterized by each following state (uttarottarāvasthā), this entity, which
is qualified by an earlier state (pūrvabhāvyavasthā-) and restricted by a following
(state), is the material cause/base. In the same way, regarding the clay-substance
(-mṛddravya-), which is characterized in each case by the subsequent state of
potness, this substance which is (earlier) characterized by the state of being
a lump (of clay) is (the material cause).” viśeṣatas tūttarottarāvasthāviśiṣṭasvarūpāp-
ekṣayā tadanugataniyatapūrvabhāvyavasthāviśiṣṭaṃ tad eva vastūpādānam, yathā
ghaṭatvāvasthāviśiṣṭamṛddravyāpekṣayā piṇḍatvāvasthāviśiṣṭaṃ tad eva dravyam.
17 Rāmānuja’s and Veṅkaṭanātha’s understanding of the effect (kārya) as a transformation
into another state is not equivalent to the Sāṅkhyan satkāryavāda. The difference
consists in the ontological status of the effect in Viśiṣṭādvaita thought: before an effect
arises, i.e., another state of the substance becomes manifest, it is in a subtle state
(sūkṣmāvasthā), which means not completely nonexistent; it is not as real as the effect,
which is—according to the Sāṅkhya view—identical with its cause. The decisive point
is that nonbeing is still being for Veṅkaṭanātha; he explains this with bhāvāntarābhāva;
cf. NyP 300, 12: “According to our view, non-being, by contrast, has the nature of
another being.” abhāvas tv asmanmate bhāvāntarātmā. More information on this issue
can be found in Ātreyarāmānuja’s NyKul 143–52, the eighth chapter on satkāryavāda.
18 Cf. the definition in Sudarśanasūri on Śrībh 1.1.1; Śrībh I 137.21–22: “What is defined
as the non-cognition of something that is capable of being known is the cognition
100 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

of another state which has the form of being. In particular the cognition of being a
lump etc. is the non-cognition of the pot which is capable of being known [as a later
state of being a lump].” yogyānupalabdhir nāma bhāvarūpāvasthāntaropalabdhiḥ.
piṇḍatvādyupalabdhir eva hi ghaṭasya yogyānupalabdhiḥ.
19 The reader should have in mind that the relation between cognition and qualifying
knowledge corresponds to the relation of state and basic substance. There is always
a flow of cognitions like the previously mentioned avasthāsantāna, while the basic
substance is eternal; nevertheless, just as one says that Brahman transforms, even
qualifying knowledge transforms from one state, i.e., cognition, into another.
20 The literal translation of dharmabhūtajñāna is “knowledge as (or which functions as)
a property.” The term is often translated as “attributive knowledge/consciousness.”
Nevertheless, I choose to translate dharmabhūtajñāna as “qualifying knowledge,” i.e.,
knowledge that qualifies something else—in this case, the self (ātman), i.e., to whom
one refers by the word “I” (ahamartha).
21 For an overview of Veṅkaṭanātha’s theory of the individual self and its qualifying
knowledge, see Chari ([1988] 2004: 140–57) (Chapter 4, “The Theory of Knowledge”)
and Chari ([1988] 2004: 187–249) (Chapter 6, “The Doctrine of Jīva”).
22 The formal term dharmin denotes in this context the individual or God’s self; it is
also defined as dharmibhūtajñāna. Of course, dharmin can also refer to every base for
properties/states (dharma/avasthā).
23 jīveśvararūparāṉa ātmākkaḷ ellāruṭaiyavum svarūpam svasmai svayaṃprakāśam.
it dharmisvarūpaprakāśattukkup pattarukku muḷpaṭa orukālattilum
saṃkocavikāsaṅkaḷ illai.
24 jīveśvararūpamāṉa ātmavarkkattukku ellām potuvāṉa lakṣaṇam cetanatvamum
pratyaktvamum. cetanatvam āvatu jñānāśrayam ākai. pratyaktvam āvatu taṉakkut
tāṉ tōṟṟukai. appotu dharmabhūtajñānanirapekṣam āka nāṉ eṉṟu toṟṟum. See also
the sentence in NSi (Chapter 2) 199, 1: aham iti pratyaktvaikatvaviśiṣṭatayā tu
svaprakāśatā sarvadā.
25 The enumeration of the essential qualities of the jīva differs in Veṅkaṭanātha’s works.
RTS (Chapter 5) 98, 16 mentions jñānatvam, ānandatvam, amalatvam, aṇutvam; but
PMBh (Chapter 2) 31, 3 only enumerates ādheyatva-vidheyatva-śeṣatva-aṇutva.
26 Raju (1964: 339–400) points out that prior to Veṅkaṭanātha, Ātreyarāmānuja
expressed clearly in his NyKul 74, 11–12 that there is no relation between the self and
empirical reality: prakāśaḥ sarvabhāvānāṃ saṃbandho vyavahārakṛn naiśa svātmani
tatkartum prakāśāntaram īkṣate. “The revealing of all objects is a relation due to
empirical activity. But such an activity or relation of revealing cannot be said to hold
in the case of the self. No other illumination (i.e., no revealing of this self-revealing of
the ātman) is needed.” (I quote Raju’s translation, cf. Raju 1964: 404.)
27 PMBh (Chapter 2) 57, 6–11: ātmā pratyagrūpaṉ eṉṟu adhyātmanirūpakar
ellārum icaikaiyālum, ahamartham allātataṟku pratyaktvaṃ kūṭāmaiyālum,
ahaṅkāratyāgavacanaṃ dehātmabhrama-garvādiparityāgaparamākaiyālum,
tattvaviśeṣattil ahaṅkāraśabdam ahamartham allātatilē ahambuddhiyai
janippikakaiyālē; prayuktam ākiṟatākaiyālum mamedaṃ eṉṟu idaṅkāragocaramāṉa
śarīrattiṟ kāṭṭil ahambuddhiyālē ātmavaipa pirikkaiyālum ahamarthamē ātmā.
28 We find the same idea also in his polemical work Śatadūṣaṇī (vāda 23), where
the same concept is mentioned: “Qualifying knowledge, even if it is eternal, is
divided into contracted and expanding knowledge with regard to the individual
objects according to its respective karma. For this reason, various acts and
their respective involvements are correct, by nature depending on the different
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 101

transformations that likewise are subject to karma.” ŚDū 118, 11–13: nityāpi saṃvit
tattatkarmānurūpaṃ teṣu teṣu viṣayeṣu saṃkocaṃ vikāsaṃ ca bhajate. tataś ca
karmānurūpatattadviṣayīkaraṇavikāraviśeṣāpekṣayā svarūpata eva kriyābhedaḥ
pratiniyataviṣayatā ca yujyate.
29 RTS (Chapter 5) 102, 20: it tarmapūtajñānaṃ viṣayaprakāśatacaiyilē svācrayattukku
svayam prakācamāy irukkum. itu īcvaraṉukkum, nityarukkum nityavibhuvāyirukkum.
30 RTS (Chapter 5) 103, 1–3: maṟṟuḷḷōrukku samsārāvastaiyil karmānurūpam āka
bahuvidhasaṅkocavikāsavattāy. muktāvasthaiyilē ekavikāsattālē piṉpu yāvatkālaṃ
vibhuvāyirukkum.
31 sarvātmākkaḷuṭaiyavum dharmabhūtajñānaṃ viṣayaprakāśanavēḷaiyilē
svāśrayattukku svayaṃprakāśam āyirukkum. jñānatvamum svayaṃprakāśatvamum
dharmadharmikaḷukku sādhāraṇam. dharmabhūtajñānattukku viṣayitvam ēṟṟam.
dharmiyāṉa ātmasvarūpattukkup pratyaktvam ēṟṟam. jñānatvam āvatu kasya
cit prakāśatvam atāvatu taṉṉuṭaiyav ākavum ām vēṟ oṉṟiṉuṭaiyavākavumām
ētēṉum oṉṟiṉuṭaiya vyavahārānuguṇyattaip paṇṇukai. svayaṃprakāśatvam
āvatu taṉṉai viṣayīkarippatoru jñānāntarattāḷ apekṣayaṟat tāṉē prakācikkai.
dharmabhūtajñānattukku viṣayitvam āvatu taṉṉaiy oḻinta toṉṟaik kāṭṭukai.
ātmākkaḷukkup pratyaktvam āvatu svasmai bhāsamānatvam. atāvatu ta
prakācattukku tāṉ phaliyāy irukkai eṉṟapaṭi.
32 In the beginning of Chapter 5 of the NSi 399, 2–3 about the dharmabhūtajñāna,
Veṅkaṭanātha explains the “double nature” of the dharmabhūtajñāna as
sakarmakāvabhāsatvam, “its shining/becoming manifest while being characterized
by an object,” and as sakartṛkāvabhāsatvam, “shining/becoming manifest while
having an agent (i.e., the self).”
33 For the meaning of arthaprakāśa, see Śrībh II 189.1–2: prakāśo hi nāma svasya
parasya ca vyavahārayogyatām āpādayan vastuviśeṣaḥ.
34 cilar jñānaviṣayattukku svayaṃprakāśatvam kūṭāteṉparkaḷ. jñānaviṣayam āṉālum
jñānāntaranirapekṣam ākavum prakāśikkaiyālē svayaṃprakāśaṉ eṉṉalām. itu
dharmabhūtajñānattukkum tulyam. jñānaviṣayam allāta toṉṟai oru pramāṇattālēyum
svayaṃprakāśam eṉṟu sādhikkav oṇṇātu. dharmi taṉakkut tāṉ tōṟṟum
dharmabhūtajñānaṃ viṣayaprakāśakālattilē svāśrayattukku tāṉē tōṟṟum.
35 This concept of knowing other knowledge of one’s own is explained in NSi 401, 1–3 in
the following two verses (102; 103): svadhīviśeṣaṃ sarvajño ’py adhyakṣayati vā na vā;
ādye siddhā svatas siddhiḥ anyatrāsarvaveditā (102). jñānaṃ astīti vijñānaṃ svātmānaṃ
sādhayen na vā; pūrvatra svaprakāśatvaṃ sarvāsiddhir ato’nyathā (103). This is Mikami’s
unpublished translation (Mikami n.d.: 255): “Can an omniscient [person] perceive even
his own particular knowledge or not? In the former case, [his] self-manifestedness is
established. In the latter, he would not be omniscient. Is knowledge that knowledge
exists concerned with [the knowledge] itself or not? In the former case, [knowledge] is
self-luminous. In the latter, everything could not be established consequently.”
36 it tarma tarmikaḷiraṇṭum svayaṃprakāśam āyiruntālum
nityatvādidharmaviśeṣaviśiṣṭarūpankaḷālē jñānāntaravedyankaḷum ām. Cf. also
this inner/outer perspective for the individual self in NSi 198, 1–2: svasya ca asya
svayamprakāśatvam. parasya tu tajjñānaviṣayatayaiva prakāśate. svasyāpi
pramāṇāntarāvaseyāṇutvaśeṣatvaniyāmyatvanityatvādiviśiṣṭarūpeṇa
jñānaviṣayatvam asty eva.
37 jñānatvaṃ vakti puṃsaḥ śrutir iha na punar buddhimātrasya puṃstvaṃ
pratyakṣādeḥ prakopād anugatakathane jñānaṃ arthaprakāśaḥ
svasyaivātmā tu siddhiṃ matir anubhavati svānyayos siddhibhāvaṃ
102 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

38 ātmā svenaiva sidhyaty aham iti nigamair yat svayaṃjyotir uktaḥ

svāpe ’py asya svasiddhāv aśayiṣi sukham ity akṣatā pratyabhijñā
cetaś cānyānapekṣaṃ matiṣu na hi bhavet kiṃ ca vedāntadṛṣṭyā
jñānatvād eṣa dhīvat svaviṣayadhiṣaṇānirvyapekṣasvasiddhiḥ.
39 This is clear from the following passage of his ŚDū 122, 29–123, 3 (vāda 26): “Even
in the case of redemption, the continuity of the referent of ‘I’ (ahamarthānuvṛttiḥ)
will be observed by virtue of the authoritative tradition (śrutivaśād) … And if the
[self], during redemption, which is the object of the word ‘I,’ were no longer to exist,
[then] there would be no one to study the instructions on release (mokṣaśāstra).
For a sane person does nothing to kill himself. And for the [self], which is the
referent of the word ‘I,’ you assume complete disappearance (atyantavināśo) in
the process of redemption. If one were to argue [from your point of view] that
[one] acts, because one does not distinguish between knowledge and self, then one
would [also] assume, in the case of his own destruction, the disappearance of the
principle of cognition and would certainly not act by thinking: ‘[Redemption is my]
own destruction (svavināśa).’” muktāv apy ahamarthānuvṛttiḥ prāg eva śrutivaśād
darśitā. … yadi ca mokṣe ’hamartho na syāt mokṣaśāstrasyādhikāryabhāvaḥ syāt. na
hi svavadhāya svayam eva buddhipūrvakārī pravartate. ahamarthasya cātyantavināśo
mokse bhavadbhir iṣyate. saṃvidātmanaḥ svasya ca vivekāgrahāt pravartate iti cet,
tarhi svavināśe saṃvido vināśam abhimanyeta. sa ca svavināśa eveti manyamāno na
pravartetaiva.
40 ŚDū 121, 26: suṣuptau tāvad ahamarthānanuvṛttau punaḥ
pratisandhānānupapattiprasaṅgaḥ.
41 ŚDū 121, 29–122.2 (vāda 26): pūrvottaravartyahamarthapratisandhānabalād eva
madhye ’pi tatkalpanāt. pūrvottarakālāvacchinnamadhyakālakalpanenāsvāpsam
itīdānīṃtanakālānusandhānavad idānīm atītakālāvacchinnāhamarthasyāpi
prakāśopapatteḥ, madhye cāhamarthābhāve saṃskārādhārābhāvāt
pratisandhānābhāvaprasaṅgāc ca.
42 ŚDū 113, 9–11 (vāda 21): nanu na tāvat saṃvidā svaprāgabhāvagrahaḥ,
svaprāgabhāvasthitau saṃvidanutpattyā grāhakābhāvāt. tadapakrame tu
viṣayābhāvād eva tadgrahaṇāyogāt. nāpi saṃvidantareṇa tadgrahaḥ,
niṣpratiyogikābhāvagrahaṇāyogāt pratiyoginyāś ca saṃvidas svatas siddhāyās
saṃvidantaraviṣayatvāyogād iti.
43 ŚDū 113, 11–13 (vāda 21): naivam, svataḥ parataś ca tadgrahopapatteḥ. svatas tāvad
etāvantaṃ kālaṃ na kiṃ cid aham ajñāsiṣam iti yo ’yaṃ pratyayaḥ, sa hi sāmānyataḥ
pūrvakālavartinaṃ svātmābhāvam api gṛhṇāti. na cātītasya prāgabhāvasya kathaṃ
viṣayīkāra iti vācyam, asmadādipratyakṣajñānavyatiriktajñāneṣu trikālavartinām api
grahaṇāt.
44 ŚDū 113, 15–17 (vāda 21): gṛhyamāṇavaiparītyābhāva eva hi prāmāṇyam,
na punar grāhyasya grahaṇasamakālatvam. anyathā
bhavanmatenānirvacanīyarajatasamakālavartinyā rajatabhrānteḥ
prāmāṇyaprasaṅgāt. saṃvitprāgabhāvagrāhakaṃ kim idaṃ pramāṇam iti cet,
yad ghaṭādyabhāvagrāhakaṃ tad eva.
45 ŚDū 113, 20–114, 1 (vāda 21): na ca suṣuptyādaya eva saṃskārocchedakāḥ,
tathā sati pūrvadinādyanubhūtasyāsmaraṇaprasaṅgāt … viṣayāśrayollekhād
vaiśadye tatsmṛtir iti cet, tad api na, vaiśadyam antareṇāpy
andhakārādyanubhūtavastumātrādiṣu smṛtidarśanāt. tad evaṃ svatas
tatprāgabhāvagraha upapāditaḥ. parato ’pi tatprāgabhāvagrahaḥ saṃvido
vedyatvasamarthanād eva siddhaḥ.
 Soul and Qualifying Knowledge 103

46 ŚDū 114, 2–114, 3 (vāda 21): tad evaṃ svasmin vartamānasya

bhaviṣyatsaṃvitprāgabhāvasya grahaṇaṃ yogyānupalabdhyā jāyate, atītasya tu
smaraṇānumānādinā. paragatasyāpy anumānādinaiva. ataḥ svataḥ parato ’pi siddhaḥ
saṃvidaḥ prāgabhāvaḥ.
47 Cf. RTS (chapter 3) 52, 12–13: ippaṭi sarva vastuvum īśvarasvarūpāśritamumāy
īśvarecchādhīnamum āyirukkum. “All entities are based on the essence of God and
depend also on the will of God.”
48 Translation is quoted from Chemparathy (1972: 173): NKus 459, 1–2: na ca tad
eva jñānaṃ kālabhedenāpramāṇam, anapekṣasyāparāvṛtteḥ, tathāpi vā aprāmāṇye
’tiprasaṅgād iti.
49 NKus 292, 5–293, 2: na ca prayatna ātmalābhārtham eva matim apekṣate,
viṣayalābhārtham apy apekṣaṇāt. tataḥ prayatnād buddhiḥ tannivṛtteś ca
prayatnanivṛttiḥ siddhyaty eveti vistṛtam anyatra. kāryabuddhinivṛttyā tu kārya eva
prayatno nivartate, na nityaḥ. nitye ca prayatne nityaiva buddhiḥ pravartate, nānityā.
na hi tayā tasya viṣayalābhasaṃbhavaḥ.
50 TMK 3.17 (359, 16–360, 1):
yat kāryasyopayuktaṃ tad iha bhavatu naḥ kiṃ pareṇeti cen na,
jñānāder udbhave tadviṣayaniyamane ’py arthanād indriyādeḥ.
nityaṃ jñānaṃ vibhos. tan na niyataviṣayaṃ. tena nānyārthanaṃ cen.
nānityasyaiva dṛṣṭeḥ. tava katham ajasaṃyogabhaṅgo ’nyathā syāt.
51 SAS (360, 6–8) zu TMK 3.17: prayatnasya viṣayaniyamaś cikīrṣayā; tasyāś ca
priyāpriyaprāptiparihāravyāpārakāraṇena tāvad buddhyā,
sā ca tattatsāmagrīniyataviṣayeti viṣayaniyame sthite sāmagrīśūnyaṃ jñānaṃ kathaṃ
saviṣayam? nirviṣaye ca tasmin kiṃ cikīrṣeta? acikīrṣuś ca kutaḥ prayateta?
52 TMK 3.18: kiṃ vā dhīcche, gṛhīte viṣayaniyataye, te hi yatno ’tra necchen. nirhetus
tatprameṣṭā bhavatu viṣayavān eṣa. tadvat svatas te prokte yatne svabhāvād viṣayavati
sa dhīḥ syād itīdaṃ kva dṛṣṭaṃ yad vā dhīs taṃ hi nityaṃ na tu janayati te sā kathaṃ
tanniyantrī?

References
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of Time and Embodiment in St. Augustine and Rāmānuja, Religions and Discourse 45,
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Chari, S.M. Srinivasa ([1988] 2004), Fundamentals of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta: A Study Based
on Vedānta Deśika’s Tattva-muktā-Kalāpa, Delhi: Motilal.
Chemparathy, George (1972), An Indian Rational Theology: Introduction to Udayana’s
Nyāyakusumāñjali, Vienna: De Nobili Research Library.
Lipner, Julius (1986), The Face of Truth: A Study in Meaning and Metaphysics in the
Vedāntic Theology of Rāmānuja, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Mikami, Toshihiro (unpublished), Nyāyasiddhāñjana of Vedāntadeśika. An Annotated
Translation, University of Tokyo.
Mumme, Patricia Y. (1988), The Śrī Vaiṣṇava Theological Dispute: Maṇavālamāmuni and
Vedānta Deśika, Madras: New Era Publications.
Oberhammer, Gerhard (2008), Der Ātmā als Subjekt in der Theologie Rāmānujas.
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in Gerhard Oberhammer and Marcus Schmücker, eds., Die Relationalität des Subjektes
im Kontext der Religionshermeneutik. Arbeitsdokumentation eines Symposiums.
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 3

Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta: An Analytic Defense

of Realism in Mādhva Vedānta
Michael Williams

This chapter is primarily about the ideas of the Mādhva philosopher Vyāsatīrtha.
I will give a general overview of the Mādhva tradition of Vedānta, before examining
Vyāsatīrtha’s defense of realism in his Nyāyāmṛta.

3.1 An Overview of Mādhva Vedānta

This chapter focuses on the thought of a Vedānta theologian named Vyāsatīrtha who
lived in South India from 1460 to 1539. Vyāsatīrtha was one of the leading intellectuals
of the Mādhva tradition of Vedānta. The Mādhvas are also widely known as the
“Dvaita” (Dualist) school of Vedānta. The school was founded by a philosopher who
is usually known as “Madhva” or “Ānandatīrtha.” According to our best dates, Madhva
lived from 1238 to 1317.1 He was born into a Brahmin family on the west coast of
South India near a town called Udupi. As a teenager, Madhva renounced the world and
began training as a monk in a local monastery.
Madhva’s leading biography, “The Conquest of Madhva” (the Madhvavijaya), tells
us that he was initially trained in Advaita Vedānta. However, the young philosopher
naturally rebelled against this school’s ideas and began to develop an alternative
system of theistic realism centered on the worship of the Vedic god Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa.
Madhva debated fiercely with his teacher, Acyutaprajña, about some of the classic
works of Advaita philosophy. He eventually won out and converted his teacher to his
views. Madhva is considered by tradition to have been taught in the Himalayas by
the compiler of the Vedas, Veda-Vyāsa himself. After a tour of North India, Madhva
began to disseminate his commentaries on the Brahmasūtra and the Bhagavad-Gītā
and continued to develop his own system. His works draw extensively not only on the
Vedic corpus, but on the Sanskrit epics, the Purāṇas, and the Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās.
Madhva’s writings were strikingly original but also laconic and highly enigmatic.
His ideas came to be systematized by his fourteenth-century commentator Jayatīrtha, a
nobleman who converted to the Mādhva tradition. Later Mādhva intellectuals generally
accepted Jayatīrtha’s interpretation of Madhva as standard. Vyāsatīrtha himself was
106 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

born in a town called Bannur in modern-day Karnataka to a humble but pious Mādhva
family. Under his leadership, other philosophical traditions began to engage with them
seriously, and the Mādhvas became a central fixture of the Indian intellectual world.
Vyāsatīrtha composed over ten works in Sanskrit, and many devotional poems in the
Kannada vernacular.
The primary concern of Mādhva theologians is to prove that the Veda and its
ancillary texts have a single purpose, that is, to disclose the supremacy of Viṣṇu. For
the Mādhvas, Viṣṇu is a being of infinite auspicious qualities, who is simultaneously
free from all flaws. Viṣṇu takes on a variety of earthly descents (avatāras), including
Gopāla Kṛṣṇa, the Rāma of the Rāmāyaṇa, and the compiler of the Vedas, Veda-Vyāsa
himself. Unlike other devotional traditions such as the Viśiṣṭādvaitins and the Gauḍīya
Vaiṣṇavas, the Mādhvas consider these various avatāras to be on a par with one another.
The Advaitin philosophers that the young Madhva read had argued that the world
of our senses is an illusion mistakenly superimposed on Brahman. Madhva, in return,
argued that the world is in fact a real effect of Viṣṇu. The world is certainly inferior
to Viṣṇu in multiple ways, but it is nonetheless real; it can never be the object of the
radical sort of sublating judgment that the Advaitins believe will show us that it is an
illusion. Nevertheless, the world is dependent on Viṣṇu, whereas Viṣṇu is an entirely
independent (svatantra) being.
Advaitin philosophers had developed arguments to show that difference is
an illusion, but Madhva argued that it is, in fact, the very nature of things to be
differentiated from one another. He famously argued that there are five different types
of difference in reality: the difference between (1) God and the individual souls; (2)
God and insentient entities; (3) the various sentient beings themselves; (4) sentient
beings and insentient entities; and (5) the various insentient entities themselves.2
Like all the classical Hindu schools, the Mādhvas believe that the individual souls
are (at least in some cases) eligible to obtain liberation from transmigratory existence
(saṃsāra). A distinctive Mādhva doctrine that may have been influenced by Jaina
philosophy3 is that the inherent nature (svabhāva) of an individual soul determines its
ultimate fate. At several points in his works, Madhva says that there are three types of
selves: gods, men, and demons. All gods are eligible for liberation and demons reside
in hell, but the situation with human beings is more complex. The best of us are eligible
for liberation, while those of middling character can look forward to an eternity of
wandering in transmigratory existence. The worst among us can only look forward to
hell, and, like liberation, hell lasts forever. Mādhva thinkers hold that, even in the state
of liberation, the individual souls enjoy different amounts of bliss in accordance with
their essences.
This notion of eternal damnation and the idea that one’s ultimate salvific destiny
is determined by factors outside of one’s control have led to some comparisons with
Calvinism, although modern Mādhva philosophers have rejected these observations.4
Their distinctive position on the hierarchy of the individual souls became a major topic
of debate between the Mādhvas and the Viśiṣṭādvaitins in the sixteenth century.5 Like
the Viśiṣṭādvaitins, Madhva and his followers recommend devotion (bhakti) to Viṣṇu as
the only way to obtain liberation. When writing on the Sanskrit epic the Mahābhārata,
Madhva said that it is Viṣṇu who ultimately bestows liberation, but bhakti serves to
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 107

precipitate His grace. Madhva defined bhakti as “intense affection that is preceded by a
knowledge of the majesty [of God], and which supersedes anything else.”6
All Mādhva philosophers accept that human beings can gain knowledge of
the external world through three means of knowledge (pramāṇas): perception
(pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna), and verbal testimony (āgama).7 All the further
means of knowledge theorized by the other schools of Indian philosophy can be
reduced to one of these three. Knowledge itself involves a sort of correspondence
between cognitions and objects. A mental judgment is true or false according to
whether it is like/corresponds to its object.8 The Mādhvas are empiricists in that they
place emphasis on the importance of perception in grounding inference and scripture.
Vyāsatīrtha himself argues that perception is innately stronger than the other means of
knowledge, and that inference and scripture depend upon it; if inference and scripture
conflict with perception, then we must abandon those inferences as faulty and revise
our interpretations of scripture so that they are consistent with what perception
teaches us.9

3.2 Vyāsatīrtha and the Nyāyāmṛta

This chapter focuses on Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta (Nectar of Reasoning). The Nyāyāmṛta

is a debate text (vāda-grantha) that comprises a kind of sustained critical meditation
on a single part of scripture, namely Brahmasūtra 1.1.2: “From which [there is] the
origin and so on of this world” (janmādy asya yataḥ).10 According to Vyāsatīrtha
and the Mādhvas, the main thing that this sūtra tells us is that the world is a reality
that depends in various ways on Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. As a Mādhva, Vyāsatīrtha accepts
that the world is very much a real domain dependent on Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa, and this
obviously contradicts the Advaitin’s theory that the world is a mere illusion. The vast
text is dedicated to criticising the Advaitin’s thesis that the world is an illusion, although
Vyāsatīrtha turns his attention also to the Viśiṣṭādvaitins when discussing liberation.
The Nyāyāmṛta is a highly analytical vindication of Mādhva philosophical positions
against the arguments of the Advaita school. The intellectual quality of Vyāsatīrtha’s
work, as well as his deep engagement with the ideas of the Navya-Naiyāyika Gaṅgeśa
Upādhyāya, undoubtedly prompted philosophers who had previously ignored
the Mādhvas to engage with their ideas seriously. Leading Advaitin intellectuals
like Madhusūdana Sarasvatī and Appayya Dīkṣita became deeply interested in
Vyāsatīrtha’s work, and Madhusūdana wrote a line-by-line critical commentary on
the Nyāyāmṛta. The recent publication by members of the Mādhva tradition of two
previously unpublished commentaries apparently written in the eighteenth century on
the Nyāyāmṛta, both of which explore Vyāsatīrtha’s thought in the light of the Bengali
tradition of Navya-Nyāya, will help us to understand how the debate continued to
unfold in this period.11
The philosopher in question is usually known as Vyāsatīrtha, although he has also
been called “Vyāsarāja” or “Vyāsayogi.” Our best dates for Vyāsatīrtha suggest that he
was born in 1460 near the South Indian city of Mysore, and that he died in the capital
city of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire in 1539.12 Among specialists today, Vyāsatīrtha
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is widely regarded as being the most outstanding Mādhva thinker, and a leading
philosopher in India’s intellectual history as well. There has recently been a newfound
interest among scholars not only in Vyāsatīrtha’s work as a philosopher, but also in his
historical role as a religious leader in the Vijayanagara Empire. Recent work by Valerie
Stoker which draws on Vyāsatīrtha’s leading biography, the Vyāsayogicarita (Deeds of
Vyāsayogi), as well as epigraphical evidence from South India, has explored his status
as a political figure during the reigns of the emperor Kṛṣṇadevarāya and his successors
in the third dynasty at Vijayanagara. Vyāsatīrtha’s actions as the head of a monastic
learning institution and a state agent in the empire helped to establish his tradition as
a major intellectual and political force in the South. He clearly wielded considerable
economic power, and was responsible for funding water irrigation projects and
redistributing land to Brahmin groups.13
Throughout this period, the Mādhvas were competing for influence and resources
with the other major Vedānta traditions in South India, particularly the Advaita
Vedāntins and the Viśiṣṭādvaitins. In response to the philosophical arguments of
these opponents, Vyāsatīrtha wrote three major works: the Nyāyāmṛta (Nectar of
Reasoning), the Tātparyacandrikā (The Moonlight Illuminating the Meaning [of the
Vedas]), and the Tarkatāṇḍava (The Death-Dance of Logic). In this chapter I will focus
on the Nyāyāmṛta. It was primarily written as a reply to the Advaitins who had held
a position of prominence at Vijayanagara since the empire’s inception. However, the
text also provides a critique of the Viśiṣṭādvaitins14 and was deeply influenced by the
Navya-Nyāya philosophy of Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya (fl. 1350).15
The Nyāyāmṛta was probably the most influential work written by a medieval
Mādhva philosopher, and it had a wide-reaching impact on sixteenth-century
Vedānta philosophy. Prior to Vyāsatīrtha, the Mādhvas had largely been overlooked
as a philosophical school in India.16 However, the Nyāyāmṛta attracted a critical
commentary from the celebrated Varanasi-based scholar of Advaita Vedānta
Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (fl. 1555). A dispute ensued around these works which
involved over a dozen philosophers and lasted for over two-and-a-half centuries.17
Despite its influence on Vedāntic thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
the Nyāyāmṛta has never been translated into a modern European language.18
In this chapter I would like to give readers a window into Vyāsatīrtha’s work by
discussing one of the central problems of Vedānta philosophy: What is “existence”
(sattva)? There had already been a rich tradition of realist, idealist, and pragmatist
theories of existence in the history of Indian thought, but the sixteenth century witnessed
the emergence of original ideas about the nature of existence and nonexistence that
threw these older concepts into question.
My primary goal in this chapter is to explain one part of the Nyāyāmṛta, which has
come to be known as the Sattvanirukti (“Analysis of Existence”) chapter. In this part
of the text Vyāsatīrtha unveils his own explanation of what existence is. This requires
quite a bit of philosophical background, so I will begin by giving an overview of the
main features of Vyāsatīrtha’s analytical method, before outlining how he developed
his realism as a response to Advaitic monism. I will then give an overview of two
rival definitions of existence that weigh heavily in the philosophical discussion of the
Nyāyāmṛta: those of the Naiyāyikas and the Advaita Vedāntins. I will then examine
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 109

Vyāsatīrtha’s own theory of existence in the Nyāyāmṛta by providing a close analysis of

the Sattvanirukti based on my own translation of the text.

3.3 Vyāsatīrtha as an Analytic Theologian

Using contemporary terms to characterize a medieval thinker like Vyāsatīrtha is

necessarily fraught with difficulties, but in this chapter I would suggest that if we were
to describe his intellectual project in modern terms, perhaps the most apt title would
be “analytic theology.” Vyāsatīrtha was primarily a theologian whose central concern
was to show how a correct interpretation of scripture can lead us to knowledge of
God, who is for him the Vedic god Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa. Scripture for Vyāsatīrtha and
the Mādhvas includes the Vedas, as well as the Pāñcarātra Saṃhitas, the epics, the
Purāṇas, and the Brahmasūtra (Mesquita 2001: 53). God is the only truly independent
(svatantra) being and he is infinitely superior to all other things. Nevertheless, God
and the world belong to the same ontological level, in the sense that both can be said to
“exist.” As Vyāsatīrtha says in the Nyāyāmṛta, “May the world enjoy whatever sort of
‘existence’ it is that pertains to Brahman.”19
So Vyāsatīrtha is primarily a theologian who wants to understand things about God
from scripture. However, Vyāsatīrtha’s systematic exegesis of the Veda inevitably leads
him deep into questions that would today be included under the rubric of “philosophy.”
It is clear from his writing that he regards philosophical reasoning as a subtask of
the overall project of interpreting scripture,20 but it is an indispensable one and
philosophical discussions occupy a very large part of Vyāsatīrtha’s work. Throughout
his oeuvre Vyāsatīrtha writes extensively on questions that would be today included
under the philosophies of knowledge, metaphysics, mind, and language. Vyāsatīrtha’s
was a highly philosophical theology.
What does it mean to characterize Vyāsatīrtha’s work as a philosophical theologian
as “analytic”? The word “analysis” comes from the Greek word analusis, meaning to
“loosen up” or “dissolve.” Vyāsatīrtha’s work in the Nyāyāmṛta is certainly characterized
by the practice of using conceptual and logical analysis to deconstruct rigorously the
core concepts and arguments of the leading Advaitin philosophers of his day. He uses
this conceptual analysis to demonstrate that all the leading interpretations of these
concepts lead the Advaitins into insurmountable problems. His primary task in the
Nyāyāmṛta is to use his analytic method to show that the philosophical arguments of
Advaitins like Ānandabodha (fl. 1150) and Citsukha (fl. 1295) are incoherent, riddled
with recognized logical fallacies, and incompatible with the things that perception
teaches us about the world.
More specifically, I would identify five features of Vyāsatīrtha’s approach to
philosophizing that make him stand out as an analytic thinker. They are not meant to be
exhaustive, but I hope to demonstrate most of them in the analysis of the Sattvanirukti:

1. A deep attention to the conceptual analysis of the key terms involved in the
philosophical discussions.
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2. The use of new logical terms such as “determiner” (avacchedaka), “describer”

(nirūpaka), and “pervasion” (vyāpti) to quantify relations precisely.
3. The extensive use of concepts from the Mādhva and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theories of
the natural world in philosophical discussions.
4. The ubiquitous use of rigorous formal arguments (anumāna) to prove
philosophical theories.
5. The evaluation of these inferences using a stock list of formal fallacies.

(1) involves the practice of giving formal definitions (lakṣaṇas) of all of the key terms
in the debate. Vyāsatīrtha lists practically all the major definitions given by Advaitin
philosophers of their key philosophical terms in the earlier sections of the Nyāyāmṛta.
His usual method consists in adducing the most promising definitions, analyzing
them using grammatical and ontological concepts, and then showing that, however
they are construed, they all lead to unacceptable philosophical problems. Indian
philosophers had long since been concerned with formally defining their key concepts,
but Vyāsatīrtha’s work stands out in particular because of how thoroughgoing it is. One
gets the impression that he really was attempting to close the debate by showing that
all the conceivable interpretations of the main arguments of Advaitin philosophers are
failures. As the scholar Lawrence McCrea (2015) has observed, we see in Vyāsatīrtha’s
works an unprecedented comprehensiveness and attention to explicitly identifying
historical opponents and representing their views accurately.
The second aspect of Vyāsatīrtha’s method is to a large extent derived from
his encounter with the Navya-Nyāya school, including the works of Gaṅgeśa and
Gaṅgeśa’s followers in Mithila, particularly Yajñapati Upādhyāya (fl. 1460), Jayadeva
Pakṣadhara (fl. 1470), and Jayadeva’s leading students. Precise logical analysis became
increasingly important as the Navya-Nyāya school developed in the centuries after
Gaṅgeśa. Vyāsatīrtha seems to have been the first South Indian intellectual to have left
a record of deep engagement with Gaṅgeśa’s works (Williams 2014: 130–3).
The most important innovations in Navya-Nyāya language involve the use of
certain technical terms to express precisely relations between things in the world
that would otherwise be difficult to quantify in normal Sanskrit. Scholars such as
Ingalls, Potter, Matilal, and Wada have all compared these developments to modern
quantificational logic.21 We do not see in Vyāsatīrtha the mind-bending compounds in
later thinkers like Gadādhara and Mathurānātha, but he does make liberal use of terms
like “limiter” (avacchedaka) and “describer” (nirūpaka) in his works. These tendencies
are perhaps more accentuated in the Tarkatāṇḍava, where Vyāsatīrtha shows deep
thinking about these sorts of expressions. In the earlier sections of the Nyāyāmṛta,
Vyāsatīrtha frequently uses the term avacchedaka to specify the scope of the relational
abstracts involved in inference (the “limiter of probandumness,” sādhyatāvacchedaka,
the “limiter of subjectness,” pakṣatāvacchedaka, etc.). Vyāsatīrtha’s commentators,
particularly Vyāsa Rāmācārya and Ānandabhaṭṭāraka, make even more extensive use
of these expressions when evaluating the inferences of Advaitin philosophers.22
Vyāsatīrtha, following Madhva and Jayatīrtha, was also a deep thinker about
ontology and the natural world. He developed many of these ideas in his earlier works,
particularly his Mandāramañjarī commentaries on Madhva’s Daśaprakaraṇas. He
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 111

developed his ontological ideas in close conversation with the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system,
and often disagreed with the school’s established theories. Vyāsatīrtha takes these
scientific discussions seriously in the Nyāyāmṛta. In the Sattvanirukti, for instance,
he clearly argues that the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory about how contact (saṃyoga)
occurs between substances, as well as its ideas about the sound-conducting substance
known as the “ether” (ākāśa), are wrong, and premises his definition of existence on
these arguments. However, in the Nyāyāmṛta, he is often willing to take account of
specifically Navya-Nyāya theories when formulating his arguments. In the earlier
portions of the text, for instance, he frequently makes use of formal inferences that
Gaṅgeśa had adduced to prove certain aspects of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of
substances (Williams 2011: 107–29).
The Nyāyāmṛta is replete with formal inferences deployed to prove philosophical
theories, some of which will be discussed below. Vyāsatīrtha sometimes presents his
own inferences in the text, but more frequently he is concerned with showing that the
formal inferences developed by the Advaitins to prove their anti-realist stance about
the world do not succeed. Indian philosophers had evolved a set of formal fallacies for
evaluating these inferences, and Vyāsatīrtha applies them throughout the Nyāyāmṛta.
Vyāsatīrtha was deeply influenced by his study of Gaṅgeśa’s Tattvacintāmaṇi in this
regard, and he often draws implicitly on Gaṅgeśa when evaluating Advaitic inferences
in the Nyāyāmṛta (Williams 2014).

3.4 An Outline of the Dispute between the Mādhvas

and the Advaitins

The bulk of Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta is dedicated to using this type of critical analysis
to refute the anti-realist philosophy of the Advaita Vedāntins, and he develops his
theory of existence largely in the context of his critical response to Advaitic philosophy.
According to the Advaitins, the world of our everyday experience, including inanimate
objects and the conscious beings that become aware of them through the means of
knowledge (pramāṇas), is an illusion. In reality it is nothing but Brahman: immaculate,
self-luminous consciousness, impersonal, free from qualities and ultimately identical
with the innermost self of conscious beings (Ātman). A deep understanding brought
about by studying the Upaniṣads with a competent teacher will eventually dispel the
world illusion. But precisely what does it mean to say that the world is an “illusion”?
One way in which the Advaitins explained the “illusoriness” of the everyday world
was the concept of “indeterminacy” (anirvacanīyatā). For the Advaitins, mundane
perceptual illusions (I see a length of rope in the dark but somehow come to believe
that it is a snake, for instance) serve as the prototype for the illusoriness of the empirical
world. From the Advaitin’s point of view, the mystery of perceptual illusions is that
we have vivid, perceptual-like cognitions of something when there is ostensibly no
corresponding external object to stimulate them. The “snake” I see in the darkness is
clearly not real, because then I could not later realize “This is not a snake but a length of
rope.” But then again it cannot be completely nonexistent either. In that case, how would
I experience it at all? How could I be duped into recoiling and running away in fear?
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The world of our experience is much like this. It might be “more real” than everyday
illusions like the rope/snake confusion, but ultimately it too will be sublated by
Brahman. So the world is indeterminate from an ontological point of view: it is neither
existent nor nonexistent. (In the Nyāyāmṛta, Vyāsatīrtha usually uses the expression
“the locus of neither existence nor nonexistence,” sadasattvānadhikaraṇatvam.)23
In response, the Mādhvas argued that this statement is as contradictory as the claim
that “This circle is square.” The problem is that existence and nonexistence, so far as
Mādhva philosophers are concerned, are what would be called “fully contradictory”
properties in the Aristotelian tradition. They are mutually exclusive (nothing can both
exist and not exist). They are also jointly exhaustive: everything must either exist or
not exist. Vyāsatīrtha holds that existence and nonexistence are “each identical with
the absence of the other.” Thus if I claim, “This thing is not nonexistent,” I am actually
claiming, “This thing is existent.” Conversely, if I claim, “This thing is not existent,” then
I am just claiming, “This thing is nonexistent.” So when all is properly analyzed, the
assertion of the Advaitin that “This thing is neither existent nor nonexistent” amounts
to nothing more than the (contradictory) claim that “This thing is both existent and
nonexistent.”24
All Mādhva philosophers disagree with the Advaitins that the world is somehow
illusory or unreal. The world may be inferior to God, but that does not undermine
its status as existent. Vyāsatīrtha is a realist about the world. His realism is deeply
grounded in an empiricist approach to knowledge. The world really is as it appears
to us in our everyday perceptions. Our sense perception, so far as Vyāsatīrtha is
concerned, reveals to us a pluralistic world of discrete objects that truly exist. His
primary aim in the Nyāyāmṛta is to show that this perceptual understanding of reality
is not at all undermined by the metaphysical arguments that Advaitin philosophers
had developed. Proper analysis shows that the Advaitin’s inferences cannot counteract
this basic insight that our perceptions give us.
Vyāsatīrtha’s argument for realism in the Nyāyāmṛta largely flows from two
premises. The first is an epistemological premise that states that perception is
epistemically stronger than inference. Inference depends on perception because the
data we use to make inferences come from our perceptions in the first place. In case
the two come into an irresolvable conflict we must reject the conclusions of inference
in favor of perception.
The second premise is a phenomenological premise about what perception tells us
about the objects it presents to us. Jayatīrtha, Madhva’s most important commentator,
had actually claimed that all our perceptions tell us that their objects are real
(Williams 2017a). When, for instance, I perceive this computer in front of me, I not
only perceive that it is a substance with certain qualities, I also perceive that it “exists.”
This may be explicit (the judgment might somehow attribute existence to the thing in
question) or it may be somehow implicit. But in the end our perceptions always tell us
that their objects exist.
If perception is stronger than inference as a means of knowledge, and if our
perceptions tell us that their objects exist, then the Advaitin’s argument is clearly in
trouble. Both of these premises are, of course, highly controversial, and the Advaitins
had counterarguments for both. In this chapter I am ultimately concerned with
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 113

examining the second, phenomenological, premise. If our perceptions tell us that

their objects “exist,” this raises the questions: What does it mean to say that something
“exists,” and how can we perceive “existence”? Conversely, what does it mean to say
that something does not exist? And even if we do perceive a certain sort of “existence”
belonging to objects in our everyday perceptions, is this necessarily at odds with the
Advaitin’s anti-realist stance about the empirical world?
Advaitin philosophers argued that none of the realist definitions of these key terms
can undermine their philosophical arguments. The Nyāyāmṛta is primarily a critical
work, aimed at deconstructing the Advaitins’ anti-realist stance toward the empirical
world through rigorous analysis of their key philosophical concepts. In the end,
however, Vyāsatīrtha feels compelled to advance his own definition of existence. And
it is one of his most original contributions to Vedānta philosophy.

3.5 What Is “Existence”? The Theories of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika

and Advaita Schools

While they disagreed widely as to how to define it, Indian philosophers in general
treated existence (sattva, sattā) as a sort of property that is present somehow in at least
certain things. It is impossible to understand Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in the Nyāyāmṛta
without understanding the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika view of these matters. The standard
Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika view is that existence is a special sort of jāti—a “universal” or “natural
kind”—that is related by the inherence relator (samavāya) to the things that belong
to the first three Vaiśeṣika categories (padārthas): substances, tropes (or “qualities”),
and motions. The individuals belonging to the remaining four categories (universals,
ultimate particularizers, inherence, and absence) do not instantiate universals, and
they therefore lack the property of existence.
The Naiyāyikas postulated existence primarily to explain a certain class of
judgments we make about the world. We have judgments like “This pot exists,” “This
cow exists,” “The tree exists.” These are what the Naiyāyikas called “consecutive”
(anugata) judgments. They attribute the same predicate (“exists”) to numerous distinct
subjects. The most economical way to explain the identity of the predicate across these
judgments is to postulate that there is a singular, recurring property that is somehow
connected with the subject in each case, and this property is the universal known as
“existence.”25
Vyāsatīrtha and the Mādhvas were also deeply influenced by the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika
idea that the absence of something from some location is a separate type of entity in its
own right (a separate padārtha).26 Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers argued that there are
two main types of absence (abhāva): “mutual” and “relational” absence. Mutual absence
is simply the difference of two things from one another (e.g., “This penguin is not a
polar bear”). Relational absence, on the other hand, is necessary to explain statements
such as “There is no pot in this room,” or “Devadatta is not in the temple,” for instance.
Relational absences are usually temporally quantified in Nyāya thought: there is prior
absence (the absence of something before it comes into existence), posterior absence
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(the absence of something after it comes into existence), and constant absence (the
eternal absence of something from some location).
Mādhva philosophers largely followed the Naiyāyikas on these points. They
too recognized that absences are part of reality (tattva), just as positive entities are.
In two of his works on ontology, the Tattvaviveka and the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, for
instance, Madhva argued that all real entities other than God can be divided most
fundamentally into positive and negative things. Like Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika philosophers,
Madhva accepted that relational absences are either prior absences, posterior absences,
or constant absences.27
In the sixteenth century, the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika view that absence and existence are
two separate things had been called into question by the radical Bengali Naiyāyika,
Raghunātha Śiromaṇi (fl. 1510). Raghunātha and Vyāsatīrtha were almost exactly
contemporaries, but they do not seem to have been familiar with each other’s works.28
However, they both reached similar conclusions about existence. In his “Determination
of the Truth about the Categories” (Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa), a critique of the classical
Vaiśeṣika theory of reality,29 Raghunātha argues as follows:

Existence is not a single, perceptually established universal that occurs in

substances, tropes, and motions, because, since merit[, demerit, God and so on]
are beyond the scope of the sense-faculties, [existence] cannot be perceived in
them. Moreover, we speak about universals (jātis) as “existing.” And the use of
the word “existent” in respect of pot and so on is based on [the pot’s] property of
occurring (vartamānatva).
No, [existence] is “being-present” (bhāvatva). And [being-present] is being-
other-than-what-is-absent. Or, it is being-absent (abhāvatva) that is an indivisible
imposed property that is established on the basis of consecutive judgments, or else
being-present is [such an] indivisible imposed property.30

What is crucial here is that Raghunātha does away with the age-old Vaiśeṣika
idea that existence is a sort of universal, and instead identifies it with “being present”
(bhāvatva). So far as Raghunātha is concerned, the term “existence” really says nothing
more than is contained in the term “presence.” As we will see below, Vyāsatīrtha makes
a similar move in the Nyāyāmṛta, although he will argue that there is still an important
semantic distinction between the terms, because existence is only definable in terms of
an absence that has been further temporally and spatially quantified.
For the Advaitins, on the other hand, the world does, in fact, enjoy some kind of
existence. However, this is only a provisional, “transactional” existence, or vyāvahārika-
sat. From the point of view of our everyday perceptions, the world has a certain sort of
“reality” relative to mundane illusions. The table in front of me is “more real” than, say,
the “snake” I shrink away from in fear when what I am actually observing is a piece of
rope in dim light. Nevertheless, this reality can eventually be supplanted (“sublated”) by
a superior awareness of Brahman, the supreme truth, which alone can be said to “exist.”
Advaitins like Madhusūdana therefore favored the definition of ultimate existence as
“non-sublatability” (abādhyatva), or some specified version of this term.31 What exists
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 115

is precisely that which is eternally incapable of being sublated by a deeper awareness

of the way reality ultimately is. Our everyday perceptions of the world can be sublated
by the deeper awareness of Brahman and therefore, from the ultimate point of view,
they do not exist. However, there is no deeper truth that can sublate the self-reflexive
awareness of Brahman itself. Consequently, according to Advaitin philosophers,
Brahman alone can ultimately be said to “exist.”

3.6 Vyāsatīrtha on Existence in the Nyāyāmṛta

With this background in mind, we can now look at Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments in the
“Analysis of Existence” (Sattvanirukti) chapter of the Nyāyāmṛta. Vyāsatīrtha presents
his theory of existence primarily in the context of a critique of leading Advaita
Vedāntins like Śrī Harṣa, Ānandabodha, and Citsukha. At the very beginning of the
Nyāyāmṛta, he presents a number of inferences that were intended to prove that the
world is an illusion. I will here present one of the main ones which originated with
Ānandabodha as a sample:

The world is illusory, because [it is] perceptible; just like the example of the “silver”
[superimposed on] shell. (jagat mithyā, dṛśyatvāt; śuktirūpyavat.)32

A standard inference according to the Naiyāyikas seeks to prove that some quality
(the probandum, or sādhya) is present through some relationship in a certain location
(the subject, or pakṣa) because some other quality (the reason, or hetu) is also present
there. The standard example is the case where we infer that there is fire on a mountain
because we perceive that smoke is present on the same mountain. We are able to make
this inference because we know that the probandum (fire) “pervades” the reason
(smoke); that is, that fire is invariably present where smoke is present. According to
Ānandabodha, in other words, by analogy to perceptual illusions, the entire world is an
illusion, because like perceptual illusions it can be perceived by an external observer.
Brahman on the other hand is pure, self-reflexive (svayaṃprakāśa) awareness, and it
cannot be “perceived” in such a way.
The Mādhvas found problems with every aspect of this inference. One of these
problems, which Vyāsatīrtha presses in the Nyāyāmṛta, is that it is “contradicted by
perceptions” (pratyakṣabādhita) like “The pot exists” and “The table exists.” So just
what is “existence” according to Vyāsatīrtha? Vyāsatīrtha’s challenge is to formulate
a definition of existence that meets several criteria. First, it must be perceptible. The
Mādhva claim is that we perceive existence, and that these perceptions contradict the
Advaitin’s inferences. So existence needs to be the sort of property we can actually
perceive. Second, the existence we perceive in such perceptions needs somehow to be
directly contradictory to the Advaitin’s claim that the world is “illusory.” Third, in order
to validate the Mādhva claim that indeterminacy is simply a contradiction, Vyāsatīrtha
needs to show that existence and nonexistence are fully contradictory properties: they
must be both mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive.
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Vyāsatīrtha begins the Sattvanirukti by giving voice to an imagined Advaitin

opponent who critically reviews earlier ideas about existence in a bid to show that,
upon analysis, perception does not actually contradict Ānandabodha’s inferences.
This hypothetical Advaitin philosopher follows Vyāsatīrtha’s own method for refuting
an argument. He gives what he takes to be an exhaustive account of the different
definitions of “existence” that had been put forward by earlier philosophers of various
different persuasions. He then analyzes each definition in turn and critically evaluates
them. Every definition is found wanting in some way, and, in the end, existence itself is
shown to be a hopelessly intractable concept.

(Mādhva): And [the reasons you, the Advaitin, have given in your inferences,]
perceptibility[, insentience and finiteness,] are contradicted by perceptions such
as “The pot exists” and so on.
Objection (Advaitin): Just what is this “existence,” which is [putatively] established
by perception? Is it—
(1) the highest natural kind
or, (2) The state of being different from what does not exist
or, (3) Practical efficacy
or, (4) Being the object of an episode of knowledge
or, (5) Having the capacity to be an object of [an episode of knowledge]
or, (6) Not being an object of an episode of error
or, (7) [Something’s] not being the counterpositive33 of a negation that occurs
in that thing’s own locus and at that thing’s own time
or, (8) Non-sublatability?34

The first definition of existence Vyāsatīrtha considers is “the highest universal”

(para-jāti). This, as we have seen, is the definition of existence usually favored by Nyāya-
Vaiśeṣika philosophers. The second definition states that existence consists simply in
“being different from what is nonexistent” (asat-vailakṣaṇya). The third definition
Vyāsatīrtha considers, “practical efficacy” (artha-kriyā-kāritva), ultimately stems from
the work of the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti. As Vyāsatīrtha interprets it, it
states that existence is simply a matter of practical efficacy.
Vyāsatīrtha’s hypothetical Advaitin opponent dismisses these first three definitions
summarily by citing the formal charge that they “prove what [I, the Advaitin] already
accept” (siddha-sādhana).35 The definition of existence given must obviously truly
contradict the Advaitin’s claim of illusoriness. Advaitin philosophers often accepted
the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika view of reality as a provisionally valid description of the empirical
world. As such, from the point of view of vyāvahārika-sat at least, the world has the
“existence” defined as the “highest universal.”
Similarly, Advaitin philosophers also agreed that the world illusion is different
from what is nonexistent. According to the doctrine of indeterminacy, the world is not
completely nonexistent, like the proverbial hare’s horn or the flower that grows in the
sky. They also accept that the world has a kind of practical efficacy: we can interact with
its objects and speak about them as we might do with the objects in a dream, even if,
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 117

like all dreams, it must eventually come to an end. So the first three definitions fail to
contradict the Advaitin’s thesis that the world is an illusion.
The next three definitions that Vyāsatīrtha considers all define existence by reference
to cognitive concepts. The first of these three definitions that Vyāsatīrtha proposes is
“being the object of an episode of knowledge” (pramā-viṣayatva). Something exists,
in other words, if we have a true cognition that involves it. For instance, if I make the
true mental judgment “There is a pot on the floor,” the pot has become an object of
knowledge, and thus could be said to “exist.” Vyāsatīrtha gives a second variant on this,
“having the capacity to become an object of an episode of knowledge” (pramā-viṣaya-
yogyatva). This modification is perhaps intended to anticipate the objection that there
are things we will never have true judgments about but which we would still want to
say exist (distant stars and planets, for instance).
The major problem with both these definitions is that, according to Vyāsatīrtha
and the Mādhvas at least, even nonexistent things can, in fact, become objects of
knowledge.36 It is a signature Mādhva philosophical position that even nonexistent
(asat) things like hares’ horns and the sons of barren women can somehow instantiate
certain properties, including nonexistence itself.37 It seems to follow from this that they
can therefore be the object of at least certain true judgments. For instance, they can be
the objects of true negative-existential judgments, e.g., “The sky-flower is nonexistent.”
Therefore, even nonexistent things can be said to be “objects of knowledge.” Both
the fourth and fifth definitions proposed for existence therefore apply to nonexistent
things as well as to existent ones, and they therefore fail to define existence specifically.
(Technically, both these definitions suffer from the flaw of being “overly extensive,” that
is, there is ativyāpti).
Vyāsatīrtha also argues that we could say that nonexistent things become the objects
of episodes of knowledge in the case of apperceptive awareness (anuvyavasāya),
that is, in the case of cognitions about other cognitions. Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator,
Śrīnivāsatīrtha, gives the example of the introspective awareness “I am cognizing the
silver superimposed upon shell” (ahaṃ śuktirajataṃ jānāmi). Here I am having an
episode of knowledge (assuming that it is true that I am currently having such a
cognition), and that awareness involves something which is, from the Mādhvas’ point
of view, nonexistent: the “silver” mistakenly superimposed on mother-of-pearl.38
One solution to these objections would be to specify that the episode of knowledge in
question must attribute the property of existence to its object. A nonexistent entity clearly
cannot be the object of a true judgment that attributes existence to it. The judgment
“The son of a barren woman exists” will never be true. However, the problem is that the
definition now contains a reference to “existence,” which is the very thing we are seeking
to define, and it therefore suffers from the flaw of self-dependency (ātma-āśraya).
The sixth definition runs along similar lines to the fourth and fifth. It states that
existence is nothing more than “not being an object of error” (bhrama-aviṣayatva).
Existent things, in other words, are existent precisely because they can never be the
objects of erroneous judgments. However, this is clearly a nonstarter because existent
things too can become the objects of error, as, for instance, when a Buddhist believes
mistakenly (from the point of view of brahmanical philosophers!) that the self does
not exist.
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Vyāsatīrtha considers two modified versions of this definition which might avoid
this problem. Both attempt to save the definition by specifying the property the
episode of error attributes to its object (its prakāra, or “predication content”). The first
is “Not being an object of an episode of error that has existence for its predication
content” (sattva-prakāraka-bhrama-aviṣayatva). The idea is that the definition would
now apply only to things that would properly be considered existent, because only an
existent entity can fail to be the object of an episode of error that attributes existence
to it. What is nonexistent, by contrast, can mistakenly be attributed with existence.
For instance, a child who has never seen a hare might mistakenly believe that “Hares’
horns exist.” Hence the definition seems to apply to what is existent and not to what is
nonexistent. However, here again there is the flaw of self-dependency (ātma-āśraya),
since the definition itself mentions existence!
Someone defending the definition might try to get around this by switching
around the negations in this modified definition. One might try to define existence
as “not being the object of an episode of error that does not have nonexistence for
its predication content” (asattva-aprakāraka-bhrama-aviṣayatvam). Something exists,
in other words, if, and only if, it can never become the object of a false judgment
which does not attribute nonexistence to it. This applies to existent things because
only something that is existent can be the object of an episode of error that attributes
nonexistence to it—“The self does not exist,” for instance. What is nonexistent, by
contrast, can be the object of an episode of error that does not have nonexistence for its
predication content (“The son of a barren woman exists,” for instance). The problem
with this revised definition is that it leads to the flaw of “mutual dependency” (anyonya-
āśraya) between existence and nonexistence. Existence must now be defined in terms
of nonexistence, but nonexistence must, in turn, be defined in terms of existence. So
this strategy does not work either.39
The seventh definition which Vyāsatīrtha considers is “[something’s] not being
the counterpositive of an absence that shares that thing’s own locus and time-frame.”
This verbose definition ultimately defines existence in terms of absence (abhāva). It
says that in order to be existent, something must not be absent from the very location
and time-frame to which it properly belongs. To understand why Vyāsatīrtha needs to
specify the absence as such, imagine that we had simply defined existence as “not being
the counterpositive of an absence” (niṣedha-apratiyogitva). In this case, the definition
would fail to apply to things we would want to consider existent—pots, tables, chairs,
and the like—because those things are all absent from places and times that are other
than the ones they occupy. The chair I am sitting on is present in the region of space
that it occupies in the present moment, but it is absent from the street outside my office
and will presumably be absent from the location it currently occupies a hundred years
from now.40
One problem with this definition is that it fails to accommodate parts of the
traditional Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of the natural world. The Naiyāyikas took it that
“contact,” for instance, is a quality (guṇa) that fails to pervade its entire locus. Suppose
a monkey stands on top of a tree. We would say that the monkey is in contact with
the tree, but clearly the monkey is not in contact with the whole tree, but only one
part of it.41 Hence, since contact is never fully present in its locus, it is absent from the
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 119

remaining part of that locus. Assuming that contact is such a “non-locus-pervading”

quality, it can be meaningfully said to be “the counterpositive of an absence that shares
its own locus and time-frame.” Without further parsing, therefore, the definition fails
to apply to contact. Given that realist philosophers took it that contact is very much
part of the real world, it seems that the definition fails to encompass everything that we
should want to term “existent.”
What is perhaps a more significant challenge for this definition is that it seems
to apply to cases where it should not (again, technically this is the flaw of “over-
applicability,” ativyāpti). Perceptual illusions such as the “silver” superimposed upon
mother-of-pearl and so on have no locus at all, because they are simply nonexistent
(from the Mādhva point of view at least). Hence they could be said to lack the property
of being the counterpositive of an absence in their respective times and places, since
they lack a locus altogether.42
Finally, Vyāsatīrtha gives the Advaitin’s own definition “nonsublatability”
(abādhyatva). Variants on this definition were subsequently defended by Madhusūdana
when responding to Vyāsatīrtha in the Advaitasiddhi.43 Something exists, in other
words, if, and only if, it can never be the object of a sublating judgment. The problem
with this definition is that, upon analysis, it seems again to lead to mutual dependency.
What exactly is “sublation”? Vyāsatīrtha’s hypothetical opponent argues that sublation
is nothing but the omnitemporal negation of existence in the very substrate where the
thing in question was previously taken to exist.44 Clearly, however, this definition of
sublation contains a reference to existence itself, and we are left once again with the
flaw of mutual dependency between the definitions of existence and sublation.

3.7 Vyāsatīrtha’s Final Definition of Existence

Vyāsatīrtha’s imagined Advaitin opponent thinks he has shown that all the major
definitions of existence proposed by Indian philosophers either suffer from fatal
flaws or fail to really contradict the inferences of Advaitin philosophers. So far as this
hypothetical Advaitin philosopher is concerned, he has demonstrated that existence
cannot be defined in a way that actually undermines the inferences formulated by
Ānandabodha and Citsukha.
In response, Vyāsatīrtha must show that existence can be defined in a way that
is both conceptually coherent and which does justice to the thesis at the centre of
Mādhva realism: that perceptions tell us that their objects exist. However, his initial
reaction is to argue that he is not obliged to define existence at all. The Advaitins are in
the same boat, after all! They too seem to need to formulate a definition of existence in
developing their philosophy, because they accept the claim that Brahman or the self is
“existent” (or at least, that it “exists by essence”). Vyāsatīrtha thus argues that, strictly,
he is under no obligation to give a definition of existence:

It is said—Precisely that “existence” that is present according to you[, the Advaitin,]

in the Self is present for me in the world. For, it has been said, “Whatever sort of
existence belongs to Brahman, let that be present in the world also.” If [the existence
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you hold is present] there[, in Brahman,] is beyond determination (anirvācya),

then let it be the same in the world also. For, even if there can be no determination
of existence, [the world] might enjoy the highest reality (pāramārthya) by essence,
just like [Brahman does, according to you, the Advaitin]. And if the “existence”
[belonging to Brahman] is nothing more than the exclusion of what is false, or
being by essence unsublated; and if “sublation” consists in “the omnitemporal
negation in the very thing that was taken for [its] substrate,” or “cancellation by
knowledge” (in which case there is no mutual dependency); then let the same
apply to the world also, out of regard only to [the world’s] equality with Brahman.45

However, Vyāsatīrtha continues to grant that, in a “spirit of friendship” (sauhārde),

he will give a positive definition. Here is Vyāsatīrtha’s definition of existence:

But in a spirit of friendship—“Existence” is said to be: “Not being the counterpositive

of an absence belonging to all times and all places”; what is superimposed and
what is completely nonexistent both are the counterpositives of [such an absence].

He continues to explain this definition as follows:

“Existence” is “not being the counterpositive of an absence belonging to all times

and places.” [This definition of existence] does not fail to apply to [contact], since
[I hold that] if contact is present in a region determined by something else, then
its constant absence is not present in the region determined by that thing. Since it
has been stated that even the constant absence of the ether and so on also are not
universally present properties, [the definition of existence] does not fail to apply to
the ether and so on. Since it has been stated that both what is nonexistent and what
is superimposed are the counterpositive of the absence [I have just] described,
[the definition of existence] is not overly applicable to those cases. If [one] is of
the opinion that, in judgments like “Cowness is never present in a horse” and the
like, it is only the connection [with cowness] that is denied, the word “place” may
be disregarded.
Others, however, hold that “existence” is either (1) the absence of that illusoriness
that is favored by [our Advaitin] opponent, (2) not being superimposed while
being different from what is nonexistent, (3) being, [at least] at some point, the
direct object of an episode of knowledge in which “being-ness” (astitva) is the
predication content, or (4) being connected with time. And “being-ness” (astitva)
is “being present” (vartamānatva). [And this definition would not fail to apply to
past and future entities because] even something that belongs to the past or [in the
future] exists at some point. Something that is superimposed, on the other hand, is
made known by the sublating cognition to not be connected with any of the three
times: hence there is no fault.46

So Vyāsatīrtha has defined existence by the universal quantification of absence

(abhāva) across space and time. To say that something “exists” is to say that it is present
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 121

in at least one location at some point in time. To say that something does not exist, on
the other hand, is to say that it fails to be present in any location at any time. Each entity,
in other words, has a “location-range,” a set of locations in which it is present. This
range is extended temporally, as well as spatially. According to Vyāsatīrtha, something
is existent if it has a non-null location-range. Something is existent, in other words,
if it is present in just one location at a single point in time. To be nonexistent, on the
other hand, is simply to have the absence of this: something is nonexistent if it has a
null location-range. In other words, something is nonexistent if it is never present in
any location at any time.
Vyāsatīrtha and Raghunātha Śiromaṇi do not seem to have been aware of each
other, but there is a certain similarity in their positions. Like Raghunātha, Vyāsatīrtha
proposes that “existence” and “nonexistence” can ultimately be explained in terms of
the concept of absence. However, unlike Raghunātha, who seems basically to collapse
the conceptual distinction between existence/nonexistence and presence/absence,
Vyāsatīrtha here argues that we need to quantify further the concept of absence
temporally and spatially to account for our perception of existence.
Does this definition of existence accomplish everything that Vyāsatīrtha needs
it to? Both the Mādhvas and the Naiyāyikas accept that absences can be perceived
(Sharma 1981: 135), so it seems to satisfy the requirement that existence is a
perceptible property. Of course, Madhusūdana has a comeback to this argument. In the
Advaitasiddhi, he argues that existence defined as such cannot be perceptible because its
counterpositive (i.e., nonexistence) is not perceptible. It is a widely accepted principle
in Indian thought that for an absence to be perceptible, its counterpositive (i.e., the
absentee itself) must be perceptible. Existence is nothing more than the absence of
nonexistence, given Vyāsatīrtha’s definition. However, Madhusūdana points out that
it is difficult to believe that we can perceive the state of being the counterpositive
of an absence that occurs in all times and places. Perception only reveals to us what
is spatially and temporally proximate; our sense-faculties simply cannot come into
contact with the incalculably large domain of objects necessary for us to perceive such
an absence.47
Vyāsatīrtha’s definition does seem to do justice to the Mādhva position that existence
and nonexistence are fully contradictory properties. The same thing cannot be present
in at least one time and place and not be present in any time or place, and the same
thing must either exist in one place or no place at all. Existence and nonexistence, as
Vyāsatīrtha has defined them, are both mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive.
Any attempt to deny that they both occur in the world, under Vyāsatīrtha’s definitions,
seems to lead to a contradiction.
Of course, Madhusūdana proposes his own definitions of existence and
nonexistence in the Advaitasiddhi. In the earlier passages of that text, Madhusūdana
argues that existence and nonexistence might well be mutually exclusive, but they are
not mutually exhaustive, if we define them correctly.48 In return, Mādhva philosophers
like Vyāsa Rāmācārya and Ānandabhaṭṭāraka argued that Madhusūdana’s definitions
were conceptually implausible and incompatible with the basic assumptions of Advaita
philosophy (Sharma 1994: 20–2; Williams 2011: 92–100).
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3.8 Conclusion

Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta marks the beginning of a debate that led both Mādhva and
Advaitin thinkers to reexamine the basic philosophical positions of their traditions in
the light of the work of Navya-Nyāya philosophers in Mithila and Bengal. The nature
of existence and nonexistence was very much at the heart of this dispute. The leading
philosophers who are known to have written contributions to the debate all returned
to these questions time and again in their discussions.
Vyāsatīrtha’s definition of existence is one of his most original contributions to
Mādhva philosophy. Previous Mādhva philosophers like Jayatīrtha had hinted at a
definition, and Vyāsatīrtha clearly drew inspiration from the works of these philosophers
when developing his theory about existence.49 Nevertheless, it was Vyāsatīrtha who
took these scattered remarks and turned them into a fully fledged theory. Through his
definition of existence, Vyāsatīrtha established a definite position for his tradition on
this central matter of metaphysics, and posed a challenge for Advaitin thinkers like
Madhusūdana who sought to defend the concept of indeterminacy.
The Sattvanirukti shows Vyāsatīrtha at work as a rigorous analytic thinker. His
definition of existence is given in the context of showing that the formal inferences
proposed by the Advaitins are subject to a long list of fallacies recognized by Indian
philosophers. His discussion in the Sattvanirukti leads him deep into the systematic
conceptual analysis of the key terms involved in the dispute. He concludes by
showing how the careful quantification of absence can yield definitions of existence
and nonexistence that render them fully contradictory properties. Throughout the
Sattvanirukti he pays close attention to showing how his definitions can accommodate
the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Mādhva theories of the natural world.
The Advaitins had largely ignored the Mādhvas until the turn of the sixteenth century,
but Vyāsatīrtha’s work as a philosopher as well as his tradition’s ascendancy to a new
position of influence in the Vijayanagar Empire ensured that Advaitin philosophers
could no longer ignore their Mādhva opponents. Even though Vyāsatīrtha was one
of Advaita philosophy’s fiercest critics in the early modern period, his work helped
to draw out an entirely new side to Advaitic thought. His work in the Nyāyāmṛta
forced some of the leading Advaitin philosophers of the subsequent two centuries to
reevaluate the classical works of Advaita in the light of his own analytic method and
the philosophy of Navya-Nyāya.50
There has been a tendency among modern scholars to regard philosophers working
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly those writing on or influenced
by Navya-Nyāya philosophy, as intellectually conservative and concerned more
with style than substance.51 This sample of Vyāsatīrtha’s work shows that an analytic
approach and originality are not mutually incompatible. Far from merely repeating
old arguments in new garb, Vyāsatīrtha uses the resources of his tradition to draw
together a genuinely new theory of existence. His work on existence helped ensure
that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of soul-searching for Vedānta
philosophers, whether they were Mādhvas, Advaitins, or Viśiṣṭādvaitins. Contrary
to scholars who have dismissed this period as one which witnessed the triumph of
style over substance, the sixteenth century was an exciting one for Vedāntic thought in
India, and it surely deserves more attention than it has of yet been paid.
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 123

Notes
1 Sharma (1981: 77–9).
2 See, for instance, Madhva’s Anuvyākhyāna: 1, 4.111.
3 See Zydenbos (1991) for an argument for the influence of Jaina philosophy on
Mādhva thought.
4 See Sharma (1981: 289–99) for a discussion of this Mādhva doctrine in relation to
Calvinism.
5 See Stoker (2016: 73–106) for a discussion of the intellectual relationship between the
Mādhvas and the Viśiṣṭādvaitins in the Vijayanagara Empire.
6 Mahābhāratatātparyanirṇaya, 1.85.
7 See, for instance, Madhva’s Pramāṇalakṣaṇa, 39.
8 See, for instance, the Pramāṇalakṣaṇa, 19.
9 See, for instance, the Nyāyāmṛta, 276–7.
10 See Williams (2011: 43–9).
11 Throughout this chapter I have used the edition of the Nyāyāmṛta published in
Bangalore by the Dvaita Vedanta Studies and Research Foundation in 1994 by
the Mādhva scholar K.T. Pandurangi. The new edition of the Nyāyāmṛta and its
commentaries where K.T. Pandurangi also served as the main editor was published
in 2014, by the Vidyādhīśa Snātakottara Saṃskṛta Śodhakendraḥ, a publishing
house based in Bangalore. The new edition is not yet complete, and a further three
volumes are scheduled to be released. It contains all the commentaries found in
the 1994 edition, and further includes the Nyāyāmṛtasaugandhya of Vanamāli
Miśra (fl. 1700), the Nyāyāmṛtamādhurī of Mannāri Kṛṣṇācārya (fl. 1770), and
the Nyāyāmṛtakalpalatā of Kūrmanaraharyācārya (date uncertain). Both Mannāri
Kṛṣṇācārya and Kūrmanaraharyācārya were deeply acquainted with the works of the
Bengali Navya-Naiyāyikas Raghunātha Śiromaṇi and Gadādhara Bhaṭṭa, and their
ideas featured heavily in their commentaries.
12 These are the dates supplied by the Mādhva scholar B.N.K. Sharma (1981: 286–96),
largely on the basis of the poet Somanātha’s biography of Vyāsatīrtha, the Vyāsayogicarita.
13 See Stoker (2011, 2015, 2016) for an analysis of Vyāsatīrtha’s role in the Vijayanagara
Empire. See also Sharma (1981: 276–96) for an overview of Vyāsatīrtha’s life and
historical impact.
14 See Stoker (2011) for a discussion of the historical relationship between the
Viśiṣṭādvaita and Mādhva traditions during Vyāsatīrtha’s lifetime. See also Stoker
(2016: 73–105) for a discussion of Vyāsatīrtha’s treatment of the Viśiṣṭādvaitins in the
final chapters of the Nyāyāmṛta.
15 See Williams (2014) for a discussion of Vyāsatīrtha’s relationship to Gaṅgeśa and the
Mithila-based Navya-Naiyāyikas of the fifteenth century.
16 A conspicuous exception is the fourteenth-century summary of philosophical
systems written by Mādhava-Vidyāraṇya, which contains an entire chapter on the
“Philosophical System of Pūrṇaprajña [i.e., Madhva]” (Sarvadarśanasaṅgraha:
128–60). There are also references to Mādhva philosophy found in the works of the
thirteenth-century Viśiṣṭādvaitin philosopher Veṅkaṭanātha. See, for instance,
the Maṇipravāḷa work the Paramatabhaṅga, where Veṅkaṭanātha refers to the view
of the Mādhva school that there is a “hierarchy of bliss” (ānandatāratamya) enjoyed
by the individual souls in their liberated state (Paramatabhaṅga 71–4).
17 A comprehensive textual bibliography and historical study of this complex
dispute has yet to be undertaken. Sastri, who partially edited the Nyāyāmṛta and
Advaitasiddhi and their leading commentaries in a single volume, has a good
124 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

overview of the major works in his introduction to his edition of the Nyāyāmṛta and
its commentaries. See also Sharma (1981: 348–91) for observations on this literature.
18 B.N.K. Sharma, however, published an English-language summary of the work which
contains an overview of the main arguments presented in the Nyāyāmṛta and its
Mādhva commentaries, as well as the Advaitasiddhi (see Sharma 1994). Ganganath
Jha (1917) translated some of the earlier sections of the Advaitasiddhi.
19 Nyāyāmṛta 1: 249. See note 44 for a full translation of the passage in which this quote
is found.
20 See, for instance, Williams (2011: 39–49) for a discussion of how Vyāsatīrtha uses
the benedictory verses of the Nyāyāmṛta to embed his work in the overall task of
interpreting the Brahmasūtras.
21 See Ingalls (1951: 44–52), Matilal (1968: 71–81), and Wada (2007: 24–35) for a
description of the Navya-Nyāya language.
22 See Williams (2011) for a study of some passages of the commentaries of Vyāsa
Rāmācārya and Ānandabhaṭṭāraka on the early portions of the Nyāyāmṛta.
23 See Schmücker (2001) for a discussion of the doctrine of indeterminacy in the
work of the Advaitin philosopher Vimuktātman. See also Ram-Prasad (2002) for a
discussion of indeterminacy in the work of Vācaspati Miśra.
24 For instance, in his critique of the doctrine of indeterminacy, Vyāsatīrtha argues as
follows: madabhimatayoḥ rāhityavivakṣāyāṃ tu mayā lāghavād āvaśyakatvāc *ca
sattvābhāva evāsattvam* iti svīkārāt, dvau nañau prakr̥ tam arthaṃ sātiśayaṃ
gamayata iti nyāyenaikataraniṣedhasyānyataravidhirūpatvāt, mātā vandhyeti
vad vyāghātaḥ | (Nyāyāmṛta 2: 568). *The edition gives the alternative reading:
cāsattvābhāva eva sattvam. “If, however, what is meant are the absences of [existence
and nonexistence] as I accept them, then since [I] accept that, out of parsimony and
necessity, nonexistence is identical with the absence of existence [and vice versa],
then, according to the maxim, ‘Two negations doubly affirm the thing in question,’
the negation of one or other [of existence or nonexistence] is identical with the
affirmation of the other; hence [your position entails] a contradiction, just like
saying, ‘[My] mother is a barren woman!’.” All translations of Sanskrit works are my
own, as is all punctuation given in the Sanskrit texts.
25 See Matilal (1968: 82–6) for a description of the theory of consecutive properties and
its relationship to the principle of parsimony.
26 For some historical background on absence as a category in the classical Nyāya/
Vaiśeṣika traditions, see Matilal (1968: 99–103).
27 For instance, in the Tattvasaṅkhyāna, Madhva writes, “Reality (tattva) is accepted as
being twofold: the independent and the non-independent. The independent is the
Blessed Lord Viṣṇu; the rest is of two sorts: positive and negative. Absence is said to
be of three sorts, since it is either prior-[absence], posterior-[absence] or eternal-
[absence]” (Tattvasaṅkhyāna 60). See Siauve 1968: 189–206 for a discussion of
absence and negation in the Mādhva tradition.
28 However, Vyāsatīrtha’s commentator in the Tarkatāṇḍava, Rāghavendratīrtha, who
was writing in the seventeenth century, was aware of the work of Raghunātha and
alludes to it on three occasions in his Nyāyadīpa commentary (Williams 2014).
29 See Ganeri (2011) and Williams (2017b) for an overview of Raghunātha’s new
metaphysics in the Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa.
30 sattā ca na dravyaguṇakarmavṛttir ekā pratyakṣasiddhā jātiḥ, dharmādīnām
atīndriyatvena tatra pratyakṣāyogāt; jātyādāv api sadvyavahārāc ca | ghaṭādau
sadvyavahāraś ca vartamānatvanibandhanaḥ | kiṃ tu bhāvatvaṃ tat | tac
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 125

cābhāvānyatvam | abhāvatvam eva vānugatapratyayasiddho ’khaṇḍopādhiḥ;

bhāvatvaṃ vākhaṇḍopādhiḥ | (Padārthatattvanirūpaṇa 48–9.)
31 See Williams (2011: 89–92) for a discussion of Madhusūdana’s definitions
of existence and nonexistence. See also Pellegrini (2011) for a discussion of
Madhusūdana’s views on existence in the Advaitasiddhi.
32 Nyāyāmṛta 1: 24. Cf. Ānandabodha’s Nyāyadīpāvalī 1.
33 “Counterpositive” (pratiyogin) is a technical term Vyāsatīrtha derives from Navya-
Nyāya philosophy. The counterpositive of some absence is the absentee itself. For
instance, if we were to refer to “the absence of a pot,” then the counterpositive of the
absence in question is the pot itself.
34 san ghaṭa ity ādipratyakṣabādhitāś ca dṛśyatvādayaḥ | nanu kim idaṃ
sattvam, yat pratyakṣasiddham—(1) parajātir vā? (2) asadvailakṣaṇyaṃ vā?
(3) arthakriyākāritvaṃ vā? (4) pramāviṣayatvaṃ vā? (5) tadyogyatvaṃ vā? (6)
bhramāviṣayatvaṃ vā? (7) svasamānādhikaraṇasvasamānakālīnaniṣedhāpratiyogitvaṃ
vā? (8) abādhyatvaṃ vā? (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 248.)
35 K.T. Pandurangi’s 1994 edition of the Nyāyāmṛta here reads nādyaḥ, siddhasādhanāt
(“The first [definition of existence] is not tenable, because [it] proves something
that is already established”) (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 248). This seems to be faulty because
Vyāsatīrtha in that case presents no objection to the second and third definitions of
existence proposed here. I have followed the reading nādyāḥ, siddhasādhanāt (“The
first [three definitions of existence] are not tenable, because [they] prove something
that is already established”) found in Sastri’s 1934 edition of the Nyāyāmṛta (629).
This reading seems to be confirmed by Śrīnivāsatīrtha (Nyāyāmṛtaprakāśa 1: 272).
36 na cathurthaḥ, asati pramāṇāpravṛttyā tadviṣayatvāt prāk sattvasya
vaktavyatayā, tasya sattvād anyatvāt | asato ’pi vyavasāyadvārā sākṣāc
cāsattvaprakārakapramāviṣayatvāc ca | sattvaprakārakapramāviṣayatve cātmāśrayāt
| asattvāprakārakapramāviṣayatve cāsattvasya sattvanirūpyatvenānyonyāśrayāt |
(Nyāyāmṛta 1: 248). “The fourth [definition of existence] is untenable, because, since
the means of knowledge do not function in regard to what is nonexistent, [one] must
refer to ‘existence’ prior to the state of being an object [of the means of knowledge],
and hence it [i.e., ‘being an object of an episode of knowledge’] is something other
than existence. And [the fourth definition is wrong] because what is nonexistent
too can be the object of an episode of knowledge that predicates nonexistence
[to it] either through introspection or directly. Moreover, [the definition fails]
because, [even] if [the definition is modified to be,] ‘Being an object of an episode
of knowledge that has existence for its predication content,’ then there is the flaw of
self-dependency. Moreover, [the definition fails] because [even] if [the definition
is modified to be,] ‘Being an object of an episode of knowledge that does not have
existence for its predication content,’ then since nonexistence itself must be defined
through existence, there is mutual dependency.”
37 These are technically termed “locus-free” qualities, or qualities whose locus is
nonexistent (asadāśrayadharma). The concept of locus-free qualities is already present
in the works of Jayatīrtha (see below, note 45), but Vyāsatīrtha developed this concept
significantly in the Tarkatāṇḍava, in response to Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika arguments about
empty terms. See Siauve 1968: 189–206 for a discussion of empty terms in the Mādhva
tradition.
38 śuktirajatam ahaṃ jānāmīti vyavasāyadvārāsato ’py anuvyavasāyaviṣayatvād asaty
ativyāptiḥ | (Nyāyāmṛtaprakāśa 1: 272.) “By means of the apperception, ‘I am
cognizing the shell-silver,’ even what is nonexistent can be the object of apperception;
126 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

hence [the definition of existence as ‘being the object of an episode of knowledge’] is

overly applicable to what is nonexistent.”
39 na ṣaṣṭhaḥ, sato ’py asattvaprakārakabhramaviṣayatvāt |
sattvaprakārakabhramāviṣayatve cātmāśrayāt | asattvāprakārakabhramāviṣayatve
cānyonyāśrayāt | (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 248.) “Nor is the sixth [definition of existence]
tenable, because what is existent too can be the object of an erroneous judgment
that has nonexistence for its predication content. Moreover, [the sixth definition of
existence fails] because [even] if [existence is defined as] ‘not being the object of
an erroneous judgment that has existence for its predication content,’ there is the
flaw of self-dependency. Moreover, [the sixth definition of existence fails] because
[even] if [existence is defined as] ‘not being the object of an erroneous judgment
that has nonexistence for its predication content,’ there is the flaw of mutual
dependency.”
40 My reconstruction here is based largely on Śrīnivāsatīrtha’s explanation of this
passage. Cf. Nyāyāmṛtaprakāśa, 1: 272.
41 Technically, contact is said to be “the counterpositive of a constant absence that is
collocated with [its own] counterpositive” (pratiyogisamānādhikaraṇātyantābhāvapr
atiyogin). See Ingalls (1951: 73–4) for a discussion of how the Navya-Naiyāyikas treat
qualities of “incomplete-occurrence” (avyāpyavṛttidharmas).
42 na saptamaḥ, saṃyogādāv avyāpteḥ | śuktirūpyāder adhikaraṇādyabhāvenātivyāpteś
ca | (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 248.) “Nor is the seventh [definition of existence as ‘something’s
not being the counterpositive of a negation that occurs in that thing’s own locus and
at that thing’s own time’] tenable, because it fails to apply to contact [and other non-
locus-pervading properties]. And [it] is overly applicable to the silver superimposed
on shell and other [illusory objects] since they lack a locus and so on.”
43 For instance, in his defense of the concept of indeterminacy early on in the
Advaitasiddhi, Madhusūdana defines existence as: omnitemporal-non-sublatability
(trikālābādhyatva). See Nyāyāmṛta 1: 54.
44 nāpy aṣṭamaḥ | bādhasya pratipannopādhau traikālikasattvaniṣedhatvenānyonyāśrayāt
| (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 248.) “Nor is the eighth [definition of existence as ‘non-sublatability’]
tenable. For, since sublation itself consists in ‘the omnitemporal negation of existence
(sattva) in what was taken for [its] substrate,’ there is the flaw of mutual dependency.”
45 ucyate tavātmani yat sattvam, tad eveha mama | uktaṃ hi—yādṛśaṃ brahmaṇaḥ
sattvam, tādṛśaṃ syāj jagaty api / iti | tatra tad anirvācyaṃ ced, ihāpi tathāstu
| sattvānirvacane ’pi tad vad eva svarūpapāramārthyopapatteḥ | yadi ca
tatrānṛtavyāvṛttimātram, abādhitasvarūpaṃ vā sattvam; bādhaś ca pratipannopādhau
traikālikaniṣedhaḥ, jñānena nivṛttir veti nānyonyāśrayaḥ; tarhīhāpi tathāstu,
brahmasāmyasyaivāpekṣitatvāt | (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 249.)
46 suhārde tu—trikālasarvadeśīyaniṣedhāpratiyogitā / sattocyate ’dhyastatucche
taṃ prati pratiyoginī // sarvadeśakālasambandhaniṣedhāpratiyogitvaṃ sattvam |
yadavacchinne saṃyogaḥ, tadavacchinne tadatyantābhāvo neti na tatrāvyaptiḥ |
gaganāder apy atyantābhāvaḥ kevalānvayī nety uktatvān na gaganādāv avyāptiḥ
| tuccham adhyastaṃ coktapratiṣedhapratiyogīty uktatvān nātivyāptir api | aśve
gotvaṃ kadā cid api nāstīty ādau tatsaṃsarga eva niṣidhyata iti mate deśapadam
anapekṣitam | ke cit tu— parābhipretamithyātvābhāvo vā, asadvilakṣaṇatve saty
anāropitatvaṃ vā, astitvaprakārakapramāṃ prati kadā cit sākṣādviṣayatvaṃ vā,
kālasambandhitvaṃ vā sattvam | astitvaṃ ca vartamānatvam | atītādir api kadā
cid vartata eva | āropitaṃ tu kālatrayāsambandhitvena bādhabodhitam iti na
doṣa ity āhuḥ | (Nyāyāmṛta 1: 249.) Vyāsatīrtha is here elaborating considerably
 Vyāsatīrtha’s Nyāyāmṛta 127

on remarks about existence by Jayatīrtha. For instance, in the Tattvoddyotaṭīkā,

Jayatīrtha argues: “Objection (Advaitin): … If the word mithyā does not refer to
what is indeterminate, then [you] must specify what it means. Reply (Mādhva):
True enough! We say [that it means] “nonexistent.” Objection (Advaitin): In that
case it follows that [the word mithyā] is meaningless! For [one] cannot [say] “What
is nonexistent exists” (asad asti), because [that is] contradictory. And if [the word
mithyā] is meaningless, then it cannot be a word at all. Reply (Mādhva): Wrong!
Because there is nonexistence in the form of “being the counterpositive of a constant
absence.” For, the statement “[It is] mithyā” does not mean “[It is] a hare’s horn” or
so on. For then [one] would not [say] “The hare’s horn is mithyā.” So what [does
it mean]? “It does not exist.” And so the [sublating judgment] “The silver is in
fact mithyā” (mithyā eva rajatam) means “There is the constant absence of silver.”
Objection (Advaitin): How can something that itself is nonexistent have the quality
of being a counterpositive? Reply (Mādhva): Why do you ask “how”? For, unlike [the
trope] color and so on, the state of being a counterpositive does not depend on the
existence of its locus. For, “being a counterpositive” is nothing more than “being an
object of a cognition that is conducive to a cognition of an absence.” And we shall
demonstrate [later in this work] that there can be a cognition even of what does
not exist. nanu … anirvacanīyasya yadi na mithyāśabdo vācakas tarhi tadvācyaṃ
vācyam | satyam | asad iti brūmaḥ | evaṃ tarhi nirarthaka iti prāptam | na hy asad
astīti sambhavati, vyāhatatvāt | nirarthakatve ca padatvavyāghāta iti cet, maivam |
atyantābhāvapratiyogitvalakṣaṇasyāsattvasya vidyamānatvāt | na hi mithyety asya
śaśaviṣāṇādikam ity arthaḥ | tathā sati śaśaviṣāṇaṃ mithyeti na syāt | kiṃ nāma?
tan nāstīti | tathā ca mithyaiva rajatam ity asya nāsti rajatam, rajatātyantābhāvo
’sti ity arthaḥ | svayam asataḥ kathaṃ pratiyogitvam iti cet, kim iha katham? na hi
pratiyogitvaṃ rūpādivad dharmisattāsāpekṣam, abhāvajñānopayogijñānaviṣayatāmātrasya
pratiyogitvatvāt | asato ’pi pratītim upapādayiṣyāmaḥ | (Tattvoddyotaṭīkā 32).
47 In the Advaitasiddhi, Madhusūdana argues as follows: “If it is argued [that
‘nonexistence’ can be defined as ‘being the counterpositive of an absence that occurs
in all times and places,’ and ‘existence’ can be defined as not being the counterpositive
of such an absence] then [you are] wrong! For the visual faculty and [the other
sense-faculties] cannot apprehend existence so-defined, consisting as it does of
so many things that are not accessible to the visual faculty and [the other sense-
faculties]. For, something’s being the counterpositive of an absence that (1) belongs
to all places and times, (2) has something that occurs [in at least one other thing]
for its counterpositive, and (3) which occurs completely [in its locus] is never
perceptible, by virtue of which its absence would be perceptible. For, even if we get
rid of the qualifications ‘has something that occurs [in at least one other thing] for
its counterpositive’ and ‘occurring completely [in its locus,’ which are attached to
the word ‘absence’ in the definition], the properties of occurring in all places and
occurring in all times are not accessible [to the sense-faculties].” iti cet, na;
cakṣurādyayogyānekapadārthaghaṭitatvenaitādṛśa
sattvasya grahaṇe cakṣurāder asāmarthyāt | na hi
sarvadeśīyatraikālikavṛttimatpratiyogikavyāpyavṛttiniṣedhapratiyogitvaṃ kasyāpi
pratyakṣam, yena tadabhāvaḥ pratyakṣo bhavet |
vṛttimatpratiyogikatvavyāpyavṛttitvaparityāge ’pi sarvadeśīyatvatraikālikatvayor
ayogyatvāt | (Advaitasiddhi 1: 251.)
48 See, for instance, Advaitasiddhi 1: 54.
49 See note 45.
128 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

50 See Sastri’s 1934 edition of the Nyāyāmṛta (89) for more on the life and education of
the Advaitin philosopher Gauḍa Brahmānanda.
51 See, for instance, Jonardon Ganeri’s study of Raghunātha Śiromaṇi’s new metaphysics
(Ganeri 2011).

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California Press.
Wada, Toshihiro (2007), The Analytic Method of Navya-Nyāya, London: Brill.
Williams, Michael (2011), “Mithyātva on Trial: A Mādhva Critique of Advaitin
Metaphysics,” PhD dissertation, University of Manchester.
Williams, Michael (2014), “Mādhva Vedānta at the Turn of the Early Modern
Period: Vyāsatīrtha and the Navya-Naiyāyikas,” International Journal of Hindu
Studies 18.2, 119–52.
Williams, Michael (2017a), “Jayatīrtha and the Problem of Perceptual Illusion,” in
J. Ganeri, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy, New York: Oxford University
Press, 559–76.
Williams, Michael (2017b), “Raghunātha Śiromaṇi and the Examination of the Truth
about the Categories,” in J. Ganeri, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy,
New York: Oxford University Press, 623–42.
Zydenbos, Robert (1991), “On the Jaina Background of Dvaita Vedānta,” Journal of Indian
Philosophy 19.3, 249–71.
130
 4

Accomplishing the Impossible: Jīva Gosvāmī

and the Concept of Acintya in Caitanya
Vaiṣṇava Vedānta
Ravi M. Gupta

“In the beginning, son, this world was simply what is existent—one only, without a
second” (Olivelle 1998: Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1). So begins one of the most famous
passages of the Upaniṣads—Chapter 6 of the Chāndogya. With a brevity that is typical
of the Upaniṣads, the above sentence is packed with significant philosophical ideas, but
we shall note only three. First, the Chāndogya asserts that there was something at the
beginning. Creation does not come from nothing,1 and the remainder of the passage
says as much. Second, whatever existed at the beginning (the text calls it sat, a synonym
for Brahman, the ultimate reality) is eternal; existence is its primary attribute. And
finally, all things come from this one ultimate reality. In other words, everything—the
world and its living beings—has a unified origin.
The Upaniṣads are convinced that deep down, under all the labels, names, and
categories that we use, reality is in fact unified. Indeed, this same section of the
Chāndogya gives a striking metaphor for this unity. A father is teaching his son,
Śvetaketu, about the nature of reality, and to demonstrate his point, he asks his son to
place a chunk of salt in a glass of water. After some time, he asks Śvetaketu to retrieve
the salt, but he cannot, because it has dissolved. Then the father asks his son to sip
the water and tell him what it tastes like. Śvetaketu sips the water from a different
side of the glass every time, and every time his response is the same—the water tastes
salty, although he cannot see the salt. In the same way, the father concludes, the Self,
although invisible, is present in all beings, animal and human:

The finest essence here—that constitutes the self of this whole world; that is the
truth; that is the self (ātman). And that’s how you are, Śvetaketu. (Olivelle 1998:
Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.13.3)

This picture of perfect unity, however, is soon interrupted—just a few lines after the
sentence with which we began this essay:
132 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

In the beginning, son, this world was simply what is existent—one only, without
a second … And it thought to itself: “Let me become many. Let me propagate
myself.” (Olivelle 1998: Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2.1, 3)

Here we learn more about the ultimate reality that is the Self in all beings: it is conscious,
with the capacity to know. But equally significant is the fact that it possesses desire—
the desire to multiply. In other words, not only unity but also multiplicity is embedded
in the nature of reality; the movement from singularity to diversity is enshrined in the
text. Indeed, even in the salt metaphor, multiplicity is not destroyed: after Śvetaketu
tastes the salt, his father asks him to pour out the water and return a while later.
When he returns, the water has presumably evaporated, leaving the salt behind, and
so the boy realizes that the salt “was always right there” (Olivelle 1998: Chāndogya
Upaniṣad 6.13.2). The water could not dissolve the salt entirely; unity cannot destroy
difference and diversity.
And therein lies a fundamental paradox of the Upaniṣads: How do we account for both
the unity and multiplicity that is present in the world, in ourselves, and indeed, in God
himself? Some Vedānta philosophers have privileged unity at the expense of multiplicity,
arguing that the variety of the world is only a reflection, an illusory transformation of
an ultimate reality that is fundamentally simple, formless, and undifferentiated. The
most famous nondualist of this sort was the eighth-century theologian Śaṅkara. Other
Vedāntists, such as the thirteenth-century Madhva, have argued that duality is the
fundamental nature of reality; there are ontological differences between God, the world,
and living beings. Vedānta has been the dominant stream of theistic philosophy in India
for over a thousand years, and such debates continue even today.
In this chapter, we will examine the philosophical ideas of a tradition that has
attempted to hold together the competing imperatives of unity and multiplicity,
difference and non-difference, simplicity and diversity. This tradition, Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavism, developed a remarkable theory—“inconceivable difference and non-
difference”—that attempted to synthesize the positions of earlier schools, and to
balance rigorous philosophical reflection with ecstatic devotion to Kṛṣṇa. The architect
of this balance was the theologian Jīva Gosvāmī, in the generation immediately
following Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1486–1534), the founder of the tradition. Thus, we begin
here with a brief introduction to Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism and Jīva Gosvāmī, before diving
into questions of self, God, world, and their relationship to each other.

4.1 An Overview of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Theology

“Let us inquire into the Supreme Truth, the origin of this world.” With this thought
begin two great classics of the Indian religious traditions—the Brahmasūtra and
the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The former is a collection of some five hundred succinct
aphorisms that have become the subject of a vibrant tradition of philosophical debate
and commentary known as Vedānta.2 The latter, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, is a marvel of
devotional poetry that tells the life story of Kṛṣṇa, the playful, bluish deity who spoke
the Bhagavad-Gītā and is worshipped as the Highest Lord by Vaiṣṇavas.3 The Bhāgavata
 Accomplishing the Impossible 133

Purāṇa offers a sophisticated theology of bhakti that has served as inspiration for works
of literature, art, and architecture throughout the Indian subcontinent.
Some five hundred years ago, in Kṛṣṇa’s village of Vṛndāvana, the Caitanya
Vaiṣṇava tradition brought these two texts together. Emerging from a period of
intense devotional activity in North India, the Caitanya tradition attempted to weave a
theology that provided a secure intellectual foundation for ecstatic devotional practice.
The materials for this enterprise came from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavas regard as both the highest source of valid knowledge (pramāṇa) and the
fount of all rasa—the intensified emotions shared between God and the devotee.
On the basis of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theologians have
described divinity as consisting of three aspects: Bhagavān, the supreme personal
deity who is none other than Kṛṣṇa; Paramātmā, a form of Bhagavān who enters
the material creation, guiding all beings from within their hearts; and Brahman,
the formless, attributeless, all-pervading reality that has been best described by the
Advaitins.4 While all three aspects comprise a single reality, Bhagavān Kṛṣna is the
highest divinity and the appropriate object of bhakti. For followers of Caitanya,
Kṛṣṇa’s preeminence does not lie only in his majesty, opulence, or power, nor do these
awesome attributes provide enough reason to love him. The Supreme Deity is above all
the Lord of sweetness—a blue-hued cowherd boy who charms his friends and family
with his beauty, sweet words, and the sound of his flute. For Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas, this
boy Kṛṣṇa is the imperishable Brahman described by the Upaniṣads, the Supreme Self
of the Yogasūtra, the creator of the universe, and the origin of innumerable divinities.
Yet he is concerned with one primary task—to enjoy relationships of love with his
devotees. Every individual has a unique and personal relationship with Kṛṣṇa—as a
servant, friend, parent, or lover. The exemplars of service in these relationships are the
residents of Vṛndāvana, whose love for Kṛṣṇa springs not from regard for his majesty,
but from spontaneous attachment. The greatest of these devotees is Śrī Rādhā, Kṛṣṇa’s
beloved consort and personal energy, who is inseparable from him.
Kṛṣṇa possesses infinite energies (śaktis), by which he creates and enjoys all
that exists. Kṛṣṇa and his energies are inconceivably one and different from him, a
relationship known technically as acintya-bhedābheda. These energies are pervaded
by him, coexistent with him, dependent upon him, and controlled by him. They
are the source of all the variety and splendor found in both the phenomenal and
spiritual worlds, and they are inseparably associated with the Lord. In other words,
there is no time or place where Kṛṣṇa exists without his abode, devotees, or attendant
paraphernalia. Moreover, the energies of God are dynamic and eventful; they make the
divine world a realm of activity, relationships, and freshness.
It is the aspiration of devotees to reestablish their personal relationship with Kṛṣṇa
and recover their natural service to him. This becomes possible by the careful execution
of daily devotional practice according to rules laid down in scripture. Five types of
practice are considered most important for developing loving devotion (bhakti):
associating with devotees, singing Kṛṣṇa’s name (saṅkīrtana), studying the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa, living in Vṛndāvana, and worshipping the sacred icon (mūrti).5 The devotee
who faithfully performs these activities gradually awakens his or her dormant love for
Kṛṣṇa and reenters the divine realm of Kṛṣṇa’s līlā.
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The Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition (sampradāya), also known as Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism

due to its Bengali origins, was founded in the early sixteenth century by Kṛṣṇa Caitanya.
Within a period of forty-eight years, Caitanya spread a wave of devotion to Kṛṣṇa
through much of India, particularly in the regions of Bengal, Odisha, and Vṛndāvana.
Although he left little by way of written work, the movement he inspired produced an
astonishing array of poetical, philosophical, and ritual literature dedicated to Kṛṣṇa.
Much of the school’s early literature was composed by the six gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana,
who were asked by Caitanya to systematize and expound his teachings.6 They did this
exclusively in Sanskrit, despite the increasing use of the vernaculars during their time.
However, their ideas were articulated in Bengali by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja in his Caitanya-
caritāmṛta, which soon became the canonical biography of Caitanya.

4.2 Jīva Gosvāmī

Of the six gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, the youngest and most prolific was Jīva Gosvāmī
(ca. 1517–1608). To the community of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas, Jīva Gosvāmī has
epitomized—from his own time to the present day—the highest ideal of devotional
erudition used in the service of Kṛṣṇa. Indeed, teachers and scholars of Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavism have used superlatives freely in describing his accomplishments. S.K. De
calls Jīva Gosvamī “the highest court of appeal in doctrinal matters so long as he lived”
(1986: 150); Melville Kennedy, “probably the greatest theologian of the Brindaban
group” ([1925] 1993: 137); Stuart Elkman, “an unusually versatile and prolific writer”
(1986: 23); A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda, “the greatest scholar of Śrīmad
Bhāgavatam” (1987: 2.9.32); and Janardan Chakravarti, “one of the greatest of
philosophers that India ever produced” (1975: 59).
Jīva Gosvāmī’s reputation derives largely from his versatile and vigorous pen.
Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja estimates the size of his writings as 400,000 verses.7 Jīva’s student
Kṛṣṇadāsa Adhikārī provides a list of twenty-five works by his teacher, which Brzezinski
has classified into four types: treatises on theology and philosophy, commentaries on
other works, manuals on grammar and poetics, and poetic compositions (2007: 63).8
The most well–known works in each category are the Bhāgavata-sandarbha, the
Durgama-saṅgamanī commentary on Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu,
the Hari-nāmāmṛta-vyākaraṇa, and the Gopāla-campū, respectively. Depending on
the nature of the work, Jīva draws on a range of Upaniṣadic, Purāṇic, commentarial,
or technical literature in his writing. Naturally, his immediate sources are the older
gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana, especially his uncles Rūpa and Sanātana, to whom he offers
obeisance at the beginning of most of his works.
Nevertheless, Jīva Gosvāmī’s importance for the early Caitanya movement was not
limited to his literary output. Almost from the time he arrived in Vṛndāvana to assist
his uncles (no later than 1541), Jīva was involved in securing the future of the fledgling
movement, in terms of both its physical and theological assets. His name is recorded in
several legal documents relating to land for the gosvāmīs’ temples. The most significant
of these is an edict dated 1568, wherein the Mughal Emperor Akbar gives official
recognition to the custodians of the Madana Mohana and Govinda Deva temples at
 Accomplishing the Impossible 135

the behest of the Rajput king, Toḍarmal, who in turn made his request on behalf of Jīva
Gosvāmī (Brzezinski 2007: 56). It seems that Rūpa Gosvāmī had already passed away
by this time, leaving legal responsibility for the temples in the hands of Jīva.
Jīva also worked to maintain the theological unity and vitality of Caitanya’s
movement. Ramakanta Chakrabarty notes that differences of opinion arose within
the Bengali Vaiṣṇava community after Caitanya’s departure due to the lack of any
“comprehensive theological and ritualistic structure” (1985: 207). Jīva worked
to provide this structure, not only by writing theological treatises such as the
Bhāgavatasandarbha, but also by training the next generation of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas,
most notably Śrīnivāsa, Narottama, and Śyāmānanda. Through them, he sent the
Gosvāmī literature to Bengal and Orissa around 1570, and guided the development
of the movement in those regions. A seventeenth-century work called Karṇānanda,
for example, mentions a letter sent by Jīva in response to a query from Narottama and
other Bengali devotees. There, Jīva clarifies a matter of devotional practice (sādhanā),
by stating that the regulated physical practice of bhakti should continue even when
the devotee is performing more esoteric, meditative practice—a view that became
standard in later tradition (Delmonico 1999: 97). Brzezinski writes,

Jiva Goswami … evidently had a strong hold on both the emerging and established
leaders of the post-Caitanya Vaiṣṇava movement in Bengal, as is evident through
numerous visits made by not only the above-mentioned trio and their disciples,
but by other important figures. Most prominent amongst these was, no doubt,
Jahnava Devi [the wife of Nityānanda], who went to Vṛndāvana with a large group
of disciples at least twice. (2007: 58–9)

Conscious of his responsibilities until the very end, Jīva left a will detailing how the
gosvāmī temples, libraries, and other assets should be managed and perpetuated in
his absence. The manuscript, signed by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja and other noteworthy
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas of the time, is the earliest extant document of its kind in India (see
Mukherjee and Wright 1979).
The most important of Jīva’s writings for our purposes is the six-part Bhāgavata-
sandarbha (A Treatise on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa),9 where he offers a systematic and
comprehensive exposition of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theology, engaging in Vedāntic
discourse while also building a foundation for ecstatic devotion to Kṛṣṇa. In the
Bhāgavata-sandarbha, Jīva pushes at the boundaries of Vedānta in several ways:

Purāṇa to Vedānta: The Bhāgavata Purāṇa lies at the very heart of Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavism, and Caitanya regarded the Purāṇa as the perfect and natural
commentary on the Brahmasūtra. The Bhāgavata is indeed replete with Vedāntic
themes, and because it enjoys undisputed preeminence among followers of
Caitanya, it provided an excellent bridge for the community to enter the realm
of Vedānta (Gupta 2007: 25). In the Bhāgavata-sandarbha, Jīva provides a
commentary on the first five aphorisms of the Brahmasūtra, which is likely the
first Purāṇa-based commentary on the Brahmasūtra.
136 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Syncretic sources: Not only does Jīva blur boundaries of genre in his work, he
also intentionally crosses lines of difference between earlier Vedāntic teachers.
Jīva employs terminology, concepts, and themes from Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and
Madhva, the founders of three prominent schools of Vedānta, and when he sees
that a particular argument has already been made well elsewhere, he simply directs
the reader accordingly. He often brings these diverse thinkers into dialogue, even
on issues of disagreement.10

Vedānta to Prema: For followers of Caitanya, the goal of all philosophy and practice
is to cultivate unmotivated, spontaneous love for Kṛṣṇa (prema). The traditional
Hindu aims of religion, wealth, pleasure, and even liberation are subsumed
under a fifth and final goal, namely, prema. Thus, for Jīva, the traditional purpose
of Vedāntic study is transformed, for now its main function is not to provide
liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Instead, through the study of Vedānta one
gains an acceptable, scriptural foundation for the experience of pure love.

Unity in difference: Jīva Gosvāmī was the first to expound systematically the
Caitanya Vaiṣṇava doctrine of acintya-bhedābheda, the view that God and His
energies are paradoxically both different and non-different from one another. The
term acintya-bhedābheda is not widely used as the official name of Caitanyaite
Vedānta in the early literature of the school, although both the elements (acintya
and bhedābheda) are ubiquitously discussed and frequently juxtaposed. For
example, Alessandro Graheli (2007) has demonstrated the presence of these ideas
in the Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta, an early narrative work by Sanātana Gosvāmī. The
clearest statement of nomenclature is found in the Sarva-saṃvādinī, where Jīva
Gosvāmī lists the names of different teachers and their schools of Vedānta, and
then concludes by saying that his view is acintya-bhedābheda.11

Confluence of traditions: Jīva Gosvāmī was situated on the cusp between a solid,
time-tested heritage of Sanskrit Vedāntic exegesis and a fresh yet powerful tide of
devotion to Kṛṣṇa, much of which was being expressed in vernacular languages.
His writing crosses what one might today call “disciplinary boundaries,” for he
brought into dialogue four major streams of classical Hinduism: the various
systems of Vedānta, the ecstatic bhakti movements, the Purāṇic commentarial
tradition, and the aesthetic rasa theory of Sanskrit poetics. With training in, and
commitments to, all of these traditions, Jīva Gosvāmī was able to tie them together
with considerable ingenuity and yet still produce a distinctly Caitanya Vaiṣṇava
system of theology.

Jīva’s impact on the sampradāya is significant, and later authors engage profusely with
his work. Of particular relevance for us is the eighteenth-century theologian Baladeva
Vidyābhūṣaṇa, who wrote Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism’s first and only complete commentary
on the Brahmasūtra, called Govinda-bhāṣya. Baladeva was closely familiar with Jīva’s
work, as demonstrated by his commentary on the first part of the six-part Bhāgavata-
sandarbha. Nevertheless, Baladeva developed a Vedāntic system that was distinct from
Jīva’s in important ways. This was due in part to Baladeva’s former affiliation with the
 Accomplishing the Impossible 137

Mādhva sampradāya, along with the need to respond to the political demands of the
Rājput Kachvāhā court under Jaisingh II (r. 1700–43). Kiyokazu Okita has provided an
excellent study of the theology and historical context of the Govinda-bhāṣya (2014b),
and he has also drawn some points of comparison between the theologies of Jīva and
Baladeva (2014a). Nevertheless, a full intellectual history of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta
is greatly needed and yet to be written.

4.3 Unity in Difference

With this overview of Jīva Gosvāmī and the early Caitanya Vaiṣṇava tradition, let us
now return to the paradox with which we began this essay. In the history of theistic
Vedānta, one can observe two opposing forces constantly at play with each other:
unification and separation of the Lord and his creation. Vedāntic writers ensure that
the world has no existence separate from the Lord, and then take care to distance the
two so as not to compromise his perfection. They emphasize the Lord’s role as the
cause of the world, while insisting that its fluctuations and miseries have nothing to do
with him. On the basis of scripture, they establish that the world is dependent upon
Brahman, and that the world proceeds from Brahman.
This constant struggle between unity and difference that characterizes the inquiry
into ultimate reality has been regarded by Caitanya Vaiṣṇavas as characteristic of the
very nature of that reality. The Supreme Lord, Bhagavān, and his creation are closely
related, like fire is to its light, or the sun to its rays. The creation and its inhabitants are
the energy (śakti) of the Lord, and the relationship between Bhagavān and his energies
is bhedābheda—simultaneous difference and non-difference. According to Jīva, both
oneness and difference are equally reasonable, supported by scripture, and necessary;
therefore, both must be held together. However, this contradiction is beyond human
reason, and so the relation of bhedābheda is called acintya, inconceivable.12 In this
chapter, we will examine the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theory of acintya-bhedābheda, paying
special attention to the concept of acintya, for it lies at the heart of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava
Vedānta. There has been a paucity of recent sustained scholarship on acintya, with the
exception of a few authors whom we engage in this chapter.13 I will argue that acintya is
used by Jīva Gosvāmī in two related ways: to describe the relationship between Kṛṣṇa
and his energies (śakti) as well as to describe Kṛṣṇa’s confounding activities (līlā). The
former usage serves to resolve the tension in scriptural statements that alternately
affirm difference (bheda) and non-difference (abheda) between God and the world,
while the latter usage of acintya has the effect of deepening the devotee’s wonder
and devotion for the Lord. We begin here with the ontological usage of acintya that
describes the relation between Kṛṣṇa and his śakti.
The analogy of fire and its light is used repeatedly in Jīva Gosvāmī’s writings and in
Caitanya Vaiṣṇava texts in general.14 First and foremost, the analogy is used to argue
for the innate (svābhāvika) nature of Bhagavān’s śakti. Just as fire and its radiance
are invariably coexistent, and radiance emanates from fire without any extraneous
endeavor on the fire’s part, so the śakti of the Lord is inseparable from the Lord, and
proceeds from him as a result of his own nature. In Jīva Gosvāmī’s writings, we find a
138 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

persistent emphasis on the naturalness of the Lord’s śakti, for his concern is to preserve
the unity and simplicity of the Supreme. The most important scriptural proof-text in
this regard comes from the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, which says, “It is known that [his]
śakti is supreme, manifold, and part of his very nature.”15 Just as Rāmānuja argued that
the body is included in the self, Jīva reminds us that any concept of Bhagavān must
include his śakti.
Once Bhagavān and his śakti have been so intimately associated, the Vedāntist is
immediately faced with the problem of the world and its vagaries. Surely, this material
world of change and suffering cannot be included within the immutable and blissful
Brahman. How can a pure and transcendent entity produce, or even be associated with,
something that is so opposed to its nature? The analogy proves useful here as well: the
light of a fire does not possess many of the attributes of fire, such as the power to burn
or provide warmth.16 Still, the question remains as to the locus of the phenomenal
world, since too much proximity with Brahman would undermine his perfection. And
so, after the initial unification of Bhagavān and his śakti, they must be distanced again.
It is here that Jīva Gosvāmī employs the doctrine of manifold śakti. Although the
unity of śakti must still be upheld, distinctions need to be introduced depending on the
distance of powers from Bhagavān’s essential nature (svarūpa). Again using the Viṣṇu
Purāṇa as their source text, Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theologians have divided śakti into three:
internal (antaraṅgā), external (bahiraṅgā), and marginal (taṭasthā, “on the shore”).17
The internal energy, also called svarūpa-śakti, is the power through which Bhagavān
acts in his personal affairs. This energy is of the same transcendent nature as Bhagavān,
and so is responsible for manifesting everything directly related to him, such as his
form and abode.18 The external energy, on the other hand, manifests the temporary
phenomenal world of matter. Because of the inferior nature of this śakti, known also as
māyā, Bhagavān sets it into motion but remains distant from its activities. Bhagavān is
both the efficient and material cause of the universe, but only indirectly, through the
agency of the external energy. Jīva Gosvāmī thus identifies two parts to this ­śakti—
the qualitative or efficient energy (guṇa- or nimitta-māyā) and the substantial energy
(upādāna-māyā).19 These two perform the creative functions on Bhagavān’s behalf and
are therefore the immediate cause of the living beings’ bondage and delusion. Finally,
the living beings themselves are the marginal energy of Bhagavān, for they can move
within either the internal or external śaktis, although they are essentially part of the
superior energy.
Now, the analogy of fire and its light ceases to be useful at this point, since it does
not provide much scope for introducing degrees of difference between an object and
its powers. Instead, Jīva Gosvāmī shifts to the analogy of the sun and its splendor.20
Here, we can distinguish four levels of distance from the sun: the sun god or sun globe,
the fiery radiance within the sun’s orb, the rays that proceed outward from the sun,
and the sun’s reflection (on water or a polished surface). The sun god is like the Lord
himself in his original form (svarūpa), Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, the source of all śaktis. The
powerful radiance most closely associated with him is the internal energy, by which
all the opulence of his realm, Vaikuṇṭha, is manifested. The living beings, on the other
hand, are like the sun’s rays; they possess the same nature as the brilliance within the
sun, but with less intensity, and they stand somewhere between the sun and the world
 Accomplishing the Impossible 139

of reflection.21 The sun’s reflection, with its multi-colors and shapes, is the external
energy, the world of matter. The reflection is produced by the sun and depends on the
sun for its existence, yet its uncertainties and fluctuations cannot disturb the sun.
In this brief description of the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava concept of śakti, we have seen two
forces pulling in opposite directions: unification and separation of the Lord and his
energies. We described Bhagavān and his śaktis as identical in nature, and then distanced
the two to preserve the Lord’s transcendence. Indeed, the relationship between the
Lord and his energies is bhedābheda—simultaneous difference and non-difference.
This is because, as we have seen, the Lord’s śakti is natural to him (svābhāvikī) and fully
dependent on him; at the same time, a comfortable distance between them must be
maintained, so as to not impinge upon the Lord’s transcendence. Thus, both difference
and non-difference are seen by Jīva as equally reasonable and necessary characteristics
of the relationship between the Bhagavān and his śaktis. Both are equally supported by
scripture and therefore must be held together and accepted as they are. The coexistence
of difference and non-difference, of course, is inconceivable to the human mind, and
so the relation of bhedābheda is called acintya, inconceivable.
Now, this understanding of acintya rests on an important assumption about the
nature of scripture, namely, that all scriptural statements about Brahman—those
affirming difference and those affirming non-difference—must be given equal weight
and taken in their direct sense. Even the contradictions arising from reasoning about
the nature of Brahman—that Brahman is unique yet diverse, aloof yet involved,
changeless yet creative—are dependent on scripture, for it is scripture that tells us that
Brahman must have all these opposing qualities.
Thus, if the tension in scriptural statements were to be removed in some other way,
we would not arrive at inconceivability (acintya). Advaita Vedāntins, for example,
do find another way; they employ a complex hermeneutical method in which they
bestow overarching importance on a few scriptural passages concerning the nature of
Brahman, naming them “great statements” (mahā-vākyas). All other statements are
then interpreted in light of them. The great statements invariably stress nonduality and
the absence of attributes, allowing Advaitins to relegate statements of difference and
quality to the realm of pragmatic reality (vyāvahārika-sattā). The perfect and infinite
Brahman is so far beyond the realm of finite and determinable reality that words, even
the words of scripture, have no direct access to it. Rather, they can only indirectly
indicate it: “Even the great saying, ‘He is the Self; that thou art,’ can only be applied
to the supreme Self in a subtly indirect sense” (Lott 1980: 31). Later Advaita writers
such as Sureśvara have distinguished between the chief or direct meaning (mukhya-
vṛtti) and the secondary or implied meaning (lakṣaṇā-vṛtti) of a sentence. Statements
such as “That thou art” (tat tvam asi) are to be read in accordance with the secondary
meaning.22
This way of interpreting scripture, of course, is unacceptable to Vaiṣṇava
Vedāntins, to whom scriptural statements describing Brahman’s manifold attributes
are as important as assertions of his nonduality, since the former statements provide
the basis for a devotional relationship between the Lord and the devotee. In a
conversation with Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī, Caitanya accuses him of covering the
self-evident meaning of scripture by resorting to indirect interpretation. “You have
140 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

given up the simple meaning of the Brahmasūtra,” he says, “and instead provided
an imaginary interpretation based on the indirect meaning.”23 The syllable “om,” he
argues, is the great statement and essence of the Upaniṣads, whereas “That thou art”
is only a limited or partial understanding.24 For a complete understanding, one must
also accept the statements of difference found in scripture, and be ready to hold both
in tension with one another, without relegating either one to a trivial status. As Gerald
Carney puts it, “the transformation of the Lord’s powers is unthinkable [acintya] but
is not a relative truth perceived differently from finite or transfinite standpoints.
Instead the operation of divine powers is unthinkable because it must be perceived as
both different and identical, as manifest and unmanifest, from the same standpoint”
(1979: 107).
It is here that the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava concept of acintya must be distinguished from
the concept of anirvacanīya (indeterminable) in Advaita Vedānta. The differences
between the two concepts are not difficult to recognize, but they must be pointed out in
order to prevent any simplistic attempt to assimilate one into the other. The two ideas
arise for very different reasons. In the case of anirvacanīya, the fundamental quandary
is the ontological status of the world. Is the phenomenal world real (sat) or unreal
(asat)? It cannot be real, because through knowledge one comes to realize its deceptive
nature—that it is not what it seems to be. That which is real can never be negated in
this way. On the other hand, the world cannot be unreal, for it is initially cognized as
real, and that which is unreal can never be an object of cognition. The world cannot be
both real and unreal, for the same reasons that it cannot be either one of the two. The
world must therefore be admitted as neither real nor unreal. Such a state is naturally
anirvacanīya, indeterminable.25 The favorite Advaita metaphor of a snake and rope
makes the situation clear:

When one sees a snake in the rope one cannot say whether the snake here is real
or unreal. As long as one does not realise the illusion the snake exists; it is sublated
only when one realises that it is a rope and not a snake. Thus the status of the snake
here cannot be called real as it disappears when the real rope is seen; but it is not
totally false for the one who saw it reacted to it as he would have on seeing a real
snake. An unreal object like a round-square or a horse’s horn cannot be a matter of
experience. (Rukmani 1991: 12)26

Once the concept of anirvacanīya is established, it gains a metaphysical status of its

own in Advaita Vedānta, as a category distinct from both the real and unreal, and all
objects of experience in this world are placed in the category of anirvacanīya. This is, as
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad calls it, a “major move, which generalises to a metaphysical
conclusion about the world” (2002: 114–15).27
The move from epistemological uncertainty to ontological category does not take
place in the case of acintya, for the simple reason that the question at stake here is
not an ontological one. The ontological status of the world is not under debate, for
both Bhagavān and his śaktis are fully real, and so too is their relationship. Bhagavān
and his śaktis are identical—and they are different. The difficulty arises in cognising
these two facts simultaneously, and the inability to do so leads to acintya. And this
 Accomplishing the Impossible 141

inconceivability arises necessarily, for a contradiction is inaccessible to the intellect in

principle. Thus, acintya addresses a different problem altogether.
Furthermore, anirvacanīya is the reverse of acintya in regard to the method that is
used to arrive at it. When faced with the problem of the status of the world, Advaita
Vedānta chooses to avoid a direct contradiction, namely, that the world is both real and
unreal, and instead selects a negative approach: the world is neither real nor unreal.
On the other hand, when faced with the problem of the relation between the Lord
and his śaktis, Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism prefers to assert their simultaneous difference and
non-difference, instead of avoiding both. The first approach leads to indeterminacy,
since the world cannot be said to be either real or unreal. The second approach leads to
inconceivability, since Bhagavān and his śaktis are fully real, but their relationships (and
activities, as we shall see) produce many contradictions that defy the rules of logic.28

4.4 Where Does Acintya Apply?

Although we have been comparing the concepts of anirvacanīya and acintya specifically
in terms of what they say or do not say about the status of the world, we should
remember that the scope of acintya extends far beyond the realm of the external energy
to the relation between the Lord and his śakti everywhere. The relationship between
Bhagavān and his internal energy, for example, is equally inconceivable, despite the
fact that the internal energy has the same nature as the Lord. This is due to the fact that
the function of a śakti is irrelevant to its basic relationship with the Lord (although the
distance of that relationship is affected). As we saw in the fire analogy, inconceivability
arises simply from the fact that both difference and non-difference are in some way
true. The clearest and most important example of this relation at work outside the
phenomenal world is the relationship between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Śrī Rādhā, who is the
personification of the Lord’s internal energy. Rādhā is non-different from Kṛṣṇa’s very
nature (svarūpa), because she is his svarūpa-śakti. Kṛṣṇa cannot exist without Rādhā,
for Rādhā is the Lord’s very power of existence. And Kṛṣṇa cannot act without Rādhā,
for as his energy of bliss, she provides the very impetus for activity. Yet Rādhā and
Kṛṣṇa eternally separate themselves for the purpose of play (līlā). She is the energy
and he is the possessor of energy, and thus they are different. At the beginning of
Caitanya-caritāmṛta (1.1.5), Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja eloquently describes the play of unity
and difference between Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa:

Rādhā is the transformation of Kṛṣṇa’s love and his energy of bliss. Therefore,
although Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are one person, they have taken different bodies in
the world from the beginning. Now, the two have again united and appeared as
Caitanya. I bow down to that Caitanya who is Kṛṣṇa himself, adorned with the
sentiment and luster of Rādhā.29

This verse epitomizes the mood and impetus behind bhedābheda in Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavism. How an eternal unity can exist as an eternal duality and then reunite again
is truly inconceivable. Yet, for the Gauḍīyas, this is the view of scripture and a matter of
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personal experience in the person of Caitanya. It is the very nature of the Supreme. The
mystery of simultaneous difference and non-difference is embedded in every aspect of
divinity.
Indeed, it is embedded in the nature of existence generally. The concept of acintya
does not need to be limited to Bhagavān and his śaktis. In the Bhagavat-sandarbha,
Jīva Gosvāmī points out that the relationship between any object and its energy
is inconceivable to the mind. He quotes yet again from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (1.3.2):
“O best of ascetics, the śaktis of all beings are outside the range of reasoned knowledge.
Therefore Brahman’s natural śaktis, such as creation, are also such—just like the heat
of fire.”30 Kapoor explains:

We cannot think of fire without the power of burning; similarly, we cannot think
of the power of burning without fire. Both are identical. Fire is nothing except
that which burns; the power of burning is nothing except fire in action. At the
same time, fire and its power of burning are not absolutely the same. If they were
absolutely the same, there would be no sense in … saying “fire burns.” It would
be enough to say “fire.” “Fire burns” would involve needless repetition, for “fire”
would mean the same thing as “burns.” Besides, if there were no difference between
fire and its power, it would not be possible to neutralise the power of burning in
fire by means of medicines or mantra, without making fire disappear altogether.
(1977: 153)

Thus, two contradictory relations can be shown at once: fire is identical to its power
of burning, and it is distinct. The same reasoning could be applied to any object and
its power—the cooling effect of water, the sterilizing ability of the sun, or the power
of the atom. In his commentary on this Viṣṇu Purāṇa verse, Śrīdhara Svāmī offers the
example of powerful gems and mantras.31
What, then, is distinctive about the powers of Bhagavān? Is he too like an object of this
world? Certainly, we cannot infer the nature of the Lord’s śaktis from the śaktis of material
things, for the Lord is transcendent and therefore unlike anything in the temporal world.
Indeed, the Brahmasūtra makes it clear that the nature of Brahman is accessible only
through scriptural testimony (śabda), and not by logic (tarka) or inference (anumāna).
We have already noted that it is the statements of scripture that provide the contradiction
necessary to arrive at acintya. Yet, the question still remains as to whether the Caitanya
Vaiṣṇava concept of acintya is in some way uniquely applicable to Bhagavān.
The answer to this question has been a source of some disagreement between two
respected Gauḍīya scholars, Radha Govinda Nath and O.B.L. Kapoor. On the strength
of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa verse quoted above, Nath (2000) believes that acintya-bhedābheda
applies in general to the relation between any object and its śakti. Kapoor, by contrast,
argues that this general application is only a secondary extension of acintya-bhedābheda,
which applies primarily to Brahman’s śakti. He gives two reasons for his claim:

Firstly, Śrī Jīva Gosvāmin has expounded the doctrine of Acintya-bhedābheda

in the context of the problem of relation between God and the world, and not
in the context of the problem of relation between objects and their powers in
 Accomplishing the Impossible 143

general … Secondly, if the doctrine of Acintya-bhedābheda was taken to imply the

Acintya-śakti of objects in general, the relation of difference and non-difference
between God and the world would no doubt proceed as a deduction from the
general rule. But the problem of preserving God’s purity in spite of His relation
with the world would still remain unsolved … It is only the acintya-śakti of God
that can reconcile transcendence with immanence. (1977: 158)

The issue does not settle itself so easily, however. While it is true that Jīva Gosvāmī’s
primary concern is the relation between Bhagavān and his śaktis, there is nothing to
rule out the possibility that he sees that relation as a particular instance of a more
general relational inconceivability. Certainly, such a broader view would not have
detracted from his main thesis regarding Bhagavān’s śakti. Regarding Kapoor’s second
argument, we may recall that it was precisely in an attempt to preserve Bhagavān’s
purity in the face of a changing world that the relation of bhedābheda arose. The
inconceivable character of this relation provides for both transcendence (difference)
and immanence (non-difference), in as much as fire is both different and non-different
from its light.
I do not find enough evidence in Jīva Gosvāmī’s writings to rule out either Kapoor’s
or Nath’s views on the ontological scope of acintya. There is, in fact, strong support
for the view that Bhagavān’s śaktis are unique, but in a way that is quite different from
what Kapoor or Nath were seeking. Through much of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava literature,
Bhagavān’s śaktis are regarded as unique because of their extraordinary function or
operation. The Lord’s energies are inconceivable because they are inconceivable in their
working: they produce wondrous creations, accomplish herculean tasks, and display
endless variety. This seems to be a usage of acintya that is very different from what
we have been exploring so far. Indeed, in Caitanyaite literature, acintya is used much
more often to describe the workings of Bhagavān’s śakti than to describe the relation
between śaktis. A survey of the Caitanya-caritāmṛta reveals that around 90 percent of
references to inconceivable energy (“acintya-śakti” or “acintya-prabhāva”) have to do
with the Lord’s ability to perform wonderful feats. There is an element of contradiction
here too, but it is the impossibility of the Lord’s activities and character, which defy
the rules of logic and the limits of human comprehension. A good illustration of this
usage of acintya is in relation to the person of Caitanya, who is regarded as Kṛṣṇa
himself, but in the mood of his devotee, Rādhā. Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja makes note of the
paradox:

Thus, the Lord himself accepts the sentiment of the cowherd maidens (gopīs)
and addresses Kṛṣṇa, “O lord of my life!” He is Kṛṣṇa; he is a gopī—this is a
great contradiction. The inconceivable character of the Lord is very difficult to
comprehend. One should not apply logic or have doubts in this regard. It is the
inconceivable śakti of Kṛṣṇa—this is my verdict. The joyful activities of Kṛṣṇa
Caitanya are inconceivable and amazing. Wonderful is his mood! Wonderful
are his qualities! Wonderful is his behavior! That sinful person who does not
accept this due to logic will cook in the Kumbhīpāka hell. For him there is no
deliverance.32
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Kṛṣṇadāsa next quotes a verse from the Mahābhārata that is used by both Rūpa
Gosvāmī and Jīva to explain the concept of acintya: “Indeed, one should not apply logic
to those things that are inconceivable. The characteristic of the inconceivable is that it
is beyond the material elements.”33 In this sense, the transcendent, non-material nature
of inconceivability makes it an attribute that can be properly applied only to Bhagavān.

4.5 Making the Impossible Possible

An example of acintya being used in relation to the impossible activities of the Lord
is found in Caitanya-caritāmṛta (Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja 1996: 2.13), which describes
Caitanya’s ecstatic dancing at the chariot festival in Jagannātha Purī. Caitanya divided
his devotees into seven groups of singers, musicians, and dancers to accompany the
parade. Then, in a similar vein to Kṛṣṇa’s dancing in the rāsa dance, Caitanya multiplied
himself to dance simultaneously in all seven groups. Devotees in each of the groups
thought that the Lord was favoring them alone, but some close devotees could see the
entire situation. They understood it as the play of the Lord’s acintya-śakti, which makes
all things possible.
Indeed, Jīva Gosvāmī defines inconceivability as the condition of accomplishing
what is difficult or impossible to accomplish (durghaṭa-ghaṭatvam), and Bhagavān’s
śakti as that which has the ability to do so (asambhava-sambhāvayitrī).34 He quotes two
sūtras of the Brahmasūtra to substantiate his point: śrutes tu śabda-mūlatvāt (2.1.27)
and ātmani caivaṃ vicitrāś ca hi (2.1.28). Both aphorisms occur in the Brahmasūtra’s
second chapter, which raises and puts to rest various possible objections to the
Vedāntic standpoint. The Brahmasūtra is difficult to translate without accompanying
commentary, because each sūtra is so terse and relies on surrounding sūtras for context.
Nevertheless, the above sūtras can be approximated in English as follows: “The basis [of
knowledge about Brahman] is scripture, and scripture supports [contradictions within
Brahman]” (2.1.27); “Therefore, diversity [i.e., wonderful, contradictory attributes]
exists within the Self [Brahman]” (2.1.28). According to Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and
Madhva, the problem being addressed in these two sūtras is the fact that Brahman
is a simple whole without any parts (anavayava) and at the same time the creator of
the world. B.N.K. Sharma explains the general quandary facing these Vedāntins: “If
Brahman is wholly transformed into the world, it would exhaust its being in the world
of effects and there will be no Brahman left outside the realm of effects [for us] to seek,
contemplate and realize. If it transforms only in part it would mean that Brahman is
divisible into parts which would ruin its integrality” (1986: 394). The problem sounds
quite similar to others we have encountered: one of Brahman’s essential attributes is
put into jeopardy by the transformation of the world. The solutions offered in the two
sūtras also follow the trend of our previous discussion.
Both Rāmānuja and Madhva agree on the basic interpretation of the two sūtras.
The first, śrutes tu śabda-mūlatvāt, asserts that inference or logic has no access to
Brahman, who is knowable only through scripture. The second, ātmani caivaṃ vicitrāś
ca hi, reminds us that Brahman possesses wonderful powers that can accomplish all
things. The thrust of both sūtras is that Brahman’s utterly transcendent nature—in
 Accomplishing the Impossible 145

both epistemological and ontological terms—puts it beyond the reach of man-made

means of knowing. B.N.K. Sharma expounds the Mādhva interpretation of the sūtras
in language that is quite amenable to the Caitanya theology of śakti:

Seemingly contradictory attributes can, therefore, be reconciled in Brahman

where and when borne out by the Śrutis—without any difficulty … We hear
of Agastya drinking off at a draught the mighty ocean whose other shore is
beyond our ken. Why should it surprise us if God should have powers which
are incomprehensible to our understanding and by which he could accomplish
what is unaccomplishable by human standards? … The mysterious powers of God
are invoked here only to explain what are observed or borne out by Pramāṇas
[means of valid knowledge] which nevertheless seem to be incompatible or defy
explanation. (1986: 387)

This is precisely the second sense in which acintya is used in Caitanya literature:
the inconceivable power of the Lord to accomplish the impossible. This fact is not
lost on Jīva, who quotes these two sūtras in the Tattva-, Bhagavat-, and Paramātma-
sandarbha, as well as in the Sarva-saṃvādinī, usually in the context of discussion about
the Lord’s inconceivable energies.35 Looking forward to the eighteenth century, we find
that Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa uses acintya in a similar fashion in his commentary on
Brahmasūtra 2.1.36, discussed by Nicholson in Chapter 8 of this volume:

Since it has been proven that the Lord of all, whose nature is paradoxical, possesses
all contradictory and noncontradictory attributes, the wise consider even His
favoritism toward His devotees to be a virtue. For example, He is by His very
nature knowledge, yet He possesses knowledge; He is dark-hued, yet He is without
form or color; He is just, yet He shows favor to His devotees. (Dasa 1965: 112–13)

4.6 Conclusion

Thus we have seen two applications of inconceivability in Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism—one

to describe the relation between Bhagavān and his śaktis, and the other to describe the
operation of those śaktis. The two usages are quite disparate, for there is no entailment
from one to the other. They work together, however, in pointing to the greatness of
Bhagavān. Indeed, the definition of Bhagavān given by Jīva Gosvāmī at the beginning
of the Bhagavat-sandarbha comfortably holds together the different meanings of
acintya: “Bhagavān possesses inconceivable, multifarious, and unlimited energies
that are of his own nature and he is the ocean of unlimited, mutually contradictory
qualities, such that in him both the attribute and the possessor of attributes, the lack
of differences and varieties of difference, formlessness and form, pervasiveness and
centrality—all are true” (Gupta 2007: 33). It is the very nature of the Supreme to bestow
truth or reality on all that is related to him. Since he is the single, ultimate resting place
of everything, and the varieties of existence are endless, we are sure to find endless,
incompatible truths at rest in him. This diversity leads to the defeat of mental abilities,
146 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

but also to the possibility of endless relationship between the soul and Bhagavān.
Indeed, for followers of Caitanya, the concept of acintya-bhedābheda lies at the very
heart of bhakti itself. Graham Schweig puts it well:

The synthesis of unity and diversity in its most evolved and exalted form is
indicated in the Sanskrit word bhakti. Bhakti derives from the verbal root bhaj,
meaning “to share” and “to divide.” In the relationship between God and the soul
there is difference (bheda) by virtue of the individuality which each maintains
eternally. Simultaneously, there is always a “sharing” or oneness (abheda) between
the soul and God … Bhakti is based on the principle of sacred harmony which
simultaneous difference and oneness, individuality and union, alone can achieve.
(1987: 426–7)

And it is here that we encounter the most profound role of acintya for followers of
Caitanya: the inconceivability of Kṛṣṇa’s nature, qualities, and activities creates a
sense of wonderment in devotees’ hearts, thus nourishing their bhakti. The mystery,
incomprehensibility, and even bewilderment created by Kṛṣṇa’s śakti gives human
beings ever more reason to love him, for it enhances the joy of līlā and intensifies the
emotions of both the Lord and the devotee. This affective dimension of acintya merits
further study, but we must leave it for another day.36 Nevertheless, it seems fitting to
conclude with a verse from Rūpa Gosvāmī’s Padyāvalī that returns us to the same place
we began this chapter, namely with thoughts of the Upaniṣads. This time, however, we
meet those revered texts in a very different light (Lutjeharms 2019: 386):

rasaṃ praśaṃsantu kavitā-niṣṭhā

brahmāmṛtaṃ veda-śiro-niviṣṭhāḥ
vayaṃ tu guñjā-kalitāvataṃsaṃ
gṛhīta-vaṃśam kam api śrayāmaḥ
Skilled poets may praise rasa,
those rapt in the Upaniṣads
the immortal bliss of Brahman.
But we seek refuge in someone
who wears earrings of guñjā berries,
who holds a flute.37

Notes
1 See Chapter 8 in this volume by Nicholson for a discussion of creation ex nihilo and
its rejection by Vedānta philosophers.
2 Each of the Vedāntists mentioned above—Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and ­Madhva—has
written a commentary on the Brahmasūtra. (See Sharma 1986, Rangacharya and
Aiyangar [1899] 1988, Rāmānuja 2000, and Hirst 2005.) The first four aphorisms of
the Brahmasūtra are regarded as the most important, for they give definitions and
establish methodology for the entire text. These sūtras are rich in suggestive power
 Accomplishing the Impossible 147

and broad in scope—in a total of ten words, they indicate the nature of ultimate
reality, the origin of creation, the means of acquiring knowledge about ultimate
reality, the qualifications of a person seeking that knowledge, and the proper method
of scriptural interpretation. As one would expect, commentaries on these sūtras
are detailed and demanding; they serve as concise yet complete statements of their
schools’ philosophical standpoints.
3 For a study and abridged translation of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, see Gupta and Valpey
(2017).
4 The key verse in this regard, cited repeatedly by Caitanya Vaiṣṇava writers, is
Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.2.11: “Knowers of reality declare that reality to be nondual
consciousness, called ‘Brahman,’ ‘Paramātmā,’ and ‘Bhagavān.’” Furthermore, in the
second part of his Bhāgavata-sandarbha, Jīva Gosvāmī assembles a wide variety of
verses from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa to establish the concept of the threefold Godhead
and the supremacy of Bhagavān.
5 See Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja’s (1996) Caitanya-caritāmṛta 2.22.129 and Rūpa Gosvāmī’s
Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (Haberman 2002: 1.2.225–44).
6 The six gosvāmīs are Rūpa, Sanātana, Raghunātha Dāsa, Raghunātha Bhaṭṭa, Gopāla
Bhaṭṭa, and Jīva. Rūpa and Sanātana were the most senior; once they had settled in
Vṛndāvana, the others were sent at different times to join them.
7 bhāgavata-sandarbha-nāma kaila grantha-sāra
bhāgavata-siddhāntera tāhāṅ pāiye pāra
gopāla-campū nāma grantha sāra kaila
vraja-prema-līlā-rasa-sāra dekhāila
ṣaṭ sandarbhe kṛṣṇa-prematattva prakāśila
cāri-lakṣa grantha teṅho vistāra karila
“He wrote the Bhāgavata-sandarbha, the essence of scriptures. There, we find the
limit of the conclusions of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. He [also] wrote the Gopāla-campū,
the essence of scriptures. There, he showed the essence of the rasa found in the loving
pastimes of Vraja. In the Ṣat-sandarbha [Bhāgavata-sandarbha], he revealed the truth
of love for Kṛṣṇa. Thus, he composed a vast literature of 400,000 verses” (Kṛṣṇadāsa
Kavirāja 1996: 3.4.229–31).
All translations from Sanskrit and Bengali sources are my own, unless noted
otherwise.
8 For a thorough and well-researched overview of Jīva Gosvāmī’s life, see Brzezinski
(1990).
9 The six parts of the Bhāgavata-sandarbha are as follows: Tattva-, Bhagavat-,
Paramātma-, Kṛṣṇa-, Bhakti-, and Prīti-sandarbha. For reliable editions of the
Sandarbhas, see Jīva Gosvāmī (1953, 1984, 1990, 1999).
10 For a discussion of Jīva’s use of these earlier thinkers, as well as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa
commentator Śrīdhara Svāmī, see chapter 3 of my Caitanya Vaiṣṇava Vedānta of Jīva
Gosvāmī (2007).
11 Alessandro Graheli (2007: 184–5) provides the text and translation of this fascinating
passage from Jīva’s Sarva-saṃvādinī.
12 Graheli argues that the term acintya should be translated as “paradoxical,” rather than
“inconceivable,” because Caitanya Vaiṣṇava authors “do not negate conceivability
altogether, rather they deny the possibility of conceivability by means of humanly
instruments of knowledge, i.e. perception and inference” (184). I find Graheli’s
argument for “paradoxical” convincing insofar as acintya describes the relationship
between God and his energies. However, the word “paradox” is less suitable for
148 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

another frequent usage of acintya in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava texts—namely, the wondrous,

amazing, confounding play of God’s energies. (We shall examine this usage later
in this chapter.) The word “paradox” simply does not convey that sense of wonder;
indeed, Graheli himself translates acintya as “not conceivable” when it is used in
this sense (184). As we attempt to trace the usage of acintya in Caitanya Vaiṣṇava
Vedānta, it would be counterproductive to change the word’s translation halfway
through the chapter. Nevertheless, in acknowledgment of Graheli’s argument, let me
specify that I use “inconceivable” in this chapter particularly in the sense of “beyond
the grasp of human perception and inference,” with perhaps the additional sense
of “impossible to imagine,” thus provoking wonder and delight. Regardless of the
English term that we use to translate acintya, I hope that the sense of the word will
become clear as we encounter its various uses through the course of this chapter.
13 See, for example, the work done by Schweig (2002), Graheli (2007), and Okita
(2014b), all discussed at various points in this chapter.
14 Caitanya Vaiṣṇava authors frequently quote a verse from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (1.22.54)
that compares Brahman’s all-pervading śakti to a fire’s ability to fill a space with light.
This verse is cited in Caitanya-caritāmṛta (2.20.110), Bhagavat-sandarbha (16), thrice
in the Paramātma-sandarbha (70, 71, and 106), and in Sanātana Gosvāmī’s Digdarśinī
commentary on the Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta (Graheli 2007: 197), among other places.
The analogy of fire and its energy is also found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (3.28.40–1),
which compares Bhagavān to fire and the living beings to sparks. The two verses are
commented upon by Jīva Gosvāmī in anuccheda 68 of Paramātma-sandarbha.
15 na tasya kāryaṃ karaṇaṃ ca vidyate na tat-samaś cābhyadhikaś ca dṛśyate
parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca
“One cannot find in him either an obligation to act or an organ with which to act;
neither can one see anyone equal to him, let alone someone who surpasses him. One
hears about his highest and truly diverse power, which is part of his very nature and is
the working of his knowledge and strength” (Olivelle 1998: Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8).
16 Jīva Gosvāmī makes a careful study of causality in the Paramātma-sandarbha,
arguing in support of commonly held Vedāntic views on the subject. See, for
example, anuccheda 70, where he makes use of the fire analogy.
17 The Viṣṇu Purāṇa, however, gives different names to the śaktis:
viṣṇu-śaktiḥ parā proktā kṣetra-jñākhyā tathāparā
avidyā-karma-saṃjñānyā tṛtīyā śaktir iṣyate
“Viṣṇu’s [personal] energy is called parā [superior], the second energy is known as
kṣetra-jña [knower of the field], and the third is named avidyā-karma [ignorance
and activity]” (6.7.61). The sandhi in “tathāparā” can be resolved as “tathā aparā” or
“tathā parā.” The second option would give us “the energy called kṣetra-jña is also
parā (superior).” This meaning is consistent with Bhagavad-Gītā 7.5, where Kṛṣṇa
calls the jīvas his parā prakṛti, and also with Caitanyaite theology, which regards the
jīvas as essentially part of the internal energy.
18 The internal energy has three aspects (sandhinī, saṃvit, and hlādinī), which
correspond to the Lord’s threefold nature as eternity, knowledge, and bliss ­(sac-cid-
ānanda). This further tripartition is again found in Viṣṇu Purāṇa 1.12.68. Verse 6.8
of the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (quoted above) is also cited in support of the partition.
There, the Lord’s inherent śakti is described as jñāna-bala-kriyā, “consisting of
knowledge, strength, and activity.” Knowledge corresponds to saṃvit, strength to
sandhinī, and activity to hlādinī.
 Accomplishing the Impossible 149

19 Each part is further subdivided according to māyā’s various functions. See

Paramātma-sandarbha, anucchedas 53 to 55 for a detailed analysis with supporting
evidence from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.
20 See Bhagavat-sandarbha, anuccheda 16:
ekam eva tat parama-tattvaṃ svābhāvikācintya-śaktyā sarvadaiva svarūpa-tad-
rūpa-vaibhava-jīva-pradhāna-rūpeṇa caturdhāvatiṣṭhate. sūryāntarmaṇḍalastha-
teja iva maṇḍala-tad-bahir-gata-raśmi-tat-praticchavi-rūpeṇa . … śaktiś ca sā tridhā
antaraṅgā bahiraṅgā taṭasthā ca. tatrāntaraṅgayā svarūpa-śaktyākhyayā pūrṇenaiva
svarūpeṇa vaikuṇṭhādi-svarūpa-vaibhava-rūpeṇa ca tad avatiṣṭhate. taṭasthayā raśmi-
sthānīya-cid-ekātma-śuddha-jīva-rūpeṇa bahiraṅgayā māyākhyayā ­praticchavigata-
varṇa-śāvalya-sthānīya-tadīya-bahiraṅga-vaibhava-jaḍātma-pradhāna-rūpeṇa ceti
caturdhātvam.
21 Jīva Gosvāmī uses the jīva-ray analogy in a more restricted way in the Tattva-
sandarbha:
yathā janma-prabhṛti kaścid gṛha-guhāvaruddhaḥ sūryaṃ vividiṣuḥ kathaṃcid
gavākṣa-patitaṃ sūryāṃśu-kaṇaṃ darśayitvā kenacid upadiśyate eṣa sa iti etat
tad-aṃśatvaṃ ca tad-acintya-śakti-viśeṣa-siddhatvenaiva paramātma-sandarbhe
sthāpayiṣyāmaḥ.
“Suppose someone who has been shut in a dark room of the house since birth desires
to know the sun. Someone shows him a tiny ray of sunlight that has somehow come
in through a hole and says, ‘This is the sun.’ In the Paramātma-sandarbha, we will
show that the jīva is similarly a portion of Brahman, for his existence is due to a
particular aspect of Brahman’s inconceivable śakti” (Elkman 1986: anuccheda 52).
This parable describes the pedagogical method used by the Upaniṣads to reveal
the nature of Brahman. The Upaniṣads point to the individual jīva and say, “This is
Brahman.” However, phrases such as “tat tvam asi” should not be taken as statements
of absolute identity, but only as indications of similar natures. Their purpose is to give
an idea of Brahman’s nature to those born in the darkness of ignorance, who only
have themselves as reference points.
22 For a discussion of the Advaita interpretation of tat tvam asi, see Murty (1959: 91–3).
23 ei mata prati-sūtre sahajārtha chāḍiyāgauṇārtha vyākhyā kare kalpanā kariyā
(Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja 1996: 1.7.133).
24 praṇava’ se mahā-vākya vedera nidāna
īśvara-svarūpa praṇava sarva-viśva-dhāma
sarvāśraya īśvarera praṇava uddeśa
‘tat tvam asi’ vākya haya vedera ekadeśa
praṇava mahāvākya tāhā kari’ ācchādana
mahāvākye kari ’tat tvam asi’ra sthāpana
“The praṇava (oṃkāra) is the mahāvākya and the essence of the Veda. It is the form
of the Lord and the abode of the entire universe. Praṇava is the meaning intended by
the Lord who is the refuge of all. ‘Tat tvam asi’ is only one aspect of the Veda. Praṇava
is the mahā-vākya. Obscuring that, you have established ‘tat tvam asi’ as the mahā-
vākya.” (Caitanya-caritāmṛta, 2.128–30).
25 This argument, leading to anirvacanīya, comes originally from Vācaspati Miśra’s
Bhāmatī, the celebrated commentary on Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya, and it is
further developed by later Advaitins. Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad has provided a
rigorous study of Vācaspati’s notion of anirvacanīya, along with relevant citations
from Vācaspati’s writings, in Advaita Epistemology and Metaphysics (2002: 95–132).
150 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

I follow Chakravarthi in translating anirvacanīya as “indeterminable,” rather than the

usual “indescribable” or “inexpressible.”
26 Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad puts the argument like this: “So, neither the claim that
the object exists, nor the claim that it does not, are free from being contradicted by
relevant principles. The object is not existent; it is not non-existent. It cannot both
exist and not exist, for that is a contradiction. The superimposed object of erroneous
cognition is existentially only indeterminable (anirvācyameva āropaṇīyam). This
then is the anirvacanīyakhyāti (the indeterminacy of cognition) thesis” (2002: 114).
27 “The crucial move here is a generalisation to the world from particular objects of
cognition that are elements in that world. The key idea regarding such objects is that
they are ‘indeterminate’ as to their ontological status” (Ram-Prasad 2002: 95).
28 O.B.L. Kapoor makes a similar observation in The Philosophy and Religion of Śrī
Caitanya: “The concept of Anirvacanīya is born out of respect for the Law of
Contradiction. We refuse to describe an object and call it Anirvacanīya when it
seems to violate this law. The concept of acintya is born out of respect for scriptural
authority, which ignores the law of contradiction. The former is based on logic, the
latter on Śrutārthāpatti.” (1977: 157). At some level, however, both concepts are
attempts to deal with the problem of contradiction. Acintya deals with it after the
contradiction has surfaced, whereas anirvacanīya tries to avoid it beforehand.
29 rādhā kṛṣṇa-praṇaya-vikṛtir hlādinī śaktir asmād
ekātmānāv api bhuvi purā deha-bhedaṃ gatau tau
caitanyākhyaṃ prakaṭam adhunā tad-dvayaṃ caikyam āptaṃ
rādhā-bhāva-dyuti-suvalitaṃ naumi kṛṣṇa-svarūpam (Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja 1996: 1.1.5)
This verse is part of the auspicious invocation (maṅgalācaraṇa) of the Caitanya-
caritāmṛta. According to the author, this and the following verse state the purpose of
Caitanya’s descent.
30 śaktayaḥ sarva-bhāvānām acintya-jñāna-gocarāḥ
yato ’to brahmaṇas tās tu sargādyā bhāva-śaktayaḥ
bhavanti tapatāṃ śreṣṭha pāvakasya yathoṣṇutā (1.3.2).
The compound acintya-jñāna-gocarāḥ is difficult to interpret. Śrīdhara Svāmī
(quoted in Bhagavat-sandarbha 16) gives two options: “The śaktis are accessible
by knowledge that is inconceivable, i.e., knowledge that does not give in to logic
(tarkāsaham). Or else: inconceivability means that the śaktis cannot be conceived
of as either different or non-different, and so are accessible only through knowledge
gained by arthāpatti.” To allow for both possibilities, I have translated cintya-jñāna as
“reasoned knowledge” and applied the negation to the entire compound. Also, I have
taken “bhāva-śaktayaḥ” as “svabhāva-śaktayaḥ,” following Śrīdhara Svāmī. It could
also be translated as “śaktis having to do with becoming (i.e., creation),” but that
would cause an overlap in meaning with its qualifier “sargādyāḥ.”
31 See Bhagavat-sandarbha anuccheda 16, where Jīva Gosvāmī quotes at length Śrīdhara
Svāmī’s commentary on Viṣṇu Purāṇa 1.3.2.
32 ataeva āpane prabhu gopī-bhāva dhari’
vrajendra-nandane kahe “prāṇa-nātha” kari’
sei kṛṣṇa, sei gopī, parama virodha
acintya caritra prabhura ati sudurbodha
ithe tarka kari’ keha nā kara saṃśaya
kṛṣṇera acintya-śakti ei mata haya
acintya, adbhuta kṛṣṇa-caitanya-vihāra
citra bhāva, citra guṇa, citra vyavahāra
 Accomplishing the Impossible 151

tarke ihā nāhi māne yei durācāra

kumbhīpāke pace, tāra nāhika nistāra (Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja 1996: 1.17.303–307).
33 acintyāḥ khalu ye bhāvā na tāṃs tarkeṇa yojayet
prakṛtibhyaḥ paraṃ yac ca tad acintyasya lakṣaṇam
(Mahābhārata [Bhīṣma-parva] 6.5.22, quoted in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 2.5.93,
Tattva-sandarbha 11, Sarva-saṃvādinī p. 53, and Caitanya-caritāmṛta 1.17.308).
34 See Bhagavat-sandarbha 16 and 42. In the Sarva-saṃvādinī (p. 57), Jīva defines
Bhagavān’s śakti as asambhava-sambhāvayitrī dustarkā svabhāvikī—natural, difficult
to grasp by logic, and that which makes the impossible possible.
35 See Tattva-sandarbha 11, Bhagavat-sandarbha 15, Paramātma-sandarbha 58, and
Sarva-saṃvādinī p. 57. The latter work is a supplement to the first four Sandarbhas
wherein Jīva highlights issues of particular concern and discusses them in greater depth.
36 Graham Schweig (2002: 439) has made a fascinating application of acintya to the
realm of ethics: “Therefore, in the Bhāgavata [Purāṇa], dharma is preserved and
simultaneously transcended without conflict, clearly demonstrating the acintya-
bhedābheda philosophy as applied to ethics: God, being omnipotent and ‘omnivalent,’
is capable of embracing and transcending at the same time (‘acintya’). This acintya
ethics is observable in the duplicitous, teasing words of Krishna to the Gopīs,
entreating them to both stay in the forest with him and to leave. The double-entendre
of Krishna’s words is not merely a literary device to convey flirtatious affections to
the Gopīs; rather, the double-entendre is engaged in by Krishna, according to the
traditional commentators, in order to demonstrate the simultaneous embracing and
transcending of dharma.”
37 Rembert Lutjeharms explains this and other such verses from the Padyāvalī as
follows: “We can discern two seemingly conflicting views of the role of Vedānta
and of the importance of studying the Upaniṣads. On the one hand, there is a
close engagement with Vedānta, particularly but not exclusively in the writings
of Jīva Gosvāmī. On the other hand—elsewhere—there is an explicit rejection
of Vedānta and the Upaniṣads, or at least an indifference to them … [T]hese two
attitudes towards Vedānta are related, and where the Chaitanya tradition expresses
its indifference to Vedānta, it does so precisely on the basis of an engagement with
Vedānta, which builds extensively on the thoughts of older Vedāntists. Vedānta
is thus both a means to link the fledgling Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition with the
past, and a means to set itself apart from the very same traditions that constitute
it” (2019: 383). Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism’s rejection of Vedānta is grounded on an
understanding of Vedānta as fundamentally Advaitin. For a discussion of the
complex relationship between Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism and Advaita Vedānta, see the
above excellent article by Lutjeharms (2019).

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 Part Two

Modern Vedānta
156
 5

Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy

of Anekānta Vedānta
Jeffery D. Long

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86) is a pivotal figure for contemporary Vedānta.

In his thought, one can discern a distinctive intertwining of both philosophical and
soteriological elements of what some have characterized as “classical Vedānta” and
“modern Vedānta,” as well as elements from the thought-world of traditional India
more generally and the thought-world of modernity. One also finds an at least implicit
challenge to the dominant materialism of the modern world—“materialism” being
meant here both in the sense of a worldview that conceptualizes reality as being
essentially material in nature, as well as in the sense of a general attitude toward life
which gives maximum importance to sensory pleasures and what could broadly be
called worldly values. This does not mean Ramakrishna engaged directly with the
scientific-philosophical materialism predominant in the modern world, for he did not,
but rather, that he viewed a materialist mindset itself as, at best, reflective of a preliminary
stage of spiritual evolution, and, at worst, as an obstruction to such evolution. For Sri
Ramakrishna, renunciation of the material—and, more fundamentally, of the ego that
craves for the material—is essential to the spiritual life.1
Finally, though, and most significantly for our reflections here, one finds in
Ramakrishna’s thought an alternative to the exclusivism that typically characterizes
adherence to any religious or philosophical worldview. Ramakrishna advances the
idea that the belief that one’s own view alone is wholly correct or able to capture the
truth in its fullness is deeply inadequate to the nature of reality. In the place of such
exclusivism, Ramakrishna offers instead a radical worldview pluralism that constitutes
the central principle of his philosophy. Ramakrishna offers this pluralism not so much
as a formal teaching; for, as we shall see, he was not a philosopher in a conventional,
formal sense. Ramakrishna, rather, embodied his pluralism through his sādhanas, or
spiritual practices, which drew from numerous traditions. His worldview pluralism
is thus deeply experiential, and is more focused on the efficacy of diverse spiritual
practices than on the truth of the belief systems that sustain and are sustained by these
practices. This is not to say that Ramakrishna did not think that matters of truth were
irrelevant. For Ramakrishna, however, truth claims exist in the service of paths, ways
of life, aimed at realizing truth directly.
158 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Sri Ramakrishna’s pluralism is radical in part because it is counterintuitive. Clearly,

it is a quite natural thing, and perhaps even a logical tautology, to say one believes
that one’s own view is true. If one did not believe one’s view were true, it would cease
to be one’s view, since believing a view to be true—assenting to it—is essentially what
it means to hold a view. And if one were to come to the conclusion that the view one
had been holding until that point was not, in fact, true, then that view would logically
be replaced with another, or with a general skepticism toward all views (although
it could be argued that this stance, itself, constitutes a view, or at least a transitional
state between holding one view and holding another).2 In short, we tend to think of
ourselves as being capable of holding only one worldview at a given time. We can,
of course, as an imaginative exercise, entertain other worldviews as possibilities. But
until we are convinced otherwise, it is normally the case that we tend to think that one
thing is true, and not another: that the truth of X rules out the possibility of the truth
of not-X.
Ramakrishna’s philosophy, however, advances a pluralism that enables one to
hold one’s view in a way which allows for the truth of other views, as well as the
effectiveness of the practices associated with these views. Indeed, this philosophy
focuses primarily upon the efficacy of these practices. It thus affirms a deeper harmony
beyond all apparent disagreement. For many of its adherents, the philosophy of Sri
Ramakrishna offers hope to a world rent by conflict among the adherents of differing
views: interreligious conflicts, as well as conflicts between specific religious views and
either secular or scientific views. In numerous places in the written accounts of his
teachings, Ramakrishna asserts that each system of belief is a path to the realization
of ultimate truth. To draw a term from another Indic tradition—the Jain ­tradition—
reality is anekānta. It is complex and multifaceted. It is thus amenable to a variety of
interpretations and approaches.
This chapter shall argue that the central features of Ramakrishna’s Vedānta are its
pluralism (dharma-samanvaya) and its rootedness in direct experience (anubhava). As
a thoroughgoingly pluralistic philosophy, Ramakrishna’s thought could be designated
with the term Anekānta (or pluralistic) Vedānta. The use of the term anekānta to
designate Ramakrishna’s Vedānta should immediately bring to mind, for those familiar
with Indian philosophy, the Jaina or Jain position of anekāntavāda: the Jain doctrine
of the complex (literally, “non-one-sided”) nature of existence. The use of this term is
not intended to suggest either that Ramakrishna was influenced by Jain thought, or
that his philosophical position amounts, substantively, to a traditional Jain view of the
nature of reality. Jainism affirms a pluralistic realism—“pluralism” here referring not
to the diversity of worldviews, but rather to the ontological claim that reality consists
of a variety of diverse types of entity. In fact, I am not aware of any evidence that
Ramakrishna engaged deeply with the Jain tradition.3 And Ramakrishna’s worldview,
while certainly having affinities with that of Jainism, is also different enough from the
view of this tradition so as not to be confused or conflated with it.
The use of the term anekānta, though, is intended to draw attention to affinities
between Sri Ramakrishna’s pluralism of worldviews and a similar stance developed
by certain Jain thinkers throughout the centuries: a stance highlighted by modern
Jain thinkers who advance the idea that anekāntavāda is an expression of “intellectual
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 159

ahiṃsā,” or of nonviolence applied to the realm of philosophical discourse

(Matilal 1981: 6; Cort 2000; Long 2009: 154–71).4
The most prominent historical figure who can be seen as first bridging the gap
between, and linking, these two philosophies in regard to worldview pluralism5
is Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), an admirer of both Ramakrishna and his
preeminent disciple, Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902). Gandhi was also deeply
influenced by Jain thought, even proclaiming himself an adherent of anekāntavāda,
not in the technical philosophical sense, but rather in an applied, or practical sense, as
a corollary of his well-known commitment to ahiṃsā (Long 2009: 165–70).
The point of drawing attention to the affinities between Ramakrishna’s approach
to truth and that of Jain philosophy is to begin to address a common objection to
religious belief: that the great diversity of religious belief systems counts as evidence
against the truth of religion. The idea here is that, if religious beliefs were true, they
would tend to converge on a shared body of claims, just as the scientific method has led
to a convergence and a general agreement among the world’s scientists, regardless of
cultural backgrounds or other commitments, about the outlines of a shared scientific
worldview.
If, however, it could be shown that there are cases of significant convergence,
in which persons starting from different religious orientations reached shared
conclusions, one could begin to make an argument for a gradually emerging
convergence among religious, as well as scientific, worldviews. The methods involved
in religious knowledge being different from those deployed in science, and its subject
matter being far more elusive in terms of a shared human experience analogous to the
sensory experience upon which science is built, this convergence is emerging far more
slowly. But significant agreement among religious thinkers from different traditions on
certain topics suggests, I would argue, that these thinkers are onto something.6

5.1 Did Ramakrishna Even Have a Philosophy? Issues

in Interpreting Ramakrishna’s Thought

In order to argue that Ramakrishna’s philosophy can appropriately be dubbed

“Anekānta Vedānta,” several points need to be established. There is, first, the question
of whether it is proper even to speak of Ramakrishna as having a philosophy at all.
Indeed, Ramakrishna was certainly not a philosopher in a traditional, technical
sense. That is, he did not study philosophy formally, although he listened avidly to
philosophical texts read aloud (Maharaj 2018: 24). Although he has been characterized
as “virtually illiterate” (Rajadhyaksha 2007: 6), this is probably an exaggeration, and
downplays the importance of orality in traditional Indian learning, if it is taken to
imply that he was simply ignorant. He was a serious thinker. But his thought, in the
extant works in which it is recorded (the Śrīśrīrāmakṛṣṇakathāmṛta and the Śrīśrīrāma-
kṛṣṇalīlāprasaṅga),7 is not presented formally or systematically, but through dialogues
which employ metaphor, humor, and imagery from the daily life of a typical villager
of nineteenth-century Bengal, and exhibits, all throughout, a deeply religious and
devotional sensibility, rather than the detached tone of a philosophical study.
160 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

This does not mean, however, that philosophy is absent from Ramakrishna’s
thought, nor that it is impossible to discern a subtle and sophisticated system of thought
underlying the stories, jokes, and personal interactions recorded in the works on his
life and teachings. Indeed, the history of philosophy would be greatly impoverished
if philosophy were taken only to include systematic, analytic philosophical writing,
excluding such genres as poetry, dialogue, and aphorism.
While there are those scholars who do not discern any systematic philosophy
in the thought of Sri Ramakrishna (e.g., Sil 1997, Sen 1999), others (e.g.,
Tapasyananda 1993, Chakrabarti 1994, Bhajanananda 2010, Maharaj 2018) have
not only discerned such a philosophy but have engaged with it substantively, though
these latter have varied among themselves about how, precisely, to characterize this
philosophy, with many identifying it with the nondualist, or Advaita, system of
Vedānta. Objectively, the scholarly verdict would appear to be that the presence
or absence of a philosophy in the thought of Ramakrishna is in the eye of the
beholder.
The best argument, it seems, for the presence of a system of philosophy in the
thought of Ramakrishna is to present and engage with that system as one discerns it
in the writings that contain it. Whether the resulting system is truly being discerned
within Ramakrishna’s thought or is being projected upon it by the author must remain
up to the judgment of the reader.

5.2 How Vedāntic Is Ramakrishna’s Thought?

If it can be agreed, at least for the sake of the argument, that Sri Ramakrishna does,
indeed, have a philosophy, the next question is whether it can be called a form of
Vedānta. The objections to this assertion are, to some extent, restatements of the
already mentioned objections to the idea of his having a philosophy at all. He is not a
Vedāntic ācārya in a traditional sense. He did not compose Sanskrit commentaries on
the Upaniṣads, the Brahmasūtra, or the Bhagavad-Gītā in the manner of such figures
as Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja. Ramakrishna’s Vedānta is of an intuitive and experiential
variety, being rooted in his spiritual practices and in the altered states of consciousness
he is said to have experienced, often in tandem with these practices, and is expressed
in the language of those philosophies with which he came into contact through his
conversations with adherents of a wide range of schools of thought current in Bengal
during his time.
Scholars, though, have arrived at a wide array of views regarding how to characterize
Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings in terms of the school of thought into which it best
fits. It has been argued that he is a Vaiṣṇava, a Tāntrika, an Advaita Vedāntin, or a
combination of two or more of these (e.g., Zimmer 1951: 560–2; Neevel 1976: 53–97;
Matchett 1981: 176). Each interpreter of his thought seeks to fit his varied teachings
into that author’s chosen system.
To be sure, Ramakrishna did draw upon all these schools of thought, and others,
when he expressed his views. Does this fact point to confusion and lack of systematicity
in his thought, as those who deny that he had a coherent philosophy at all would
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 161

claim? Or was he really an adherent of one of these schools of thought, meaning his
references to, and use of, examples and terms from the others are to be read through
the lens of the system that, in the end, claimed his loyalty? The first approach would
seem to ignore and downplay the consistency that does exist—or at least that many
scholars have perceived—in Ramakrishna’s teachings. The second, though, would
seem to require a fair amount of intellectual gymnastics in order to fit Ramakrishna’s
thought consistently into the mold of a single school of thought. Is there another way
to approach this question?
Indeed, there is. As Ayon Maharaj points out:

In light of Sri Ramakrishna’s catholic attitude and his unique syncretic method,
a number of commentators—beginning with Sri Ramakrishna’s direct disciples,
Swami Vivekananda and Svāmī Turīyānanda, as well as Sri Aurobindo—have
adopted a third approach to Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy that avoids the pitfalls
of the other two interpretive approaches. At the end of the nineteenth century,
Vivekananda suggested that the nonsectarian and harmonizing spirit of Sri
Ramakrishna’s philosophical teachings is best captured not by any particular
philosophical school but by the original nonsectarian Vedānta of the Upaniṣads
and the Bhagavad Gītā, which sought to harmonize a variety of apparently
conflicting philosophical views. In a remarkable Bengali letter written in 1919,
Svāmī Turīyānanda pointed out the deep affinities between Sri Ramakrishna’s
philosophy and the nonsectarian Vedānta of the Gītā and claimed that Sri
Ramakrishna accepted the validity of all spiritual philosophies and religious
doctrines. In a similar vein, Sri Aurobindo declared in 1910 that the “teachings
of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda” provide the basis for a “more perfect
synthesis” of the Upaniṣads than Śaṅkara’s world-denying philosophy of Advaita
Vedānta. (Maharaj 2018: 15)

Ramakrishna’s philosophy, in other words, is Vedāntic in a sense similar to the sense

in which the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-Gītā are Vedāntic. This is a nonsectarian
Vedānta. In the case of the Upaniṣads and the Gītā, one can say, historically, that it
is a pre-sectarian Vedānta. The basic contours of Vedānta philosophy are established
in these texts and, as Maharaj and his sources point out, these texts themselves are
pluralistic in the sense that they draw together and seek to harmonize various systems
of thought that were current in India when they were composed. One can find in them
elements of Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā, Jain, Buddhist, and even
materialist Lokāyata schools of thought. In some cases, these elements are brought
into the text in order to be refuted, or relegated to a lower level of truth than the thesis
being presented in the text (like in the eighth chapter of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad,
in which the Lokāyata doctrine is presented as the confused and incomplete view of
the āsura, or “demon,” Virocana, who takes the reflection of his body that he sees in
a pool of water to be a true reflection of the Self). But there are many other places in
which the Upaniṣads and the Gītā clearly draw upon and integrate ideas from a variety
of traditions, such as in the extensive use of the Sāṃkhya and Yoga language of the
three guṇas, puruṣa, and prakṛti, found throughout these texts, as well as the ideal
162 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

of renunciation of the fruits of action (karma-phala-tyāga) that is central to the Gītā,

but that has close affinities with Buddhist ideals of nonattachment. These texts also
take ideas and terms from other traditions and give them a new or more elaborated
meaning, such as when the Gītā coins the term brahma-nirvāṇa, drawing upon the
Buddhist term nirvāṇa to indicate that into which one is absorbed when one attains
this state (Bhagavad-Gītā 2.72).
Like the Vedānta of these early foundational texts of all the later systematic
forms of this philosophy, the philosophy of Ramakrishna has certain broad contours
that place it in this tradition, and which make it fair to characterize his thought as
Vedāntic. He affirms basic Vedāntic teaching, such as the idea that this world has
emerged from Brahman, that we are all on a quest for realization of the inherent
divinity within each of us, that this involves a cycle of rebirth from which we seek
liberation. But this is not the Vedānta of any particular system. It is not classical
Advaita, for Ramakrishna does not deny the reality of the world, nor does he affirm
the Advaitic vivarta doctrine that the world merely appears to emerge from Brahman,
but that nothing is ever truly created or destroyed. In some ways, the Vedānta of
Sri Ramakrishna seems akin to Viśiṣṭādvaita and other bhedābheda systems, which
affirm the reality of both oneness, for all is ultimately Brahman, and of difference,
for the world is not unreal. But at the same time, Ramakrishna does affirm, like a
classical Advaitin, the ideas of an absolute and a relative truth: a sense of Brahman
as, in and of itself, eternal and beyond time, space, and causation, and a sense of the
world as this infinite Brahman’s relative manifestation. Unlike the classical Advaitin,
though, he does not, again, take “relative” to mean “unreal.” He could be seen as
like a Dvaitin, or dualist, Vedāntin in his emphasis on bhakti and the relationality
that bhakti requires. But, again, he is a monist, not a dualist. Duality occurs in the
relative realm; but this does not make it unreal. As Arindam Chakrabarti points out
in Chapter 16 of this volume:

The vijñānī, according to Sri Ramakrishna, realizes that “it is Brahman that has
become the universe and its living beings” (K 50–1; G 103–4). Hence, the vijñānī
looks upon the world not as a snare of deception and a woeful trap of fakery but
as a vibrantly real “mansion of mirth” (majār kuṭi) (K 479; G 478). The world,
the vijñānī realizes, is, in fact, ultimately real insofar as it is indistinguishable
from God, the only reality, natura naturans of Spinoza, where prakṛti and puruṣa,
consciousness and the dynamic dancing power of plurality projection, become
one because they are one at the source.

In short, Ramakrishna’s Vedānta contains elements of each of the existing systems

of Vedānta. It is a pluralistic Vedānta which is able to integrate elements of all
of these, and of other systems of thought as well. Indeed, some in the modern
Vedānta traditions based on Ramakrishna’s teachings have taken to referring to
this way of thinking as an “Integral Vedānta,” not unlike Sri Aurobindo’s “Integral
Yoga,” for which Sri Ramakrishna’s thought is arguably foundational (e.g.,
Bhajanananda 2010; Gayatriprana 2012). It integrates nonduality and duality,
absolute and relative.
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 163

5.3 The Pluralistic Character of Ramakrishna’s Vedānta

That Ramakrishna’s thought can certainly be characterized, broadly speaking, as

Vedāntic is evident from the fact that he repeatedly asserts the central Upaniṣadic
teaching: “All is Brahman” (sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ brahma) (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.14.1).
In Ramakrishna’s words, rendered into English by Swami Nikhilananda, “Nothing
exists except the One. That One is the Supreme Brahman. So long as He keeps the
‘I’ in us, He reveals to us that it is He who, as the Primal Energy (Ādyāśakti), creates,
preserves, and destroys the universe” (Gupta 1942: 242). This sounds very much
like classical Advaita Vedānta, except that Brahman’s being the sole reality does not
mean, for Ramakrishna, that the world must be unreal. “All is Brahman” means, for
Ramakrishna, that Brahman has indeed become this whole world. Ramakrishna’s
Vedānta could be seen not as affirming an “illusionist” nonduality, but rather, a
panentheist nonduality. Brahman subsists in and as all things, as well as beyond all
things, rather than instead of all things, although one of the valid paths to realization is
to see Brahman alone, without a second. The fact that Ramakrishna’s thought can also
be characterized as nonsectarian and pluralistic is evident from the ways in which he
discusses Brahman in relation to other concepts of ultimate reality from the various
systems of philosophy (including, but not limited to Advaita) and from his affirmation
of the validity of many paths to the highest realization.
Ramakrishna’s identification of Brahman, for example, in the passage just cited,
with “the Primal Energy,” or Śakti, is significant, for it draws the strongly Advaitic
assertion that “nothing exists except the One” together with a Śākta, Tāntric sensibility,
in which it is the Mother Goddess, Śakti, who is the ultimate reality. However, rather
than seeing Advaitic and Tāntric perspectives as opposed, Sri Ramakrishna draws
them together pluralistically, as reflecting different facets of truth. “That which is
Brahman is also the Primal Energy … Brahman and the Primal Energy at first appear
to be two. But after attaining the Knowledge of Brahman one does not see the two.
Then there is no differentiation; it is One, without a second—Advaita—non-duality”
(Gupta 1942: 242).
Interestingly, although in this passage the way in which Ramakrishna draws together
the Tāntric and Advaitic perspectives would appear to subordinate the Tāntric view
to the Advaitic, identifying the Advaitic view with the way one perceives only “after
attaining the Knowledge of Brahman,” in many other places, Ramakrishna affirms
dualistic perspectives as also having value, either putting nonduality and duality on
the same level as simply different ways of perceiving the same ultimate reality, or even
celebrating duality as a joyful state in which the loving relationship of bhakti can be
enjoyed, and thus taking it to be superior to nondualistic realization. He equates the
two, for example, when he says:

Thus Brahman and Śakti are [inseparable].8 If you accept the one, you must accept
the other. It is like fire and its power to burn. If you see the fire, you must recognize
its power to burn also. You cannot think of fire without its power to burn, nor
can you think of the power to burn without fire. You cannot conceive of the sun’s
rays without the sun, nor can you conceive of the sun without its rays … Thus one
164 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

cannot think of Brahman without Śakti, or of Śakti without Brahman. One cannot
think of the Absolute [nitya] without the Relative [līlā], or of the Relative without
the Absolute. (Gupta 1942: 134)

For Ramakrishna, philosophical perspectives are essentially ways of orienting the

mind for the particular type of spiritual practice to which it is best suited. Different
types of practice, and their correspondingly different philosophies, are thus appropriate
for different people. As he elaborates:

He who is called Brahman by the jñānis [literally “knowers”; followers of jñāna

yoga; adherents of Advaita Vedānta] is known as Ātman [Self] by the yogis [those
who follow rāja yoga, the path of meditation] and as Bhagavān [Lord; Blessed
One] by the bhaktas [devotees; adherents of theistic religiosity, such as Vaiṣṇavas
and Śāktas]. The same brāhmin is called priest, when worshipping in the temple,
and cook, when preparing a meal in the kitchen. The jñāni, sticking to the path of
knowledge, always reasons about the Reality, saying, “Not this, not this.” Brahman
is neither “this” nor “that”; It is neither the universe nor its living beings. Reasoning
in this way, the mind becomes steady. Then it disappears and the aspirant goes into
samādhi [a state of meditative absorption]. This is the Knowledge of Brahman. It
is the unwavering conviction of the jñāni that Brahman alone is real and the world
illusory. All these names and forms are illusory, like a dream. What Brahman is
cannot be described. One cannot even say that Brahman is a Person. That is the
opinion of the jñānis, the followers of [Advaita] Vedānta philosophy … But the
bhaktas accept all the states of consciousness. They take the waking state to be
real also. They don’t think the world to be illusory, like a dream. They say that the
universe is a manifestation of God’s power and glory. God has created all ­these—
sky, stars, moon, sun, mountains, ocean, men, animals. They constitute his glory.
He is within us, in our hearts. Again, He is outside. The most advanced devotees
say that He Himself has become all this—the twenty-four cosmic principles, the
universe, and all living beings. The devotee of God wants to eat sugar, not to
become sugar. (Gupta 1942: 133)

The last portion of this passage, “The devotee of God wants to eat sugar, not to become
sugar,”9 is widely taken as Ramakrishna’s statement that, while the Advaitic, nondualist
path of realizing Brahman as the sole reality is a valid path, the path of devotion is no
less valid, and indeed a more desirable and effective path for many, who see the world
not as a mere appearance, or māyā, but as the beautiful play of the divine creativity.
One is the attitude of the jñānī, or knower, the other, the attitude of the bhakta, the
devotee. Neither is superior to the other. Both lead to the ultimate goal of infinite bliss,
of salvation from bondage to materiality, with all of its many limitations.
In affirming that both these paths can lead to the ultimate realization, Ramakrishna
echoes the teaching of the Bhagavad-Gītā, which similarly contrasts these two paths,
but ends up affirming them both. In this text, Sri Krishna, the Supreme Being, instructs
his friend and disciple, Arjuna:
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 165

I consider them to be the best disciplined who focus their minds on me, who,
constant in their discipline, worship me with the greatest faith.
But those who worship the imperishable, the unmanifest, which is beyond words,
which is found everywhere and is inconceivable, sublime on the mountaintop,
unmoving and firm, who have gained complete control over the senses and
equanimity toward all beings, rejoicing in the welfare of all beings, they also attain
to me.
There is greater distress for those who have set their thoughts on the unmanifest,
because it is difficult for those who are embodied to reach a goal that is itself
unmanifest.
But those who surrender all of their actions to me and who are focused on me
alone, who meditate on me with yoga, and worship me, I lift them up out of the
ocean of the cycle of death and rebirth, Arjuna, once they have set their thoughts
on me. (Bhagavad-Gītā 12.2–7)10

The Gītā thus affirms the validity and effectiveness of both the nondual path of
knowledge and the dualistic path of devotion, in which divinity and devotee remain
distinct, although in a loving union. This is an example of the Gītā’s pluralism, which
can also be found in such passages as 4.28, where Krishna says of the followers of
various paths:

Some sacrifice material objects, others practice austerities, and still others
practice yoga. Some sacrifice through their knowledge and their study of the
Vedas. These are all devout men committed to keeping their sacred vows.
(Bhagavad-Gītā 4.28)

The principle of divine grace which underlies the Gītā’s pluralism is expressed by
Krishna when he says:

In whatsoever way human beings approach me, thus do I receive them. All paths,
Arjuna, lead to me. (Bhagavad-Gītā 4.11)

Krishna’s boundless love, his divine grace, is sufficiently abundant that all spiritual
aspirants, of all paths, are able to experience salvation. Krishna receives them all.
Sectarian affiliation is finally irrelevant to one’s attainment of the ultimate goal.
This last verse, significantly, is cited by Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna’s
preeminent disciple, in his famous “Sisters and Brothers of America” welcome address,
delivered in 1893 at the Chicago World Parliament of Religions, reflecting, as it does,
the same basic pluralistic view as taught by his master, with its rejection of sectarianism
(which Vivekananda goes on to denounce in this same address) (Vivekananda
[1907] 1979: vol. 1, 3–4).
Ramakrishna’s pluralism is perhaps most famously expressed when he states that:
166 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

the Reality is one and the same. The difference is only in name. He who is Brahman
is verily Ātman, and again, He is the Bhagavān. He is Brahman to the followers of
the path of knowledge, Paramātman to the yogis, and Bhagavān to the lovers of
God … It is like water, called in different languages by different names, such as “jal,”
“pāni,” and so forth. There are three or four ghāts on a lake. The Hindus who drink
water at one place, call it “jal.” The Mussalmāns [Muslims] at another place call it
“pāni.” And the English at a third place call it “water.” All three denote one and the
same thing, the difference being in the name only. In the same way, some address
the Reality as “Āllāh,” some as “God,” some as “Brahman,” some as “Kāli,” and
others by such names as “Rāma,” “Jesus,” “Durgā,” “Hari.” (Gupta 1942: 134, 135)

Ramakrishna’s mention here of Muslims and Christians (“the English”) and of

names for divinity such as Āllāh and Jesus is especially significant because it shows
that his nonsectarian, pluralistic Vedānta encompasses not only various Hindu
traditions, identified with various types of spiritual practice—like the jñāna of
Advaita Vedānta, the bhakti of the Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva, and Śākta traditions, the Yoga
traditions, and so o ­ n—but also Islam and Christianity (and, in principle, other
traditions as well). Indeed, the idea that Ramakrishna’s pluralistic attitude would be
bounded—that it would apply only to Hindu traditions—would seem to contradict
the breadth and depth of that attitude, and the understanding of Brahman as a
universal reality, dwelling in all beings as their very Self, and so, in principle,
available to all.
Swami Vivekananda, who describes his own philosophy as “my own interpretation
of our ancient books, in the light which my Master shed upon them,” similarly
connects the diversity of the yogas, the paths to divinity, with the diversity of religions,
seeing both as an effect of the varied temperaments and characters of human beings,
and the particular needs of each in advancing along the spiritual path (Vivekananda
[1907] 1979: vol. 5, 186). In his words:

Every man must develop according to his own nature. As every science has its
methods, so has every religion. The methods of attaining the end of religion are
called Yoga by us, and the different forms of Yoga that we teach, are adapted
to the different natures and temperaments of men … These are all different
roads leading to the same centre—God. Indeed, the varieties of religious belief
are an advantage, since all faiths are good, so far as they encourage man to
lead a religious life. The more sects there are, the more opportunities there are
for making successful appeals to the divine instinct in all men. (Vivekananda
[1907] 1979: vol. 5, 292)

The diversity of Yogas and the diversity of religions arise from the same source: the
diversity of human natures and temperaments, as each of us strives for the realization
of our divinity. And divinity itself, being infinite, is amenable to infinite paths to its
realization (Maharaj 2018).
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 167

5.4 The Experiential Character of Sri Ramakrishna’s Pluralism

Ramakrishna’s Vedānta, and that of Vivekananda and the subsequent tradition

built upon their thought, is often characterized as a modern form of Vedānta. One
sometimes sees it referred to as “Neo-Vedānta,” though this usage is largely eschewed
by this tradition’s adherents, given that it was developed with a pejorative intent, to
suggest that this form of Vedānta is in some sense illegitimate or inauthentic because
it does not simply replicate the Advaita Vedānta of Śaṅkara, or any other “classical”
system of Vedānta (Maharaj 2018: 45–50).
What is the distinction between modern and classical Vedānta? Is there even a
distinction to be made? And where does Sri Ramakrishna’s thought stand in relation
to this issue? Certainly, as does any ancient and widespread tradition of thought,
the Vedānta tradition as a whole exhibits both continuity and change, sameness and
difference, over time and across the various schools of thought which constitute it.
There are core themes and concepts which are continuous from the Upaniṣads to
the present, and that occur in all forms of Vedānta: Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Dvaita,
Bhedābheda, and so on. And there are discontinuities across time, and certainly across
systems of thought, as each system develops and new insights are drawn from the
ancient Vedāntic sources. One could well argue that, vis-à-vis the systems of Vedānta
that preceded it, each such new system to emerge is a “Neo-Vedānta.”
The divide, such as it is, between Ramakrishna’s thought and earlier forms of Vedānta
lies, it seems, in two of its central features, both of which are also widely taken to be
features of modern, in contrast with premodern, traditional, or “classical” thought.
These are its worldview pluralism and its emphasis on the priority of experience as a
guide to the truth.
This divide can, of course, be exaggerated. As has already been demonstrated, a
worldview pluralism can be found in the Bhagavad-Gītā itself—certainly a premodern
text—as can an emphasis on the priority of direct experience over book-learning. As
the Gītā says in one passage:

As useful as a water tank when there is flooding in all directions, that is how useful
all of the Vedas are for a Brahmin who has true insight. (Bhagavad-Gītā 2.46)

As Rambachan and others have argued, however, there is clearly a stronger emphasis
in classical or traditional Vedānta upon the text of the Vedas as essential for knowing
Brahman (Rambachan 1994). As the śabda-pramāṇa, or verbal foundation of
knowledge, the Vedas are the primary source from which one learns the nature of
Brahman, including the core truth that Brahman is one’s very Self. This is the purport
of such “great statements,” or mahāvākyas of the Upaniṣads, as tat tvam asi and ahaṃ
brahmāsmi. The proper source of the knowledge that these statements convey, on this
account, is these statements themselves, not a mystical experience such as samādhi.
We have already seen, though, that Ramakrishna does not base his philosophy
upon textual study. There are, of course, many ways to learn other than reading. “Text”
can mean not only a written book, but also a text that is transmitted orally. Indeed,
168 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

oral communication was the chief medium through which the Vedas themselves were
transmitted for many centuries, and remains the preferred medium for learning of
the Vedas in traditional Vedāntic settings, such as the maṭhas established by Śaṅkara.
Similarly, Ramakrishna, by all accounts, listened to texts being read and also engaged in
conversation with learned persons who visited the Dakshineshwar Kālī temple at which
he served as a priest for most of his life. The Gospel also clearly demonstrates that he was
conversant with the terminologies and concepts of many Hindu traditions of his time.
The chief source, though, upon which Sri Ramakrishna clearly draws for his
knowledge of divine matters is his own experiences, which he pursued assiduously
by cultivating a wide array of spiritual practices throughout the early years of his time
at Dakshineshwar. For Ramakrishna, mastery of a system of thought did not mean
studying its texts, but practicing it until achieving an altered state of consciousness: a
direct insight into the nature of reality as provided by whatever particular tradition he
was practicing at the time, often including a visionary experience of God as conceived
in that tradition—as Rāma, as Krishna, as Kālī, as Jesus, and so on.
One could of course debate the priority of text over experience or of experience
over text endlessly. It is a “chicken or egg” type of argument, in which it is gradually
shown that neither of the elements in question can exist independently of the other.
A committed textualist in a tradition such as, for example, Advaita Vedānta, can
argue that no coherent experience is possible without a prior conceptual framework
as a condition for its occurrence. This is the view, for example, of the philosopher of
religion John Hick, who argues that all experience of reality is “experience-as”:

For in the recognition of objects and situations as having a particular character,

setting up a particular range or practical dispositions, the mind/brain is interpreting
sensory information by means of concepts and patterns drawn from its memory.
When we recognize what is before us on the table as a fork, or what is lying on
the desk as a pen, or the object over there as a building and more specifically as
a house, or the figure moving toward us as a human being and more specifically
as the postman, we are experiencing an object as having this or that character or
meaning: that is, as a reality in relation to which we are prepared to behave in a
certain range of ways appropriate to its being the kind of thing that we perceive it
to be. (Hick 1989: 140)

Hick, drawing upon the work of William Alston, extends this idea to religious
experience. Alston develops the idea of “doxastic practices”: belief-forming practices
which predispose us to perceive our reality in a particular way, based upon the set
of beliefs on which these practices are based and which they, in turn, support
(Alston 1993).
To put the matter simply, an adherent of Advaita Vedānta, for example, is educated
into a system of ideas, drawn from the text of the Vedas as interpreted by prior teachers,
such as Śaṅkara, and into a system of practices aimed at realizing the truth of these ideas
through a direct perception of their truth. In the Advaita tradition, the process is typically
described as a threefold one which involves first, śravaṇa (“hearing”), hearing the teachings
of the tradition as contained in the authoritative text; second, manana (“thinking”),
reflecting logically upon these teachings, including examining them critically, until one
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 169

has come to understand them fully; and finally, nididhyāsana (“meditative reflection”), in
which one comes to perceive the truth of these teachings directly.
Experience is thus not unimportant in a traditionalist framework. Indeed, it is the
ultimate goal of traditional practice. But it is “experiencing-as.” One does not simply
have an experience and then commit to a worldview. Rather, one develops a worldview,
based on a tradition (and on a text, whether written or oral), and that worldview
shapes the experience that results from the doxastic practice based on that worldview.
Importantly, traditions and texts provide a check on experience, to establish whether
a given experience is veridical or if it is, in fact, delusory. To take an extreme, but far
from impossible, example, what if a person were to claim, on the basis of an experience
of what that person believed to be God, that they had been commanded to lead their
community into committing genocide against another group of people?
On the other hand, however, the tradition and its texts had to come from somewhere.
In the orthodox Vedānta tradition, it is said, following the Mīmāṃsā tradition, that the
Vedas are not, in fact, products of human composition, but are apauruṣeya: eternal and
not man-made. Even with this view, though, it is admitted that the Vedas were, at some
point, revealed to and through human agents: namely, the ṛṣis—the seers and sages
who composed the Vedic texts at a particular point in time and history.
These ṛṣis, logically, must have had an experience which prompted them to articulate
the eternal Vedic wisdom in the form in which it has been received. How were their
experiences cultivated? By what doxastic practices?
Clearly, then, in seeking to determine the priority of text over experience or
experience over text, we are in a chicken-or-egg situation. Texts shape experience,
and serve as an important check upon, or a test of, experience, in order to determine
whether a given experience is a veridical experience of divinity or a delusion. But texts
also arise from experience and come to have authority because, presumably, their claims
resonate with the experiences of those who receive and preserve them.11 One could say
that experience is historically or temporally prior to tradition, for it is experiencing
human beings who generate traditions, but that tradition is hermeneutically prior to
experience, being the form of life which is a condition for the possibility of experience.12
Modernity, as a mode of thought, privileges experience over tradition. The
paradigmatic model of modernity is the scientific method, in which the authority with
which a claim is made counts for less than the ability to verify that claim through
direct observation or experimentation. So if a sacred text states that the planets have no
moons, and one can observe the moons of Jupiter through one’s telescope, one trusts
the verdict of one’s own observation over that of the sacred text. In the philosophies of
Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, direct experience is similarly the final criterion
by which truth is to be determined. In this sense, the Vedānta of Ramakrishna is a
modern form of Vedānta.
To be sure, this is not to say that classical Vedānta, with its emphasis on textual
study, is a dogmatic and anti-rational philosophy. On the contrary, Śaṅkara teaches,
for example, that śabda-pramāṇa must be interpreted in a way that is consistent
with other pramāṇas—other foundations of knowledge—such as sensory perception
(pratyakṣa) and logical inference (anumāna). An Advaita Vedāntin, then, confronted
with Galileo’s observations of the four large moons of Jupiter would not have any
difficulty interpreting any portions of the Vedas that might appear to contradict this
170 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

observation as symbolic, or as meant to illustrate some other point, and so on.13 Again,
to posit a vast gulf between modern and premodern Vedānta is neither accurate nor
productive. It is not an entirely inconsequential difference, though, given that there
are contemporary Advaitins, such as Rambachan, who are not completely comfortable
with Ramakrishna’s approach, and find it to be a departure from Vedānta as they
understand it.
Clearly connected with the experiential character of Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy
is his worldview pluralism, which arises not from textual study—though, again, a
pluralistic current can be found in such traditional Vedāntic sources as the Bhagavad-
Gītā—but from his multireligious spiritual practices. This pluralism is also modern,
in the sense that it encompasses not only other systems of Hindu thought, but is truly
universal, encompassing all religions of which Ramakrishna was aware. That it is not
limited only to these either, but applies, in principle, to all religions and worldviews, is
suggested by the fact that his disciple Vivekananda thus interprets it, famously saying:

I accept all religions that were in the past, and worship with them all; I worship
God with every one of them, in whatever form they worship Him. I shall go to the
mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian’s church and kneel before
the crucifix; I shall enter the Buddhistic temple, where I shall take refuge in Buddha
and in his Law. I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu,
who is trying to see the Light which enlightens the heart of every one … Not only
shall I do all these, but I shall keep my heart open for all that may come in the
future. Is God’s book finished? Or is it still a continuous revelation going on? … We
stand in the present, but open ourselves to the infinite future … Salutation to all
the prophets of the past, to all the great ones of the present, and to all that are to
come in the future! (Vivekananda [1907] 1979: vol. 2, 374)

Ramakrishna is, of course, preceded in Indian history by other thinkers who embraced,
for example, both Hinduism and Islam as ways to the divine, such as the renowned Sānt
Kabīr (1440–1518) and Guru Nānak (1469–1539), the founder of the Sikh tradition.
Other Vedāntic thinkers, such as Appaya Dīkṣita (1520–93), had expressed inclusivist
views regarding many traditions, under what would today be called the umbrella of
Hinduism, as being paths to truth, though typically seeing these as steps on the way to
the thinker’s own perspective (in Appaya Dīkṣita’s case, Advaita Vedānta) (Barua, this
volume). But Ramakrishna appears to be the first, or among the first, to be located in a
Vedāntic perspective whose pluralism also embraced non-Indic traditions, and which
was a true pluralism, and not a hierarchical inclusivism.

5.5 Ramakrishna’s Multireligious Sādhanas

The experiences which led to and which undergird Ramakrishna’s worldview pluralism
are controversial in several respects. First, the question can always be raised as to
whether his many experiences, as attested in the accounts of his life, were veridical or
delusory. This, of course, is a point already made in regard to the question of the priority
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 171

of experience or text. A textual tradition can certify or validate a putative claim of

experience of the divine, or it can refute it. A skeptic of a traditionalist bent could claim
that the very pluralistic nature of Ramakrishna’s experiences is a reason to doubt them.
That is, a conservative adherent of any tradition could argue that her home tradition,
whatever it may be, is sufficient, and perhaps even necessary, for the attainment of the
ultimate aim of human existence, however her tradition may conceive of it. Religious
traditions throughout the world are full of claims to their own sufficiency or necessity for
salvation, and also of polemics directed at the views and practices of the religious other. A
conservative Christian, for example, might argue that Ramakrishna’s diverse experiences
were satanic delusions. Or a conservative Jain might argue that the Jain path alone teaches
the rigorous practice of ahiṃsā, of nonviolence in thought, word, and deed, required to
purify the jīva of its karmic accretions, and that Ramakrishna’s experiences were merely
preliminary glimpses of the true experience of total freedom and omniscience found
in kevala-jñāna, the absolute knowledge of a Jina. A skeptic in a wider sense could also
clearly question if Sri Ramakrishna might have been suffering from some psychological
or neurological disorder that led to his vivid visionary experiences. Indeed, this question
was raised during Sri Ramakrishna’s lifetime. His family, fearing for his sanity, arranged
his marriage in the hope that a conventional, worldly life would ground him and lead
him back to normalcy (Saradananda 2003: 245). Finally, the question can be raised
as to the depth and extent of Ramakrishna’s sādhanas and their ability to serve as a
kind of “proof ” of the truth of pluralism. Ramakrishna, for example, did not convert
to Christianity in any sense that an orthodox Christian would typically recognize. He
was not baptized and he did not join a church, or recite any creed. He seems, rather, in
a Hindu fashion, to have taken Jesus, temporarily, as his chosen deity, or iṣṭa-devatā,
meditating upon him lovingly until attaining a vision of him. It could thus be argued
that, even while practicing the outward forms of many traditions, Ramakrishna never
did step out of the basic framework of his nonsectarian Vedāntic worldview.
Even if one takes all these objections seriously, the story of Ramakrishna’s
multireligious sādhanas is a remarkable one in the history of mystical experience.
When he took up a spiritual path, he did so with a complete, single-minded devotion,
often placing himself under considerable pressure, both psychological and physical,
in order to achieve his goal. His initial effort to achieve a direct vision of divinity
was his quest for a vision of the Goddess Kālī, in whose temple he served as a priest.
Feeling it would be hypocritical to serve as the priest of a goddess whose existence he
might doubt, he wanted to see Kālī for himself, praying for many days with profound
intensity and becoming deeply emotional with every passing day in which he did not
have a vision of the Divine Mother. He finally reached a point where he was tempted to
take his own life if he did not have this divine vision:

There was an unbearable pain in my heart because I could not have a vision of
Mother. Just as a man wrings out a towel with all his strength to get the water
out of it, so I felt as if my heart were being wrung out. I began to think I should
never see Mother. I was dying of despair. In my agony, I asked myself: “What’s
the use of living this life?” Suddenly my eyes fell on the sword that hangs in the
Mother’s shrine. I decided to end my life then and there. Like a madman, I ran
172 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

to the sword and seized it. Then I had a marvelous vision of the Mother and fell
down unconscious. Afterwards what happened in the external world, or how
that day and the next passed, I don’t know. But within me there was a steady flow
of undiluted bliss that I had never before experienced, and I felt the immediate
presence of the Divine Mother. (Saradananda 2003: 212)

After this experience, Ramakrishna wanted to realize divinity in as many ways as he

could. A female teacher called the Bhairavī Brāhmaṇī came to Dakshineshwar and
recognized in him a profound spiritual aspirant. She trained him in a variety of Tāntric
disciplines, and in each of these, as when he longed for Kālī, he eventually had an
experience of the divine. Subsequently, he also followed several Vaiṣṇava disciplines, even
to the point of dressing and behaving as a woman to have the experience of the gopīs,
the cowherd women who are regarded as the ideal devotees of Krishna in the Bhāgavata
tradition of Vaiṣṇavism. Whatever path he followed, he committed to it completely.
After all these deeply emotional, personalistic experiences of theistic bhakti,
Ramakrishna came under the tutelage of Totāpurī, a wandering monk of the
Advaita Vedānta tradition, and had the experience of nirguṇa Brahman, beyond all
qualities, and his perception of the world vanished entirely for a period of six months
(Saradananda 2003: 313).
After exhausting the Hindu traditions that were available to him, Ramakrishna
devoted himself, in succession, to Christian and to Islamic practice, each of
which culminated in a vision, respectively, of Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad
(Gupta 1942: 33–4).
On the basis of these experiences, Ramakrishna became, according to the tradition
founded on his teachings:

a Master who could speak with authority regarding the ideas and ideals of the various
religions of the world … Without being formally initiated into their doctrines, Sri
Ramakrishna … realized the ideals of religions other than Hinduism. He did not
need to follow any doctrine. All barriers were removed by his overwhelming love of
God … “I have practiced,” said he, “all ­religions—Hinduism, Islam, Christianity—
and I have also followed the paths of the different Hindu sects. I have found that it
is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different
paths. You must try all beliefs and traverse all the different ways once. Wherever
I look, I see men quarreling in the name of religion … But they never reflect that He
who is called Krishna is also called Śiva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy,
Jesus, and Āllāh as well—the same Rāma with a thousand names.” (Gupta 1942: 35)

5.6 Anekānta Vedānta and Anekāntavāda:

Ramakrishna’s Thought and Jain Philosophy

Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy is thus, in brief, a nonsectarian Vedānta in which a variety

of religious beliefs and practices can coexist as ways of transforming the consciousness
of their adherents. This worldview is Vedāntic in that it takes as foundational the
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 173

belief that everything is ultimately Brahman: the infinite ­Being-Consciousness-Bliss—

anantaraṃ sat-cit-ānandam—that is the source and ultimate end of all existence. This
Brahman, though, can be experienced from an absolute perspective, as it is in and of
itself, through the practice of nondualism, or it can be experienced from a relative
perspective as an infinite loving Supreme Being who is available to each aspirant in
whatever form that aspirant chooses to devote herself. This is not a pluralism in which all
doctrinal issues have been worked out in a systematic fashion, though Ramakrishna is
not insensitive to doctrinal differences. Ramakrishna affirms, for example, the Vedāntic
teaching of reincarnation (Gupta 1942: 153; Saradananada 2003: 316–17, 360). The
fact, however, that Christians and Muslims typically reject the concept of reincarnation
does not inhibit him from taking up Christian or Islamic devotional practice. Even
if a system of practice is mistaken on one topic or another, this does not prevent it
from being a valid path to God, so long as it results in the needed transformation
of the person from an egocentric state to what John Hick calls a “Reality-centered”
state (Hick 1989). “Every religion has errors … It is enough to have yearning for God”
(Gupta 1942: 112).
Vivekananda points to a possible response to the question of doctrinal
incompatibility in a lecture titled “The Way to the Realization of a Universal Religion”
(Vivekananda [1907] 1979: vol. 2, 359–74). Raising the question of how many religions
making different claims can all be, in some sense, true, he says:

I believe that they are not contradictory; they are supplementary. Each religion, as
it were, takes up one part of the great universal truth, and spends its whole force in
embodying and typifying that part of the great truth. It is, therefore, addition, not
exclusion. That is the idea. System after system arises, each one embodying a great
idea, and ideals must be added to ideals. And this is the march of humanity. Man
never progresses from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lesser truth to
higher truth—but it is never from error to truth. (Ibid: 365)

It could be argued that Vivekananda’s suggestion of a hierarchy of “lesser truth” and

“higher truth” is not something with which Ramakrishna would necessarily have
been entirely comfortable, given his tendency to see the absolute and the relative
simply as different modes of perception, and not viewing one as “higher” and the
other as “lesser,” or vice versa. But the basic idea that there is a central core value
that each tradition embodies, and that these central core values of traditions need
not be in conflict, but can, in fact, supplement one another, seems a good attempt to
give logical cohesion to Ramakrishna’s pluralism. Vivekananda also suggests that the
adherents of different religions would do well to learn from and absorb one another’s
core values:

The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air and water are placed around it.
Does the seed become the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes a plant,
it develops after the law of its own growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the
water, converts them into plant substance, and grows into a plant … Similar is the
case with religion. The Christian is not to become a Hindu or Buddhist, nor a
174 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of
the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of
growth. (Vivekananda [1907] 1979: vol. 1, 24)

This approach to the diversity of worldviews can well be called “Anekānta Vedānta” in
the sense that, like the anekānta doctrine of the Jain tradition, it affirms the multiplicity
of the possible ways in which truth may be articulated and pursued, while yet also
affirming a deeper unity of the nature of existence that leads to this multiplicity. In this
way, both systems avoid what theologian Alan Race has famously called a “debilitating
relativism,” meaning an affirmation of diversity that leads to an inability to affirm
anything definite about the nature of reality (Race 1983: 78, 90).
Anekānta-vāda, the Jain doctrine of the irreducible complexity of existence, is rooted
in a different ontology than Ramakrishna’s nonsectarian Vedānta, which is ultimately
monistic in its affirmation that all is ultimately Brahman. Jainism, on the other hand,
affirms an ontological pluralism. According to Jain thought, the cosmos is composed
of five types of entity, or astikāya. These are called dharma (the principle of motion),
adharma (the principle of inertia or rest), ākāśa (space), pudgala (matter), and jīva
(soul or life-force). The Digambara Jain tradition adds a sixth entity, kāla, or time, to
this list. In contrast to Ramakrishna’s monistic view that all is ultimately Brahman,
Jain philosophers maintain that reality consists of many fundamental entities. So
dynamism is not reducible to inertia, space, matter, life-force, or time. Inertia is also
not reducible to dynamism, space, matter, life-force, or time. And so on. Each of the
six basic entities is just that: basic. None is reducible to the others. Similarly, individual
instances of these six basic types of entity are truly distinct from one another. They are
not forms or aspects of a more fundamental reality, such as Brahman. The manifold
jīvas, for example, do not make up a “supersoul,” like the Upaniṣadic Paramātman,
though they do share a singular essence. Its eschewing of monism, of reducing many
ontological factors to one, is why one can say Jainism has a pluralistic ontology.
This pluralistic ontology, though, translates into a worldview pluralism that has
resonances with Ramakrishna’s worldview pluralism. Anekānta-vāda states that reality
is, in keeping with the basic Jain ontology, complex: that no phenomenon can be
reduced to a single truth. Reality has many dimensions. Being complex and many-
sided (anekānta), it defies simplistic, reductionist characterizations. This follows from
the nature of the soul, which includes both stable, unchanging characteristics and
states of being that change from moment to moment. Each entity, like the soul, has
many aspects, is both living and nonliving, and so on.
Related to this Jain idea of the complexity of reality is a corresponding doctrine
of knowledge, or epistemology. Naya-vāda, the doctrine of perspectives, states that,
for every aspect of an entity, there is a perspective from which it can be viewed. From
the perspective of its intrinsic traits, the soul is unchanging. From the perspective of
its changing states, the soul is ephemeral, and so on. Each perspective captures a real
aspect of the complex nature of the entity.
This epistemology of perspectives gives rise to a distinctive Jain doctrine regarding
how one should formulate philosophical propositions. Rather than stating absolutely
either that the soul is eternal and unchanging or that it is ephemeral and varying
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 175

from moment to moment, it is necessary to specify the perspective from which such
assertions are made. A statement is true, not absolutely, but syāt—in a certain sense, or
from a certain point of view.
An Advaitin might say that a view of reality as irreducibly complex reflects not the
absolute perspective that one holds when one attains “the Knowledge of Brahman”
(Gupta 1942: 242), but rather, the relative perspective of the realm of space and time.
For Ramakrishna, though, the absolute and the relative are, again, simply different
modes of perceiving reality. One is not to be subordinated to the other. This enables
him, like the Jains, to affirm the validity of differing modes of perception, such as,
in Ramakrishna’s case, those of the jñānī, the yogī, and the bhakta. The method of
syādvāda, in fact, fits quite well with Ramakrishna’s pluralism, for it enables one to
say even that views that appear to be in conflict are, in fact, complementary, or as
Vivekananda would later say, “supplementary.” Seemingly conflicting statements do
not necessarily contradict, so long as one stipulates the conditions under which each
statement is being made. The clashing claims of the blind men describing the elephant,
in the classic parable often used to illustrate Jain pluralism, and also frequently cited
by Ramakrishna, are not really incompatible. Each system of thought, or “blind man,”
is describing a different part of the elephant, and the elephant includes the many facets
that each blind man is experiencing. It is not that one part of the elephant is the “true”
elephant and that the rest are delusions. The elephant incorporates all that the various
blind men can conceive of it, and is also much more: just as, for Sri Ramakrishna,
Brahman exists within and as and beyond all relative existence.
If we think of Ramakrishna as operating with a revised version of the Advaitic “two
truths” doctrine, that affirms the distinction between the absolute and the relative, but
does not subordinate one to the other, one can see the multiplicity of views elaborated
and systematized in Jain teaching as belonging to the relative realm.
In certain respects, one can find echoes of the thought of the Digambara Jain master,
Kundakunda, in Ramakrishna’s approach to the diversity of paths and worldviews.
Kundakunda also affirms the distinction between relative truth, or the “conventional
perspective” (vyavahārika-naya) and final, or absolute, truth (niścaya-naya). For
Kundakunda, the Jain doctrines of relativity, such as syād-vāda, function in the relative
realm. Interestingly, though, he does not simply identify the absolute perspective with
Jain teaching. The niścaya-naya is the experience of the jīva that has realized that it is
entirely distinct from the karmic matter that has, prior to this realization, occluded its
true nature, obscuring its inherent omniscience (Kundakunda 1930: 151). Even Jain
doctrine, and indeed, any teaching that can be put into words, operates in the relative
realm. If we think of Ramakrishna’s thought in these terms, even the absolute perspective
of the jñānī, once it is put into words and rendered into a doctrine, becomes part of the
realm of relative truth, while the path of the jñānī becomes one of many valid paths to
realization. This is also akin to the two-truths doctrine of the Buddhist sage Nāgārjuna,
in which ultimate truth cannot, finally, be put into words, but must be experienced
directly. Even the teaching of Buddhism has the character of śūnyatā, or “emptiness,”
which is Nāgārjuna’s term for the relativity that characterizes the conceptual realm.
Absolute truth is not to be identified with any single system of thought and
practice, even one’s own. Otherwise, one risks mistaking the map for the territory: the
176 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

conceptual system with the experiential practice it is meant to sustain and embody
and the realization in which this practice is intended to issue. As for both Kundakunda
and Nāgārjuna, for Ramakrishna, it is the experience that finally matters. Words and
concepts are but the rungs of the ladder that lead to the roof of the “house” of realization.
As Ramakrishna says:

God can be realised through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is
to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo
steps or by a rope. You can also climb up a bamboo pole … Each religion is only
a path leading to God, as rivers come from different directions and ultimately
become one in the one ocean. (Gupta 1942: 111, 265)

5.7 Conclusion

It is possible to discern a philosophy in Ramakrishna’s teaching, and this philosophy

can well be characterized as “Anekānta Vedānta”—a nonsectarian, pluralistic Vedānta
that affirms, at least on the relative plane of existence, where diversity is present to
one’s consciousness, that there are many valid ways of describing, perceiving, and
approaching ultimate reality. There is also an absolute perspective, in which relative
reality vanishes. Verbally conceptualizing this point of view, however, renders it, also,
one more relative perspective, and a path to realization based on this perspective, one
more way of approaching infinite reality. Infinite reality presents itself to us in infinite
forms, each of which corresponds to a path to its realization.

Notes
1 The centrality of the renunciation of materiality to Ramakrishna’s thought is reflected
in his frequent use of the term kāmini-kañcana, or lust and greed, to refer to the main
obstructions to the spiritual life.
2 The Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (second–third century CE) famously
claims to hold no view.
3 There are no references, for example, to Jainism in the Kathāmṛta. Swami
Nikhilananda states in the introduction to his translation of this text that
Ramakrishna “showed great respect for the Tirthankaras, who founded Jainism”
(Gupta 1942: 34). There are relatively few Jains in Bengal. There is the Sarak
community, dating back to the ancient period, and, during the nineteenth
century, there was an influx of Marwari merchant communities into Bengal,
which included many Jains (Kudaisya 2009: 88.) Ramakrishna had Marwari
devotees, and some of his conversations with them are recounted in Gupta
(1942: 161–2, 179–80, 578–90, 637–42). From these references, though, it appears
that Ramakrishna’s Marwari devotees were primarily Vaiṣṇava in their religious
orientation. No mention is made of any of them being Jain.
4 Cort rejects the claim that this interpretation of anekāntavāda accurately reflects the
intent of premodern Jain thinkers who developed this doctrine, and who indeed used
it polemically in order to show that the views of other schools of thought were only
 Sri Ramakrishna’s Philosophy 177

partially true, rather than reflecting the total truth presented in Jainism. He does,
though, chronicle the development of the idea of anekāntavāda as intellectual ahiṃsā
in the writings of modern interpreters of Jainism.
5 I use the term “worldview pluralism” rather than the more common “religious
pluralism” to highlight the fact that this approach to diversity does not apply only to
religious traditions, but that it encompasses nonreligious perspectives as well. To be
sure, Sri Ramakrishna, as far as we know, applied his approach only to religious paths
and practices, so it would not be improper, when speaking solely of Ramakrishna’s
approach as applied by him during his lifetime, to refer to it as a religious pluralism.
As an approach to reality, though, available in principle to anyone who becomes aware
of and is persuaded by it, Ramakrishna’s methodology can be applied, for example, to
modern science, as Swami Vivekananda, indeed, does (Raghuramaraju 2016).
6 One could argue that the worldview of Ramakrishna, as a Hindu, will certainly
have significant areas of overlap with a traditional Jain worldview, as, whatever
their differences, both arise from the same Indic milieu and thus share quite a few
assumptions from the start, such as the ideas of karma and rebirth. This is a fair
point. Another case which I have made elsewhere is that there is also significant
convergence between the worldviews of both Ramakrishna and the Jain tradition and
the process thought of British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: overlap which
can be less easily attributed to cultural similarity.
7 Bengali works translated, respectively, as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (translated
by Swami Nikhilananda) and Sri Ramakrishna and His Divine Play (translated by
Swami Chetanananda).
8 Swami Nikhilananda translates Ramakrishna’s Bengali term abhed in this passage
as “identical.” However, as the analogy that Ramakrishna gives in the sentences
that follow suggests, a better meaning here is “inseparable.” Fire is not identical
to its power to burn, or the sun with its light. But “fire” and “sun” are inseparable
from their qualities of being able to burn or giving light. I thank Ayon Maharaj for
pointing out this better way to translate this important passage of the Kathāmṛta
(personal communication).
9 This is a line from a song of the celebrated Bengali bhakti singer and poet Ramprasad
(1718–75).
10 All citations from the Bhagavad-Gītā in this chapter are from Thompson (2008).
11 For an elaboration upon this “chicken or egg” issue in regard to text and experience
in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, see Sharma 2000.
12 I owe this phrasing, with many thanks, to an anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft
of this essay.
13 The point is not that medieval Christians were lacking in analogous conceptual
equipment for differentiating between secular cognition and spiritual insight. Indeed,
Thomistic thought involves a similar division of labor between reason and faith as
that between pratyakṣa/anumāna on the one hand and śabda-pramāṇa on the other.

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NY: Cornell University Press.
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Journal of the Department of Philosophy 9, 1–56.
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Chakrabarti, Arindam (1994), “The Dark Mother Flying Kites: Sri Ramakrishna’s
Metaphysic of Morals,” Sophia 33.3, 14–29.
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Other,” Philosophy East and West 50.3, 324–47.
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and as Interpreted by Vivekānanda,” Religion 11, 171–84.
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 6

Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology of a “Psychic

Being” in Support of a Metaphysical Argument
for Reincarnation
Stephen Phillips

Commonly referred to as Sri Aurobindo, or in academic circles simply as Aurobindo,

Aurobindo Ghose was born in Kolkata in 1872. He spent fourteen years in England
from the age of seven until completing studies at King’s College, Cambridge University.
He died surrounded by disciples in Pondicherry in South India in 1950.
Aurobindo was a leading nationalist at the beginning of the twentieth century
despite his thoroughly Western education, becoming a Vedāntin upon returning to
India by learning Sanskrit (which he began to study at Cambridge) and reading on his
own, mainly the Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-Gītā, with, probably, at least in many
instances, the commentaries of Śaṅkara. In his early career, he was a politician of some
renown. Later, he retired from politics to pursue yoga and a spiritual life. He founded a
new-style yogic ashram in Pondicherry and wrote prolifically (in English and a little in
Bengali) on mysticism and yogic practice. He was also a poet who crafted an enormous
epic poem, Savitri (1950–1), based on a legend from the Mahābhārata. He claimed not
to be adept at philosophy, but he wrote a 1,000-page-plus tome of speculative spiritual
metaphysics, The Life Divine (Aurobindo 1973a), where he defends a Vedāntic concept
of Brahman, the “Absolute,” and tries to interpret the major features of our u ­ niverse—
including, of course, science—in its light. Aurobindo fashions an entire worldview
that has its sources, he tells us, in his readings of early Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad-
Gītā, but not so much, at least in terms of direct influence, in the classical Vedānta
of the Brahmasūtra and Sanskrit commentaries.1 In other words, Aurobindo sets out
to fashion a new system of ideas intended to reflect both science and Upaniṣadic
teachings, in a free and fresh reading, along several dimensions of p ­ hilosophy—
epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, ethics—in an “integrative” worldview.
Informing his cosmological thinking is evolutionary theory, not so much evolutionary
biology as that is understood today but the idea that life and mind in our world are

I thank Debashish Banerjee for suggestions and comments, as well as Ayon Maharaj.
180 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

the result of an evolutionary process. Aurobindo finds the fundamental nature of

matter to include—for metaphysical reasons—an “evolutionary nisus” that ensures the
emergence of individuals capable of mystic experience in which the supreme reality,
Brahman, is revealed.
Aurobindo’s metaphysics is thoroughly realist: there is an essential God or Brahman
(the two terms are with him roughly synonymous) and physical objects that exist
independently of our experience. There is also much that is “intermediate” to these
two “poles of being.” The realism is supported, he tells us, by a thoroughly empiricist
epistemology: the Upaniṣads themselves have authority as records of, and speculations
based on, special yogic experience. Aurobindo defends an epistemic parallelism between
the indications of sensory and mystic experiences, with the latter carrying most of the
weight regarding the existence and nature of Brahman. He does also, however, present
variations of traditional teleological, cosmological, and other arguments of rational
theology, probably more like arguments from Plato and company than India’s own rich
tradition of arguments for the existence of God and their critiques.
Our modern Vedāntin also endorses a range of possibilities of mystic experience,
including Buddhist “enlightenment” as well as theistic bhakti experiences of devotion
and love. His claims about Brahman’s nature are said to be founded in a wide range of
mystic experience and intuition but also to tread the hazardous ground of hypotheses
about matters, as he himself says, that cannot be perfectly known.
Throughout The Life Divine, Aurobindo articulates a view of a “self-manifesting
Brahman” with close attention to an overall coherence of theory. Brahman, in essence
perfect Being, Consciousness-Force, and Bliss (this is how Aurobindo renders a
classical characterization of Brahman as saccidānanda), involutes aspects of itself, i.e.,
contracts or hides from itself certain aspects of itself so that other, finite possibilities
can emerge, a process that is presumed to have an outer limit in the “inconscient”
energies of matter. Such apparent inconscience cannot remain, however, because it is
nothing but Brahman. Conceivable universes that are incompatible with Brahman’s
essential nature are strictly impossible. Thus conscious beings with material bodies
are destined to evolve. In other words, God works within limits, and could not, for
example, make 2 + 3 = 7. God cannot create an entirely insentient world since God
is constrained by the metaphysical law ex nihilo nihil fit (“nothing from nothing”) to
create out of God’s own nature of Consciousness and Bliss. Thus this world is destined
to evolve sentient material beings and eventually a divine life conceived as a society
where many have direct experience of Brahman.
With this overview as background, I proceed to take up two important details of
Aurobindo’s philosophy, his endorsement of reincarnation and his articulation of a
mystic psychology in which the concept of a “psychic being” is central.

6.1 Aurobindo’s Defense of Reincarnation

In a late chapter of The Life Divine (742–64), entitled “The Philosophy of Rebirth,” our
yogin puts forth a novel argument for reincarnation, an argument not countenanced
in any of the classical schools so far as I am aware. The argument supplements a
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 181

claim found in the Yogasūtra and elsewhere that Aurobindo endorses, namely, that
through yogic practice one can develop the power (siddhi) to remember past lives.2 The
metaphysical argument also depends on yogic experience to warrant its first and most
important premise, but overall its reasoning is highly abstract. The premises and their
main lines of support are: first, that Brahman is saccidānanda, which is supposed to be
primarily a mystic or yogic claim backed up by his own experience along with that of
Upaniṣadic rishis, other yogins and yoginīs, and so on, but is also supported by certain
cosmological and teleological considerations, he reasons; second, that if Brahman is
saccidānanda, our world has to be meaningful, since Brahman is both its material
and efficient cause (from premise one); third, if there is not individual survival of
death, then our world cannot be meaningful, since individuality is too important in
our world to have such an abrupt end and limited flourishing; and fourth and finally,
that reincarnation is the best mechanism for individual survival, since a theory of
reincarnation is better than any other proposal (he surveys four). The conclusion is the
reality of reincarnation.
I want to focus first on the fourth premise, or, more precisely, the positive portion
of the claim that a theory of reincarnation ties in well with the metaphysics of
personal survival, that is to say, Aurobindo’s theory of a developing “psychic being,”
and in nontechnical language one’s “soul.” Then in later sections, I survey the other
premises as well as the argument as a whole, tackling the large question of its strength
in overview. Especially in the first part, I draw on material from my Yoga, Karma, and
Rebirth (Phillips 2008), where I lay out Sri Aurobindo’s argument but do not elaborate,
at least not so well as here, either the concept of the psychic being or the argument as
a whole. I am glad to have the opportunity to focus more exclusively on the teaching
of Sri Aurobindo.

6.2 The Psychic Being

Books should be written on the topic of the psychic being, and so here brevity has
to be the byword as I try to bring out some of the rich background in ancient and
classical Indian thought for Aurobindo’s concept of an individual soul as well as the
broad lines of his theory. Although the term “psychic being” was suggested to him
by Mirra Alfassa (the “Mother” of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry), it is
tantric occult psychology with which the theory of Aurobindo connects better than
any other predecessor, Western or Eastern, in my opinion, and we shall begin with
that and then add the Vedāntic notion of a secret self (ātman) first articulated in
early Upaniṣads. It seems Aurobindo began with his own mystic discovery and used
tantric and Vedāntic ideas to interpret it and work it into his own philosophic and
yogic teachings. The tantric ideas I find reworked by Aurobindo are funneled to us
primarily by the great scholar, himself a tantric, Sir John Woodroffe (a.k.a. Arthur
Avalon), but now also by a host of academics and tantric teachers (the publications of
Swami Satyananda Saraswati and his Bihar School of Yoga, which are influenced by
Aurobindo and therefore modern and not so traditional, are nevertheless helpful for
acquiring a basic picture).
182 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

According to tantrics, Vedāntins, and others, our consciousnesses are more than
what we know as ourselves on the “surface,” and more than our embodied ego-identity
in everyday life. Unlike some in the West in particular, Aurobindo and company find
not dark but angelic sides of our fuller selves. Our central selves are special, “psychic”
formations of “Divine Energy,” śakti, not of material or life energies, although
metaphysically Divine Energy is said to transfigure into mental energy (“thought
and emotion,” citta), “life energy,” prāṇa, as well as material energy at its lowest end
(Aurobindo 1973a: 186).3 This teaching is prefigured in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad’s
theory of five “ātmās,” or “selves,” five bodies that we inhabit simultaneously. But
psychologically Aurobindo’s view develops a little more directly from a tantric theory
of a series of “chakras” or occult centers of consciousness connected by a Central
Channel called suṣumnā (Aurobindo 1973b: 528: “the mystic stream which joins/The
viewless summits with the unseen depths”).
Now the chakras are thought to have cosmological dimensions, each connecting
with a peculiar range of energy or substance or vibrational frequency, depending on the
other-worlds conception of the particular tantric philosophy. In wider perspective, all
this is similar to Vedāntic cosmologizing about, let me repeat, a subtle body consisting
of four selves or ātmās beyond the physical body or “food” self as taught in the
Upaniṣads: we live in five embodiments simultaneously—physical (annamaya), vital
(prāṇamaya), lower mental (manomaya), higher mental (vijñānaṃaya), and spiritual
(ānandamaya)—a schema also employed by Aurobindo and other tantrics as well as
of course by Vedāntins both classical and modern (Aurobindo 1973a: 801). Aurobindo
assimilates both the “five ātmās” and chakric occult psychological pictures to a theory
that centers on an individuating principle, the “psychic,” in a word, although, as I
said, among precursors the chakric seems to me to be predominant. There is a true
individual that forms its own personality and karma through choices over a series
of lives, developing talents underpinned by psychological dispositions (saṃskāras)
that inhere in and etch our nonphysical bodies as well as the physical and the brain.
Thus a reincarnating individual—the “psychic being”—comes to possess all sorts of
differentiating features in a long process of “soul-making,”4 concretely figured as chakric
formations, a complex “subtle body,” sūkṣma-śarīra (Aurobindo 1973a: 259–60 and
elsewhere). Aurobindo places the individuator, the “psychic entity,” in a “secret cavern”
behind the heart chakra (e.g., 1973a: 845; 1973b: 74, 501, 690, 706; 1973c: 568–70).
More about this cave image, which is Vedāntic, below.
The seven principal chakras are, beginning with the lowest or “root” chakra:
(1) mūlādhāra, “root-support,” or the gateway to the “subtle physical,” in the terminology
of Aurobindo, (2) svādhiṣṭhāna, the “self-established,” connecting with sexual energies
and so located; (3) maṇipūra, the navel center, the “city of jewels,” another life-world
center and the beginning of the Central Channel in some Buddhist tantric systems;
(4) anāhata, the heart center where the “unstruck” sound is heard, where bhakti is felt
(“Godward emotion,” in Aurobindo’s phrase); (5) viśuddhi, the throat center, the “pure,”
connecting with voice and artistic expression; (6) the third eye, ājñā, corresponding
to the middle of the forehead, the “command center,” the center of higher mentality;
and finally (7) sahasrāra, the “thousand-spoked [wheel],” (also known as sahasra-
dala, the “thousand-petaled [lotus]”), the Divine center, the center of enlightenment,
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 183

which is said to be located just above the crown of the head and connected occultly
with the brahma-randhra, the cranial cleft through which runs the Central Channel,
suṣumnā. Aurobindo finds a secret soul, the “psychic entity,” living behind the heart
center projecting itself in psychic formations on all the levels, from the subtle physical
to what Aurobindo calls Higher Mind, Overmind, and Supermind. These are very
lofty areas of Divine consciousness that, although extremely important in Aurobindo’s
overall psychological teaching, have minimal relevance to our eventual focus on his
metaphysical argument for reincarnation, and reluctantly we pass them by.5
Historically, there is wide diversity of opinion in classical sources about a jīvātman, an
individual consciousness, especially in its relationship to Brahman or God, throughout
the many centuries of classical Indian thought, in all the different schools—a very wide
diversity indeed even in just the Vedic schools (thus excluding Buddhism and Jainism).
But there is also interesting commonality, at least among those that endorse yoga and
meditation. All yoga traditions teach that the intention to practice yoga is a wedge of
light coming up from our truest self or consciousness, turning us toward other right
attitudes in life as well as to our longer-term self-interest, that is to say, our self-interest
considering postmortem survival and reincarnation. Thus, amidst great diversity of
opinion about an individual self or soul, there is a common theme of yoga as a tool of,
let us say, psychic transformation, following the coinage of Aurobindo.
Aurobindo weaves a theory of psychic transformation into a Vedāntic/tantric
philosophy overall, and has much to say about an occult individual in or “behind” the
heart. In The Life Divine (1973a: 238), he characterizes this “secret soul” within us as
the “psychic entity”:

The true secret soul in us—subliminal, we have said, but this word is misleading,
for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather
burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant
mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil—this veiled psychic entity
is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that
dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our physical
nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and … the inner light or inner voice of
the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth,
untouched by death, decay, or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.

As he goes on to explain in The Life Divine (1973a: 239), the “psychic entity” develops
a psychic personality, which he calls the “psychic being,” over the course of lifetimes of
embodiment, incorporating transformed mental and prāṇic energies and dispositions
into an enduring individual complex that survives the death of the body.
Similarly, in the chapter of The Life Divine called “The Triple Transformation”
(1973a: 922–52), psychic transformation figures prominently as the first of three
wholesale psychological reworkings envisaged for a human personality:

On this ignorant surface we become dimly aware of something that can be called
a soul as distinct from mind, life, or body; we feel it not only as our mental idea or
vague instinct of ourselves, but as a sensible influence in our life and character and
184 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

action. A certain sensitive feeling for all that is true and good and beautiful, fine
and pure and noble, a response to it, a demand for it, a pressure on mind and life
to accept and formulate it in our thought, feelings, conduct, character is the most
usually recognized, the most general and characteristic, though not the sole sign
of the influence of this psyche. (Aurobindo 1973a: 926)

Now although theoretically all may be “Divine Energy” (Śakti), in Aurobindo’s

worldview (1973a: 84, 325) as in other tantric and Vedāntic worldviews, when it comes
to an individual’s yogic experience and the soul-making process that we are engaged
in (“All Life is Yoga,” reads the epigraph to Aurobindo’s [1973c] The Synthesis of Yoga),
we have to distinguish a purer Śakti—an evidently much more conscious and spiritual
Divine Energy—from the material and other energies that engulf us in our everyday
lives. In any case, a second kind of current or energy is said to flow in the Central
Channel, a “Shakti” that originates in the highest center or level of consciousness,
imaged by Aurobindo (and others) as the “Divine Mother” (1973a: 102–3, 184, and so
on). According to Aurobindo, descending Śakti will, with each of us, inevitably connect
when the time is right with an ordinarily sleeping form of Herself called kuṇḍalinī,
“Serpent-power,” a Divine Energy, or more divine in contrast with prāṇa, the energy
of life and breath. Some tantric texts say summarily that the point of yoga is to replace
prāṇa with Śakti in the Central Channel. Aurobindo’s system embraces such teachings
but his own yogic emphasis is on “descending Shakti,” and surrender to the Divine
Mother, the sādhaka becoming a vessel.
Such top-down yoga teaching, śakti-pāta, “descent of Shakti,” has classical
precedent, which is however not entirely evident in the old texts, partly because the
term can be and is interpreted as a matter of formal initiation by a guru. In Aurobindo’s
yogic teaching, Divine Energy is supposed to flow down—and can be felt even in the
“surface consciousness”—from the thousand-petaled lotus above the head enlivening
the Central Channel and eventually the lower centers of consciousness, in the end
awakening the kuṇḍalinī energy—a union of Lover and Beloved in the manifestation
of Brahman as Perfect Individual. Of course, this picture is only a common blueprint.
Divine individuals are not all alike. They are individuated (or are in the process of
becoming individuated) by the different ways distinct psychic entities—“spark
souls”—project themselves in personal formations—“psychic beings”—through a
series of soul-making lives. “God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep”
(Aurobindo 1973b: 55, from the canto, “The Secret Knowledge”).
In the final analysis, Aurobindo has to be counted a monist and modern Vedāntin
in metaphysics, but with a tantric and individualist twist: he asserts that there is a
translife, progressively manifesting and developing individual. It is as though there
are bare spiritual particulars, all exemplars of the chakric form which is like a mold
within which the Divine Mother breathes life into—blows into full actuality like a
glassmaker—the personalities assumed. Historically, it seems to me (following the
lead of Professor Arabinda Basu, a longtime elucidator of The Life Divine at the Sri
Aurobindo International Centre for Education in Pondicherry) that the ideas most
similar to this appear in Kaśmīri Śaivism. The main thesis of the Spanda-kārikā is that
the world is a Tremor, Vibration, spanda of Śiva, the Divine, an out-breath followed
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 185

by an in-breath of enlightenment. The in-breath does not destroy but enlightens. The
world is manifestation, arranged from above, not below. The main difference is that it is
“progressive” manifestation for Aurobindo, whereas for classical tantrics nothing like
that is stressed, although it is commonly thought that one can make spiritual progress
over a lifetime or stretch of lifetimes, resulting eventually in “liberation.”6
At the end of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad, we find an image which recurs throughout
subsequent literature as a symbol of the individual soul: “thumbsized,” a conscious
being (puruṣa) who survives death is seated in a “secret cave” located in or behind
the heart. Kaṭha Upaniṣad 6.17 runs as follows: “The inner self (ātman) is a conscious
being (puruṣa), thumbsized, forever dwelling in the heart of creatures./It is to be
extracted from the body patiently, with diligence, like the cane shaft from the muñja
reed./The bright, the immortal, it should be known. The bright, the immortal, it should
be known.”7 Similarly, Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.12 reads: “That one that is difficult to know,
hidden, immanent, set in the cavern [of the heart], resting in the depths,/A wise man
realizing it through knowledge of yogic method with respect to the self leaves behind
joy and grief.”
There are many similar images deriving from early Upaniṣads, notably the
haṃsa (e.g., Kaṭha 2.2, Śvetāśvatara 3.18, and other passages), which is the logo of
the Ramakrishna Mission, the Bihar School of Yoga, and other modern institutions,
which, despite sometimes being depicted as a swan, is, I hazard, the Siberian crane, a
bird that flies over the Himalayas each spring from India where it winters to summer
in Siberia (a great symbol for the transmigrating soul, considering the mountains’
massiveness). There are several other metaphors and symbols appearing in early
Upaniṣads that might be mentioned: the texts have as one of their great themes the
nature of the true self or soul, the jīvātman, being probably in large part responsible for
the great diversity of views on the topic of the jīvātman’s relation to Brahman or God
in the subschools of classical Vedānta. (There are more than a dozen distinct views
articulated in the classical literature, and subschools for the most part receive their
classical epithets according to the position taken on the issue of the individual self:
Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, Bhedābheda, and so on.)
For centuries yogic and tantric teachers used Upaniṣadic images and symbols in
connection with the practices outlined such that, although in metaphysics there is
probably even more diversity in tantric texts than in Vedāntic, what we may call a
mainstream tantric psychological picture emerges. In Kundalini Tantra (1983: 164),
Swami Satyananda writes about the heart chakra (anāhata), for example: “In the center
of the pericarp of the lotus is an inverted triangle, within which burns the akhanda jyotir,
unflickering eternal flame, representing the jivatman or individual soul.” Aurobindo, a
realist about matter who also affirms that all is Brahman, uses the evocative image of
“Fire burning on bare stone.” Indeed, Aurobindo devotes many lines of his epic poem
Savitri to a “secret soul.” In the canto, “The Book of Yoga,” messengers say the following
to Savitri (501):

There in the silence few have ever reached,

Thou shalt see the Fire burning on the bare stone
And the deep cavern of thy secret soul.
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Another especially memorable passage is an extended conceit that runs for four or five
pages in the canto entitled “The Secret Knowledge” (69–73):

This is the sailor on the flow of Time,

This is World-Matter’s slow discoverer,
Who, launched into this small corporeal birth,
Has learned his craft in tiny bays of self,
But dares at last unplumbed infinitudes,
A voyager upon eternity’s seas. …

One could go on.

There are divergences, of course, in the literature, in the literally hundreds of
classical tantric texts and in the now additional hundreds in English and other modern
languages. But having surveyed the broad lines and some historical precursors of the
“mechanism,” so to say, of Aurobindo’s reincarnation conception, let us move on to
look at all the premises in his argument. There are many good questions about rebirth.
(For instance, it is commonly asked, “Is there soul population growth?” The standard
response, I take it, would be that the psyches of animals provide the stock for a growing
human population.) And there are good questions about details of the “mechanism”
in Aurobindo’s and other theories. But we should now have a handle at least on how
rebirth is taken seriously by him as well as in yogic and tantric traditions in general. For
details as well as overview, there is to my mind no better publication than The Psychic
Being (Aurobindo and the Mother 2008), A.S. Dalal’s compilation of Sri Aurobindo’s
and the Mother’s explanations of the psychic being.
In sum, Aurobindo posits a psychic entity that over the course of many incarnations
develops a translife personality on different levels of our collective reality ranging from
the physical through life and mind worlds to a being that is essentially Divine, that is,
to God or Brahman, whose nature is Saccidānanda. To the theology we now turn.

6.3 The Heart of Sri Aurobindo’s Argument

Here again is the argument, which has at its core, as I see it, a tension between a
presupposition bearing on life’s meaningfulness and the nature of God, premises B
and C below.

(A) Brahman is Sachchidananda (Aurobindo’s anglicization).

(B) If Brahman is Sachchidananda, then life has to be meaningful.
(C) Life would not be meaningful without persistent individuality.
(D) Persistent individuality in our world demands rebirth as machinery. Therefore:
(E) Rebirth is real.

The most controversial premise is doubtless (A) Brahman is Sachchidananda

(Existence-Consciousness = Force-Bliss), which is to be taken as implying that
Brahman (God) is real. For us non-mystics, yogic testimony—Aurobindo’s but also
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 187

others’—is the principal evidence or reason to entertain A, as when someone you

trust tells you about something that they have experienced but you haven’t. The
epistemology of yogic and mystic testimony is another topic that deserves a book or
more. But in the interests of a quick purchase of the genius of Aurobindo here, let us
assign to premise A for the moment simply a minimal credence awaiting elaboration
of the concept of Sachchidananda and the epistemology of yogic testimony. For the
heart of the argument is, to my sensibilities, the tremendous divergence Aurobindo
felt between the wondrousness of his own special experiences and the malaise of the
world. In other words, the force of the argument is that the gloriousness of consummate
yogic experience, which in contrast makes everyday life with its miseries seem even
worse than it is—according not only to Aurobindo’s testimony but that of numerous
saints and mystics from traditions all over the globe— means that life in our physical
world has to have meaning. Otherwise, the gap between the value of the extraordinary
experiences and that of our everyday-life experiences would be too great, and we
would have to judge both—in the manner of an existentialist—absurd. The world is
not absurd, according to the philosophy of Aurobindo, but has to have deep meaning,
connecting with what is revealed in the heights of yogic experience, although that
meaning is not apparent.
Premise A is obviously a lot to swallow, since it asserts the reality of something
like the mainstream Western concept of God, although Brahman, unlike the “God” of
Christianity, is thought to include matter within its reality. In support of the premise, I
should like to stress Aurobindo’s own insistence on its connection with his, and others’,
mystic experiences. But close readings of the most relevant chapters of The Life Divine
for the thesis that Brahman is Sachchidananda (Book 1, Chapters 9–12, and Book 2,
Part 1, Chapter 1) show complex cosmological argumentation in favor of a single
Existent (sat), who is conscious and creative or self-creative (cit or cit-śakti), as well as
blissful in itself and the source of value (ānanda).
In my view, the “cosmological argument” is alive and well in contemporary
philosophy.8 Richard Swinburne (1979), Robert Koons (2008), William Lane Craig,
James D. Sinclair (2009), and others have championed versions whose basic outline
is not so different from Aurobindo’s reasoning, against, in my judgment, less than
blistering critiques (Gale 1991, for example, and others harkening back to Hume and
Kant, although Gale apparently later changed his mind). If we side with Aristotle,
Proclus, and company, against Buddhists and others who hold that an infinite series
of causes is possible, we are left with the options of the universe as uncaused or
caused by a being who is uncaused (alternatively, “self-caused”). The main argument
in favor of the latter (Swinburne 1979: 131–2) seems to be that it is more intuitive
that God, or Brahman, be uncaused than that the universe be somehow a “brute fact.”
(Brahman is said to be svayambhū in early Upaniṣads, the “self-existent” or “self-
created.”) “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Robert Nozick (1981: 120)
urges that there is a presupposition to Heidegger’s famous question, namely, that
there should be nothing, that nothing is the “natural state,” and so any adequate
explanation of the universe would have to appeal to an original nothingness. This is
what makes the question appear misformed, it seems to me. For, there is obviously
something existent. And so I would like to ask: How, given existence, can we even
188 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

imagine that there be nothing at all? A long line of metaphysicians, both East and
West, argue that “nothing comes from nothing,” ex nihilo nihil fit.9 (“How did we get
here?” From our parents, and they from their parents, and so on. Surely, not from
nothing.) The real question is the nature of the “primordial,” to use a Whiteheadian
term (Whitehead 1969). Aurobindo’s contribution can be viewed as concluding
that there is a first cause, not only in the sense of a material cause but also in the
sense of Aristotle’s three other types of cause or causal explanation, the efficient,
formal, and teleological.10 The argument in focus here has most to do with the
teleological dimension of Brahman, and, unfortunately, we cannot begin to cover all
the considerations that Aurobindo brings to bear on our premise A. Suffice it to say,
our Vedāntic philosopher is able to see purpose in nature’s workings, arguing that
an essentially formless Divine has to be considered rich enough in its acosmological
reality to account for the emergent cosmos. In this way, both cosmological and
teleological considerations would not be irrelevant when it comes to the question of
God’s nature.
Premise C involves a claim about individuality and the meaning of life. Here the
point is quite simple. Individuality is a primary feature of our lives as persons, and it
is hard to think of anything more valuable to us than our individual destinies. This is
the great theme of existentialism, a theme sounded too by Aurobindo. He expands on
it by arguing that the accomplishments of high yogic experience require perhaps the
loss of individual identity in some sense but also extremely strong-willed and well-
etched personal character. It is not the weak figure who has the qualities necessary for
climbing yogic mountains of self-discovery.
Death, however, seems to cancel individuality. If it does, life is absurd and cannot
be explained with respect to the indication of the consummate yogic experience,
which is—back now to premise A and, especially, Aurobindo’s mystic testimony—the
experience of Brahman as Sachchidananda. In brief, individuality is so important in
our universe, including for yogic accomplishment, that without survival of death it
seems to Aurobindo that it would be impossible to explain our universe in relation to
Brahman. Accordingly, Aurobindo reasons in Book 2, Part 2, Chapter 20 of The Life
Divine (755–6), that there has to be reincarnation:

The immense importance of the individual being, which increases as he rises in

the scale, is the most remarkable and significant fact of a universe which started
without consciousness and without individuality in an undifferentiated Nescience.
This importance can only be justified if the Self as individual is no less real than the
Self as cosmic Being or Spirit and both are Powers of the Eternal. It is only so that
can be explained the necessity for the growth of the individual and his discovery
of himself as a condition for the discovery of the cosmic Self and Consciousness
and of the supreme Reality. If we adopt this solution, this is the first result, the
reality of the persistent individual; but from the first consequence the other result
follows, that rebirth of some kind is no longer a possible machinery which may
or may not be accepted, it becomes a necessity, an inevitable outcome of the root
nature of our existence.
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 189

6.3.1 Competitors
Of course, there are other views of continuity, or its lack, in connection with the
question of life’s meaningfulness. In Chapter 16 of Book 2, Part 2, “The Aim of Life, Four
Theories of Existence,” Aurobindo rehearses four, three plus his own (1973a: 667ff.):
(a) the supracosmic, (b) the cosmic and terrestrial, (c) the supraterrestrial or other-
worldly, and (d) “the integral or synthetic or composite” where he places his own view.
His own view may be said to be a modern variety of Vedāntic and tantric monistic
theism, a world-affirming metaphysics of Brahman in which traditional Vedāntic views
converge with a yogic and tantric “transformation” theory of a developing individual.
Against (c), the other-worldly, Aurobindo supposes that a string of earthly identities
is more valuable and significant than a string of cross-world identities. The idea of
Western religion that a life here is followed by life in heaven or hell or purgatory with
no return is precluded, he argues, by the value of cultural and life solidarities and other
lines of continuity unavailable to a merely heaven-bound soul. In other words, lines
of earthly persistence are intrinsically valuable. The idea is that through rebirth we
perfect peculiarly human virtues and contribute again and again to a communal life
and history.
Thus his criticism of the “other-worldly” views connects directly with the
reincarnation argument. If, as in mainstream conceptions of major Western religions,
in particular Christianity and Islam, the meaning of life in this world is paid out in
another world, a heaven or hell or purgatory, as the case may be, then there is much
more of a break in individual continuity than there would be according to a theory of
reincarnation, which has us human beings coming back—such would seem to be the
default rule—as human beings, to the same world, our good green planet, as that in
which we have developed our psychic selves in this and in previous lives. So along the
scale of the value of preservation of individuality, a reincarnation theory is superior to
one that is other-worldly. (Reincarnation theory also provides a motive of self-interest
to adopt sound ecological policies and just institutions.)
Similar problems are pointed out for Buddhist philosophy and Advaita Vedānta,
both with individuality in general and the more delicate matter of spiritual
individuality, neither of which is emphasized in Advaita Vedānta or in Buddhism
(by and large, and according to Aurobindo’s understandings), in the two ancient
belief systems that he, by the way, takes as his principal adversaries when it comes to
metaphysical reasoning.11 Against what he sometimes calls their illusionism, he argues
that individuality is central to our lives as human beings. Not only is it presupposed
throughout our everyday affairs as commercial agents, but it is central to our
cultures, our literatures and arts, and, indeed, to yoga practice and accomplishment,
in his conception, as we have pointed out. Nevertheless, there is much agreement
with his Advaita and Buddhist adversaries, in that Aurobindo holds that yogic, and
more broadly meditational, practices can lead to a spiritual enlightenment and the
emergence of a “spiritual individual.” But practices, he stresses, are carried out through
the effort of single persons, not groups, and it is individuals who become enlightened
in the mystic experience that is their aim and result. It is also the individual who is,
he says, capable of undergoing a radical transformation in the direction of what he
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calls divine life. Thus individuality cannot be illusory or so transitory as to end with
death (this is the argument in another context). And, indeed, rebirth is traditionally
taught in both Buddhism and Advaita to be the destiny of the unenlightened who get
future chances beyond any single life and death. To be sure, Aurobindo, in agreement
with his assumed adversaries, identifies elements in ourselves—including what he calls
egoism—that are, if not illusory, at least distortional, hindering our spiritual progress.
But individuality itself cannot be all false, he emphasizes, lest there be none to become
enlightened or spiritually transformed.
Furthermore, throughout The Life Divine, Aurobindo argues that our world is
ideally suited for spiritual evolution, because the pain and suffering that life involves
spur aspiration to spiritual transformation. What he calls “typal worlds,” which do
not evolve, such as the “heaven” of Christianity and Islam, do not have a mixture of
pleasure and pain, birth and death, and so on through a host of familiar “dualities,”
and are thus unsuited for evolution and personality development. We may call this
Aurobindo’s “soul-making” theodicy, which is in line with an argument espoused by
Sri Ramakrishna and many others in the “Hindu renaissance” (Maharaj 2018).
However, C.J. Ducasse (1951, 1961), a former president of the American
Philosophical Association, defends the possibility of reincarnation by positing a kind
of “psychic heaven.” He argues that we may think of a deeper substratum of personal
identity—what he calls individuality, as opposed to a more superficial stratum he
calls personality—as surviving death and determining talents and proclivities in
a future lifetime. Only the former could survive, Ducasse reasons, since there is a
bodily component to personality. Individuality, in contrast, is entirely psychological,
consisting of “instincts, dispositions, and tendencies” formed by choices and actions
in this and previous lives. Ducasse maintains that if rebirth is to be a real possibility,
there must be an interval between death and birth where recollection of past lives
is normal. Memory, according to him, would underpin the identity of an individual
across lives, though previous lives need not be accessible except in the death-birth
interval. Aurobindo’s theory, too, demands such an interval, in a “psychic heaven,” so
to say, by Ducasse’s reasoning. Thus other worlds, or at least an other world, would
appear to be crucial to his theory. And this is posited indeed (right after our chapter
in focus are two entitled “The Order of the Worlds” and “Rebirth and Other Worlds”
respectively). Thus Aurobindo himself appears to depend on an “other-worldly”
conception in arguing for reincarnation. Still, his points about earthly continuity, etc.,
would seem to hold.
Why is individuality valuable from Brahman’s perspective? Why should the One
become the Many? And why, in particular, should Brahman value the lasting but also
developmental individuality that Aurobindo champions in The Life Divine? Personally,
I think the question is unanswerable. But Aurobindo writes in an early chapter of The
Life Divine, Book 1, Chapter 11 (91):

we have yet no answer to the question “Why should Brahman, perfect, absolute,
infinite, needing nothing, desiring nothing, at all throw out force of consciousness
to create in itself these worlds of forms?” … it can be only for one reason, for
delight.
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 191

And then in the next chapter, Chapter 12 (110), he provides a description of our universe
that brings out how “the One Existence should take delight in such a movement,” a
description he defends at much greater length in Chapter 23 of Book 2, Part 2, where
he speaks of a “metaphysical objection” to his theory of spiritual evolution. Aurobindo
views the meaning of our world to be development of psychic beings, spiritual
individuals who come to know Brahman in yogic experience, along with collective
progression to “divine life”:

All exists here, no doubt, for the delight of existence, all is a game or Lila; but
a game too carries within itself an object to be accomplished and without the
fulfillment of that object would have no completeness of significance. A drama
without denouement may be an artistic possibility—existing only for the pleasure
of watching the characters and the pleasure in problems posed without a solution
or with a forever suspended dubious balance of solution; the drama of the earth
evolution might conceivably be of that character, but an intended or inherently
predetermined denouement is also and more convincingly possible. Ananda is the
secret principle of all being and the support of all activity of being: but Ananda
does not exclude a delight in the working out of a Truth inherent in being,
immanent in the Force or Will of being, upheld in the hidden self-awareness of its
Consciousness-Force which is the dynamic and executive agent of all its activities
and the knower of their significance. (1973a: 835)

A good plot has to have a telos, has to have direction, insists Aurobindo. The direction
of earth evolution is divine life, which is conceived as a world of psychic beings
conscious both of their individuality and Brahman.12 This then provides meaning to
the long “becoming.”
The deep idea here seems to be that of Brahman’s “dynamic perfection,” denying
the presupposition (apparently due to Plato) “Where there is will, there is want,”
such that Brahman’s cosmic perfection—as opposed to, or in addition to, Brahman’s
transcendent perfection—includes the dynamis of the development of spiritual
individuality in our world. We might also point to Aurobindo’s idea of Divine Love
and Compassion that condescends, so to say, to emanate such a difficult creation
as our universe.13 I also like the idea that given the essential unity of Brahman,
it is a challenge to create autonomous individuals, especially materially embodied
individuals capable of knowing Brahman. But this whole line of questioning seems
to me not to have the highest relevance to our appreciation of Aurobindo’s argument
for reincarnation, since it is pretty evident to us as individuals that individuality
is valuable (and for it we are grateful, I dare say). We too are Brahman, and our
values count. Our pains and sufferings are instrumental to the development of
divine life. As indicated, this is a major theme of The Life Divine. It is true that on
the very last page of the book Aurobindo seems to leave open the possibility of
total dissolution in Brahman for some souls: “or, if its end as an individual is to
return into its Absolute, it could make that return also—not through a frustration
of life but through a spiritual completeness of itself in life” (1070). And so despite
the insistence on the importance of individuality, Aurobindo makes room in his
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philosophy for a total nirvāṇa for the individual soul. However, note that he also
implies that that would be an enormous accomplishment, for an individual.

6.3.2 The Argument Summarized and Evaluated

Let us return now to the most controversial premise of the four sketched, the first,
premise A, which assumes the reality of Brahman or God as well as that God’s nature
is “Sachchidananda.” As mentioned, here the support includes, most prominently
according to our philosopher, mystic experience and mystic propositions as the result
of a kind of mystic empiricism, at least for people who like Sri Aurobindo have the
special experiences. For the rest of us, there is their testimony, along with, as mentioned,
various cosmological and teleological considerations familiar to anyone versed in
natural theology (I believe a cosmological argument carries some real weight; surely
Aurobindo does, rehearsing a Vedāntic version as indicated). Now in Aurobindo’s
telling, yogic and more broadly mystic testimony on this score is overwhelming. But
even if we accept that there is something real and objective that mystic experiences
indicate—even if we have the Vedāntic “over-belief,” to use the wonderful term of
William James in his classic study of world mysticism ([1900] 1982: 389), that there is
a Brahman—there are surely differences of opinion about the nature of the Absolute in
classical Vedānta and its modern successors. All the more is this true in yogic traditions,
some of which are flatly dualistic, much less to consider, like James, mystic experience
worldwide. It is crucial to Aurobindo’s argument that Brahman be saccidānanda, but
premise A is controversial within the very yogic traditions he purports to draw on. His
response is to criticize what he sees as limited posits based on yogic experience, arguing
that many apparently have generalized hastily on the basis of minor experiences or
even major experiences of a transcendent Divine but in all cases have not pushed on
long and hard enough to an “integral” experience of a “Divine Reality.” It is, of course,
hard to know how to evaluate from the outside differentiation and criticism of the
profundity of different yogic and mystic experiences.
Another response to the problem of mystic diversity that Aurobindo provides
shows more promise for philosophy, it seems to me: Brahman conceived as the Infinite
(Aurobindo 1973a: 323 and 329–42, in particular). Mount Everest looks a lot different
from the Tibetan side as opposed to the Nepali. The idea is that there is a single object
of a variety of mystic experiences, an object so grand that we should expect very
different finite, human experiences of it. Aurobindo cites (1973a: 331) a classic story
of five blind people and an elephant, “each of the blind inquirers touched a different
part and concluded that the whole animal resembled the part of which he had the
touch.” Surely, Aurobindo’s idea of a “logic of the Infinite” (1973a: 337) is worthy of
exploration, but the theological work required to remove the tensions—not to say
outright contradictions—in mystic testimony worldwide would have to be, I daresay,
prodigious.
What then, precisely, does Aurobindo mean by “Sachchidananda?” Well, that,
too, is a good question, the answer to which is a long story. But to appreciate our
metaphysical argument, I think the key idea is that God is Bliss. The topic of how God
creates through a process of self-concealing is for another occasion (here Aurobindo
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 193

seems to develop the Vedāntic theology of Vallabha and company, although I am not
at all sure that he was aware of the Sanskrit texts). Nevertheless, we can appreciate
the central move without probing further into the Divine attributes of sat and cit
(alternatively, cit-tapas). All we need focus upon is the idea that Brahman or God is
Bliss (ānanda), that is to say, that God is the locus of supreme value.
Thus a less elaborate description of Brahman or God may be all that is required to
appreciate the argument. We might, for example, substitute for “Sachchidananda” a
favorite Divine attribute in Western theology, God’s “lovingness.” Thus:

(B′) If Brahman is loving, then life has to be meaningful.

And now the argument looks pretty good, clear, and cogent, given A, which of course
remains a lot to grant. But perhaps for B′ we need only mystic testimony and not all
the cosmological and teleological argumentation to boot. Also, that God or Brahman
would be omnibenevolent seems intuitive. From another perspective, we might say,
as was suggested, that premise A is the starting point for Aurobindo’s development of
classical Indian theodicy, using rebirth to defend God’s goodness.
Finally, let me try to state a full-blown version of the argument using the rich
terminology employed by Aurobindo himself in his speculative masterpiece, that is,
putting it more in language that he himself uses. Brahman, i.e., God, working through
Divine Śakti, suffuses the universe as “Sachchidananda,” Being-Consciousness =
Force-Bliss. Brahman “self-manifests” this nature for the purpose of delight and self-
discovery in a long evolutionary process. Life would not have meaning if the individual
did not in some way survive, and such meaninglessness in the self-manifestation of
Brahman would be metaphysically discordant and is thus impossible. Rebirth is the
necessary “machinery” for the persistence. Such is the gist of the reasoning.

Notes
1 In Chapter 11 of this handbook, Ayon Maharaj provides a detailed discussion of Sri
Aurobindo’s novel interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad.
2 The claim of memory of past lives has led Ian Stevenson, formerly a professor at
the University of Virginia Medical School, now deceased, to explore the evidence
for reincarnation and, in several books (1974, 1984, 1997), to conclude in its favor.
Though the memory claim and other evidence—the xenoglossy that Stevenson
documents seems particularly weighty—are less controversial than Aurobindo’s
metaphysical argument, the overall case, I dare say, is a matter of convergent reasons.
And there can be no convergence without as least a modicum of independent
cogency.
3 The first edition of The Life Divine (1914–19) was published serially, a chapter a
month, approximately, and there is much repetition as our author brings his readers
back up to speed, summarizing the thought of previous chapters. There is thus an
abundance of citable passages for central propositions. It should not be thought that
the references given here are to the only passages that express the ideas in focus,
although I have tried to find text that is particularly germane. Some of the choicest
194 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

expressions of Aurobindo’s psychological and even metaphysical theses are found in

the poem Savitri, which was Aurobindo’s principal occupation in the later years of his
life, and I often cite verses. To my sensibilities, letters to disciples are not particularly
good sources in some instances since, in line with the Buddhist hermeneutical
doctrine of “skill in means,” personal correspondence may be shaped by a teacher’s
sense of what his or her interlocutor needs to hear more than by consistency.
4 The Romantic poet John Keats (1795–1821) wrote in a letter that this world is not “a
vale of tears” but rather “the vale of Soul-making,” with pain and suffering necessary
to form a soul and a personality. Cognate notions were prevalent throughout the
Romantic movement; Hegel’s view of an Absolute evolving through a dialectic of
history is probably the quintessential Romantic philosophy. John Hick, a philosopher
and theologian at the University of Birmingham in England, took the Romantic idea
and wedded it to views he found in Irenaeus (130–202 CE), a Greek Father of the
Church, and developed a “soul-making” Christian theodicy (primarily in Evil and
the God of Love [Hick 1977, first published 1966]) that has become prominent in
philosophic discussions of evil and God since its appearance. Hick seems also to have
read Aurobindo, and his theory and argumentation differ from Aurobindo’s mainly
in positing other worlds where the soul continues its development after death as
opposed to reincarnation.
5 Strictly speaking, the “true individual” is not just the developing psychic being but
also includes the soul’s “big brother” or “big sister,” so to say, a form of Brahman
(“jīvātman,” in Aurobindo’s unusual use of the Sanskrit term) that does not incarnate
but that looks after, as a secret divine guide, its incarnating and developing part
within the material universe and elsewhere. However, since this is also said to be a
“face of the One,” a person’s iṣṭa-devatā, uniqueness appears to be contributed by the
psychic part. The topic, however, belongs more to the metaphysics of the Divine than
to human psychology and reincarnation as conceived by Aurobindo, and is a little
beyond our purview.
6 The Buddhist ideal of the Bodhisattva becoming a perfect individual over the course
of many lifetimes is perhaps the most striking example of a precedent for Aurobindo’s
view of a developing “soul personality.” However, not development but rather
dissolution—“liberation,” mukti—is the more prominent theme in classical Indian
thought about rebirth, under whatever banner, Hindu or Buddhist. Nevertheless,
spiritual progress is thought to be required to achieve mukti.
7 In Aurobindo (1973b: 526), in the canto “The Finding of the Soul,” there are these
lines: “As a mother feels and shares her children’s lives,/She puts forth a small portion
of herself/A being no bigger than the thumb of man/Into a hidden region of the
heart/To face the pang and forget the bliss,/To share the suffering and endure earth’s
wounds/And labour mid the labour of the stars.”
8 Bruce Reichenbach (2017) writes, “In short, contemporary philosophers continue to
contribute increasingly detailed and complex arguments on both sides of the debate.”
9 In India, the earliest expression of the principle appears to be Chāndogya
Upaniṣad 6.2.1–2, of approximately the time of the Buddha, that is, around 500 BCE:
“‘In the beginning, good lad, this was being, one alone without a second. Some say,
“In the beginning this was not-being, one alone without a second. From that not-
being, being was produced.” But, good lad, how could that be?’ he said. ‘How could
being be produced from not-being? In the beginning, good lad, this was being, one
alone without a second.’” (Translation by Roebuck 2000: 172.)
 Sri Aurobindo’s Psychology 195

10 Particularly worthy of philosophic scrutiny, it seems to me, is Aurobindo’s filling out

of the “formal” dimension of a “first cause,” in The Life Divine, Part 2, Chapter 1.
11 Buddhist and Advaita views are alluded to in the chapter referred to on reincarnation
(Aurobindo 1973a: 667–8, in particular), but it is when one considers the treatise as
a whole that these “supracosmic” adversaries stand out, along with materialism, as
Aurobindo’s principal targets as he champions his view against what he sees as its
chief competitors.
12 With regard to the further reaches of Aurobindo’s speculations about the future,
it is more accurate to say he envisages a world of “gnostic beings,” since he sees
psychic individuals as going through further transformations to embody a superior
instrumentality of consciousness that he calls “Supermind.” The last chapters of The
Life Divine articulate what he calls spiritual “gnosis.”
13 My essay, “God’s Last World” (Phillips 2008), proposes a solution to the theological
problem of evil as specified by Leibniz’s worry that ours may not be the “best of all
possible worlds.” It is that God’s intrinsic benevolence would result not only in the
creation of the best of all possible worlds but also in beings “having their day in the
sun” in worlds that are not the best possible but still valuable enough to create or
manifest. Only gods and goddesses could inhabit the higher worlds, but God has let
us mortals, too, exist, in what, given our mortality, etc., is far from the best world
imaginable. Assuming theism, aren’t you glad that God didn’t make only the best of
all possible worlds, but has been gracious enough to create our world, though flawed,
in addition?

References
Aurobindo, Sri (1973a), The Life Divine. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, vols. 18
and 19, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (first published 1914–19, revised
and expanded 1939 and 1940).
Aurobindo, Sri (1973b), Savitri. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, vols. 28 and 29,
Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
Aurobindo, Sri (1973c), The Synthesis of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library,
vols. 20 and 21, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (first published 1914–21).
Aurobindo, Sri, and the Mother (2008), The Psychic Being [Selections from their writings
compiled by A.S. Dalal], Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust.
Craig, William Lane and James D. Sinclair (2009), “The Kalām Cosmological Argument,”
in William Lane Craig and James P. Moreland, eds., The Blackwell Companion to
Natural Theology, London: Blackwell, 101–201.
Ducasse, C.J. (1951), Nature, Mind, and Death, La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Ducasse, C.J. (1961) A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life after Death, Springfield,
IL: Charles Thomas.
Franco, Eli, ed., in collaboration with Dagmar Eigner (2009), Yogic Perception, Meditation
and Altered States of Consciousness, Sitzungsberichte der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, Philosophische Historische Klasse, vol. 794. Wien: Verlag der
Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Gale, Richard M. (1991), On the Nature and Existence of God, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hick, John (1977), Evil and the God of Love, San Francisco: Harper and Row.
196 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

James, William ([1900] 1982), The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York: Penguin.
Koons, Robert C. (2008), “Epistemological Foundations for the Cosmological Argument,”
in Jonathan L. Kvanvig, ed., Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 1, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 105–33.
Maharaj, Ayon (2018) Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-Cultural
Philosophy of Religion, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Nozick, Robert (1981), Philosophical Explanations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Phillips, Stephen (2008), “God’s Last World: Sri Aurobindo’s Argument for Divine Life,”
Jadavpur Journal of Philosophy 18.2, 1–12 (2008).
Phillips, Stephen (2009) Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth: A Brief History and Philosophy, New
York: Columbia University Press.
Reichenbach, Bruce (2017), “Cosmological Argument,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/
entries/cosmological-argument (accessed January 4, 2020).
Roebuck, Valerie (2000), The Upaniṣads, New York: Penguin.
Satyananda Saraswati, Swami (1983), Kundalini Tantra. Munger: Bihar School of Yoga.
Stevenson, Ian (1974), Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, 2nd edn., Charlottesville,
VA: University Press of Virginia.
Stevenson, Ian (1984), Unlearned Language: New Studies in Xenoglossy, Charlottesville,
VA: University Press of Virginia.
Stevenson, Ian (1997), Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Westport, CT: Praeger.
Swinburne, Richard (1979), The Existence of God, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Whitehead, A.N. (1969), Process and Reality. New York: Macmillan.
 7

Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling:

Romain Rolland’s Vedāntic Critique of
Psychoanalysis and His Call for a
“New Science of the Mind”
Ayon Maharaj

The fascinating letters exchanged between Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founder
of psychoanalysis, and the celebrated French writer Romain Rolland (1866–1944)
from 1923 to 1936 have been a fertile source of discussion and debate among scholars
and psychoanalysts. In 1927, Freud sent Rolland a copy of his new book Die Zukunft
einer Illusion (The Future of an Illusion), a polemical critique of religion from a
psychoanalytic standpoint. In a momentous letter dated December 5, 1927, Rolland
thanked Freud for sending his “lucid and spirited little book” and remarked:

Your analysis of religions is a just one. But I would have liked to see you doing an
analysis of spontaneous religious sentiment [sentiment religieux spontané] or, more
exactly, of religious feeling [sensation religieuse], which is wholly different from
religions in the strict sense of the word, and much more durable.
What I mean is: totally independent of all dogma, all credo, all Church
organization, all Sacred Books, all hope in a personal survival, etc., the simple
and direct fact of the feeling of the “eternal” (which can very well not be eternal,
but simply without perceptible limits, and like oceanic, as it were) [le fait simple
et direct de la sensation de l’ ≪ éternel ≫ (qui peut très bien n’être pas éternel, mais
simplement sans bornes perceptibles, et comme océanique)]. (Parsons 1999: 173;
Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 304)1

This chapter is a substantial revision of my article, “The Challenge of the Oceanic Feeling: Romain
Rolland’s Mystical Critique of Psychoanalysis and His Call for a ‘New Science of the Mind,’”
published in the History of European Ideas 43.5 (2017), 474–93. Reprinted by permission of the
publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd.
198 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

In the same letter, Rolland went on to claim that the “true subterranean source of
religious energy” is none other than this “‘oceanic’ sentiment” (sentiment océanique)
(Parsons 1999: 173; Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 304). According to Rolland,
while this oceanic feeling is “of a subjective character,” it is nonetheless “common
to thousands (millions) of men actually existing” (Parsons 1999: 173; Vermorel and
Vermorel 1993: 304). He confessed that he himself enjoyed this oceanic feeling as a
“constant state” and had “always found in it a source of vital renewal” (Parsons 1999: 173;
Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 304).
Rolland added, moreover, that the “rich and beneficent power” of the oceanic
feeling is found both in the “religious souls of the West”2 and in the “great minds
of Asia.” Significantly, he singled out “two personalities”—the nineteenth-century
Bengali saint Sri Ramakrishna (1836–86),3 and his chief disciple, Swami Vivekananda
(1863–1902)—who not only experienced this oceanic feeling but also “revealed an
aptitude for thought and action which proved strongly regenerating for their country
and for the world” (Parsons 1999: 173; Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 304). Indeed,
Rolland was so fascinated by these two Indian spiritual personalities that he went on to
write a three-volume work on them—Vie de Ramakrishna (1929), Vie de Vivekananda
(1930), and L’Évangile universel (1930)—which he sent to Freud in 1930.
Freud, in turn, read Rolland’s biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda and commented on them in a letter to Rolland dated January 19, 1930.
Freud also sent Rolland a copy of his book Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1930;
Civilization and Its Discontents), the opening section of which investigates Rolland’s
notion of oceanic feeling from a psychoanalytic standpoint. In this book, Freud
interprets the oceanic feeling as a regression to a pre-Oedipal feeling of unity with the
external world, and he argues—against Rolland—that the true source of religion is not
this oceanic feeling but an infantile feeling of helplessness, which can be traced to the
child’s need for the father’s protection (Freud 1930, [1930] 1961).
While Jeffrey Masson (1980: 1–50) and David Fisher (1982) have defended Freud’s
psychoanalytic interpretation of the oceanic feeling as a regression to an infantile state,
numerous scholars—including Janette Simmonds (2006), William Meissner (2005),
David Werman (1986), and William Parsons (1999, 2003)—have argued that Freud’s
psychoanalytic understanding of mystical experience is reductive and inaccurate.4
Werman (1986), Parsons (1999), and Jussi Saarinen (2012) have also fruitfully
explored the unique phenomenology of Rolland’s oceanic feeling.
However, comparatively few scholars have investigated Rolland’s underlying
motivations for asking Freud to analyze the oceanic feeling in his fateful 1927 letter.
Fisher and Parsons, who are among the few to have addressed this issue, simply assume
that Rolland was expecting from Freud a non-reductive psychoanalytic examination of
mysticism.5 I will argue, however, that Rolland’s intentions in introducing the oceanic
feeling to Freud were much more complex, multifaceted, and critical than scholars
have generally assumed.
In Section 7.1, I will examine Rolland’s biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda, which provide essential clues to understanding the complex intentions
behind his appeal to the oceanic feeling in his letter to Freud. In these biographies,
Rolland not only polemicizes against psychoanalytic approaches to mystical experience
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 199

but also encourages psychoanalysts to correct and deepen their superficial conception
of the mind by taking seriously the mystical experiences of both Eastern and Western
saints. I will argue that Freud’s attempts to rebut some of Rolland’s criticisms of
psychoanalysis are largely unconvincing. In Vie de Vivekananda, Rolland calls for a
“new science of the mind” rooted in the ancient Indian spiritual systems of rājayoga
and jñānayoga. According to Rolland, this new science of the mind would incorporate
some of the most valuable insights of psychoanalysis without succumbing to the
reductionism prevalent in psychoanalytic approaches to mystical experience.
With this background in place, I will contend in Section 7.2 that Rolland’s primary
intentions in appealing to the oceanic feeling in his 1927 letter to Freud—intentions
less evident in his letters to Freud than in his biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda—were twofold: first, to challenge the fundamental assumptions of
psychoanalysis from a Vedāntic perspective, and second, to confront Freud with a
yogic “science of the mind” that he felt was superior to Freud’s psychoanalytic science.
In Section 7.3, I will consider Parsons’s influential thesis that Rolland’s
critical engagement with Freud anticipated what Parsons calls the “adaptive” and
“transformative” psychoanalytic approaches to mysticism that emerged after Freud’s
time. Drawing on the arguments of Sections 7.1 and 7.2, I will argue that Parsons’s
genealogy of Rolland’s legacy is incomplete and somewhat misleading, since it
downplays Rolland’s radical critique of psychoanalysis. Against Parsons, I will argue
that Rolland’s pioneering criticisms of psychoanalysis from a Vedāntic perspective
anticipated certain aspects of the critiques of psychoanalysis developed by twentieth-
century spiritual thinkers as diverse as Sri Aurobindo, Swami Akhilananda, and Ken
Wilber.

7.1 Rolland’s Views on Psychoanalysis and Mysticism in his

Biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda

Rolland’s biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda provide helpful insight

into his complex views on both psychoanalysis and mysticism.6 Throughout Vie de
Ramakrishna, Rolland conspicuously refrains from indulging in psychoanalytic
interpretations of the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna.7 To mention just
a few examples, Rolland approvingly refers to Sri Ramakrishna’s teaching that
“[a]bsolute continence must be practiced if God is to be realized” (LR 153). While
psychoanalytically oriented scholars such as Jeffrey Masson, Narasingha Sil, and
Jeffrey Kripal have claimed that sexual repression plays a crucial explanatory role in
Sri Ramakrishna’s behavior and spiritual experiences, Rolland explicitly rejects the
psychoanalytic theory of repression in the case of mystics.8 According to Rolland, both
Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda successfully observed absolute “sexual continence”
in thought, word, and deed (LR 153). Indeed, Rolland claims that mystics, by means
of the practice of perfect continence, are able to sublimate—rather than repress—their
sexual energies and rechannel them toward spiritual ends.9 As Rolland puts it, “All
great mystics and the majority of great idealists, the giants among the creators of the
spirit, have clearly and instinctively realized what formidable power of concentrated
200 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

soul, of accumulated creative energy, is generated by a renunciation of the organic and

psychic expenditure of sexuality” (LR 152).10
Psychoanalytic scholars have had a field day with Sri Ramakrishna’s femininity and
cross-dressing, some going so far as to claim that he was a closet homosexual.11 Rolland,
by contrast, refers several times to Sri Ramakrishna’s “femininity” (LR 9) and “feminine
grace” (LR 6), but he views Sri Ramakrishna’s femininity not as psychoanalytic
fodder but as a distinctive and charming personality trait. The psychoanalyst Masson
(1980: 46 note 9) is clearly disappointed—even piqued—that Rolland did not consider
Sri Ramakrishna to be a repressed homosexual: “It is astonishing that Romain Rolland
could so overlook the blatant homosexual concerns of Ramakrishna. On the contrary,
he [Rolland] seemed to perceive these elements as a sign of deep psychological
penetration.” Rolland’s reverential account of Sri Ramakrishna’s pure and utterly
unworldly marriage to the young Sāradā Devī is equally devoid of any psychoanalytic
agenda: “It was a union of souls and remained unconsummated … and later it became
a beautiful thing. A tree must be judged by its fruits, and in this case the fruits were of
God, pure and not carnal love” (LR 21). Moreover, in his discussion of Sri Ramakrishna’s
first mystical vision of Kālī, Rolland quotes Sri Ramakrishna’s own vivid description of
his vision, in which he reports that he “saw an ocean of the Spirit, boundless, dazzling”
and that he “was conscious of the presence of the Divine Mother” (LR 15). Rolland
notably refrains from psychoanalyzing Sri Ramakrishna’s oceanic experience, in spite
of Sri Ramakrishna’s references to oceanic imagery and the “Mother,” which might
seem to invite a psychoanalytic interpretation (as Rolland himself was well aware).12
Evidently, throughout his biographies, Rolland consciously refrains from invoking
psychoanalytic theories and categories—such as sexual repression, the Oedipus
complex, and latent homosexuality—to explain the behavior of Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda.13 Moreover, in the second appendix to his biography of Vivekananda,
entitled “On Mystic Introversion and Its Scientific Value for Knowledge of the Real,”
Rolland attacks psychoanalytic approaches to mystical experience and argues that
“mystic introversion” is a valid scientific “method of experiment” (LV 284).14 The
appendix focuses on Ferdinand Morel’s Essai sur l’Introversion mystique (1918), a
psychoanalytic investigation of the mystical experiences of Pseudo-Dionysius and
other mystics. Rolland not only points out the “weak points” in Morel’s arguments but
also makes more sweeping criticisms of psychoanalytic approaches to mysticism in
general, three of which are especially significant (LV 278).15
First, Rolland claims that psychoanalysts tend to lack the spiritual sensibility,
sympathy, and open-mindedness needed for an adequate understanding of religious
experience:

The intuitive workings of the “religious” spirit … have been insufficiently studied
by modern psychological science in the West and then too often by observers
who are themselves lacking in every kind of “religious” inclination, and so are ill
equipped for the study, and involuntarily prone to depreciate an inner sense they
do not themselves possess. (LV 277)

According to Rolland, psychoanalysts have tended to “depreciate” the mystical

experiences of saints because they lack the “inner sense” necessary to have mystical
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 201

experiences in the first place.16 Interestingly, in a letter to Rolland dated July 20, 1929,
Freud admits, “To me mysticism is just as closed a book as music” (Parsons 1999: 175).17
Four days later, Rolland responds to Freud: “I can hardly believe that mysticism and
music are unknown to you. Because ‘nothing human is unknown to you.’ Rather, I think
that you distrust them, because you uphold the integrity of critical reason, with which
you control the instrument” (Parsons 1999: 176; Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 312).
This epistolary exchange helps clarify Rolland’s understanding of Freud’s stance toward
mysticism: in Rolland’s view, while Freud does possess a capacity for mystical intuition,
Freud’s “critical reason” makes him suspicious of this mystical “inner sense” both in
himself and in others. In any case, Rolland’s main point is that if a psychoanalyst—for
whatever reason—has a dogmatic prejudice against the validity of mystical knowledge,
then the psychoanalyst’s analysis of mystical experience is doomed to be biased and
unreliable.
At various points in the appendix, Rolland makes the provocative suggestion that
the psychoanalytic denigration of mystical experience stems from an abnormally
extroverted tendency among psychoanalysts themselves. Morel, as Rolland notes,
borrows the term “introversion” from Carl Gustav Jung but expands its meaning
to encompass what he calls “mystic introversion” (LV 277 note 2). Rolland, in turn,
departs from both Jung and Morel in accusing many psychoanalysts—including
Freud, Morel, Pierre Janet, and Théodule Ribot—of “extroversion” in the normative
sense of having a pathological aversion to, or incapacity for, introversion. According
to Rolland, psychoanalytic extroverts dogmatically ascribe “the highest rank to
‘interested’ action and the lower rank to concentration of thought” (LV 279). Indeed,
Rolland turns the tables on psychoanalysts by pathologizing their own tendency
toward extroversion: “And this depreciation of the most indispensable operation of
the active mind—the withdrawal into oneself, to dream, to imagine, to reason—is
in danger of becoming a pathological aberration. The irreverent observer is tempted
to say, ‘Physician, heal thyself!’” (LV 279). If psychoanalysts have tended to dismiss
putative mystical experiences as pathological aberrations, Rolland suggests that
the deep-seated aversion to introversion among many psychoanalysts is itself a
“pathological aberration.”
To illustrate this point, Rolland refers specifically to Janet’s privileging of the
“function of the real,” the “awareness of the present, of present action, the enjoyment
of the present” (LV 279). According to Rolland, Janet places the “whole world of
imagination and fancy” at “the bottom of the scale” (LV 279). Rolland goes on to detect
a similar denigration of introversion in the work of Freud and Eugen Bleuler and adds
a revealing footnote in which he invokes Plotinus: “With quite unconscious irony a
great ‘introvert’ like Plotinus sincerely pities the ‘extroverts,’ the ‘wanderers outside
themselves’ (Ennéades IV, III [17]), for they seem to him to have lost the ‘function of
the real’” (LV 279). Plotinus, in this passage from the Enneads, refers to people who are
so obsessed with their physical body that they have forgotten their divine soul within
(1984: 87–91). Rolland cleverly appropriates this passage from Plotinus in the service
of a spiritual metacritique of psychoanalysis. Inhabiting Plotinus’s mystical standpoint,
Rolland argues that psychoanalysts have a severely impoverished understanding of
what counts as “real,” since they tend to dismiss transcendental entities such as the
soul or God—which mystics such as Plotinus take to be the ultimate reality—as merely
202 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

subjective imaginings.18 According to Rolland, the tendency among psychoanalysts

to denigrate mystical experience stems from their pitiable—indeed, p ­ athological—
extroversion, which leads them to favor action in, and adaptation to, the external world
over concentration, thought, and spiritual contemplation.
Later in the appendix, Rolland suggests that another reason for the psychoanalytic
denigration of introversion is the assumption of a false dichotomy between
introversion and extroversion: many psychoanalysts wrongly assume that the mystic’s
preoccupation with inward states comes at the expense of his or her adaptation to
external reality. Rolland states:

If a scientist maintains that such a knowledge [i.e., the mystic’s knowledge] of

psychic profundities teaches us nothing about exterior realities, he is really, though
perhaps unwittingly, obeying a prejudice of proud incomprehension as one-eyed
as that of religious spiritualists who set up an insurmountable barrier between
spirit and matter. (LV 283)

Once again, Rolland turns the psychoanalytic hermeneutics of suspicion against

psychoanalysts themselves by diagnosing them with an unconscious “prejudice” that
prevents them from recognizing the compatibility of mystic introversion with an
ability to flourish in the external world. Rolland singles out Vivekananda as a perfect
example of a great mystic who was fully capable of dynamic action in the world:

A great “Introvert” will know at the same time how to be a great “Extrovert.” Here
the example of Vivekananda seems to me to be conclusive. Interiorization has
never led in principle to diminution of action. (LV 287)

Rolland argues that the compatibility of introversion and extroversion finds its ultimate
philosophical justification in the Vedāntic view—to which he clearly subscribes—that
the Reality known through mystic introspection is identical with the Reality underlying
the external world. As Rolland puts it, “The laws of the inner psychic substance are of
necessity themselves those of outside reality” (LV 284). Hence, from Rolland’s Vedāntic
perspective, the psychoanalytic denigration of mysticism is rooted in the erroneous
metaphysical assumption of a dichotomy between inner and outer, which can itself be
traced to a pathological aversion to introversion.
After Freud read Rolland’s biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, Freud
wrote a letter to Rolland dated January 19, 1930, in which he objects to Rolland’s use of
the terms “introvert” and “extrovert”: “the distinction between extrovert and introvert
derives from C.G. Jung, who is a bit of a mystic himself and hasn’t belonged to us
for years. We don’t attach any great importance to the distinction and are well aware
that people can be both at the same time, and usually are” (Parsons 1999: 176). Freud
attempts to dodge Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis by claiming that Jung, and not
Freud himself, uses the terms “extroversion” and “introversion” and assumes a sharp
dichotomy between them. Freud’s response to Rolland, however, is clearly beside the
point, since Rolland quite deliberately expands the meaning of the terms “introversion”
and “extroversion” well beyond Jung’s understanding of the terms. The metacritical
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 203

thrust of Rolland’s appropriation of the originally Jungian terms is entirely lost on

Freud. For Rolland, psychoanalysts as diverse as Freud, Janet, Morel, and Bleuler are
“extroverts” in Rolland’s broader sense of the term, since they all tend to denigrate the
epistemic and existential value of mystical experience.
Rolland’s second criticism of psychoanalysis in the appendix, which is intimately
related to the first criticism, is that psychoanalysts tend to adopt reductive views on
mystical experience as a result of their preconceived ideas. Rolland declares:

You, doctors of the Unconscious, instead of making yourselves citizens of this

boundless empire and possessing yourselves of it, do you ever enter it except as
foreigners, imbued with the preconceived idea of the superiority of your own
country and incapable of ridding yourselves of the need, which itself deforms your
vision, of reducing whatever you catch a glimpse of in this unknown world to the
measure of the one already familiar to you? (LV 283)

According to Rolland, psychoanalysts enter the “boundless empire” of mystical

experience as “foreigners,” because they are unable, or unwilling, to understand
mystical experience on its own terms and instead analyze mystical experience in
terms of their own stock psychoanalytic ideas and assumptions. From Rolland’s
perspective, perhaps the most fundamental preconception among psychoanalysts is
their borderline-pathological prejudice against introversion—targeted by Rolland’s
first criticism—which leads them to dismiss or downplay the metaphysical and salvific
claims of mystics.
Another preconceived idea discussed at length by Rolland in the appendix is the
idea of regression:

Almost all psychologists are possessed by the theory of Regression, which appears
to have been started by Th. Ribot. It is undoubtedly a true one within the limited
bounds of his psychopathological studies on functional disorganization, but it has
been erroneously extended to the whole realm of the mind, whether abnormal or
normal. (LV 278)

According to Rolland, the tendency among psychoanalysts to interpret mystical

experience as a regression to an infantile state is highly questionable. While Rolland
concedes that the theory of regression is often applicable to cases of psychological
abnormality or pathology, he claims that psychoanalysts are not justified in applying the
theory of regression to mystics, who do not generally exhibit pathological behavior.19
From Rolland’s perspective, psychoanalysts favor such a regressive explanation of
mystical experience in part because of their own preconceived preference for the
theory of regression.
Interestingly, however, Rolland does admit that certain features of mysticism might
appear to “add weight” to the psychoanalyst’s assumption that mystic introversion
is “a return to a primary stage, to an intrauterine state” (LV 281). First, many of the
“symbolic words” used by mystics such as Eckhart and Tauler to describe their spiritual
experiences—such as “Grund,” “Urgrund,” and “Wurzel”—suggest, at least superficially,
204 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

a return to a primordial condition. Second, the psychoanalytic explanation of mystical

experience in terms of regression might help explain the “curious instinct which
has given birth in Ramakrishna’s India to the passionate worship of the Mother, and
in Christianity to that of the Virgin Mother” (LV 281). Rolland makes the subtle
point, however, that while mystical experiences do undoubtedly bear a superficial
resemblance to infantile states, there is, in reality, a world of difference between them
phenomenologically. Accordingly, Rolland invokes the distinction first drawn by
Henri Bergson’s disciple, Édouard Le Roy, between the pre-discursive intuition of the
infant and the post-discursive intuition of the mystic. Le Roy contrasts the “simplicity
anterior to the discursive intricacy, belonging solely to the confused pre-intuition of a
child” with the mystic’s “rich and luminous simplicity, which achieves the dispersion of
analysis by surpassing and overcoming it” (LV 282 note 10). Misled by the superficial
similarity of these two entirely different states, psychoanalysts have tended mistakenly
to reduce the post-discursive “simplicity” of mystical experience to the pre-discursive
“simplicity” of infantile experience.
In his letter to Rolland, Freud protests: “our terms such as regression, narcissism,
pleasure principle are of a purely descriptive nature and don’t carry within themselves
any valuation” (Parsons 1999: 176). Once again, however, Freud’s attempt to sidestep
Rolland’s criticisms proves to be unconvincing. First of all, at certain places in his
work, Freud’s use of the concept of regression does have a strongly normative thrust.
For instance, in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, Freud’s brusque dismissal of religion
as a regression to an infantile state is flagrantly normative: “The whole thing is so
patently infantile, so foreign to reality [so offenkundig infantil, so wirklichkeitsfremd],
that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the
majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life” (Freud 1930: 20,
[1930] 1961: 74). No wonder Rolland is so scathing in his attack on the scientific
pseudo-objectivity of psychoanalysis: while psychoanalysts pretend to be objective
and nonnormative in their diagnoses and explanations, their supposedly objective
judgments often stem from profoundly subjective prejudices. Second, even if Freud’s
concept of regression is nonnormative, it remains vulnerable to Rolland’s two basic
criticisms: first, that the concept is extended illegitimately from abnormal cases to
the cases of psychologically normal mystics; second, that infantile states and mystical
experiences, in spite of certain superficial resemblances, are radically different states.
Hence, it must be said that Freud’s response to Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis is
superficial and inadequate.
In earlier letters written to the Swiss psychoanalyst Charles Baudouin (1893–1963)
in 1922, Rolland repeatedly singled out for attack the psychoanalytic theory of
infantile sexuality. In one letter, Rolland writes, “I’m speaking to you, my friend, in all
affectionate candor: nothing seems more false and revolting to me than this o ­ bsession—
not in the child but imputed to him—with sexual things” (Werman 1977: 230). In
another letter, Rolland scathingly remarks, “Whatever he [the child] says, writes or
draws, you are ready to reduce it to three or four motifs: Oedipus or Electra complex,
sexual themes, etc … . But it is you, the psychoanalysts, who are obsessed with all this”
(Werman 1977: 230). Although Rolland does not explicitly target the psychoanalytic
theory of infantile sexuality in his second appendix on Morel, it is clear from his
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 205

earlier letters that one of the “preconceived” ideas held by psychoanalysts that Rolland
rejected is the theory of infantile sexuality, particularly the Oedipus complex.
Rolland’s third fundamental criticism of psychoanalysis in the second appendix
stems from his previous two criticisms. As a result of their bias against mystical
experience, psychoanalysts have, at best, an incomplete knowledge of the workings
of the mind. Rolland quotes a passage from Morel’s book that discusses Pseudo-
Dionysius’s mystical experience of Unity: “Consciousness seems to gather itself together
to confine itself within some unknown psychic pineal gland and to withdraw into a
kind of center wherein all organic functions and all psychic forces meet, and there
it enjoys Unity … nothing else” (LV 282). From Morel’s psychoanalytic perspective,
Pseudo-Dionysius’s experience is purely subjective and hence has no metaphysical
import: the “Unity” the mystic enjoys, according to Morel, is not a unity with God
or the cosmos so much as a regression to a feeling of infantile unity with the external
world. Accordingly, Rolland faults Morel for failing to take seriously the metaphysical
dimension of Pseudo-Dionysius’s mystical experience:

“Nothing else?”—What more do you want? There, according to your own

admission, you have an instrument for penetrating to the depths of functional
consciousness, of subliminal life—and yet you do not use it in order to complete
your knowledge of the whole activity of the mind. (LV 282)

From Rolland’s perspective, the psychoanalytic understanding of the unconscious

remains superficial, since it fails to acknowledge what Rolland takes to be the most
archaic metaphysical layer of the unconscious—namely, the “Ocean of Being” which
unites us all (LV 227). According to Rolland, since mystics have directly experienced
this oceanic substratum of the unconscious, psychoanalysts stand to learn a great deal
from the testimony of mystics. Hence, Rolland encourages psychoanalysts to leave off
trying to psychoanalyze mystics and to attempt, rather, to learn from mystics in order
to enrich and deepen their understanding of the psyche and its metaphysical depths.20
In fact, toward the end of the appendix, Rolland goes so far as to suggest that mystic
introversion is a valid scientific procedure that grants the investigator access to aspects
of the mind not detectable or measurable by any other empirical means. As Rolland
puts it, “the judicious use of deep introversion opens to the scientist unexplored
resources: for it constitutes a new method of experiment, having the advantage that
the observer identifies himself with the object observed—the Plotinian identity of
the seer and the thing seen” (LV 284–5). From Rolland’s perspective, the very fact
that mystic introversion is “subjective”—far from making it unscientific—makes it
especially suited to serve as a rigorously scientific “method of experiment.” There is
less of a chance of investigative error or misinterpretation, Rolland argues, because the
“seer” and the “thing seen” are identical in mystic introversion.
That this remark is directed against psychoanalysts is abundantly clear from
the context, since Rolland goes on to attack the “exclusive rationalists, and
particularly … psycho-pathologists”—he even mentions Freud by name—who reject
this “great effort” to incorporate mystic introversion into scientific investigation
(LV 286). For Rolland, the positivistic rationalism of Freudian psychoanalysts leads
206 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

them to adopt an unjustifiably narrow view of science, which dogmatically excludes

the possibility that mystic introversion is a genuinely scientific method of gaining
knowledge.21
In a long footnote at the end of his chapter “The Great Paths: The Four Yogas,”
Rolland calls for a “new science of the mind” (une nouvelle science de l’esprit) which
would be far better equipped than psychoanalysis to investigate the nature and
existential value of mystical experiences: “How is it possible to estimate the value of
such [religious] experiences? Perhaps by a new science of the mind, armed with a more
supple, and finer instrument of analysis than the incomplete rough methods of the
psychoanalyst and his fashionable descendants” (LV 212–13 note 120).22 Unfortunately,
Rolland does not explicitly discuss this “new science of the mind” anywhere else in the
book. Nonetheless, numerous passages from the long chapter in which this footnote
occurs provide important clues as to what Rolland meant. In this chapter, Rolland
summarizes Vivekananda’s account of the four main Yogas (spiritual practices) that
lead to spiritual realization: namely, karmayoga (the Yoga of Works), bhaktiyoga (the
Yoga of Love), rājayoga (the Yoga of Concentration), and jñānayoga (the Yoga of
Knowledge). At various points in this chapter, Rolland suggests that the disciplines
and methods of rājayoga and jñānayoga in particular should serve as the basis for the
“new science of the mind” he envisions. However, he also insists on the need to modify
and update these ancient Indian yogic practices in the light of modern scientific
findings—a project, Rolland believes, that was initiated by Vivekananda and continued
by Sri Aurobindo.23
According to Vivekananda, rājayoga is the science of concentration based on the
principles outlined in Patañjali’s Yogasūtra. Rolland elegantly defines rājayoga as “a
minutely elaborated and experimental science for the conquest of concentration and
mastery of the mind” (LV 184). Rolland goes on to summarize the “aṣṭāṅgayoga”
(“eight-limbed discipline”), which lies at the heart of Patañjali’s system, as explained
by Vivekananda: (1) yama (restraint), (2) niyama (observance), (3) āsana (physical
posture), (4) prāṇāyāma (regulation of breath), (5) pratyāhāra (sense-restraint),
(6) dhāraṇā (mental fixity), (7) dhyāna (sustained concentration), (8) samādhi
(perfect concentration). Rolland specifies the five practices involved in the first stage
of yama: (1) noninjury toward all creatures (which he calls the “great aim of Gandhi”),
(2) absolute truthfulness in “action, word, thought,” (3) perfect chastity and purity,
(4) absolute non-covetousness, and (5) purity of soul and absolute disinterestedness
(LV 186). Rolland approvingly refers to these five preliminary ethical disciplines
as a “fivefold ring of fire,” the “five indispensable conditions,” each one of which is
“sufficient to make a saint” (LV 186). He notes that the third and fourth limbs of the
aṣṭāṅgayoga—āsana and prāṇāyāma—are “exercises of a physiological nature … of
great interest to medical science” (LV 191 note 73).
Rolland then goes on to focus on the remaining four limbs of the aṣṭāṅgayoga,
the “three first psychological stages in the concentration of the mind” (pratyāhāra,
dhāraṇā, and dhyāna) which culminate in the coveted state of samādhi (LV 192). He is
especially impressed with Vivekananda’s psychologically penetrating elaboration of the
technique of pratyāhāra, by means of which—according to Rolland—the mind grows
quiet “under the calm inner regard that judges it impartially” (LV 192). He quotes
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 207

Vivekananda’s advice for calming the “monkey”-mind: “The first lesson then is to sit
for some time and let the mind run on … Let the monkey jump as much as he c­ an—
you simply wait and watch … Many hideous thoughts may come into it; knowledge is
power” (Cited in LV 192).
Rolland then archly observes, “The ancient Yogis did not wait for Dr. Freud to teach
them that the best cure for the mind is to make it look its deeply hidden monsters
straight in the face” (LV 192). In the final footnote in his section on rājayoga, Rolland
strikingly declares that “it has actually been proved [by rājayoga] that sovereign
control of the inner life is able to put into our hands (partially if not entirely) our
unconscious or subconscious life” (LV 194 note 79). Rolland refers approvingly to
Vivekananda’s statement from his book Rāja-Yoga (1896): “Almost every action of
which we are now unconscious can be brought to the plane of consciousness” (LV 194
note 79). According to Rolland, the ancient rājayogic method of detached mindfulness
and mental concentration—especially as elaborated and amplified by the modern
yogic master Vivekananda—is a much safer, more effective, and more ethically and
spiritually beneficial means of discovering and dissolving one’s own unconscious
complexes than Freudian psychoanalysis. Moreover, Rolland clearly felt that modern
psychologists like Freud could stand to learn a great deal from the psychological
techniques of rājayoga: “I recommend it [rājayoga] to Western masters of the new
psychology and of pedagogy, insofar as it is scientifically founded on the physiology of
the mind” (LV 191).
Rolland points out that the various disciplines of rājayoga should culminate in
“absolute Concentration,” which he characterizes as the “most perfect instrument of
scientific method” (LV 187). Rolland goes on to add:

And in this we are all interested. Whatever may be the effect upon the mind
produced by this instrument on the part of the Hindu seekers after truth, all seekers
after truth, whether of the West or the East, are obliged to use that instrument; and
it is to their advantage that it should be as exact and perfect as possible. There is
nothing of the occult in it. (LV 187)

Rolland makes abundantly clear here that the “new science of the mind” he envisions
would have as its chief “instrument” the technique of mental concentration taught by
the ancient Indian science of rājayoga. Indeed, Rolland seems to have Freud—among
others—in mind when he encourages Western scientists to acquaint themselves with,
and learn from, the rājayogic “methods of control and mastery” of the mind:

It makes it all the more astonishing that Western reason has taken so little into
account the experimental research of Indian Rāja-Yogīs, and that it has not tried to
use the methods of control and mastery, which they offer in broad daylight without
any mystery, over the one infinitely fragile and constantly warped instrument that
is our only means of discovering what exists. (LV 189)

From Rolland’s perspective, the ancient psychological science of rājayoga offers a

far more sophisticated, comprehensive, and rigorously worked out account of the
208 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

mind and its workings than even the most advanced Western psychologies, including
psychoanalysis.
In sum, I would suggest that three features of rājayoga in particular led Rolland to
champion rājayoga as the basis for a “new science of the mind.” First, rājayoga insists
on the development of a strong moral character and numerous ethical q ­ ualities—
such as noninjury, sexual purity, truthfulness, and unselfishness—as an indispensable
precondition for the practice of mental control and mastery. By insisting on the
inseparability of scientific investigation from ethical living, Rolland counters the
pervasive Western assumption that science and ethics are independent enterprises.
Second, since rājayoga teaches psychological techniques that allow one to gain control
and mastery of one’s own mind, it is far more empowering and strength-giving than
Western psychological methods that depend heavily on the curative role of the analyst.
Third, since the fundamental principles and techniques on which rājayoga is based
were scientifically developed and empirically tested, Rolland believes that rājayoga is
in perfect consonance with the modern Western scientific temper.
Rolland credits Vivekananda with inaugurating the urgent project of updating and
modifying the techniques and findings of rājayoga in the light of modern science:

While admitting, with no possibility of contradiction, that Yogist psycho-

physiology uses explanations—and still more terms—that are both controvertible
and obsolete, it should be easy to rectify them by readjusting (as Vivekananda tried
to do) the experiments of past centuries to modern science. (LV 189)

Moreover, Rolland credits Sri Aurobindo with going “one step further” (LV 204
note 104) than Vivekananda by incorporating “religious intuition” into “the strict
limits of science” (LV 205 note 104). Hence, for Rolland, Patañjali, Vivekananda, and
Sri Aurobindo—rather than Freud and other Western psychologists—were the true
pioneers in the effort to develop a “new science of the mind.”
Rolland claims, however, that the “practical methods” (LV 199) of rājayoga must be
combined with the Vedāntic philosophical method of jñānayoga, the spiritual practice
of self-inquiry that culminates in the realization of the “innermost core of the soul” (au
noyau le plus intime de l’âme) (LV 203).24 Quoting Vivekananda, Rolland asserts that
the jñānayogī realizes “an Abstract Essence underlying every existence,” which Rolland
calls “one Unity” (LV 206). Crucially, since there is only one metaphysical Reality, the
jñānayogī discovers “that at the innermost core of the soul” is “the center of the whole
universe” (LV 203). Rolland provides here the Vedāntic rationale for his claim in the
appendix on Morel—against psychoanalytic orthodoxy—that mystic introversion is
compatible with dynamic action in the world. According to Rolland, the method of
introversion employed in rājayoga and jñānayoga is not merely “subjective,” since the
deepest core of our subjectivity is identical with the deepest core of the universe.
For Rolland, it is precisely this fundamental Vedāntic insight into the unity of
everything that provides the metaphysical basis for the “new science of the mind” he
envisions (LV 214). Accordingly, Rolland claims that “Vedāntic Advaitism” is “so close
to the aim of pure Science that they can hardly be distinguished” (LV 206). Rolland
continues:
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 209

The main difference is in the gesture with which the runners arrive at the tape:
Science accepts and envisages Unity (l’Unité) as the hypothetical term for its
stages of thought, giving them their right bearings and coordinating them. Yoga
embraces Unity and becomes covered with it as with ivy. But the spiritual results
are practically the same. (LV 206)

For Rolland, while modern science is only able to posit “Unity” as a hypothesis that
has not yet been conclusively proved, Vedāntic Yoga teaches the psychological and
rational methods for attaining the direct spiritual experience of this Unity at the core
of our being. In the following chapter, on “The Universal Science-Religion,” Rolland
elaborates how this Vedāntic realization of the “Ocean of Being” (l’Être océanique) also
serves as the basis of “the highest code of ethics: ‘Not me, but thou!’” (LV 227–8).25 As
Rolland points out, both Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda experienced this oceanic
feeling of the metaphysical Unity of everything. Rolland accordingly cites Vivekananda’s
reference to “the vision of Self which penetrates all living beings” (LV 228). And in his
biography of Sri Ramakrishna, Rolland interprets Sri Ramakrishna’s first vision of the
Divine Mother Kālī as the spiritual realization of the all-pervading “Ocean” of Being:
“he saw nothing, but … he was aware of Her all-permeating presence. He called the
Ocean by Her name” (LR 15).
According to Rolland, great Indian mystics such as Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda—as well as numerous Western mystics, including Plotinus, Pseudo-
Dionysius, and Angelus Silesius—realized the truth of metaphysical Unity in which
both science and religion culminate: “At the basis of everything then is force, Divine
Force (la Force Divine). It is in all things and in all men. It is at the center of the Sphere
and at all the points of the circumference” (LV 231). The “new science of the mind” that
Rolland envisioned—rooted in the ancient Indian systems of rājayoga and jñānayoga,
and revitalized and updated by Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo—would provide a
rigorous scientific method for penetrating to this oceanic “Force Divine” that unites all
of us at the metaphysical core of our being.26

7.2 Revisiting the Rolland-Freud Debate on the Oceanic Feeling

With this background in place, we are now in a position to explore the important
question: What did Rolland have in mind when he invited Freud in 1927 to provide
“an analysis of spontaneous religious sentiment or, more exactly, of religious feeling”?
According to Fisher (1976: 44), “What Rolland expected from Freud … was an empirical
psychoanalytic exploration of the various dimensions of the ‘oceanic’ sensation.”27
Parsons (1999: 14), in his richly informative book The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling:
Revisioning the Psychoanalytic Theory of Mysticism, arrives at a similar conclusion by
placing Rolland’s 1927 letter to Freud in the broader context of his biographies of Sri
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.28 Parsons (1999: 167) finds in Rolland’s biographies of
these Indian saints strong evidence that Rolland’s primary motivation in appealing to
the oceanic feeling was to enlist Freud in the creation of a “mystical psychoanalysis”—
by which he means a non-reductive psychoanalytic investigation of mysticism.
210 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Parsons has undoubtedly enriched our understanding of the Rolland-Freud debate

on oceanic feeling by taking into account Rolland’s biographies of Sri Ramakrishna
and Vivekananda. However, I will argue that Parsons’s interpretation of Rolland
as the champion of a non-reductive psychoanalysis is based on a selective and
inaccurate reading of Rolland’s biographies of the Indian saints. Parsons claims that
the strongest piece of evidence in favor of his interpretation is Rolland’s reference
to a “mystical psychoanalysis” in his biography of Sri Ramakrishna. Tellingly,
Parsons cites this striking phrase out of context no fewer than ten times, but he fails
to mention the original French phrase used by Rolland himself.29 In fact, “mystical
psychoanalysis”—the phrase so frequently quoted by Parsons—is E.F. Malcolm-
Smith’s inaccurate English translation of Rolland’s (VR 239) original French phrase,
“psychophysiologie mystique,” which would be more accurately translated as “mystical
psychophysiology.”
Moreover, the long footnote in which this phrase occurs makes clear that the
“mystical psychophysiology” of which Rolland speaks has absolutely nothing to do with
psychoanalysis, mystical or otherwise. In the course of describing Sri Ramakrishna’s
extraordinary ability to stimulate spiritual experiences in his disciples by a “little thing”
such as “a word, a look, a touch” (LR 167), Rolland adds a footnote in which he cites
the testimony of Swami Shivananda, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who attested to Sri
Ramakrishna’s ability to transmit to others “the energy of his own spirituality” (LR 167
note 41). Rolland then adds this significant remark:

Let the learned men of Europe, who are preoccupied by the problems of mystical
psychophysiology (psychophysiologie mystique) put themselves in touch with these
living witnesses [such as Swami Shivananda] while there is yet time. I myself, I
repeat, have little curiosity about such phenomena, whose subjective reality is not
in doubt, and I believe it my duty to describe them; for they are hedged about by all
possible guarantees of good faith and analytical intelligence. I am more interested
in the fact of great religious intuition in that which continues to be rather than in
that which has been, in that which is or which can be always in all beings rather
than in that which is the privilege of a few. (LR 167 note 41)

What Rolland means by “mystical psychophysiology” is the unique ability of mystics

such as Sri Ramakrishna to stimulate or effect spiritual knowledge in others through
physical proximity or contact. In other words, Rolland casts Sri Ramakrishna himself
as a mystical psychophysiologist and encourages the “learned men of Europe” who are
interested in such phenomena to investigate them further. Rolland adds that he himself
has “little curiosity about such phenomena,” not because he is skeptical about them but
because his primary concerns lie elsewhere.
One might object, at this point, that while Parsons wrongly claims that Rolland
used the phrase “mystical psychoanalysis,” Parsons may still be correct that Rolland
more generally advocated a non-reductive psychoanalytic approach to mysticism.
However, if Rolland had championed such a mystical psychoanalysis, then there
would surely be signs of such an approach in his biographies of Sri Ramakrishna
and Vivekananda. Indeed, as we have seen in the previous section, Rolland not only
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 211

refrains from psychoanalyzing Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda but also expresses
his outright hostility toward psychoanalytic approaches to mysticism at various
points in his biographies. In his biography of Vivekananda, Rolland repeatedly calls
on psychoanalysts such as Freud and Morel to recognize the limitations and biases
of psychoanalysis and to “complete” their knowledge of the whole mind by taking
seriously the mystical experiences of both Western and Eastern saints. Contrary
to Parsons, then, I would argue that Rolland does not champion a non-reductive
psychoanalytic approach to mysticism anywhere in his biographies.
Parsons (1999: 38) claims that “Rolland … wanted Freud’s help to scientifically
establish the benefits of mystical introversion, what he would refer to in his biographies
of the Hindu saints as a ‘universal science-religion’ and ‘mystical psychoanalysis.’”
Here, it becomes clear that Parsons’s mistaken claim that Rolland advocated a
“mystical psychoanalysis” has serious consequences for his overall argument about
Rolland’s intentions in appealing to the oceanic feeling in his 1927 letter to Freud.
While I agree with Parsons that Rolland sought to enlist Freud in the creation of a
“universal science-religion,” Parsons wrongly equates this “universal science-religion”
with a “mystical psychoanalysis.”30 As I have shown at length in Section 1, there is
not a single reference to psychoanalysis in Rolland’s entire extended account of the
“universal science-religion” in his biography of Vivekananda. In fact, the universal
science-religion envisioned by Rolland was based not on psychoanalysis but on the
Indian spiritual systems of rājayoga and jñānayoga. Against Parsons, then, I would
argue that there is virtually no evidence that Rolland wanted Freud to provide a non-
reductive psychoanalytic examination of the oceanic feeling.
In light of Rolland’s evident antipathy toward psychoanalytic approaches to
mysticism, why did he ask Freud to provide an “analysis” of the oceanic feeling in
his 1927 letter? I would suggest that Rolland appealed to the oceanic feeling as a direct
challenge to Freud: the oceanic feeling, precisely because it is a genuine “contact”
with metaphysical Reality attested to by countless people, is not vulnerable to Freud’s
psychoanalytic debunking. In his letter to Freud, Rolland was calling not for any kind
of psychoanalytic study of mysticism but for a mystically grounded Vedāntic “science-
religion” that would replace psychoanalysis altogether.
The somewhat veiled critical thrust of Rolland’s appeal to the oceanic feeling is
confirmed by the remainder of his letter. Shortly after asking Freud to analyze the
oceanic feeling, Rolland remarks that since the oceanic feeling “is common to thousands
(millions) of men actually existing, with its thousands (millions) of individual nuances, it
is possible to subject it to analysis, with an approximate exactitude” (Parsons 1999: 173;
Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 304). What kind of “analysis” did Rolland have in mind?
I think Rolland answers this question in his biography of Vivekananda, where he
calls for a “new science of the mind” that would subject mystical states to rigorous
scientific analysis. Rolland believed that Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo were the true
pioneers in this mystical scientific endeavor. Rolland applauds Vivekananda’s attempt
to demonstrate that there is “no essential difference” between “science and religion”
(LV 197). Rolland also approvingly mentions Sri Aurobindo’s efforts to incorporate
“religious intuition” into “the strict limits of science” (LV 205 note 104). Hence, when
Rolland remarks to Freud that it is possible to subject the oceanic feeling to “analysis,”
212 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

I think it is plausible to assume that he had in mind not a psychoanalytic examination

but a yogic-cum-scientific analysis of the oceanic feeling along the lines of what
Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo had already begun to develop. This interpretation
of Rolland’s letter to Freud would also be consistent with the many passages in his
biography of Vivekananda where Rolland encourages psychoanalysts to learn from
ancient Indian yogic science instead of engaging in reductive analyses of mystical
phenomena.
In the next paragraph of the letter, Rolland predicts that Freud would classify
the oceanic feeling “under the Zwangsneurosen” (Parsons 1999: 173; Vermorel and
Vermorel 1993: 304). (Rolland proved to be right, since Freud would go on to interpret
the oceanic feeling in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur as a regression to a pre-Oedipal state.)
In a canny move, Rolland preemptively rejects this psychoanalytic debunking of the
oceanic feeling, insisting that both Western and non-Western mystics have experienced
the “rich and beneficent power” of the oceanic feeling. Citing Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda as examples, Rolland adds that the oceanic feeling is perfectly compatible
with the utmost “aptitude for thought and action” (Parsons 1999: 173; Vermorel and
Vermorel 1993: 304).
In the beginning of 1930, Rolland sent Freud his biographies of Sri Ramakrishna
and Vivekananda in the hope that Freud would step outside the narrow confines
of psychoanalysis and try to learn from the mystical insights of Indian spiritual
traditions and saints. Upon receiving the biographies, however, Freud confesses in a
letter to Rolland dated January 19, 1930 that “it isn’t easy to pass beyond the limits
of one’s nature” (Parsons 1999: 176). After responding briefly to Rolland’s criticisms
of psychoanalysis in the second appendix to Vie de Vivekananda, Freud makes this
significant remark:

We seem to diverge rather far in the role we assign to intuition. Your mystics rely
on it to teach them how to solve the riddle of the universe; we believe that it cannot
reveal to us anything but primitive, instinctual impulses and attitudes—highly
valuable for an embryology of the soul when correctly interpreted, but worthless
for orientation in the alien, external world. (Parsons 1999: 177)

It is clear from this remark that Freud rejects outright Rolland’s view that mystical
intuition is a scientific instrument that can help us gain deeper insight into reality.
Freud simply reiterates his position in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur that the oceanic
feeling reveals nothing but “primitive, instinctual impulses.”
Interestingly, after Rolland received and read Freud’s Unbehagen in der Kultur,
Rolland wrote a letter to Freud dated May 3, 1931 in which he expresses disappointment
with Freud’s psychoanalytic interpretation of the oceanic feeling as a regression to a
pre-Oedipal state. Rolland implicitly challenges Freud’s psychoanalytic denigration
of the oceanic feeling by insisting that his oceanic feeling is “a psychological fact, a
vital trait of my character” and that it is “absolutely disinterested” (Parsons 1999: 178;
Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 349). Moreover, Rolland reiterates that he has received
letters from people “from all corners of the earth” who have also experienced this
oceanic feeling (Parsons 1999: 178; Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 349). Rolland
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 213

thereby implicitly responds to Freud’s claim in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur that the
true source of religion is not the oceanic feeling but a childish feeling of helplessness
and need for the father’s protection. Rolland clearly feels that Freud has trivialized the
oceanic feeling, which is why Rolland issues the warning: “It would be dangerous for
the philosopher and man of action to ignore” the many occurrences of the oceanic
feeling throughout the world (Parsons 1999: 178; Vermorel and Vermorel 1993: 349).
Rolland had sincerely hoped—perhaps naively—that his account of the mystical
oceanic feeling and his biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda would lead
Freud to accept the scientific validity of mysticism and to move beyond a narrowly
psychoanalytic understanding of the workings of the psyche. Instead, Freud dug his
heels in even further, reiterating his psychoanalytic dismissal of mystical experience
and insisting that science and mysticism are worlds apart.

7.3 Rolland’s Anticipation of Later Mystical Critiques

of Psychoanalysis

Parsons, as we have seen, argues that Rolland’s primary aim in appealing to the
oceanic feeling was to encourage Freud to adopt a sympathetic and non-reductive
psychoanalytic approach to mystical experience. According to Parsons, Freud adopted
a “‘classic’ reductionist” approach to mysticism, since he dismissed the oceanic feeling
as a regression to an infantile state.31 Rolland, by contrast, anticipated what Parsons
(1999: 109, 2003: 92–3) calls the “adaptive” and “transformative” psychoanalytic
approaches to mysticism which developed after Freud’s time. While the adaptive
approach frames mysticism as a “healing enterprise,” the transformative approach goes
even further by allowing “meta-psychological space for the deeper, transcendent claims
of the mystics” (Parsons 2003: 93). In Parsons’s view, Rolland adopted an “adaptive-
transformational” approach to mysticism, which paved the way for later non-reductive
psychoanalytic approaches to mysticism (Parsons 2003: 93).
I have argued, by contrast, that Rolland’s biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda reveal a skepticism toward psychoanalysis that is much more radical and
far-reaching than Parsons assumes. I would suggest, then, that Rolland’s true heirs
are not post-Freudian psychoanalysts who have explored non-reductive approaches
to mysticism but twentieth-century mystics in both the East and the West who
have highlighted the fundamental defects and limitations of psychoanalysis from
a mystical perspective.32 To begin to make my case, I will briefly demonstrate how
Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis and his call for a new yogic “science of the
mind” anticipated the sophisticated critiques of psychoanalysis provided by mystics as
diverse as Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950), Swami Akhilananda (d. 1962), and Ken Wilber
(b. 1949).
Throughout his biography of Vivekananda, Rolland refers approvingly to, and
cites numerous passages from, a variety of Sri Aurobindo’s works, including Essays on
the Gita (1916), The Synthesis of Yoga (1921), and the numerous articles—published
between 1914 and 1919—that were eventually revised and collected into the book
214 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

The Life Divine (1939–40). As we have already seen, Rolland especially applauded Sri
Aurobindo’s efforts to integrate spiritual intuition into science and thereby to bridge
the gap between Western rationalism and Indian spirituality. While the works of Sri
Aurobindo with which Rolland was familiar do not contain any remarks on Freud or
psychoanalysis, Sri Aurobindo wrote a number of letters to disciples in the ­1930s—
of which Rolland could not have been aware—in which he made numerous critical
remarks about psychoanalysis. Unfortunately, I have not been able to determine
whether Sri Aurobindo read Rolland’s Vie de Vivekananda. If he had, he may very
well have been influenced by Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis, especially those
presented in his appendix on Morel.33 Setting aside this speculative issue of direct
influence, I will briefly point out four striking affinities between Sri Aurobindo’s and
Rolland’s respective critiques of psychoanalysis.
First, Sri Aurobindo claims that Freud’s psychoanalytic theory stems from
pathology. In a 1936 letter to Sri Aurobindo, one of Sri Aurobindo’s disciples made the
following scathing remark about Freud:

The extreme of ridiculousness is reached when Freud analyses Leonardo da Vinci

to show how he was pathological, how he failed disastrously in his adaptation to
life, how his artistic imagination was an aberration and a maladaptation. All poets,
all imaginative people, all geniuses, all religious people were to Freud the result of
aberration and maladaptation. (CWSA 27: 528)

In a response to this letter, Sri Aurobindo seconds the sentiment of his disciple: “Well,
his [Freud’s] own theory is very clearly that, the result of aberration and maladaptation”
(CWSA 27: 528).34 Rolland, as we have seen, claimed that the psychoanalytic
“depreciation” of introversion of all sorts “is in danger of becoming a pathological
aberration.” In a striking echo of Rolland, Sri Aurobindo turns the tables on Freud—or,
perhaps more aptly, puts Freud on the couch—by claiming that Freud’s own tendency
to pathologize artistic and religious geniuses stems from a pathological “aberration
and maladaptation” (CWSA 27: 528).
Second, Sri Aurobindo claims that psychoanalytic theories are false generalizations
based on an incomplete understanding of the workings of the unconscious:

The psychoanalysis of Freud is the last thing that one should associate with yoga.
It takes up a certain part, the darkest, the most perilous, the unhealthiest part of
the nature, the lower vital subconscious layer, isolates some of its most morbid
phenomena and attributes to it and them an action out of all proportion to its
true role in the nature. Modern psychology is an infant science, at once rash,
fumbling and crude. As in all infant sciences, the universal habit of the human
mind—to take a partial or local truth, generalise it unduly and try to explain
a whole field of Nature in its narrow terms—runs riot here. Moreover, the
exaggeration of the importance of suppressed sexual complexes is a dangerous
falsehood and it can have a nasty influence and tend to make the mind and
vital more and not less fundamentally impure than before. (Aurobindo
[1936] 1981: 70–1)
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 215

According to Sri Aurobindo, Freudian psychoanalysis mistakes the “darkest” and

“unhealthiest” part of the unconscious for the unconscious as a whole and, on that basis,
proceeds to make unjustified generalizations about how unconscious drives influence
conscious behavior and activity. Moreover, just as Rolland found the psychoanalytic
“obsession … with sexual things” to be “false and revolting,”35 Sri Aurobindo claims
that Freud exaggerates the “importance of suppressed sexual complexes,” thereby
hindering the patient’s recovery.36
Sri Aurobindo points out that Freud’s view of the unconscious is incomplete
because it focuses exclusively on the “lower vital subconscious,” which is “no more
than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole” (Aurobindo
[1936] 1981: 71). According to Sri Aurobindo, the “subliminal self ” is in fact much vaster
and its dynamics much richer and more complex than Freud assumes. Sri Aurobindo
claims that the subliminal self also “opens to higher superconscient … ranges,” and
he insists that true psychic transformation and purification can only be achieved by
ascending to the superconscious plane: “If one wishes to purify and transform the
nature, it is the power of these higher ranges to which one must open and raise to
them and change by them both the subliminal and the surface being” (Aurobindo
[1936] 1981: 71). While Sri Aurobindo and Rolland hold similar views on the
limitations of the Freudian conception of the unconscious, they differ somewhat in
their understanding of the ontological basis of mystical experience. Rolland, as we
have seen, locates the oceanic feeling at the most archaic level of the unconscious. Sri
Aurobindo, by contrast, claims that genuine spiritual experience takes place at the level
of the “superconscient,” from which one can begin the work of transforming both the
conscious and the subliminal planes.37
Third, Sri Aurobindo argues that psychoanalytic explanations of spiritual
experience are both crude and woefully inadequate because they are based on the false
presupposition that the unconscious is “the true foundation of things”:

I find it difficult to take these psycho-analysts at all seriously when they try to
scrutinise spiritual experience by the flicker of their torch-lights … They look from
down up and explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities; but the foundation
of these things is above and not below, upari budhna eṣām. The superconscient,
not the subconscient, is the true foundation of things. The significance of the lotus
is not to be found by analysing the secrets of the mud from which it grows here; its
secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the lotus that blooms for ever in
the Light above. (Aurobindo [1936] 1981: 73)

According to Sri Aurobindo, the fundamental mistake of psychoanalysis is the

assumption that one can “explain the higher lights by the lower obscurities.” Spiritual
experience, like the lotus in Sri Aurobindo’s metaphor, cannot be explained by
analyzing the “mud” of the unconscious but by rising to a superconscient divine plane.
Implicit in Sri Aurobindo’s remark is a critique of the dogmatic positivism underlying
psychoanalysis: since psychoanalysts dismiss the very possibility of a superconscient
plane of experience, they inevitably explain away mystical experience in terms of
unconscious strivings.
216 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Fourth, Sri Aurobindo claims that his own “Integral Yoga”—which harmonizes
and modernizes the ancient Indian systems of rājayoga, bhaktiyoga, jñānayoga,
and karmayoga—provides a far more adequate psychological framework both for
understanding the workings of the mind and for achieving spiritual fulfillment.
Referring to psychoanalysts, Sri Aurobindo remarks:

The self-chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor, dark and limited; you
must know the whole before you can know the part and the highest before you can
truly understand the lowest. That is the promise of the greater psychology awaiting
its hour before which these poor gropings will disappear and come to nothing.
(Aurobindo [1936] 1981: 73)

Rolland, in his appendix on Morel, encouraged psychoanalysts to “complete” their

“knowledge of the whole activity of the mind” by learning from the testimony of both
Eastern and Western mystics. Several pages later, Rolland singled out “Aurobindo
Ghose” as “one of the greatest thinkers of modern India” who was trying to develop
the very yogic psychology that Rolland himself had in mind (LV 286). Sri Aurobindo
himself was quite consciously developing his Integral Yoga as a “greater psychology”
infinitely superior to the “poor gropings” of psychoanalysis. For both Rolland and Sri
Aurobindo, the ancient Indian systems of Yoga were a far more promising basis for this
“greater psychology” than psychoanalysis.
In his book Hindu Psychology: Its Meaning for the West (1948), Swami Akhilananda,
a monk of the Ramakrishna Order, also made numerous criticisms of psychoanalysis
that are akin to Rolland’s. Indeed, early on in his book, Akhilananda refers
approvingly to Rolland’s Life of Ramakrishna, so he might also have been aware ­of—
and perhaps even influenced by—Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis in the Life of
Vivekananda.38 Here, however, I will set aside the question of whether Akhilananda
was directly influenced by Rolland’s views and restrict myself to pointing out some
parallels between Akhilananda’s and Rolland’s critical views on psychoanalysis. As
I pointed out in Section 1, Rolland claims that psychoanalysts have “erroneously
extended” the theory of regression, which is “undoubtedly a true one” in regard to
cases of pathology, to “the whole realm of the mind, whether abnormal or normal.”
Similarly, Akhilananda observes, “It seems that Freud and other psychoanalysts make
unnecessary and uncalled-for generalizations from the study of pathological cases”
(Akhilananda 1948: 7). Akhilananda claims that two of Freud’s theories in particular
are based on such unjustified generalizations: first, Freud’s thesis that the “sex urge … is
the most predominant instinct,” and second, Freud’s theory of the “death instinct”
(Akhilananda 1948: 7). According to Akhilananda, “Hindu psychologists do not agree
with the view that man has a basic destructive tendency. Suicide, war, and all other such
destructive tendencies are not expressions of the normal mind” (Akhilananda 1948: 7).
Moreover, just as Rolland claimed that Western psychologists have largely ignored
or misunderstood mystic introversion because of their tendency toward “extroversion,”
Akhilananda observes with regard to American psychology, “It should be noted
here that great emphasis is given to ‘action’ in most of the schools of psychology in
America … Consequently, the subjective element of mind is ignored. In fact, meditation
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 217

and inner understanding are generally neglected” (Akhilananda 1948: 10). Like Sri
Aurobindo, Akhilananda attacks the positivist attitude among many psychoanalysts
which leads them to “make superficial remarks about the religious tendencies of
man in terms of sex” (Akhilananda 1948: 18). Akhilananda traces the inadequacy of
psychoanalytic explanations of spiritual experience to a positivist skepticism toward
“supernormal” possibilities of the mind: “Actually, the supernormal minds function
in a manner quite different from normal and abnormal cases. This is the reason that
the unfortunate generalizations of many of the psychotherapeutists regarding spiritual
experiences are extremely inaccurate and unscientific” (Akhilananda 1948: 18).
Akhilananda also echoes Rolland in claiming that psychologists such as Freud,
Adler, and Jung focus unduly on the unconscious at the expense of other equally
essential aspects of the mind and human personality. Hindu psychologists, by contrast,
“are primarily interested in the study of the total mind, as they feel that the different
functions—including consciousness, superconsciousness, cognition, volition, and
conation—cannot be really separated” (Akhilananda 1948: 16). By “Hindu psychology”
Akhilananda means primarily Patañjali’s Yoga system, especially as developed and
elaborated by Vivekananda. According to Akhilananda, the aim of Hindu psychology
is “total integration of the mind” (Akhilananda 1948: 17), which is achieved through
the combined practice of self-analysis, concentration, and meditation:

According to the Hindu view, not only must one analyze one’s own self but
at the same time one must reconstruct his life … We observe that many
disintegrated minds are synthesized by the combined methods of self-analysis and
concentration. A mere discovery of mental conflict, by either the Freudian method
of psychoanalysis, [Carl] Rogers’ insight, or self-analysis, does not integrate
the mind. (Akhilananda 1948: 64–5)

Like Rolland, Akhilananda insists that mental conflicts can only be fully dissolved
through yogic practice, which integrates the mind as a whole. Akhilananda quite
presciently emphasizes the psychological benefits of concentration: “Our experience
proves it is the practice of concentration that brings out hidden mental forces which
reconstruct and integrate the whole mind” (Akhilananda 1948: 65). In agreement
with Sri Aurobindo, Akhilananda argues that the psychoanalytic method of treatment
is, at best, partially or transiently curative and, at worst, dangerous and potentially
counterproductive.
Rolland also anticipated some of the insights and arguments of Ken Wilber, a
prominent contemporary theorist and champion of transpersonal psychology. In light of
space limitations, I will only mention one especially striking resonance between Rolland’s
and Wilber’s respective critiques of psychoanalysis. Rolland, drawing on the work of the
Bergsonian Édouard Le Roy, argues that the psychoanalyst mistakes the post-discursive
state of the mystic with the pre-discursive state of the infant (LV 282 note 10). Strikingly,
Rolland and Le Roy anticipated by over half a century Wilber’s now well-known notion
of the “pre/trans fallacy.” As Wilber observes, “The essence of the pre/trans fallacy is
itself fairly simple: since both prerational and transrational states are, in their own ways,
nonrational, they appear similar or even identical to the untotored eye” (Wilber 1998: 88).
218 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Interestingly, Wilber specifically targets Freud’s psychoanalytic explanation of the

oceanic feeling in terms of regression as a paradigmatic case of the pre/trans fallacy:
“Genuine mystical or contemplative experiences, for example, are seen as a regression
or throwback to infantile states of narcissism, oceanic adualism, indissociation, and
even primitive autism. This is, for example, precisely the route taken by Freud in The
Future of an Illusion” (Wilber 1998: 88).39 Moreover, Wilber astutely traces this reductive
tendency among psychoanalysts to their dogmatic assumption that “rationality is
the great and final omega point of individual and collective development, the high-
water mark of all evolution” (Wilber 1998: 88). As Wilber argues, such a dogmatic
rationalism necessarily entails the positivistic dismissal of the very possibility of
transrational states:

Since no higher context is thought to be real, or to actually exist, then whenever any
genuinely transrational occasion occurs, it is immediately explained as a regression
to prerational structures … The superconscious is reduced to the subconscious,
the transpersonal is collapsed to the prepersonal, the emergence of the higher is
reinterpreted as an irruption from the lower. All breathe a sigh of relief, and the
rational worldspace is not fundamentally shaken. (Wilber 1998: 88–9)

Rolland’s Appendix on Morel, I would suggest, contains the seeds of Wilber’s provocative
metacritique of the positivistic rationalism lurking at the basis of psychoanalysis. In
that appendix, after applauding Sri Aurobindo’s attempt to “reintegrate generative
intuition” into science, Rolland launches into a spirited attack on “exclusive rationalists”
such as Freud who dogmatically reject the “great effort” of mystics like Sri Aurobindo
(LV 286). The positivistic rationalism of psychoanalysts, according to Rolland, is based
on nothing more than “prejudices” that have become “second nature” (LV 286). Wilber
echoes Rolland in his sarcastic nod to the narrowly “rational worldspace” in which
psychoanalysts have snugly—perhaps irrationally?—ensconced themselves.
In the past few decades, many Western psychologists and psychiatrists have begun
to incorporate Eastern meditative techniques into their treatment of patients suffering
from various kinds of psychological problems and unhealthy addictions.40 Seen from
this perspective, Rolland’s mystical critique of psychoanalysis and his call for a new
Vedāntic science of the mind have proven to be both timely and enduring.

Abbreviations
CWSA 21–2 Aurobindo, Sri ([1939–40] 2005), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vols. 21–22: The Life Divine, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 23–4 Aurobindo, Sri ([1914–48] 1999), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vols. 23–24: The Synthesis of Yoga, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 27 Aurobindo, Sri ([1930–50] 2004), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 27: Letters on Poetry and Art, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 28 Aurobindo, Sri ([1927–50] 2012), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 28: Letters on Yoga I, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 219

CWSA 35 Aurobindo, Sri ([1926–50] 2011), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 35: Letters on Himself and the Ashram, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram.
CWSV 1 Vivekananda, Swami ([1907] 2007), The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda: Mayavati Memorial Edition, vol. 1, Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
LR Rolland, Romain ([1929] 2007), The Life of Ramakrishna, trans. E.F. Malcolm-
Smith, Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
LV Rolland, Romain ([1930] 2008), The Life of Vivekananda and the Universal
Gospel, trans. E.F. Malcolm-Smith, Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
VR Rolland, Romain (1929), La Vie de Ramakrishna, Paris: Stock.
VV Rolland, Romain (1930), La Vie de Vivekananda; et, L’évangile universel, Paris: Stock.

Notes
1 All the relevant letters exchanged between Rolland and Freud between 1923
and 1936 concerning the oceanic feeling—written originally in French by Rolland
and in German by Freud—were published in French in Vermorel and Vermorel
(1993). Parsons (1999), in the appendix to his book (170–80), has provided an
English translation of all these letters. Throughout this chapter, whenever I cite
passages from Rolland’s letters to Freud, I first cite the page number from Parsons’s
English translation, and then cite the page number of the original French passage in
Vermorel and Vermorel (1993).
2 For Rolland, these “religious souls of the West” include Pseudo-Dionysius
(LV 299–318), Philo (LV 291), and Plotinus (LV 291).
3 For a detailed discussion of Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy, see Long’s chapter in this
handbook (Chapter 5).
4 See also Erikson ([1958] 1962), Dadoun (1976), and Kovel ([1976] 1983).
5 See, for instance, Fisher (1976: 44), Parsons (1999: 14), and Saarinen (2012: 941).
6 For biographical information about Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, Rolland
consulted numerous people, including Swami Shivananda, Swami Ashokananda,
Mahendra Nath Gupta, Josephine MacLeod, Dhan Gopal Mukherji, and Kalidas
Nag (LR ix). Rolland drew heavily on two source texts on Sri Ramakrishna: Swami
Saradananda’s, Sri Ramakrishna: The Great Master (1920), and Max Müller’s
Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings (1898). Rolland also consulted Sister Christine’s
unpublished memoirs of Vivekananda (LR ix).
7 Rolland’s second appendix to LV—which I discuss at length later in this section—
indicates two main reasons why Rolland avoids a psychoanalytic framework when
discussing Sri Ramakrishna. First, Rolland is generally skeptical of many of the key
assumptions of psychoanalytic theory. Second, Rolland argues that a psychoanalytic
framework is especially reductive when applied to mystics.
8 See Masson (1980), Sil (1991), and Kripal (1995).
9 Rolland’s understanding of the spiritual sublimation of sexual energy likely
derives from the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Rolland cites
Sri Ramakrishna’s teaching that the long-term practice of continence results in
the development of a “new nerve … called ‘the nerve of intelligence’” (LR 153).
Rolland also carefully read Vivekananda’s Rāja-Yoga, which provides a detailed
account of the yogic process by which “sex energy,” when “checked and controlled,”
220 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

gets converted into “Ojas,” the source of spiritual strength and power. See
CWSV 1: 169–70.
10 For Rolland, these “great idealists” include Ludwig von Beethoven, Honoré de Balzac,
and Gustave Flaubert (LR 152).
11 See, for instance, Masson (1980), Sil (1991), and Kripal (1995).
12 Rolland explicitly discusses the psychoanalytic interpretation of mystical tropes such
as the ocean and the Mother in LV 281–2.
13 In his preface “To My Eastern Readers,” Rolland indicates that throughout his
biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, he has adopted an attitude of
hermeneutic sympathy and immanence tempered by critical judgment. As he puts
it, “The only thing to which I can testify is the sincerity which has led me to make
a pious attempt to enter into all forms of life. At the same time I must confess that I
have not abdicated one iota of my free judgment as a man of the West” (LR xiii). As he
points out, he sees in Sri Ramakrishna “a man and not an ‘Incarnation’ as he appears
to his disciples” (LR xiii). Rolland also apologizes in advance for the “mistakes” he
might have made in his biographies, acknowledging the extreme difficulties involved
in a Westerner’s attempt to understand the mindset of Indian saints: “In spite of all
the enthusiasm I have brought to my task, it is impossible for a man of the West to
interpret men of Asia with their thousand years’ experience of thought; for such an
interpretation must often be erroneous” (LR xiii). It is worth noting that Rolland
exhibits greater awareness of the dangers of ethnocentric prejudice and bias than
some contemporary scholars writing on Sri ­Ramakrishna—such as Kripal, Masson,
and Sil—who do not reflect adequately on their own cultural situatedness.
14 Throughout this chapter, I sometimes make slight modifications to E.F. Malcolm-
Smith’s translations of Rolland’s biographies of Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna.
15 One might ask how my analysis of Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis differs
from Parsons’s analysis in Parsons (1999: 61–73). According to Parsons, Rolland
was highly critical of what he took to be reductive psychoanalytic approaches to
mysticism—such as those of Freud and Morel—but quite open and even sympathetic
to non-reductive psychoanalytic approaches to mysticism. Indeed, Parsons is
eager to show that Rolland did not harbor “active hostility toward psychoanalytic
modes of investigation” (Parsons 1999: 156). By contrast, I will argue in this
section that Rolland was actively hostile toward psychoanalytic investigations of
mysticism. Moreover, I hope to show that Rolland’s criticisms of psychoanalysis
are so fundamental and far-reaching that they undermine even the “adaptive” and
“transformative” psychoanalytic approaches that Parsons thinks Rolland advocates.
16 By “inner sense,” Rolland seems to mean a faculty for mystical knowledge.
17 Je suis fermé à la mystique tout autant qu’à la musique.
18 Rolland refers to Plotinus at various points in LR. See, for instance, pp. 144, 285, 315 n,
226 n, 297, and 311 n of LR. Most significantly, Rolland devotes four pages of Note III
to a laudatory discussion of Plotinus’s mystical philosophy and its affinities with
Indian thought (LR 295–9).
19 See also LV 151 note 19.
20 Rolland seems to imply that psychoanalysts can learn especially from the testimony
and teachings of mystics, even if psychoanalysts have not enjoyed any mystical
experiences themselves.
21 See Dadoun (1976: 942) for a helpful discussion of Rolland’s critique of Freud’s
positivism.
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 221

22 For the original French passage, see VV 98 note 1.

23 Phillips discusses Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy in Chapter 6 of this handbook.
24 For the original French phrase, see VV 86.
25 For the original French, see VV 118.
26 Rolland’s account of the “Force Divine” is quite vague, so it is not entirely clear what
he means by it. In general terms, however, it is clear that the phrase refers to the
single Divine Reality that unites everyone and everything in the universe.
27 For a similar claim, see Saarinen (2012: 941).
28 See also Saarinen (2012: 941).
29 Parsons (1999) refers to “mystical psychoanalysis” on pp. 58, 63, 65, 134, 140, 146, 162,
163, 165, and 167.
30 Parsons makes this mistake elsewhere in the book as well. He refers, for instance,
to Rolland’s “promotion of a mystical psychoanalysis characterized as the universal
science-religion of the future” (Parsons 1999: 163).
31 Parsons (2003: 81).
32 A referee asks whether it might be more accurate to claim that “Rolland’s non-
psychoanalytic mystical legacy complements rather than supplants his other,
adaptive-transformative psychoanalytic legacy.” To clarify my position, I would agree
with Parsons that Rolland’s criticisms of Freudian psychoanalytic approaches to
mysticism did pave the way for later adaptive-transformative critiques of Freudian
reductionism. However, contrary to Parsons, I do not think there is any convincing
evidence that Rolland actually advocated adaptive-transformative psychoanalytic
approaches to mysticism. Therefore, I stand by my claim that Rolland’s true heirs
are not adaptive-transformative psychoanalysts but mystics who have criticized
psychoanalytic methods.
33 However, it should be noted that Sri Aurobindo sometimes made critical remarks
about Rolland in his letters to disciples. For instance, he remarks that Rolland
mistakenly “takes his emotional intellectuality for spirituality” (CWSA 28: 324).
Nonetheless, Sri Aurobindo’s skepticism about Rolland’s credentials as a mystic does
not rule out the possibility that Sri Aurobindo was influenced by Rolland’s criticisms
of psychoanalysis.
34 Letter dated June 1, 1936.
35 Cited in Werman (1977: 230).
36 See also CWSA 35: 9, where Sri Aurobindo claims that the “forced connection with
sex” in psychoanalytic theory is “quite groundless.”
37 Sri Aurobindo provides a detailed account of the nature of the superconscient in The
Life Divine (CWSA 21–2) and The Synthesis of Yoga (CWSA 23–4).
38 Akhilananda remarks, “The writings of Romain Rolland, Professor Hocking, and
others prove that the dynamic ideas of Sri Ramakrishna have a direct influence on
the world” (Akhilananda 1948: 7).
39 “Indissociation” is the term used by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget to refer to
the failure of young children to differentiate themselves from their environments.
See Colman (2003: 357). “Primitive autism” is a type of autism in which the subject
displays “primitive means of relating to the environment, such as smelling and
mouthing” (Siegel et al. 1986: 286).
40 See, for instance, Goleman (1975), Engler (1986), Baer (2003), Witkiewitz et al.
(2005), and Garland, Froeliger, and Howard (2013).
222 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

References
Akhilananda, Swami (1948), Hindu Psychology: Its Meaning for the West, London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Aurobindo, Sri ([1936] 1981), Bases of Yoga, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
Baer, Ruth A. (2003), “Mindfulness Training as a Clinical Intervention: A Conceptual and
Empirical Review,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 10.2, 125–43.
Colman, Andrew (2003), Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Dadoun, Roger (1976), “Rolland, Freud, et la Sensation Océanique,” Revue d’Histoire
littéraire de la France 76.6, 936–46.
Engler, John H. (1986), “Therapeutic Aims in Psychotherapy and Meditation,” in Ken
Wilber, Jack Engler, and Daniel P. Brown, eds., Transformations of Consciousness,
London: Shambhala, 17–51.
Erikson, Erik ([1958] 1962), Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History,
New York: Norton.
Fisher, David (1976), “Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland: The Terrestrial Animal and
His Great Oceanic Friend,” American Imago 33, 1–59.
Fisher, David (1982), “Reading Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents,” in Dominick
LaCapra and Stephen Kaplan, eds., Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals
and New Perspectives, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 251–79.
Freud, Sigmund (1930), Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, Wien: Internationaler
Psychoanalytischer Verlag.
Freud, Sigmund ([1930] 1961), Civilization and Its Discontents, in The Standard Edition
of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 21, trans. and ed. James
Strachey, London: Hogarth Press, 59–145.
Garland, Eric L., Brett Froeliger, and Matthew O. Howard (2013), “Mindfulness Training
Targets Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Addiction at the Attention-Appraisal-Emotion
Interface,” Frontiers in Psychiatry 4, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00173.
Goleman, Daniel (1975), “Meditation and Consciousness: An Asian Approach to Mental
Health,” American Journal of Psychotherapy 30.1, 41–54.
Kovel, Joel ([1976] 1983), A Complete Guide to Therapy, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Kripal, Jeffrey (1995) Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of
Ramakrishna, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Masson, Jeffrey (1980), The Oceanic Feeling, Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Meissner, W.W. (2005), “On Putting a Cloud in a Bottle: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on
Mysticism,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 74, 507–59.
Müller, Max (1898), Ramakrishna: His Life and Sayings, London: Longmans.
Parsons, William (1999), The Enigma of the Oceanic Feeling: Revisioning the Psychoanalytic
Theory of Mysticism, New York: Oxford University Press.
Parsons, William (2003), “‘Let Him Rejoice in the Roseate Light!’: Teaching Psychoanalysis
and Mysticism,” in Diane Jonte-Pace, ed., Teaching Freud, New York: Oxford University
Press, 79–99.
Plotinus (1984), Enneads, vol. 4, trans. A.H. Armstrong, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Saarinen, Jussi (2012), “The Oceanic State: A Conceptual Elucidation in Terms of Modern
Contact,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 93, 939–61.
 Debating Freud on the Oceanic Feeling 223

Saradananda, Swami (1920), Sri Ramakrishna: The Great Master, 2 vols., trans. Swami
Jagadananda, Mylapore, Madras: Ramakrishna Math.
Siegel, Bryna, T.F. Anders, R.D. Ciaranello, B. Bienenstock, and H.C. Kraemer (1986),
“Empirically Derived Subclassification of the Autistic Syndrome,” Journal of Autism
and Developmental Disorders 16.3, 275–93.
Sil, Narasingha (1991), Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahaṃsa: A Psychological Profile, Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Simmonds, Janette Graetz (2006), “The Oceanic Feeling and a Sea Change: Historical
Challenges to Reductionist Attitudes to Religion and Spirit From Within
Psychoanalysis,” Psychoanalytic Psychology 23.1, 128–42.
Vermorel, Henri and Madeleine Vermorel (1993), Sigmund Freud et Romain Rolland
Correspondance 1923–1936, Paris: Presses Universitaries de France.
Werman, David (1977), “Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland,” International Review of
Psychoanalysis 4, 225–42.
Werman, David (1986), “On the Nature of the Oceanic Experience,” Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association 34, 123–39.
Wilber, Ken (1998), The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader, Boston: Shambhala.
Witkiewitz, Katie, Marlatt, Alan G., and Walker, Denise (2005). “Mindfulness-Based
Relapse Prevention for Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders,” Journal of Cognitive
Psychotherapy 19.3, 211–28.
224
 Part Three

Key Themes, Concepts, and Debates

in Vedānta
226
 8

Making Space for God: Karma, Freedom,

and Devotion in the Brahmasūtra Commentaries
of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Baladeva
Andrew J. Nicholson

Of the Vedānta school’s three foundational source texts (prasthāna-traya)—the

Upaniṣads, Bhagavad-Gītā, and the Brahmasūtra—it is the third and most recent of
these texts that is also the most ambiguous in meaning. This is not surprising, since
the Brahmasūtra stands out from the other two sources by its aphoristic format. Like
the Yogasūtra, Nyāyasūtra, and other ancient sūtra texts, the Brahmasūtra itself is so
terse as to be almost meaningless without some type of commentary; in some cases,
a sūtra can be just one or two words.1 The Upaniṣads and Bhagavad-Gītā, by contrast,
are generally written in verse or (in some early Upaniṣads) prose that is syntactically
complete. As varied as their possible interpretations may be, they can be read as stand-
alone texts, without reference to the Sanskrit commentarial tradition. In this chapter
I will pay special attention to the Brahmasūtra (abbreviated BS), along with three
commentaries on that text, by the Advaita (Nondualist) Vedāntin Śaṅkara (eighth
century CE), the Viśiṣṭādvaita (Qualified Nondualist) Vedānta philosopher Rāmānuja
(eleventh century CE), and Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa (eighteenth century CE) of the
Acintyabhedābheda (Paradoxical Difference and Non-Difference) school. In particular,
I will examine the various ways that these commentators understand BS 2.1.32–7, an
important section that explores divine freedom, karmic justice, and human suffering.2
Among the diverse perspectives of Vedāntic commentators on the BS, there is
general agreement that the aphoristic text teaches the existence of a personal God. The
commentators designate this God by terms such as “Lord” (īśvara), “Highest Lord”
(parameśvara), “Creator” (sraṣṭṛ), and “Master” (prabhu). Commentarial accounts vary
on a variety of issues concerning this God. Unlike the Bhagavad-Gītā, the Brahmasūtra
itself never describes the personal God as engaging in a loving, reciprocal relationship
with his creatures, or suggests that the means to the highest state of Brahman can
be attained through devotion (bhakti). The path described in the third and fourth
adhyāyas of the Brahmasūtra is a textually oriented “meditation” (upāsanā), which
as described by the sūtras and their early commentators, does not have the strongly
affective dimension of later bhakti worship.3
228 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

The project of the premodern and early modern Vedāntic commentators was one
of harmonization of the three central source texts of Vedānta, playing down what
at times seem to be central differences between the Upaniṣads, Bhagavad-Gītā, and
Brahmasūtra. For Rāmānuja and later Vaiṣṇava philosophers, Purāṇas such as the
Viṣṇu Purāṇa and Bhāgavata Purāṇa were also enormously important in shaping the
ideas expressed in commentaries. However, modern historians of philosophy do not
share this interpretive project of harmonization and have instead emphasized points
of apparent disagreement between these many texts. For instance, Hajime Nakamura
(1983: 496) noted in his in-depth analysis of the original Brahmasūtra that there appears
to be an enormous gulf between the disengaged, limited personal God presented in
Brahmasūtra 2.1.32–7 and the God of rapturous grace presented by Vedāntic sects in
the second millennium CE:

the attempt to use the law of Karma to solve the problem of individual sufferings
in a Brahman-created world is a special point of the philosophy of Brahma-
sūtra. At the same time the Highest God was not an absolutely free personal
god, because he is dependent upon external factors for world creation. Since he
merely allocates the karmic effect appropriate to the individual self, his function
was that of an automaton. He is a stern god and not a god of grace; he is a god
who makes possible individual action, bondage, and liberation and is the basis
of all things, but merely acts as a mechanism and does not positively encourage
either good or bad acts on the part of individual selves. This god merely abides
(sthiti) without doing anything in particular (1.3.7), for the spiritual liberation
of individual self is dependent upon the religious discipline and practice of the
individual. The burning bhakti worship of later Hindu sects is not seen in the
Brahma-sūtra.

While the commentators all agree that Brahmasūtra 2.1.32–7 teach some sort of
personal being who has creative agency in the world, there is disagreement among
them on the question of who precisely this personal being is and what his relation is
to individuals in the world. The three commentators I focus on here represent three
different schools of Vedānta: the Nondualist (Advaita) school of Śaṅkara, Qualified
Nondualist (Viśiṣṭādvaita) school of Rāmānuja, and the Paradoxical Difference and
Non-Difference (Acintyabhedābheda) school of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa.4 Each
thinker makes reference to a personal God and to bhakti, but in distinctively different
ways. Śaṅkara argues that as knowledge alone is the means to liberation from the
cycle of rebirth, devotion to a personal God can at best function as a preparation for
the path of knowledge. Rāmānuja and Baladeva, by contrast, embrace the path of
bhakti and understand it to be superior to knowledge as a means to liberation. They
continually and emphatically critique the Advaita Vedānta system, and especially
its understanding of this personal God as existing only at the level of conventional
reality (vyāvahārika-sat), not ultimate reality (pāramārthika-sat). However,
Baladeva goes beyond Rāmānuja in emphatically centering his interpretation of the
Brahmasūtra on the relationship between an absolute, loving personal God and His
ecstatic devotee.
 Making Space for God 229

8.1 Play (Līlā) and Motivated Action

Given the well-known differences between the doctrines of BS commentators from the
Advaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, and Acintyabhedābheda traditions of Vedānta, it is remarkable
how often diverse thinkers agree about the basic meaning of a given sūtra. One such
example is the general agreement among commentators on the Brahmasūtra’s sequence
of arguments at 2.1.32 to 2.1.35, where the text responds to and rejects the objections
of an anti-theistic interlocutor.5 The anti-theist pūrvapakṣin first suggests that God
(īśvara) cannot be the cause of the world, insofar as He lacks any reason to create.
Second, the pūrvapakṣin says that if God did indeed create the world, then He must
be cruel, on account of the sufferings that beings in the world experience. The Vedānta
commentators had an answer to both of these objections to God’s existence. However,
these answers come at a cost. In particular, the commentators’ response to the charge
of cruelty leads the sūtras and some of their commentators to paint a picture of a God
who appears to be different from the sort of being presented in influential and beloved
works such as the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas.
Commentators on BS 2.1.32 present it as the anti-theistic argument of an opponent
to the Vedānta school: “[He is] not [the creator] because of not having a motive.”6 Anti-
theists, such as Sāṃkhyas and Mīmāṃsakas of premodern India, point out that in
everyday life a creator always creates out of need. The potter creates a pot, for instance,
because she needs a receptacle for holding water; or perhaps she creates these beautiful
ceramic objects in order to make money to feed and clothe her family. She has a motive
(prayojana). God is not like a normal person, as He is by definition eternally and
completely fulfilled (paripūrṇa). It would seem, therefore, that He could have no motive
to create. Why doesn’t God simply exist in a quiescent, blissful state? Without a need, why
do anything at all? At BS 2.1.33, the famous answer to this problem is that God’s creation
is play (līlā): “But [creation is] just play, as [we see] in the world.”7 As Rāmānuja explains,

The motive of Brahman, whose every desire is fulfilled and who is absolutely
complete, to create the world full of all sorts of sentient and insentient beings who
undergo change due to His volition, is simply play. We see in the world a great
king who is strong and heroic and who rules the earth with its seven ­continents—
he engages in activities such as a ball game. His motive is nothing other than
play. In just that way Brahman, whose volition alone accounts for the creation,
preservation, and destruction of the world, has nothing but play as His motive.
This point is not grounds for an objection.8

Here the sūtra and its subsequent commentators anthropomorphize Brahman.

Rāmānuja goes beyond anthropomorphism to regimorphism: he likens Brahman’s
play to the game of a world-conquering king whose wants and needs have already
been completely fulfilled. The most common epithet among Vedānta philosophers
to characterize Brahman as a personal being is “īśvara.” This word is derived from
the Sanskrit verbal root √īś, meaning “to own” or “to have mastery” (Monier-
Williams 1995: 171). By implication, īśvara is a lord, a sovereign, or more generally
someone with extraordinary power.9
230 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

The importance of comparing Brahman to a human lord in the philosophical

context of BS 2.1.33 is evident since, by the demands of traditional Indian logic, each
syllogism must include an example. In this case, to establish that there is such a thing
as a form of creative activity that is not motivated by a want or lack, we require in
the third step of the five-step syllogism a worldly example (dṛṣṭānta) of a self-fulfilled
being engaged in creative action.10 One such argument could be:

1. There exists creative activity among beings whose wants have been completely
fulfilled.
2. Because some activity arises out of play.
3. As in the case of a great king playing a game with balls.
4. This is such a case.
5. Therefore it is so.

The importance of the dṛṣṭānta in the syllogism raises real problems for theologians
in India who seek to reason about a unique being, or a being who is free from
attributes.11 Without such an example, making an inference is not possible. However,
because Rāmānuja believes he has established that some creative activity arises as an
expression of fullness or joy, not out of a need or a lack, he suggests that his rejoinder
to the anti-theist of sutra 2.1.32 is “not objectionable” (niravadya).
Baladeva, representing the Acintyabhedābheda school of Vedānta approximately
seven hundred years after Rāmānuja, was in full agreement with him about the
persuasiveness of BS’s teaching of a personal creator God. However, Baladeva rejects
the example (dṛṣṭānta) provided by Rāmānuja here, as well as the example provided by
Śaṅkara in his commentary. In his commentary Baladeva writes:

The Advaitins explain the words “as we see in ordinary life” by the well-known
example of respiration that goes on even in deep sleep, and which is altogether
involuntary and motiveless. This analogy, however, is open to the objection
that the Lord is subject to deep sleep and loses consciousness, as man does. The
example given by the Viśiṣṭādvaitins is that of a king who amuses himself without
any motive, at the game of balls. This analogy, however, is open to the objection
that playing at a game of balls is not altogether motiveless, for the king gets some
pleasure by playing.12

According to Baladeva, what is wrong with deriving pleasure from play? One possibility
is that such a king needs pleasure to ward off boredom.13 Paradoxically, human beings
whose goals have been achieved often experience a certain kind of suffering. God does
not require a diversion to pass the time or to find relief from His stressful job the way
that certain rulers sometimes do, for instance, by repeatedly striking a ball with a club.
The Advaitins’ example, on the other hand, is problematic because it suggests that God’s
creation could be not only motiveless but also entirely unconscious.14 Respiration does
not require any conscious attention to happen, and in fact, attention to respiration
is the exception, not the rule. This would point not to an intelligent creator, but to
an impersonal process, such as the transformation of seed into sprout or milk into
 Making Space for God 231

curd (two examples often mentioned by the atheistic Sāṃkhya school). We require
an example of an activity that is autotelic—that is, free of a goal outside of the activity
itself—yet intelligent in a way that respiration caused by the autonomic nervous system
is not. In Baladeva’s judgment, neither of these examples suffices.
As an alternative, Baladeva suggests another example from everyday life that is both
autotelic and intelligent:

Though all-full and desiring nothing, yet the motive which prompts the Lord
towards the creation of this wonderful world is mere play (līlā) only, and has no
object beneficial to him in view. As in ordinary life, men full of cheerfulness, when
awakening from sound sleep, begin to dance about without any object, but from
mere exuberance of spirit, such is the case with the Lord. This līlā or the play of the
Lord is natural to Him, because He is full of self-bliss.15

Remarkably, in Indian art and literature, the Highest Deity is often depicted as a dancer,
and His or Her creation as a dance. Besides the cultural or artistic reasons for this
portrayal, we see here that there are also strong philosophical reasons to think of divine
creation as play (līlā), and further, to think of play in terms of dance. Although it is not
a normal expression to say that a person is “playing dance” (in comparison to “playing
football” or “playing music”), spontaneous dance may be one of a few purely autotelic
activities that intelligent agents consciously engage in. Baladeva points out that the
king’s play is not genuinely autotelic, as he gets something out of this activity—namely,
pleasure or diversion from the tedium of being an all-powerful king. This criticism
of the Viśiṣṭādvaitin’s example is an ancient mirror of debates among contemporary
analytic philosophers on the concept of play. Is play in fact autotelic? In a recent article,
Stephen Schmid (2011: 154–8) rejects the idea that autotelicity is a necessary condition
for the activity known as “playing a game”:

it is exceptionally difficult to think of any game or sport activity which involves

the intentions of the agent to be separable from “some further purpose” … it seems
that participation in games and sports for anything other than random reasons
would disqualify that activity as play. In fact, it seems that even the alleged play
of a dog would not be purely autotelic since such canine activities play a role in
training and establishing social behaviors and, thus, serve “some further purpose.”

Very few play activities, if any, appear to meet the criterion of autotelicity, of having no
end outside of themselves. Obviously, this criterion means that professional football
players cannot be said to truly “play” their sport because it is their source of income.
But even amateur high school athletes have reasons for playing, such as earning
bragging rights or amassing social capital, that go beyond the confines of the game
itself. While human beings often do engage in play activities for the love of the game
itself, that love is almost always on closer analysis a mixture of extrinsic and intrinsic
motivations. Among the few conscious creative activities that might be considered
autotelic are those done spontaneously, whimsically, and privately, such as doing a jig
upon waking, or singing in the shower.16 For Baladeva, these activities are expressions
232 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

of fullness (characterized as “exuberance,” “joy,” or “excess of energy”), not indicative

of a deficiency in the agent and a desire to achieve some further purpose.17 This is yet
another reminder of how unlike God human beings are. It is also a reminder of just
how hard it is to satisfy the condition of providing a worldly example (dṛṣṭānta) for
a syllogism whose purpose is to establish the nature of īśvara, the sole instrumental
cause of the universe.
There is yet another important metaphor commonly employed to make sense of God’s
play in Hindu traditions. Like the English term “play,” “līlā” in Sanskrit and vernacular
languages can refer to a theatrical performance, and the famous Rām-Līlā (“Play of Rāma”)
and Rās-Līlā (“Circle Play [of Kṛṣṇa]”) performances reenact the important episodes of
each divine incarnation’s life on earth, with children and young adults often playing the
characters. Especially in the texts of the Śaiva nondual philosophical tradition, it is this
type of “play” that is often invoked. As Isabelle Ratié (2017: 451) explains,

māyā is rather defined by the Śaiva nondualists as a crucial aspect of the ultimate
reality—that is, the freedom of consciousness, since it is nothing but the ability
of consciousness to play: cosmic creation, while being perfectly real insofar as it
is a manifestation of the only reality (namely the dynamism of consciousness), is
ultimately a game in which consciousness acts as if it were split into a variety of
objects and subjects, just as children, while playing, remain aware that they are not
really what they pretend to be.

In spite of the apparent commonalities of the Śaiva nondual and nondual (Advaita)
Vedānta philosophies, none of the Advaita commentators I am aware of use the
examples of a child’s make-believe or the theatrical play of an actor to explain the term
“līlā” as it is employed in BS 2.1.33. Instead, Śaṅkara mentions a king’s play and the
automatic process of inhalation and exhalation. In his commentary on BS 2.1.32–7, the
nondualist Śaṅkara operates at the level of conventional truth, following the original
realist orientation of the Brahmasūtra itself.18 In these sections he refrains from pulling
back the veil to reveal that īśvara and all of the individuals who undergo transmigration
are, from the highest standpoint, all just Brahman, a pure and eternally unchanging
unitary consciousness. He follows the same basic script as Rāmānuja, Baladeva, and
other realist commentators who seek to show the possibility of an absolute personal
God creating the world free from any motive beyond the creative act itself, despite
the suffering that individual beings experience as they proceed through a sequence of
rebirths in various bodies, high and low. In other sections of his commentary on the
Brahmasūtra, however, Śaṅkara reveals that īśvara’s cause-effect relation to the world
is ultimately a fiction.19

8.2 Beginninglessness and the Problem of Suffering

Following the anti-theist’s argument at BS 2.1.32 about God’s apparent lack of

motivation to create, and BS 2.1.33’s response that God’s activity is just play (līlā),
the anti-theist takes up a new line of attack. Sāṃkhya and Buddhist philosophers,
 Making Space for God 233

among others, argued that the world cannot have been created by a compassionate
God for the sake of others since all of transmigratory existence is characterized by
suffering (duḥkha).20 Given the widespread acceptance of this fact in ancient India by
most philosophers, including Vedāntins, how could we ever accept this world to have
been created by a loving God? Suffering (duḥkha) should not exist in a world created
by an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate being. Yet suffering does exist. As
Rāmānuja presents the opponent’s argument,

We may admit that due to his paradoxical powers, the Highest Person can create
the world with its various sentient and insentient beings though He is different
from all of them, and in spite of His being unitary and partless prior to creation.
However, if He were the creator He would be guilty of partiality since beings have
high, middle, and low births; they consist of gods, humans, animals, and immobile
beings. Furthermore, because beings experience the most horrible suffering, He
would be guilty of cruelty.21

Suffering (duḥkha) is a central problem, arguably the central problem, of the ancient
philosophical schools in India. The fact of suffering is the first noble truth of Buddhism.
Similarly, in the first verse of the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, Īśvarakṛṣṇa asserts that the cessation
of suffering is the goal of its philosophical analysis: “due to the affliction of threefold
suffering (duḥkha-traya), the inquiry into its removal [begins].”22 These schools were
concerned not just with an accurate depiction of the true nature of things, but beyond
this with prescribing a way of life that would allow its followers to escape the painful
cycle of rebirth (punarjanma) and re-death (punarmṛtyu).
The opponent at BS 2.1.34 seems to have abandoned the previous objection and
conceded that it is possible to conceive of a perfectly fulfilled God as having created
the world. But how can we accept that God created this world? When we look around
we see that some beings are millionaires, others paupers. Why wouldn’t God reward
all beings equally, instead of arbitrarily picking winners and losers? Foundational
texts such as the Bhagavad-Gītā portray a God who is full of love for His creation. In
that case, why should any being ever experience suffering, let alone the most horrible
(atighora) varieties of suffering associated with illness, war, and famine that were
a daily reality for many people in first-millennium India? Like the problem of evil
presented by philosophers in Enlightenment Europe, the problem of suffering presents
a challenge to theistic traditions that describe the creator God as benevolent and fair,
not cruel (nirghṛṇa) and partial (viṣama).23
The response to this challenging argument is presented concisely, beginning at
BS 2.1.34: “[There is] no partiality or cruelty [in Brahman], due to dependence [on
karma]; for [scripture] shows it to be so.”24 As Śaṅkara explains in his commentary,

It does not logically follow that the Lord (īśvara) is guilty of partiality and cruelty.
Why? It is because of His dependence (sāpekṣatva). If īśvara alone, without any
dependence, produced this unequal world, then He would be guilty of partiality
and cruelty. However, as creator He is not independent (nirāpekṣa). He is dependent
(sāpekṣa) as He produces the created world. On what is He dependent? We say that
234 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

He is dependent on merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma). Hence the world is

unequal because of the merit and demerit of the beings who are created. It is not
īśvara’s fault.25

Perhaps Śaṅkara’s words are surprising, but he is following the Brahmasūtra on

ascribing “accountability” or “dependence” (sāpekṣatva) to God. This is troubling
because it seems to go against one of the central characteristics of the highest God, that
His will is absolute. The juxtaposition of BS 2.1.33 with 2.1.34 seems almost designed
to create cognitive dissonance. On the one hand God’s creation is play. Play is normally
characterized as being free and spontaneous—and the point of the sūtra is to argue
that God is not constrained by any motive outside of the game of creation itself.26 Yet
in the subsequent sutra, we are told that this creation is dependent on the prior actions
of individuals. It is this that had led Nakamura (1983: 496) to characterize the God of
BS as an “automaton … and not a god of grace.”
B.K. Matilal, perhaps the twentieth century’s most influential interpreter of classical
Indian philosophy, portrays Śaṅkara’s commentary on BS 2.1.34 as a theodicy that
attempts to solve the problem of evil by giving up the idea of an all-powerful being.
Though benevolent and omniscient, this God is causally dependent (sāpekṣa), and
hence not omnipotent:

The sāpekṣatva ‘dependence’ thesis which BS 2.1.34 underlines and which Śaṅkara
amplifies as God’s dependence upon the Karma of the creatures, seriously delimits,
i.e. restricts God’s omnipotence, which will not be shared by any of the Biblical
religions, Judaism, Christianity, or Islam … We may note here that although
Fate is called Daiva (“of gods”) sometimes in the popular literature of India, it
is also recognized there that God cannot often control it or stop its operation.
Thus, God is said to be more powerful than all of us but still he is not omnipotent.
(Matilal 1992: 368–9, 373)

For Matilal, this view of a non-omnipotent God is not just a quirk of Śaṅkara. It is,
rather, a thread running throughout Indian religions, from the elite to the popular.
This alleged lack of omnipotence of Hindu gods is also central to Matilal’s reading
of the Mahābhārata. He makes the argument that Kṛṣṇa’s questionable behavior
in the great war of the Mahābhārata is vindicated by the fact that, as He was not
omnipotent, He could not by His own power stop the tragic events described in that
work (Matilal 2002: 100). Yet throughout the Mahābhārata and Purāṇas, the God
called Kṛṣṇa or Viṣṇu is frequently called “all-doer” (sarvakartṛ) or “possessing all
powers” (sarvaśakti). Matilal’s reading, then, suggests that such passages should not be
taken literally. Although God is an extraordinarily powerful being, He is nonetheless
dependent on other forces beyond His control.
A related strategy available to Advaitins to deal with the cognitive dissonance of
the free, playful God at BS 2.1.33 and the constrained, dependent God at BS 2.1.34
is to note that Śaṅkara ultimately considers the īśvara of BS and the Kṛṣṇa of the
Mahābhārata to be unreal. Although he refrains from making the point here, his
system depends on a two-tiered hierarchy of truths, ultimate (pāramārthika) and
 Making Space for God 235

conventional (vyāvahārika). Advaitins may therefore be willing, or even logically

compelled, to discard notions of īśvara’s freedom, caught up as He is in a web of
conventional relationships between beings. On this reading, it is important to realize
that the freedom of Brahman itself is distinct from the freedom of a personal God
(īśvara). In an earlier part of his commentary, during his refutation of a “difference and
non-difference” (bhedābheda) interpretation of Vedānta at BS 2.1.14, Śaṅkara points
out that īśvara is enmeshed in a web of causal relations:

[Opponent:] Brahman is manifold (anekātmaka). As a tree has multiple branches,

so Brahman has multiple powers. Hence oneness (ekatva) and multiplicity
(nānātva) are both true. The tree is one, but multiple with regard to its branches.
The sea is one, but multiple with regard to its waves and its foam. The clay is one,
but multiple with regard to pots and plates made of clay …
[Śaṅkara’s response:] This is incorrect because the Upaniṣad’s statement “as clay
they are true” merely asserts that the cause is true, while the statement “having its
origin in speech” (vācārambhaṇa) asserts that all of the effects are false … Īśvara’s
being Lord (īśvaratva), His omniscience, and His omnipotence are such only with
regard to the limiting conditions whose nature is ignorance (avidyā). In ultimate
truth (paramārthataḥ) the Self ’s true nature free of all limiting conditions is
revealed by knowledge, and the conventions of being Lord, of having a Lord, of
omniscience, etc., do not apply to the Self.27

To understand this passage, it helps to recall the literal meaning of the term “Lord”
(īśvara) itself, which derives from a verbal root meaning “to own” or “to have mastery
of ” (Monier-Williams 1995: 171). Ownership and mastery are relational concepts, yet
the Advaita Vedāntin claims that at the highest level of analysis there are no relations,
just pure undifferentiated consciousness. There is ultimately nothing for the Lord
(īśvara) to own or master. Without his subjects and his land, the lord ceases to be a
lord. Therefore the highest Brahman must out of necessity be free from “lordliness”
(īśvaratva). Only “Brahman without qualities” (nirguṇa Brahman) is truly independent,
not “Brahman with qualities” (saguṇa Brahman).
The distinction between a higher and lower Brahman in Advaita Vedānta is rejected
by Vedāntic realists such as Rāmānuja, who attacks Advaita Vedānta forcefully and
repeatedly in his Brahmasūtra commentary. Therefore, one might expect Rāmānuja to
go further than Śaṅkara by directly addressing the apparent discrepancy between the
personal God’s playful freedom (svātantrya) and His karmic dependence (sāpekṣatva),
and affirming that independence is fundamental to God’s true nature while His
dependence is not. However, Rāmānuja does not do so. Instead, he elaborates on the
nature of īśvara’s dependence by citing authoritative texts that explore His relation
to other causal forces. Rāmānuja cites the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad and the Viṣṇu
Purāṇa, one a revealed text (śruti), the other a traditional text (sṃṛti):

Revealed and traditional texts teach that the union of bodies—divine, human,
animal, etc.—with individual selves depends on the [previous] actions of those
236 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

selves. For instance, “one who performs good acts becomes good; one who
performs wicked acts becomes wicked. By a virtuous act, one becomes virtuous.
By a wicked act, one becomes wicked” (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.5). In the
same way the blessed one Parāśara also declares that the cause of the diversity of
gods, men, animals, etc. is the previous actions of the individual selves undergoing
the process of creation: “He is just the instrumental (nimitta) cause in the creation
of new beings, for the primary (pradhāna) cause truly consists of the powers of
those who are to be created. O greatest of ascetics, besides the instrumental [cause]
nothing more is required. By its own power the being is led into existence” (Viṣṇu
Purāṇa 1.4.51–52). “Its own power” means that by its own [previous] action it is
led into existence.28

This passage from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Rāmānuja’s second citation, addresses the
philosophical problem at hand and makes a distinction regarding the precise nature
of God’s causal relation to the world. In contrast to the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, the
Viṣṇu Purāṇa, composed in approximately the fourth century CE, is an emphatically
monotheistic text, portraying Viṣṇu as the absolute God who manifests as other gods,
such as Brahmā, the god of creation. It may therefore be surprising that in this text too
God’s causal agency is qualified in the verse Rāmānuja cites: Viṣṇu is not the “primary”
(pradhāna) cause.29 However, this formulation is hardly unusual. According to Indian
theists, God does not create out of nothing. In contrast to the Christian concept of
creatio ex nihilo, theologians in India generally maintained that for an intelligent deity
to create, there must also be some sort of primordial stuff for that deity to shape and
form.30 In the famous metaphor of the creation of a pot, the potter is in some sense
dependent on the clay. No matter the potter’s skill, without the clay there can be no pot.
It is in this sense that Rāmānuja invokes the passage from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa to
elucidate BS 2.1.34, and by implication to defend God against the accusations
of arbitrariness and cruelty. The stuff out of which God manifests beings’ new
embodiments is their prior actions, known in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa as latent “powers”
(śaktis) of individual selves. Implicit in BS 2.1.34 and Viṣṇu Purāṇa 1.4.51 is a dualistic
position that accepts the reality of multiple causal factors that bring into being causal
results. But there are other passages in sacred texts that suggest that a single creator
can be both instrumental and material cause of the world. In another section of the
revealed text Rāmānuja cited above, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, the creator is
famously described as being like a spider:

As a spider sends forth its thread, and as tiny sparks spring forth from a fire, so
indeed do all the vital functions, all the worlds, and all beings spring from this
Self. Its hidden name is “the Real behind the real,” for the real consists of the vital
functions, and the Self is the Real behind the vital functions.31

The disagreements within authoritative texts on whether causes are ultimately one or
many are mirrored by disagreements within Vedānta schools on this question. The
Dvaita (dualist) Vedāntin Madhva argues that causes are multiple. Baladeva disputes
this position, and argues forcefully that instrumental and material causes are ultimately
 Making Space for God 237

one, not many. Following Jīva Gosvāmin, Baladeva cites the spider analogy to suggest
that this universe and all beings within it are real, and have their ultimate source in
a loving, highest God creating from out of Himself. On this point, Baladeva is closer
to Rāmānuja than either to Śaṅkara (who argues that from the ultimate standpoint,
neither īśvara nor individuated beings are real) or to Madhva (whose doctrine of
pañcabheda asserts that the difference between the instrumental cause and the material
cause is real and beginningless).32 Rāmānuja does not attempt to resolve this apparent
discrepancy between multiple and unitary causality in this section of his commentary
on BS. Baladeva, however, going further than any previous commentator on this
section, endeavors to show that the Highest God is a free and loving God, not the
demiurge or automaton that the logic of BS 2.1.34 appears to demand.

8.3 Divine Love and Freedom in Baladeva’s Govinda-bhāṣya

Neither Śaṅkara nor Rāmānuja addresses the apparent discrepancy between the
free, spontaneous God of BS 2.1.33 and the God whose activities are subordinate to
or dependent (sāpekṣa) on karma, as 2.1.34 seems to suggest. The first commentary
on BS to acknowledge this discrepancy explicitly as a problem and suggest a solution
appears to have been Baladeva’s Govinda-bhāṣya (eighteenth century CE).33 The title of
this work itself lays out the basic project of Baladeva’s commentary: to harmonize the
teachings of the Brahmasūtra with a theology centered around the ecstatic devotion
to Kṛṣṇa (or Govinda), the playful, loving cowherd depicted as Highest God in the
Bhāgavata Purāṇa. His theology is informed by many different sources, but especially
Jīva Gosvāmin’s formulation of the Acintyabhedābheda school of Vedānta.34
Baladeva follows the commentators who came before him, and the language of
the Brahmasūtra, in explaining the term “dependence” (sāpekṣatva): “In Brahman the
creator there is no flaw of partiality or cruelty. It is because of the creator’s dependence,
i.e., dependence on karma.” Baladeva follows this with a quote from the Kauṣītaki
Upaniṣad that complicates the question of His dependence: “He makes the one whom
He wants to lead up from these worlds to perform a good action, and the one whom
He wants to lead down from these worlds to perform a bad action.”35 This juxtaposition
is striking. In spite of his “dependence,” Baladeva suggests, it is not God’s agency that
is determined by another. Rather, God is the agent and the individual human is the
one whose actions are ultimately determined by another. But on what basis does God
decide whom “He wants to lead up” or “wants to lead down”? That is on the basis of
the individual’s prior acts. Baladeva attempts to balance the idea of accountability to
karma with God’s role as instrumental cause when he interprets the Kauṣītaki passage
as saying, “this indicates that divine or demonic states of the individual selves are
caused by the Lord, but he takes into account (parāmṛṣati) the good or bad karma of
those selves.”36
BS 2.1.35 follows the previous sūtra’s statement of God’s “dependence” with
an objection that because there was no distinction of the karma of beings prior to
creation, God could have chosen to make the situations of all beings the same, and
create a blissful world where none suffer. The sūtra also offers a Vedāntic response
238 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

to this objection: “this is not the case, due to beginninglessness.” As we saw from
the Viṣṇu Purāṇa’s discussion of God’s creation, the idea of creatio ex nihilo was
not a position seriously entertained by Vedānta philosophers or the authors of the
Upaniṣads, epics, and Purāṇas. Like Aristotle and other ancient Greek philosophers,
many Indian philosophers adopted the position that the universe had no beginning.37
It follows from this, according to BS 2.1.35, that there could have been no time before
which individual beings were already acting and creating karmic fruits. This temporal
factor, combined with God’s dependence on prior karma, absolves God of partiality
(vaiṣamya) and cruelty (nairghṛṇya). In support of this position, Baladeva cites a smṛti
verse that says that “Viṣṇu causes people to do good or bad actions in accordance with
their previous karma. There is no logical contradiction, since karma is beginningless.”38
Following this defense of beginninglessness, Baladeva’s commentary explicitly
confronts the question of whether his “dependence” (sāpekṣatva) on karma logically
implies that God is unfree. It is here that Baladeva finally broaches a topic that Śaṅkara
and Rāmānuja did not. Baladeva is a realist who takes the personal God to be the
highest reality. He rejects any suggestion that the Brahmasūtra describes God as being
unfree:

The Lord’s dependence on karma does not mean that He lacks freedom (svātantrya).
In verses such as “Substance, karma, and time … ” traditional texts show that the
existence of karma, and so forth, depends on Him. And if you suggest this is a
case of the maxim “Dawn at the Toll-house,” we reply that He causes action just
following the natures of the beginningless individual selves. He does not make
anyone act contrary to their nature. Hence we say that the Lord is not unfair.39

“Dependence” on karma is not an absolute dependence that makes God a mere

auxiliary cause to the absolute cause, known as karma. The verse Baladeva refers to
here is from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the focal text of his Acintyabhedābheda tradition.
According to Bhāgavata Purāṇa 2.5.14, “In reality there is nothing other than and
distinct from Vāsudeva, o Brahmin—not substance, karma, time, essence, or the
individual self.”40 Due to the dominion of Vāsudeva (also known as Kṛṣṇa) over all of
these aspects of reality, it makes no sense to portray Him as a subordinate cause. He is,
in fact, the foundation of karma itself. The subcommentary on Baladeva’s commentary
called the Sūkṣma-ṭīkā says that God willingly and freely acts in accord with karma
when He creates, which makes sense considering that He himself is the ultimate source
of karma.41 On this interpretation, the “dependence” (sāpekṣatva) of God on karma is
of a very weak sort. God is in fact free to act without regard for the being’s previous
karma, but He chooses not to.
In the second half of the quote above, Baladeva references the popular maxim
(nyāya) known as “Dawn at the Toll-house.” This is a parable about merchants who,
in order to evade a toll, attempt to sneak by the toll-house under cover of darkness.
However, at dawn they realize that their circuitous route has led them back where
they started, and they are still forced to pay the toll. This point from an imagined
interlocutor is that in spite of Baladeva’s best efforts, by admitting that karma is in fact
an aspect of God Himself, and that God’s dependence on karma is a matter of choice,
 Making Space for God 239

He is still subject to the charges of partiality and cruelty. Baladeva counters this with
reference to the beginningless essential nature (svabhāva) of each individual self—it is
this that God follows, and not arbitrary or cruel whims.
Whether or not we are convinced by Baladeva’s attempt to absolve God of unfairness,
Baladeva adopts a view shared by many other devotionally oriented thinkers in India:
due to His absolute freedom and omnipotence, God can act preferentially in cutting off
bad karmic consequences for His devotees. Specifically, Baladeva claims elsewhere in
his commentary on the Brahmasūtra that God can suspend the activity of prārabdha-
karma, the type of actions that have already begun to produce karmic results.42 God
does this as an act of grace toward His devotees, cutting off the link between cause and
effect that governs the normal processes of karma. This understanding of God’s power
over prārabdha-karma, not present in the earliest commentaries on the Brahmasūtra,
was a feature of early modern thought in the Acintyabhedābheda and Śuddhādvaita
Vedānta traditions, both devotionally oriented schools of Vedāntic realism.43
After this commentary on BS 2.1.35, Baladeva makes a remarkable departure from
precedent, attempting to balance God’s justice with God’s special relationship with
His devotees as described in the Bhagavad-Gītā and Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The words
of BS 2.1.36 could, out of context, mean almost anything: “It is acceptable, and it is
seen in sacred texts.”44 For the commentators prior to Baladeva, the “it” functioning as
subject of the sūtra is the “beginninglessness” of karma mentioned in sūtra 2.1.35. The
sixteenth-century Bhedābheda Vedāntin Vijñānabhikṣu, for instance, follows tradition
when he glosses “it is acceptable” as “the beginninglessness of karma, and so forth,
‘is acceptable’ by means of argumentation … and furthermore it ‘is seen’ in revealed
and traditional texts.”45 This interpretation is seemingly natural as it follows directly
from the previous sūtra, a theodicy based on the beginninglessness of karma. “Due to
beginninglessness,” God is not culpable, since karma, and the individual selves, had
no beginning in time prior to which God could have assigned them to states full of
happiness and free of suffering.
However, Baladeva’s understanding of BS 2.1.36 is that it is the “partiality”
(vaiṣamya) of God that the text considers acceptable:

The Lord, who is tender toward His devotees, does indeed have “partiality,” or
favoritism (pakṣapāta), toward them. However, such partiality is acceptable. He
protects them since it is His natural power to bestow grace on beings depending
on their devotion. This does not contradict declarations of His flawlessness. In
fact, this partiality has been praised as a virtue; the śruti text declares, “this is the
jewel among the heap of qualities.” Without such partiality toward His devotees, all
His other qualities would not have been attractive, and would not have motivated
beings.46

This is a remarkable reversal, since BS 2.1.34 explicitly rejects God’s partiality, as

Baladeva acknowledged. Yet according to him, there is one kind of partiality that is a
virtue, not a vice: the favoritism of God toward those who love Him. Furthermore, God
is not only dependent on the previous karmas of individual beings. He is also, according
to Baladeva, dependent (sāpekṣa) upon the devotion of worshippers. Bestowing grace
240 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

upon them is His “natural power.”47 Therefore, for Baladeva, “partiality” is not arbitrary,
but rather natural to God, no less than His justice in following the demands of karma
is a natural attribute.
The literal meaning of the final sūtra in this section of the Brahmasūtra is “because
it is acceptable that all attributes are present.” For Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and other
commentators, this is an uncontroversial statement of the creative power of Brahman,
the absolute reality. The majority of commentators read this to mean “because it is
acceptable that all attributes [required for the creation of the world] are present [in
Brahman].”48 Baladeva, however, following from his discussion of God’s partiality
prior to this sūtra, takes the opportunity to suggest that it is not just all qualities
proper for the creation of the world that exist in Brahman. He asserts that Brahman
has all qualities, even those that would contradict one another if found in a normal
being. Among these contradictions is God’s both following the dictates of karma and
responding preferentially to His devotees:

Since it has been proven that the Lord of all, whose nature is paradoxical, possesses
all contradictory and noncontradictory attributes, the wise consider even His
favoritism toward His devotees to be a virtue. For example, He is by His very nature
knowledge, yet He possesses knowledge; He is dark-hued, yet He is without form
or color; He is just, yet He shows favor to His devotees. Besides His contradictory
characteristics, the Supreme One also has noncontradictory characteristics: He
is patient, kind, and so forth … Hence it is established that although Hari is not
unfair, he is kindhearted toward his devotees.49

This, Baladeva’s final word at the end of this important section of the Brahmasūtra,
reiterates the central theological doctrine of his Acintyabhedābheda school. God’s
nature is, when examined through the lens of human reason, “paradoxical” (acintya).
Alessandro Graheli (2007: 184) observes that Acintyabhedābheda thinkers “do not
negate conceivability altogether, rather they deny the possibility of conceivability by
means of humanly instruments of knowledge, i.e. perception and inference … In short,
acintyabhedābheda is the mind-boggling coexistence of two contradictory qualities in
the person of God. This doctrine stands as an axiomatic key of interpretation of most
tenets in Gauḍīya religion.”50

8.4 Limiting Divine Power or Human Reason?

Skepticism about non-scriptural means for knowing ultimate reality abounds across the
different subschools of Vedānta, not just Acintyabhedābheda. A repeated argument of
Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta school, for instance, is that perceptual knowledge is inferior
to scriptural knowledge, and that our sense organs constantly trick us into seeing
multiplicity instead of oneness. Just as a person with double vision needs medicine to
fix her eye disease, the statements of nondualism contained in the Upaniṣads are the
cure of our misapprehension of the true nondual nature of the existent (sat). Rāmānuja
insists, contrary to other theists such as the Naiyāyikas, that God’s existence cannot
 Making Space for God 241

be proven by human reason, but only by revelation.51 The Acintyabhedābheda school

is the apotheosis of this tendency in Vedānta toward skepticism about the human
capacity to know God. While Rāmānuja and many other theistic commentators on
BS 2.1.32–7 are silent on the apparent incommensurability of God’s justice and God’s
grace, Baladeva revels in this paradox. He calls special attention to it by departing
from the received interpretations of BS 2.1.36 and 2.1.37. Instead of beginninglessness,
it is God’s partiality that “is acceptable,” and is actually an occasion to rejoice, not to
lament. God does not just possess all qualities logically necessary for creation. Rather,
He possesses all qualities whatsoever, defying the dictates of reason (anumāna) and
perception (pratyakṣa). Baladeva’s attitudes may call to mind those of certain Western
thinkers such as Kierkegaard, who stress the suprarational, affective, and even absurd
aspects of the relationship between the human and the divine.52
Taking a long view of the intellectual arc of Brahmasūtra commentaries stretching
from the eighth to the seventeenth centuries, it appears that no commentator addresses
the discrepancy between the freedom (svātantrya) of God in His creative play and His
dependence (sāpekṣatva) on karma. Perhaps Śaṅkara, who understood God’s freedom
to be conventionally real but ultimately false, saw no great need to address this problem.
But beginning with the realist Vedāntin Bhāskara, up through influential commentaries
by Rāmānuja, Vallabha, Madhva, and Vijñānabhikṣu, it is remarkable that none chose
to address this problem prior to Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa in the early modern period.
Baladeva’s commentary represents a break from earlier traditions in numerous ways.
One of these is his willingness to put bhakti decisively and emphatically at the center
of the Brahmasūtra, even in places where earlier Vaiṣṇavas such as Rāmānuja did not.
Baladeva does not just take up and defend the reality of God’s absolute freedom in
light of His apparent dependence on karma. He also reads against the literal meaning
of the text, creating a space for a devotional and perhaps even antinomian path to God.
While conditionally accepting the rejection of God’s partiality at BSB 2.1.34, he goes on
to argue for a certain kind of partiality of God toward His devotees as praiseworthy, not
blameworthy. Perhaps this reversal of commentarial tradition could even be evidence
of a distinctively “modern” attitude that earlier Vedāntins did not share.53
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century readers of this section of the Brahmasūtra
tended to adopt one of two general strategies to resolve the aporia of a God who is
both dependent (sāpekṣa) on karma and absolutely free. The first is to state outright
that the īśvara presented in the Brahmasūtra is limited.54 Nakamura characterizes this
as the position of the author(s) of the Brahmasūtra itself: īśvara is a subordinate cause,
unfree and fully under the sway of prior karmic causes. Matilal similarly ascribes the
position to Śaṅkara that God is not omnipotent, even making the broader claim that
the Indian traditions of theism in general, unlike the Abrahamic traditions, are willing
to limit God’s power in significant ways. If true, this would suggest that Kṛṣṇa in the
Mahābhārata is no more accountable for the general suffering of beings than Zeus or
Odin might be in the Greek and Norse pantheons. All three gods are extraordinarily
powerful, yet limited in important ways. If īśvara is limited, it is worth asking why He
was introduced into the Brahmasūtra at all. As atheist Sāṃkhya philosophers point
out, with karma as a primary cause, it is unnecessary to posit the existence of God. It
is quite possible to construct a systematic reading of the Upaniṣads that presents the
242 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

impersonal principle called Brahman as the unitary source of creation, without the
philosophical complications of introducing a demiurge or majestic personal god into
its cosmogony as a subordinate cause. Yet all extant commentaries on the Brahmasūtra
make reference to a personal God.55
An approach among some modern religious thinkers, including A.C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) and Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86), has
been to follow the same path as Baladeva in emphatically affirming the omnipotence
of the God of Vedānta.56 Baladeva rejects the idea that God could be limited in any
meaningful way, and points to the Bhāgavata Purāṇa’s depiction of Kṛṣṇa to argue that
as karma is an aspect of the highest personal God, it makes no sense to describe Him as
dependent on it. Baladeva futher argues that not only is God not subordinate to karma,
but He is also the only causal agent. All other agents, including individual human
beings, should properly be understood as instruments through which God exercises
His will. Baladeva’s theological determinism is conjoined with a form of skeptical
theism shared with other thinkers in the Vedānta tradition of Acintyabhedābheda. He
employs this to make sense of what Nakamura considered impossible for the God of
the Brahmasūtra: offering preferential treatment toward those who have entered into a
loving relationship with Him. To this end, Baladeva reiterates his Vedāntic subschool’s
understanding of the inadequacy of human faculties of perception (pratyakṣa) and
inference (anumāna) in the face of God’s superhuman, paradoxical reality. God’s
creation may appear to us as unjust, and indeed God may at times suspend the normal
workings of karma for individuals whom He prefers. Baladeva’s understanding,
however, is fully in keeping with depictions of the loving God described in the epics
and Purāṇas. If those depictions offend human reason, the defect is not in God, but in
the human capacity to understand the truth expressed in these texts.
Skeptical theism has been adopted as a philosophical position by many figures
in Western and Asian religious traditions to counter the argument from evil against
God’s existence. One thinker who showed such tendencies was Sri Ramakrishna, the
nineteenth-century Bengali saint and mystic. In the words of Sri Ramakrishna,

Can we ever understand God’s ways? I too think of God sometimes as good and
sometimes as bad. She has kept us deluded by her Mahāmāyā. Sometimes She
wakes us up and sometimes She keeps us unconscious … One is aware of pleasure
and pain, birth and death, disease and grief, as long as one is identified with the
body … After the death of the body, perhaps God carries one to a better place. It
is like the birth of a child after the pain of delivery. Attaining knowledge of the
Ātman, one looks on pleasure and pain, birth and death, as a dream. How little we
understand! Can a one-seer pot hold ten seers of milk?57

While Sri Ramakrishna’s characterization of the Absolute Being as a female and the
emphasis on Her delusory power (māyā) are not found in Baladeva’s Acintyabhedābheda
Vedānta, in his characterization of human understanding as like “a one-seer pot”
Sri Ramakrishna shares Baladeva’s skepticism about humans’ cognitive abilities to
understand God. These two thinkers also share a strong theological determinism that
leads them to deny that human agency is real.
 Making Space for God 243

The skeptical theist response to the problem of suffering presented by Baladeva

and Sri Ramakrishna is an internally consistent way of dealing with the problem of
suffering as presented by traditional atheists in India. It is such a strong position,
however, that it leads to other conclusions that some critics have suggested are
problematic or even dangerous. Most versions of skeptical theism are implicitly or
explicitly based on a consequentialist ethical position: much in our world may seem
flawed, but were humans given a God’s-eye view to see all the causal ramifications
of all occurrences, we would see a higher logic at work. In this we are in a situation
analogous to that of a small child who cannot understand why his father takes him to
the doctor’s office to inflict the suffering of a vaccine on him, not comprehending that
the father is inflicting a small amount of suffering in the present in order to avoid much
greater future suffering.58
Following this line of reasoning to its full implications, however, may lead to a
form of extreme moral skepticism that few people, religious or otherwise, would be
comfortable with. Confronted with apparent evil or suffering, including war, famine,
torture, or genocide, the skeptical theist says that there is a greater plan beyond our
grasp. This may lead to ethical quietism or paralysis in the face of the limitations of
human reason. At the very least, it suggests that we will often need to reexamine our
normal ethical intuitions. In the words of Stephen Maitzen (2013: 451),

There is … a type of belief we can expect theists to possess and nontheists to lack
that also undermines the moral obligation to intervene in cases of horrific evil: the
belief that someone exists who can make this suffering turn out for the sufferer’s best
even if I do not intervene. Given the badness of severe suffering, why do we not feel
obligated to prevent children from ever undergoing painful rabies vaccinations?
Because we are confident that sometimes severe suffering will turn out for the
sufferer’s best. Suppose we believe, as many theists do, that someone exists who
can always make suffering turn out for the sufferer’s best … We ought, I submit,
to feel less obligated to prevent and relieve suffering than we would if we did not
believe in such a potential guarantor of a good outcome … [O]ne might counter
that God makes us witness current or imminent suffering because God wants us
to reduce or prevent it, but skeptical theism denies us any confidence in drawing
that conclusion.

To put it in Indian ethical terminology, the combination of consequentialism and

skepticism about human knowledge can lead to a rejection of humans’ ability to
differentiate dharma from adharma. One such example of radical moral skepticism
appears in the parable of the hunter Balāka, a didactic story Kṛṣṇa tells to Arjuna in the
Karṇa Parvan of the Mahābhārata. Balāka kills a blind and helpless creature while it is
drinking at a watering hole, in normal circumstances a clear violation of his dharma
as a hunter. Balāka nonetheless earns heaven for reasons he could not have himself
foreseen: “As soon as that blind creature had been killed, a shower of flowers fell from
the sky … that creature had endured austerity and earned a boon to annihilate all living
things, so Svayambhū had made it blind. After killing that creature … Balāka then went
to heaven.” Kṛṣṇa concludes, “in this, dharma is very difficult to understand.”59
244 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

There is some variety of consequentialism at work here, as in other passages from

the Mahābharata.60 But the passage goes well beyond other teachings to suggest that a
finite human intelligence can never be wholly aware of the full merit contained in an
apparently blameworthy act, or the full demerit contained in an apparently praiseworthy
act. Only a god or omniscient sage who possesses full knowledge of all past and future
karmic causes and conditions can be certain of a given action’s moral significance.
This is troubling for those of us who, unlike Kṛṣṇa, are not omniscient. Perhaps the
implication is that normal humans should put our faith in divine injunctions rather
than follow our own limited powers of reason. But often human reason is required to
interpret God’s ambiguous commands: for instance, Jews have historically insisted that
God demands his followers circumcise themselves and abstain from eating shellfish,
while Christians understand such commands to have been superseded.61 The situation
becomes even more complicated in Hinduism, where there is not just one God issuing
commands and one holy book, but many divine beings and holy texts, often issuing
directions that appear to be mutually contradictory.62 For the majority of worshippers
who, unlike Arjuna, do not have a divine friend present to work them through the full
consequences of their actions, they will have to rely on their own faculties of ethical
reasoning to determine which divine command is relevant to their specific situation.
Such conundrums resulting from moral skepticism, however, take us well beyond
the Brahmasūtra.63 There is little hint in the text itself or in its earliest commentaries
of a skeptical theist or bhakti-oriented position on the nature of God, as Hajime
Nakamura has noted. Bimal Matilal’s understanding of the Brahmasūtra and Śaṅkara’s
commentary as presenting a powerful though non-omnipotent īśvara is therefore a
reasonable interpretation. Yet there is strong evidence throughout the Purāṇas and
epics of another conception of God, an omnipotent personal God whom the Bhāgavata
Purāṇa describes as encompassing “substance, karma, time, essence, and the individual
self.”64 Furthermore, the philosophies of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa and Sri Ramakrishna
are evidence contradicting Matilal’s claim that “in India … the attribute of omnipotence
was never seriously emphasized” (2002: 100). In the vast ocean of Indian philosophical
traditions, it can be dangerous to suggest that any particular view or tendency is never
found.65 Use of the term īśvara to denote a non-omnipotent God is a characteristic of
some texts, including the Brahmasūtra and Yogasūtra.66 Faced with the choice between
Śaṅkara diminishing God’s power or Baladeva diminishing the human ability to reason
about God and world, most contemporary philosophers would follow Matilal in
rejecting a position such as Baladeva’s that casts doubt on the power of human reason
to understand God and dharma. However, many committed devotees will side with
Baladeva in emphasizing God’s love in spite of the apparent logical contradiction
between God’s partiality and the impersonal system of karmic justice.

Notes
1 Examples of the sūtras’ extreme brevity include BS 2.3.2, “But it is” (asti tu), and
BS 2.3.11, “Water” (āpaḥ). In spite of the obvious challenges, scholars of Vedānta
have attempted to reconstruct the basic doctrines of the Brahmasūtra based on a
 Making Space for God 245

systematic comparison of similarities and differences between early commentaries

on the text. Notable examples include Ghate (1926), Nakamura (1983), and Uskokov
(2018). The consensus among these scholars is that the text presented a type of
realist Bhedābheda (difference and identity) doctrine. However, later commentaries
by Bhedābhedavādins such as Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa and Vijñānabhikṣu contain
innovations that went far beyond the type of early Bhedābheda presented in the
Brahmasūtra.
2 Other valuable examinations of the philosophical and theological issues raised
in BS 2.1.32–7 and the commentaries by Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja include Herman
(1976: 264–86), Clooney (1989), Matilal (1992), Bilimoria (2013: 288–94), and
Maharaj (2018: 241–80). To the best of my knowledge there are no English-language
works exploring how Baladeva’s interpretation deals with the aporias from Śaṅkara’s
and Rāmānuja’s commentaries on these sūtras. This is one of the main projects of this
chapter.
3 Bhagavad-Gītā 14.26–7, among other verses, describes the path of bhakti which leads
to the highest state of Brahman: “One who serves me with bhakti-yoga, unwavering,
transcends the guṇas and is prepared to become Brahman. For I am the foundation
of Brahman, immortal and unchanging, of eternal dharma, and of absolute bliss.”
The Brahmasūtra, by contrast, presents a path described as vidyā (“knowledge”) and
glossed with terms such as upāsanā, dhyāna, and bhāvanā by early commentators.
Uskokov (2018: 188–209) describes this upāsanā as a type of meditative exercise
based on the Chāndogya, Bṛhadāraṇyaka, and Taittirīya Upaniṣads. Rāmānuja and
later bhakti-oriented commentators do understand upāsanā explictly in terms of
bhakti, but such interpretations of the practice-oriented sections such as BS 4.1.1–12
are beyond the scope of this chapter. On the meaning of upāsanā in early Vedānta,
see also Nakamura (2004: 734–55).
4 I follow Graheli (2007) in using the translation “Paradoxical Difference and
Non-Difference” rather than the more literal “Inconceivable Difference and Non-
Difference” in the name of this school of Vedānta. For more on this topic, see Gupta’s
Chapter 4 in this volume.
5 While the interlocutor is not identified in the text, it presents arguments against
God’s existence that were familiar from the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā and Sāṃkhya schools.
Both of these schools predated Vedānta.
6 na prayojanavattvāt (BS 2.1.32, in Karmarkar 1962: 639).
7 lokavat tu līlākaivalyam (BS 2.1.33, in Karmarkar 1962: 640). Arthur Herman has
argued that in fact the Brahmasūtra’s entire line of argument based on “play” misses
a central point: “God is not responsible for the purposes in līlā, for supposedly there
are none, but He is surely responsible for the act that brings līlā into existence … The
Vedāntists have mistaken the description of līlā for a justification of līlā”
(Herman 1976: 268–9).
8 avāptasamastakāmasya paripūrṇasya svasaṃkalpavikāryavividhacidacinmiśrajagatsarge
līlaiva kevalā prayojanam. lokavat. yathā loke saptadvīpāṃ medinīm adhitiṣṭhataḥ
saṃpūrṇaśauryavīryaparākamasyāpi mahārājasya kevalalīlaikaprayojanāḥ
kandukādyārambhā dṛśyate tathaiva parasyāpi brahmaṇaḥ
svasaṃkalpamātrāvakḷptajagajjanmasthitidhvaṃsāder līlaiva prayojanam iti niravadyam
(commentary on BS 2.1.33, in Karmarkar 1962: 640).
9 In the medieval period in India, the epithet īśvara (Lord) or maheśvara (Great
Lord) was often applied not only to the god Śiva, but also to yogis who acquired
supernormal powers through their one-pointed meditation on him. However, in
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many philosophical works, such as early commentaries on the Yogasūtra, there is

no implication that Śiva is the god meant by the term “Īśvara” (see Nicholson 2010:
12–20.)
10 The model provided by the Nyāya school for the five-step syllogism establishes that
there is fire on a hill: (1) There is fire on the hill; (2) Because there is smoke; (3) As in
a kitchen; (4) This is such a case; (5) Therefore it is so (see Matilal 1998: 4–7).
11 The latter point is especially an issue in critiques of the Advaita Vedānta system, as
Advaita claims that the ultimate truth about Brahman is that it is without qualities
(nirguṇa). Other schools of Vedānta point out that nirguṇa Brahman could neither be
the object of perception (pratyakṣa), nor could it be established by logical reasoning
(anumāna).
12 This is S.C. Vasu’s rendering, with minor edits, of Baladeva’s terse dismissal of
previous Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita commentaries on this sūtra (Vasu 1912: 267).
ucchravāsapraśvāsadṛṣṭānte ’pi suṣuptyādau tadāpatteḥ. rājadṛṣṭāntas tu tattat
kṛīḍāsambhūtasya sukhasya phalatvān nopāttaḥ (Dasa 1965: 110).
13 I thank students in a philosophy seminar at Stony Brook University for this
suggestion, which is not explicitly stated in any Sanskrit commentary I am aware of.
14 Śaṅkara’s example of respiration during deep sleep as a type of līlā is in his
commentary on BS 2.1.33: “or just as inhalation, exhalation, and so forth occur
without any aim outside of themselves, just following their own nature.” yathā
cocchvāsapraśvāsādayo ’nabhisaṃdhāya bāhyaṃ kiṃcitprayojanaṃ svabhāvād eva
sambhavanti (Yogīndrānanda 1995: 610).
15 Translation by S.C. Vasu (Vasu 1912: 266). paripūrṇasyāpi vicitrasṛṣṭau pravṛttir
līlaiva kevalā na tu svaphalānusandhipūrvikā. atra dṛṣṭānto loketi. ṣaṣṭhyantātvatiḥ.
lokasya sukhonmattasya sukhodrekāt phalanirapekṣā nṛtyādilīlā dṛṣyate tatheśvarasya.
tasmāt svarūpānandasvābhāvikyeva līlā (Dasa 1965: 110). The specific detail
mentioned by Vasu of the dancer having just woken from a deep sleep comes from
the subcommentary on Baladeva’s work called Sūkṣma-Ṭīkā. On the question
of the authorship of this subcommentary, and whether it is Baladeva’s own
autocommentary, see Dasgupta (1922: vol. 4, 438–9).
16 On some interpretations, even these activities, to the extent that it is physically
pleasurable to dance or sing, might not be considered autotelic. This points to
ambiguities in the definition of the word “autotelic” used by Bernard Suits and other
philosophers (see Schmid 2011: 155–8). Suits develops a theory of “lusory attitude”
which he claims allows the definition of game-playing to apply to professionals no
less than to amateurs (see Suits 2014: 154–60), but does claim that some types of
human activity are autotelic.
17 Baladeva also cites a potentially unflattering verse from the Nārāyaṇa Saṃhitā that
suggests that Viṣṇu’s creative activity is “like the dancing of a drunkard” (yathā
mattasya nartanam). Baladeva insists that this simply means that God’s creation is
autotelic, not that it is unconscious or disordered (Dasa 1965: 110).
18 On the realism of the Brahmasūtra, see Nicholson (2010: 26–8) and Nakamura
(1983: 500).
19 Lance Nelson (2007: 314) remarks that for Śaṅkara, “from the point of view of
liberation he [īśvara] is dependent on the world, just as the space limited by pots
and jars is, for its existence as such, dependent on those vessels … This kind of
thinking … [seems] to remove Deity from the sphere of final truth in a way that
a true theist could not tolerate. Advaitic theism emerges as, so to say, a kind of
transtheism.”
 Making Space for God 247

20 According to Aniruddha’s commentary on Sāṃkhya-Sūtra 5.2, “we know from

experience that all activity is either self-interested or for the sake of another. But
Īśvara has no self-interested motives. Suppose his activity were for the sake of others.
Then it would be impossible that the created world, which consists of suffering
(duḥkkha), could be ascribed to him, since he is compassionate” (my translation from
Garbe 1888: 180).
21 yady api paramapuruṣasya sakaletaracidacidvastuvilakṣaṇasya acintyaśaktiyogāt,
prāksṛṣṭer ekasya niravayavasyāpi vicitracidacinmiśrajagatsṛṣṭiḥ saṃbhāvyeta, tathāpi
devatiryaṅmanuśyasthāvarātmanā, utkṛṣṭamadhyamāpakṛṣṭasṛṣṭyā pakṣapātaḥ
prasajyeta. atighoraduḥkhayogakaraṇāt nairghṛṇyaṃ cāvarjanīyam iti (commentary
on BS 2.1.34, in Karmarkar 1962: 640).
22 See Sāṃkhya Kārikā 1 in Larson (1998: 255). “Threefold” refers to the Sāṃkhya
division of suffering into three kinds: (1) originating from oneself (ādhyātmika),
(2) originating from other beings in the human and animal worlds (ādhibhautika),
and (3) originating from the gods and other superhuman forces (ādhidaivika).
23 Though David Hume ([1779] 1998: 63) attributed to Epicurus an argument against
the existence of God from the existence of evil in the world, this was probably not
Epicurus’s actual view. There were arguments against God’s existence on the basis
of evil in the premodern West, but they were not as pervasive as the arguments
on the basis of suffering advanced by atheists in classical India. On Epicurus and
classical European atheism, see Whitmarsh (2016: 109–10, 173–85). Contemporary
philosophers distinguish the logical problem of evil from the evidential problem of
evil, a distinction not made in these ancient debates (see Maharaj 2018: 241–2).
24 vaiṣamyanairghṛṇye na sāpekṣatvāt tathā hi darśayati (BS 2.1.34, in Karmarkar
1962: 640).
25 vaiṣamyanairghṛṇye neśvarasya prasajyete. kasmāt. sāpekṣatvāt. yadi hi
nirapekṣaḥ kevala īśvaro viṣamāṃ sṛṣṭiṃ nirmimīte syātām etau doṣau vaiṣamyaṃ
nairghṛṇyaṃ ca. na tu nirapekṣasya nirmātṛtvam asti. sāpekṣo hīśvaro viṣamāṃ
sṛṣṭiṃ nirmimīte. kim apekṣata iti cet. dharmādharmāvapekṣata iti vadāmaḥ. ataḥ
sṛjyamānaprāṇidharmādharmāpekṣā viṣamā sṛṣṭir iti nāyam īśvarasyāparādhaḥ
(Śaṅkara’s commentary on BS 2.1.34, in Yogīndrānanda 1995: 612–13).
26 One way to address this problem is to suggest that as a player in a game, God
willingly takes on arbitrary rules that limit His actions within that game. This calls
to mind Bernard Suits’s definition of playing a game: “the voluntary attempt to
overcome unnecessary obstacles” (Suits 2014: 43). But in that case, why would a
compassionate God choose a game that involves enormous suffering? Wouldn’t
another game with less horrible rules be preferable?
27 nanv anekātmakaṃ brahma yathā vṛkṣo ’nekaśākha evam anekaśaktipravṛttiyuktaṃ
brahma. ata ekatvaṃ nānātvaṃ cobhayam api satyam eva. yathā vṛkṣa
ity anekatvaṃ śākhā iti nānātvam. yathāca samudrātmanaikatvaṃ
phenataraṅgādyātmanā nānātvam. yathāca mṛdātmanaikatvaṃ
ghaṭaśarāvādyātmanā nānātvam … naivaṃ syāt. mṛttikety eva satyam iti
prakṛtimātrasya dṛṣṭānte satyatvāvadhāraṇāt. vācārambhaṇaśabdena ca
vikārajātasyānṛtatvābhidhānāt … avidyātmakopādhiparicchedāpekṣam
eveśvarasyeśvaratvaṃ sarvajñatvaṃ sarvaśaktitvaṃ ca na paramārthato
vidyayāpāstasarvopādhisvarūpa ātmanīśitrīśitavyasarvajñatvādivyavahāra
upapadyate. (Śaṅkara’s commentary on BS 2.1.14, in Yogīndrānanda 1995: 572–3).
28 devādīnāṃ kṣetrajñānāṃ devādiśarīrayogaṃ tattatkarmasāpekṣaṃ darśayanti hi
śrutismṛtayaḥ sādhukārī sādhurbhavati pāpakārī pāpo bhavati puṇyaḥ puṇyena
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karmaṇā pāpaḥ pāpena karmaṇā tathā bhagavatā parāśareṇāpi devādivaicitryahetuḥ

sṛjyamānānāṃ kṣetrajñānāṃ pracīnakarmaśaktir evety uktam nimittamātram evāsau
sṛjyānāṃ sargakarmaṇi. pradhānakāraṇībhūtā yato vai sṛjyaśaktayaḥ. nimittamātraṃ
muktvaikaṃ nānyat kiṃcid apekṣyate. nīyate tapatāṃ śreṣṭha svaśaktyā vastu
vastutām. iti svaśaktyā svakarmaṇaiva devādivastutā prātir iti. (Rāmānuja’s
commentary on BS 2.1.34, in Karmarkar 1962: 641).
29 The term pradhāna is commonly used in Sāṃkhya to refer to prakṛti in its “primary”
or “primordial” state—it is the material (upādāna) cause out of which the world is
formed. In the Purāṇas these Sāṃkhya concepts are often adapted to fit into a larger
theistic cosmology.
30 While the position that God requires a material cause was almost unanimous, there
may been exceptions. For instance, the Śaiva nondual philosopher Utpaladeva wrote,
“The Lord … must manifest externally the totality of objects … without a material
cause” (Ratié 2010: 460).
31 sa yathorṇanābhis tantunoccared yathāgneḥ kṣudrā viṣphuliṅgā vyuccaranty evam
evāsmād ātmanaḥ sarve prāṇāḥ sarve lokāḥ sarve devāḥ sarvāṇi bhūtāni vyuccaranti.
tasyopaniṣat satyasya satyam iti. prāṇā vai satyaṃ teṣām eṣa satyam (Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad 2.1.20, translated in Olivelle 1998: 63–5). The spider metaphor also occurs
at Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.7 and in numerous Purāṇas (e.g., Bhāgavata Purāṇa 2.9.28).
For the significance of the spider metaphor in Baladeva’s thought, see Okita (2014:
200–4). David Hume knew, and mocked, this theological metaphor from India
(Hume [1779] 1998: 48).
32 See Okita (2014: 131–2).
33 Francis X. Clooney attributes to Vācaspati Miśra, author of the Bhāmatī
subcommentary (ninth century CE) on Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya, an argument
that “when a great king chooses to reward or punish subjects based on their behavior,
this restraint on his exercise of power does not diminish him” (Clooney 1989: 536).
However, careful attention to the passage in question suggests that Vācaspati addresses
a slightly different problem. He is concerned not with God’s freedom, but specifically
with whether God can be accused of being unjust simply for punishing some people
according to their prior behavior. Vācaspati also seems to suggest that God is not
unjust in giving preference to those who are devoted to Him. Like other commentators,
Vācaspati uses the analogy of a king: “A worldly lord is propitiated by acts of devotion
originating from extraordinary faith, consisting of praise in the form of gifts, service,
prostrations, salutations, and praise. Pleased, he gives rewards to the one who properly
honors him. On the other hand, when opposed, he gives that which is undesirable to
the person opposing him with offenses. This is well-accepted.” laukikaś ceśvaro dānap
aricaraṇapraṇāmāñjalikaraṇastutimayībhir atiśraddhāgarbhābhir bhaktibhir ārādhitaḥ
prasannaḥ svānurūpam ārādhakāya phalaṃ prayacchati virodhataś cāpakriyābhir
virodhakāyāhitām ity api suprasiddham (Vācaspati’s commentary on 3.2.41, in
Yogīndrānanda 1995: 970).
34 For more on Baladeva’s influences, see Okita (2014: 59–60) and Buchta (2016: 32–3).
Okita argues that despite Baladeva’s debts to Madhva, he is ultimately closer to the
philosophy of Jīva Gosvāmin.
35 eṣa eva sādhukarma kārayati taṃ yamebhyo lokebhya unninīṣate. eṣa evāsādhu
karma kārayati yam adho ninīyate (Kauṣītaki Up. 3.8; Olivelle 1998: 354). This is
cited in Baladeva’s commentary on BSB 2.1.3, although Baladeva attributes this
quote to the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (Dasa 1965: 111). Surendranath Dasgupta,
summarizing Baladeva’s position on human agency, states that the “jīvas too have
 Making Space for God 249

no independence in themselves; they are created by God, by His mere will, and
having created the world and the jīvas He entered into them and remained as their
inner controller … The spontaneous desire and will that is found in man is also an
expression of God’s will operating through man; thus man is as much subject to
necessity as the world, and there is no freedom in man” (Dasgupta 1922: vol. 4, 444).
Baladeva’s understanding of God as the only true cause has affinities with Nicolas
Malebranche’s “occasionalism.”
36 kṣetrajñānāṃ devādibhāvaprāptim īśvaranimittāṃ darśayantī madhye karma
parāmṛśatīty arthaḥ (Dasa 1965: 111). David Buchta has helped me make sense of
this ungrammatical passage in Baladeva’s commentary.
37 On the theme of beginninglessness in Indian and Greek philosophy, see Nicholson
(2017: 609–13).
38 puṇyapāpādikaṃ viṣṇuḥ kārayet pūrvakarmaṇā. anāditvāt karmaṇaś ca na virodhaḥ
kathaṃ cana (Dasa 1965: 111). Baladeva’s quote here is of questionable provenance.
He likely took the quote from Madhva, who in his commentary on BS 2.1.16 cites
this verse and identifies it as from the Bhaviṣya Purāṇa. However, this quote does
not appear in any known edition or manuscript of that text, and may have been
manufactured by Madhva himself (see Mesquita 2007: 58). I am grateful to Johannes
Bronkhorst (private communication) for pointing this out.
39 na ca karmasāpekṣatveneśvarasyāsvātantryam. dravyaṃ karma ca kālaś cetyādinā
karmādisattāyās tadadhīnatvasmaraṇāt. ca ghaṭṭakuḍyāṃ prabhātam iti vācyam
anādijīvasvabhāvānusāreṇa hi karma kārayati svabhāvam anyathā kartuṃ samartho
’pi kasyāpi na karotīty aviṣamo bhaṇyate (Dasa 1965: 111).
40 dravyaṃ karma ca kālaś ca svabhāvo jīva eva ca. vāsudevāt paro brahman na cānyo
’rtho ’sti tattvataḥ (Goswami 2006: 104). This is my translation of Bhāgavata Purāṇa
verse 2.5.14.
41 See Vasu (1912: 269–70) for a translation of the Sūkṣma-Ṭīkā on this section.
The argument presented in this subcommentary for God’s freedom in spite of his
“dependence” on karma is remarkably similar to the position Clooney (1989: 536)
imputes to Vācaspati Miśra.
42 On the different types of karma (prārabdha, saṃcita, and anāgata) see Nicholson
(2010: 114).
43 These arguments are in Baladeva’s commentary on Brahmasūtra 4.1.13–19. On the
Gauḍīya and Puṣṭimārga arguments for God’s ability to cut off prārabdha-karma, see
Buchta (2016). As Buchta notes, these arguments were not present in the two earliest
commentaries on the Brahmasūtra by Śaṅkara and Bhāskara (Buchta 2016: 30).
The earlier position that prārabdha-karma cannot be avoided is often based on an
interpretation of Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.14.2: “There is a delay here for me here only
until I am freed; but then I will arrive” (Olivelle 1998: 257).
44 upapadyate cāpy upalabhyate (Yogīndrānanda 1995: 615).
45 karmādīnām anāditvaṃ yuktyā ’py upapadyate … tathā upalabhyate ca
śrutiśmṛtibhyaḥ … (Vijñānabhikṣu’s commenrary on BS 2.1.36 in Tripāṭhī 1979: 162).
46 bhaktavatsalasyāsya prabhos tatpakṣapāto vaiṣamyaṃ eva tad upapadyate
sidhyati. tadrakṣaṇādeḥ svarūpaśaktivṛttibhūtabhaktisāpekṣatvāt. na ca
nirdoṣatāvādivākyavyākopaḥ. tadrūpasya vaiṣamyasya guṇatvena stūyamānatvāt.
“guṇavṛndamaṇḍanam idam” ity api śrutir āha. yadvinā sarve guṇāḥ janebhyo
’rocamānāḥ pravartakā na syuḥ (Dasa 1965: 112).
47 On the concept of “natural power” (svarūpaśakti) in Baladeva’s thought, see Okita
(2014: 89–90).
250 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

48 Rāmānuja, for instance, offers only one sentence in his commentary on this sūtra:
pradhānaparamāṇvādīnāṃ kāraṇatve yaddharmavaikalyam ukta vakṣyamāṇaṃ ca
tasya sarvasya dharmajātasya kāraṇatvopapādino brahmaṇy upapatteś ca brahmaiva
jagatkāraṇam iti sthitam (Karmakar 1962: 643).
49 avicintyasvarūpe sarveśvare sarveṣāṃ viruddhānām aviruddhānāṃ ca dharmāṇām
upapatteḥ siddheś ca bhaktapakṣapāto “pi guṇaḥ sujñair āstheya eva. yathā
jñānātmako jñānavān syāmaś caivam aviṣamo bhaktapreyānityādayo mitho
viruddhāḥ kṣāntyārjavādayo ”viruddhāś ca parasminn eva santi … tathā cāviṣamo ’pi
harir bhaktasuhṛd iti siddham (Dasa 1965: 112–13).
50 Also see Chapter 4 in this volume by Gupta, on the Acintyabhedābheda thinker Jīva
Gosvāmin.
51 In his commentary on 2.1.34, Rāmānuja also employs the term acintya (“paradoxical”
or “inconceivable”) to describe God’s powers: “We may admit that due to His
inconceivable powers, the Highest Person can create the world with its various
sentient and insentient beings” (my translation from Karmarkar 1962: 640). Here the
more literal translation, “inconceivable,” may be preferable, as Rāmānuja uses this
term in a slightly different sense than Baladeva does.
52 It is worth noting that the affective states of the worshipper often emphasized
by Kierkegaard (fear, trembling, and so forth) are quite different from those that
characterize most Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava worship. For one discussion that contrasts the
idea in Kierkegaard of God’s unknowability with the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava idea of access
to God through bhakti, see Sardella (2016: 96–8).
53 Jonardon Ganeri, for instance, has argued that a newly critical and modern attitude
toward textual authority began with the Navya-Naiyāyika Raghunātha Śiromaṇi in
the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century (Ganeri 2011: 150ff.). If this is correct,
we need to reexamine the works of Vedāntins in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries to confirm that there was a new type of commentarial independence prior
to Baladeva.
54 This is arguably the strategy Clooney employs when he reads Vācaspati Miśra as
affirming that God could act against the dictates of karma, though He chooses
not to do so; though He is theoretically free, in practice God’s actions are limited
(Clooney 1989: 536). Compare this to Baladeva’s position that God does at times act
against the rules of karma, erasing the prārabdha-karma of his devotees.
55 On the Sāṃkhya argument portraying īśvara as causally superfluous, see Nicholson
(2017: 602ff.). One possibility as to why the Brahmasūtra introduces īśvara in spite
of this alleged superfluity is the frequent references to a god or gods throughout
authoritative texts such as the Upaniṣads and Mahābhārata, which preceded the
Brahmasūtra. Positing īśvara could have therefore been culturally important, though
he is only a “nominal” (pāribhāṣika) sovereign of the world. Scriptural references to
God’s omnipotence can then be read as arthavādas, nonliteral statements often used
to encourage worship or ritual action.
56 When Sri Ramakrishna was asked, “Can God violate law?” he replied, “What do you
mean? She is the Lord. She can do everything. She who has made the law can also
change it” (translated in Maharaj 2018: 263).
57 This is translated from the Kathāmṛta, a Bengali collection of Sri Ramakrishna’s
sayings and actions, in Maharaj (2018: 252–3).
58 On the connection between consequentialism and skeptical theism, see McBrayer
(2019). I borrow the vaccination example from Maitzen (2013: 450).
 Making Space for God 251

59 evaṃ dharmaḥ sudurvidaḥ (Bowles 2008: 169–70). This story comes before the story
of Kauśika, another parable with a consequentialist message: a foolish sage with a
narrow understanding of dharma takes a vow of truth-telling. When murderous
bandits ask him which way their potential victims went, he tells the truth. For this act
Kauśika eventually ends up in a “miserable hell” (Bowles 2008: 171)
60 Among the passages interpreted as consequentialist are Bhagavad-Gītā 3.20
and 3.25, which reference the “welfare of the world” (lokasaṃgraha). See Sreekumar
(2012: 299–313).
61 See Maitzen (2013: 452).
62 Yogasūtra 2.31 and its premodern commentaries, for instance, declare nonviolence
(ahiṃsā) to be a universal requirement “not exempted by one’s class, place, time,
or circumstance” (jātideśakālasamayānavacchinna; translated in Bryant 2009: 248).
Compare this with passages in the Mahābhārata (e.g., Mbh. 12.98.13–30) that glorify
the warrior (śūra) who kills on the battlefield. His killing is “the sacrifice of battle”
(yuddhayajña, Mbh. 12.99.13), and after death he attains Indra’s heaven.
63 The Brahmasūtra was composed in light of the Mīmāṃsā school, whose central
concern was the systematic interpretation of Vedic injunctions. The Mīmāṃsakas
were neither skeptical about humans’ abilities to understand ritual/ethical
injunctions nor were they generally theists. On the ways in which Mīmāṃsā ritual
theory acts as a foundation for theories of liberation in the Brahmasūtra, see Uskokov
(2018: 1–144).
64 Referring to Bhāgavata Purāṇa verse 2.5.14, as cited by Baladeva: dravyaṃ karma ca
kālaś ca svabhāvo jīva eva ca. vāsudevāt paro brahman na cānyo ’rtho ’sti tattvataḥ
(Goswami 2006: 104).
65 Even the concept of creatio ex nihilo, sometimes described as unique to Christianity,
can arguably be found in the Śaiva nondual tradition (see note 30).
66 On the “weak” theism of Patañjali’s Yogasūtra, see Nicholson (2017: 604–9).

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254
 9

Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity:

Grounding the Many Divinities in the Unity
of Brahman
Ankur Barua

A basic theme that runs through the Vedāntic constructions of worldviews through
systematizations of scriptural materials is that the indivisible divine reality, Brahman,
persists as the immutable ground of all empirical reality. The Vedāntic doctrinal
systems can diverge, often sharply, over key metaphysical, epistemological, and
soteriological questions such as the relation between the transcendental foundation
and the empirical structures of the world (saṃsāra), the interrelation between empirical
modes of knowing and scriptural foundations, and the shape of the human self which
is liberated beyond the cycles of reincarnation. While in premodern Vedāntic schools,
these themes relating to the “One and the Many” were often applied to the question of
how to subsume doctrinal rivals within one’s own exegetical universe, some influential
figures associated with Hindu modernity have creatively reworked these classical
materials to articulate their distinctive visions of the transcendental significance of
the religious traditions of humanity. Our exploration of several Vedāntic perspectives
on the diversity of religious traditions, and the spiritual significance of this diversity,
will proceed through three stages. First, an analysis of aspects of the Vedāntic
systems of foundational figures such as Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and others, and broader
traditions such as Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism, indicates a range of exegetical-conceptual
tools through which they sought to encompass rival standpoints from within the
perspective of their own conceptual-exegetical system. Second, we will highlight
some continuations of these hermeneutical strategies of encompassment in medieval
Vedāntic commentators, and some prominent figures associated with the bhakti
devotional strands. Third, we will study modernist reconfigurations of these themes in
figures such as Swami Vivekananda, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and others, who draw
on some of the classical materials to speak of Hinduism, conceived through Vedāntic
prisms, variously as the quintessence of human spirituality, as an embodiment of
universal moral values, or as a pointer to the transcendental source of all religions.
We begin with some methodological remarks relating to the key terms in this
essay: “religious diversity,” “Hindu” or “Hinduism,” and “Vedānta.” First, a significant
256 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

amount of scholarly discussion has been devoted in recent decades to the question
as to whether the Indic systems we are discussing are properly characterized as
“religious” or whether they are instead to be regarded primarily as sociopolitical
constructs which emerged, over roughly the last one hundred years, through the alien
prisms of Western secular categories, systems of imperial governance, and Christian
soteriological doctrines (Frykenberg 1989: 29). The category of “religion” is said to
be structured by specific Western presuppositions such as a Christian emphasis on
creedal formulation, belief, faith, scriptural revelation, dogmatic orthodoxy, and so
on, and the European enlightenment separation of a “public” domain from religious
concerns which are located in a “private” sphere of interiority (King 2010). Similarly,
the terms “Hindu” and “Hinduism” too are often claimed to be modular constructs
which have emerged through the superimposition of Western modes of classification
on extremely varied arrays of thought systems, ways of living, ritual practices, social
structures, and cultural subjectivities. Without revisiting these debates here, we will
work with the terms which the figures we discuss themselves have employed. Thus
for premodern writers such as Śaṅkara, Tulsīdās, and others, we use classifications
such as tradition, monastic community, viewpoint, form of spiritual practice, pathway
(sampradāya, maṭha, mata, sādhana, panth), and so on. Whether, and to what extent,
these categorizations can be characterized as “religion” or as “Hindu” is a debate into
which we do not enter. On the other hand, with modern thinkers such as Vivekananda,
Radhakrishnan, and others, we are on firmer ground since the terms “religion” as well
as “Hindu” and “Hinduism” frequently occur in their own writings. Crucially for our
purposes, this distinctive conceptual shift from Śaṅkara to, say, Radhakrishnan points
to the emergence, in the sociopolitical contexts of colonial modernity, of prominent
“Hindu” styles of systematic reflection on the significance of religious diversity. The
commentaries of Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja do not engage with Christianity as a prima
facie viewpoint (pūrvapakṣa), though Christian communities have existed in parts
of southern India since the third century of the common era; nor is Islamic thought
taken up for systematic discussion by medieval theologians, commentators, and
poets such as Jīva Gosvāmī, Madhusūdana Sarasvatī, Tulsīdās, and others who lived
within spheres of Islamic influence. Generally speaking, for these premodern figures,
the land of Bhārata is privileged as the place where ritual and soteriological efficacy
is focally centred, as it is the domain where the “twice-born” members of the upper
castes can negotiate their life-projects out of the cycle of rebirths. The purity of the
Vedic way of life has to be protected against the foreigners (mlecchas) who are not
part of Vedic social structure and do not speak Sanskrit. Therefore, commentators
such as Vācaspati regarded the adoption of Buddhism by the mlecchas as a point in
its disfavor, for such teachings cannot be accepted as having any authoritative status
(Halbfass 1990: 189). However, from around the time of Rammohun Roy (1772–1833)
onward, a range of thinkers began to consciously articulate Vedāntic visions of
situating “religions” such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam within worldviews
derived from Hindu scriptural materials and their classical commentators. While
these hermeneutical strategies of placing the religious streams of European origins
within Vedāntic worlds are often characterized as “Neo-Vedānta,” suggesting some
sort of an abrupt rupture with tradition, our discussion will indicate that they are,
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 257

in fact, broadly continuous with different modes of classical and medieval Vedāntic
engagements with rival sampradāyas of exegeses, doctrines, and experiences. Third,
while in a strict traditional sense, the term “Vedāntic” itself, as applied to a teacher
(ācārya), lineage, or community, is associated with commentarial literatures on the
Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad-Gītā, and the Brahmasūtra, in a broader sense of the term,
we can refer to as “Vedāntic” the vernacularized works of poets such as Tulsīdās where
these literatures have become embodied in a rich array of local narratives, imageries,
and practices, and also the modernized reconfigurations of thinker-activists such as
Vivekananda where these literatures have been creatively appropriated from a range of
contemporary socioreligious perspectives.
With these definitional notes in place, we highlight in subsequent sections the theme
that the diverse range of Vedāntic approaches to “religious diversity” (RD) operate
with three key hermeneutic modalities of situating a competing standpoint Y with
respect to one’s own standpoint X (where X and Y can be a traditional constellation
such as a sampradāya or a system which is regarded as a “religion”):

RD1: Where Y represents an ontological schema, ritual practice, and soteriological

telos which are not grounded in or derived from a Vedic source, Y is to be rejected
unequivocally.
RD2: The doctrinal formulations, ritual practices, and spiritual techniques of Y can
be accepted as provisional and partial, and yet as valuable, pointers to the fullness
of liberation as taught by X. While Y in itself is not utterly erroneous, specific
aspects of Y have to be “sublated”—that is, rejected, revised, and reformulated—in
the light of X so that its spiritual momentum can direct the aspirant toward the
unlimited completeness of X.
RD3: The key teachings of Y and X can somehow coexist within the divine totality
that indwells both and also transcends both. The divine totality, the infinitude
of which is beyond human comprehension, is the transcendental focus in
which various modes of human spiritual striving are incorporated, even if such
interrelation between Y and X is not comprehensible to finite human intellects.

These three standpoints can be regarded as broadly analogous to Alan Race’s well-
known threefold typology of exclusivism, inclusivism, and pluralism, even if
they might not neatly map on to them (Race 1983). For an initial example of how
formulations of RD2 have shaped Vedāntic reflections on “religious diversity,” from the
times of Śaṅkara to our own, consider the traditional debate over whether Brahman
conceptualized as transpersonal (nirguṇa) encompasses Brahman conceptualized as
supereminently personal (saguṇa), or vice versa. According to the traditions of Advaita
Vedānta, devotion (bhakti) to a personal deity conceived as ontologically distinct from
the finite self (ātman) is a form of spiritual ignorance (avidyā); however, such devotion
can be spiritually efficacious to the extent that it can stabilize the flickering mind and
direct it toward a singular unity. That is, provided that the ontologies of doctrinal rivals
such as Vaiṣṇava Vedānta are reconfigured, so that the supremely personal deity Viṣṇu
is understood as nondual with the finite self, devotion too can be a preparatory stage
258 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

on the spiritual ascent within Advaita systems. T.M.P. Mahadevan (1977: 124) states
the point clearly: “Advaita … is the culmination of all religious sects and philosophical
schools. It is the common end of all philosophical endeavour and religious practice.”
Conversely, proponents of Vaiṣṇava Vedānta can, and indeed have, turned the
dialectical tables around by arguing that some form of Advaitic preparation can lead to,
in fact, the supremely personal Lord. A key aspect of these debates relates to whether
knowledge (jñāna) or devotional love (bhakti) is the most spiritually efficacious means
to liberation. The sixteenth-century Vaiṣṇava theologian Jīva Gosvāmī argues in his
Tattvasandarbha (46) that knowledge, in fact, depends on bhakti (Elkman 1986: 144).
Reflecting the views of Jīva, Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977), the founder of ISKCON,
lays out a scheme which is, to use our classification, informed by RD2: “A directly Kṛṣṇa
conscious person is the topmost transcendentalist because such a devotee knows what
is meant by Brahman or Paramātmā. His knowledge of the Absolute Truth is perfect,
whereas the impersonalist [Advaitin] and the meditative yogī are imperfectly Kṛṣṇa
conscious” (Prabhupada 1972: 318). Therefore, the worshipper who is “engaged in pure
devotional service” to the supreme Lord is already in the state of unity with the absolute
(brahma-bhūta), which for the Advaitin is the highest goal (Prabhupada 1972: 822). In
other words, the rival forms of doctrinal understanding, ritual practice, and spiritual
training are to be situated at preparatory stages on a graduated ascent to liberation. A
key thesis of this essay is that these internal Vedāntic exegetical manoeuvres have been
extended by defenders of various types of Vedāntic systems to “religious diversity”
on contemporary global landscapes. Thus a thinker developing Advaita motifs can
argue that all forms of personal theism (Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, Judaism, Islam, and
Christianity) are preparatory for the realization of the transpersonal absolute. For
instance, from a broadly Advaitic perspective, Swami Vivekananda uses the concept
of dvaita—which he says is the “first stage” in an individual’s religious progress—to
refer not only to the classical Vedāntic system of Madhva but also to Christianity and
Islam (Vivekananda 1972: vol. 5, 81–2). A member of, say, a Vaiṣṇava sampradāya can,
in turn, use this template to claim that all modes of spiritual striving are purificatory
devices which ultimately lead, through the cultivation of unalloyed devotional love, to
the supreme Lord of all perfections.

9.1 The Hierarchical Encompassment of the Other

For the premodern Vedāntic traditions, the “religious diversity” they grapple with
is with respect to non-Vedic soteriological systems, such as Buddhism and Jainism,
or alternative doctrinal formulations within Vedic folds. Figures such as Śaṅkara,
Rāmānuja, and others developed distinctive orientations toward the diversity of mata
or sampradāya—the non-Vedic systems are often sharply rejected (RD1) because they
are not rooted in Vedic truth, while the competing Vedāntic streams are partially
accepted (RD2) on the grounds that they too contain spiritual resources which can
guide aspirants toward the ultimate end (Daniel 2000: 22–58). The conceptual lens
through which they viewed the rival systems of philosophical thought, ritual training,
and contemplative practice was their distinctive exegetical formulations of the
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 259

Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad-Gītā, and the Brahmasūtra. These “triple foundations” are
themselves seemingly composed of multiple doctrinal claims about the way the world
is, so that distinctive forms of Vedāntic exegeses emerged, each claiming to encompass
comprehensively these scriptural texts within its synoptic vision. For instance, the
Bhagavad-Gītā contains certain verses which seemingly strike monist or nondualist
notes, while others suggest an ontological distinction between the human person and
the divine reality.
A key theme which shapes the conceptual engagements of Śaṅkara (c. 800 CE)
with systems which affirm metaphysical dualism or pluralism is the notion of the
two standpoints of truth. We find Śaṅkara working with these two standpoints when
in his commentary on the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (Madhavananda 1950: 317), he
responds to the argument that there would be no practices of teaching and learning
about Brahman if Brahman is the sole reality. Śaṅkara replies that if the objector is
suggesting that on the realization that Brahman is the only reality, instruction and
learning will cease, such is also his view. However, if teaching is regarded as useless even
before an individual’s Brahman-realization, such a claim should be rejected because
it contradicts the assumption that instruction about Brahman guides aspirants to the
final goal. From this empirical stance, acts of devotional worship (upāsanāni) can be
seen as leading to different results such as gradual emancipation (kramamukti) or
worldly success (karmasamṛddhi), where these distinct acts are ultimately directed at
the highest Self (Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya [BSB] I, 1, 11; Thibaut 1890: vol. 1, 62). Śaṅkara’s
attitude to ritual action and devotional practice remains a subject of intense scholarly
dispute, which is informed partly by the accent one places on the “continuity” or
the “discontinuity” between the two standpoints. On the one hand, given that all
empirical reality is metaphysically nondual (advaita) with the transpersonal Brahman,
devotional love directed at a finite deity is somehow subsumed into the practice
of self-realization. On the other hand, the worship in itself of gods or goddesses is
subject to conditions of empirical finitude, and should be seen as a pedagogical tool
or soteriological device orienting individuals toward the ultimate goal. Śaṅkara’s
point that devotional acts (bhakti) are invested with some measure of soteriological
efficacy because they can lead to Advaitic self-realization is vital for our purposes, as
it indicates that he does not view the notion of a personal divine (īśvara) merely in
terms of a subordinate step on a ladder toward the nondual summit of the nirguṇa
reality. While there is a sense in which we may speak, from an empirical standpoint,
of an individual progressing from a “lower” stage of object-oriented bhakti to the
“highest” ineffable state of jñāna, the empirical value of the former is not simply cast
away but is sublated by the transcendental perfection of the latter. Thus, J.G. Suthren
Hirst argues that for Śaṅkara, Nārāyaṇa is the highest Self, and the inner controller of
all beings who, in his avatāric role as Kṛṣṇa, the teacher, takes the initiative to instruct
human beings about their nonduality with the Self. Therefore, she criticises as one-
sided the views of scholars who have regarded the relations between the Lord and
the transpersonal Brahman as one of subordinationism such that the former is either
a compromise to popular devotion or an appendage that can be discarded through
right knowledge (1993: 140). Several scholars such as Paul Hacker have noted in this
connection that Śaṅkara uses the concept of the personal Lord in contexts where
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one would have expected to find the concept of the highest Self (paraṃ brahma),
and vice versa. For instance, in Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya 1.2.1, Śaṅkara refers to paraṃ
brahma as the cause of the world (jagatkāraṇam), even though causal powers are
usually attributed by him to the personal Lord (Halbfass 1995: 91). He seems to
have been aware that those who are struggling to apprehend the nondual Brahman
need to cultivate conceptual meditation based on homologies between the inner and
the outer (upāsanas), even though these processes in themselves are not equivalent
to final liberation (Dalal 2016, Chapter 1 in this volume). Therefore, Śaṅkara can
defend the practice of meditating on Brahman as the Self as more minute than a
grain of sand, on the grounds that because the all-pervasive (sarvagata) Brahman
is present everywhere, it is possible to meditate on Brahman as circumscribed by a
specific location. The Lord (īśvara) who is present everywhere is gracious (prasīdati)
to those who devoutly contemplate on the Lord as present in the heart (BSB I, 2, 7;
Thibaut 1890: vol. 1, 114).
Śaṅkara’s key exegetical moves can be summarized as follows—personal theism,
which is grounded in Vedic sources, is soteriologically preparatory and significant if
its styles of meditative worship are relocated in the context of metaphysical nonduality
between the embodied self and the transpersonal divine which is beyond all descriptions,
qualities, and features. That is, devotional love is soteriologically efficacious to the
extent that it is a spiritual technique which is geared toward Brahman provided that,
following RD2, its metaphysical underpinnings of duality are reformulated in the
register of nonduality between the devotee and the divine. For instance, commenting
on the Bhagavad-Gītā at VIII.22, Śaṅkara writes that the Highest Person is to be
obtained through exclusive devotion (bhakti), which is redefined in terms of knowledge
which has for its object the true Self (ātman) (Sastry 1897: 233–4). Again, provided
that the notion of transformation of the manifestations (vyūhas) of the divine reality
is removed, Śaṅkara even says that he does not reject the Bhāgavata doctrine that
individuals should worship the Lord at temples, and cultivate single-minded devotion
(BSB II, 2, 42; Thibaut 1890: vol. 1, 440–1). Therefore, it is more accurate, we suggest,
to see bhakti as “hierarchically encompassed” by jñāna than to claim that it is simply
negated on the ascent to the Advaitic summit. However, systems that do not accept the
Vedas as the only reliable source of knowledge regarding the ultimate reality are to be
more decisively rejected, for without such scriptural guidance human reasoning (tarka)
is insufficient for liberation. Thus, articulating RD1, Śaṅkara reserves some particularly
harsh words for the Buddha who he says was perhaps full of hatred for people and
propounded contradictory doctrines so that these would confuse them (BSB II, 2, 32;
Thibaut 1890: vol. 1, 428). This anti-Buddhist vehemence is captured in a hagiographical
narrative which narrates that when the gods approached Śiva and told him that the
land had become filled with the followers of the Buddha, Śiva replied that he would
be born in the form of Śaṅkara to reestablish the dharmic path and to vanquish the
followers of the mistaken views (duṣṭācāravināśāya) (Swami Tapasyananda 1986: 4–5).
At the same time, Śaṅkara can on occasion speak favorably of non-Vedic practices
such as yogic meditation as ways of cultivating mental purification, provided the
ontological dualisms of Sāṃkhya and Yoga are rejected (Rukmani 1993: 401). Thus,
arguing against the Sāṁkhya view that nonconscious nature (pradhāna) evolves
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 261

into the phenomenal world, Śaṅkara states that the omnipresent Lord, fictitiously
endowed with the power of māyā, produces the world of name and form (BSB II, 2,
1–II, 2, 2; Thibaut 1890: vol. 1, 363–9). Again, commenting on the Bhagavad-Gītā at
V.26, Samkara states that karmayoga, when performed with an attitude of complete
devotion to the Lord, gradually leads to liberation, first by the purification of the
mind, then by the attainment of knowledge, and then by the renunciation of actions
(sattvaśuddhijñānaprāptisarvakarmasaṃnyāsakrameṇa) (Sastry 1897: 177).
Śaṅkara’s engagements with Vedic traditions and systems of non-Vedic provenance
are paralleled in the exegetical endeavors of his archrival, Rāmānuja (1017–1137), who
argues that the Advaita teaching of undifferentiated Brahman as the ultimate foundation
is contrary to reality and can only strengthen empirical bondage (Thibaut 1904: 145).
For Rāmānuja, the Advaitic teachings have been:

devised by men who are destitute of those particular qualities which cause
individuals to be chosen by the Supreme Person [Viṣṇu–Nārāyaṇa] revealed in
the Upanishads; whose intellects are darkened by the impression of beginningless
evil; and who thus have no insight into the nature of words and sentences, into the
real purport conveyed by them, and into the procedure of sound argumentation.
(Thibaut 1904: 39)

Further, with respect to non-Vedic systems, Rāmānuja argues that what is rejected
in the Sāṃkhya system and the Yoga system is not their basic teachings, but specific
views which deny that Brahman is the inner self of the world and the substantial cause
of the world respectively (Thibaut 1904: 530–1). Piḷḷan, a twelfth-century disciple of
Rāmānuja, provides a classic exemplification of RD2 in his answer to the question as
to why the supreme Lord Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa leads some individuals to take refuge in the
lesser gods:

If everyone were to get liberated, then this earth, where people who do good or evil
deeds can experience the fruits of their karma, would cease to function. To ensure
the continuation of the world, the omnipotent supreme Lord himself graciously
brought it about that you who have done evil deeds … will, as a result of your
demerit, resort to other gods and go through births and deaths. (Carman and
Narayanan 1989: 208)

Therefore, gnosis (jñāna) and devotion (bhakti) are not two hermetically sealed
concepts, such that a “gnostic” Śaṅkara indicates the former and a “devotional”
Rāmānuja invokes the latter as the means to liberation; rather, both Śaṅkara and
Rāmānuja interweave them, via RD2, into their divergent visions of the ultimate
goal. Given the conceptual fluidity of jñāna and bhakti, we can see how a latter-day
Advaitin, Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (c. 1600 CE), could have written the Bhaktirasāyana
and his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gītā, the Gūḍhārthadīpikā, for two distinct
audiences. According to L.E. Nelson (1988: 85), Madhusūdana composed the first to
recommend Advaitic standpoints to devotees who are outside the Śaṅkara lineages,
and the second to recommend devotion to fellow ascetics within the Śaṅkara lineages.
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Thus whereas in the former text, devotion is set out as an independent path that leads
to liberation and as the highest goal of life (paramapuruṣārtha), in the latter text
devotion is ultimately subordinated to knowledge which is attained through scriptural
meditation. These conceptual negotiations of the boundaries across sampradāyas
became a delicate matter some centuries later as Jīva engaged with the commentarial
work of Śrīdhara Svāmī, who was an ascetic of the Advaitic Purī order, and for whom
Caitanya seems to have had the highest regard (De 1961: 20). R.M. Gupta (2007: 80)
argues that on occasions when Śrīdhara’s Advaitically inflected readings cannot
be easily accommodated into Caitanya Vaiṣṇava horizons, Jīva reads the Advaita
themes through the prism of difference and non-difference (bhedābheda) and arrives
at the same conclusion as Śrīdhara. Jīva argues that Śrīdhara is a great Vaiṣṇava
whose writings are mixed with the teachings of Advaita so that an appreciation of
the greatness of the Lord (bhagavān) can be awakened in the Advaitins. Therefore,
his own commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa will be written in accordance
with Śrīdhara’s views only when these conform to the strict Vaiṣṇava standpoint
(śuddhavaiṣṇavasiddhāntānugatā) (Elkman 1986: 118).
These strategies of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Jīva—which involve variations on
RD2—can be labelled modes of “hierarchical encompassment,” where the rival
Vedāntic standpoint is subsumed into one’s own by hierarchically assigning to it a
provisional stage on the spectrum of spiritual progress. Thus J. Gonda (1970: 95) notes
that often Hindu thinkers are “even inclined to include and completely to incorporate
a foreign system into their own, declaring it to represent the next best doctrine,
reinterpreting its mythology, symbolism and metaphysics, and accepting its god as a
servant or manifestation of their Highest Being.” A standard Vaiṣṇava way of dealing
with Buddhism was to argue in this manner that Viṣṇu Himself became incarnate
as the Buddha in order to delude the demons into not following the Vedic path and
thereby lead them astray (Long 2013: 49). As Vaiṣṇavites and Śaivites began to generate
polemical literature directed against each other, they often employed the mode of
RD2 to position either Viṣṇu or Śiva as the penultimate god who is reconfigured as a
devotee of their own supreme divinity. Thus, according to the Śrī Vaiṣṇava theologian
Veṅkaṭanātha, Nārāyaṇa alone is the ultimate reality, and not other deities such as
Brahmā and Śiva who can be seen from the Upaniṣadic texts to be finite selves who
are subject to the karmic cycle (Clooney and Nicholson 2001: 100). From a Śaivite
standpoint, the late eleventh-century theologian Somaśambhu turns the tables on
Vaiṣṇavites by claiming that the worshippers of Viṣṇu will be reborn in hell unless they
undergo a ritual transformation to Śaivism (Nicholson 2010: 3). The Civañāṇacittiyār,
a fourteenth-century Śaiva Siddhānta text of Aruḷananti, which attacks Vaiṣṇavism for
its belief in the avatāras of the Lord, on the grounds that such descents would immerse
the Lord in empirical defects, presents a fine-grained series of doctrinal positions in
order of decreasing error in the following manner: (1) the materialists (Lokāyatas),
(2) the nontheistic schools such as the Buddhists and the Jainas, (3) the Mīmāṃsā
ritual theory, (4) the grammarian view that Brahman is the word, (5) nondualists
such as Śaṅkara, (6) thinkers such as Bhāskara who see the world as real and not-real,
(7) dualists such as Sāṃkhya thinkers, and (8) devotees of Nārāyaṇa (Clooney and
Nicholson 2001: 114–15).
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 263

However, once again, the polemical responses to non-Vedic systems, along the
lines of RD1, were more direct. According to tradition, Appar, who was a respected
Digambar Jain monk, became a Śaivite after a miraculous healing on singing a hymn of
praise to Śiva at a temple. Appar composed several hymns repenting his time as a Jain
and dedicating himself wholeheartedly to Śiva:

O god who pierced the delusion

that afflicted me
when I joined the Jains
and became a wicked monk!
O bright flame, celestial being
who stands as the pure path,
bull among the immortals,
honey who dwells in Tiruvaiyāṟu!
I wander as your servant,
worshipping and singing your feet.
(Peterson 1989: 286)

9.2 The Reciprocal Entanglement of Dualities

As we move toward the second millennium, some of the Vedāntic traditions begin
to develop forms of RD3, where the seeming oppositions between devotion to Viṣṇu
and devotion to Śiva, nirguṇa Brahman and saguṇa Brahman, and jñāna and bhakti
are recalibrated and presented as deeply interrelated. While some of the Purāṇas,
which are specifically composed from either Vaiṣṇava or Śaiva standpoints, articulate
modes of RD2, others can occasionally strike more irenic notes (Rocher 1986: 21–2).
The Varāha-Purāṇa (70.26–7) declares at one place that those who are learned in the
three Vedas and adept in sacrifices have declared that people who make distinctions
(bheda) between Viṣṇu, Brahmā, and Rudra are sinful and wicked and fall downward
(pāpakārī duṣṭātmā durgatiṃ samavāpnuyāt) (Sastri 1893: 119). The Kurma-Purāṇa
(I.26.15–16) presents Kṛṣṇa as saying that even if people who worship Him with
single-minded devotion revile Śiva, they go to ten thousand hells. Therefore,
His devotees should avoid censuring (nindā) Śiva, in action, thought, or speech
(Gupta 1971: 244). These interweavings between Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava motifs have also
characterized the socioreligious history of the Daśanāmī order, a group of ten Hindu
monastic lineages supposedly founded by Śaṅkara. The order is often regarded as
Śaivite, and the monks wear Śaivite marks on their foreheads and arms; however, in
greeting one another they use the Vaiṣṇava mantra “Oṃ Namo Nārāyaṇāya.” W.H.
Dazey explains this overlap by suggesting that though in medieval centuries the
order came to be regarded as Śaivite through the absorption of Śaivite ascetics, it
retains various types of Vaiṣṇavite themes and practices (Dazey 1993: 148).
More famously, while certain verses in the second, third, and eleventh cantos
of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa speak of meditative absorption into Brahman, the tenth
canto develops the vocabulary of ecstatic love (prema) for the Lord and the torment
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of separation (viraha) from the Lord. The text weaves together both these forms
of devotion in, according to D.P. Sheridan, a “vision of non-dualism with qualities
(saviśeṣādvaita),” where one form emphasizes the relative nothingness of the devotee
in face of the Lord and the other the devotional involvement of the Lord with his
devotees (Sheridan 1986: 116–17). The distinctions between nirguṇa Brahman and
saguṇa Brahman become particularly fuzzy in the writings of some of the bhakti
poets. According to C. Vaudeville (1999: 250), the Jñāneśvarī (c. 1290 CE), Jñānadeva’s
commentary on the Bhagavad-Gītā, presents a hybrid form of Vaiṣṇava-Śaiva
devotion, where the question is left open as to whose divine name—Viṣṇu or Śiva—is
to be taken in meditative remembrance (smaraṇa). The divisions of medieval poet-
saints into two groups—Rāma or Kṛṣṇa bhaktas and holy figures (sants) from nirguṇī
perspectives—obscure certain crisscrossing overlaps across the groups, and we should
rather regard these influential poets as ranging over a spectrum and not clustered
around specific doctrinal groups (Hawley 1984: 124). Such intersections are especially
clear in the case of Tulsīdās, who is often presented as an artist whose great skill lay in
the harmonization (samanvaya) of various divides, such as jñāna and bhakti, nirguṇa
and saguṇa conceptions of the deity, and so on (Pathak 1964: 112). While Rāma in the
Rāmacaritamānasa of Tulsīdās is not simply an avatāra of Viṣṇu, but is the supreme
Godhead, and is thus presented in several verses as superior to Śiva and Brahmā,
Rāma is also depicted in other verses as possessing a devotional attitude to Śiva whom
he reverentially worships. According to R. Bharadwaj (1979: 31–2), in fact, Tulsīdās
does not regard Rāma, the son of Daśaratha, as metaphysically lower than nirguṇa
Brahman, because while the concepts of saguṇa and nirguṇa are contradictory from
our human perspectives, they “supplement each other as necessary qualifications” of
divine perfection, which transcends finite logical constraints.
At the same time, we should not overlook the continuance of modes of RD2
which were employed for the reinforcement of strong boundary lines across the
divides of sampradāyas. The polemic force of the critiques of rival Vedāntic systems
developed by the south Indian Mādhva theologian Vyāsatīrtha was felt all the way
in northern Varanasi, prompting Madhusūdana Sarasvatī famously to attempt a
systematic refutation of his Nyāyāmṛta (Stoker 2016: 2–4). The religious landscape
of early modern south India was characterized by a range of devotional groups, such
as Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava, Mādhva, Smārta, and others, whose public theologians defended
their particular worldview as the culmination of Hindu orthodoxy. From this
period, Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava theologians from different communities were, according
to E. Fisher, “thoroughly preoccupied not with unity but with difference—with
advocating the truth of one Hindu community above all others” (2017: 48). The
motif of RD2 continues to shape the writings of medieval doxographers such as
Mādhava and Madhusūdana Sarasvatī who sought to encompass a wide range of
philosophical views by assigning them different ranks in a hierarchical scheme,
at whose pinnacle they placed Advaita Vedānta. For instance, Mādhava placed a
series of philosophical-theological systems in such a manner that the truth of each
succeeding item on the list negated and corrected, that is to say “sublated,” the
deficiencies of the former. The hedonists (Cārvākas) are defeated by the Buddhists,
who are overturned by the Jains, who are refuted by the various devotional systems
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 265

of Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism, till one arrives at the penultimate stage of Yoga, the
truth of which is most fully realized in Advaita Vedānta (Nicholson 2010: 160).

9.3 The Harmonization of World Religions

A recurring theme in several contemporary presentations of Hinduism by modern

Vedāntic Hindu writers is that it possesses a harmonizing quality, and it brings together
the diverse religious experiences of humanity into a synthetic whole. As we will see,
figures such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Swami Vivekananda, and others reconfigured
the patterns of RD1, RD2, and RD3 in somewhat distinctive ways to argue that forms
of Vedāntic Hinduism provide the spiritual essence which informs different modes of
human religious striving. Their modernized forms of Vedāntic wisdom, which present
the transcendental goal of Brahman pointed to by the scriptures such as the Upaniṣads
as realizable across cultural, national, or ethnic boundaries, are characterized by
a “catholic” acceptance of religious diversity. Our discussion in previous sections
has indicated that there is no one Vedāntic standpoint on the diversity of doctrinal
viewpoints, devotional practices, and ritual ­systems—thus, while Advaitins, Śaivas, and
Vaiṣṇavas all work with forms of RD1 and RD2 in polemic contests, several Purāṇas
and some bhakti streams can also elaborate forms of RD3. Several modern Vedāntic
thinkers who rework these classical and premodern moves, as they seek to view the
diversity of the “world religions” through the prisms of Vedāntic scriptural texts, were
associated in different ways with the Brahmo Samaj, founded by Rammohun Roy
in 1828. In the late 1840s, Debendranath Tagore and Rajnarain Bose collaborated
to produce a Brahmo holy book, called Brāhma Dharmaḥ, with quotations from the
Upaniṣads, the Mahābhārata, the Manusmṛti, and so on. After Keshub Chandra Sen
broke away from them to form the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866, he compiled a new
collection of texts from religious scriptures across the world. The Sanskrit epigram of
the book read:

The wide universe is the holy temple of God;

the pure heart is the land of pilgrimage;
truth is imperishable scripture.
(Hatcher 1999: 110–11)

The declaration that Sen read out at the consecration of the temple of the new
organization in August 1869 is effectively an elaboration of this epigram: “No created
being or object that has been or may hereafter be worshipped by any sect shall be
ridiculed or condemned in the course of the Divine Service to be conducted here … No
sect shall be vilified, ridiculed or hated” (Pankratz 1987: 30). Sen’s quest for a new
synthesis of the world’s religions led him toward a “Church Universal” which:

recognises in all prophets and saints a harmony, in all scriptures a unity and
through all dispensations a continuity, which abjures all that separates and divides,
always magnifies unity and peace, which harmonizes reason and faith, yoga and
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bhakti, asceticism and social duty in their highest forms and which shall make of
all nations and sects one kingdom and one family in the fullness of time. (cited in
Halbfass 1990: 225)

More tersely, Sen declared, “Gentleman, trifle not with unity because in the logic of
synthesis is the world’s salvation” (cited in Kopf 1979: 275). This logic was dramatically
exemplified in 1881, when he performed the sacramental rite of the Eucharist by
replacing bread and wine with rice and water, and took his followers to the Hooghly
river where, after asking them to imagine they were in the River Jordan eighteen
centuries ago, he offered a prayer to Varuṇa, as an aspect of the divine force that
pervades everything. This spiritual unity, modelled along the lines of what we have
termed RD3, was to be realized in his “New Dispensation” which would bring together
all the saints and the prophets of the different religious traditions of the world: “The
Lord Jesus is my will, Socrates my head, Chaitanya my heart, the Hindu rishi my
soul” (Kopf 1979: 276). While the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj was, in turn, composed
of Brahmos who had moved away from Sen’s organization, its declaration at its new
temple in January 1881 struck similar chords of universality: “The catholicity of
Brahmoism shall also be preserved here … In the sermons, discourses, and prayers
used in this Hall, no scripture or sect, or founder of a sect, shall ever be ridiculed,
reviled, or spoken of contemptuously” (Pankratz 1987: 32).

9.3.1 Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda

The theme of the transcendental unity of the world’s religions shapes various aspects
of the thought of Swami Vivekananda, who was for a while a member of the Brahmo
Samaj. As a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86) who experimented
with theistic and nontheistic forms of mysticism as alternative approaches to the
supreme reality, Vivekananda sometimes speaks of the harmony that his master
achieved between the teachings of the followers of Śaṅkara, on the one hand, and
of theists such as Rāmānuja, on the other hand. Ramakrishna used various homely
metaphors, such as the water being called by different names by different people, an
ascent to the top of a house by means of a ladder or a staircase or a rope, a mother
who feeds her children with different preparations to suit each of them, and so on
to emphasize the point that different religions have been produced by the divine to
suit different aspirants, times, and countries (Smith 1991: 74–5). Chiding human
beings for fighting over religious affiliations, Ramakrishna argued, “I see people who
talk about religion constantly quarrelling with one another. Hindus, Mussalmāns,
Brāhmos, Śāktas, Vaishnavas, Śaivas, all quarrelling with one another. They haven’t the
intelligence to understand that He who is called Krishna is also Śiva and the Primal
Śakti, and that it is He, again, who is called Jesus and Allah” (Nikhilananda 2007: 423).
Ramakrishna does not suggest that the approach of the Advaitin “gnostic” (jñānī) is
superior to that of the theistic devotee (bhakti): the state that both may arrive at is that
of the seer (vijñānī) who knows “that the Reality which is nirguṇa, without attributes,
is also saguṇa, with attributes” (Nikhilananda 2007: 104). Though Ramakrishna is
sometimes presented as having moved through theistic experiences to the apex of
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 267

Advaitic absorption, the reminiscences recorded in the Śrīśrīrāmakṛṣnakathāmṛta

reveal instead an array of Vaiṣṇava, Tāntric, and Vedāntic experiences without any
clear-cut hierarchical organization among them (Matchett 1981). Ramakrishna’s
conception of the ultimate reality as encapsulating both impersonal and personal
aspects, and harmonizing seemingly conflicting religious traditions, so that both
theistic and nontheistic pathways are directed to the common goal of the realization of
the divine, is a quintessential instance of the mode we have presented as RD3 (also see
Long, Chapter 5 in this volume). There are diverse spiritually efficacious routes to the
divine which is limitless, and each religious route captures a real aspect of the divine
(Maharaj 2017). Consequently, although Ramakrishna did not believe in a universal
religion which should be adopted by everyone, he was a “religious universalist” who
believed that human beings could be liberated through their distinctive religious
traditions (Sharma 1998: 42).
Swami Vivekananda strikes the notes of his guru when he urges us to gather
nectar from many flowers in the manner of bees which are not restricted to only one;
therefore, he expressed a wish for “twenty million more” sects which would provide
individuals with a wider field for choice in the religious domain (Vivekananda 1972:
vol. 1, 325). In his famous words at the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893, Swami
Vivekananda stated that he was “proud to belong to a religion that has taught the
world both tolerance and universal acceptance … [and] proud to belong to a nation
which has sheltered the persecuted and refugees of all religions and all nations of
the earth” (1972: vol. 1, 3). All the historical religions are multiple expressions of the
“great universal truth,” which forms the essence or the substance underlying them
(1972: vol. 2, 365). The nonessentials, which constitute the differences across religions,
pertain only to “secondary details” such as doctrines, rituals, and modes of worship
(1972: vol. 1, 124). Given the variations of human subjectivities and inclinations, it
is but proper that there are numerous religious ways, since, as Ramakrishna taught,
“The more the number of paths, the more the chance for every one of us to know the
truth” (1972: vol. 8, 79). The recognition of the validity of diverse religious streams
implies that it does not matter “whether one approaches the destination in a carriage
with four horses, in an electric car, or rolling on the ground. The goal is the same”
(1972: vol. 1, 468). However, a careful reading of his various statements on the theme
of “religious diversity” in his Complete Works indicates a gradualist scheme where
the dvaita of Madhva, the viśiṣṭādvaita of Rāmānuja, and the advaita of Śaṅkara are
arranged on an ascending scale, so that individuals who start with the first point could
ultimately culminate in the third point: “This is … my mission in life, to show that the
Vedāntic schools are not contradictory, that they all necessitate each other, all fulfil
each other, until the goal, the Advaita, the Tat Tvam Asi, is reached” (1972: vol. 3, 324).
The religious streams which have not arrived at the apex, “even at their best” are “but
kindergartens of religion” and “the rudiments of religion” (1972: vol. 8, 140). He
could therefore employ modes of RD2 to place Advaitic wisdom at a higher standing
with respect to the devotionalism of the theistic “masses,” in passages such as these:
“Devotion as taught by Nārada, he [Ramakrishna] used to preach to the masses, those
who were incapable of any higher training. He used generally to teach dualism. As a
rule, he never taught Advaitism. But he taught it to me. I had been a dualist before”
268 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

(1972: vol. 7, 414). From this Advaitic standpoint, he spoke of the personal deity “as
the same Absolute seen through Maya” (1972: vol. 5, 300). He claimed that most of
the world’s religious people are dualists, for they are unable to approach the formless
ultimate without relying on concrete images. These religious forms have not attained
the heights of Advaita and are “parts equally struggling to attain to the whole” (1972:
vol. 2, 141). From the standpoint of this whole, one can claim that “Advaitism is the
last word of religion and thought and the only position from which one can look upon
all religions and sects with love” (1972: vol. 6, 415).
Thus, when Swami Vivekananda argues that the religions of the world “are not
contradictory; they are supplementary” (1972: vol. 2, 365), it turns out that these
religions are “supplementary” to the higher-order truth of forms of Advaita Vedānta,
which, because it lies at the apex of human religious expressions, is able to encompass
the lower truths. The “universal religion” he speaks of is comprehensive in its breadth:
“All the ideals of religion that already exist in the world can be immediately included,
and we can patiently wait for all the ideals that are to come in the future to be taken in
the same fashion, embraced in the infinite arms of the religion of the Vedānta” (1972:
vol. 3, 252). Therefore, reading the proclamation of Christ “I and my Father are one”
through an Advaitic lens, Vivekananda argued:

To the masses who could not conceive of anything higher than a Personal God, he
said, “Pray to your Father in heaven.” To others who could grasp a higher idea, he
said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” but to his disciples to whom he revealed
himself more fully, he proclaimed the highest truth, “I and my Father are One.”
(1972: vol. 2, 143)

Vivekananda believed that what separates Christ from us is not that he is God and
we are not (for all are essentially nondual with the transpersonal ultimate) but that
he has realized his inner divinity to the highest level of perfection. All individuals
have the potentiality of becoming perfect manifestations of the “eternal Christ,”
and the historical individual called Jesus of Nazareth was only one token of this
type. This is how Vivekananda puts it: “The Atman is pure intelligence … But the
intelligence we see around us is always imperfect. When intelligence is perfect, we
get the ­Incarnation—the Christ” (1972: vol. 6, 128). While these quotations indicate
the presence of RD2 in some of Vivekananda’s reflections on religious diversity, it has
also been argued that this RD2 itself is located within the wider environs of RD3,
thus bringing Vivekananda’s standpoint nearer to that of his guru (1972: vol. 1, xv).
According to this reading, the Advaita which he places at the summit of the religious
quest is not the classical archetype of Śaṅkara but an infinitely expansive plenitude
which includes both Advaitic self-knowledge and devotional practice. A hierarchical
positioning of the penultimate truths of the religious traditions with respect to the
higher-order truth of Advaita appears prominently in the writings of some figures
of the Ramakrishna Mission who have argued that “theistic religion does find and
must find its consummation and final satisfaction in the trance of nirvikalpa samādhi
in which all personality, human or divine, vanishes. In this light, those Christian,
Jewish, Muslim and Hindu traditions that are based upon the conception of a personal
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 269

Deity are seen as being of positive but preparatory value” (Neevel 1976: 96). Once
again, however, other monks of the Ramakrishna Mission affirm standpoints which
are formulations of RD3 and thus nearer to Ramakrishna’s position regarding the
equal soteriological efficacy of both Advaitic self-realization and devotional worship
(Tapasyananda 1990: xxxi).

9.3.2 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Radhakrishnan too adopts the conceptual strategy of “hierarchical encompassment,”
which he applies not only to the internal variety of the Hindu traditions but also
to the external diversity of world religions, so that the latter are oriented to the
Advaitic transpersonal ultimate. He argues that just as the author of the Brahmasūtra
(c. 400 CE) tried to harmonize the divergent doctrines of his time, Hindus today have
to perform the same harmonizing (samanvaya) in the “present state” of knowledge
(Radhakrishnan 1960: 249). For Radhakrishnan, there are two broad categories
of “religion”—first, the “monistic” religions which emphasize the immanence of
the spirit in the realm of phenomenal reality, and second, the “theistic” religions
which regard the spirit as the other with whom one can enter into a communion
but cannot become assimilated (Radhakrishnan 1932: 100–7). These differences are
legitimized by the fact that they are partly a product of an individual’s temperament,
her location in a finite cultural environment and her daily experiences, and out of
this crucible there emerge different religions with distinct emphases. The sages of
the Upaniṣads repeatedly affirm the transience and the unreality of the world; the
Buddha’s way of liberation is grounded in his acute realization of the suffering that
is built into existence; the Hebrew prophets and Muhammad were, in their own
ways, struck by the majesty of a supreme God of righteousness; Protestant Christians
regard God as the loving Father ever-willing to welcome them even when they have,
like prodigal children, strayed away from Him; and the Catholic Christians and
the Śākta Hindus view God as the compassionate and loving Mother. Therefore,
Radhakrishnan emphasizes at several places in his writings that the different religions
of the world, with the specific impulses and values that they embody, should come
together in mutual friendship so that they are regarded “not as incompatibles but
as complementaries, and so indispensable to each other for the realization of the
common end” (Radhakrishnan 1927: 60). A repeated theme in his writings is that we
should not confuse our vision of the truth, which is developed from within specific
sociohistorical matrices, with the fullness of truth, and thus claim that the rest of the
world is steeped in spiritual darkness (Minor 1981: 315). At the same time, what he
looks forward to is not a “featureless unity of religions” in a world whose religious
peoples are rapidly coming close in bonds of sympathy and warmth but a rich
harmony which will preserve the integrity of each (Radhakrishnan 1967: 133–4). In
this context, Hinduism is marked by its “catholic” vision that accepts the different ideas
of the supreme and recognizes that different human beings have attained different
stages of spiritual perfection, and consequently seek the ultimate in different ways
and in different directions: “By accepting the significance of the different intuitions
of reality and the different scriptures of the peoples living in India … Hinduism has
270 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

come to be a tapestry of the most variegated tissues and almost endless diversity of
hues” (Radhakrishnan 1927: 20).
Nevertheless, though the historical religions should maintain their distinctiveness
and reach out to one another in bonds of fellowship, Radhakrishnan insists, employing
a form of RD2, that those that are based on the theistic conception of the Absolute as a
personal God who is the creator and sustainer of the universe emerge from minds that
are not perfectly enlightened. The personal God is the Absolute as it is conceived by
human beings, and in this limitation the Absolute appears as supreme wisdom, love,
and goodness (Radhakrishnan 1932: 344–5). Consequently, Radhakrishnan affirms
that there is a graduated scale of the religious experiences of humanity, with theistic
notions at a lower level than the transpersonal or the monistic: “The assumption of
a personal God as the ground of being and creator of the universe is the first stage
of the obscuring and restriction of the vision which immediately perceives the great
illumination of Reality” (Radhakrishnan 1967: 122). Therefore, all views of the one
reality are not at epistemic parity, and he outlines a scale starting from animistic notions
and going up to the Advaita Vedānta conception of the absolute: “The worshippers
of the Absolute are the highest in rank; second to them are the worshippers of the
personal God; then come the worshippers of the incarnations like Rāma, Kṛṣṇa,
Buddha; below them are those who worship ancestors, deities and sages, and lowest of
all are the worshippers of the petty forces and spirits” (Radhakrishnan 1927: 32). This
metaphysical gradation is based on Radhakrishnan’s understanding of “Religion” as
the attempt to remake oneself through the harmonizing and integration of the inner
conflicts between one’s dim consciousness of the essential unity with ultimate reality
and one’s awareness of the possibility of nonbeing (Radhakrishnan 1967: 106). For
him, “Religion” is not the acceptance of doctrinal abstractions or performance of ritual
ceremonies, but a direct insight into the nature of reality or an experience (anubhava)
of reality (Radhakrishnan 1927: 15). Every historical religion is imperfect and cannot
claim to be absolute, but all these religious forms are expressions of a common core
which he referred to with various names such as “the essence of religion,” “the life of
the spirit,” or Advaita Vedānta. In this reconstruction of Śaṅkara’s classical Vedānta,
Radhakrishnan argues that human beings are currently mired in their ignorance which
leads them to “superimpose” on the essential unity of the spirit the multiplicity of the
phenomenal world, and in order to be liberated from this delusive misidentification
they need to develop gradually spiritual insight (darśana) into the nature of reality as
fundamentally one. As one begins to restrain the centrifugal tendencies of one’s life
and draws them in around the self which seeks a living contact with the Absolute,
one begins to enjoy a spiritual experience where the subject and the object are not
clearly differentiated, and which is characterized by reality, awareness, and freedom
(Radhakrishnan 1932: 91–2). Following Śaṅkara, Radhakrishnan emphasizes that the
content of this experience is a that which ultimately remains transcendent and sovereign
beyond the grasp of finite minds, and the products of their creative imagination such
as myths and metaphors (Radhakrishnan 1932: 100).
Therefore, while Radhakrishnan’s argument that the different religious paths of
the world are valid and are suitable for the psychological dispositions of different
individuals might sound relativistic, it is backed by the fully realist claim that the
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 271

goal of these endeavors—the transpersonal ultimate—is the timeless nondual Self

which is independent of all human beliefs and linguistic constructions. Some forms
of relativism claim that each conceptual scheme delimits a possible “world” which is
not compatible with another “world” delimited by other schemes, and further that a
statement such as “it is true that p” should be read as elliptical for “it is true, within
conceptual scheme C, that p” (Baghramian 2004: 4). Radhakrishnan’s rejection of this
form of strong relativism is clear in his statement that:

Hinduism does not mistake tolerance for indifference. It affirms that while all
revelations refer to reality, they are not equally true to it … While the lesser forms
are tolerated in the interests of those who cannot suddenly transcend them, there
is all through an insistence on the larger idea and purer worship. Hinduism does
not believe in forcing up the pace of development. (Radhakrishnan 1927: 49)

Therefore, his view that India “realized from the cloudy heights of contemplation
that the spiritual landscape at the hill-top is the same, though the pathways from the
valley are different” (Radhakrishnan 1979: 98) should not be read along relativist
lines. To ensure that the different religious traditions are oriented toward the same
goal, Radhakrishnan needs a vantage point above the welter of particular traditions;
for him, this is the Advaitic realization of the nonduality of the finite human self
with the transpersonal ultimate. In his famous words, “The [Advaita] Vedānta is
not a religion, but religion itself in its most universal and deepest significance”
(Radhakrishnan 1927: 23). The spiritual “experience” intimated by Advaita, of the
realization of one’s nonduality with the transcendent reality, lies at the core of all the
religious traditions of the world, across the phenomenal bounds of culture, nation, and
history.

9.3.3 Vaiṣṇava Variations

The strands of RD2 we occasionally discern in Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan also
shape contemporary Vaiṣṇava readings of religious diversity—though here the apex
of the religious quest is the personal Lord, Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura
(1838–1914), who tried to develop a universalist version of Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism in
the late nineteenth century in Bengal, stated the point stridently: “The heart which
is penetrated by the fault of māyāvāda [Advaita] becomes hard as a thunderbolt
by degraded sophistry … There is nothing as contrary to bhakti as māyāvāda”
(Valpey 2006: 90). He sought to restore a pure (śuddha) form of Vaiṣṇavism by
removing certain excrescences which, according to him, had led the Bengali urban
middle classes (bhadralok) to reject Vaiṣṇavism completely. He argued that certain
sampradāyas which he considered to be non-Vaiṣṇava, such as the Bāuls, Neḍās,
Sahajiyās, and others, were harming pure Vaiṣṇavas by using the label of “Vaiṣṇava”
for themselves (Fuller 2003: 191–2). These attempts to retrieve a pure Vaiṣṇavism
internally within Hindu universes were extended to religious diversity on a global scale
(RD2), by working with the traditional Caitanya Vedānta scheme of five types of rasa:
śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, and mādhurya. The śānta-rasa is seen in the ancient
272 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

sages who renounced Vedic sacrifice and became detached from the world; the dāsya-
rasa in devotees of Rāma such as Hanumān and figures such as Moses in western Asia;
and the sakhya-rasa in figures such as Uddhava and Arjuna, and also in the Prophet
Muhammad in Arabia. There are many forms of vātsalya, and one form which is mixed
with opulence (aiśvarya) appeared in Jesus Christ. However, mādhurya shone brightly
for the first time in the land of Vraja (Ṭhākura 1880: 76–7). Bhaktivinoda’s son and
disciple, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī (1874–1937), undertook the unprecedented task of
spreading Caitanya Vedānta beyond the shores of India on the grounds that the “Lord
[Kṛṣṇa] desires His word to be preached to all living beings” (Sardella 2013: 140).
Indeed, as F. Sardella notes, Bhaktisiddhānta attempted a “deterritorialization” of
Hindu motifs by delinking them from their classical territorial locations in the Indian
subcontinent (Bhārata-varṣa), and sent his disciples to England to spread Bengal
Vaiṣṇavism and to set up transnational communities of devotees (Sardella 2013: 178).
The forms of “hierarchical encompassment” which structure these moves can also
be found in the view of Bhaktisiddhānta’s disciple, Swami Prabhupada, that Jesus is
not only an authentic representative of God, but is, in fact, the son of Kṛṣṇa, so that
Christians, even when they do not have explicit knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, are by spiritual
nature eternal servants of Kṛṣṇa (Gelberg 1989: 152). Just as Advaitins point toward
the ineffable ultimate reality which transcends the theological formulations associated
with the historical religions, for Prabhupada too the cultivation of devotional love is
not simply a religious movement: “The religion of the Bhagavad-gītā is not Hindu
religion or Christian religion … It is the essence of religion … To accept Kṛṣṇa as our
Lord … this is bhakti, or real religion” (Baird 1987: 122–3).

9.4 Gradualist Soteriologies

Various modern Vedāntins have backed up the strategies of RD2 and RD3 with
the doctrine of karma and reincarnation by sketching cosmic landscapes where
individuals in different religious traditions, or within the wider Hindu universes, are
located at different points of a spiritual trajectory on a pilgrimage toward the ultimate
reality. The notion that individuals at different stages of spiritual maturity are qualified
or eligible for varying modes of worship (adhikāra-bheda) has often been invoked
to situate the worship of images on a developmental continuum. Thus, Vivekananda
argues that all the religions “from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism” are
different attempts of human beings to apprehend the infinite, and each subsequent
level marks a state of progress (1972: vol. 1, 331–2). The preceding stages are not
completely erroneous but contain elements of truth: “You must remember that
humanity travels not from error to truth but from truth to truth; it may be, if you
like it better, from lower truth to higher truth, but never from error to truth” (1972:
vol. 4, 147). The theme appears in Radhakrishnan when, referring to the Hindu
practice of worshipping the deity in the favorite form of an iṣṭa-devatā, he writes,
“Suppose a Christian approaches a Hindu teacher for spiritual guidance, he would not
ask his Christian pupil to discard his allegiance to Christ but would tell him that his
idea of Christ was not adequate, and would lead him to a knowledge of the real Christ,
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 273

the incorporate Supreme” (Radhakrishnan 1927: 46). An American tourist, who was
Christian and who wished to become a Hindu, received a similar response from Sri
Chandrashekhara Bharati Swami of the Sringeri monastery: “It is no freak that you
were born a Christian. God ordained it that way because, by the saṃskāra acquired
through your actions (karma) in previous births, your soul has taken a pattern which
will find its richest fulfilment in the Christian way of life. Therefore your salvation lies
there and not in some other religion” (Sharma 2011: 126). The underlying Advaitic
claim here is that deep spiritual truths are accommodated to the different stages of
religious development of different human beings, who cannot move at once from
concrete images of the divine to the formless divine (Sarasvati 1988: 59–60). Through
their location within different religious streams, they can gradually ascend to the
same absolute toward which they are ultimately pointed. As V. Raghavan (cited in
Singer 1972: 83) puts it,

According to one’s stage of evolution and background, one can choose one’s deity
and continue the worship until, rising rung by rung, one reaches the highest
where all forms dissolve into the one formless. Because of this free choice of
approach, Hinduism has developed a philosophy of co-existence with other
religions and has always been tolerant and hospitable to other faiths like Islam
and Christianity.

While for Swami B.H. Bon Maharaj, a Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theologian, the absolute
knowledge of divinity refers not to the Advaitic nondual reality but to the worship of
Kṛṣṇa, he too accepts the gradualist outline of the journey toward spiritual perfection:
“One has got to go through many births … in religions of partial or relative truths
before one is born with the requisite intellectual and moral eligibility [adhikāra] to
practise [Hinduism]” (Young 1981: 148). These formulations highlight the point that
the saved versus unsaved distinction, which is sometimes starkly elaborated within
the Abrahamic faiths, is by and large nonexistent in Advaitic and theistic Hinduism
because of the belief that the ultimate end can be attained across multiple lives; hence,
“the cruciality of taking a stand here and now in this life is much less” in Hinduism than
in other religions (Chatterjee 1984: 59–60). Consequently, the reason why Hinduism
has traditionally not been a “missionary” faith is because according to the doctrine of
karma and rebirth, the birth of an individual as a Christian, a Hindu, or a Muslim is not
an accident but a consequence of prior choices in previous births; they must therefore
work out their liberation within their specific religious life-worlds (Sharma 1979).The
emphasis on an inner moral transformation within one’s own religious tradition is
characteristic also of Gandhi’s view of the religions of the world as many rivers leading
to the same ocean or many branches from the same root, which was shaped by the Jain
notion of anekāntavāda or the many-sidedness of reality, and the syādvāda principle
which states that all views are partial and correct only from a specific perspective.
Gandhi noted that these Jain views fitted his personal experience that people are right
from their specific points of view and had taught him “to judge a Mussalman from
his own standpoint and a Christian from his” (Quoted in Pyarelal 1965: vol. 1, 277).
In 1928, Gandhi therefore told the Federation of International Fellowships that after
274 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

long study and experience he had arrived at the conclusion that all religions are true,
all have some errors, and that all are almost as dear to him as his own Hinduism
(Larson 1997: 195). The evolving concepts of the historical religions are responses to
the one changeless divinity, and are embodied in the imperfect media of scriptures
(Gandhi 1970: vol. 25, 86). There are no irreconcilable differences across the religions,
for if one were to probe carefully beneath the surface, one would find the master key of
truth and nonviolence in them. The supreme religious achievement is to be measured
in terms not of scriptures, rituals, or dogmas, which are imperfect human creations,
but of a complete mastery over the outer and the inner senses which is outlined in the
second chapter of the Bhagavad-Gītā (Jordens 1987). Given the Jaina, Vaiṣṇava, and
Advaitic influences on Gandhi’s thought, one can discern elements of RD2 and RD3 in
his viewpoints regarding religious diversity. Therefore, he could write to Reverend B.W.
Tucker in 1928, “I do not want you to become a Hindu. But I do want you to become
a better Christian by absorbing all that may be good in Hinduism and that you may
not find in the same measure or not at all in the Christian teaching” (Gandhi 1970:
vol. 37, 224).
The modes of engaging with “religious diversity” which we have been tracing
over the longue durée of Vedāntic Hindu systems were often developed against
the backdrop of dense sociopolitical contexts. V. Stoker has underlined some of
the complex dynamics between, on the one hand, selective royal patronage by the
Vijayanagara court of specific religious institutions, and, on the other hand, the
responses of monastic communities (maṭhas) through patterns of polemical texts and
institutional expansion. The Vijayanagara patronage influenced intersectarian rivalry,
and also led communities that did not receive such assistance to model themselves
on the patterns of the Brahmin Vedānta monasteries (maṭha) which were supported
by the sovereign. Thus royal patronage “encouraged the replication of a certain type
of religious organization, the very nature of which formalised Hindu sectarianism”
(Stoker 2016: 8). For another instance of the royal enforcement of doctrinal orthodoxy,
we can turn to the case of Jaisingh II (r. 1699–1743), who sent out, sometime in
the 1730s, a decree that those organizations that sought state approval should produce
a document demonstrating their orthodoxy according to Vaiṣṇavism in terms of
lineage and doctrine (Hawley 2015: 200). A century later, Ramsingh II, the ruler of
Jaipur, declared himself a Śaiva in 1862 and took a series of measures against the
Vaiṣṇava sampradāyas. He set up a religious assembly (Dharma-sabhā) to investigate
their religious practices, made it obligatory for them to use the Śaiva triple horizontal
mark on the forehead, and confiscated the temples of monastic authorities who refused
to comply with his orders (Clémentin-Ojha 2001). Finally, the modes of RD1, RD2,
and RD3 were reworked in late colonial India partly by way of active response to, and
intense contestation of, Christian missionary critiques of aspects of traditional Hindu
systems of belief and practice. Thus, in the mid-1880s, the religious landscape of the
Punjab was marked by various attempts of the Arya Samaj to initiate proselytization
through preachers (upadeshak) who would combat Christian and Muslim preachers
with the Samaj “Bible,” the Satyarth Prakash of Dayananda Saraswati. Some militant
members of the Samaj, drawing on this text, sought to preach (prachār) the Vedic
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 275

views of the Samaj and refute untrue faiths (ved mat mandan, asat mat khandan)
(Jones 1976: 120–35).

9.5 Conclusion

Our discussion has highlighted the point that a varied group of modern Hindu thinkers,
ranging from Swami Vivekananda, Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,
and others, reworked certain premodern templates of situating competing Vedāntic
sampradāyas within one’s own Vedāntic perspective, and extended their ambit to
the major religious streams of the world. The diversity of their responses highlights
the point that statements such as “all religions are equally true” should not be put
forward as the Vedāntic standpoint on religious diversity, for even if figures such as
Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and others regard the different religious streams as
valid responses, by their adherents, to the ultimate reality, they do not claim that
the conceptual contents of these worldviews are identical. The catholicity and the
universalism of their visions of religious diversity are a dynamic intermixture of RD2
and RD3 which is configured from the specific vantage point of modernized forms
of Vedānta—Advaita or devotional strands—so that they argue that these religions
are approaching, with varying degrees of truth, the plenitude of Vedāntic truth. This
combination is discernible in Radhakrishnan’s argument that the “Hindu attitude”
to religion is ultimately a quest for the realization of the spirit within the depths of
one’s being, and accessory elements such as symbols, creeds, or dogmas only have an
instrumental value to the extent that they help the aspirant in this personal search
(Radhakrishnan 1940: 316–17). True religion lies not in the exoteric paraphernalia
of religious institutions but in the inner life of the metaphysically infinite spirit which
underlies them, and through active participation in their concrete contexts, individuals
can gradually move across lifetimes to the apex of Advaita. Vivekananda highlights this
mode of gradualist progress when he argues that while dvaita, viśisṭādvaita, and advaita
are integral parts of Hindu spirituality, the Vedic scripture begins with “dualism, goes
through a qualified monism and ends in perfect monism” (1972: vol. 2, 252). More
concretely, he lays out a spectrum with “Vedanta philosophy” at the apex, followed
by the “agnosticism” of the Buddhists, the “atheism” of the Jains, and “low ideas of
idolatry” at the bottom (1972: vol. 1, 6). From these perspectives, they view the figure
of Christ not in the senses in which he is received within Chalcedonian orthodoxy—
as the Son of God—but as a pointer to the ontological possibility of the realization
of one’s nonduality (advaita) with the supreme spirit. Nevertheless, Christians can,
and indeed should, continue to worship Christ within their own religious contexts, for
such worship is, as both Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan argue, a purificatory means
to the realization of the all-encompassing Advaitic Absolute. These engagements
indicate both the “exclusivist” and the “inclusivist” dimensions of their employment
of RD1, RD2, and RD3—Christian truth is spiritually efficacious not on its own terms
but through its soteriological reorientation toward the nondual ultimate indicated by
Advaita (Mannumel 1991: 4). The simultaneous presence of these dimensions reflects
276 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

an age-old traditional Vedāntic debate over whether Advaitic claims are genuinely
“inclusive” or explicitly “exclusive.” Just as the “war to end all wars” itself remains a
bellicose domain until the promised reign of eternal peace is actually established,
modernized forms of Advaita which are often presented as the “religion to transcend
all religions” too are shaped by an intriguing paradox. To the extent that Advaita is
penultimately a complex of sociohistorical institutions comprising teachers, texts, and
traditions, Advaita’s claim can appear to some as embodying a “patronizing mentality”
which assigns to religious traditions differential locations on a graded continuum
that is configured according to its own metaphysical presuppositions (Schmidt-
Leukel 2017: 70). However, for the proponents of this exegetical-philosophical move,
by working from within the differentiated world of names and forms, Advaita uniquely
purifies them, elevates them, and orients them ultimately to that which is the ineffable
truth beyond all descriptions. Thus, after noting that Śaṅkara critiques the logical defects
and inconsistencies in the rival Vedāntic systems, Mahadevan argues that “he does so
not in the spirit of a partisan, but with a view to making them whole … The function
of criticism performed by Advaita teachers should be viewed, not as destructive, but as
a constructive help” (1977: 126). However, precisely this claim that Advaita “sublates”
personal theism, not by rejecting it but by purifying it of its flaws, is often criticized by
its theistic opponents such as P.N. Srinivasachari as a form of conceptual paternalism:

If, as the Advaitins generally say, Śaṅkara came to establish religions and not to
eliminate them finally, then it is not clear whether his attitude to religions was
one of compromise, condescension or synthetic understanding … The view that
there is a Vedāntic ladder from Dvaita to Viśisṭādvaita and finally to Advaita as
the highest stage savours of the spirit of condescension arising from the sense of
superiority complex. (Srinivasachari 1943: xlii)

In fact, he argues that it is viśisṭādvaita which is “a synoptic philosophy par excellence”

as it can solve the everlasting problems of humanity and provide a basis of East–West
understanding (1943: l).
The Vedāntic reflections on religious diversity are, then, ultimately diverse, and
at times conflicting, attempts at harmonization. If classical Vedāntic exegetes sought
to harmonize scriptural data, sensory evidence, and rational capacities, modern
Vedāntic thinkers add to this conceptual task the historical presence of different
religious streams, and seek to weave worldviews in which the multiple divinities are
rooted in the unitary Brahman. These reflections should not be reduced to the slogan
“all religions are saying the same thing,” for they suggest that some religious traditions
are in need of modification, alteration, and revision on the journey toward the final
summit. At the same time, through different variations on RD2 and RD3, they usually
resist a Manichaean bifurcation of humanity into two neatly demarcated groups—one
indwelling domains of pure salvific light, and the other languishing perennially in
infernal darkness. Some of them highlight the interplay of diverse forms of spiritual
practice on the journey toward the ineffable Absolute which encompasses both personal
and impersonal aspects. Some others speak of the spiritual perfection of individuals
toward the summit of a modernized pattern of classical Advaita or a Vedāntic theistic
configuration.
 Vedāntic Approaches to Religious Diversity 277

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 10

Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue:

The World and Embodied Liberation in Advaita
Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā
Klara Hedling

In both classical Advaita Vedānta and the Pratyabhijñā system of the nondual Śaivism of
Kashmir, we find an articulation of the doctrine of jīvanmukti, the idea that one can be
liberated while living in the body and in the world. The doctrine of jīvanmukti in both
these traditions implies that one can attain a state of complete freedom while alive and
thus presents an alternative to the doctrine that liberation is only possible after death
(videhamukti). While numerous scholars have already discussed the concept of jīvanmukti
in Advaita Vedānta,1 far fewer scholars have discussed in detail the doctrine of jīvanmukti
in nondual Śaivism.2 Moreover, as far as I am aware, no scholar has systematically
compared the doctrines of jīvanmukti in these two traditions, especially in relation to
their respective metaphysical underpinnings. This is what I hope to do in this chapter.
One of my central aims is to assess whether the metaphysical doctrines of classical
Advaita Vedānta and the Pratyabhijñā system are compatible with the doctrine of
jīvanmukti. In order to elucidate the relationship between the world and embodied
liberation, the first two sections examine how the ontological status of the world is
conceived in Advaita Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā respectively. The third and fourth
sections then discuss the doctrine of jīvanmukti in these two nondual traditions,
critically examining the respective grounds on which it is justified and considering
the doctrine in light of the implications of Sections 10.1 and 10.2. I will argue that
since Advaita Vedānta holds that the world is ultimately unreal, Advaita Vedāntins
have difficulty upholding the logical possibility of jīvanmukti. In consequence, they
move toward an ideal of complete liberation that can only take place after death

I am very grateful to Ayon Maharaj for his invaluable support and guidance, and to Mark Dyczkowski
for sharing his deep insights and knowledge of the Śaiva traditions in meetings and over the phone. I
am also grateful to Palash Ghorai for helping me to identify some passages in Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra-
bhāṣya, and to Joseph Milillo for pointing me to an illuminating passage from Abhinavagupta’s
Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī. Finally, my deepest gratitude to Nishant Upadhyay for his continuous
encouragement and support.
282 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

(videhamukti). Pratyabhijñā philosophers, on the other hand, consider the world to

be a real manifestation of Śiva and, thus, have the metaphysical framework to affirm
jīvanmukti as a logical possibility. At the same time, there remains some ambiguity
within the Pratyabhijñā tradition concerning whether jīvanmukti is the highest goal.

10.1 The World as an Illusory Appearance

in Classical Advaita Vedānta

In Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta, the nondual attributeless (nirguṇa) Brahman is the

ultimate reality. Since Brahman alone exists, a central concern of Advaita Vedāntins
is to explain the ontological status of the world and its relationship to Brahman. To
explain this relationship, classical Advaita Vedāntins make a distinction between
absolute (pāramārthika) and empirical (vyāvahārika) levels of reality. From the
absolute standpoint, all that exists is the nondual nirguṇa Brahman. However, from
the empirical standpoint, the personal God (īśvara or saguṇa Brahman), individual
souls (jīvas), and the world (jagat) are all provisionally real—that is, so long as one has
not attained the liberative knowledge of nondual Brahman (BSB3 2.1.22, 349). This
dual-standpoint ontology enables Śaṅkara and his followers to explain the relationship
between Brahman and the world in two stages. From the empirical standpoint, classical
Advaita Vedāntins uphold satkāryavāda, the doctrine that the effect preexists in its
cause, and they accordingly take īśvara to be the material and the efficient cause of the
world. From the absolute standpoint, however, they uphold vivartavāda, the doctrine
that the world is an unreal appearance of Brahman. For reasons we will discuss, nirguṇa
Brahman cannot be the cause of the world and, therefore, to explain the metaphysical
problem of creation, Advaita Vedāntins shift to the empirical standpoint, from which
Brahman appears as the cause of the world. It is, therefore, only from the empirical
standpoint that we find an attempt to deduce the world from Brahman.
According to satkāryavāda, Brahman is the material and efficient cause of the
world, so the world is non-different (ananya) from Brahman and, therefore, could
never exist independently of Brahman. Śaṅkara writes, “The effect is the universe,
diversified as space etc., and the cause is the supreme Brahman. In reality it is known
that the effect has non-difference from, i.e., non-existence in isolation from, that cause”
(BSB 2.1.14, 326). Śaṅkara uses the analogy of clay to illustrate the idea that everything
is essentially Brahman: “When a lump of clay is known as nothing but clay in reality,
all things made of clay, for instance, pot, plate, jar, etc., become known, since they are
non-different as clay” (BSB 2.1.14, 327). As pots, plates, or jars are modifications of clay
and cannot exist independently of clay, so the world of name and form (nāmarūpa) has
no independent existence apart from Brahman.
Śaṅkara supports this view by appealing to several passages in the Upaniṣads which
state that Brahman is the cause of the world. In his commentary on the Brahmasūtra,
Śaṅkara also rejects the opposite doctrine of asatkārya, which denies that the effect
is preexistent in its cause (BSB 2.1.18, 339). According to Śaṅkara, the effect exists
or inheres in the cause, just as curd is latent in milk, since only milk has a “special
potency” (śakti) for producing curd (BSB 2.1.18, 339). Just as curd can be produced
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 283

by milk alone and not by any other substance, so the world must be the preexisting
effect that somehow inheres in Brahman. In assuming a potency (śakti) within the
cause, Śaṅkara seems to be suggesting that there exists a power or a potentiality within
Brahman that produces the effect. He writes, “Therefore, the potency must be the very
essence of the cause, and the effect must be involved in the very core of the potency”
(BSB 2.1.18, 340). However, if Brahman is ultimately the nondual changeless reality
beyond all qualities and attributions, how can Brahman really be either a material or
an efficient cause of anything?
The way out of this problem for Śaṅkara is to argue that it is only from the empirical
standpoint that Brahman is the cause of the world: “And yet the Vedic statement of
creation does not relate to any reality, for it must not be forgotten that such a text is valid
within the range of activities concerned with name and form called up by ignorance,
and it is meant for propounding the fact that everything has Brahman as its Self ”
(BSB 2.1.33, 361).4 Śaṅkara, therefore, argues that Brahman only appears to undergo a
transformation, while in fact no real change takes place (BSB 2.1.27, 356). This leads
Śaṅkara and his followers to uphold vivartavāda, the doctrine that from the absolute
standpoint, the world is an unreal appearance or illusory manifestation (vivarta) of
Brahman. Returning to the analogy of clay, Śaṅkara writes, “But speaking from the
standpoint of the basic substance, no modification exists as such [apart from the clay].
It has existence only in name and it is unreal (anṛta). As clay alone it is real (satya)”
(BSB 2.1.14, 327). It is only from the empirical standpoint that things like pots appear
to be modifications since in reality clay alone exists. From the absolute standpoint,
only the material cause is real while its modifications are unreal. For Śaṅkara, then,
nirguṇa Brahman alone exists from the absolute standpoint (BSB 2.1.14, 328).
Śaṅkara appeals to the concept of adhyāsa (superimposition) in order to explain
the unreal appearance of the world. The concept of adhyāsa is closely connected to the
concepts of avidyā (ignorance) and māyā (often translated as “illusion”5). According
to Śaṅkara, the world appears to be real due to the erroneous superimposition of the
world on Brahman. This superimposition is best illustrated by the rope-snake analogy
(BSB 2.1.9, 318). According to this analogy, we mistakenly perceive a coiled rope as a
snake, because we superimpose a remembered snake onto the rope and thereby fail
to perceive its true nature. The rope-snake analogy shows that the phenomenal world
similarly appears to be real because of superimposition. According to Śaṅkara, the
cause of this superimposition is beginningless ignorance (avidyā) (BSB 2.1.27, 356).
The doctrine of adhyāsa provides an explanation of how Brahman appears as the world
due to ignorance. The idea that the world is falsely superimposed on Brahman also
entails that from the absolute standpoint, the world of names and forms does not exist.
The doctrine of vivarta allows classical Advaita Vedāntins to maintain that from the
perspective of Brahman, there is no change at all; all diversity and change are merely
illusory appearances. As Śaṅkara states, “For a thing does not become multiformed just
because aspects are imagined on it through ignorance … In Its real aspect Brahman
remains unchanged and beyond all phenomenal actions” (BSB 2.1.27, 356). The
Advaita Vedāntins, as we have seen, use the rope-snake analogy to illustrate this idea.
The rope never actually transformed into a snake even when it appeared to be a snake.
Similarly, no change took place when the real nature of the rope was known, since the
284 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

rope never assumed the form of a snake in the first place. The point here is that the
rope is not affected at all by either the appearance or the disappearance of the snake.
As Śaṅkara explains, Brahman is completely unaffected by the unreal appearance of
the world: “As a magician himself is not affected at any time—past, present, or ­future—
by the magic conjured up by himself, it being unreal, so also the Supreme Self is not
affected by this world which is a delusion” (BSB 2.1.9, 318).
The distinction between empirical and ultimate standpoints has implications for
how the world should be understood in terms of reality or unreality. In fact, Śaṅkara
tells us that it is only when the knowledge of Brahman is attained that the unreality of
the world is realized (BSB 2.1.14, 332). Ultimately, there cannot be any real relationship
between Brahman and the world, since from the absolute standpoint, there is nothing
but the nondual and unchanging Brahman, and hence satkāryavāda is false. The highest
Brahman—nirguṇa Brahman—cannot be the material and efficient cause of the world,
since Śaṅkara tells us that all modifications and diversity within Brahman are ultimately
unreal (BSB 2.1.14, 332). When Advaita Vedāntins speak of creation and of Brahman as
the cause of the world, they do so only from the empirical standpoint. For Śaṅkara, the
individual self (jīva), creation (sṛṣṭi), and the Creator God (īśvara) are, ultimately, unreal
products of ignorance which are eradicated upon the attainment of the knowledge of
Brahman (brahmajñāna) (BSB 2.1.22, 349). From the absolute standpoint, then, Śaṅkara
follows his predecessor Gauḍapāda in upholding the doctrine of non-origination
(ajātavāda), according to which there is no creation at all, since nirguṇa Brahman alone
exists.6 Therefore, according to classical Advaita Vedānta, the relationship between
Brahman and the world is most accurately explained not by satkāryavāda but by
vivartavāda: the world is nothing but an unreal appearance of Brahman.

10.2 The World as a Real Manifestation of Śiva in Pratyabhijñā

The Trika system and its exegesis, i.e., the Pratyabhijñā,7 is sometimes what scholars
mean when they refer to “Kaśmīri Śaivism.”8 The Pratyabhijñā system is so called
because it conceives the main goal of life as the spontaneous “recognition” (pratyabhijñā)
of one’s true nature as Śiva. The Pratyabhijñā school is generally considered to have
been founded by Somānanda (c. ninth to tenth centuries), who authored Śivadṛṣṭi
(Vision of Śiva). Utpaladeva (c. tenth century CE), a disciple of Somānanda, wrote
Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā (Stanzas on the Recognition of the Lord; hereafter ĪPK)—
which gives the school its name—and his own commentary on this work (Vivṛti).9
Utpaladeva’s disciple’s disciple was Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025), who wrote two
commentaries on Utpaladeva’s work—Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī (hereafter ĪPV)
and Īśvarapratyabhijñāvivṛtivimarśinī—as well as his magnum opus the Tantrāloka
(Light on the Tantras, hereafter TĀ10) and many other works. Kṣemarāja, a disciple
of Abhinavagupta, wrote among other works the Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya (The Heart of
Recognition), a digest of Utpaladeva’s Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā which summarizes the
core teachings of Pratyabhijñā.
To understand the world in Pratyabhijñā, we first need some understanding of the
Pratyabhijñā conception of the ultimate reality as Śiva. According to Pratyabhijñā,
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 285

Śiva is absolutely free and independent (svatantra) Consciousness endowed with

light (prakāśa) and reflective awareness (vimarśa). Due to these two inherent aspects
of prakāśa and vimarśa, Consciousness is both beyond the universe (viśvottīrṇa)
and immanent in the universe (viśvamaya). The immanent aspect is attributed to
Śiva’s power (śakti), the vibrant and dynamic power of Consciousness, which is of
the nature of absolute freedom (svātantrya). This freedom of Consciousness refers
to Śiva’s absolute sovereignty or freedom of will (icchā) that translates itself into
knowledge (jñāna) and action (kriyā). In classical Advaita Vedānta, ultimate reality
or Brahman is prakāśa but not vimarśa, while in Pratyabhijñā, ultimate reality is both
prakāśa and vimarśa. According to Kṣemarāja, if ultimate reality is without reflective
awareness (vimarśa), it would be powerless and inert (PPV 9).11 In Pratyabhijñā,
vimarśa is also known as śakti (power, energy) and is inseparable from the light
of Consciousness; Śiva is, therefore, traditionally called śaktimat, the possessor of
powers. We should recall that when Śaṅkara refers to śakti as a potency or power
within Brahman, he only does so from the empirical standpoint and thus ultimately
denies the reality of śakti. Classical Advaita Vedāntins hold that from the absolute
standpoint, nirguṇa Brahman can never bring about creation or production by itself,
since it is intrinsically inactive.
In contrast, the Pratyabhijñā affirms that pure Consciousness is vimarśa as well;
therefore, it is able to ascribe both activity and causality to Śiva. Utpaladeva writes,
“Therefore causality, agency, action are nothing but the will of Him who wishes to
appear in the form of the universe, in the various manifestations of jar, cloth and so on”
(ĪPK12 2.4.21, 187).13 In Pratyabhijñā, prakāśa is the pure light of Consciousness, the
unchanging ground of being of all phenomena. Without this light of Consciousness,
nothing can ever appear, just as nothing becomes visible without physical light. Unlike
physical light, however, the light of Śiva not only reveals all things but is also their very
source of being (Dyczkowski 1987: 60). Since this light shines everywhere, there can
never be anything outside of it, and thus, everything that exists lies within the light
of Consciousness. Since only Consciousness can be the real cause of manifestation,
there can be no other cause of the world, such as the māyā of Advaita Vedānta or
the prakṛti (primordial Nature) of Sāṃkhya. The light of Consciousness is endowed
with reflective awareness (vimarśa), which is the power of Consciousness to know and
understand itself (Dyczkowski 1987: 69). According to the Pratyabhijñā, if reflective
awareness was absent from Śiva, then prakāśa would not be able to manifest and it
would remain a pure, unmanifested light, and this is inconceivable. The vimarśa is
the intrinsic nature (svabhāva) of Śiva and distinguishes Consciousness from inert
or insentient matter (jaḍa). Utpaladeva writes in the ĪPK, “The essential nature of
light is reflective awareness (vimarśa); otherwise light, though ‘coloured’ by objects,
would be similar to an insentient reality, such as crystal and so on” (ĪPK 1.5.11, 118).14
Unlike an inert object such as a crystal that passively reflects itself without being aware
of its reflections, Consciousness is always conscious of the reflections within itself
(Ratié 2010: 465). Equipped with an understanding of the nature of ultimate reality in
Pratyabhijñā, we can now examine the nature of the world.
The Pratyabhijñā understanding of the world developed, in part, as a response to
what the Pratyabhijñā philosophers considered to be the flaws and inconsistencies
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of other Indian philosophical traditions, including Advaita Vedānta. For instance,

we find in Pratyabhijñā texts a critique of the Advaita Vedāntic theory of avidyā or
māyā15 as the ultimate cause of the phenomenal world. Abhinavagupta criticizes the
Advaita Vedāntic doctrine that avidyā (ignorance) is “inexplicable” (anirvacanīya)
and responsible for the manifestation of multiple entities distinct from Consciousness
(Ratié 2011: 566). In the ĪPV, Abhinavagupta writes:

If you say that the “sentient” (cidrūpa) is really one and that this duality is all due
to the trouble of māyā or avidyā, then you cannot explain “To whom does this
avidyā belong?” It cannot be the characteristic of Brahman, because He is simply
pure Consciousness: and in reality there is no other limited soul etc. to whom this
may belong. But if you say “this avidyā is inexplicable,” we cannot understand as to
whom it is so. (ĪPV16 vol. III 2.4.20, 186)17

Abhinavagupta’s critique essentially comes down to this point: if all that exists is
the nondual and pure Brahman, then where does avidyā come from? In classical
Advaita Vedānta, all perceived duality is due to the workings of avidyā, which is
said to be without beginning; hence, there is no real explanation of the experience
of duality. Accordingly, avidyā becomes utterly inexplicable (anirvacanīya): since
there is nothing but Brahman, avidyā can belong neither to Brahman nor to anything
else. Abhinavagupta argues that the experience of duality and diversity remains
incomprehensible only if Consciousness is conceived as a static and passive being.
Once we accept the dynamism of Consciousness, which is nothing but the power of
the Lord (śakti) manifesting itself in a variety of ways, the diverse phenomena become
perfectly explicable (nirvācya) (Ratié 2011: 566).
Another critique of the Advaita Vedāntic doctrine of avidyā or māyā as the cause
of the phenomenal world is found in Yogarāja’s commentary on Abhinavagupta’s
Paramārthasāra (hereafter PS18). Yogarāja rejects the view of the Advaita Vedāntic
brahmavādin,19 who holds that Brahman “devoid of all activity” (śānta/niṣkriya) is
the sole reality and, therefore, considers avidyā or māyā to be distinct from Brahman
(PSV 15, 128).20 For Yogarāja, the nondualism of classical Advaita Vedānta contradicts
itself if it is forced into the conclusion that the effect (i.e., the world) is different
from the cause (i.e., Brahman), since it would thereby collapse into a dualism. While
Advaita Vedāntins affirm that Brahman alone exists and that there is nothing apart
from Brahman, they also admit that the appearance of diversity is due to an illusory
principle of manifestation (Bansat-Boudon 2011: 128). But then it seems as if Advaita
Vedāntins grant some degree of independent existence to māyā. Hence, māyā becomes
a mystery and cannot belong to Brahman. By contrast, Pratyabhijñā considers māyā
to be a power (śakti) integral to Śiva and holds that the freedom of Consciousness is
responsible for the manifestation of duality. For Pratyabhijñā, only a philosophy that
takes Śiva to be the sole cause and the universe to be non-separate from Him can
remain strictly nondual.
According to Pratyabhijñā, the entire manifested reality is nothing but ābhāsa
(literally “shining” or “reflection”).21 In order to explain the nature of the manifestations,
Abhinavagupta frequently likens the appearance of the world to a reflection in a mirror:
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 287

As, in the orb of a mirror, objects such as cities or villages, themselves various
though not different [from the mirror], appear both as different from each other
and from the mirror itself, so appears this world [in the mirror of the Lord’s
Consciousness], differentiated both internally and vis-à-vis that Consciousness,
athough it is not different from Consciousness most pure, the supreme Bhairava.
(PS 12–13, 112)22

The reflections in a mirror merely appear to be different from the mirror itself, when
in reality they are non-different from it. Likewise, the manifestations of Śiva appear
to be separate from Śiva, but ultimately they are non-different from Him. However,
the analogy of the mirror is not a perfect one, since there are two points of difference
between a mirror and its reflections on the one hand, and Śiva and His manifestations
on the other. First, the reflections in a mirror depend on an external light, whereas
the manifestations of Śiva do not depend on any external light but are themselves
expressions of the light of Consciousness. Second, the mirror, being an inert object,
is nonconscious and, therefore, not aware of its own reflections. Śiva, being endowed
with self-awareness, is always aware of Himself and His manifestations. Further, the
analogy of the mirror shows how Consciousness can manifest a multiplicity of forms
while maintaining intact its essential nature of oneness (Ratié 2013: 393).
In order to manifest Himself as the world, Śiva conceals His true nature and assumes
a limited knowledge and form. The Pratyabhijñā does not maintain that appearances
are illusory and thus rejects the classical Advaita Vedāntic doctrine of vivarta. Rather,
all appearances are real manifestations, since everything that manifests is of the nature
of Śiva. The Pratyabhijñā employs a number of metaphors and analogies to illustrate
its account of creation. One such analogy for the relationship between Śiva and the
world is found in Abhinavagupta’s PS: “Just as juice, skimmed froth, granular sugar,
brown sugar, candy, etc., are in essence nothing but sugar cane, so are all forms only
different states of the supreme Self, Śaṃbhu” (PS 26, 151).23 Notice the similarity
between the Pratyabhijñā ābhāsavāda and satkāryavāda, the doctrine that the effect
preexists in its cause, which Śaṅkara and his followers only accept from the empirical
standpoint.24 In fact, according to Ratié, Utpaladeva essentially adopted the Sāṃkhyan
satkāryavāda (2014: 128). However, whereas the Sāṃkhya system employs this theory
to prove that insentient matter (pradhāna) is the material cause of everything in the
world, Utpaladeva appeals to satkāryavāda in order to establish the sole agency of
Consciousness.
Unlike classical Advaita Vedānta, Pratyabhijñā fully affirms that Śiva is the material
and efficient cause of the world (satkāryavāda). The ābhāsavāda of the Pratyabhijñā
holds that the world is Śiva in the same sense that a reflection in a mirror “is” the
mirror itself. According to the ĪPK, “The objects that are manifested in the present
can be manifested as external only if they reside within” (ĪPK 1.5.1, 111).25 The world
is contained in Consciousness and, during creation, is projected outwardly, just as a
reflection appears to be external to the mirror in which it appears.26 The world—which,
prior to its projection, exists as a potentiality or a seed in Divine ­Consciousness—never
loses its essential identity with Śiva and always coexists with Consciousness. Thus,
creation should not be regarded as something entirely new but merely as a manifestation
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of that which already exists within and identically with Consciousness. However,
creation is still regarded as a real process, since even though there is no ontological
novelty, there is still a generation of new forms and beings once the play of creation
and manifestation has begun. Since Śiva has absolute free will, He requires no material
medium or external instrument in order to bring the whole universe into being. It is
Śiva Himself who flashes forth in the form of the universe. There is no succession of
cause and effect; rather, creation is described as the spontaneous manifestation of the
free will of Śiva. For this reason, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta often liken Śiva, in His
role as Creator, to a yogin who is capable of creating a variety of objects through his
mere will without depending on any external cause (Ratié 2010: 461).
With respect to the explanation of the world in Pratyabhijñā, one might ask why
Śiva desires to manifest Himself and to bring the limited experience of the universe into
being. The Pratyabhijñā, like Vedāntic traditions, regards creation as a play (krīḍā) or
self-amusement of the Lord (TĀ vol. I 1.101, 143–4). It is the nature of Śiva to manifest
Himself as finite, reveling in the play of concealing and revealing His essential nature.
He willingly assumes a limited form and, in the process, “forgets.”27 His essential nature
and appears to become a bound being. Through this process of manifesting Himself
as various objects and assuming different and limited forms, Śiva eventually realizes
His true nature and returns to Himself, even though—somewhat paradoxically—He
never actually loses His essential nature. According to Pratyabhijñā, this is the only
possible explanation of the relationship between Śiva and the world. Hence, while
Advaita Vedāntins maintain that the world is empirically real but ultimately unreal,
Pratyabhijñā philosophers take the world to be fully real. In the next two sections, we
will see how the differing ontologies of the world in Advaita Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā
result in different conceptions of, and attitudes toward, embodied liberation.

10.3 The Problem of Jīvanmukti in Advaita Vedānta

The doctrine of jīvanmukti plays a prominent role in the philosophical tradition of

Advaita Vedānta. There are two main reasons why classical Advaita Vedāntins affirm the
possibility of jīvanmukti. First, they point to the fact that there are numerous indications
of embodied liberation in the Upaniṣads, Bhagavad-Gītā, and Brahmasūtra.28 Second,
as A.C. Das (1954: 119) has pointed out, Advaita Vedāntins cannot claim to have a
lineage of enlightened teachers unless they accept the possibility of jīvanmukti. Śaṅkara
himself asserts in his commentary on Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.14.2 that if the body
necessarily falls upon the attainment of the knowledge of Brahman, then there cannot
be anyone to teach the true nature of Brahman (Nelson 1996: 25). At the same time,
however, the basic principles of Advaita Vedāntic metaphysics make it difficult—if
not impossible—to affirm the possibility of jīvanmukti. According to classical Advaita
Vedānta, the impersonal (nirguṇa) nondual Brahman is the sole reality, and this entire
world of names and forms is ultimately unreal. Liberation, for Advaita Vedāntins,
amounts to the knowledge of Brahman, which entails the total eradication of ignorance.
This metaphysical framework, as we will see, leads to a logical problem in affirming the
possibility of jīvanmukti, since there seems to be a contradiction between denying the
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 289

ultimate reality of the world and accepting the possibility of a fully liberated embodied
being. In this section, I will discuss briefly how Śaṅkara and post-Śaṅkara Advaita
Vedāntins understood the concept of jīvanmukti, frequently drawing upon Lance
Nelson’s (1996) very illuminating and thorough treatment of the issue.
Interestingly, as Nelson (1996: 21) has pointed out, Śaṅkara explicitly uses the term
jīvanmukta only once in his entire corpus—namely, in his commentary on Bhagavad-
Gītā 6.27, where he writes, “Having become Brahman, he is liberated while living”
(brahmabhūtaṃ jīvanmuktam). However, there are numerous places in Śaṅkara’s work
where he does not use the term jīvanmukta but nonetheless clearly refers to the state of
embodied liberation. Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Brahmasūtra serves as a terminus a
quo for later discussions of jīvanmukti within the Advaita Vedāntic tradition. Śaṅkara
relies on the idea of prārabdhakarman, i.e., karman which has already begun to yield
results, to explain how jīvanmukti is possible. Commenting on Brahmasūtra 4.1.15,
he remarks that one’s prārabdhakarman remains even after the attainment of the
knowledge of Brahman.29 For Śaṅkara, the existence of prārabdhakarman accounts
for the continued existence of the body even after knowing Brahman. Once one’s
prārabdhakarman is exhausted, bodily existence ceases. In support of this assertion,
Śaṅkara provides the analogy of an archer who does not have control over the arrows
that have already been discharged. Like a discharged arrow, prārabdhakarman runs its
course until its force is exhausted. However, this explanation of embodied liberation
stands in tension with Śaṅkara’s fundamental doctrine that knowledge destroys all
ignorance. Take, for instance, this passage from his commentary on Brahmasūtra:

Like the idea of the rope removing the ideas of snake etc … the knowledge of the
unity of the individual self with Brahman … results in the removal of the idea of
an individual soul bound up with the body, which is a creation of beginningless
ignorance. When this notion that the embodied soul is the real Self is removed, all
those activities become sublated which are based on that assumption, which are
created by ignorance. (BSB 2.1.14, 328; translation modified)

For Śaṅkara, knowledge and ignorance are mutually exclusive, as is evident from the
rope-snake analogy. When the real nature of the rope is known, the illusion of a snake
is removed. Similarly, once one attains the knowledge of Brahman, ignorance and all its
results—including one’s own physical body as well as the entire world-illusion—must
vanish. Hence, from a metaphysical standpoint, the Advaita Vedāntic understanding of
liberative knowledge seems to be logically incompatible with the possibility of jīvanmukti.
In his commentary on Brahmasūtra, Śaṅkara claims that ignorance, which is
responsible for prārabdhakarman and the continued bodily existence of the jīvanmukta,
remains for some time as a result of residual impressions (saṃskāra). He writes, “This
false ignorance, even when sublated, continues for a while owing to past tendencies
(saṃskāra) like the continuance of the vision of the two moons” (BSB 4.1.15, 840).30
Just as a person suffering from an eye disease continues to see two moons for some
time even after the defect in his eye is removed, the jīvanmukta continues to live in
the body and to perceive the false appearances of the world even after attaining the
knowledge of Brahman.
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Puzzlingly, however, Śaṅkara also cites with approval Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.14.2:
“He lingers so long only as he is not freed from the body; then he becomes free”
(BSB 4.1.15, 840). According to Śaṅkara, this scriptural statement indicates that
“liberation is put off till the death of the body” (BSB 4.1.15, 840). Here, then, it appears
that Śaṅkara is privileging videhamukti (liberation after death) over jīvanmukti: the
jīvanmukta is not fully liberated after all, since full-blown liberation occurs only after
death. As Nelson (1996: 28) points out, there are several other passages where Śaṅkara
seems to privilege disembodied, postmortem liberation over the state of jīvanmukti.
Thus, Śaṅkara fails to give a fully coherent and consistent account of jīvanmukti, and
it remains unclear whether he understands jīvanmukti as complete liberation while in
the body.
How did post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins attempt to justify the doctrine of
jīvanmukti? The theory of prārabdhakarman set the stage for how jīvanmukti was
conceptualized and defended by Advaita Vedāntins after Śaṅkara. It would, however, be
wrong to assume that Śaṅkara’s justification of jīvanmukti was accepted uncritically or
wholesale. Instead, a rich tradition of new metaphysical insights and counterarguments
emerged in the attempts by post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins to defend embodied
liberation. In these debates, a central issue is what causes prārabdhakarman in the
absence of ignorance. One of the main strategies for defending jīvanmukti was to
argue that although knowledge and ignorance are mutually exclusive, knowledge
and the effects of ignorance are not. As we have seen, Śaṅkara had already suggested
that it is only an impression of ignorance, rather than ignorance itself, that causes the
jīvanmukta’s continued embodied existence.
Post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins employed various strategies for trying to get around
the contradiction of knowing Brahman while still experiencing the effects of ignorance.
They addressed this contradiction by following Śaṅkara in invoking the concept of
prārabdhakarman. Some post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins claimed that the cause
of prārabdhakarman is a “latent impression” (saṃskāra) of ignorance, while others
claimed that the cause of prārabdhakarman is a “residuum” (śeṣa) or “remnant” (leśa)
of ignorance (Nelson 1996: 31–4). Maṇḍana Miśra (c. eighth century CE), for instance,
followed Śaṅkara in arguing that jīvanmukti is possible due to the lingering of an
impression (saṃskāra) of ignorance.31 Appealing to the rope-snake analogy, he claimed
that there is a persisting effect, i.e., trembling or fear, following the realization that
the rope is not a snake (BrSi 3.53, 408). In the Naiṣkarmyasiddhi, Sureśvara (c. eighth
century CE) appealed to the same analogy of the trembling that persists after the false
idea of the snake has been removed, arguing that the effects of ignorance (moha-kārya)
persist in the jivanmukta even after the removal of ignorance itself (NS 4.60, 211).
Vimuktātman (c. tenth century CE), however, argued that a “remnant” or “residuum”
(leśa or śeṣa) of ignorance is responsible for prārabdhakarman (IS 1.9, 54–5). Madhusūdana
Sarasvatī (c. sixteenth century CE) explained jīvanmukti by appealing to the concepts
of both an impression (saṃskāra) and a residuum (leśa) of ignorance (AS 4, 890).
Madhusūdana distinguished two aspects or powers (śaktis) of ignorance: projective power
(vikṣepaśakti) and concealing power (āvaraṇaśakti). For Madhusūdana, the knowledge
of Brahman only removes the concealing power of ignorance but not all three aspects
of the projective power. It is the third aspect of the projective power that constitutes the
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 291

residuum (leśa) of ignorance which supports the functioning of prārabdhakarman in the

jīvanmukta (AS 4, 890–2).
The main problem for Śaṅkara and the post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins was to
explain how the world, which is a product of ignorance, can remain after liberation.32
The fundamental premise of classical Advaita Vedānta is that all phenomenal experience,
including the experience of the world and the body-mind apparatus associated with the
jīva (individual self), is due to ignorance (avidyā). If so, it appears that Advaita Vedāntins
are forced to conclude that when one attains the knowledge of Brahman, all ignorance
is eradicated and, hence, the phenomenal world and the body-mind apparatus must
disappear simultaneously with ignorance. Liberation would then entail the annulment
of physical existence, and embodied liberation would be impossible (Nelson 1996: 20).
At the metaphysical level, the Advaita Vedāntic commitment to the mutual exclusivity of
knowledge and ignorance seems to be incompatible with the claim that an impression or
remnant of ignorance remains in the jīvanmukta.
Some scholars, however, have defended the logical coherence of the Advaita Vedāntic
doctrine of jīvanmukti by arguing that liberation does not entail disembodiment.33
Kim Skoog (1996), for instance, argues that the Advaitin can coherently hold that there
can be a certain type of bondage, i.e., prārabdhakarman, which is unaffected by the
liberative knowledge of Brahman. According to Skoog (1996: 72–3), “karma, as a type of
bondage, is particularly significant because it is not ignorance per se (for example, desire,
superimposition, fear, delusion, grief), but a product of ignorance.” Thus, Skoog makes an
argument similar to that of post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins, who distinguished ignorance
itself from the effects of ignorance and argued that liberative knowledge is consistent
with the latter but not the former. However, as I discussed in the previous paragraph,
this standard line of argument fails to explain how it is logically possible for an effect
of ignorance to remain in the absence of ignorance itself. Moreover, Skoog’s argument
appears to rest on the assumption that Śaṅkara and most Advaita Vedāntins “do not view
the world as completely unreal, but rather ascribe to the world a degree of reality and
a sense of autonomous existence independent of one person’s ignorance or liberation”
(1996: 73). Hence, Skoog’s defense of the logical coherence of the Advaita Vedāntic
doctrine of jīvanmukti presupposes a more realist interpretation of Advaita Vedānta.
This line of reasoning, however, is unconvincing since, as we have seen in Section 10.1,
classical Advaita Vedāntins ultimately accept vivartavāda and, therefore, only accord
some degree of reality to the world from the empirical standpoint of ignorance.
Contrary to Skoog, then, I believe there are deep philosophical reasons why classical
Advaita Vedāntins had so much difficulty accommodating the possibility of embodied
liberation within their world-denying metaphysical framework. Indeed, in the face of
these difficulties, most post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins tended to accept a scaled-back
notion of jīvanmukti as a state in which one is almost liberated, but not fully liberated
until the fall of the body. This is unsurprising, since as we have seen, there are times
when Śaṅkara himself seemed to suggest that the jīvanmukta is not fully liberated and
that one has to wait until death to attain final liberation. Tellingly, Maṇḍana, although
he supported the idea of jīvanmukti, conceded that a jīvanmukta might not be a fully
liberated or perfected being (siddha) but rather merely an advanced aspirant (sādhaka).
Maṇḍana writes in the Brahmasiddhi:
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The Gītā refers to an aspirant at a particular stage, not to a perfected person … the
“man of stable insight” (sthitaprajñā) may thus also be explained as one who
knows the Self and pays no attention to the body, which is but a mere shadow
or appearance (chāyāmātra). This is “liberation while living” (jīvanmukti).
(BrSi 3.53, 408)

It seems that for Maṇḍana, then, jīvanmukti is not the highest goal, but rather merely
a penultimate stage on the way toward the complete liberation that occurs after the
death of the body. Similarly, the Advaita Vedāntin Sarvajñātman (c. eleventh century
CE) admitted that fully liberated teachers cannot exist and argued, accordingly, that
scriptural passages that seemed to uphold the ideal of full liberation while living
should not be interpreted literally (SŚ 2.225, 227, 233). Like some of his predecessors,
Madhusūdana was skeptical about the completeness of the state of jīvanmukti.
Accordingly, he defined jīvanmukti as “mere liberation” (muktimātra) and distinguished
it from supreme liberation (paramamukti), which he understood as a state in which
all duality is extinguished (AS 4, 885). Thus, many post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins
seemed to admit finally that jīvanmukti is not the final liberation and, hence, either
implicitly or explicitly endorsed videhamukti, the doctrine that complete liberation is
attainable only after death.

10.4 The Idea and Ideal of Jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā

Pratyabhijñā philosophers, like classical Advaita Vedāntins, also sought to justify

the doctrine of jīvanmukti from within their metaphysical framework. The dualist
Śaiva Siddhānta34 tradition, which preceded the nondual Śaiva tradition, rejected
the possibility of jīvanmukti and held that liberation is possible only after the death
of the body (videhamukti). In contrast, many thinkers within the nondual Śaiva
­tradition—to which the Pratyabhijñā system belongs—affirmed jīvanmukti not only as
a logical possibility but also as the highest goal. According to Pratyabhijñā, the highest
goal is the attainment of “Śiva-Consciousness,” a state in which the whole world
appears as the Self or Śiva, and this state seems to be perfectly compatible with—if
not to ­entail—jīvanmukti. As we will see, however, there are also certain aspects of
Pratyabhijñā doctrine that stand in apparent tension with the view that jīvanmukti is
the highest goal.
In order to understand the Pratyabhijñā doctrine of jīvanmukti, we first have to
consider what constitutes bondage and liberation in this tradition.35 This will require
us to introduce a few core doctrines and technical terms of the Pratyabhijñā. The
Pratyabhijñā system holds that we are all essentially free but are covered by a veil of
ignorance that makes us unable to recognize our own freedom. In order to regain
our lost freedom, we must remove our ignorance through the recognition of our real
Self. In the Pratyabhijñā system, ignorance (ajñāna) of one’s essential nature is the
only cause of bondage, and liberation means knowing or recognizing one’s Śiva-nature
(śivatva). Bondage and liberation, like most concepts in this system, are explained
and defined in terms of the doctrine of freedom of Consciousness (svātantryavāda).
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 293

Metaphysically speaking, there is neither bondage nor liberation, but rather, in the
words of Bansat-Boudon, only “a freedom that plays at hiding itself ” (2011: 33). The
only way to explain bondage in this system is to conceive it as a play of Śiva to obscure
and conceal His own essential nature. Central to this understanding is the idea that
Consciousness freely chooses to be bound and is playfully deceived by its own fiction
(Ratié 2010: 464).
In the TĀ, Abhinavagupta distinguishes two kinds of ignorance: intellectual
ignorance (bauddha-ajñāna) and spiritual ignorance (pauruṣa-ajñāna) (TĀ vol.
I 1.36, 73). In contrast to intellectual ignorance, spiritual ignorance does not depend
on our mental constructs (vikalpas). Rather, spiritual ignorance is brought about by
the contraction of Consciousness, effected by Śiva Himself to obscure His essential
nature (TĀ vol. I 1.37–8, 73,76). This contraction of Consciousness—caused by māyā,
the principle of differentiation—results in a limited or individualized Consciousness
(puruṣa)36 with limited knowledge and agency. The limiting conditions that veil the
essential nature of the Self are called “impurities” (malas). The doctrine of impurities
originally appears in the dualist Śaiva Siddhānta,37 which regards them as physical
substances (dravyas) covering the real nature of the Self (Torella 2017: 183). The
bound soul (sakala) is veiled by three kinds of impurities: impurity of individuality
(āṇavamala), impurity of differentiation (māyīyamala), and impurity of action
(kārmamala). Spiritual ignorance is more specifically caused by āṇavamala and is
the origin of the two other impurities, māyīyamala and kārmamala. The spiritual
ignorance is understood as a constitutional kind of ignorance since it causes a sense of
limitation and separateness from Consciousness, which makes the limited self think of
itself as imperfect and incomplete.
In the Pratyabhijñā, the cause of all impurity is ignorance, so knowledge is the
necessary and sufficient condition for liberation. In contrast to Śaiva Siddhāntins,
Pratyabhijñā thinkers conceive impurities not as real physical substances but
as erroneous attitudes of the individual subject.38 Abhinavagupta, for instance,
reinterprets the impurities as forms of ignorance—a view he supports by appealing to
a passage from the Mālinīvijayottaratantra, the authoritative text of the Trika, which
states that impurity is, in fact, only ignorance (TĀ vol. I 1.23, 54–5).39 Intellectual
ignorance, despite being based on a more fundamental kind of ignorance, is given
primacy by Abhinavagupta, since removing this ignorance is the decisive factor
in bringing about liberation in this life. Intellectual ignorance exists as long as one
identifies with the mind-body apparatus, but once this false identification comes to an
end, jīvanmukti becomes possible, and this is the goal for which one should strive (TĀ
vol. I 1.44, 81).40 Therefore, for Abhinavagupta and the nondual Śaivites, jīvanmukti
is possible, since it is insight into reality that liberates, and this knowledge can—
indeed, perhaps must—be gained while living in the body. For Abhinavagupta and
the nondual Śaivites, the ultimate cause of liberation and, indeed, embodied liberation
is, however, brought about through an act of divine grace (anugraha) by Śiva, which
removes impurity through the bestowal of knowledge. This process is technically
called the “descent of power” (śaktipāta), a doctrine also found in the earlier Siddhānta
system.41 Abhinavagupta writes, “This is called ‘Grace,’ the fifth and the last act of
the Supreme Power, which leads to the attainment of the highest human goal. For,
294 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Perfect Freedom is due to that alone” (ĪPV 1.1.1, 4).42 Abhinavagupta’s understanding
of jīvanmukti is also intimately connected to the four means of, or ways to, liberation
(upāyas): the “non-means” (anupāya), “the means of Śambhu” (śāṃbhavopāya), “the
means of śakti” (śāktopāya), and “the individual means” (āṇavopāya).43 The upāyas are
ordered according to the varying degrees of intensity of divine grace bestowed on the
aspirant (Padoux 2017: 129). According to Abhinavagupta, the upāyas correspond to
the various kinds of samāveśa (“penetration,” “immersion,” or “absorption”) taught in
the Mālinīvijayottaratantra (TĀ vol. I 1.167, 202).44
Depending on the intensity of grace, liberation occurs either instantly or gradually.
Thus, either liberation is obtained through the more direct and effortless means
(śāmbhava), or one begins from the lowest method (āṇava), which gradually leads to
the one above it (śākta), until the highest of the three methods is reached (śāmbhava).
Higher than all three is the anupāya, in which no means at all are applied. The view
that liberation can be either a direct or a gradual process is an interesting innovation of
Pratyabhijñā philosophy and contrasts sharply with the understanding of liberation in
Advaita Vedānta, according to which knowledge and ignorance are mutually exclusive.
The aspirant of the anupāya is described as having a spontaneous, yet firm, awareness
of his Śiva-nature (śivatva). As anupāya results in immediate permanent realization
without the need of any means, it is not really an upāya. Despite the apparent hierarchy
of upāyas, they all lead to the same goal of samāveśa—that is, immersion in Śiva.
Having considered some of the doctrines that appear in the doctrinal justification of
jīvanmukti in the Pratyabhijñā, we will now see how the understanding of the world in
Pratyabhijñā relates to the concept of jīvanmukti.
In the Pratyabhijñā, there is no tension between its ontological conception of the
world and the idea of embodied liberation. The description of the embodied liberated
state is fundamentally different from that of Advaita Vedānta. Since Pratyabhijñā
philosophers take the world to be a real manifestation of Consciousness, they have
the metaphysical framework to fully affirm jīvanmukti; hence, they do not face the
ontological difficulties with which Śaṅkara and the post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins
grappled. As we have seen, liberation in classical Advaita Vedānta means the total
eradication of ignorance and the realization that the world, which is itself a product
of ignorance, is unreal. Therefore, in classical Advaita Vedānta, the very notion
of jīvanmukti, liberation while still in the body and in the world, appears to be a
contradiction.
By contrast, the goal of liberative recognition in Pratyabhijñā does not entail that
the world disappears from one’s view or that it is seen to be unreal. Rather, the world
is transfigured into the divine manifestation of one’s own Self, which is identical to
Śiva. Utpaladeva describes the nature of this recognition in his ĪPK: “He who, having
all as his essence, thus knows: ‘All this multiform deployment is mine,’ he even in the
flow of mental constructs, attains the state of Maheśa” (ĪPK 4.12, 217).45 Utpaladeva
describes a state of unity-consciousness in which one realizes one’s identity with the
universe and sees it as being absolutely non-different from one’s Self. Utpaladeva also
points to the liberated person’s change of perception: the entire creation is now seen as
a reflection of one’s essential being, although the senses and mind remain active. In the
Pratyabhijñā system, unlike in Advaita Vedānta, sensory and bodily awareness are not
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 295

seen as obstacles to liberation. Rather, Pratyabhijñā thinkers emphasize that all is Śiva
and that Consciousness operates through the senses and in the body.46
Hence, the Pratyabhijñā understanding of liberation contrasts sharply with the
classical Advaita Vedāntic conception of liberation, which is the realization of oneself as
nirguṇa Brahman, the impersonal and static Brahman. In the Pratyabhijñā, liberation
is understood as an intense empowerment that involves becoming aware of one’s own
divinity and recognizing one’s own inherent power.47 Liberation in this system involves
a recognition of oneself as the creator of the universe. As Sanderson (1992: 290) points
out, in the nondual Śaiva system, one is not merely like Śiva (śivatulya, śivasamāya),
as in the dualist Śaiva Siddhānta; rather, one is Śiva in every respect, including as the
efficient and the material cause of everything.48 According to Abhinavagupta, once
the knowledge has grown firm that the world is only an expression of the power of
freedom (svātantryaśakti) of Consciousness, one achieves liberation while living:

Therefore, even this determinate creation is nothing but my own glory, known
as the “power of freedom.” This Consciousness having grown firm, he becomes
liberated in his very lifetime, though his Vikalpas [mental constructs] may not
have been destroyed. (ĪPV vol. III 4.12, 227)49

The Pratyabhijñā conception of liberation is closely related to the Spanda tradition.50

In the Spandakārikā, the jīvanmukta is someone who has attained “Mastery over the
Wheel of Energies” (cakreśvaratvasiddhi) (Dyczkowski 1987: 189). The jīvanmukta, who
is fully identified with Śiva, rules and controls the cosmic cycles of the powers (śaktis)
that create and dissolve everything, just as Śiva Himself does. Śiva, whose essential
nature is knowledge and activity, eternally performs the fivefold acts (pañcakṛtya) of
creation (sṛṣṭi), maintenance (sthiti), withdrawal (saṃhāra), concealment (vilaya), and
grace (anugraha) (PHr opening verses, 1). When these five acts are performed on a
cosmic scale, Śiva projects the world out of Himself, maintains it, and then reabsorbs
it back again within Himself. Recognition means knowing that one is the Lord of all
the energies, the very energies which bind one so long as one’s essential nature remains
unknown (Dyczkowski, 1992: 36). According to the Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya, those who
are aware of the fivefold act that takes place at the individual level and know themselves
to be the author of the five acts are transformed into universal Consciousness (citi)
(PHr 13, 32).51
Clearly, then, there are major differences in the conceptions of embodied liberation
in Pratyabhijñā and Advaita Vedānta. The two systems share, however, the view
that liberation is essentially a blissful state (Bansat-Boudon 2013: 321). However,
in Advaita Vedānta, unlike in the Pratyabhijñā, this blissful state does not derive
from the experience of oneness with the world. Kṣemarāja stresses that recognition
is ultimately an experience of unity and joy, and again, that one has this awareness
even while being in the world and while the senses and the body are still perceived
(PHr 16, 36).52 This description of the ideal state is clearly at odds with the introvertive
contemplative attitude of the liberated Advaita Vedāntin, who looks upon the world as
unreal (mithyā). The implication is that in Pratyabhijñā, the liberated being does not
need to renounce or shun the world; rather, one can be liberated and still experience
296 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

the highest bliss in this very life. According to Muller-Ortega (1996: 195), the primary
characteristic of jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā is “not a Sāṃkhya-like introvertive
kaivalya, but an extrovertive and open-eyed samādhi, the nature of which is clarified
by the term ekarasa—the blissful and unitary vision of the all-pervasiveness of Śiva,
the unitary structure of unbounded Consciousness.” Thus, Pratyabhijñā philosophers
unambiguously accept the logical possibility of jīvanmukti, since it is fully compatible
with their ontological framework. Indeed, some Pratyabhijñā formulations of liberation
seem even to entail jīvanmukti, since liberation involves recognizing not only one’s true
nature as Śiva but also the world as a glorious manifestation of Śiva.
In classical Advaita Vedānta, difficulties in justifying the state of jīvanmukti led
Śaṅkara and the post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins to veer close to the opposite doctrine
of videhamukti. By contrast, the Pratyabhijñā notion of jīvanmukti, in many ways,
was developed in explicit opposition to the ideal of videhamukti upheld by the earlier
Śaiva Siddhāntins. According to Bansat-Boudon (2013: 308), a main feature of the
Pratyabhijñā is “its privileging the acquisition of jīvanmukti, even to the point of
denigrating the older notion of ‘liberation at death.’” She continues, “In this system, the
only true emancipation, the only freedom to which one should aspire, is emancipation
in this life.” In contrast to the Śaiva Siddhānta, Pratyabhijñā introduces the new goal of
jīvanmukti, complete freedom while alive, even touting it as a superior soteriological
goal, since it promises emancipation before death. Utpaladeva writes in the ĪPK, “Thus
this new, easy path has been explained by me as the great master expounded it in the
Śivadṛṣṭi. Thus he who, putting his feet on it, brings to light in the self the nature of
the creator of the universe whose essence is the nature of Śiva, and is uninterruptedly
absorbed in it, attains perfection” (ĪPK 4.16, 218).53
That Utpaladeva thinks his new path (mārga) leads to embodied liberation is
evident in his own Vṛtti to this verse, where he writes, “He who by applying himself
intensely to this enters into the nature of Śiva, becomes in this very life a liberated
soul” (ĪPKV 4.16, 218).54 Jayaratha (c. thirteenth century CE), in his commentary on
Abhinavagupta’s Tantrāloka, claims that the very objective of the Tantrāloka—and, by
extension, of the entire Tantric tradition—is the attainment of liberation in this life
(TĀV vol. XII 37.32–3, 402–3). Moreover, by privileging jīvanmukti as a higher goal
than videhamukti, Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta aimed to establish the superiority
of Pratyabhijñā over other systems and to demonstrate the radical sufficiency of
knowledge in granting liberation.
At the same time, however, certain aspects of the Pratyabhijñā system stand in
apparent tension with the view that jīvanmukti is the highest goal. In the TĀ (chapter 13)
and the Tantrasāra (chapter 11), Abhinavagupta refers to nine types of recipients of
grace based on the classification of śaktipāta found in Mālinīvijayottaratantra. Only
the second and third types of śaktipāta result in jīvanmukti, while all the remaining
weaker types of śaktipāta lead either to liberation after death or to liberation in a
future life (Wallis 2014: 286). The most direct way to liberation is bestowed upon the
aspirants (sādhakas) who have the deepest desire for freedom (mumukṣutva), while
aspirants who have a greater appetite for worldly enjoyment (bhoga) and powers
(siddhis) receive a less intense śaktipāta. For the latter aspirants, the path to realizing
one’s identity with Śiva is, therefore, longer and more arduous. The strongest kind
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 297

of śaktipāta, the “accelerated intense” (utkṛṣṭatīvra) descent of power, is so intense

that it results in immediate liberation, which entails the death of one’s physical body
(TS 11.7, 120).55 As numerous scholars have noted, this śaktipāta schema indicates that
not everyone has the capacity to attain jīvanmukti and that the aspirant who attains
union with Śiva through anupāya, which is the highest of all methods, bypasses the
state of jīvanmukti.56
The key interpretive question is how to reconcile the prevailing Pratyabhijñā view
that jīvanmukti is the highest goal with the fact that the most elevated aspirant of the
anupāya is incapable of attaining this state. In other words, how is it that Pratyabhijñā,
which introduces the new goal of jīvanmukti, nonetheless emphasizes Self-realization
through anupāya, which entails the immediate fall of the body? Does this suggest that
a videhamukti ideal is in play even in the Pratyabhijñā?
Debabrata Sen Sharma is one of the few scholars who has directly addressed
these questions. According to Sen Sharma (1983), the śaktipāta scheme suggests that
jīvanmukti should not be regarded as the highest goal in Pratyabhijñā. Accordingly,
he writes, “the destruction of the body-apparatus is said to be essential for the
perfect Realization of the Essence, the Śivatva” (Sen Sharma 1983: 170). He further
suggests that it is only when the jīvanmukta is disassociated from his physical body
that he becomes Śiva Himself (Sen Sharma 1983: 172–3). Interestingly, Sen Sharma’s
interpretation of Pratyabhijñā has affinities with the post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntic
view that jīvanmukti is only a partial liberation and that complete liberation is only
possible after death. Indeed, Sen Sharma (1983: 173) explicitly characterizes the final
stage of liberation as “videha-mukti.”
I believe Sen Sharma might be too quick to infer from the śaktipāta scheme that
the highest soteriological goal in Pratyabhijñā is videhamukti rather than jīvanmukti.
In the remainder of this chapter, I will begin to sketch a somewhat more nuanced
interpretation of the status of jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā. First of all, it is worth noting
that not all thinkers within the tradition of Pratyabhijñā hold exactly the same views on
jīvanmukti. Indeed, some Pratyabhijñā philosophers seem to suggest that jīvanmukti
is not the highest goal. Surprisingly, even Kṣemarāja, who frequently refers to the state
of jīvanmukti and defends the doctrine in his works, claims, in his commentary on the
Śivasūtra,57 that although the jīvanmukta becomes like Śiva, it is not until the yogin
leaves his body that he becomes fully identified with Śiva (ŚSV 3.26, 186).58 Similarly,
Yogarāja, in his commentary on Abhinavagupta’s PS, asserts that “complete” (pūrṇa)
liberation is attainable only after death (PSV 61, 232).59 Yogarāja and Kṣemarāja
seem to imply that jīvanmukti is not the highest goal after all, thereby veering close
to the post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins Maṇḍana and Madhusūdana, who held that
the jīvanmukta was only partially, but not fully, liberated. Commenting on another
verse in the PS, Yogarāja characterizes final liberation as a state of transcendent
Isolation (kaivalya) that is “beyond the Fourth” (turyātīta), and he claims that this
state can only be attained after bodily death (PSV 83, 273).60 It seems rather odd
to find terms like kaivalya in these texts, since the term usually connotes a state of
complete transcendence and detachment from the world and the senses. Moreover, it
is precisely this kaivalya-oriented conception of liberation—found in Sāṃkhya and the
Śaiva Siddhānta—that Pratyabhijñā thinkers explicitly criticized. As Bansat-Boudon
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(2011: 43–4) rightly observes, Yogarāja seems to align jīvanmukti with the “fourth
state” (turya) and videhamukti with the state “beyond the fourth” (turyātīta). In his
commentary on PS 86, Yogarāja writes: “the [mind of the] knower of the Self (jñānī),
while living (jīvann eva), is formed by the Fourth; and he transcends even that Fourth,
once his body no longer exists” (PSV 86, 282).61 Thus, in claiming that there are degrees
of liberation and that the highest state of liberation is attainable only after death,
Yogarāja comes close to many Advaita Vedāntins, who understood jīvanmukti as a
penultimate stage toward final and complete liberation.
Hence, I agree with Sen Sharma that at least one Pratyabhijñā thinker—namely,
Yogarāja—did not consider jīvanmukti to be the highest goal. However, I believe Sen
Sharma is mistaken in thinking that Yogarāja’s position on jīvanmukti represents “the”
Pratyabhijñā tradition as a whole. To begin to make my case, I suggest that we examine
the following interesting passage from Abhinavagupta’s ĪPV:

[He] is called liberated, because he is free from the bondage of rebirth, even when
his body still exists. But when the body is destroyed, he is pure Śiva; and, therefore,
then there can be no talk of liberation, because there is absence of both bondage and
liberation. But in consideration of the previous stage or in comparison with other
subjects he is, for practical purposes, spoken of as liberated, Śiva. (ĪPV 3.2.3, 204)62

In this passage, Abhinavagupta conceives liberation as freedom from the bondage of

rebirth, which seems to be fully compatible with physical embodiment. Indeed, he seems
to claim here that liberation is, in fact, only possible while in the physical body. His
reasoning is as follows. Once the jīvanmukta has left the body and merged with Śiva, it
no longer makes sense to speak of liberation at all, since liberation implies prior bondage
and Śiva was never bound in the first place. This passage may also help explain why the
aspirant of the anupāya does not enjoy jīvanmukti, since at the level of anupāya, there is
neither bondage nor liberation. As Torella (2013: xxxviii) points out, one cannot speak of
jīvanmukti with respect to anupāya since at this transcendent level of reality, means and
goal coincide and there is nothing from which to be liberated (see TĀ vol. II 3.272–3,
248–9).63 Therefore, jīvanmukti is only possible through the lower upāyas: śāmbhava,
śākta, and aṇava. In fact, Torella (2013: xxxviii) suggests that although the Pratyabhijñā
is often associated with anupāya, Abhinavagupta aligns jīvanmukti not with anupāya
but with śāmbhava. Torella further argues that the central teaching of Pratyabhijñā is
śāmbhavopāya, which includes both immanent (turya) and transcendental (turyātīta)
experiences. However, all means ultimately lead to anupāya, since anupāya represents
the direct and unmediated awareness that Conciousness has of itself and, as such, is the
only “means” that fully corresponds to reality (Dyczkowski 1987: 175).

10.5 Concluding Remarks

Classical Advaita Vedāntins, as we have seen, failed to provide a coherent account

of jīvanmukti, since their world-denying metaphysical framework seems to preclude
the very possibility of embodied liberation. By contrast, Pratyabhijñā thinkers more
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 299

convincingly established the logical possibility of jīvanmukti on the basis of their

world-affirming metaphysics. Nonetheless, while all Pratyabhijñā philosophers
seemed to agree that jīvanmukti is a logical possibility, they sometimes differed on
the question of whether it is also the highest goal. Even in the Pratyabhijñā tradition,
as in Advaita Vedānta, there is some ambivalence concerning the completeness of the
state of jīvanmukti. Moreover, at least for Abhinavagupta, it is clear that jīvanmukti
is not a universal goal for everyone but only for a few select aspirants. As we have
seen, Yogarāja’s understanding of jīvanmukti—and at times even Kṣemarāja’s—comes
close to the Advaita Vedāntic view of jīvanmukti as a partial liberation. Sen Sharma
(1983), in his interpretation of the Pratyabhijñā doctrine of jīvanmukti, seems to follow
Yogarāja in holding that full-blown liberation only occurs after the death of the body. A
full understanding of jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā must await further research, since we
would need to examine a much broader range of primary texts within the Pratyabhijñā
tradition before arriving at any definitive conclusions.
I hope to have shown here that any adequate account of jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā
must directly address an important paradox. On the one hand, a number of
Pratyabhijñā thinkers consider jīvanmukti to be the ultimate goal—indeed, one which
sets it apart from what they take to be the inferior goals of other systems. On the other
hand, they also hold that the highest anupāya aspirant bypasses the state of jīvanmukti
altogether. Scholars have not yet sufficiently explored the implications of this paradox
for understanding the status of jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā. In order to investigate
this issue properly, we would need to examine in detail how different Pratyabhijñā
philosophers understood the śaktipāta schema and its relation to the doctrine of
jīvanmukti. In this chapter, I have only begun to tackle this problem and dealt with
some of the Pratyabhijñā texts and translations that are currently available. Hopefully,
with the increasing number of scholars in recent years working on manuscripts and
first translations of the vast textual corpus of the nondual Śaivism of Kashmir, we will
soon be able to have a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of the status of
jīvanmukti in Pratyabhijñā.

Abbreviations of Sanskrit Primary Texts and English Translations

AS Sarasvatī, Madhusūdana (1937), Advaitasiddhi. Advaitasiddhi of Madhusūdana
Sarasvatī, ed. A.K. Sāstrī, Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press.
BrSi Miśra, Maṇḍana (1998), Brahmasiddhi. “Brahmasiddhi,” trans. A.W. Thrasher,
in K.H. Potter, ed., Encyclopedia of the Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedānta up to
Śaṃkara and His Pupils, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 347–419.
BSB Śaṅkarācārya (1965), Brahmasūtrabhāṣya. Brahmasūtrabhāṣya of Śrī
Śaṅkarācārya, trans. S. Gambhirananda, Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
BSBh Śaṅkarācārya (1938), Brahmasūtrabhāṣya. The Brahmasūtra Śānkara Bhāṣya:
With the Commentaries Bhāmatī, Kalpataru and Parimala, 2nd edn., ed. B.S.
Śāstrācārya, Bombay: Nirṇaya Sāgar Press.
ĪPK Utpaladeva (2013), Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā. The Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā of
Utpaladeva with the Author’s Vṛtti: Critical Edition and Annoted Translation,
trans. R. Torella, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
300 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

ĪPKV Utpaladeva (2013), Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikāvṛtti. The Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā

of Utpaladeva with the Author’s Vṛtti: Critical Edition and Annotated Translation,
trans. R. Torella, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
ĪPV Abhinavagupta (1986), Īśvarapratyabhijñāvimarśinī. Īśvara-pratyabhijñā-
vimarśinī of Abhinavagupta: Doctrine of Divine Recognition, trans. K.C. Pandey,
3 vols., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
IS Vimuktātman (1933), Iṣṭasiddhi. Iṣṭa-Siddhi of Vimuktātman with Extracts from
the Vivaraṇa of Jñānottama, trans. K.C. Pandey, Baroda: Oriental Insitute.
NS Sureśvarācārya (1965), Naiṣkarmyasiddhi. Naiṣkarmyasiddhi of Śrī
Sureśvarācārya, trans. S.S. Raghavachar, Mysore, University of Mysore.
PHr Kṣemarāja (1911), Pratyabhijñāhṛdaya. The Pratyabhijñā Hṛdaya Being
a Summary of the Doctrines of the Advaita Shaiva Philosophy of Kashmir by
Kshemarāja, ed. J.C. Chatterji, Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press.
PPV Kṣemarāja (1996), Parāpraveśikā. Parāpraveśikā, ed. N. Guruṭū, Kaśmīra: Īśvara
Āśrama Ṭrasṭa.
PS Abhinavagupta (2011), Paramārthasāra. An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy:
The Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of Yogarāja, trans.
Bansat-Boudon and K.D. Tripathi, London: Routledge.
PSV Yogarāja (2011), Paramārthasārasaṃgrahavivṛti. An Introduction to Tantric
Philosophy: The Paramārthasāra of Abhinavagupta with the Commentary of
Yogarāja, trans. L. Bansat-Boudon and K.D. Tripathi, London: Routledge.
SŚ Sarvajñātman (1985), Saṃkṣepaśārīraka. Saṃkṣepaśārīraka of Sarvajñātman,
trans. N. Veezhinathan, Madras: University of Madras.
ŚSV Kṣemarāja (1979), Śivasūtravimarśinī. Śiva Sūtras: The Yoga of Supreme Identity,
trans. J. Singh, Delhi: Motilal Banarasidas Publishers.
TĀ Abhinavagupta (1918–38), Tantrāloka. The Tantrāloka of Abhinava Gupta with
Commentary by Rājānaka Jayaratha, 12 vols., Srinagar: Research Department,
Jammu and Kashmir State.
TĀV Jayaratha (1918–38), Tantrālokaviveka. The Tantrāloka of Abhinava Gupta with
Commentary by Rājānaka Jayaratha, ed. M.K. Shāstrī, 12 vols. Srinagar: Research
Department, Jammu and Kashmir State.
TS Abhinavagupta (1918), Tantrasāra. The Tantrasāra of Abhinava Gupta, ed. M.K.
Shāstrī, Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press.
VBT Author unknown (1918), Vijñānabhairavatantra. Vijñāna-bhairava: with
Commentary Partly by Kṣemarāja and Partly by Shivopādhyāya [Kashmir Series
of Texts and Studies 8], ed. M.K. Shāstrī, Bombay: Tattva-Vivechaka Press.

Notes
1 For previous research on the doctrine of jīvanmukti in classical Advaita, see
especially Nelson (1996), as well as Das (1954), Malkani (1955), and Fort (1998).
2 For a discussion of jīvanmukti in the nondual Śaivism of Kashmir, see Sen Sharma
(1983), Muller-Ortega (1996), and Bansat-Boundon (2013).
3 Whenever I cite BSB I refer to the English translation of Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra-
bhāṣya by Gambhirananda (1965).
4 BSBh 2.1.33: na ceyaṃ paramārthaviṣayā sṛṣṭiśrutiḥ;
avidyākalpitanāmarūpavyavahāragocaratvāt.
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 301

5 For a detailed discussion of māyā in classical Advaita, see Hacker (1995: 78–85).
6 See Gauḍapāda’s articulation of ajātavāda in Māṇḍūkya-Kārikā 2.32.
7 The Pratyabhijñā lineage grew out of the Trika system of the nondual traditions
of Tantric Śaivism (Wallis 2014: 93). The Trika tradition centers on the
worship of three goddesses: the benevolent Parā, and her fierce manifestations
Parāparā and Aparā. The scriptures of the Trika include, among others, the
Siddhayogeśvarīmatatantra (its earliest text dated to the seventh century),
Mālinīvijayottara, Tantrasadbhāva, Parātrīśikā, and Vijñānabhairavatantra
(Wallis 2014: 86–7).
8 The term “Kashmir Śaivism” is misleading since there were several traditions of
Śaivism present in Kashmir and in different parts of the Indian subcontinent.
Moreover, some Śaiva traditions—including Śaiva Siddhānta—were actually dualist
in orientation. For readers interested in the detailed history of the traditions and
literature of Śaivism, see Sanderson (1988, 2009, 2012).
9 Unfortunately, Utpaladeva’s Vivṛti on his own Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā has been lost,
although fragments of this text have recently been discovered. See Torella (2014) and
Ratié (2017a).
10 Abhinavagupta’s TĀ claims to be a gloss or commentary on the Trika system, and
particularly the Mālinīvijayottaratantra (MVT). According to Abhinavagupta, the
MVT is the root text of the Trika and contains the purest form or essence of the
Trika (Sanderson 1992: 292). The TĀ, however, actually presents an amalgam of Śaiva
doctrine and praxis that is not drawn excusively from the Trika. The Trika tradition
was closely assocaiated with, and greatly influenced by, the third main development
of Śaivism, the Kulamārga (or Kaula) (Sanderson 2012: 61). As a result of this
influence, Abhinavagupta’s interpretation of the Trika is more accurately represented
as Kaula-Trika.
11 PPV: yadi nirvimarśaḥ syāt anīśvaro jaḍaś ca prasajyeta.
12 Hereafter, when I cite ĪPK and ĪPKV, I refer to Torella’s (2013) critical edition and
annotated translation of the Īśvarapratyabhijñākārikā with Utpaladeva’s Vṛtti.
13 ĪPK 2.4.21: itthaṃ tathā ghaṭapaṭādyābhāsajagadātmanā | tiṣṭhāsor evam icchaiva
hetutā kartṛtā kriyā ||
14 ĪPK 1.5.11: svabhāvam avabhāsasya vimarśaṃ vidur anyathā | prakāśo ’rthoparakto
’pi sphaṭikādijaḍopamaḥ ||
15 In the Pratyabhijñā, the term māyā denotes the principle of limitation that is
attributed to the power (śakti) of Consciousness. Māyā obscures the true nature
of Śiva through the contraction of Consciousness and thereby creates duality and
differentiation.
16 When I cite ĪPV I am referring to the three-volume edition of Pandey (1986) where
he provides the original Sanskrit text along with an English translation.
17 ĪPV 2.4.20: cidrūpasyaikatvaṃ yadi vāstavaṃ bhedaḥ punar ayam avidyopaplavāt,
ity ucyate tadā kasyāyam avidyopaplavaḥ, iti na saṃgacchate brahmaṇo hi
vidyaikarūpasya kathamavidyārūpatā, na cānyaḥ kaścit asti vastuto jīvādiryasyāvidyā
bhavet, anirvācyeyamavidyā, iti cet, kasya anirvācyā, iti na vidmaḥ.
18 Hereafter, when I refer to PS and PSV, I am relying on the critical edition
and English translation of Abhinavagupta’s Paramārthasāra and Yogarāja’s
Paramārthasārasaṃgrahavivṛti by Bansat-Boudon and Tripathi (2011).
19 In his commentary on kārikā 15, when Yogarāja refers to “brahmavādin,” he likely
has in mind primarily Śaṅkara’s Advaita. For details see Bansat-Boudon (2011: 128
note 526, 155 note 668).
302 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

20 PSV 15: mīyate paricchidyate dharāntaḥ pramātṛprameyaprapañco yayā sā māyā

viśvamohakatayā vā māyā. eṣā devasya krīḍāśīlasya saṃbandhinīti kṛtvā devī na
punar brahmavādinām iva vyatiriktā kācin māyopapadyata iti.
21 Ābhāsavāda is also known as the pratibimbavāda (“doctrine of reflection”).
22 PS 12–13: darpaṇabimbe yadvan nagaragrāmādi citram avibhāgi | bhāti vibhāgenaiva ca
parasparaṃ darpaṇād api ca || vimalatamaparamabhairavabodhāt tadvad vibhāgaśūnyam
api | anyonyaṃ ca tato ’pi ca vibhaktam ābhāti jagad etat ||
23 PS 26: rasaphāṇitaśarkarikāguḍakhaṇḍādyā yathekṣurasa eva | tadvad avasthābhedāḥ
sarve paramātmanaḥ śaṃbhoḥ ||
24 Flood (1993: 67) argues that Kṣemarāja rejects both pariṇāma and vivarta causation
theories, held by Sāṃkhya and Advaita Vedānta respectively. Kṣemarāja does,
however, in Flood’s view, incorporate both these theories into his formulation of
ābhāsavāda.
25 ĪPK 1.5.1: vartamānāvabhāsānāṃ bhāvānām avabhāsanam | antaḥsthitavatām eva
ghaṭate bahirātmanā ||
26 For further reading on the mirror analogy and the nondual Śaiva theory of reflection,
see Lawrence (2005), Kaul (2016), and Ratié (2017b).
27 I am not claiming here that Śiva actually forgets His essential nature.
28 See, for instance, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.8.10 and 4.4.14, Kena Upaniṣad 2.5,
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.3.14, Aitareya Upaniṣad 2.1.5–6, Brahmasūtra 3.4.51, and
Bhagavad-Gītā 5.23 and 5.28. See Nelson (1996: 21–2) for detailed references.
29 Śaṅkara distinguishes two kinds of past karman: saṃcita (accumulated) karman, i.e.,
karman which has not yet begun to bear fruit, and prārabdha (commenced) karman.
While knowledge of Brahman destroys the saṃcitakarma, the prārabdhakarman
remains.
30 BSBh 4.1.15: bādhitam api tu mithyājñānaṃ … saṃskāravaśāt kaṃcit kālam
anuvartata eva.
31 Maṇḍana denies that the jīvanmukta is subject to prārabdhakarman, arguing that this
idea is in direct conflict with scriptures affirming that knowledge destroys all karman.
Instead, Maṇḍana suggests that saṃskāras of both ignorance and prārabdhakarman
allow for the continued existence of the body even after liberation. For details, see
Nelson (1996: 32).
32 Rāmānuja (c. eleventh century CE) rejects the Advaita Vedāntic doctrine of
jīvanmukti for this very reason. His critique of the doctrine of jīvanmukti directly
targets Śaṅkara’s theory of prārabdhakarman along with the further arguments of
the post-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntins. In his commentary on Brahmasūtra 1.1.4,
Rāmānuja argues that the jīvanmukta’s knowledge of Brahman is inconsistent with
ignorance and its effects, and hence, that jīvanmukti is impossible. For more details
see Framarin (2009).
33 See, for instance, Malkani (1955) and Skoog (1996).
34 The Śaiva Siddhānta (“The Definitive Doctrine of Śaivism”) holds that there are three
eternally distinct principles: pati (the Lord/Śiva), paśu (the bound soul), and pāśa
(bondage) (Wallis 2014: 78). The Saiddhāntikas (the followers of the Śaiva Siddhānta)
believe that the world is the cause of bondage, attributing it to māyā, which is distinct
from Śiva. In this system, liberation is regarded as union with Śiva, but since it is a
dualistic system, liberated souls remain distinct from Śiva (Torella 2017: 183).
35 For further reading on the conception of liberation in the nondual Śaivism of
Kashmir, see Rastogi (2010).
 Nondual Philosophies in Dialogue 303

36 In the Śaiva Siddhānta, puruṣa is understood as the contraction of universal

Consciousness, or individualized consciousness, and is thus different from the
Sāṃkhyan puruṣa.
37 For a discussion of the concept of impurity (mala) in Śaiva Siddhānta, see Acharya
(2014).
38 The Saiddhāntikas thought that only initiation (dīkṣā) could remove the āṇavamala
and thereby gurantee liberation. Since they considered the impurities to be real
substances, liberation could only be accomplished through ritual action (kriyā),
which removed the impurities (Sanderson 1988: 691). However, liberation was
not immediately effective and would only be fully achieved after the initiate was
separated from his body at death (Sanderson 2012: 20). For this reason, the Śaiva
Siddhāntins denied that liberation could be achieved prior to death and thereby
rejected the possibility of jīvanmukti.
39 TĀ 1.23: malam ajñānaṃ icchanti saṁsārāṅkurakāraṇam | iti proktaṃ tathā ca
śrīmālinīvijayottare ||
40 TĀ 1.44: bauddhajñānena tu yadā bauddham ajñānajṛmbhitam | vilīyate tadā
jīvanmuktiḥ karatale sthitā ||
41 According to the Saiddhāntikas, liberation takes place through the descent of power
(śaktipāta) that makes the aspirant seek a guru for initiation (dīkṣā), which is the
only way the self can free itself from its bondages. However, for nondual Śaivites, it is
knowledge that liberates and, therefore, initiation is not always required. For a more
detailed discussion on śaktipāta, see Wallis (2014) and Ferrario (2015). For more
information on dīkṣā, see Takashima (1992).
42 ĪPV 1.1.1: eṣa ca anugrahalakṣaṇo ’ntyaḥ pañcamaḥ pārameśvaraḥ kṛtyaviśeṣaḥ
parapuruṣārthaprāpakaḥ, tannibandhanatvāt paramārthamokṣasya.
43 These are all discussed by Abhinavagupta in the TĀ (Chapters 2–5), where
Abhinavagupta devotes one chapter to each upāya.
44 Note that the MVT only mentions śāṃbhavopāya, śāktopāya, and āṇavopāya.
The anupāya or “non-means” appears to be the invention of Abhinavagupta.
45 ĪPK 4.12: sarvo mamāyaṃ vibhava ity evaṃ parijānataḥ | viśvātmano vikalpānāṃ
prasare ’pi maheśatā ||
46 This view is also evident in tantras such as the Vijñānabhairavatantra, a Trika text
that stresses a dynamic engagement with the external world as a means of realizing
one’s essential nature. In this text, we also find a reference to jīvanmukti (VBT
141–2, 128).
47 According to Dyczkowski (1987: 9), the notion of liberation as an intense
empowerment largely derives from the Kaula tradition (particularly from the Krama
system), which influenced the Pratyabhijñā school.
48 According to the Saiddhāntikas, Śiva is only the efficient cause of the universe, while
māyā is its beginningless material cause (as in Advaita Vedānta).
49 ĪPV 4.12: ato vikalpasṛṣṭir api mama svātantryalakṣaṇo vibhavaḥ, ity evaṃ vimarśe
dṛḍhībhūte saty aparikṣīṇavikalpo ’pi jīvann eva muktaḥ.
50 The Spanda school is named after one of its foundational texts, the Spandakārikā
(Stanzas on Vibration). This school emphasized the goal of becoming aware
of spanda, the vibration or pulsation of Consciousness. For more details, see
Dyczkowski (1992).
51 PHr 13: tatparijñāne cittam eva antarmukhībhāvena | cetanapadād adhyārohāt citiḥ ||
52 PHr 16: cidānandalābhe dehādiṣu cetyamāneṣv api | cidaikātmyapratipattidārḍhyaṃ
jīvanmuktiḥ ||
304 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

53 ĪPK 4.16: iti prakaṭito mayā sughaṭa eṣa mārgo navo mahāgurubhir ucyate sma
śivadṛṣṭiśāstre yathā. tad atra nidadhat padaṃ bhuvanakartṛtām ātmano vibhāvya
śivatāmayīm aniśam āviśan siddhyati.
54 ĪPKV 4.16: etatpariṣīlanena śivatāveśāj jīvann eva mukto bhavati.
55 TS 11.7: tatra utkṛṣṭatīvrāt tadaiva dehapāte parameśatā.
56 See, for instance, Sen Sharma (1983: 169–70), Bansat-Boudon (2011: 37), and
Wallis (2014: 117). Sen Sharma (1983: 170) cites Chapter 11 of TS in support of his
interpretation that the yogin of anupāya does not attain the state of jīvanmukti. Note
that the MVT does not mention death as a consequence of śaktipāta and it therefore
seems to be Abhinavagupta who adds the idea that the body falls away as a result of
the highest descent of power.
57 Kṣemarāja is here commenting on verse 3.26 of the Śivasūtra, “He becomes like Śiva”
(śivatulyo jāyate).
58 ŚSV 3.26: turyapariśīlanaprakarṣāt prāptaturyātītapadaḥ
paripūrṇasvacchandacidānandaghanena śivena bhagavatā tulyo dehakalāyā
avigalanāt tatsamo jāyate.
59 PSV 61: … kiṃ tu dehapātāt pūrṇo mokṣa iti.
60 PSV 83: kaivalyaṃ yāti kalevaraparikṣayāt pradhānādikāryakāraṇavargebhyo ’nyāṃ
cidānandaikaghanāṃ turyātītarūpāṃ kevalatāṃ yātīti yāvat.
61 PSV 86: jñānī jīvann eva turīyarūpo dehābhāvāt turyātītarūpa iti.
62 ĪPV 3.2.3: yasya rūpam, sa punarjanmabandhavirahāt dehe ’pi sthite mukta iti
vyapadeśayogyaḥ. patite tu śiva ekaghanaḥ iti kaḥ kuto muktaḥ. bhūtapūrvagatyā tu
pramātrantarāpekṣayā muktaḥ śivaḥ, – iti vyavahāraḥ.
63 TĀ 3.272–3: ita eva prabhṛty eṣā jīvanmuktir vicāryate | yatra sūtraṇayāpīyam
upāyopeyakalpanā || prāktane tv āhnike kācidbhedasya kalanāpi no | tenānupāye
tasmin ko mucyate vā kathaṃ kutaḥ ||

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 Part 4

Hermeneutic Investigations
308
 11

Seeing Oneness Everywhere: Sri Aurobindo’s

Mystico-Immanent Interpretation
of the Īśā Upaniṣad
Ayon Maharaj

Three times God laughed at Shankara, first, when he returned to burn the corpse of
his mother, again when he commented on the Isha Upanishad and the third time
when he stormed about India preaching inaction.
— Sri Aurobindo (SABCL 17: 115)1

Since the work of such pioneers as George Thibaut (1890: ix–cxxviii), Max Müller
(1900), Paul Deussen ([1897] 1921), and Robert Ernest Hume (1921), numerous
scholars have brought the modern historico-philological method to bear on the
three scriptural “pillars” of Vedānta (the prasthānatrayī)—namely, the Upaniṣads, the
Bhagavad-Gītā, and the Brahmasūtra. Among the three pillars, the Gītā has received
by far the most attention.2 Nonetheless, recent scholars have also begun to examine
the Upaniṣads in depth, as Signe Cohen (2018a)’s major new edited volume on the
Upaniṣads attests.
The Īśā Upaniṣad, one of the oldest of all the metrical Upaniṣads, has attracted
the attention of both traditional commentators and modern scholars.3 Consisting of
a mere eighteen verses, the Īśā Upaniṣad is notable for a variety of reasons, including
its paradoxical language, its emphasis on God’s immanence in the world, and its
affirmation of life and action. This Upaniṣad taxed the interpretive ingenuity of the
famed eighth-century Advaitin Śaṅkara, who tried to show that it actually propounds
the unreality of the world and enjoins the renunciation of works for advanced spiritual
aspirants. Other commentators such as the Dvaitin Madhva (c. 1238–1317) and
the Viśiṣṭādvaitin Veṅkaṭanātha (c. 1269–1370; also known as “Vedānta Deśika”)
interpreted the Īśā Upaniṣad from their own respective philosophical standpoints.

I am grateful to Signe Cohen, Peter Heehs, Paolo Magnone, and an anonymous reviewer for their
very helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this chapter.
310 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

However, as many modern scholars have pointed out, all of these traditional
commentators were guilty, to varying degrees, of eisegesis, reading their own views
into the text instead of trying to understand the text on its own terms.4 Rejecting
such an eisegetic approach, scholars such as Paul Thieme (1965), Arvind Sharma and
Katherine K. Young (1990), Richard Jones (1981), and Cohen (2018b) have attempted
to determine the original meaning of the Īśā Upaniṣad through careful philological
and historical research.5
Curiously, the vast majority of scholars have ignored Sri Aurobindo’s detailed
commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad (IU), in spite of the fact that it is one of the earliest
and most important attempts to interpret the Upaniṣad in a comprehensive and non-
eisegetic manner. Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950), a Bengali philosopher-mystic who was
raised and educated in England, is well known for the spiritual tradition of “Integral
Yoga” he inaugurated and for his voluminous writings on spiritual philosophy,
Indian thought and culture, and the ancient Indian scriptures.6 He wrote full-scale
commentaries on the Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gītā, and the Īśā and Kena Upaniṣads, and
he also translated numerous other Upaniṣads. Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the Īśā
Upaniṣad, I will argue here, is both hermeneutically sophisticated and highly original
and insightful.
Section 11.1 delineates the key hermeneutic principles employed by Sri Aurobindo
to interpret the Īśā Upaniṣad. Militating against the reductive view that he simply read
his own mystical experiences into the Īśā Upaniṣad, I show that he consciously strove
to avoid eisegesis by adopting what I call a “hermeneutics of mystical immanence.” For
Sri Aurobindo, the key to achieving interpretive immanence is to recognize that the Īśā
Upaniṣad is not a philosophical treatise but an inspired poem grounded in spiritual
experience. Accordingly, his interpretive approach to the Īśā Upaniṣad combines
a sensitivity to its mystico-spiritual dimension with close attention to historical,
philological, and textual considerations, such as the Upaniṣad’s Vedic context, its
architectonic structure, and the etymological meaning of many of its key terms.
Section 11.2 examines Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad in the
context of both traditional commentators and modern scholars. According to Sri
Aurobindo, the fundamental principle of the Īśā Upaniṣad is the reconciliation of
opposites. This principle, he argues, holds the key to understanding many of the
cryptic and apparently contradictory statements in the Īśā Upaniṣad, the interrelation
of the individual verses, and the thought structure of the Upaniṣad as a whole. I make
the case that Sri Aurobindo’s distinctive reading of the Īśā Upaniṣad in the light of this
principle provides new ways of resolving numerous interpretive puzzles and difficulties
that have preoccupied commentators for centuries.
Section 11.3 draws on the hermeneutic insights of Hans-Georg Gadamer and
Francis X. Clooney to set into relief what is most distinctive about Sri Aurobindo’s
approach to the Īśā Upaniṣad. Sri Aurobindo, I argue, combines a traditional
commitment to the transformative power of scripture with a historico-philological
method favored by recent scholars. On this basis, I claim that Sri Aurobindo’s
unduly neglected commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad deserves a prominent place in
contemporary scholarly discussions.
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 311

11.1 Sri Aurobindo’s Hermeneutics of Mystical Immanence

Before examining Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad, we need to identify
the fundamental hermeneutic principles governing his interpretation. Fortunately,
Sri Aurobindo himself hinted at, and sometimes even explicitly formulated, these
hermeneutic principles in various writings. For present purposes, I will focus on his
unpublished essay “The Interpretation of Scripture” (1912; CWSA 12: 33–7), his chapter
on the Upaniṣads in A Defence of Indian Culture (first ed., 1921; CWSA 20: 329–41),
and his published commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad itself (1924; CWSA 17: 3–91).7
In “The Interpretation of Scripture,” Sri Aurobindo specifies three “standards
of truth” for interpreting scriptural texts accurately: the known, the knower, and
knowledge. He elaborates the first standard as follows:

The known is the text itself that we seek to interpret. We must be sure we have the
right word, not an emendation to suit the exigency of some individual or sectarian
opinion; the right etymology and shade of meaning, not one that is traditional
or forced to serve the ends of a commentator; the right spirit in the sense, not an
imported or too narrow or too elastic spirit. (CWSA 12: 36)

Sri Aurobindo emphasizes here the need to avoid eisegesis in all forms. Instead of
determining the precise meaning of words by drawing on our own preconceived ideas,
we should strive to decipher the original meaning of the words by taking into account
historical and philological considerations such as their etymological derivation and
their context.
If understanding the “known”—the text—requires philological and historical
sensitivity, then understanding the “knower” and “knowledge” requires spiritual
receptivity. By the “knower,” Sri Aurobindo means the draṣṭā (seer) who originally
composed the particular scripture. According to Sri Aurobindo, we must attempt to
discern the intent and broader philosophico-spiritual worldview of the draṣṭā. As he
puts it, “The knower is the original drashta or seer of the mantra, with whom we ought
to be in spiritual contact” (CWSA 12: 36). For Sri Aurobindo, then, full understanding
of a scripture requires not only textual or philological analysis but also knowledge of
the draṣṭā’s intention gained through direct spiritual communion with the draṣṭā. It
should be noted that Sri Aurobindo’s understanding of the draṣṭā as a divinely inspired
human being who composed a given scripture contradicts the traditional view—held
by Pūrva Mīmāṃsaka as well as some traditional Vedāntins like Śaṅkara—that the
Vedas are “apauruṣeya” (authorless).8 On this issue, Sri Aurobindo may have been
influenced by Vivekananda, who maintained that the composers of the Vedas were
“Rishis,” “men” who “declared that they had realised … certain facts, and these facts
they proceeded to put on record” (Vivekananda 2005: 60).
Sri Aurobindo’s imperative to understand the intentions of the mantra-draṣṭā may
seem quaint to contemporary scholars and students raised on Wimsatt and Beardsley’s
“The Intentional Fallacy” (1946) and grand poststructuralist pronouncements of the
“death of the author.”9 How might Sri Aurobindo have responded to such ultramodern
312 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

ideas? Most fundamentally, I think he would point out that different genres of text
require correspondingly different canons of interpretation. Even if it may10 be unfruitful
or hopeless to attempt to discern the author’s intentions when interpreting literary and
philosophical texts, Sri Aurobindo maintains that the Indian scriptures belong to a unique
genre of text for which inquiry into authorial intention is entirely appropriate and even
necessary. According to Sri Aurobindo, the Upaniṣads are spiritual texts which express
“a mind in which philosophy and religion and poetry are made one” (CWSA 20: 329).
From Sri Aurobindo’s standpoint, then, spiritual texts such as the Upaniṣads naturally
call for a spiritually grounded hermeneutics which aims to uncover their meaning by a
variety of means, including direct mystical communion with the mantra-draṣṭā.
Finally, “knowledge” is the “eternal truth” embodied in the scripture (CWSA 12: 36).
Since scripture aims to impart spiritual rather than intellectual knowledge, mere
intellectual understanding of scriptures is insufficient. Rather, we should strive to
attain direct mystical knowledge of the spiritual truth conveyed by the scripture. As Sri
Aurobindo puts it, “To understand Scripture, it is not enough to be a scholar, one must
be a soul. To know what the drashta saw one must oneself have drishti, sight, and be a
student if not a master of the knowledge” (CWSA 12: 37).
According to Robert Minor, Sri Aurobindo took “one’s inner experience” to be the
“basic interpretive principle for understanding any scripture” (Minor [1986] 1991: 72).
While Minor is right to emphasize the importance of spiritual experience in Sri
Aurobindo’s hermeneutics, Minor’s claim is misleading and insufficiently nuanced,
since it seems to imply that Sri Aurobindo’s approach to the scriptures was entirely
or primarily subjective. Minor overlooks the fact that all three standards of truth in
Sri Aurobindo’s “The Interpretation of Scripture”—knowledge, the knower, and the
known—are oriented toward achieving interpretive immanence: that is, gaining a
deeper understanding of the scriptural text itself. For Sri Aurobindo, the best way to
understand and interpret a scripture from within is to combine literary and historico-
philological sensitivity with a mystical receptivity both to the draṣṭā’s intention and
to the spiritual truth embodied in the scripture. Therefore, I would argue that Sri
Aurobindo’s interpretive method is best understood as a hermeneutics of mystical
immanence. For Sri Aurobindo, mystical experience, far from leading to eisegesis or
interpretive subjectivism, helps attune us to the scripture’s true import.
In his later writings on early Vedic hymns, the Upaniṣads, and the Bhagavad-Gītā,
Sri Aurobindo consciously adopts the hermeneutics of mystical immanence outlined
in “The Interpretation of Scripture.” To set the stage for the next section, I will now
reconstruct from Sri Aurobindo’s work the five basic hermeneutic principles he
employs in his interpretation of the Upaniṣads in particular. (It should be noted that
the names given to these five hermeneutic principles are my own, not Sri Aurobindo’s.)

(1) The Anti-Eisegesis Principle: Instead of imposing our own preconceived or

narrow ideas onto the Upaniṣads, we should strive to understand them on their
own terms.

According to Sri Aurobindo, the teachings of the Upaniṣads are so broad and
universal that they cannot be pigeonholed into any narrow sectarian framework
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 313

(CWSA 20: 331–3). Traditional commentators such as Śaṅkara, he argues, lapsed into
eisegesis precisely because they failed to honor the nonsectarian spirit of the Upaniṣads.
Tellingly, in his essay “Karmayoga” (1909), Sri Aurobindo calls for a fresh nonsectarian
interpretation of the Upaniṣads based on the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami
Vivekananda:

[T]he word Vedanta is usually identified with the strict Monism and the peculiar
theory of Maya established by the lofty and ascetic intellect of Shankara. But it
is the Upanishads themselves and not Shankara’s writings, the text and not the
commentary, that are the authoritative Scripture of the Vedantin. Shankara’s, great
and temporarily satisfying as it was, is still only one synthesis and interpretation
of the Upanishads. There have been others in the past which have powerfully
influenced the national mind and there is no reason why there should not be a yet
more perfect synthesis in the future. It is such a synthesis, embracing all life and
action in its scope, that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have
been preparing. (CWSA 13: 10–11)

Militating against the still common tendency to equate Vedānta with Śaṅkara’s
world-denying philosophy of Advaita Vedānta, Sri Aurobindo reminds us that Vedānta
means the Upaniṣads themselves. Our aim, he argues, should not be to interpret the
Upaniṣads from a sectarian standpoint—Śaṅkara’s or otherwise—but to strive to
understand their universal nonsectarian spirit.
In particular, he claims that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna (1836–86) and
Vivekananda (1863–1902) provide the hermeneutic basis for a non-eisegetic
interpretive “synthesis” of the Upaniṣads that embraces “all life and action in its scope.”
As I have shown elsewhere (Maharaj 2015: 1211–14, 2018: 119–24), Sri Aurobindo
was profoundly influenced by both Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, especially
their teaching that various spiritual and religious paths all lead to the common goal
of God-realization. Vivekananda (2007: 233) emphatically rejected what he perceived
as the text-torturing of traditional commentators like Śaṅkara and called for a broader
nonsectarian approach to the Upaniṣads that avoids pigeonholing them into any narrow
sectarian framework.11 Taking Vivekananda’s lead, Sri Aurobindo not only frequently
criticizes Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the Upaniṣads and Gītā but also strives to show
how the scriptures harmonize various sectarian philosophies and spiritual paths.12
As I will demonstrate in the next section, the influence of Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda is pervasive in Sri Aurobindo’s commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad.
Sri Ramakrishna, in his recorded Bengali teachings, often contrasted the spiritual
experiences of jñāna (“Knowledge”) and vijñāna (“Intimate Knowledge”).13 According
to Sri Ramakrishna, jñāna is the Advaitic realization that the impersonal nondual
Ātman alone is real and that the world is unreal. By contrast, vijñāna is the richer and
more expansive realization of God as both personal and impersonal, with and without
form, immanent in the universe and beyond it.14 As Sri Ramakrishna puts it, while the
Advaitic jñānī dismisses the world as a “framework of illusion,” the vijñānī embraces
the world as a “mart of joy,” since he sees that Brahman “has become the universe and
its living beings” (Gupta [1902–32] 2010: 50–1, [1942] 1992: 103–4). Vivekananda, in
314 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

turn, delivered the provocative 1896 lecture “God in Everything” (2005: 144–54) in
which he sketched a new interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad from Sri Ramakrishna’s
world-affirming standpoint of vijñāna. In this lecture, Vivekananda departs boldly
from Śaṅkara in arguing that the Īśā Upaniṣad, far from dismissing the world as unreal,
teaches the “deification of the world” (2005: 146).15
Sri Aurobindo’s commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad, I will argue, can be seen as a
full-scale development of Vivekananda’s suggestive reinterpretation of the Upaniṣad
as a world-affirming scripture. In the spirit of Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo claims that
the Īśā Upaniṣad is “the sole Upanishad which offered almost insuperable difficulties to
the extreme illusionism and anti-pragmatism of Shankaracharya” (IU 83). According
to Sri Aurobindo, Śaṅkara’s Advaitic commitment to the unreality of the world and
the renunciation of action for jñānayogins leads him to lapse frequently into eisegesis
in his commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad. Moreover, as we will see, Sri Aurobindo’s
interpretation of specific verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad reflects the influence of many of Sri
Ramakrishna’s teachings, including those on vijñāna, God’s immanence in the world,
and the inseparability of the impersonal Brahman and the dynamic Śakti.
One could object at this point that Sri Aurobindo’s project of reinterpreting the
Upaniṣads from the nonsectarian standpoint of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
may be just as eisegetic as Śaṅkara’s Advaitic interpretation. Might Sri Aurobindo not
simply be reading the ideas of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, as well as his own,
into the Īśā Upaniṣad? Perhaps, but it would be presumptuous to assume an affirmative
answer to this question from the outset. As we have seen, Sri Aurobindo believed that
the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda can help us avoid eisegesis precisely
by attuning us to the universal, nonsectarian spirit of the Upaniṣads themselves. A
charitable approach to Sri Aurobindo requires us to take seriously this crucial aspect
of his hermeneutic project. Therefore, the question whether Sri Aurobindo succeeds in
avoiding eisegesis is not one that can be answered a priori. Rather, we can answer this
question only after a patient and careful examination of Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation
of the Īśā Upaniṣad.

(2) The Mystical Receptivity Principle: Since the Upaniṣads concern mystical
knowledge of spiritual realities, a proper understanding of the Upaniṣads requires
a receptivity to mystical experience.

According to Sri Aurobindo, the Upaniṣads are “vehicles of illumination and not of
instruction” (IU 13). In J.L. Austin’s terms, these scriptures are not merely constative
but performative, since they seek to bring about the very spiritual experiences they
describe (Austin 1962). For Sri Aurobindo, then, the ideal reader of the Upaniṣads
must be receptive to their performative dimension. In the Upaniṣads, as he puts it, the
Spirit “discovers to the mind the vibration of rhythms which[,] repeating themselves
within in the spiritual hearing[,] seem to build up the soul and set it satisfied and
complete on the heights of self-knowledge” (CWSA 20: 329–30).
Most Western scholars, Sri Aurobindo argues, make the mistake of approaching the
Upaniṣads as intellectual rather than spiritual documents. These foreign scholars and
translators, he claims,
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 315

seek to bring out the intellectual sense without feeling the life of thought vision and
the ecstasy of spiritual experience which made the ancient verses appear then and
still make them to those who can enter into the element in which these utterances
move, a revelation not to the intellect alone, but to the soul and the whole being,
make of them in the old expressive word not intellectual thought and phrase, but
Sruti, spiritual audience, an inspired Scripture. (CWSA 20: 330)

Notice Sri Aurobindo’s emphasis on mystical receptivity as the key to achieving

interpretive immanence: we cannot “enter into the element” in which the Upaniṣadic
mantras “move” without being receptive to the ecstatic spiritual experiences that
inspired the ancient seers to utter these mantras in the first place.16
As we will see in the next section, Sri Aurobindo’s employment of the Mystical
Receptivity Principle in his commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad is subtle. Although he
never refers explicitly to his own mystical experiences, his panentheistic experience of
God in everything—which he elsewhere calls “cosmic consciousness” (CWSA 33–4:
551–61)—clearly informs his interpretations of numerous verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad,
especially the sixth and seventh verses, which describe the spiritual experience of the
Ātman in all beings and all beings in the Ātman.
It would be a mistake, however, to view Sri Aurobindo’s mystical approach as
antithetical to the historico-philological approach of modern Western scholars. In
fact, as Sri Aurobindo’s final three hermeneutic principles make clear, his interpretive
approach to the Upaniṣads combines mystical receptivity with careful attention to
precisely the kinds of philological and historical considerations that have preoccupied
modern scholars.

(3) The Vedic Context Principle: Since the Upaniṣads frequently use Vedic terms
and symbols, it is essential to place the Upaniṣads in their Vedic context.

According to Sri Aurobindo, a proper understanding of the Upaniṣads requires us

to take seriously their status as “Vedānta,” the “end” or “culmination” of the Vedas. As
he puts it, “The Upanishads are not a revolutionary departure from the Vedic mind
and its temperament and fundamental ideas, but a continuation and development
and to a certain extent an enlarging transformation in the sense of bringing out into
open expression all that was held covered in the symbolic Vedic speech as a mystery
and a secret” (CWSA 20: 334). As we will see shortly, Sri Aurobindo makes extensive
use of the Vedic Context Principle in his commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad. In order
to decipher the meaning and spiritual significance of terms such as Mātariśvan,
Agni, and Sūrya, he strives to determine how these terms were originally used in the
Vedic hymns. Crucially, his interpretations of the Vedic terms and symbols in the Īśā
Upaniṣad presuppose his earlier work, The Secret of the Veda (1914–16; CWSA 15),
which defends a unique “psychological” interpretation of the Vedas. In The Secret of
the Veda, Sri Aurobindo argues that the ancient Vedic hymns—as well as the various
objects, worlds, terms, and symbols referred to in these hymns—have at once an
exoteric and esoteric sense. In their exoteric sense, the Vedic hymns enjoin ritual
sacrifices for the sake of material gain such as wealth or offspring. In their esoteric
316 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

sense, these hymns describe symbolic sacrifices that have profound psychological
and spiritual significance. According to Sri Aurobindo, the Vedic seers intended
this esoteric sense for a small elite of spiritually advanced souls who were capable of
receiving the spiritual teachings of the Vedas, but these seers consciously disguised the
esoteric spiritual sense of the sacrifices in the garb of ritualistic language so that the
uninitiated would not be confused or led to moral ruin (CWSA 15: 8).
While most modern scholars would agree with Sri Aurobindo that the
Upaniṣads should be placed in their Vedic context, they would likely reject, or at
least question, Sri Aurobindo’s mystico-psychological interpretation of the Vedic
hymns themselves. Since this is not the occasion for a critical examination of Sri
Aurobindo’s interpretation of the Vedic hymns, I will only point out here that Sri
Aurobindo was conversant with both Sāyaṇa’s traditional interpretation of the
Vedas and the modern historico-philological interpretations of modern scholars
such as Max Müller.17 Moreover, throughout The Secret of the Veda, Sri Aurobindo
demonstrates an acute awareness of the dangers of eisegesis and attempts to provide
a “philological justification” of his own psychological interpretation of the Vedic
hymns by appealing to “internal evidence” for the plausibility of his approach
(CWSA 15: 34).

(4) The Etymological Meaning Principle: The etymological meaning of words in the
Upaniṣads can help elucidate their semantic nuances.

In the passage cited above from “The Interpretation of Scripture,” Sri Aurobindo
emphasizes the need for the interpreter to determine “the right etymology and shade
of meaning, not one that is traditional or forced to serve the ends of a commentator”
(CWSA 12: 36). That is, we can better understand the semantic nuances of many
words in the Upaniṣads by determining their etymological meaning. However, since
the verbal roots (dhātus) from which Sanskrit words derive are frequently polysemous,
different commentators have suggested radically different etymological meanings of
key words in the Upaniṣads. According to Sri Aurobindo, we should strive to avoid
eisegesis by determining the most plausible etymology of a given word based on its
context in the Upaniṣad. For instance, as we will see in the next section, Śaṅkara and
Sri Aurobindo suggest radically different etymological meanings of the imperative
“bhuñjīthāḥ” in the first verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad. Rejecting Śaṅkara’s interpretation
of “bhuñjīthāḥ” as “protect,” Sri Aurobindo argues that “bhuñjīthāḥ” is more plausibly
interpreted as “enjoy,” since this meaning not only has greater grammatical justification
but also better coheres with the overall sense of the first verse and of the Īśā Upaniṣad
as a whole. Similarly, in his reading of the seventh verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad, Sri
Aurobindo finds deep metaphysical significance in the etymological affinity between
the accusative noun “bhūtāni” and the verb abhūt, both of which derive from √bhū
(“to become”).

(5) The Internal Consistency Principle: Instead of interpreting each verse or passage
of a given Upaniṣad in isolation from the others, we should strive to read the
Upaniṣad, at least provisionally, as a unified and internally coherent whole.
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 317

The best interpretation of an Upaniṣad, according to Sri Aurobindo, is one that

shows how all its verses or statements cohere with one another and comprise a
consistent whole. However, the word “internal” in the Internal Consistency Principle
is crucial. Sri Aurobindo rejects the eisegetic practice of establishing an artificial
semantic consistency by imposing a preconceived framework onto the Upaniṣad and
interpreting all the individual verses in light of this external framework. Śaṅkara, for
instance, arguably slips into eisegesis when he establishes a connection between the
first and second verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad by claiming that the two verses respectively
address spiritual aspirants of differing calibers. From Sri Aurobindo’s standpoint,
Śaṅkara’s reading should not be accepted unless there is internal evidence that the two
verses actually address different grades of spiritual aspirants.
In contrast to Śaṅkara and other traditional commentators, Sri Aurobindo attempts to
justify his interpretation of individual verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad and their interrelation
on the basis of internal textual evidence. In particular, he makes a cumulative case that
the fundamental principle of the reconciliation of opposites lies at the basis of the Īśā
Upaniṣad as a whole by arguing that each verse in the Upaniṣad exemplifies this principle.
Therefore, in order to determine whether Sri Aurobindo’s overarching principle is indeed
immanent to the Īśā Upaniṣad, we would need to examine carefully his interpretations of
individual verses and assess their plausibility on the basis of internal evidence.

11.2 Sri Aurobindo’s Interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad in the

Context of Traditional and Modern Commentators
Throughout his commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad, Sri Aurobindo makes copious use
of all five of the hermeneutic principles outlined in the previous section. In accordance
with the Internal Consistency Principle, he argues that the unifying principle of the
entire Īśā Upaniṣad is “the uncompromising reconciliation of uncompromising
extremes” (IU 83). In particular, he claims that the Īśā Upaniṣad resolves sequentially
the following nine pairs of opposites:

1. God and the world (verse 1, line 1)

2. Renunciation and enjoyment (verse 1, line 2)
3. External action and internal freedom (verse 2)
4. The One stable Brahman and the multiple Movement (verses 4–5)
5. Being and Becoming (verses 6–7)
6. The Active Lord and the indifferent Akṣara Brahman (verse 8)
7. Vidyā and Avidyā (verses 9–11)
8. Birth and Non-Birth (verses 12–14)
9. Works and Knowledge (verses 15–18).18

Sri Aurobindo further argues that these nine pairs of opposites are “worked out
symmetrically in four successive movements of thought” (IU 13). The first three verses,
which comprise the first movement of thought, articulate all the main ideas of the Īśā
Upaniṣad. The remaining fifteen verses—encompassing the second, third, and fourth
318 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Figure 11.1 Sri Aurobindo on the Symmetrical Structure of the Īśā Upaniṣad.

movements of thought—explain and amplify the ideas of the first three verses in a
sequential and symmetrical manner that I have illustrated in Figure 11.1.
Of course, it would take an entire book to analyze in detail Sri Aurobindo’s subtle
and often complex interpretations of the specific verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad. In this
section, I will only highlight some of the most significant and distinctive aspects of
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation and compare it at various points with the views of
prominent traditional and modern commentators. My hope is that this chapter will
serve as an interpretive guide for scholars and students interested in reading—or
rereading—Sri Aurobindo’s challenging commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad.
Sri Aurobindo’s translation of the Īśā Upaniṣad—like any other translation—
inevitably involves interpretation, so I will first cite his translation of particular verses
and then provide the original Sanskrit. He renders the first two verses as follows:

1. All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of

movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust
not after any man’s possession.
2. Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus
it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man.
[īśā vāsyam idaṃ sarvaṃ yat kiñca jagatyāṃ jagat |
tena tyaktena bhuñjīthā mā gṛdhaḥ kasyasvid dhanam ||
kurvann eveha karmāṇi jijīviṣec chataṃ samāḥ |
evaṃ tvayi nānyatheto ’sti na karma lipyate nare ||] (IU 5)
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 319

According to Sri Aurobindo, the first line of the first verse resolves the apparent
antithesis between the eternal, immutable, perfect God and the transient, changing,
imperfect world by affirming that the world is God’s “dwelling-place” (IU 5). The first line
affirms the panentheistic view that God is both immanent and transcendent: He not only
transcends the world but also rules and inhabits it. Applying the Etymological Principle,
Sri Aurobindo brings out the philosophical significance of the phrase “jagatyāṃ jagat” by
emphasizing the derivation of both words from √gam (“to go”), which indicates motion.
For Sri Aurobindo, the unusual pairing of the feminine noun “jagatī” in its locative
singular form with the masculine noun “jagat” in its nominative singular form expresses
the dialectical relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. The etymological
kinship of the two words suggests that the “individual universe of movement” (jagat) is
one with the “universal motion” (jagatī): every object in the universe is nothing but the
frontal appearance of the entire universe. At the same time, the microcosm is contained
in the macrocosm, since the individual “partakes of the nature of the universal” (IU 16).
The second line of the first verse, Sri Aurobindo argues, resolves the opposition
between renunciation and enjoyment by telling us to enjoy the world through
renunciation: tena tyaktena bhuñjīthāḥ. For Sri Aurobindo, the Īśā Upaniṣad redefines
the concepts of enjoyment (bhoga) and renunciation (tyāga) so as to show their mutual
compatibility:

Real integral enjoyment of all this movement and multiplicity in its truth and in
its infinity depends upon an absolute renunciation; but the renunciation intended
is an absolute renunciation of the principle of desire founded on the principle of
egoism and not a renunciation of world-existence. (IU 85)

True enjoyment of the world, Sri Aurobindo claims, consists not in the selfish
enjoyment of sense objects but in the desireless enjoyment of everything in the world
as various manifestations of God. The “integral” enjoyment of the world, therefore,
requires nothing less than the vision of God in—and as—everything, described in
the first line of the first verse. In order to achieve this panentheistic vision of all as
God, one must renounce all selfish desires, but such inner renunciation is perfectly
compatible with action in the world. For Sri Aurobindo, then, the first verse’s emphasis
on enjoyment of the world through renunciation of desire dovetails with the second
verse, which instructs us to perform our duties in the world throughout our lives. As
Sri Aurobindo puts it, “life and works can and should be accepted in their fullness; for
the manifestation of the Lord in life and works is the law of our being and the object
of our world-existence” (IU 86). On Sri Aurobindo’s reading, the second verse resolves
the apparent opposition between external action and internal freedom on the basis
of the previous verse, which affirms the divinity of all existence. The Īśā Upaniṣad
encourages us to manifest our divinity by affirming life and action in the world, since
the Lord manifests Himself in “life and works.”
Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the first two verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad differs starkly from
Sri Aurobindo’s. According to Śaṅkara, the meaning of the first line of the first verse
is that “all this that is unreal [anṛtam idaṃ sarvam], whether moving or not moving,
is to be covered [ācchādaniyam] by one’s own Supreme Ātman” (Gambhīrānanda
320 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

[1957] 1989: 5).19 By glossing “idaṃ sarvam” as “anṛtam idaṃ sarvam,” Śaṅkara boldly
claims that the first line supports the Advaitic doctrine of the unreality of the world:
this unreal world should be renounced by “contemplating the supreme truth of the
Ātman” (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 5). However, Śaṅkara’s interpretation seems
eisegetic in two respects. First, Śaṅkara suppresses the theistic connotation of the word
“īśā” by taking it to imply the impersonal Ātman. Second, since the Īśā Upaniṣad does
not seem to propound the unreality of the world, Śaṅkara’s interpretation of “vāsyam”
as “ācchādaniyam” (“to be covered”) is highly questionable.
Śaṅkara’s interpretive acrobatics are equally on display in his commentary on
the phrase “tena tyaktena bhuñjīthāḥ,” in the second line of the first verse. The word
“bhuñjīthāḥ” poses a serious problem for Śaṅkara. Sūtra 1.3.66 of Pāṇinī’s Aṣṭādhyāyī,
“bhujo ’navane,” specifies that √bhuj should be conjugated in the ātmanepadī form
unless it has the meaning of “to protect.” The word “bhuñjīthāḥ” in the first verse of
the Īśā Upaniṣad is the ātmanepadī form of the second-person, singular, optative tense
(vidhi liṅ) of √bhuj. If we follow Pāṇinī’s rule, then, “bhuñjīthāḥ” must mean “enjoy” or
“eat,” not “protect.”
While Śaṅkara generally follows Pāṇinī, he notably departs from Pāṇinī here in
glossing “bhuñjīthāḥ” as “pālayethāḥ” (“protect”), since this meaning accords better
with his Advaitic reading. Implausibly taking the Ātman to be the implied direct object
of “bhuñjīthāḥ,” Śaṅkara claims that “tena tyaktena bhuñjīthāḥ” means that one should
“protect” the Ātman in the sense of practicing “steadfast devotion to knowledge of
the Ātman” (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 6). Accordingly, the first verse indicates
that “one who thinks of the Lord as the Ātman is qualified only for renunciation of
the threefold desire for son, wealth, and worlds and not for action” (Gambhīrānanda
[1957] 1989: 5). From Śaṅkara’s Advaitic standpoint, the pure, nondual nature of the
Ātman stands in direct contradiction with action, which presupposes “multiplicity,
doership, and enjoyership” (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 3). Therefore, for Śaṅkara,
the first verse enjoins renunciation of works for jñānayogins who are qualified to
practice steadfast devotion to knowledge of the Ātman.
The second verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad also poses a serious problem for Śaṅkara,
since it emphatically enjoins karma: “Doing verily works in this world one should wish
to live a hundred years.” If the first verse enjoins renunciation, why does the second
verse enjoin action? To resolve the apparent contradiction between the first and
second verses, Śaṅkara appeals to the Advaitic doctrine of adhikāribheda (difference in
spiritual competency). The second verse, he argues, is meant for “one who is unable to
grasp the Ātman as a result of his preoccupation with the non-Self ” (Gambhīrānanda
[1957] 1989: 6). According to Śaṅkara, while the first verse enjoins renunciation for
spiritually evolved aspirants who are qualified for jñānayoga, the second verse enjoins
action for less evolved aspirants who are only qualified for karmayoga.
Sri Aurobindo explicitly criticizes Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the first two verses of
the Īśā Upaniṣad. Śaṅkara’s interpretation of “vāsyam” as “to be covered,” Sri Aurobindo
argues, contradicts “the whole thought of the Upanishad,” which nowhere suggests that
the world is unreal and which teaches the reconciliation of “apparently incompatible
opposites” (IU 5 note 1). In contrast to Śaṅkara, Sri Aurobindo interprets “vāsyam” as
“to be inhabited,” arguing that the first line thereby conveys one of the main themes
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 321

of the Upaniṣad—that the world is God’s “dwelling-place” (IU 5 note 1). While
Śaṅkara departs from Pāṇinīan grammar in interpreting “bhuñjīthāḥ” as “protect,” Sri
Aurobindo interprets the word in its expected ātmanepadī sense of “enjoy,” arguing
that the phrase “tena tyaktena bhuñjīthāḥ” resolves the antithesis between renunciation
and enjoyment. Moreover, Sri Aurobindo claims that Śaṅkara’s reading of the second
verse as a “concession to the ignorant” is “forced and unnatural” (IU 5 note 3).
Numerous modern commentators—including Radhakrishnan (1913: 569) and Swami
Harshananda (2013: 38–55)—concur with Sri Aurobindo that Śaṅkara’s invocation of
adhikāribheda in this case is eisegetic, since the Īśā Upaniṣad itself gives no indication
that the first and second verses are addressed to differing grades of spiritual aspirants.
The third verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad describes the fate of those who “slay” the Ātman:

3. Sunless are those worlds and enveloped in blind gloom whereto all they in their
passing hence resort who are slayers of their souls.
[asūryā nāma te lokā andhena tamasāvṛtāḥ |
tāṃs te pretyābhigacchanti ye ke cātmahano janāḥ ||] (IU 6)

While most commentators take the first word of this verse to be “asuryāḥ”
(“demonic”), Sri Aurobindo argues that the variant “asūryāḥ” (“sunless”) is more
probable based on context (IU 6 note 4). As Figure 11.1 indicates, he takes verses fifteen
to eighteen to be an elaboration of the themes introduced in the third verse. According
to Sri Aurobindo, the prayer to Sūrya in the fifteenth and sixteenth verses, as well as
the references to “blind gloom” (andhaṃ tamaḥ) in the ninth and twelfth verses, recall
the “sunless worlds” of the third verse. For Sri Aurobindo, then, “asūryāḥ lokāḥ” refers
to “states of blind obscurity after death” (IU 14). In support of Sri Aurobindo’s reading,
Müller (1900: 311 note 1), V.P. Limaye and R.D. Vadekar (1958), and Patrick Olivelle
(1998: 612) point out some of the advantages of reading the first word of the third verse
as “asūryāḥ” rather than “asuryāḥ.”
Who end up going to these unpleasant postmortem worlds? The answer, according
to the third verse, is “ātmahano janāḥ,” an ambiguous phrase that has been interpreted
in a variety of ways by traditional and modern commentators. Śaṅkara interprets
the phrase metaphorically to mean “those who are ignorant” (avidvāṃsaḥ) of the
Ātman (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 9). The majority of commentators—including
Madhva (Shastri and Shastri 2013: 2), Radhakrishnan (1913: 570), and Harshananda
(2013: 57)—follow Śaṅkara in interpreting the act of “slaying” metaphorically. By
contrast, the Viśīṣṭādvaitin Veṅkaṭanātha takes the phrase literally, claiming that it
refers to the “great sin” of “suicide” (Vedānta Deśika 1975: 7).20 More recently, Sharma
and Young (1990) have argued that the literal and metaphorical readings of the third
verse are not necessarily mutually exclusive, since the verse may forbid suicide and
condemn spiritual ignorance at the same time. As Sharma and Young put it, “it could
easily be argued that committing suicide is a particularly execrable expression of
spiritual benightedness” (1990: 602).
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of “ātmahano janāḥ,” I would suggest, anticipates
Sharma and Young’s approach by folding the literal meaning of the phrase into its
322 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

broader metaphorical meaning. Sri Aurobindo follows Śaṅkara’s metaphorical reading

in claiming that “slayers of their souls” are those who persist “in gross forms of ignorance”
(IU 20). However, Sri Aurobindo’s later clarification of the same phrase encompasses
both its metaphorical and literal meanings: the “slayers of their souls,” as he puts it, are
those “who do hurt to themselves by shutting themselves to the light or distorting the
natural course of their development” (IU 67). While Sri Aurobindo does not explicitly
mention suicide here, the latter phrase strongly implies it, since committing suicide
seems an obvious way to distort the “natural course” of one’s development.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the fourth through seventh verses develop the ideas
of the first verse. The fourth and fifth verses elaborate the unity of God and the world
introduced in the first line of the first verse:

4. One unmoving that is swifter than Mind, That the Gods reach not, for It
progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That
the Master of Life establishes the Waters.
5. That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within
all this and That also is outside all this.
[anejad ekaṃ manaso javīyo nainad devā āpnuvan pūrvam arṣat |
tad dhāvato ’nyān atyeti tiṣṭhat tasminn apo mātariśvā dadhāti ||
tad ejati tan nejati tad dūre tad vantike |
tad antarasya sarvasya tad u sarvasyāsya bāhyataḥ ||] (IU 6–7)

Sri Aurobindo takes these apparently paradoxical verses to declare that the Lord and
the world are “one Brahman” (IU 21). God is “unmoving” (anejat) in the sense of
being immutable and “beyond causality and relativity” (IU 21). At the same time, this
entire world, in all its diversity and movement, is nothing but the “play” of Cit-Śakti,
the real dynamic aspect of Brahman (corresponding to the “Cit” of Sat-Cit-Ānanda)
(IU 23–4). God is “One” (ekam) because He is the sole Reality: “all existence and non-
existence are He” (IU 21). Crucially, since the Īśā Upaniṣad takes the world to be a real
manifestation of Śakti, it upholds not the “illusionist” monism of Śāṅkara Advaita but
a “synthetic or comprehensive” Monism, a world-affirming Advaitic philosophy that
sees both jīva and jagat as God’s own sportive play (IU 23 note 1). Anticipating the
charge of eisegesis, Sri Aurobindo argues that all the key ideas presented in the Īśā
Upaniṣad—including its acceptance of the reality of both “the One” and “the Many” (in
verses 1, 2, and 4–7), its assertion of the “simultaneous validity of Vidya and Avidya”
(in verses 9–11), its championing of an “immortality consistent with Life and Birth
in this world” (in verses 2 and 12–14), and its affirmation that every soul is “itself the
divine Purusha” (in verses 6–7 and 16)—can only be understood and reconciled on the
assumption of such a “synthetic” Monism (IU 23 note 1).
In the nonsectarian spirit of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo
argues that the “synthetic” Monism of the Īśā Upaniṣad harmonizes the sectarian
Vedāntic traditions of Dvaita, Viśiṣṭādvaita, and Advaita by revealing them to be based
on three different, but complementary, spiritual experiences of the individual soul’s
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 323

relationship with the Divine Reality—experiences that “correspond to three truths of

the Brahman which are simultaneously valid” (IU 24–5). As he puts it, “The individual
may regard himself as eternally different from the One, or as eternally one with It, yet
different, or he may go back entirely in his consciousness to the pure Identity” (IU 24).
Śaṅkara, in contrast to Sri Aurobindo, reconciles the apparently contradictory
statements in the fourth verse by invoking the Advaitic doctrine of unreal upādhis
(“limiting adjuncts”). While nirguṇa Brahman devoid of upādhis is “unmoving” and
“one,” the same nirguṇa Brahman associated with the upādhi of the mind can be said
to move quickly (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 10). However, since the Īśā Upaniṣad
itself does not uphold or imply the doctrine of unreal upādhis, Śaṅkara’s Advaitic
interpretation seems eisegetic. Unlike Śaṅkara, Sri Aurobindo takes the paradoxical
statements in the fourth and fifth verses at face value, arguing that they describe the
static and dynamic aspects of one and the same Brahman, both of which are equally real.
The final statement of the fourth verse—“tasminnapo mātariśvā dadhāti”—has
been interpreted in a variety of ways by traditional and modern commentators.
Śaṅkara glosses “mātariśvā” as the Sūtrātman or Hiraṇyagarbha and interprets “apaḥ”
metaphorically as “activities” (karmāṇi) (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 11–12). For
Śaṅkara, then, the statement means that Hiraṇyagarbha “allots” (vibhajati) activities
to all beings (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 11–12). Madhva follows Śaṅkara in taking
“apaḥ” to mean “activities,” but he glosses “mātariśvā” as the Wind-God Mārut (Shastri
and Shastri 2013: 2). In contrast to both Śaṅkara and Madhva, Veṅkaṭanātha interprets
the statement literally, taking “mātariśvā” to mean physical air (vāyuḥ) and “apaḥ”
to mean physical water (Vedānta Deśika 1975: 9). According to Veṅkaṭanātha, the
air supports water with the help of the Supreme Lord. Radhakrishnan (1913: 570–1)
follows Śaṅkara in glossing “apaḥ” as “the activities of beings,” while Thieme (1965: 93),
Olivelle (1998: 407), and Harshananda (2013: 61) adopt Veṅkaṭanātha’s literal reading
of “apaḥ” as physical water.
In a stark departure from both traditional and modern commentators, Sri
Aurobindo determines the meanings of “mātariśvā” and “apaḥ” in the fourth verse
of the Īśā Upaniṣad by examining the semantic connotations of these words in the
early Vedic hymns: “In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.” According
to Sri Aurobindo, “mātariśva” in the Vedic hymns refers to Vāyu (IU 6 note 5) or
“the universal Life-Power,” Brahman manifesting in Matter and governing the
“arrangement and formation” of everything in the universe (IU 28).21 In Chapter 11 of
The Secret of the Veda, entitled “The Seven Rivers,” Sri Aurobindo examines references
to “apaḥ” in various Vedic hymns and argues that “apaḥ” refers not to physical water
but to the seven “streams” of Consciousness (CWSA 15: 109–22). Presupposing the
results of this chapter from his earlier work, Sri Aurobindo claims that “apaḥ” in the
fourth verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad refers to “septuple consciousness” (IU 28), the “seven
powers of Chit … spoken of by the Vedic Rishis as the Waters” (IU 30). According
to Sri Aurobindo, Cit-Śakti manifests in our mortal being as (1) Body, (2) Life, and
(3) Mind (IU 28). However, beneath our superficial body-mind complex there lies
a “superconscious existence,” the three elements of which correspond to the lower
physical and vital elements of our being as follows: (4) Sat, the “divine counterpart”
of the physical body; (5) Cit-Tapas, the divine counterpart of the “lower nervous or
324 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

vital energy,” and (6) Ānanda, the divine counterpart of the “lower emotional and
sensational being” (IU 28–9). Finally, (7) Vijñāna is the “causal Idea or supramental
Knowledge-Will,” which links our higher divine existence to our lower mortal
existence (IU 29). Vijñāna, the divine counterpart of the finite Mind, “leads the
divided consciousness back to the One” (IU 29–30). On Sri Aurobindo’s reading, then,
Mātariśvan-Vāyu governs the involution and evolution of everything in this ­world—
which is nothing but the manifestation of Saccidānanda—by means of these seven
principles of consciousness (IU 63).
Sri Aurobindo claims that the sixth and seventh verses describe an exalted
panentheistic mystical experience on which all the key ideas of the Īśā Upaniṣad are
based:

6. But he who sees everywhere the Self in all existences and all existences in the
Self, shrinks not thereafter from aught.
7. He in whom it is the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings,
for he has the perfect knowledge, how shall he be deluded, whence shall he have
grief who sees everywhere oneness?
[yas tu sarvāṇi bhūtāni ātmany evānupaśyati |
sarvabhūteṣu cātmānaṃ tato na vijugupsate ||
yasmin sarvāṇi bhūtāni ātmaivābhūd vijānataḥ |
tatra ko mohaḥ kaḥ śoka ekatvam anupaśyataḥ ||] (IU 7)

If the fourth and fifth verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad elaborate the theme of the unity of
God and world introduced in the first line of the first verse, the sixth and seventh
verses describe the “Self-Realisation” that serves as the mystical basis for the desireless
enjoyment of the world enjoined in the second line of the first verse (IU 34). According
to Sri Aurobindo, the sixth and seventh verses describe respectively the two stages of
Self-realization. In the first stage, described in verse 6, we enjoy the mystical vision
of “essential oneness,” of Saccidānanda “playing in many forms” (IU 36). Through
this realization of our oneness with everyone and everything in the universe, we no
longer experience jugupsā (“repulsion” or “shrinking”), which stems from “personal
opposition” to other beings or things we encounter (IU 36).
In the second stage of Self-realization, described in verse 7, our vision of essential
oneness transforms us at all levels of our being. Sri Aurobindo highlights the
philosophical and spiritual significance of the etymological affinity between the direct
object “bhūtāni” and the verb “abhūt” in the first line of the seventh verse: “the Self-
Being became all Becomings” (IU 37). In other words, everything and everyone in the
universe is a real “becoming” or manifestation of God Himself. By “having the perfect
knowledge” (vijānataḥ), we repeat in ourselves “the divine act of consciousness by which
the one Being, eternally self-existent, manifests in itself the multiplicity of the world”
(IU 37). For Sri Aurobindo, this “perfect knowledge” of vijñāna (IU 37)—which is
nothing but the substantive form of the participial “vijānataḥ”—is identical to one of
the seven “powers of Chit” referred to by the word “apaḥ” in the fourth verse: namely,
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 325

vijñāna as “the causal Idea or supramental Knowledge-Will” which links our mortal
existence to our higher divine existence as Saccidānanda (IU 29). On Sri Aurobindo’s
reading of the seventh verse, the vijñānī is the one who leaves behind the “egoistic view”
of a “world of innumerable separate creatures” and sees the world as God Himself sees
it (IU 37). Therefore, the world-affirming Advaitic philosophy of the Īśā U ­ paniṣad—
what Sri Aurobindo calls its “synthetic or comprehensive” Monism—is rooted in the
panentheistic standpoint of vijñāna, the spiritual realization that God Himself is “the sole
Being, living in innumerable existences that are Himself ” (IU 37). He makes clear that the
ecstatic experience of vijñāna described in the seventh verse includes, but also exceeds,
the Advaitic experience of identity with the nondual Ātman: “It is necessary, therefore,
to have the knowledge of the transcendent Self, the sole unity, in the equation so’ham,
I am He, and in that knowledge to extend one’s conscious existence so as to embrace the
whole Multiplicity” (IU 37). For Sri Aurobindo, the vijñānī of the Īśā Upaniṣad realizes
his absolute identity with the transcendent Ātman but then goes on to attain the even
deeper realization that the same Ātman has become everything in the universe.
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the sixth and seventh verses was likely informed
not only by his own spiritual experiences but also by Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings on
vijñāna. According to Sri Ramakrishna, the Advaitic jñānī realizes his identity with the
impersonal nondual Brahman in nirvikalpa samādhi and takes the world to be unreal,
while the vijñānī attains Advaitic nirvikalpa samādhi and then returns to the world,
realizing that Brahman itself “has become the universe and its living beings” (Gupta
[1902–32] 2010: 50–1, [1942] 1992: 103–4). Therefore, the vijñānī enjoys an expansive
knowledge of God as both impersonal (nirguṇa) and personal (saguṇa), with and
without form, immanent in the universe and beyond it (Gupta [1902–32] 2010: 50–1,
[1942] 1992: 103–4).
Remarkably, Sri Aurobindo reported having had overwhelming spiritual
experiences in 1908 and 1909 which correspond quite closely to what Sri Ramakrishna
calls jñāna and vijñāna. In January 1908, Sri Aurobindo met in Baroda a yogi named
Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, who instructed him in meditation. Sri Aurobindo reported that
after three days of training under Lele, he had a “series of tremendously powerful
experiences,” which made him “see with a stupendous intensity the world as a
cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal universality of the Absolute
Brahman” (CWSA 35: 239–40). Sri Aurobindo clarified that these experiences were
Advaitic in nature: they revealed to him the nondual reality of the impersonal Ātman
and the corresponding unreality of the universe (CWSA 35: 239). In May 1908, Sri
Aurobindo was incarcerated for a year in the Alipore jail for his political activities.
During his imprisonment, he practiced “the Sadhana of the Gita,” which culminated in
a transformative mystical experience:

I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high
walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva [another name for Kṛṣṇa] who
surrounded me … I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers,
the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom
I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies. (CWSA 8: 6)
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Like Sri Ramakrishna, then, Sri Aurobindo claimed to have attained not only the
Advaitic experience of nirvikalpa samādhi but also the panentheistic realization that
the impersonal-personal Divine Reality has become everything in the universe. Sri
Aurobindo may even have had in mind Sri Ramakrishna’s understanding of vijñāna as
a deeper knowledge of God when he translated “vijānataḥ” in the seventh verse of the
Īśā Upaniṣad as “having the perfect knowledge.”22
However, it would be a mistake to assume that Sri Aurobindo simply read his own
spiritual experiences, or those of Sri Ramakrishna, into the sixth and seventh verses of
the Īśā Upaniṣad. We should bear in mind that his interpretation of the Īśā Upaniṣad
was informed by the Mystical Receptivity Principle, which maintains that the direct
mystical experience of what the verses describe is the key to achieving interpretive
immanence. From Sri Aurobindo’s perspective, his spiritual experiences attuned him
to the depths and nuances of the panentheistic realization described in the sixth and
seventh verses. Accordingly, he conspicuously refrains from mentioning his own
spiritual experiences anywhere in his commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad. Moreover,
he takes great pains to provide internal contextual justification of his panentheistic
interpretation of the sixth and seventh verses, arguing that it coheres with both the
preceding and subsequent verses, which repeatedly emphasize God’s dynamic and
static aspects as well as the reality of both the One and the Many (IU 34–7).
For Sri Aurobindo, while the sixth and seventh verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad describe
Brahman subjectively as the Ātman, the eighth verse characterizes Brahman more
objectively as the Lord who governs and inhabits the universe:

8. It is He that has gone abroad—That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of

imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker, the
One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly
according to their nature from years sempiternal.

[sa paryagāc chukram akāyam avraṇam

asnāviraṃ śuddham apāpaviddham |
kavir manīṣī paribhūḥ svayambhūr
yāthātathyato ’rthān vyadadhāc chāśvatībhyaḥ samābhyaḥ ||] (IU 7)

This verse, Sri Aurobindo maintains, affirms that one and the same Infinite Divine
Reality is both personal and impersonal, static and dynamic, immanent in the universe
and beyond it. Indeed, he argues ingeniously that the very grammar of the words in
the verse reflects the impersonal-personal nature of God. The neuter adjectives of the
first line (beginning with śukram) describe the “pure and silent Brahman,” while the
masculine nouns of the second line (beginning with kaviḥ) denote the “active Brahman,”
the personal Lord who becomes everything and everyone in the universe (IU 42).
In the context of the eighth verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad, Sri Aurobindo hazards a
broader claim about how the Upaniṣads in general conceive the ultimate reality:

It is an error to conceive that the Upanishads teach the true existence only of
an impersonal and actionless Brahman, an impersonal God without power or
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 327

qualities. They declare rather an Unknowable that manifests itself to us in a double

aspect of Personality and Impersonality. (IU 40)

Sri Aurobindo emphatically rejects the dichotomous thinking of many commentators

on the Upaniṣads. While Śaṅkara maintains that the Brahman of the Upaniṣads is
ultimately impersonal (nirguṇa), other traditional Vedāntic commentators, such as
Rāmānuja and Madhva, claim that the Upaniṣadic Brahman is exclusively personal
(saguṇa). Many recent scholars have also tended to classify the various Upaniṣads as
either “theistic” or “nontheistic.”23 For instance, Cohen claims that the Īśā Upaniṣad is
“theistic in its sensibilities” and that “[t]he highest being in the Īśā Upaniṣad is not an
impersonal brahman, but a personal deity, Īśa (‘The Lord’)” (2018b: 293). However,
from Sri Aurobindo’s perspective, all of these commentators presuppose an either/or
between theism and nontheism that is utterly foreign to the expansive and syncretic
spirit of the Upaniṣads themselves. According to Sri Aurobindo, the Upaniṣads
conceive the ultimate reality as an infinite “Unknowable” that manifests itself as
both the impersonal Brahman and the personal Lord. For Sri Aurobindo, then, the
supra-theistic paradigm of the Upaniṣads accommodates not only the various theistic
traditions but also nontheistic spiritual philosophies such as Advaita Vedānta and
Buddhism.
The ninth through fourteenth verses, undoubtedly the most cryptic verses in the
Īśā Upaniṣad, have posed major interpretive difficulties for traditional and modern
commentators. The ninth through eleventh verses and the twelfth through fourteenth
verses comprise two parallel triads:

9. Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a
greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone.
10. Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Knowledge, other that
which comes by the Ignorance; this is the lore we have received from the wise who
revealed That to our understanding.
11. He who knows That as both in one, the Knowledge and the Ignorance, by the
Ignorance crosses beyond death and by the Knowledge enjoys Immortality.
12. Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Non-Birth, they as if into
a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Birth alone.
13. Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Birth, other that which comes
by the Non-Birth; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That
to our understanding.
14. He who knows That as both in one, the Birth and the dissolution of Birth, by
the dissolution crosses beyond death and by the Birth enjoys Immortality.
[andhaṃ tamaḥ praviśanti ye ’vidyām upāsate |
tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u vidyāyāṃ ratāḥ ||
anyad evāhur vidyayānyad āhur avidyayā |
iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire ||
328 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

vidyāṅ cāvidyāṅ ca yas tad vedobhayaṃ saha |

avidyayā mṛtyuṃ tīrtvā vidyayāmṛtam aśnute ||
andhaṃ tamaḥ praviśanti ye ’sambhūtiṃ upāsate |
tato bhūya iva te tamo ya u sambhūtyāṃ ratāḥ ||
anyad evāhuḥ sambhavād anyad āhur asambhavāt |
iti śuśruma dhīrāṇāṃ ye nas tad vicacakṣire ||
sambhūtiṃ ca vināśaṃ ca yas tad vedobhayaṃ saha |
vināśena mṛtyuṃ tīrtvā sambhūtyāmṛtam aśnute ||] (IU 8)

The first triad of verses raises two serious interpretive problems. Since the Upaniṣads
generally extol vidyā as the salvific knowledge of Brahman, why does the ninth verse
of the Īśā Upaniṣad declare that vidyā leads to a “greater darkness” than avidyā?
And how can the combination of vidyā and avidyā recommended in the eleventh
verse bring positive results? The second triad raises even more acute difficulties for
interpreters. The terms “sambhūtim” and “asambhūtim” are highly cryptic and their
context in the Īśā Upaniṣad provides few clues as to their precise meaning. One such
clue is in the fourteenth verse, which treats “vināśam” (“dissolution”) as a synonym for
“asambhūtim,” but both terms still remain opaque. Moreover, although the parallelism
of the two triads of verses is obvious, the precise relationship between “sambhūtim” and
“asambhūtim” in the second triad and “vidyā” and “avidyā” in the first triad is difficult
to discern. Finally, any adequate interpretation of the ninth through fourteenth verses
must provide a plausible explanation of how they cohere with the surrounding verses
of the Īśā Upaniṣad.
Scholars such as Paolo Magnone (2012: 353–63) and Jones (1981) have discussed in
detail how various commentators have grappled with the myriad challenges involved
in interpreting these two triads of verses. For the purposes of this chapter, I will briefly
outline Śaṅkara’s interpretation of the ninth through fourteenth verses, since Śaṅkara
is Sri Aurobindo’s primary polemical target throughout his commentary on the Īśā
Upaniṣad. By contrasting Śaṅkara’s interpretation with Sri Aurobindo’s, I will be able to
set into relief what is most original and distinctive in the latter’s interpretation.
Śaṅkara argues that the ninth through fourteenth verses, like the second verse, are
addressed to inferior aspirants who are qualified for works rather than knowledge of
the Ātman. Accordingly, he interprets “vidyā” as “meditation on gods” (devatājñāna)
and “avidyā” as ritualistic action (karma), taking “avidyā” to mean “other than vidyā”
(vidyāyā anyā avidyā) (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 19–20). The first triad of verses,
Śaṅkara argues, denounces the separate practice of either works or meditation,
enjoining instead their “combination” (samuccaya) (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 20).
On his reading of the eleventh verse, then, the “immortality” (amṛtam) attained by
those who combine rites and meditation is a relative immortality, the state of “becoming
one with the gods” (devatā-ātmabhāvam) (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 24). The
terms “sambhūti” and “asambhūti” in the second triad pose an even greater challenge
for Śaṅkara. Taking “sambhūti” as prakṛti (unmanifest Nature) and “asambhūti” as
Hiraṇyagarbha, Śaṅkara argues that the fourteenth verse recommends combining
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 329

the worship of prakṛti with the worship of Hiraṇyagarbha. However, in order to

establish consistency between the fourteenth verse and the previous two verses,
he claims that “sambhūtim”—the first word of the fourteenth verse—is actually
asambhūtim, carrying over the vowel sandhi from the last word of the previous verse
(Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 25).24 After going on to gloss “vināśam” as “sambhūtim”
(i.e., Hiraṇyagarbha), Śaṅkara claims that by worshipping Hiraṇyagarbha, one “crosses
over death” in the sense of acquiring supernormal powers such as becoming subtle
(aṇimā), and by worshipping prakṛti, one attains the relatively “immortal” state of
absorption in prakṛti (prakṛtilaya) (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 24–5).
As numerous scholars have shown, the problems with Śaṅkara’s interpretation of
the ninth through fourteenth verses are manifold.25 First, there is no internal evidence
that these verses address inferior aspirants. Second, Śaṅkara’s interpretations of the
four key terms in these verses are counterintuitive and insufficiently justified. Third,
Śaṅkara’s claim that amṛtam in the eleventh and fourteenth verses refers to a merely
relative “immortality” is not supported by the verses themselves.
Rejecting Śaṅkara’s eisegetic approach, Sri Aurobindo proposes an original
interpretation of the ninth through fourteenth verses that he believes best coheres with
the thought of the Īśā Upaniṣad as a whole. According to Sri Aurobindo, “vidyā” in the
first triad of verses means the consciousness of Unity, while “avidyā” means ignorance
of Unity and the resultant consciousness of empirical multiplicity (IU 51). The second
line of the ninth verse warns of the dangers of pursuing either the path of avidyā or
the path of vidyā exclusively. The person who is devoted exclusively to avidyā remains
so immersed in “multiplicity and division” that he ends up in the “blind darkness of
Ignorance” by failing to recognize the “Oneness” at the basis of the world of multiplicity
(IU 52–3). On the other hand, the person who is devoted exclusively to vidyā enters
into a “special state” of consciousness in which he is aware only of an “indiscriminate
Unity,” a “Void,” thereby overlooking or denying the reality of Cit-Śakti, the dynamic
aspect of the Divine Reality that manifests as the world of multiplicity (IU 53). This
spiritual state of “supreme Night,” while “higher” than the condition of one lost in the
multiplicity, is nonetheless a “greater darkness” because it is very difficult to return
to the goal of spiritual fulfillment from the nihilistic state of Void, which involves
“attachment to non-existence of Self ” (a phrase suggesting that Sri Aurobindo has in
mind the Buddhist doctrine of Śūnya) (IU 53). However, in an interesting dialectical
twist, Sri Aurobindo also argues that the ninth verse implies that both avidyā and vidyā
have value when pursued “with a less entire attachment” (IU 53). Through the path
of avidyā, one can attain the “largeness of being” of gods such as Indra and Prajāpati
(IU 54). Through the path of vidyā, by contrast, one may attain the Advaitic realization
of the “silent Brahman” beyond the universe (IU 53).
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the tenth verse differs considerably from Śaṅkara’s.
According to Śaṅkara, the first line of the tenth verse asserts that avidyā (ritual action)
and vidyā (meditation on gods) have “different” (anyat) results (Gambhīrānanda
[1957] 1989: 20). Sri Aurobindo argues that Śaṅkara’s rendering of the tenth verse
“would be an obvious commonplace announced with an exaggerated pompousness”
(IU 8 note 9). For Sri Aurobindo, the word “eva” gives to “anyad” the force, “Quite other
than the result described in the preceding verse is that to which lead the Knowledge
330 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

and the Ignorance” (IU 8 note 9; my emphasis). On Sri Aurobindo’s reading, the tenth
verse anticipates the subsequent verse by declaring that the combination of vidyā
and avidyā has a result—namely, the highest “immortality” of spiritual fulfillment—
which is radically different from the results of either vidyā or avidyā when practiced
separately.
According to Sri Aurobindo, then, the eleventh verse extols the “real knowledge”
that combines vidyā and avidyā by perceiving Brahman “in His integrality”—that is,
not only as the “silent” Absolute beyond the universe but also as the dynamic Cit-
Śakti manifesting in, and as, the entire universe (IU 54). He finds the ontological basis
of the eleventh verse in the fourth, fifth, and eighth verses, which conceive Brahman
integrally as both static and dynamic, both impersonal and personal. Drawing on
the doctrine of the three puruṣas in Chapter 15 of the Bhagavad-Gītā, Sri Aurobindo
claims that the Lord of the eighth verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad is the Gītā’s “Puruṣottama,”
the impersonal-personal Supreme Reality that includes, yet exceeds, both the static
akṣara puruṣa beyond manifestation as well as the dynamic kṣara puruṣa within the
manifestation (IU 53–4).26 Since Brahman itself is integral, the “complete path” toward
spiritual fulfillment must also be integral, combining consciousness of transcendent
Oneness (vidyā) with consciousness of the manifest Divine within the empirical
diversity (avidyā) (IU 54). Through avidyā, one crosses beyond “death” (mṛtyum)
in the sense that one transcends “ordinary human limits” by attaining the state of
gods such as Indra (IU 54). Then, by incorporating avidyā into vidyā, one attains
“immortality” (amṛtam), which Sri Aurobindo takes to be the integral spiritual ideal of
the Īśā Upaniṣad: namely, a divine life here on earth based on the supreme knowledge
of the impersonal-personal Saccidānanda both within, and beyond, the universe.
For Sri Aurobindo, the syntactic parallelism of the first and second triads of verses
reflects a semantic parallelism. In particular, the second triad reiterates the theme
of the first triad from a somewhat different perspective. While “asambhūti” (“Non-
Birth”) refers to the immutable Self beyond Nature, “sambhūti” (“Birth”) refers to the
dynamic Self assuming “various states and forms” in Nature (IU 60). The twelfth verse,
then, warns of the dangers of becoming attached exclusively to either poise of the Self.
The first line of the twelfth verse declares that extreme attachment to Non-Birth leads
to “darkness” (tamaḥ), which Sri Aurobindo interprets as either one of two benighted
states: dissolution into “indiscriminate Nature” or dissolution into the “Void” (IU 61).
The former state is presumably that of prakṛtilaya—which Śaṅkara, as we have seen,
takes to be the result of the worship of sambhūti (interpreted as prakṛti). The latter
state, which Sri Aurobindo also calls the “Night of negative consciousness,” seems to be
a state of complete insentience or nonexistence (IU 61). According to Sri Aurobindo,
the second line of the twelfth verse warns that extreme attachment to “Birth in the
body” leads to the even “greater darkness” of endless entrapment in the cycle of rebirth
(IU 61). This “darkness” is worse than the “darkness” mentioned in the first line of
the same verse, since those who are attached to Birth—unlike those who are attached
to Non-Birth—remain content with their ignorance instead of striving for a “higher
condition” (IU 61).
At this point, however, Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the twelfth verse—like his
interpretation of the ninth verse—takes a dialectical turn. He claims that the tendency
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 331

toward Birth or Non-Birth, when pursued with a “certain relativeness to the other,” can
yield positive benefits (IU 61). By pursuing Non-Birth as the “goal of Birth,” one can
attain the Advaitic ideal of “withdrawal into the silent Brahman” (IU 62). On the other
hand, by pursuing Birth as a means of “self-enlargement,” one can achieve a “greater
and fuller life,” which may, in turn, help bring one eventually to the ultimate goal of
spiritual fulfillment (IU 62).According to Sri Aurobindo, however, the fourteenth verse
of the Īśā Upaniṣad teaches that the “perfect way” is to recognize the complementarity
of Birth and Non-Birth. Non-Birth is identified with “vināśam” (“dissolution”), since
the “dissolution of the ego-sense” is necessary to achieve the state of Non-Birth (IU 60).
Sri Aurobindo interprets the second line of the verse in this light. Through dissolution
of the ego and realization of the “unborn” Self, one “crosses beyond death” in the
sense of going beyond dualities like attraction and aversion and becoming liberated
from the transmigratory cycle (IU 62). However, as the final quarter of the fourteenth
verse indicates, the realization of the unborn Self, far from being the ultimate goal of
existence, is the precondition for the “Immortality” (amṛtam) of a “free and divine
life in the Becoming” (IU 62). In other words, after realizing the unborn Self beyond
Nature, we should act freely in the world, recognizing that the Self has also become
everything in Nature. Through the integral realization of Brahman as both Birth and
Non-Birth, we can share the freedom of the Lord Himself, who “enjoys equally and
simultaneously the freedom of His eternity and the freedom of His becoming” (IU 62).
On Sri Aurobindo’s reading, then, the entire third movement of the Īśā U ­ paniṣad—
verses eight through fourteen—provides justification for the second verse’s emphatic
injunction to engage in lifelong action. According to the eighth verse, the Infinite
Lord becomes the universe without being tainted by it, since He remains ever aware of
Himself as both the active and the silent Brahman (IU 46). The eighth verse, therefore,
leads naturally into the following two triads of verses, which uphold the spiritual ideal
of enlightened action in the world. As Sri Aurobindo puts it, the human soul “has to
go back in its self-existence to the silent Purusha even while participating in its self-
becoming in the movement of Prakriti” (IU 46). By doing so, we become enlightened
divine workers who “fulfil God’s work in the universe” by helping others achieve
spiritual fulfillment and divinizing life here on earth (IU 59).
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the ninth through fourteenth verses of the Īśā
Upaniṣad has numerous prima facie advantages over Śaṅkara’s interpretation. While
Śaṅkara implausibly claims that these verses are addressed to inferior spiritual
aspirants, Sri Aurobindo discerns a continuity of thought between these verses and the
preceding verses. Moreover, as we have seen, Śaṅkara’s interpretations of the four key
terms in these verses—“vidyā,” “avidyā,” “sambhūti,” and “asambhūti”—are strained
and insufficiently anchored in the direct meanings of the terms themselves. By contrast,
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of “vidyā” and “avidyā” as Knowledge and Ignorance of
Unity respectively is arguably continuous with the meanings of these terms in other
Upaniṣads. His interpretation of “sambhūti” and “asambhūti” as “Birth” and “Non-
Birth” respectively is also anchored in their etymological meanings. Further, while
Śaṅkara eisegetically construes “amṛtam” in the eleventh and fourteenth verses as a
merely relative immortality, Sri Aurobindo more plausibly conceives “amṛtam” as the
Immortality of the highest spiritual fulfillment. Finally, Sri Aurobindo has no difficulty
332 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

explaining why the eleventh and fourteenth verses recommend the combination of
vidyā and avidyā and sambhūti and asambhūti respectively, since he takes these verses
to exemplify the underlying principle of the Īśā Upaniṣad as a whole—namely, the
reconciliation of apparent opposites.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the fifteenth through eighteenth verses serve as a
counterpoint to the third verse’s emphasis on “sunless” (asūryā) lokas by describing
positive states of illumination and lokas conducive to our spiritual progress. The
fifteenth and sixteenth verses comprise an aspirant’s prayer to Sūrya for spiritual
illumination:

15. The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid; that do thou remove,
O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth, for sight.
16. O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O illumining Sun, O power of the Father
of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw together thy light; the Lustre which is thy most
blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold. The Purusha there and there, He am I.
[hiraṇmayena pātreṇa satyasyāpihitaṃ mukham |
tat tvaṃ pūṣann apāvṛṇu satyadharmāya dṛṣṭaye ||
pūṣann ekarṣe yama sūrya prājāpatya vyūha raśmīn samūha |
tejo yat te rūpaṃ kalyāṇataṃ tat te paśyāmi
yo ’sāv asau puruṣaḥ so ’ham asmi ||] (IU 9)

For Śaṅkara, these verses, like the preceding two triads, are addressed to inferior
spiritual aspirants who are only qualified for rites and meditation. On Śaṅkara’s reading
of these verses, then, inferior aspirants should pray to—and meditate on—Sūrya, the
lower saguṇa Brahman (or aparabrahma) residing in the physical sun (Gambhīrānanda
[1957] 1989: 26).
Unlike Śaṅkara, Sri Aurobindo takes Sūrya in the fifteenth and sixteenth verses to
be the Vedic Godhead Sūrya. His interpretation of Sūrya in the Īśā Upaniṣad, therefore,
presupposes his detailed mystico-psychological interpretation of Sūrya in The Secret of
the Veda (CWSA 15: 285–92). According to Sri Aurobindo, Sūrya in the Vedas is the
Supreme Reality, the “Master of Truth” (CWSA 15: 287) who “enlightens the mind and
the thoughts with the illuminations of the Truth” (CWSA 15: 289). Similarly, he claims
that Sūrya in the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad is the “Fosterer,”
the “Supreme Truth” of the Divine Saccidānanda who aids our spiritual evolution and
ultimately bestows supreme illumination (IU 67). The “brilliant golden lid” covering
the “face” of Saccidānanda, Sri Aurobindo suggests, symbolizes the assortment of
distortive mental thoughts that prevent us from realizing the Supreme Truth (IU 72).
Through the grace of Sūrya, we are able to transcend the inferior mental attitude
which sees division and discord everywhere, and follow instead the “law of the Truth”
(satyadharma), the Truth that we are all manifestations of one and the same Infinite
Saccidānanda.
Sri Aurobindo takes the sixteenth verse to describe metaphorically the two
successive mystical processes by which Sūrya grants us spiritual illumination. The
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 333

“rays” (raśmīn) of Sūrya in this verse are the intuitions proceeding directly from the
Truth before they get distorted by the mind (IU 9 note 10). When we pray to Sūrya to
“marshal” (vyūha) His rays, we beseech Him to place into “right order and relation” our
individual intuitions both of God and of the various phenomena in this world that He
becomes (IU 9 note 10). The subsequent prayer to Sūrya to “draw together” His “light”
(samūha tejo) amounts to asking Sūrya to draw all our separate intuitions together
into a unity, thereby revealing the Truth of “the oneness of all beings in the divine Soul
of the universe” (IU 9 note 10). Through this double process, we attain the integral
panentheistic realization, “He am I” (so ’ham asmi)—in other words, that in our deepest
essence, we are the very Lord (puruṣaḥ) who becomes everything in the universe.
It is worth contrasting Sri Aurobindo’s distinctive interpretation of “so ’ham asmi”
with the interpretations of Śaṅkara and Madhva. According to Śaṅkara, “so ’ham asmi”
means that I am one with the personal God and, therefore, that my relationship with
God is not one of a “servant” with his master (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 26). Madhva
explicitly rejects this Advaitic interpretation, claiming that “so ’ham asmi,” far from
blasphemously affirming the soul’s identity with God, actually implies that the Supreme
Lord Viṣṇu is “quite separate from all jīvas” (Shastri and Shastri 2013: 4). Madhva
arrives at this surprising dualistic reading by claiming, implausibly, that “aham” and
“asmi” should be construed as adjectival epithets of Viṣṇu (saḥ). According to Madhva,
Viṣṇu is called “aham,” since He is “undiscardable” (aheya) and, therefore, supreme.
Madhva’s etymological parsing of “asmi” is even more dubious: Viṣṇu is asmi in the
sense of being the “measure” (mā) of the “existence” (astitā) of all creatures (Shastri and
Shastri 2013: 4). Sri Aurobindo, in contrast to Madhva and Śaṅkara, takes “so ’ham asmi”
to affirm the soul’s identity with the infinite impersonal-personal Saccidānanda, who is
at once the silent Brahman and the dynamic Cit-Śakti who has become everything in
the universe. The Īśā Upaniṣad concludes with two verses of prayer:

17. The Breath of things is an immortal Life, but of this body ashes are the end.
OM! O Will, remember, that which was done remember! O Will, remember, that
which was done remember.
18. O god Agni, knowing all things that are manifested, lead us by the good path
to the felicity; remove from us the devious attraction of sin. To thee completest
speech of submission we would dispose.
[vāyur anilam amṛtam athedaṃ bhasmāntaṃ śarīram |
oṃ krato smara kṛtaṃ smara krato smara kṛtaṃ smara ||
agne naya supathā rāye asmān viśvāni deva vayunāni vidvān |
yuyodhy asmaj juhurāṇam eno bhūyiṣṭhāṃ te namauktiṃ vidhema ||] (IU 10)

For Śaṅkara, the Īśā Upaniṣad ends on an anticlimax. These verses, he claims, embody
the prayer of a dying man who has engaged in rites and meditation throughout his
life. Glossing “vāyuḥ” in the seventeenth verse as “life-force” (prāṇaḥ) and “anilam
amṛtam” as Hiraṇyagarbha, Śaṅkara argues that the verb pratipadyatām must be
supplied in order to make sense of the first quarter of the verse: the inferior aspirant
334 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

prays that his life-force may attain to Hiraṇyagarbha (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 28).
Śaṅkara similarly interprets “rāye” of the eighteenth verse as “for the sake of wealth,
for the enjoyment of the fruits of actions” (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 30).
According to Śaṅkara, then, the Īśā Upaniṣad concludes with the inferior aspirant’s
dying wish not for spiritual liberation but for the lesser goal of temporary oneness
with Hiraṇyagarbha—the merely “relative” (āpekṣikam) immortality mentioned in the
eleventh and fourteenth verses (Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 32).
Sri Aurobindo, in stark contrast to Śaṅkara, argues that the final two verses of the
Īśā Upaniṣad affirm the harmony of spiritual knowledge and action in the world. If
the fifteenth and sixteenth verses focus on the Vedic Godhead Sūrya as the “Master
of Truth” who grants us spiritual illumination, the seventeeth and eighteenth verses
focus on the Vedic Godhead Agni, the “flame of the Divine Will” who purifies and
spiritualizes our motives and actions (IU 77).27 On Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the
seventeenth verse, Vāyu in the seventeenth verse is identical to Mātariśvan of the fourth
verse, the immortal “Life-principle” in all of us which survives the death of the physical
body (IU 78–9). Implying rebirth, the seventeenth verse suggests that the eternal soul’s
journey toward spiritual illumination extends through innumerable births in physical
bodies (IU 66). “Kratu” in the second line, Sri Aurobindo claims, is our imperfect “mental
will” (IU 80). Ordinary egoistic people generally act from compulsion, “controlled” by
their “past works” which they have forgotten (IU 80). Accordingly, in the second line
of the seventeenth verse, the spiritual aspirant beseeches the Will to remember his past
deeds so that he can gradually gain control over his actions and behavior.
In the final verse, the aspirant prays to the Divine Will Agni—who, according to
Sri Aurobindo, is none other than Cit-Śakti—to transform his ego-governed mental
will (kratu) into the Divine Will so that he can become a conscious and enlightened
instrument of the Lord (IU 80–1). While Śaṅkara interprets “rāyaḥ” in the first line
as the worldly wealth sought by inferior aspirants engaged in works and meditation,
Sri Aurobindo takes “rāyaḥ” to mean a “felicity full of the spiritual riches,” a blissful
state of spiritual wealth and fulfillment based on illumined action in the world (IU 10
note 14). For Sri Aurobindo, the final statement of the Īśā Upaniṣad—“bhūyiṣṭhāṃ te
namauktiṃ vidhema”—affirms that surrender to the Divine Will in all our actions is
the essential practice for achieving this infinite spiritual wealth.

11.3 Entering the Hermeneutic Circle in the Right Way

That we always interpret texts in light of our own preconceptions has become a
commonplace in the humanities. This truism is plausible, so long as it is not taken
to imply that our hermeneutic situation is entirely hopeless or viciously circular. As
Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer have convincingly shown, the inescapably
subjective element in all interpretation does not entail the extreme relativist view that
all interpretation is nothing but a subjective projection of our own preconceptions
and expectations onto the text. Our task as interpreters, Heidegger famously declares,
is not to escape the hermeneutic circle in which we find ourselves but to enter it “in
the right way” ([1927] 1962: 195).Gadamer develops Heidegger’s insight by specifying
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 335

concretely how the interpreter can enter the hermeneutic circle in the right way
([1960] 2006: 269–70). Our first crucial task as interpreters, according to Gadamer,
is to become aware of our own “prejudgments” (Vorurteile) ([1960] 2006: 271–2;
translation mine).28 Our next task is to strive to open ourselves to the text’s “alterity”
(Gadamer [1960] 2006: 272) and to determine which, if any, of our prejudgments are
“borne out” by the text itself ([1960] 2006: 270). Finally, we must always be willing to
revise our prejudgments in the course of our dialogic encounter with the text (Gadamer
[1960] 2006: 269). The vigilant practice of these hermeneutic methods enables us
to distinguish “true” from “false” prejudgments, thereby enabling us to gain deeper
insight into the true meaning of the text itself (Gadamer [1960] 2006: 298).
Gadamer’s hermeneutic principles, I would suggest, can help us not only in
deciphering the meaning of the Īśā Upaniṣad but also in comparing, and critically
evaluating, the interpretive approaches of traditional and modern commentators.29
Traditional commentators such as Śaṅkara and Madhva frequently lapsed into
eisegesis precisely because they took for granted the a priori correctness of their
own preconceived philosophical framework and read it into the Īśā Upaniṣad, even
when faced with recalcitrant verses that seemed to have an entirely different prima
facie meaning.30 After all, the priority of traditional commentators was not so much
to interpret scriptural texts on their own terms as to prove that these texts consistently
support their own favored philosophical worldview.
Nonetheless, as Clooney (1994) has persuasively argued, traditional Vedāntic
commentators came much closer to the spirit of the Upaniṣads than contemporary
scholars in at least one crucial respect. Traditional Vedāntins, according to Clooney,
rightly approached the Upaniṣads not primarily as philosophical or historical
documents but as inspired utterances—śruti—that have the potential to transform
those who understand them properly (1994: 162–3). On this basis, Clooney argues
that contemporary scholarship has been dominated by a “detachment and skepticism”
(1994: 139) that ignores or dismisses the “transformative power” of the Upaniṣads
(Clooney 1994: 160). While the historico-philological approach of contemporary
scholars marks a significant advance from the approach of traditional commentators
in certain respects, many of these scholars make the mistake of overlooking or
dismissing the “possibility that one can be transformed by the texts one studies”
(1994: 162).
With Gadamer and Clooney in the background, we can appreciate what is distinctive
about Sri Aurobindo’s hermeneutic approach vis-à-vis traditional commentators and
recent scholars. Like traditional commentators, Sri Aurobindo favored a particular
philosophico-spiritual worldview which undoubtedly informed his interpretation of
the Īśā Upaniṣad. Nonetheless, it would be uncharitable to dismiss Sri Aurobindo’s
commentary as just another case of eisegesis. As we have seen in Section 11.1, Sri
Aurobindo, in a Gadamerian vein, explicitly formulates hermeneutic principles meant
to aid the interpreter in determining the “right” meaning of scriptural passages on
the basis of various textual, philological, and historical considerations. He thereby
demonstrates an acute awareness of the dangers of eisegesis and consciously strives
to remain immanent to the thought structure of the Īśā Upaniṣad itself. Therefore, we
336 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

have to take seriously the possibility that Sri Aurobindo’s prejudgments helped attune
him to the semantic depths and nuances of the Īśā Upaniṣad.
At the same time, Sri Aurobindo cannily anticipated Clooney in faulting
philologically trained Western scholars for their neglect of the transformative power
of the Upaniṣads (Clooney 1994: 160). “[F]oreign translators,” as Sri Aurobindo puts
it, ignore the “ecstasy of spiritual experience” which make the Upaniṣadic utterances
not merely “intellectual thought and phrase” but “Sruti, spiritual audience, an
inspired Scripture” (CWSA 20: 330). Sri Aurobindo, then, is virtually alone among
commentators on the Īśā Upaniṣad in combining a modern historico-philological
method with a sensitivity to the transformative dimension of scripture. To what extent
he finally succeeds in illuminating the meaning of the Īśā Upaniṣad remains an open
question—one that will have to be answered by each reader after careful study of his
entire commentary. However, I hope to have shown that contemporary scholars stand
to learn a great deal from Sri Aurobindo’s sophisticated hermeneutic approach and
in-depth exegesis.

Abbreviations
CWSA 8 Aurobindo, Sri ([1909–10] 1997), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 8: Karmayogin: Political Writings and Speeches 1909–1910, Pondicherry:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 12 Aurobindo, Sri ([1912] 1997), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 12: Essays Divine and Human: Writings from Manuscripts 1910–1950,
Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 13 Aurobindo, Sri ([1909] 1998), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 13:
Essays in Philosophy and Yoga: Shorter Works 1910–1950, Pondicherry: Sri
Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1998.
CWSA 14 Aurobindo, Sri ([1912–50] 2016), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 14: Vedic and Philological Studies, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 15 Aurobindo, Sri ([1914–16] 1998), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 15: The Secret of the Veda, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 19 Aurobindo, Sri ([1922–8] 1997), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 19: Essays on the Gita, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 20 Aurobindo, Sri ([1921] 2004), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, vol. 20:
The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture, Pondicherry:
Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
CWSA 33–4 Aurobindo, Sri ([1954] 1997), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vols. 33–4: Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram.
CWSA 35 Aurobindo, Sri ([1926–50] 2011), The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 35: Letters on Himself and the Ashram, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram.
IU Aurobindo, Sri ([1924] 2011), Isha Upanishad: Translation and Commentary
Published by Sri Aurobindo, in The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
vol. 17: The Upanishads—I: Isha Upanishad, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, 3–91.
 Seeing Oneness Everywhere 337

SABCL 17 Aurobindo, Sri (1972), Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, vol. 17: The
Hour of God and Other Writings, Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Notes
1 This was one of a number of aphorisms Sri Aurobindo wrote in a notebook
around 1913, but the aphorisms were first published posthumously in 1958 as
Thoughts and Aphorisms. For details on the publication history of Thoughts and
Aphorisms, see CWSA 12: 518–19.
2 See, for instance, Minor (1982), Malinar (2007), Ram-Prasad (2013), and Maharaj
(2015).
3 For attempts to date the Īśā Upaniṣad, see Nakamura (1983: 9–42) and Cohen
(2018b: 298–9).
4 See, for instance, Thibaut (1890: ix–cxxviii), van Buitenen (1968: 1–39), Mainkar
(1969), Minor (1982), Ghate (1981), and Maharaj (2015).
5 I do not mean to imply here that modern scholars were always, or entirely, successful
in avoiding eisegesis themselves. I am making the relatively uncontroversial point
that most of these scholars at least consciously strove to avoid doing violence to the
plain sense of the scriptural texts.
6 For a brief overview of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy, see the introductory section of
Stephen Phillips’s contribution to this handbook (Chapter 6).
7 Since I will be citing Sri Aurobindo’s published commentary on the Īśā Upaniṣad
(CWSA 17: 3–91) throughout this chapter, I hereafter abbreviate it in the body as
“IU,” followed by the page number. Whenever I cite a verse from the Īśā Upaniṣad
itself, I cite Sri Aurobindo’s translation of the verse, followed by the page number
from IU. Sri Aurobindo also wrote ten incomplete commentaries on the Īśā Upaniṣad
between 1900 and 1914 which he chose not to publish (collected in CWSA 17:
95–590). I will not discuss his unpublished commentaries in this chapter.
8 For a good summary of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsaka doctrine of apauruṣeyatva and
Śaṅkara’s acceptance of a modified version of it, see Rambachan (1991: 33–9).
9 See Barthes (1977).
10 This is a big “may,” since many scholars continue to argue that authorial intention—at
least in the case of philosophical and literary texts—is often relevant in understanding
their meaning. See, for instance, Hirsch ([1946] 1992) and Altieri (1981).
11 See my discussion of Vivekananda’s scriptural hermeneutics in Maharaj (2020).
12 See, for instance, CWSA 19: 7–9 and IU: 5 note 1, 5 note 3, and 83.
13 See, for instance, Gupta ([1902–32] 2010: 50–1). For the English translation, see
Gupta ([1942] 1992: 103–4).
14 For an extensive discussion of Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings on vijñāna and their
philosophical implications, see Maharaj (2017).
15 Radhakrishnan ([1927] 1948: 186–98) and Thibaut (1890: cxvi–cxxi) support Swami
Vivekananda’s claim that the Upaniṣads do not teach the unreality of the world.
16 As a reviewer has pointed out to me, Sri Aurobindo’s view of the Upaniṣads as
“inspired Scripture” is complicated by the fact that many of the verses in the Īśā
Upaniṣad paraphrase or quote verbatim earlier scriptural passages. For instance,
the ninth verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad is identical to Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.10,
and the eighteenth verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad is identical to the first mantra of Ṛg
338 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Veda 1.189. While such instances of textual borrowing clearly indicate that not
all the phrases and verses of the Īśā Upaniṣad are original, I do not think that the
intertextuality of the Īśā Upaniṣad is necessarily incompatible with Sri Aurobindo’s
approach to the text as a spiritually inspired scripture. Thieme (1965: 92), after noting
striking similarities between the third verse of the Īśā Upaniṣad and Bṛhadāraṇyaka
Upaniṣad 4.4.11, correctly observes, “Both verses make sense as they stand: the
formulation of each could be the result of a conscious adaptation of the other one
to a new context.” A good modern example of a highly intertextual poem that is
nonetheless extremely creative and original is T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922). The
fact that Eliot consciously quotes lines and passages from previous literary works
does not preclude the possibility of interpreting the poem as expressing a coherent
and original poetic vision in its own right.
17 For evidence, see CWSA 15: 3–57 and CWSA 14.
18 Most of the wording is taken directly from Sri Aurobindo’s list of nine opposites on
p. 85 of IU. However, I paraphrase his numbers 1 and 3, and I add corresponding
verse numbers to each pair of opposites, which he does not provide.
19 I sometimes modify Gambhīrānanda’s translations. For the original Sanskrit, see
Īśādi Nau Upaniṣad (2011: 4).
20 Olivelle (1998: 612) also leaves open the possibility of two literal interpretations of
“ātmahanāḥ janāḥ.”
21 Sri Aurobindo presupposes his detailed discussion of the Vedic Godhead Vāyu/
Mātariśvan in The Secret of the Veda (CWSA 15: 306–14).
22 Harshananda (2013: 67–8) explicitly interprets “vijānataḥ” of verse 7 in terms of Sri
Ramakrishna’s concept of vijñāna.
23 See, for instance, Cohen (2018b: 293) and Olivelle (1998: 405).
24 Similarly, Śaṅkara glosses “sambhūtyā” in the second line of verse 14 as “asambhūtyā”
(Gambhīrānanda [1957] 1989: 24).
25 For detailed criticisms of Śaṅkara’s interpretation of verses 9 to 14, see Jones
(1981: 79–81), Magnone (2012: 354–5, 358–61), and Harshananda (2013: 77–91).
Jones (1981) also defends an intriguing new reading of these verses.
26 For Sri Aurobindo’s detailed interpretation of the three puruṣas in Chapter 15 of the
Gītā, see CWSA 19: 435–49. I discuss at length Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of God
in the Gītā in Maharaj (2015).
27 See Sri Aurobindo’s detailed discussions of Agni in the Vedas in CWSA 15: 58–69,
276–84.
28 For the original German, see Gadamer ([1960] 1990: 274).
29 Magnone (2012: 349–50) helpfully draws upon some of Gadamer’s hermeneutic
concepts in order to elucidate the challenges involved in interpreting the Īśā Upaniṣad.
30 Magnone (2012) demonstrates this at length.

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Clooney, Francis X. (1994), “From Anxiety to Bliss: Argument, Care, and Responsibility in
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Śāṅkarācārya, vol. 1, Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
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Research Institute.
Gupta, Mahendranath ([1942] 1992), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami
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and English Translation, trans. Swami Nityasthananada, Bangalore: Ramakrishna Math.
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Robinson, New York: Harper Collins.
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Delhi: Manohar, 349–68.
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 12

On the Style of Vedānta: Reading Bhāratītīrtha’s

Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā in Light of Mādhava’s
Jaiminīyanyāyamālā
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.

In this chapter I reflect on Vedānta, particularly but not only in its Advaita school,1
as an intellectual discourse and also as a set of genres of literature. I am interested in
how content, style, and the project of pedagogical distillation converge in Vedānta,
and particularly in one genre less noted by modern scholars. After some background
observations on styles of Vedānta learning, I turn to the genre of the instructive
manual (prakaraṇa grantha), and to just one text in that genre. In this way I hope to
shed light on how Vedānta intellectuals in the Advaita school study texts and use words
very carefully, in order to speak precisely and effectively (and not just apophatically)
about realities admittedly beyond the capacity of words. In this way I endeavor to
provide insight into Vedānta as an intellectual enterprise that both points to a reality
(Brahman) beyond the capacity of words and at the same time invests heavily in the
proper use of words mastered and used with precision in interpreting key statements
in the Upaniṣads. Attention to this dynamic can forestall two errors regarding Vedānta:
that words do not matter, since they fall short; and that scholastic precision in the use
of words, in effect, completes the work of Vedānta.

12.1 Genres of Vedānta

I will note, first, simply for the sake of clarification, ten genres of inquiry and teaching
(oral or written) that have characterized Vedānta inquiry over many centuries:

1. Personal and unsystematized reflection on the meaning of ritual, life and death,
and the nature of action, in Vedic and post-Vedic texts.
2. A performer’s reflection on his own self, at a distance (even if not at a separation)
from ritual practice; traces of such reflection can of course be found in both
Vedic and post-Vedic texts.
3. One-to-one teaching in accord with the teacher-student (guru-śiṣya) relationship:
it is a commonplace that the truth is most vitally communicated in this
342 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

relationship, person to person. We can assume that meditation and its direct
results preceded the formulations we find in the Upaniṣads themselves; when
students have been enlightened, they become teachers, thus continuing the
lineage of the enlightened.
4. The Upaniṣads as fixed texts more or less as we have them, the teachings now
placed in a more settled form.
5. The systematizing work of the Brahmasūtra (BS), which forms a second-order
discourse ordering and defending the Upaniṣads by identifying a set of over
two hundred adhikaraṇas (“sites” or “cases” for study), gathered into sixteen
chapters (pādas) that are themselves collected in four larger books (adhyāyas).
Each adhikaraṇa, which contains one or more sūtras, focuses on a debatable
Upaniṣadic text or texts along with the consequent problems related to right
interpretation and meditation, true knowledge of Vedānta and the correlative
right practices. Bādarāyaṇa, its author, does this by showing that in theory and
practice the varied and contextually complex teachings of the Upaniṣads are
coherent by insider standards, but also by the rules of a wider public rationality,
and in defense against critics.
6. Commentaries on BS surely took shape in the teaching of the BS, again in a
kind of guru-śiṣya relation, but then too in written form. The commentaries
themselves were difficult and by their very explanations generative of further
commentary with further questions and nuances. The Vedāntic textual canon
proliferated in a variety of distinct schools, and some substantively different
doctrines came to the fore.2 Even within schools, differences in nuance led to
further differences in need of further explanations.
7. Manuals that distill BS and its commentaries for the sake of precision and for the
sake of beginners became necessary, as commentaries, and commentaries on
commentaries, grew large and longer in number. It became important to find
ways to learn Vedāntic interpretive principles in a simple form and, in some
texts, to work through the adhikaraṇas, illustrative cases.
8. Polemic texts that directly engage adversarial views, or simply instruct by
showing how such engagement is best done.
9. Vedānta for the modern world retaught the teachings of Vedānta to new
generations in the vernaculars, and particularly in English, in books of varying
depth and accessibility.
10. Vedānta as the object of Indological and comparative study involves reexamining
the Upaniṣads and Vedānta by modern scholarly techniques in secondary sources
that stress historical and cultural context and change, and seek to make Vedānta
part of the larger history of global philosophy, often stripped of its religious and
practical grounding. Here, comparative study too can become a relevant teaching
tool.

But whatever the distinctive advantages involved in each of these ten genres, they
are not to be thought of as mutually exclusive. These modes of intellectual work, oral
and written, are all interconnected, since the Advaita (like other strands of Vedānta)
has been successful over the generations in maintaining coherent, though not static,
 On the Style of Vedānta 343

teaching traditions. The several modes serve distinct purposes, and even in a single
time period more than one of them will be found to be useful. It is important, too, to
note that I am not suggesting that the later items in the list replace the earlier ones or
conversely chart a spiritual and intellectual decline.

12.2 Manuals as Learned Introductions

In this chapter I focus on number seven on the list, prakaraṇa granthas, which I will
term “manuals” of Vedānta. They have a particular role to play in consolidating the
Vedānta, organizing its content in succinct ways that model what is studied, by what
methods, and for what purpose. Precision in words and reasons is at the service of
higher knowledge. The manuals are “in-house” instructive texts; even if other schools of
thought are refuted, the refutation is intended to be instructive for students rather than
a direct rejoinder to outside thinkers. These manuals are intended to be introductory
works, though it would seem that the study of them might at times postpone or replace
the study of the BS as the primary site for learning Vedānta.
A number of promising manuals are available for study, largely available now
in English translation. Each of them ventures to synthesize and present accessibly
a larger, more complex tradition. Dharmarājādhvarīndra’s Vedāntaparibhāṣā
(Preliminary Rules of Vedānta) is a handbook of Advaita Vedānta. For the purpose
of introduction, it rearranges the topics given in BS, putting first epistemological
concerns and then taking up select topics that cover the basics of Advaita. The
Vivaraṇaprameyasaṃgraha (Collection of Objects of True Knowledge according to the
Vivaraṇa) of Vidyāraṇya3 aims at a complete prose synthesis, in accord with the order
of the topics arising in the traditional treatment of the first sūtras, as interpreted in the
Vivaraṇa school of Advaita.4 The Pañcadaśī (Fifteen Topics), sometimes also attributed
to Vidyāraṇya,5 groups the major themes of Advaita under three categories, viveka
(discernment of distinctions), dīpa (light), and ānanda (bliss). Though 1471 ślokas long,
it aims to present succinctly and inculcate the epistemological, metaphysical, scriptural,
and contemplative truths of the tradition. The Dṛgdṛśyaviveka (Discrimination of
the Seer and the Seen), often attributed to Bhāratītīrtha, is a set of forty-six ślokas
examining the relation of self and Brahman with particular attention to the dynamics
of knowledge of objects with respect to knowledge of self. The Vivekacūḍāmaṇi (Crest
Jewel of Discrimination), attributed to Śaṅkara, is a more accessible manual because
of its narrative frame. Here, the distress of a student seeking guidance is alleviated
by expositions (reliant on the mahāvākya “tat tvam asi”) first, of what is not the self,
and then, of what the self is, with a resultant liberation of the student whose final
state is described and celebrated in the last hundred ślokas of the Vivekacūḍāmaṇi. The
teaching of the Upaniṣads is dramatized and shown to be spiritually effective as well as
intellectually enlightening.
Each of these manuals has its merits, stating clearly and with more or less complexity
the teachings of Advaita. But even as such texts make those teachings more accessible,
their general preference for interpretive rules and their focus on a few key Upaniṣadic
texts (mahāvākyas) may have served inadvertently to draw attention away from the
344 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

overall system and method of the BS which gave Vedānta (in all its schools) its shape
and wholeness as an intellectual tradition. Indeed, although the manuals, more than
a step removed from the Upaniṣads, introduce and clarify key issues pertaining to
the right interpretation of the Upaniṣads, they may also promote neglect of the actual
reading of difficult passages.
For the sake of a text that prizes both reasoning and thinking, worked through
by case studies in fidelity to the BS tradition, I turn now to the Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā
(Garland of Vyāsa’s Reasons; VNM) of Bhāratītīrtha (fourteenth century). This
manual summarizes very succinctly the content of the BS, adhikaraṇa by adhikaraṇa,
in accord with the Advaita tradition of Śaṅkara, and captures the debate style of
each adhikaraṇa: saṃdeha (doubt), pūrvapakṣa (first position), and siddhānta
(final position), including usually the nyāya (rationale, reason) for the final view of
the matter. I will have occasion to compare it with Mādhava’s Jaiminīyanyāyamālā
(Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons [JNM], also fourteenth century, possibly a bit later than
Bhāratītīrtha’s), in order to take note of the different ways that dharma and Brahman
become accessible to words.6
Though the VNM is certainly less popular than the manuals I have already mentioned,
and tellingly perhaps lacks an English translation, I have found it to be foundational
for two reasons. First, it adheres directly to the BS and to cases (adhikaraṇas) arising
there, and is well placed to give in particular detail the needed wider sense of Vedānta
as a complete intellectual system grounded in scripture and in the BS. For this purpose,
it distills the 556 sūtras and 192 adhikaraṇas of the BS into 404 ślokas. Second, in its
clarity and concision it perfects the systematizing work of the BS, and makes it possible
even for a (Sanskrit-knowing) beginner to understand the whole of Bādarāyaṇa’s often
rather obscure sūtras, sometimes according to Śaṅkara’s school, but often enough in a
way that might illumine interpretation in any of the schools of Vedānta.
The VNM leads students through problems arising in harmonizing the teachings
of the Upaniṣadic corpus, as set forth in the four adhyāyas of the BS; in demonstrating
the greater rationality of Upaniṣadic teachings than of teachings not dependent on the
Veda; in explaining the agency and goals of meditative practices; in harmonizing the
texts that posit set meditations; and in sorting out the array of issues arising around
the efficacy of meditation as productive of a kind of knowledge that is truly liberative.
Crucially, these topics are presented in the VNM in the order found in the BS, and
not by the rearrangements common to the other manuals. To know the adhikaraṇas,
manageably condensed in this garland form, is to know broadly, but then too with
some specificity, the Upaniṣadic tradition’s most fundamental wisdom.
In terms of style, Bhāratītīrtha employs a single śloka (or occasionally two) to
present the whole of a vexing adhikaraṇa, so that the student must think it through
in light of the Upaniṣads, the BS, and the implied commentarial tradition. To read
the VNM is not merely to read about concepts such as Ātman, Brahman, mokṣa, etc.,
nor merely to think about Vedānta’s epistemological and metaphysical categories and
examples of them. It offers a course in thinking through the most venerable problems
of the Vedānta tradition in a form that combines brevity with sufficient complexity
for the sake of a fundamental education in Vedānta-thinking that can ground further
commentarial and theoretical study.
 On the Style of Vedānta 345

By contrast, most of the other Advaita manuals mentioned above take a thematic
turn and put aside the Brahmasūtra’s plan of things, for the sake of alternative topical
arrangements. Thus, the Pañcadaśī has a distinctive tripartite structure, while the
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi articulates a narrative to reinforce the value of the learning. The VNM
remains in the commentarial tradition, linked to the BS rather than any alternative
learning plan.
In his introduction of the Sanskrit/Hindi edition of the VNM, Vedāntācārya Swami
Satyānanda Giri nicely summarizes the background:

There is a most authoritative commentary, without any unneeded elaboration for

the jewel among texts that [is] known as the Brahmasūtra: the auspicious Bhāṣya
expounded by the ācārya Śaṅkara. This is well known. It is supreme, most deep, yet
difficult … To the direct meaning of the Brahmasūtra and for quick understanding,
for those desiring knowledge, there is no other means of knowledge. Taking all this
into account, our author expounded this text known as the VNM.7

The VNM offers an advanced and refined knowledge regarding the texts. This is a
knowledge that cannot be entirely separated from the knowledge of Brahman gained
through those texts, even if Brahman is not solely (or merely) a matter of words. It
thus reinforces the intellectual consistency and practical coherence of the Upaniṣadic
teachings, and makes them accessible to new readers, without boring those who are
advanced.
Vedānta exegesis and adhikaraṇa summation are to be profitably illumined by
attention to Mīmāṃsā. These are, after all, the pūrva and uttara mīmāṃsās.8 Certainly,
the contents of the Veda and Upaniṣads need to be thought through together, and one
cannot really understand Vedānta without knowledge of Mīmāṃsā.
Mādhava’s JNM is the stylistic twin of the VNM. By its 1536 ślokas the JNM
encapsulates the 907 adhikaraṇas argued in the Mīmāṃsāsūtra (MS). Its goal is to
refine its tradition down to its simplest expression, over and over, so as to present the
entirety of the canon in a comprehensible form that maps further study. It is dedicated
to detecting and confirming the order of the Vedic universe. This order is not according
to the sequence of teachings in the Vedic Saṃhitās nor the order of any given sacrifice
but, following the MS, proceeds rather by way of different kinds of rules regarding
injunctions and references; unities and divisions in sacrificial actions; the authority
that (sometimes) can be attributed to name (nāma) and order (krama) in texts and
actions; the adaptions made when a simple sacrifice is expanded into a complex one;
permissible modifications; required omissions; combinations, etc.9
If we wish to appraise the Mīmāṃsā system comprehensively in accord with the
vast bulk of the MS, we do well to focus on a text such as Mādhava’s JNM, which
deals with the entirety of the MS and not just select philosophically interesting
portions. Seen from this fundamental angle, Mīmāṃsā shows itself to be a down-
to-earth philosophy. It is a genre of thinking governed by problems arising in regard
to ritual words and acts, and thought through with respect to the arrangement of
perceptible words, things, and actions, and with minimal attention to imperceptible
realities.
346 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Both the VNM and the JNM are intensely compressed summations, in the exact
same style, of the respective intense investigations. They present content that is
fundamental and continues to be instructive and, in a sense, complete—since every
topic is covered—even if the advanced student will move on to more difficult texts; these
are texts one really never outgrows. Reading the JNM and the VNM together raises
in a manageable form good questions about the methods and contents of Mīmāṃsā
(largely according to its Bhāṭṭa school) and Vedānta (in the Śaṅkara tradition), and
about how best to understand what we are studying in each case. This reading back
and forth also highlights the tension between their similarity of form and difference in
content, and thus raises interesting questions about how words function, with respect
to the central truths of Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta, dharma and Brahman. This approach
opens up for us fresh insights into the Vedānta as a whole—a manner of thinking,
interpreting, and acting, that bears very well the work of study.
My claim here is that observing some intellectual differences between the two texts
sheds light on the distinctive characteristics of Vedānta, the place there of clear and
logical reasoning, and the relation of its precise words and ideas to the ever greater
knowledge of Brahman. Near the end of this chapter I reflect on the risks of learning
Vedānta primarily from a manual such as the VNM, but also of ignoring such texts.

12.3 Bhāratītīrtha on the Plan of the Brahmasūtra

Bhāratītīrtha introduces the plan of the BS and thus too of his VNM as follows:

[In the first adhyāya], [i.] adhikaraṇas where there are clear indications of harmony
[among all pertinent texts]; [ii.] adhikaraṇas where, though there is a lack of clarity,
[harmony can be] gleaned from the object of meditation; [iii.] adhikaraṇas where
what is to be considered is the object of knowledge; and iv. adhikaraṇas where
words alone are to be considered. Thus the order in the pādas.
In the second adhyāya: [i.] noncontradiction by tradition or reason; [ii.] the
faultiness of other views; [iii.] the noncontradictedness of the revelation regarding
things [to be enjoyed] and the enjoyer; and iv. noncontradictedness among texts
and indications.
In the third adhyāya: [i.] cessation; [ii.] clarification of the meaning of the words
thou and that, the reality of conscious beings and of the highest reality;10 [iii.] the
collecting of qualities (from multiple Upaniṣads for the sake of a single meditation);
iv. the performance of the subsidiaries external to meditative knowledge, etc. In
the fourth adhyāya: [i.] liberation of the living; [ii.] the northern path of ascent;
[iii.] the attainment of Brahman, and iv. brahmaloka [the world of Brahman].
Thus the summary of the content of all the pādas.11

It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the BS in the formulation and

advancement of the Vedānta schools as intellectual systems, and it is to this structure
of knowledge that the VNM remains committed.
 On the Style of Vedānta 347

12.4 Advaita Vedānta Pedagogy by Way

of Four Groups of Adhikaraṇas

The VNM cannot for long be talked about in general terms apart from the details
of adhikaraṇas, which Bhāratītīrtha works through one by one. By way of example
and in order to honor his case-thinking, I now take up four groups of adhikaraṇas:
whether Brahman can be a proper object of inquiry (I.1 adhikaraṇas 1–4); whether
views that are different from or contrary to Vedānta are simply ruled out, or have force
within a limited scope (II.1 adhikaraṇas 1–4); on the nondual nature of Brahman (III.2
adhikaraṇas 5–7); on the need for repetition in meditation (IV.1 adhikaraṇa 1). By way
of comparison and contrast, I look in each instance to parallel adhikaraṇas in the JNM,
in which Mādhava treats adhikaraṇas related to dharma amidst its ritual particularities.

12.4.1 Whether Brahman Can Be a Proper Object of Inquiry:

I.1 adhikaraṇas 1–4
Our first example is the opening of the VNM, I.1, adhikaraṇas 1–4. I mentioned above
the frequent obscurity of Bādarāyaṇa’s sūtras. The starting point is the fundamental
question whether Vedānta has a subject matter that is accessible to the work of study.
Brahman is the ultimate reality; we live in a murky realm where we neither see that
reality clearly nor speak properly about it. Conversely, it may seem that everything is
already clear to those who know, while those who don’t know will not become ready
for study in this lifetime. He expresses the problem this way:12

sūtra: athāto brahmajijñāsā: Next then the inquiry into Brahman.

ślokas:
1 Is Brahman not a subject of reflection, or is it? [Some say:] Because
superimposition is not something that can be studied, because there can be no
doubt [about Brahman] and because such study lacks fruit, reflection regarding
Brahman is not possible.
[No.] That there is superimposition is proven by an understanding of the “I”; yet
that Brahman is untouched [by error] is stated in the revelatory texts; because
there is this doubt regarding study, and because liberation is its fruit, Brahman
should be reflected on through study of the Veda.13

Brahman is not an ordinary thing such as is born from other ordinary things, that it
might then be explained in terms of them. So the doubt arises, on what basis can it be
known? Though obliquely, ordinary things and ordinary truths allow one to perceive
the truth of Brahman:

sūtra: janmādyasya yataḥ: (It is knowable) because from it (arise) birth, etc.
ślokas:
2 Is there no definition of Brahman, or is there one? [Some say:] There is none.
348 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Birth, etc. are founded on other [ordinary] things, and truths, etc., are not known
[to pertain to Brahman].
[No.] Causality is founded in Brahman. Definition here is like the snake and the
rope.14 So then, ordinary truths, etc., can characterize what is undivided.15

Insofar as it is a scholastic system, Vedānta does not rely solely on experience or mystic
perceptions gained in meditation, but rather points to the intrinsic relation of the Veda
to Brahman, the caused to the cause; empirical realities and words therefore have a
certain force. Addressing the topic of sūtra 3, Bhāratītīrtha next considers whether the
Veda can have an author or not and, in a related matter, whether true and efficacious
knowledge of Brahman can be gleaned from the Veda. Here Bhāratītīrtha cites several
scriptural texts to sharpen the argument:

sūtra: śāstrayonitvāt: Because (Brahman is) the source of the instructive scriptures.16
ślokas:
3 Is Brahman not the author of the Veda, or is it? [Some say:] Brahman is not
the author since, as it says, “Virūpa! [Give praise] by the nitya (eternal) word!”
[Ṛg Veda 8.75.6]. Thus the word is described as “eternal” [and unmade].17

Rather: in the text, “Breathed by the maker,” (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4.10)

nitya (“unchanging”) indicates continuity with what preceded. And then, since
Brahman is the author of the Veda that illumines all, it is known that Brahman is
the knower of all.The Ṛg Vedic and Upaniṣadic texts are enlisted, respectively by
the pūrvapakṣa and siddhānta, to show that Brahman is derivative of older and
eternal realities—or not. The siddhānta, taken to be more persuasive, argues for
continuity rather than priority, given that the Upaniṣad says, “From this great
being is breathed forth the Ṛg Veda, Yajur Veda, Sāma Veda … ” The Veda is both
derivative and eternal, perfectly placed to communicate in words the ineffable truth
of Brahman.
The fourth adhikaraṇa serves to rule out a ritual reading of the Upaniṣads that
mimics ritual logic regarding the agents and portrays meditation as a fruitful activity
undertaken for the sake of liberation:

sūtra: tattu samanvayāt: But that, due to harmony.

ślokas:
4 Are the Vedāntic texts about the agent, the gods, etc., or about Brahman?
[Some say:] Because it is useful to connect them to performance, they expound
the agent, etc.
[No.] Because of difference in context, and by the six criteria of interpretation,18
they rather make Brahman known. If the removal of what is not desirable is the
goal, what more then need be said about performance?19
 On the Style of Vedānta 349

The knowledge of Brahman cannot reduce to, or be dependent upon, a set of relations
analogous to those found in ritual practice. Liberation is not an effect of action. The
Upaniṣads distinctively and successfully teach about Brahman, which cannot be either
a kind of literary fiction, nor simply the outcome of obedience to vidhis (injunctions),
as would be the case regarding the fruits of a sacrifice.
The MS begin with a parallel move, justifying the proposition that dharma is a
legitimate object of study. Here too, the debate has to do with whether there is a possible
and useful object of study. Some things are simply the objects of the five senses, and
regarding this realm of perception no special study is required. But there are prescribed
actions that produce results not perceptible or quantifiable by ordinary observation and
reasoning, and these pertain to dharma, which subsists in the harmony of properly
performed sacrifices (I.1 adhikaraṇa 1). Although dharma is manifest through the
enactment of an integral set of actions, and therefore is not an ordinary object of
perception, nonetheless the words pertaining to it need to be understood properly and
can be studied (I.1 adhikaraṇa 2). Though the Veda is reliable and is not to be criticized,
understanding it requires close study (I.1 adhikaraṇa 3). Dharma is enacted in sacrificial
performance, and hence only in-act, and not as an ordinary object of knowledge known
through words and the things they name (I.1, adhikaraṇa 4). Injunctions are at the
heart of the Vedic report on dharma because they reliably convey what the dharma is
and how it actuates itself (I.1, adhikaraṇa 5). Here20 I give a feel for the style of the JNM
by giving in full Mādhava’s rendering of the opening adhikaraṇas just recounted:

1 According to the usage indicated in the injunction, “Personal study must be

undertaken,” is this reflective study not enjoined as something to be undertaken,
or is it enjoined? This is the doubt.
[Some say:] Since study is the occasion for understanding something, its value is
known from ordinary experience. As with threshing, there is no restriction (and
no need for any special instruction). For this reason, it is not plausible that this
study would need to be enjoined.
[No.] As with the unprecedented (and otherwise unknown) result of a new moon
sacrifice, this command is restrictive with respect to the unprecedented result of
ritual action and thus determinative of its meaning/purpose. Hence this enjoined
study is to be undertaken.21

This dharma can be studied, since it is neither easily known nor impossible to know:

2 Is dharma, the topic of reflective study, devoid of definition and of reliable means
for knowing it, or is it equipped with both? This has now to be carefully thought
through.
[Some say:] What could be a definition of dharma, since it lacks perceptible form?
Moreover, there is doubt regarding whether there are reliable means for knowing
it, since perception, etc., do not work regarding what is at a distance.
350 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Rather: its form is understood by injunctive force. If there is a referent, then there
can be a definition too. Hence, injunctive force is the reliable means [of knowing
dharma] in this instance. What more need be said?22

But if injunctions teach us the dharma, and if injunctions are Vedic statements of the
highest quality, isn’t everything already clear, so that study is not necessary?

3 It has been explained that the reliable means of knowledge that makes dharma
known is injunctive force. Is that not to be examined, or thoroughly examined?
[Some say:] If this reliable means of knowledge is taught explicitly, then the object
of knowledge is settled. What need then for inquiry?

The answer is strikingly minimal:

Not so. This is a tradition of reflective study, so how could inquiry be neglected?23
How is it that dharma, which is real, cannot be perceived?

4 Is dharma known by perception, etc., or only by injunction? [Some say:] Because

the senses are reliable means of knowledge, the dharma that is to be known can
be perceived.
[No.] The eye has as its sole object what is present, but dharma is that which
comes to be [only through sacrificial performance]. Since inference and other
reliable means of knowledge too depend on the senses, dharma is known solely
by injunction.24

But the injunctions are not so difficult that they cannot be understood if the right
means of interpretation are applied:

5 But is injunction informative or not? [Some say:] It is not, since how its power
applies to the extraordinary dharma is too difficult to understand.
[No.] The application of this power works regarding dharma when it is interpreted
in context. Therefore, it is settled that the injunction is informative and a reliable
means of knowledge. Nothing is lacking.25

Thinking about the inner workings of sacrifice, text, and action, Mīmāṃsā believes
that by injunctive words, the truth of dharma is presented as actionable, able to be
implemented. Thinking about the truth of Brahman, Vedānta believes that declarative
words restructure how readers think about a truth that is not to be obeyed or
implemented, but simply realized. Dharma is intimately connected to the most
important (and injunctive) words about it, while Brahman is knowable by words and
in other ways too. Yet both the VNM and the JNM are content to use the same form
of text for the communication of those differing kinds of truth. Arguments can be
structured by posing an either/or choice, with a resolution based on a best, traditionally
honored justification. As we proceed, we must then be careful to notice the effects of
 On the Style of Vedānta 351

introducing in the same manner, with the same care for words, dharma and Brahman,
two different realities that relate very differently to words.

12.4.2 Assessing Views Different from or Contrary to Vedānta:

II.1 adhikaraṇas 1–4
Following the traditional order of topics given in the BS, at II.1 the VNM engages
views arising outside the Vedāntic community but not entirely cut off from it that are
considered near competitors.26 Questions arise regarding whether the world derives
from a single spiritual-material source (as in Advaita), or from a combination of
material and spiritual sources, as certain other schools of thought propose. So far as
possible, such views can be afforded partial recognition, insofar as they are not directly
contrary to Vedānta teachings and can be recognized as bearing a partial truth worthy
of respect.27
The first four adhikaraṇas in II.1 must suffice to give a feel for the overall direction
of the pāda. First, Sāṅkhya holds to a fundamental dualism, consciousness (puruṣa)
and nature (prakṛti), which would seem to be simply incompatible with the teachings
of the Upaniṣads on Brahman as the single unitary source of reality. The first and
opposing viewpoint (pūrvapakṣa) is that such traditions, if they are to have any force
at all (as is their right), must be afforded their due space within limits. The Sāṃkhya
view therefore must be allowed to take precedence over the nondualist view, at least
among their own followers:

1 Do the Sāṃkhya traditional texts constrict or not the consensus found in the
Veda? [Some say:] The Veda has its occasion regarding dharma. But constraint
occurs because there is something else that would not otherwise have occasion.

If the nondualist view has already been established as primary in force and
comprehensive, there would never be room for the Sāṃkhya views to be held as true,
despite their ostensible legitimacy in their own realm. By this reasoning, Sāṃkhya’s
admittedly narrower truth must be given room alongside Vedānta’s grander truth.
But this argument, which leaves room for the vulnerable, does not apply when the
vulnerable can be shown also to be wrong:

Traditional texts (smṛti) without root, that of Kapila, etc., are barred by the
traditional texts of Manu, etc., which are clearly rooted in the revelatory texts
(śruti). So there is no constriction by those [Sāṃkhya traditional texts].28

Second, while Sāṃkhya is simply ruled out—denied opportunity and doomed to

futility—Yoga, held in higher esteem by Bādārāyaṇa, is not an either/or case. It is on
the whole a viable system consonant with the Veda, but it wrongly and unnecessarily
adheres to the dualism of Sāṃkhya:

2 Is there constraint [of Vedānta] by Yoga’s traditional texts or not? [Some say:]
Yoga is Vedic, and usefully linked to knowledge of reality, hence [Vedānta] is
constrained by it.
352 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

[No.] Authoritative knowledge is pertinent to the direct purport of Yoga. But when
that direct purport is not at issue, it has no authoritative knowledge. Hence there
is no constraint on Vedānta by the non-Vedic material cause [as taught in Yoga
texts], etc.29

But there is no need to contest the truth of other Yoga teachings.

The third example points to starkly contrary reasoning, such as might be found in
the Nyāya school of logic, which is portrayed here as making the case for difference
in a manner flatly contrary to the nondualism of Advaita. Here it is the quality of the
reasoning that is defective:

3 Is the Vedic consensus negated or not negated by reasoning that highlights

difference? [Some say:] It is negated, due to an exception to sameness.
[No.] Even if mud and pots, etc., do share the same substance and thus stand as
material cause and what is caused, we see that scorpions and hair are different from
their causes. So the mere appearance of reasoning does not prompt a negation of
the Vedic consensus here.30

Reasoning cannot be harnessed to prove exactly what the schools of logic intend, since
some results do not conform to their evident causes: a sentient scorpion is born from
insentient dung, while insentient hair arises from, and on, sentient and even conscious
beings, such as humans. Similarly, differences we perceive in the world need not be
taken to indicate that the original cause contains seeds of difference.
In the fourth adhikaraṇa in II.1, atomic materialism (“atomism”) is dismissed:

4 Is there not or is there negation [of Vedāntic nondualism] by the view of the
proponents of atoms? [Some say:] Cloth is seen to be derived from very subtle
threads. Hence the Vedic consensus is negated by the view [of the proponents of
atoms].
[No.] Even if a traditional view is preferred by some learned people, it can be
abandoned by [truly] learned people. So there is no negation [of the truth of
Vedānta] for such a reason. Neither is there a restriction due to the existence of the
very subtle [atoms].31

The views of the atomists do not negate the Vedic consensus, since their overall view is
unacceptable. But this ruling does not mean to rule out entirely the existence of atomic
elements in a certain sense—as in the ordinary realm of what can be perceived—but
even atoms are ultimately not different from Brahman.
The VNM thus deals with schools of thought viewing reality quite differently, and
with several different views of material reality: a dualism of spirit and matter; atomism;
its own view of a single spiritual-material reality. Each case has its specific features, and
generalizations about how Advaita rules out all other viewpoints are too broad to be
intellectually interesting and useful.
 On the Style of Vedānta 353

Here we find no precise parallel in the JNM, simply because at its core Mīmāṃsā
deals with ritual ordering of reality, and need not argue mundane matters or theories
about the nature of the world.32 Mīmāṃsā does not step beyond its intra-Vedic ritual
analyses into disputation with competing philosophies unless there is some sense
that those views militate directly against faith in the enactment of dharma through
sacrifice. Generally speaking, philosophy is employed in Mīmāṃsā only secondarily
and later on, in the defensive mode, whereas hermeneutics is its preferred mode of
internal clarification. Only at a remove from core Mīmāṃsā concerns do Śabara, the
first commentator on the MS, and Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, the great theorist, address the
wider set of philosophical issues.33
We do, however, find an approximate parallel at MS I.3, where practices without Vedic
roots are considered. This pāda asks about words and practices that have been passed
down with no explicit basis in the revealed text, but nevertheless are observed in the
practice of good people who are otherwise observant of Vedic practice. The inquiry is thus
focused on possibly novel practices compared to Vedic practices, rather than competing
claims about the nature of the world such as we have just seen in the VNM. Some are
known even from usages associated with people clearly outside the Vedic fold but not
hostile to the Veda. Like Vedānta, Mīmāṃsā was in principle generous in this regard, due
to its sensitivity to the gap between rules and the myriad details of the life that is regulated.
Customs that are not explicitly sanctioned by the Vedas can be approved conditionally, if
they are observed by people who also observe proper Vedic practice and are not in conflict
with the Veda (I.3 adhikaraṇa 1). When there is conflict, such customs are ruled out (I.3
adhikaraṇa 2). Base motives, such as greed, are reason to exclude a practice even if it does
not contradict the Veda (I.3 adhikaraṇa 3). These cases are practical and pertinent to the
moral, and do not raise ontological issues as did the Vedānta cases introduced earlier.
On the whole, though, we can see how ontological issues and moral issues, proper
respectively to Vedānta and Mīmāṃsā, are nevertheless taught in the same case format,
with the same leading either/or question, and with a similar confidence that a judgment
can be reached on the matter at hand. Economy of words and concise reasoning function
well, whether alternatives to dharma or to Brahman are under consideration.

12.4.3 On the Nondual Nature of Brahman: III.2, adhikaraṇas 5–7

Our third example pushes deeper into the core teachings of Advaita Vedānta,
regarding Brahman itself. In the VNM III.2, we have a series of straightforward either/
or questions about Brahman’s nature, posed by way of attention to several Upaniṣadic
teachings about it: Is Brahman both formless and possessed of form? Doesn’t the
famous Upaniṣadic double negation, neti neti, rule out both the world and Brahman?
Don’t the Upaniṣads intimate metaphorically that there is a supreme reality apart from
or even beyond Brahman?
The fifth adhikaraṇa in III.2 poses a straightforward question about whether
Brahman is possessed of form or bereft of it. The nature of Brahman is at issue, although
the answer is couched in terms of how texts are to be read with an eye to what is said
that would not otherwise be known by perception or reason:
354 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

5 Is Brahman possessed of form and also formless, or is it without form only?

[Some say:] Because there are texts of both kinds, Brahman can be taken in both
ways.
[No.] It is propounded as without form by the Vedānta texts, and that is what is new
[and authoritative] in them. Form is referred to [in an ordinary and nontechnical
manner of speaking], but it remains erroneous. To say that Brahman is both [with
form and without form] would be self-contradictory.34

At issue in the sixth adhikaraṇa is the proper construal of the famous double negation
(neti neti) stated in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad II.3.6:

6 Is Brahman too superseded by “Not this, not this,” or is it not? [Some say:] By the
repetition twice, both Brahman and the world are to be superseded.
[No.] Intensive repetition, indicated by the word “this,” is for the sake of
superseding all that is seen. The one Brahman is taught as not-this, the truth of
truth, the limit.35

The response simply reaffirms the Advaitic view of the matter, stipulating that “not
this, not this” intensifies the ruling out of lesser realities rather than also ruling out
Brahman by a more radical critique.
The third of our three adhikaraṇas (the seventh in III.2) parses four Upaniṣadic
texts that might be construed as indicating metaphorically a reality beyond Brahman:

7 Is there something other than Brahman or greater than Brahman? [Some say:
Yes,] because of differences, because of relation, because it is a dam, and because
it is measured.36

Following Śaṅkara closely, Bhāratītīrtha simply says that the texts can and should be
interpreted so as to confirm the reality of Brahman as the reality than which there is
none higher:

[No.] Because it holds, it is a dam and said to have measure. Differences and
relations are posited [simply] for the sake of meditation. There is no other even
due to the arising and destruction of various extrinsic characteristics, since such
an other is prohibited.37

Here too, Bhāratītīrtha simply reaffirms the Advaita teaching, received over many
generations, regarding how to read such texts in conformity with the Advaita creed:
Brahman does not have form; the Upaniṣads’ negative language does not rule out
Brahman; the Upaniṣads do not speak of anything beyond Brahman. References to a
dam, to measurement, etc., do not prove otherwise.
Here too it is hard to find a parallel, since Mīmāṃsā does not posit any substantive
external reality that is pertinent to its inquiries. Dharma is not a thing that can or can’t
be talked about, but rather is enacted again and again. It is not an entity that may or
 On the Style of Vedānta 355

may not have certain qualities, may or may not relate to other beings, or may or may
not be affirmed or negated in certain statements. Regarding the work of definition,
though, we have a kind of parallel at MS IV.2 adhikaraṇa 12. Here the basic act of
sacrifice (yajati)—the alienation of personal property, giving it over to another—is
differentiated into three kinds of alienation: the basic act of sacrificing something in
fire for a deity, the pouring of a liquid into fire, and the giving of a gift to another, as a
sacrifice or to pay for a sacrifice:

12 Can “sacrifice,” “oblation,” and “gift,” etc., not be distinguished or can they be
distinguished? Because all three indicate “surrender,” there is no distinction. To
sacrifice is surrender; oblation is throwing-in.
The need for a useful meaning for the word “sacrifice” is satisfied simply by
“surrender.” Beyond “sacrifice,” the injunction to “oblate” is satisfied in “throwing
(into fire).”
Giving up his own property, such that it becomes another’s: Such bestowing is
“giving.” Despite the fact of surrender (common to all), there is difference among
them.38

These definitions, as old as the Mīmāṃsāsūtras, simply clarify terminology for the
sake of proper, well-ordered sacrificial action: sacrifice (tyāga), oblation (homa), and
gift (dāna) are sorted out. It is notable that neither Mādhava nor his predecessors are
interested in defining sacrifice with reference to its spiritual integral reality. What
matters is that certain kinds of action can be collected under the title of “sacrifice”
(yajati, yajña, etc.)
Even in JNM III.1, where the first cases sort out the integral auxiliary parts of a
sacrifice—things, actions and preparations, results, performers, etc.—there is no
stepping back to define the sacrifice of which they are subordinate components, and to
show this, we can most effectively quote Jaimini directly:

Next, then, a characterization of auxiliary (śeṣa).

Auxiliary marks what is present as for sake of another.
Bādari: substances, properties, preparations, are auxiliary.
Jaimini: actions too, because they are for sake of results.
And results too, because they are for sake of the person.
And persons too, because they are for sake of action.
These are in terms of their connection to the purpose of the sacrifice. (III.1.1–7)39

The connections are precise, logical, and both mundane (as a matter of observable
realities) and surprisingly comprehensive (everything turns out to be auxiliary to
the sacrifice). Only in theistic Vedānta, for example in Rāmānuja’s interpretation of
the BS, will more be said about īśvara as the ultimate reality to which all is auxiliary,
since Viṣṇu is the sacrifice.40 So the basic point can be once more affirmed: Mīmāṃsā
sees definition as a practical matter, such as can help sort out and streamline actions;
Advaita does not ignore practicality (as our next cases will show) but values definition
356 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

in order to understand more precisely Brahman, the object of meditation, that is the
true existent Reality. One might say that it is typical of Vedānta to find a larger meaning
for the constituent parts of the sacrifice, and of Mīmāṃsā to decline to do so. Mādhava
and Bharatītīrtha simply follow their traditions, even while composing ślokas that are
stylistically identical.
Indeed, it is hardly novel to observe that Vedānta is interested in what things are,
while Mīmāṃsā focuses on what is to be done and how things function, alone and
together, for the sake of efficient performance. What is striking is that both Mādhava
and Bhāratītīrtha proceed with the same concern for precision in word and style,
reaffirming the importance of their respective sūtra traditions, the cases and their
order. The beginning student might get the wrong impression and end up thinking that
words and knowledge relate in the same way in each Mīmāṃsā, as if to say that both
Brahman and dharma can be analyzed precisely and debated in well-crafted words. But
this is not the case, despite the similarities in the arguments made and the form they
take. Studying both the VNM and the JNM enables the student to see both mīmāṃsās
close up, and hence to see their difference regarding what they are talking about, and
how words and actions matter.

12.4.4 On the Need for Repetition in Meditation: IV.1 adhikaraṇa 1

In this final example, though, we find even in Advaita a discussion pertaining more
directly to action, the action of meditation. At Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad II.4.5,
instruction is given regarding a complete course of study: “The self is to be seen, to
be heard, to be thought, to be meditated on.” But the Upaniṣad mandates these four
activities without stipulating how many times they are to be repeated. Does a single
enactment suffice to fulfill obedience to the command, or are these acts to be repeated
until the goal—seeing (darśana)—is achieved? This is the question taken up in BS and
VNM IV.1.1:

Are listening, etc., to be done once, or repeated? [Some say:] Once, since in that
way the intention of the instructive scripture would be fulfilled. Thus it is at fore-
sacrifices, where [certain actions] are simply done once.
[No.] They are to be repeated, ending only when seeing occurs. This is like the
threshing of rice until [the husking] is finished.

If the point is to husk the rice, then one keeps threshing it until the job is done.
Analogously, repetition has a practical purpose even in Advaita, furthering the
cultivation of the knowledge leading to realization of Brahman. Once may be enough,
but repetitions may be required. Bhāratītīrtha concludes with a generalization:

When an obvious interpretation is possible, the wise do not invent a subtle one.41

This is indeed a more practical “mīmāṃsā-like” case, and appropriately so, since the
topic pertains to actions. Here it is somewhat easier to find something of a parallel.
Indeed, the adhikaraṇa in the VNM just cited is referring to the common Mīmāṃsā
 On the Style of Vedānta 357

example of threshing, which we find, in one form, in the JNM XI.1 adhikaraṇa 5,
which takes up the mundane matter of the threshing of rice:

Is the threshing done just once or not? [Some say:] It should be done once, thus
completed in accord with the injunction.
[No.] A visible accomplishment regarding the rice is its purpose, and that
[completion of threshing] is accomplished by way of repetition.42

People do not need to be told when to stop trying to remove the husks from rice, so the
somewhat impatient question is “Why would the Veda bother to explain the obvious?
Surely there must be some nuance at stake.” One does not need a Vedic injunction to
state so obvious a point.43
Here the VNM and the JNM converge: repetition is warranted when it serves a
purpose. In Vedānta, the point is to keep on studying until one can see Brahman. In
Mīmāṃsā, the point is to narrow options to a single and particular way of removing
the husks from the rice, that is, by threshing rather than by removing each husk
individually. In both cases, the words of the revelatory texts have a practical import,
and for once the homology of style is most fitting.

12.5 New Light on Vedānta

My overall point in the preceding pages has been that close attention to some or
all adhikaraṇas in the VNM sheds light on Vedānta, particularly but not only in its
Advaita version. Words turn out to be very important, and succinctness highly valued,
for a particular kind of understanding of Vedānta truths. We can now step back to see
if this so, and to assess what we have learned.
While few would begin their study with the VNM, its power as a pedagogical tool
that leads readers deep into Vedānta remains intact and relevant. It sheds light on
Vedānta, particularly by its masterful overview of the cases expounded in the BS. That
it is firmly grounded in Advaita does not detract from its importance or revelance for
our thinking about Vedānta more widely too. Each case in the VNM gets the student
to think about the pertinent Upaniṣadic texts as harmonious, noncontradictory, and
sufficiently clear in what they tell us about Brahman, the singular object of meditation
(Adhyāya I); about the superior reasonability of Vedānta even if it is so heavily
scripture-dependent, over against systems that do not appeal to scripture and claim
to defend themselves on the basis of reason alone (Adhyāya II); the practicalities of
meditation, including the combination (or not) of details from different meditations
in different Upaniṣads, the nature of meditating, of the object of meditation, and of
the meditator (Adhyāya III); and the results of particular acts of meditation and of the
meditative path altogether (Adhyāya IV). All these topics may be discussed in general,
of course, but what the VNM does is to make accessible the many cases in which the
many particulars are thought through. We have examined just a few adhikaraṇas in
these several sections, but would do well to continue studying it, until the full set of
cases has been covered.
358 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

There is no explicit indication that the VNM is only a beginner’s text. Bhāratītīrtha
says nothing about his audience, though his demanding style expected thoroughly
dedicated readers. But the introduction to the JNM expresses a sentiment that might be
extended to the VNM as well, when it speaks to the striking combination of beginner’s
and expert’s satisfaction that characterizes the JNM:

Mādhavācārya composed this Garland of Jaimini’s Reasons that gives bliss to those
who know, and then explained it for the enlightenment of beginners.44

To summarize well is a fine art: it is an intelligent condensation, proffered without

condescension, that will open the way to further learning rather than preventing
it. The writing of a truly good introduction requires a comprehensive knowledge of
tradition, and expertise in stating complicated things in a simple fashion. Students
may use the VNM and the JNM, but the best scholars can admire how well they have
written these introductory works. Such words, rich in tradition and always dependent
on it, never become useless. Even discourse about Brahman is compatible with a
highly refined use of words, and words about words, since the work of teaching is
never quite done with.

12.6 Thinking Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta Together

In the previous pages, I have sought to catch Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta in the act next
to one another, as I have exegeted adhikaraṇas and explored instances that are at least
roughly analogous. Four times over we saw that the content of our examples—what is
being talked about and where it is to be found—never quite matches up, while their
styles remain identical.As an Advaita Vedānta expositor, Bhāratītīrtha analyzes realities
that are accessible only at a certain distance from the words about them: words never
capture the truth of Advaita. Mastery of the VNM offers a best understanding of the
Vedānta of the BS as read in the Advaita tradition of Śaṅkara. This is the perfection of
a certain kind of knowledge, neither meditative nor a matter of a final silence. It is an
expert knowledge related to, but not enacted through, the practice of meditation, which
admittedly offers a manner of knowledge not given in sūtras and ślokas. By contrast, the
project of identifying a nyāya appropriate to the wisdom of each adhikaraṇa is more
perfectly suited to the world of Vedic and Mīmāṃsā inquiry. Mādhava enunciates rules
that occupy the space of ritual words and actions, his tradition’s rules regarding Vedic
rules. The words of his Mīmāṃsā remain always closely allied to the sacrificial realities
they seek to interpret and rule: a refinement of language in relation to the refinement
of actions leads to an apt harmony.
For Mīmāṃsā, the initial problem is whether dharma needs to be studied, rather
than simply practiced. For Vedānta, the problem always has to do also with how words
speak to a reality that is not an event (as is dharma) but actually and already existing
in/beyond the world (as is Brahman). Operative throughout the VNM is an elegant
back and forth, from the texts and human thinking about the texts, to resolutions of
 On the Style of Vedānta 359

exemplary difficulties regarding what can and cannot be said about a Brahman which
is ultimately beyond even the texts which speak most clearly about it, and certainly
beyond the rigorous ślokas of the VNM.
But then it is all the more interesting that the JNM and the VNM are stylistically
the same, neutral with respect to that which they teach: regardless of their subject
matter, there is a shared manner of teaching the truth of dharma/Brahman through
the work of adhikaraṇas. They offer a training that goes beyond simple description to
the pinpointing of doubts and the thinking through of them. Their effectiveness lies in
their success as representations that manage to retain and honor the adhikaraṇas and
the concomitant case-reasoning at the heart of each mīmāṃsā as a system of inquiry.
They enable the student to “see” all at once the whole set of difficult instructive cases,
and thus too key interesting and instructive difficulties in the Vedic Saṃhitās and
sacrificial brāhmaṇa texts on the one hand, and in the Upaniṣads on the other. But
unless the student and teacher are alert, they might miss the fact that similarities of
style, analysis, and dispute mask differences in the ways that dharma and Brahman
relate to ideas and words. In a real sense, dharma is in the JNM, whereas Brahman is
always just beyond the VNM.

12.7 Manual Learning between Dependency and Neglect:

An Aside on Catholic Manual Theology

As indicated at the start of this essay, there have been many approaches to the teaching
of Vedānta, many of which have made their way into writing, and I have no wish to
dispute the prime value of the guru-śiṣya mode of teaching, or immersion in the great
commentaries. I noted also, ninth in my initial list, the successful resurgence of Advaita
Vedānta for the Western and wider world through the works of Swami Vivekananda,
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and a host of Vedānta teachers. In an era of a different kind
of simplification of content and context, a casual reader might suspect that the VNM is
simply an erudite summation of an old-fashioned sort, a once useful tool in a large and
vital tradition that should by no means be reduced to such formulations. It might even
be thought to deracinate the Vedānta and reduce it to a kind of religious interpretive
logic, case-solving, far removed from the spirit of the Vedānta. I suggest that “manual
Vedānta” of the sort so well represented by the VNM can lose the spirit of Vedānta, but
that the solution is not to discard this kind of learning altogether.
An aside on the problem of a highly refined and, to an extent, stifling scholasticism
in the Roman Catholic tradition may be helpful to clarify the possibilities and dangers
of “manual Vedānta.” Karl Rahner, probably the foremost twentieth-century Catholic
theologian, sheds some light on the ossification of traditions in an essay entitled “The
Prospects for Dogmatic Theology” (1961).45 Here Rahner ([1961] 1982: 11) rather
candidly assesses the defects of the manual tradition. He laments the narrowness of
Catholic theology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cut off as it is from
scripture, history, and intellectual diversity:
360 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

But how many themes, just as important in themselves, remain unexamined!

Over how many questions does there reign the graveyard calm of weariness and
boredom! [For example,] there persisted into the late Middle Ages sharp differences
of Trinitarian teaching within the limits of orthodoxy. Today 99 percent of those
who have followed a regular course of theological studies wiIl have to admit that
they are quite ignorant of these differences and that they were told hardly anything
of them during their studies.

Simplified and oversimplified, theology had become a matter of predictable answers to

predictable questions, as if the highest mysteries could be known if we only formulated
the right sentence about God.
While acknowledging that some theologians were inclined to defend such abstract
textbooks on the grounds that truth is timeless and placeless, Rahner argues that this
defense misses the point: since believers are not outside of time and space, the truth
must be received according to the capacities of believers in the time and place where the
teaching is done. Even with respect to the most sacred traditions, new introductions
are needed for new generations, written succinctly and clearly, and in a way that does
not cut off or shut down the vitality and mystery of what is being talked about. Rahner
([1961] 1982: 5) complains,

We cannot say that all those concepts which we require for our properly theological
equipment—or which we would require if we possessed them—have already been
developed. Of course this assertion can hardly be demonstrated to self-complacent
theologians. But the point here is that anyone who does not hold the (strictly
blasphemous) view that theology has pretty well exhausted divine revelation and
translated it all into theological intelligibility, must find it strange and disturbing
that there is so little active formation of concepts in theology today.

Theology ends up repeating itself, even while the mystery of God remains
inexhaustible, beyond anything settled and final that one might say. Unless special
attention is paid to changes in the intellectual climate where study occurs, urgent new
questions do not make their way into the formulation of doctrines and the teaching of
them, and the “sameness” of doctrine becomes merely a vice (Rahner [1961] 1982: 6).
The goal, Rahner insists, is a “dogmatic theology, a genuinely scientific one (in the
sense that it listens with exactness and seriousness, and reflects with exactness on what
it hears),” but which also looks outside the academic, concerned also “to be adequate
to reality; for then it can allow itself to try to be adequate to its time” ([1961] 1982: 7;
my emphasis). Only by a true reverence for tradition, and a true attention to the signs
of the times, will a tradition that has been “reduced” to concision of expression remain
alive or come back to life again. Mastery of a classic text is not sufficient, if that text
is treated merely as timeless, and as if the perfect text will perfect knowledge of God.
The reading of the Upaniṣads in light of the Veda, and then too in the context of the
Vedānta, is of course a very different matter from what happened in nineteenth-century
Christian theology when the perfection of the textbook drained Catholic teaching
of its living force. My point is certainly not to impose on Vedānta problems arising
 On the Style of Vedānta 361

elsewhere.46 But reflection on the phenomenon of “manualism” is worthwhile, since a

“manual Vedānta,” abstracted from Vedānta’s lively intellectual and spiritual roots, risks
becoming a set of merely intellectual exercises: just method, just hermeneutics, just
adhikaraṇas to argue about, casuistry portrayed at best as a manner of mind-training,
pursued perhaps in order to have polished words on every topic. There is the danger
of proof-texting scripture without reading it any more, arguing proficiently without
knowing the inner workings of the tradition. Bhāratītīrtha, our chosen author, offered
a refined take on the cases of the BS, and he had no interest in diverging from what he
had received. In terms of content, he did not entertain new questions arising in his day.
His style may have met the needs of an era in which the consolidation of knowledge
became paramount, and as I have suggested, it remains very rich in potential even
for a contemporary audience.47 But when it is looked at, perhaps admired, without
being worked through, it may also give the impression that nothing new, nothing more,
remains to be learned in Vedānta.
We can also look in the other direction. Whatever the dangers of a merely
scholastic, intellectualist Vedānta, the real risk here is not likely to be an overreliance
on the VNM. Most students of Advaita Vedānta are likely to know nothing at all
about Bhāratītīrtha’s meticulous, slow-going work. There are many other Vedānta
works, ancient and modern, which will quite adequately suffice. So what is lost, if
very few study a text like the VNM? Here we therefore face the issue of the loss of
scholastic tradition, with its moorings in scripture, tradition, and reason, pushed
aside as the desire for experience becomes so strong as to undercut those necessary
moorings. Terms such as “Ātman” and “Brahman” are talked about and explained
and debated shorn of context. Mahāvākyas such as tat tvam asi, ahaṃ brahmāsmi,
and neti neti, or the passages cited in the seventh adhikaraṇa in III.2, are talked
about without attention either to their original settings or attention to the millennia
of uses of highly refined conversations that grew up around them. Explanations of
Vedānta in English, though necessary and welcome, may turn out to function as
substitutes for the learning of Sanskrit, which opens a pathway back into refined
ways of thinking and speaking much closer to the heart and mind of Vedānta. As
a consequence, successful English-language understandings of self, ultimate reality,
liberation, etc., push aside more technical meanings arising in various older contexts
and ably presented in the VNM.
Our learning of Vedānta will be diminished if we rely too much on manuals, but
also if we put aside this manual tradition, no longer able to understand the masters’
intense interest in finely nuanced readings of one or another Upaniṣadic verse, distilled
into highly condensed adhikaraṇas. Certainly, the Advaita version of Vedānta as
a school of thought never merely bypassed words to get to a higher reality beyond
words. The particular and disciplined use of words always mattered, to Śaṅkara, to
the great expositors of his work, and to later teachers such as Bhāratītīrtha. Certain
features of Vedāntic thinking remained always in place and in play: the analysis of
observed realities and (in the ritual context) practices; the movement toward system,
in the BS, and in the commentarial traditions (insofar as the commentaries maintain
focus); the back-and-forth debate style of pūrvapakṣa and siddhānta; the arguments ad
intra, among Vedāntins, on the fine points of the system, and ad extra, against outside
362 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

antagonists; and here, precision of language regarding the decisions made in the several
cases. Rather, it is a tradition that uses words until words fail, as they will, but only in
an advanced and elegant manner. The VNM brilliantly represents the refinement of
Vedāntic reasoning, grounded in the exposition of adhikaraṇas added up so as to be
comprehensive of the entirety of the BS. Words are at a premium, to be used sparingly
and without pretense, but there is no indication that such words are to be cast aside
any time soon. To read the VNM is to read a most intense example of how reason and
language still matter, even regarding a reality beyond mere reason and mere words.
But this means that it is not merely of historical interest, nor for the pleasure of
Indologists, that we take seriously the groundedness of Vedānta in Mīmāṃsā, the
reading of Vedānta cases in accord with the attitude toward case-reasoning excelled
upon in the latter, the crystalization of both systems in sūtra texts and the perfection
of the sūtra style in texts such as the JNM and VNM. Even if one is a Vedāntin of the
kind who wants to argue that knowledge transcends words and action, it may still
be wise to ensure that students appreciate what it means to say, as we sometimes do,
that Vedānta is a “Later (uttara) Mīmāṃsā,” and interpretive tradition proceeding
by adhikaraṇas. With respect to spiritual practice, this may seem odd to say; with
respect to comparative philosophy, it may annoyingly slow things down; with respect
to actually learning Vedānta, the splendid example of the VNM is an invitation to
learning that we only foolishly put aside.

Notes
1 Here and throughout this chapter I am thinking of Advaita Vedānta, since the
Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā, the focus of attention, is situated in the Advaita school of
Vedānta that traces itself back primarily to the great eighth-century commentator
Śaṅkara. Many of the points made here, however, pertain to other schools of Vedānta
as well, since the schools differ only on a few issues among many and have more in
common than divides them. When I think the implications are wider, I refer simply
to “Vedānta,” whereas I refer to Śaṅkara’s tradition as “Advaita Vedānta” or simply
“Advaita.”
2 See Chapter 8 by Andrew J. Nicholson in this handbook for a comparative
examination of the Brahmasūtra commentaries of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and Baladeva.
3 Vidyāraṇya is thought by many to be Mādhava, author of the Jaiminīyanyāyāmālā
which we will consider below, under his assumed monastic title after he assumed
leadership of the Śṛṅgeri Maṭha.
4 The Vivaraṇa school is generally said to adhere to the teachings of Prakāśātman,
who was in turn an interpreter of Padmapāda’s reading of the commentary on the
Brahmasūtra by his teacher, Śaṅkara.
5 In part at least. The Pañcadaśī is probably a redacted work, indebted to multiple
authors.
6 See Galewicz (2009: 113). On the JNM, see Clooney (2014–15, 2017, forthcoming).
The VNM may have been earlier than the JNM, since in the introductory ślokas to
the latter, Mādhava praises Bhāratītīrtha. Mādhava’s Kāla-Mādhava cites both the
JNM and the VNM. In any case, we have a pairing that is analogous to that which
 On the Style of Vedānta 363

we find in the pairing of the two Sūtra texts: the problems discerned in the ritual
texts and allied ritual practices are treated analogously to the problems discerned in
the Upaniṣadic texts and allied meditative practices. The JNM does not teach ritual
practice; the VNM does not teach meditative practice. Both presume that those
seeking such information find it elsewhere. Throughout this chapter, I have used, for
my translations Bhāratītīrthamuni (1891) and Mādhavācārya (1892). On occasion,
I have also referred to Bhāratītīrthamuni (1998).
7 From the introduction to the Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā by Brahmacāri Siddhārtha Kṛṣṇa
(Bhāratītīrthamuni 1998). No page numbers. My translation.
8 For some recent essays on the Mīmāṃsā-Vedānta relation, see Bronkhorst 2007.
9 On the content and order of themes in the twelve adhyāyas of the JNM, see Clooney
(2019, forthcoming).
10 In the famed tat tvam asi of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad VI, which is taken to
map the identity of Brahman as the object of meditation (tat) and that of the
meditator (tvam).
11 Introductory ślokas 5–8; my addition of the numbers.
samanvaye spaṣṭaliṅgam aspaṣṭatve ’pi upāsyagam | jñeyagaṃ padamātraṃ
ca cintyaṃ pādeṣu anukramāt || dvitīye smṛtitarkābhyām avirodho
’nyaduṣṭatā | bhūtabhoktṛśruter liṅgaśruter api aviruddhatā || tṛtīye viratis
tattvaṃpadārthapariśodhanam | guṇopasaṃhṛtir jñānabahiraṅgādisādhanam
|| caturthe jīvato muktir utkrānter gatir uttarā | brahmaprāptibrahmalokāu iti
pādārthasaṃgrahaḥ ||
12 While I will not give the sūtras in every adhikaraṇa to follow, in this first instance it
will be instructive to see what Bādarāyaṇa composed in his sūtras, and Bhāratītīrtha
composed in his ślokas.
13 avicāryaṃ vicāryaṃ vā brahmādhyāsānirūpaṇāt | asaṃdehāphalatvābhyaṃ na
vicāraṃ tadarhati || adhyāso ’haṃbuddhisiddho ’saṅgaṃ brahma āśrutīritam |
saṃdehān muktibhāvācca vicāryaṃ brahma vedataḥ ||
14 Although there is no substantive causality, as if the snake and rope are different, the
one may be taken to be the material cause, the underlying substrate of the other.
15 lakṣaṇaṃ brahmaṇo nāsti kiṃvā ’sti na hi vidyate | janmāder anyaniṣṭhatvāt
satyādeścāprasiddhitaḥ || brahmaniṣṭhaṃ kāraṇatvaṃ syāl lakṣma sragbhujaṅgavat |
laukikānyeva satyādīni akhaṇḍhaṃ lakṣayanti hi ||
16 Or, “because the instructive scriptures are the source (of our knowledge about Brahman).”
17 na kartṛ brahma vedasya kiṃvā kartṛ na kartṛ tat | virūpanityatayā vācetyevaṃ
nityatvavarṇanāt || kartṛniḥśvasitād yukter nityatvaṃ pūrvasāmyataḥ |
sarvābhāsivedasya kartṛtvāt sarvavid bhavet ||
18 Bhāratītīrtha’s prose explanation gives the six: the beginning of a text and its end;
what is repeated for emphasis; what is new in a text; the intended result; supportive
statements of praise; examples showing plausibility.
19 vedāntāḥ kartṛdevādiparā brahmaparā uta | anuṣṭḥānopayogitvāt
kartrādipratipādakāḥ || bhinnaprakaraṇāl liṅgaśaṭkācca brahmabodhakāḥ | sati
prayojane ’narthahāne ’nuṣṭhānato ’tra kim ||
20 In interests of space and for the cohesion of the essay, I give only a summary of the
relevant cases in the JNM.
21 svādhyāyo ’dhyeya ityasya vidhāṇasya prayuktitaḥ | vicāraśāstraṃ nārabhyam
ārabhyaṃ veti saṃśayaḥ || arthadhīhetutā ’dhīter lokasiddhāvaghātavat | niyāmakaṃ
na caivāto vaidhārambho na saṃbhavī || darśāpūrvavad astyatra kratvapūrvaṃ
niyāmakam | arthanirṇāyakaṃ śāstram ata ārabhyataṃ vidheḥ ||
364 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

22 vicāraviṣayo dharmo lakṣaṇena vivarjitaḥ | mānena vā ’thavopetas tābhyām iti

vicintyate || laukikākārahīnasya tasya kiṃ nāma lakṣaṇam | mānaśaṅkā tu dūre ’tra
pratyakṣādyapravartanāt || codanāgamya ākāro hyarthatve sati lakṣaṇam | ata eva
pramāṇaṃ ca codanaivātra no kutaḥ ||
23 dharmasya jñāpakaṃ mānaṃ yaduktaṃ codanātmakam | etat kiṃ na parīkṣyaṃ
syāt kiṃ vā samyak parīkṣyatām || mānopadeśān meyasya siddhatvāt kiṃ parīkṣayā |
maivaṃ vicāraśāstre ’smin parīkṣopekṣate kutaḥ ||
24 prayakṣādibhir apyeṣa gamyate vidhinaiva vā | akṣādīnāṃ pramāṇatvān
meyadharmāvabhāsitā || vartamāṇaikaviṣayam akṣaṃ dharmas tu bhāvyasau |
akṣamūlo ’numāṇādis tena vidhyekameyatā ||
25 abodhako bodhako vā na tāvad bodhako vidhiḥ | śakter alaukike dharme grahaṇaṃ
durghaṭaṃ yataḥ || samabhivyāhṛte dharme śaktigrahaṇasaṃbhavāt | bodhakasya
vidher mātvam anapekṣatayā shitam ||
26 Those farther afield, such as Buddhists and Jains, are discussed in II.2.
27 This frame of mind—a generosity that wishes to preserve space for given grammatical
(and then ritual) rules, lest they have no scope and suffer futility—may have its
origins in Pāṇini’s classic grammar, and the principle of anavakāśatva, the flaw by
which some valid knowledge might never be given its time and place, if it is always
overruled by some other more complete knowledge. Respected rules cannot be
allowed to be entirely futile. Counterintuitively perhaps, rules with narrower scope
must be given precedence in some settings at least by the imposition of constraint
(saṃkoca) on more capacious rules, lest those narrower rules always be preempted
and never usefully applied. Here, the logic is extended to find a way of respecting
other traditions whenever possible, lest views with some, albeit limited, standing, be
ruled out a priori and never allowed to apply. The pūrvapakṣa (first view) then is that
it is fair to leave room for the truth of views in disagreement with Vedānta even if it
means placing constraint (saṃkoca) on the truth of Brahman. Key then is to identify
cases wherein that wider scope cannot be allowed because some views have no
standing at all. On the principle of anavakāśatva in Pāṇini, see Cardona (1970).
28 sāṅkhyasmṛtyā ’sti saṃkoco na vā vedasamanvaye | dharme vedaḥ sāvakāśaḥ saṃkoco
’navakāśayā || pratyakṣaśrutimūlabhir manvādismṛtibhiḥ smṛtiḥ | amūlā kāpilī bādhyā
na saṃkoco ’nayā tataḥ ||
29 yogasmṛtyā ’sti saṃkoco na vā yogo hi vaidikaḥ | tattvajñānopayuktaśca tataḥ
saṃkucyate tayā || pramā ’pi yoge tātparyād atātparyān na sā pramā | avaidike
pradhānādāvasaṃkocas tayā ’pyataḥ ||
30 vailakṣaṇyākhyatarkeṇa bādhyate ’tha na bādhyate | bādhyate sāmyaniyamāt
kāryakāraṇavastuṇoḥ || mṛdghaṭādau samatve ’pi dṛṣṭaṃ vṛścikakeśayoḥ |
svakāraṇena vaiṣamyaṃ tarkābhāso na bhādhakaḥ ||
31 bādho ’sti paramāṇvādimatair no yataḥ paṭaḥ | nyūnatantubhir ārabdho dṛṣṭo ’to
bādhyate mataiḥ || śiṣṭeṣṭā ’pi smṛtis tyaktā śiṣṭatyaktamataṃ kimu | nāto bādho
vivarte tu nyūnatvaniyamo na hi ||
32 It is in a second level of Mīmāṃsā, primarily in I.1, the tarkapāda (chapter on
reasoning), that philosophical issues come to the fore.
33 A different matter, for another study, is how ad extra arguments and philosophical
arguments come to play a role in parts of the Mīmāṃsā tradition, most notably in
Śabara’s and Kumārila’s commentaries on I.1. Instructive too is the philosophical
turn from the depths of Mīmāṃsā when, in defense of the efficacy of Vedic sacrifice,
Śabara, the first commentator, introduces the notion of a substantive unseen effect
of sacrifice—something apūrva (unprecedented)—that is to bridge the gap between
 On the Style of Vedānta 365

the actual sacrifice, and later results such as the attainment of heaven. To support
the endurance of this apūrva after the sacrifice is over, the Mīmāṃsā theorists then
had to admit the existence of a self where the apūrva could reside, etc. See Clooney
(1990), Chapter 7. However, most scholars who study Mīmāṃsā are interested in
its philosophical turn. See Freschi (2012) and McCrea (2000, 2002) for examples of
the study of Mīmāṃsā that, while attending more directly to philosophical matters,
remain sensitive to language and grammar.
34 brahma kiṃ rūpi cārūpaṃ bhaven nīrūpam eva | dvividhaśrutisadbhāvād brahma syād
ubayātmakam || nīrūpam eva vedāntaiḥ pratipādyam apūrvataḥ | rūpaṃ tvanūdyate
bhrāntam ubhayatvaṃ virudhyate ||
35 brahmāpi neti neti iti niṣiddham athavā na hi | dviruktyā brahmajagatī niṣidhyete
ubhe api || vīpsā iyam iti śabdoktā sarvadṛśyaniṣiddhaye | anidaṃ satyasatyaṃ ca
brahmaikaṃ śiṣyate ’vadhiḥ ||
36 The texts, as offered by Śaṅkara in his Bhāṣya: the self in the sun is different from
the self in the eye (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 1.6.6); the self is related to other realities
(Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.8.1); the self is a dam, as it were, dividing two realms
(Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.4.1); Brahman is measured by parts, such as four feet
(Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.18.2).
37 vastvanyad brahmaṇo no vā vidyate brahmaṇo ’dhikam | setutvonmānavattvācca
saṃbandād bhedavattvataḥ || dhāraṇāt setutonmānam upāstyai bhedasaṃgatī |
upādhyudbhavanāśābhyāṃ nānyaniṣedhataḥ ||
38 anirūpyā nirūpyā vā yāgahomadadātayaḥ | tyāgād ādyo yajis tyāgaḥ prakṣepo
homa iṣyate || ākāṅkṣā yāgaśabdasya tyāgena eva nivartate | yāgasyopari homasya
vidheḥ kṣepāvasānatā || svīyaṃ dravyaṃ parityajya parakīyaṃ yathā bhavet | tathā
saṃpādanaṃ dānaṃ tyāge ’pi eṣām iyaṃ bhidā ||
39 athātaḥ śeṣalakṣaṇam | śeṣaḥ parārthatvāt | dravyaguṇasaṃskāreṣu bādariḥ | karmāṇi
api jaiminiḥ phalārthatvāt | phalaṃ ca puruṣārthatvāt | puruṣaśca karmārthatvāt |
teṣām arthena saṃbandhaḥ
40 Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa 2.1.83, etc.
41 śravaṇādyāḥ sakṛtkāryā āvartyā vā sakṛd yataḥ | śāstrārthas tāvatā siddhyet
prayājādau sakṛtkṛteḥ || āvartyā darśanāntās te taṇḍulāntāvaghātavat | dṛṣṭe ’tra
saṃbhavatyarthe nādṛṣṭaṃ kalpyate budhaiḥ ||
42 avaghātaḥ sakṛnno vā sakṛt syād vidhisiddhitaḥ | dṛṣṭā taṇḍulaniṣpattis tadanto
’bhyasyatām ayam ||
43 Adhikaraṇa 6 in XI.1 of the JNM takes up a special case, the symbolic threshing of
“all the rice,” an act that, as symbolic, can be accomplished even by a token act of
threshing, done once.
44 nirmāya mādhavācāryo vidvadānandadāyinīm | jaiminīyanyāyamālāṃ vyācaṣṭe
bālabuddhaye ||
45 This piece appeared as the first essay in the first volume of his famed twenty-five-
volume Theological Investigations.
46 But see Swami Sacchidanandendra Sarasvati’s (1989) The Method of the Vedānta,
which starts with a complaint about the great but barely noticed gap between the
teachings of Śaṅkara and what came to count as Vedānta thought in later centuries.
The Swami does not, however, refer to prakaraṇa granthas in The Method of the
Vedānta.
47 On the consolidation of knowledge in the Vijayanagar empire, see Galewicz (2009).
366 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

References
Bhāratītīrthamuni (1891), Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā [Anandasrama Sanskrit Granthavali 23],
ed. Dadhicapandita Sivadatta, Pune: Anandasramalaya.
Bhāratītīrthamuni (1998), Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā with the Lalitā of Śrīmatswāmi
Vidyānanda Giriji Maharāj [Sri Kailas Vidya Prakashana Series 60], Rishikesh: Sri
Kailas Vidya Prakashanam.
Bronkhorst, Johannes (2007), Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta: Interaction and Continuity, Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass.
Cardona, George (1970), “Some Principles of Pāṇini’s Grammar,” Journal of Indian
Philosophy 1, 40–74.
Clooney, Francis X. (1990), Thinking Ritually: Retrieving the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini,
Vienna: Sammlung De Nobili Institut für Indologie der Universität Wien.
Clooney, Francis X. (2017), “Mādhava’s Garland as Exemplary Mīmāṃsā Philosophy,”
in Jonardon Ganeri, ed., Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 577–97.
Clooney, Francis X. (2014–15), “Mīmāṃsā for the Mīmāṃsakas: Distinctiveness of
Style in Mādhavācārya’s Jaiminīyanyāyamālā,” Brahma Vidya: Adyar Library Bulletin
(Chennai) 78–9, 487–518.
Clooney, Francis X. (2019), Reading the Hindu and Christian Classics: Why and How Deep
Learning Still Matters, Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
Clooney, Francis X. (forthcoming), “Mīmāṃsā as Introspective Literature and as
Philosophy,” in Arvind Sharma, ed., The Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, Dordrecht:
Springer Publishing.
Freschi, Elisa (2012), Duty, Language and Exegesis in Prābhākara Mīmāṃsā, Leiden: Brill.
Galewicz, Cezary (2009), A Commentator in Service of Empire: Sāyaṇa and the Royal
Project of Commenting on the Whole of the Veda, Vienna: de Nobili Research Library.
Mādhavācārya (1892), Jaiminiyanyāyamālāvistara or Mīmāṃsādhikaraṇamālā, ed. Pandit
Sivadatta, Pune: Anandasrama Press.
McCrea, Lawrence (2000), “The Hierarchical Organization of Language in Mīmāmsā
Interpretive Theory,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 285, 429–59.
McCrea, Lawrence (2002), “Novelty of Form and Novelty of Substance in Seventeenth
Century Mīmāmsā,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30, 481–94.
Rahner, Karl ([1961] 1982), “The Prospects for Dogmatic Theology,” in Theological
Investigations, vol. 1, trans. Cornelius Ernst, Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1–18.
Saraswati, Sacchidanandendra (1989), The Method of the Vedānta: A Critical Account of the
Advaita Tradition, trans. A.J. Alston, London: K. Paul International.
 13

Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation

of Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta
Daniel Raveh

But Friends, the vyavahāra matters!

— Daya Krishna, Civilizations: Nostalgia and Utopia1

13.1 Prologue

This chapter aims to reread and rethink the Śaṅkaradigvijaya (SDV), a premodern
text (dated late seventeenth or early eighteenth century), which draws on and brings
together materials from previous hagiographies dedicated to the alleged life story of
Śaṅkara, composed from the fourteenth century onward.2 My contention is that these
compelling stories are composed not just to quench the natural curiosity about the
life of a prominent figure like Śaṅkara, of whom we do not have any solid biographic
facts, but also—and for me this is the crux of the matter—as narrative interpretation
of a philosophical stance. This is to say that the stories provide an occasion to test de
facto tall ideals, and to inquire how these ideals, such as Śaṅkara’s notion of advaita,
nonduality, are translated into action, into practice, into life.
For the sake of clarity, I refer to the seventh- or eighth-century philosopher as
“Śaṅkara,” whereas the protagonist of SDV will be referred to as “Shankara.” I focus on
two pivotal episodes of the SDV, the episode of Shankara in the king’s body (and the
debate with Maṇḍanamiśra and Ubhaya-bhāratī that precedes this transfiguration), and
Shankara’s significant encounter with a caṇḍāla on a narrow lane leading to the river
Gaṅgā. Both episodes raise questions about identity and identification, embodiment
and disembodiment, borders and border-crossing, knowledge of body and the body
of knowledge. My master plan is to read these episodes vis-à-vis Śaṅkara’s own texts,
namely the Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya and his commentaries on several Upaniṣads and
the Bhagavad-Gītā, or in other words to create a dialogue between two Śaṅkaras, the
philosopher-commentator and his namesake, the protagonist of the hagiography.
My contention is that the first of the two episodes to be discussed here elucidates
the intriguing concept of jñāna-niṣṭhā—“steadfastness in knowledge,” or more
literally “being within knowledge”—which occurs in Śaṅkara’s commentary on the
368 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Bhagavad-Gītā. The second episode, about the encounter with an “untouchable”

canḍāla, adds a social dimension to Śaṅkara’s solely metaphysical notion of advaita.
In the introduction to the special issue of the International Journal of Hindu Studies,
“New Directions in the Study of Advaita Vedānta” (2017), the editors Michael S. Allen
and Anand Venkatkrishnan introduce Allen’s paper, “Greater Advaita Vedānta: The
Case of Niścaldās,” as follows:

[It] calls into question the standard picture of Advaita Vedānta as an essentially
Sanskrit philosophical tradition. Allen argues for a much more expansive view of
the tradition, which he labels “Greater Advaita Vedānta,” in contrast to “Classical
Advaita Vedānta” or Advaita Vedānta as expressed in the works of thinkers such
as Śaṅkara, Vācaspatimiśra, Padmapāda, Śrīharṣa, Citsukha, Madhusūdhana
Sarasvatī, and so on. He believes that Advaita Vedānta’s rise to prominence cannot
be fully understood if we limit ourselves to this classical canon. Instead, we must
attend to the wider dissemination of Vedāntic ideas through vernacular works,
through narrative and dramatic works, and through works blending Vedāntic
teachings with Bhakti, Yoga, and Tantra. (2017: 272)

The SDV certainly falls under Allen’s fruitful category of “Greater Advaita Vedānta,”
since the text was written in Sanskrit, but does not belong to the “classical canon”
and is indeed a “narrative work … blending Vedāntic teachings with Bhakti, Yoga
and Tantra.”3 I hope that this chapter helps enrich our understanding of this “greater”
Advaitic tradition.

13.2 Narrative Interpretation

What is a “narrative interpretation”? In his thorough paper “Sanskrit Philosophical

Commentary,” Jonardon Ganeri suggests that “a successful philosophical commentary
helps its target audience to read philosophically the text being commented upon, and
mediates between the text and a given readership” (2008: 107). Ganeri efficiently
classifies commentary-layers, from bhāṣya through vārttika to nibandha, in the
“bottom-up activity,” as he puts it, of explaining the text, from singular expressions to
overall syntax. “The commentator’s aim,” he writes, “typically combines a systematic
ambition to display the text as having a certain content (abhidheya) with a pedagogical
goal to guide the audience’s reading in such a way that their understanding improves
(prayojana). This commentarial pattern is creatively appropriated and adapted in a
variety of ways” (2008: 108).
I wish to argue that one such creative way is what I refer to as “narrative
interpretation,” of the kind that I find in the SDV. This is not just to point out that sūtra
commentators, of the type discussed by Ganeri, appeal to stories in order to support
and elucidate a point that they attempt to make. As an illustration of a commentator
appealing to a famous story, take Vācaspatimiśra, the famous tenth-century polymath,
who wrote (among his other commentaries which cross darśana-boundaries) a vārttika
to Patañjali’s Yogasūtra. On the notion of satya, truthfulness (Yogasūtra 2.30, 2.36),
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 369

Vyāsa—Patañjali’s bhāṣya-kāra and Vācaspatimiśra’s predecessor—writes (in his

commentary on Yogasūtra 2.30) that truthfulness is a matter of conveying one’s
own knowledge (svabodha) to the other, and that it excludes utterances which are
deceitful (vañcitā), misleading (bhrāntā), or lacking in meaning (pratipattibandhyā).
Vācaspatimiśra expands on these three categories. On deceit, he refers to Droṇa’s death
episode from the Mahābhārata (MBh 7.190). He suggests that Yudhiṣṭhira’s utterance
“It is true, Aśvatthāman has been killed” (satyaṃ hato ’śvatthāmeti), does not convey
his “own knowledge,” derived from his sense organs (indriya-janmā), and having as
its object the dead elephant. Instead, it allows false knowledge concerning the killing
of his son to take hold of Droṇa’s mind. Therefore, Yudhiṣṭhira’s utterance is nothing
less than deceit. Vācaspatimiśra need not narrate the story to his readers, since it is
known to them. He uses it to think the notion of truthfulness in a human situation, not
just theoretically. As yama, or precept, truthfulness needs to be measured in practice,
situationally.
But my present aim is not to discuss a literary narrative used philosophically by
a commentator, but rather, to highlight “narrative interpretation” as a distinct genre
of commentary. A narrative interpretation, I will soon demonstrate, contributes to
a philosophical reading of the text commented upon, serves as a pedagogical guide,
elucidates expressions and broader syntax, and is creatively appropriated and adapted,
as expected of a Sanskrit philosophical commentary as outlined by Ganeri.
Let me clarify what I mean by “narrative interpretation” through the famous story
of the life of the Buddha, as told in Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita. Having been born,
raised and protected in his father’s royal court, which was “cleansed” of every sign
of duḥkha, the day comes when prince Siddhārtha, as Aśvaghoṣa beautifully puts it,
bahiḥ prayāṇāya cakāra buddhim, antargṛhe nāga ivāvaruddhaḥ, i.e., “made up his
mind to visit the outdoors, restless like an elephant confined in a house” (Olivelle 2008:
60–1). Thereafter the prince embarked on several excursions beyond the confines of
the palace. He saw for the first time (or in Aśvaghoṣa, the Śuddhādhivāsa gods created
for him the illusion of) an old man, a sick man, and a dead man, hence discovered,
and was astonished and deeply touched by old age, sickness, and death. About old age,
or more broadly on the power of time and its inevitable destructive impact, he asked
his charioteer, “will this evil affect me too?” (kim eṣa doṣo bhavitā mamāpi? 70–1). On
disease, he asks the charioteer “is this an evil (doṣa) peculiar to him [to the man he
sees], or is the danger of disease (rogabhaya) common to every living being? (74–5).
And with regard to the lifeless man, he asks, “is such the end that awaits every living
being? (sarva-prajānām ayam īdṛśo ’antaḥ? 80–1). Later in the narrative, the prince
who leaves home and family, princehood, and future rulership, meets and speaks with
a renouncer (śramaṇa) who tells him, “frightened by birth and death, I have gone forth
as a recluse, for the sake of release” (janma-mṛtyu-bhītaḥ śramaṇaḥ pravrajito ’smi
mokṣa-hetoḥ, 130–1). If previously, the prince ponders about what the author of the text
refers to as vyādhi-jarā-vināśa-dharmā and vyādhi-jarā-vipatti-doṣān (127)—namely,
sickness, old age, and death as “law” and “deficiency” to be overcome—then the recluse
whom the Buddha-to-be meets speaks of fear of birth and death as the incentive that
triggered his renunciation. It is not rare that fear of sickness and death shakes a person
and motivates a change in his way of living. But the recluse speaks of birth and death.
370 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Fear of death, or clinging onto life (abhiniveśa), is a natural (naisargika) tendency. The
commentators on the Yogasūtra suggest that it is an inborn tendency, owing to “deep
memory” of the pain of previous death experiences. But fear of birth is an interesting
formulation. The recluse in Aśvaghoṣa refers to the endless cycle of “transmigration,”
consisting of births and deaths, in which the human person is trapped.
Moreover, he soberly reveals the interconnection of birth and death: the latter
preexists in the former, or as the Buddha puts it on the verge of death (according to
the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta of the Dīghanikāya), “Of that which is born, comes into
being, is compounded and subject to decay, how can one say: ‘May it not come to
dissolution!’”4
But the point that I am trying to convey through the life story of the Buddha as
narrated by the Buddhist tradition has to do with “narrative interpretation.” This is
to say that Prince Siddhārtha’s four encounters, with old age, disease, death, and a
renouncer whose hetu (incentive or ultimate goal) is mokṣa, clarify the meaning of
“freedom,” or “release,” in what may be called “early Buddhism.” It is “negative freedom”
(à la Isaiah Berlin), freedom from these three dharmas, or doṣas, as Aśvaghoṣa puts
it. The narrative interpretation at hand emphasizes the urgency of such freedom.
Sensitive as he is, the protagonist can no longer continue with his life as before, having
“seen” old age, disease, and death. The pleasures of life are no longer pleasurable to
him, having become overshadowed by the inevitability of this trio. In his commentary
on Yogasūtra 2.15, Vyāsa speaks of the sensitivity of the yogin, which differentiates
him from the “common man,” like the eye (akṣipātra) which is more sensitive than
any other body organ. Just as the eye alone can sense a falling cobweb, only the yogin
can “feel” the all-pervasive duḥkha, unseen as much as seen. The eye metaphor sits
well with the story about the sensitivity of the Buddha-to-be in the Buddhacarita. The
shock of the young prince after encountering the three mahā-sources of suffering,
which his father strived to hide from him, and especially death, further implies that the
teaching of the Buddha, as interpreted here, is primarily about life in the face of death.

13.3 Zero Category

The two episodes from the SDV to be discussed shortly are pivotal in the hagiographies
narrating the life story of Śaṅkara. Jonathan Bader, author of Conquest of the Four
Quarters: Traditional Accounts of the Life of Śaṅkara (2000), who studied eight of these
hagiographies, all in Sanskrit, culminating in the SDV, suggests: “The authors of these
texts had no intention of writing history. They sought to eulogize Śaṅkara and, to this
end, mythography was far more powerful than biography as a medium of expression.
Indeed, the hagiographers succeeded in creating a fluid and dynamic image of Śaṅkara,
which became celebrated throughout the whole of the subcontinent” (2000: ix).
I am not sure that Bader’s distinction between biography and mythography actually
holds. Is the borderline between fact and fiction, history and mythology as clear-cut
as Bader suggests? The question of history in the Indian context is an interesting
one. Gerald Larson writes, “[History is] a category which has no demonstrable place
within any South Asian indigenous conceptual system, at least prior to the middle of
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 371

the nineteen century … In a South Asian environment, historical interpretation is no

interpretation. It is a zero category” (1980: 305).
In response to Larson’s “zero category,” Sheldon Pollock writes:

Leaving aside the questions raised by identifying history as an “objective

investigation of facts” (in view of the now very uncertain status of both
“objectivity” and “facts”) … it has been cogently argued that upon inspection,
“history” turns out to have unsettlingly close affinities with other types of story-
telling . … Upon reflection, we might find ourselves, as we so often and no doubt
inevitably have done, looking vainly in ancient India for a category constructed in
modern Europe, and a self-deluding category at that … To an astonishing degree,
Sanskrit texts are anonymous or pseudonymous … The strategy of eliminating
from the text—whatever sort of text it might be—the personality of the author
and anything else that could help us situate the text in time is a formal correlate
of a content invariably marked by ahistoricality … History is not simply absent
from or unknown to Sanskritic India; rather it is denied in favor of a model of
“truth” that accorded history no epistemological value or social significance.
(1989: 604, 605, 610)

Pollock reminds us that history can no longer be considered to be based on “objective

facts.” The borderline between history and storytelling is fuzzy. The former is perhaps
a subcategory of the latter, and if such is the case, then a distinction such as Bader’s
(biography/mythography) is outdated. Pollock further raises the worry that history (like
many other concepts) is a modern European category imposed on ancient India, and I
would extend his argument to the premodern hagiographies under discussion. Pollock
underlines the fact that many Sanskrit texts are often anonymous or pseudonymous.
This anonymity indicates a clear preference for the ahistorical. Historical consciousness,
J.N. Mohanty writes along similar lines, is both temporal and intentional, whereas
“the consciousness which is supra-historical is the transparent, self-illuminating
consciousness” (Mohanty 1995: 310). The ahistorical and atemporal consciousness,
unchanging and unchangeable, is reminiscent of the notion of the Ātman, “a pervasive
feature of Indian thought,” as he puts it (Mohanty 1992: 191). Roy Perrett provides a
different explanation of the preference for the ahistoric over the historic: “The particular
theory of knowledge articulated in classical Indian epistemology implies that history is
not a genuine kind of knowledge, and the influence of this philosophical theory explains
the lack of importance that the Indians attached to history” (1999: 320). I cannot delve
into the epistemological investigation that leads Perrett to his conclusion. I will therefore
confine myself to suggesting that his conclusion that “history is not a genuine kind of
knowledge” is in tune with Patañjali’s presentation of memory, a neighboring concept
of history, in the Yogasūtra. For Patañjali, knowledge provided by memory cannot be
considered as a pramāṇa, “valid knowledge,” as it is infected, as Gerald Larson accurately
puts it, by “pastness” (1993: 376).
I opened this segment with Jonathan Bader’s observation that the authors of the
hagiographies “had no intention of writing history.” We saw that history is a complex
category, especially in the Indian context. Pollock, Mohanty, and Perrett emphasized
372 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

the unique quality of the ahistorical. They hinted at an alternative “model of truth”
which is nonsequential, hence not based on and maintained by memory. The purpose
of the discussion so far has been to justify the fact that I am taking the hagiographies
seriously, even if these stories are not (necessarily) based on historical evidence. My
contention is that they add something significant to Śaṅkara’s philosophical corpus.
They add not just masālā, an important thing in itself, in the sense that the right spices
bring out the taste of the cooked ingredients, or in the present case, “the taste” of
different potentialities implicit in Śaṅkara’s writings; the stories further add “missing
ingredients,” such as, for instance, the social dimension, absent in Śaṅkara’s purely
metaphysical stance.
Since I focus on the Śaṅkaradigvijaya, it makes sense to unpack the notion of
digvijaya in the title. According to William Sax, “Originally a strategy for imperial
military expansion, the digvijaya or the “conquest of the quarters” came in late medieval
India to be associated with the proselytizing missions of the founders of major Hindu
renunciant traditions—Caitanya, Madhva, Śaṅkara, and Vallabha, for instance. Yet,
despite differences between them, the digvijayas of both kings and renouncers were
simultaneously religious and political” (2000: 39).
And Sax further writes that “In the medieval digvijayas of tradition-founding
renouncers, words became more important than swords, debates more important than
battles, and the sites of confrontation shifted to famous places of pilgrimage. Yet just
as imperial digvijayas had always included a moral dimension, so these renouncers’
digvijayas retained a military element. This was not a paradigm shift but a shift of
emphasis” (2000: 47).
Sax does not merely play with “words” and “swords,” but also—a few lines down
the road—with śastra and śāstra, weapons and arguments, speculating about the
possibility that renouncers, who have become religious leaders, did not confine their
digvijaya operations to arguments alone. On Śaṅkara’s digvijaya, Sax writes that,

It is generally believed that the first renouncer’s digvijaya was made by the Advaita
theologian Śaṅkara … The sanitized account has it that he performed an all-India
digvijaya, traveled with his disciples to the four corners of the subcontinent
defeating his philosophical rivals in debate, and established four vidyāpīṭhas
(seats of learning), each associated with one of the four dhāmas (sacred places of
pilgrimage). (2000: 47)

It is a “sanitized account,” because it speaks of “conquest” merely in philosophical

terms. Drawing on a close reading of the SDV text, Angelika Malinar suggests along
similar lines, “Śaṅkara is never directly involved in the violence which goes along with
the avatāra function … He defeats his opponents only through his superior knowledge,
which is the Jagadguru’s weapon” (2001: 98).
Malinar touches on Śaṅkara’s portrayal in the hagiographies, and primarily the
SDV, as avatāra and Jagadguru, “an embodiment, or incarnation of Śiva” and “teacher
of the world” respectively. In these two interlaced capacities, his mission is “to restore
Vedic order, a sometime violent task,” as she puts it, but he remains untainted.
Malinar further refers to the digvijaya of Śaṅkara as “intellectual conquest of different
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 373

regions in India” (2001: 99). In his essay “Śaṅkarācārya: The Myth and the Man,” Karl
Potter argues that the depiction of Śaṅkara in the hagiographies contradicts his own
philosophical standpoint. “Śaṅkara the philosopher,” Potter writes,

offers one consistently repeated thesis, viz., that the only way of getting liberated
is by abandoning actions altogether as a result of acquiring self-knowledge, i.e., by
gaining an insight which makes it clear to one that there are no real distinctions
in the world, including such commonly-imagined distinctions as those between
agent, action and result … As he sees it, an agent cannot have knowledge and a
true knower cannot act … By remaking him into a social reformer and devotional
leader, the bearers of the later Advaita tradition have done him, and I think
themselves, a disservice. (1982: 113, 118, 123)

According to Potter, if Śaṅkara has indeed engaged in a digvijaya campaign, he was

contradicting his own philosophical stance, namely his clear-cut distinction between
knowledge and action. However, when Śaṅkara speaks of knowledge as excluding
action, or in fact of ātma-vidyā, “Ātman knowledge,” or “knowledge of oneself as the
Ātman,” as entailing “total abandonment of action” (sarva-karma saṃnyāsa, a phrase
which he uses in the introduction to his commentary on chapter 3 of the Bhagavad-
Gītā), does it mean—in practice, de facto—that one should refrain (at least as much
as possible) from action in the world? Or can Śaṅkara be understood as prescribing
renunciation at the level of consciousness, born of the understanding that action
belongs to, and in fact creates the vyāvahārika, phenomenal domain, whereas selfhood
(or Ātman-hood) belongs to a different realm altogether, beyond the reach of worldly
actions and their implications? If such is the case, then one’s (inevitable) action in the
world does not make him a kartā, “doer,” in the strong sense of the word. Such an
interpretation allows the possibility that Śaṅkara has conducted the digvijaya ascribed
to him traditionally without contradicting his own philosophical principles. But again,
we do not have any “facts” to substantiate or to reject Śaṅkara’s digvijaya as a historic
event.

13.4 Shankara, Maṇḍanamiśra, Ubhaya-bhāratī

The hagiographic story that I read as “narrative interpretation” of Śaṅkara’s notion of

jñāna-niṣṭhā begins with a philosophical debate between Shankara and Maṇḍanamiśra
(henceforth Maṇḍana), the famous Advaitin and the acclaimed Mīmāṃsaka, renouncer
versus householder. It is a debate between two worldviews, each rooted in a different
reading of the śruti, the scriptures.
The debate opens with pratijñā-vākyas, initial declarative statements, by each of
the participants. Shankara, in canto 8 of the SDV, gives a brief summary of Śaṅkara’s
philosophy: Brahman alone exists. The world of multiplicity is the result of avidyā,
“the phenomenal gaze on the surface,” based on adhyāsa, “misidentification,” such as
that of shell as silver (śukti as rajata), an example from Śaṅkara’s introduction to his
Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya. This prapañca, or “illusory surface,” can be sublated (bādhita),
374 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

or awakened from. This is the essence of the śruti. I am sure that I can prove it and win
the debate, Shankara says, but if I lose, I will cease to be a saṃnyāsin (renouncer), and
replace the saṃnyāsin’s ochre robe with the householder’s white gown (SDV 8.62).
Maṇḍana replies with a counterstatement: “Actions alone constitute the steps leading
to mokṣa, and embodied beings have to perform action (karma) till the end of their
lives” (SDV 8.64 in Swami Tapasyananda’s translation, 1974: 88). Maṇḍana is depicted
as conveying the indispensability of ritual in the discipline leading to mokṣa. (The
question as to what extent this position represents the more-than-univocal Mīmāṃsā
tradition is beyond my present scope.) His initial statement is followed by a vow to
become a saṃnyāsin if he is defeated in the debate. The chosen adhyakṣa (judge)
for the debate is Ubhaya-bhāratī, Maṇḍana’s wife. Her name literally means “she
who speaks (bhāratī) for the two (ubhaya).” After her husband’s (still forthcoming)
defeat in the debate, she argues that Shankara’s win will remain incomplete unless
he defeats her too, since a wife is an ardhāṅginī, “half of her husband’s body,” or “the
better half,” as Swami Tapasyananda puts it (1974: 111). She can therefore be seen
as “speaking for the two,” namely for her husband and herself as a single body. But
as embodiment of Sarasvatī, goddess of wisdom, Ubhaya-bharātī’s name can also be
interpreted as referring to the fact that at a deeper level, she speaks for and through
the two contestants, Maṇḍana and Shankara. Her name can further be rendered as
“she who knows both,” thus hinting at her expertise in both the Mīmāṃsās, pūrva
and uttāra, which makes her suitable to serve as the judge of this debate. Finally,
Mukund Lath suggests that Ubhaya’s double-expertise can be seen as referring to
“both kinds of jñāna, namely to worldly knowledge and experience, and the spiritual
experience of the Ineffable Beyond,” as he beautifully puts it.5
I opened with the pratijñā-vākyas since they imply an interconnection between
knowledge and one’s way of living. That is, saṃnyāsa, renunciation (homelessness,
wandering, outsidership), facilitates a certain type of knowledge, and blocks other
knowledge types. The same is true with regard to householdership. Therefore, if
Shankara wins the debate, Maṇḍana will have to adopt his way of living, i.e., to share
his renunciation, in order to comprehend fully the knowledge that he stands for, which
is rooted in and supported by saṃnyāsa.
In the introduction to his commentary on the Aitareya Upaniṣad, Śaṅkara engages
in a debate with a pūrvapakṣin (philosophical opponent), who belongs to the Mīmāṃsā
school, like Maṇḍana of the SDV. Here is a short summary of this debate:

Śaṅkara: When the supreme knowledge is achieved, there can be no idea of results,
and so no action is possible. (paramārtha vijñāne phalādarśane kriyānupapatteḥ)6
Pūrvapakṣin: If the knower has nothing to obtain [no purpose, prayojana] through
action, as you [Śaṅkara] suggest, then he also has nothing to obtain through
renunciation (tyāga), or inaction. Your argument that the knower has nothing
more to obtain [since his purpose, i.e., mokṣa, has been obtained] applies to action
and inaction alike.
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 375

Śaṅkara: No, renunciation is “just inaction” (akriyā-mātra), in the sense that unlike
action, it is purposeless. A purpose is always part of avidyā, which the knower has
overcome. Renunciation is arthāt, something that happens on its own, it is not
“done,” and it has no purpose.
Pūrvapakṣin: If renunciation happens spontaneously (artha-prāptatvāt), then in
case it happens when the knower is a householder (gārhasthye), he can remain a
householder, and need not discontinue being one.
Śaṅkara: No, since householdership is induced by desire! (na, kāma-prayuktatvād
gārhasthyasya)

How are we to understand Śaṅkara’s final answer? The opponent seems to have
understood that for Śaṅkara, renunciation is primarily a mental approach (as I suggested
in response to Karl Potter above).7 For Śaṅkara, to know that one is the eternal Ātman
is a matter of shifting everything worldly from foreground to background, at the level
of consciousness. Śaṅkara speaks of knowledge in terms of renunciation (knowledge
as withdrawal from avidyā), and of renunciation in terms of knowledge (if one knows
that he is the Ātman, this knowledge entails that he is not and cannot be “doer” and
“enjoyer,” kartā and bhoktā). Therefore, the pūrvapakṣin seems to accurately suggest
that renunciation as knowledge (and knowledge as renunciation) can take place
regardless of one’s actual position (āśrama) in the world. But Śaṅkara cannot accept
this articulation. One way to understand his position is to assume that for him, both
householdership and renunciation are modes of consciousness (pravṛtti and nivṛtti
respectively) that exclude one another. If such is the case, then Śaṅkara in fact tells his
opponent that his discussion of renunciation is epistemological and metaphysical, not
social and empirical. But Śaṅkara can also be read as pleading for compatibility between
one’s mode of consciousness and his status in the world, for knowledge as a way of living,
as the SDV through the initial statements of the two contestants, seems to suggest.
I now skip the debate between Shankara and Maṇḍanamiśra. It is not uninteresting,
but I am in a hurry to reach the episode of Shankara in the king’s body, through which
the notion of jñāna-niṣṭhā is explained. The debate in Śaṅkara’s introduction to his
commentary on the Aitareya Upaniṣad, which I just discussed, is illustrative of the
dispute between the philosophical positions of the action- or ritual-centered Pūrva
Mīmāṃsā, and the knowledge-centered (knowledge which excludes action) Uttāra
Mīmāṃsā, or Vedānta. This very dispute is conveyed in the hagiographic debate
between Maṇḍana and Shankara.
When this (skipped) debate ends, it is up to Ubhaya-bhāratī, the arbiter, to declare
the winner. “She, who was all-knowing,” Jonathan Bader quotes from Anantānandagiri’s
Śaṅkaravijaya, the earliest of the hagiographies scrutinized by him, “went to her
husband and said, My lord, Maṇḍanamiśra, come for alms” (2000: 92). Calling him
by name, and inviting him to eat like a saṃnyāsin, she gently hints at his defeat. But
before returning to the heavens, or the Brahmaloka, being none other than goddess
Sarasvatī, Ubhaya-bhāratī has one final mission to accomplish in the world: to debate
with Shankara herself.
376 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

13.5 Omniscience

On the narrative junction that we have just reached, Bader writes, “The texts vary as
to whether Śaṅkara or Sarasvatī actually initiates the debate. Yet there is no doubt that
what is at stake here is Śaṅkara’s claim to omniscience” (2000: 93). In the SDV it is
Ubhaya-bhāratī who challenges Shankara. He replies (in SDV 9.59) that it is improper
to fight a woman, even if only with words (apropos William Sax’s words and swords),
but is convinced when she reminds him (in SDV 9.61) of famous debates between
men and women, such as Yājñavalkya and Gārgī, or Janaka and Sulabhā, that did not
blemish the reputation of the male participant.8
On the notion of omniscience, sarvajñāna, Bader observes, “For the most part, the
hagiographers resist the temptation to represent Śaṅkara’s omniscience in terms of
personal experience … [They] present us with a clear perspective of the way knowledge
is measured in those Indian traditions which accept the authority of the Vedas … It is
above all mastery of the śāstras which marks one who truly knows” (2000: 93).
Omniscience as mastery of the śāstras sits well with Śaṅkara’s own preference for
the solidity of the scriptures (śruti) over personal experience (anubhava) as source of
knowledge of the Brahman as one’s core selfhood. Wilhelm Halbfass touches on the
subtlety and complexity of the matter. “Śaṅkara,” he writes,

uses such terms as anubhava rarely and cautiously … The Upaniṣads are texts
which teach or indicate the knowledge of Brahman (brahma-jñāna), and that
means ultimate experience … However, that experience, which the Veda itself
teaches as a transcendent sotereological goal, the sheer undisguised presence of
Brahman, should not be confused with personal experiences or observations,
which one might use as evidence for or against the Veda. (1992: 388)

That is, Śaṅkara speaks of what Halbfass refers to as “ultimate experience” in terms of
“knowledge,” to be distinguished from what Halbfass refers to as “personal experiences,”
or “observations,” that might disagree with the “ultimate experience” as it is depicted
in the Upaniṣads.
For Bader, Shankara as sarvajña is a master of the śāstras, i.e., knower of every nook
and corner of a textual body. Sheldon Pollock explains:

the Veda, the transcendent śāstra, subsumes all knowledge. It is itself eternal,
infallible, the source of the caturvarga and thus the basis of all activity. Secular
śāstra in general, consequently, as a portion of this corpus comes to share the
Veda’s transcendent attributes. Just like the Veda, too, it thereby establishes itself as
an essential a-priori of every dimension of practical activity. (1985: 519)

According to Pollock, theory (śāstra) is the a priori of practical activity (prayoga).

He further suggests, “Theory is held always and necessarily to precede and govern
practice … [An] important implication of this fundamental postulate is that all
knowledge is pre-existent” (1985: 499). The episode of Shankara in the king’s body, to
be discussed very shortly, challenges Pollock’s a priori thesis.
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 377

Mukund Lath explains that the ideal of sarvajñāna, or omniscience, emerged as

an alternative to the concept of apauruṣeyatva. The Veda is traditionally considered
as apauruṣeya, namely as “unauthored” by any person, human or divine. Hence
the authority of the text is inherent, and is not derived from any external source. It
also means that the text is necessarily flawless, since textual flaws originate from a
flawed author. No author is flawless, hence the emphasis on the Veda as “unauthored.”
Āgama (roughly, post-Vedic, including Buddhist and Jaina) texts, on the other hand,
are pauruṣeya (“authored”). To provide these texts with due authority, their authors
are projected as omniscient. “The puruṣa, or person,” Lath explains, “who reveals an
Āgama is naturally all-knowing, or else his word would not be a carrier of the Truth
regarding the world we live in and the life we lead in it, and thus will not be able to truly
serve as a Guide for us.”9 Lath further suggests that in the context of the SDV, the word
sarvajña, all-knower, can be understood in the general sense of “a man who knows
all that is considered worth knowing, a man of vast learning.” This is not the case,
he comments, with regard to the concept of sarvajñāna as used by Vyāsa, Patañjali’s
commentator (in Yogasūtra-bhāṣya 1.25). Here, omniscience pertains to “knowledge
of everything” or “All.” Lath explains:

“All” can be understood in many ways, such as “the heart, or spirit, or the essence of
all there is.” But Vyāsa evidently understands “Everything” or “All” in a quantitative
sense. This has problems. The Mīmāṃsakas had taken great objection to such a
meaning of All, pointing out that a quantitative All is mathematically impossible:
to any number, however large, you can always add 1.10

Now that the issue at stake, namely omniscience, has been looked into—from
mastery of the śāstras (Bader and Pollock), through “ultimate experience” as against
“personal experiences” (Halbfass), and finally omniscience as an alternative to
apauruṣeyatva and the distinction between Vyāsa’s technical-mathematical sense of
the concept and its more general sense pertaining to vast learning (Mukund Lath)—let
us return to the hagiographic narrative to find out what happens in the debate between
Shankara and Ubhaya-bhāratī.

13.6 Kusumāstra-śāstra

Back in the hagiography, the debate begins. For seventeen days the wise goddess and
the sharp Advaitin discuss all the śāstras, Vedas, itihāsas, and purāṇas, and Shankara
displays perfect mastery of these texts. But Ubhaya-bhāratī is determined to defeat
him, and since he is a brahmacārin, and even saṃnyāsin from childhood (see the
famous episode of the crocodile and Shankara’s āpat-saṃnyāsa, “renunciation
in the face of a life-threatening calamity,” in canto 5 of the SDV), she decides to
ask him about kusumāstra-śāstra, “the science of love between the sexes” in
Tapasyananda’s translation. Kusuma is flower. Astra is weapon. Śāstra is indeed
science, or art. Ubhaya-bhāratī, then, asks Shankara about the śāstra of the flower-
arrows.11 Like Cupid, his Roman double, god Kāma shoots arrows, flower-arrows
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from a sugarcane-bow in his case. The hagiographers point at the subject matter
of the debate in a subtle, beautiful manner. Tapasyananda, who speaks (in the title
of canto 10) of “knowledge of sex-love,” adds an apologetic footnote to this explicit
rendition (1974: 117 note 1).
Ignorant of the topic raised by his opponent, Shankara asks for, and receives, a
month-long “timeout” to acquire the required knowledge. Rather than using it for
theoretical studies, he decides to take a practical course. Traveling in the air with his
students (a siddhi, or yogic power, expounded in Yogasūtra 3.43), Shankara spots King
Amaruka, who just died in a hunting expedition. Talking to his disciple Padmapāda,
Shankara contemplates the possibility of entering the dead king’s body, and reviving
it, in order to acquire the knowledge that he needs for the debate. The king’s body
will allow Shankara access to the required knowledge, but he intends to religiously
maintain the noninvolved position of a witness (SDV 9.78).
The term sākṣitvam, “witness-hood,” implies that it will not be Shankara who engages
in the physical-emotional “activity” with the king’s wives, but in fact the king’s body,
with which he does not intend to identify. In this way, he will be able both to remain
a saṃnyāsin, without breaking his celibacy vow, and to accomplish his knowledge
mission. Padmapāda is skeptical. He tells Shankara (and us) the story (within a story)
of Matsyendra, a great yogin who entered and revived a dead king’s body, entrusting
“his own” body with Gorakṣa, his devoted disciple and Padmapāda’s double in this
story. The kingdom prospered under the rule of the yogin in the king’s body, but under
the spell of sensuous life, he forgot (we are in SDV 9.83) everything about samādhi,
and became fully absorbed in his duties as a king, instead of remaining a “witness from
within.” His disciple, disguised as a dance guru, came to the king’s palace, and rescued
him from the claws of desire. The story is intriguing, as it anticipates that which is
about to take place here. But Shankara is confident that he can maintain his status as
an “outsider,” even if he goes “inside.”

13.7 In the King’s Body

Through yoga-śakti, Shankara leaves his body in a cave, and enters the dead body
of king Amaruka. The brahmarandhra, the aperture in the crown of the head, is the
doorway through which he leaves his body and enters the king’s body. The procedure
is described in detail. Shankara collects his prāṇa, the essence which makes the body
alive, from the toes, all the way up to the crown of the head, and infuses it into the
body of the king. The king’s dead body becomes dynamic, first the heart, then light
appears on his face, the prāṇa flows though the body, the legs move, he opens his
eyes and stands on his feet as before. The resurrected king returns to his capital in
procession, and begins to govern “like Indra himself.” Besides training in political
science, Shankara “wastes no time in getting down to business,” as Bader puts it, with
kusumāstra-śāstra. Bader quotes from Anantānandagiri’s Śaṅkaravijaya the explicit
scene of Shankara’s first sexual experience in the king’s body (or of the king’s first
sexual experience, now that his body is possessed by Shankara): “Joining together
mouth with mouth and her [the king’s eldest wife’s] breasts with his chest, and pressing
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 379

together navel with navel and feet with feet, making in this way [his] body as though
one [with hers], he was intent on embracing her tightly” (2000: 96).
This is a strikingly advaitic depiction (in the literal sense of “not-two-ness”) of
lovemaking. G.C. Pande explains that Śaṅkara, the philosopher, adopts the doctrine
of “two truths,” which allows him “to accommodate the relatively real empirical world
by the side of the non-dual absolute” (1998: 170). The “relatively real empirical world”
is rooted in the dualistic distinction of subject and object. Hence Śaṅkara’s advaita
is strictly a metaphysical notion. But Śaṅkara himself suggests that the metaphysical
can be perceived between the lines of the physical, the advaitic (nondual) within
everything dvaitic (dual). “The non-difference of cause and effect,” he writes in an
intriguing paragraph of the Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya,

results not only from the scriptures (śabda) but also from sense-perception
(pratyakṣa). For the non-difference of the two is perceived, for instance, in an
aggregate of threads, where we do not perceive a thing called cloth in addition
to the threads, but merely threads running lengthways and crossways. So again,
in the threads we perceive finer threads, in them again finer threads, and so on.
On the ground of this, we conclude that the finest parts which we can perceive
are ultimately identical with their causes, viz. red, white and black; those, again,
with air, the latter with ether, and ether with Brahman, which is one and without
a second.12

It is implied here that pratyakṣa (“we perceive”) and anumāna (“we conclude”) can
facilitate or work in the direction of Brahman-knowledge. If this is the case, then śabda,
i.e., the scriptures, is not the sole pramāṇa, source of knowledge, allowing brahma-
vidyā, knowledge of “the non-dual absolute,” as G.C. Pande puts it.13 The explicit
hagiographic depiction of lovemaking (“joining together mouth and mouth … as
though one”) works, in my reading, in a similar way. The idea is that everything
physical, or worldly, is an occasion to see, and experience, that which for Śaṅkara is
the advaitic essence.
Shankara works hard to acquire the knowledge for which he entered the king’s
body. He uses Vātsyāyana’s Kāmasūtra as a guide, and engages in “all forms of amorous
indulgences” with his (that is, the king’s) “charming and responsive wives,” as Swami
Tapasyananda puts it. Alongside his practical training, Shankara writes a nibandha
(we are in SDV 10.18), commentary, which explores new possibilities in the field
of kāmaśāstra. Other versions of the story suggest that Shankara in the king’s body
composed the Amaruśataka, “King Amaru’s Hundred Love Poems.” Interestingly, in a
story that is all about the practical aspect of knowledge, theory is not forgotten.
In Padmapāda’s story that anticipated the episode at hand, it was implied that under
the spell of sensual pleasure, Matsyendra, the yogin who entered a king’s body, forgot
the essence of samādhi, and allowed corporeality to take over spirituality. In the present
case, the author of the SDV is more cautious. After all, the hagiography has a strong
aspect of bhakti, and seeks to praise and glorify Śaṅkara. On the one hand, the text (in
canto 10) depicts the pleasures in detail, touching on delicate body gestures, exchange
of sweet words, intoxicating beverages in silver cups, and dice games with sexual
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enjoyments as wager. On the other hand, the text emphasizes Shankara’s seriousness as
a student of kusumāstra-śāstra. Amidst the bounty of sensual pleasure, his witness-eye
is not lost. But in due time, Shankara fails to return to his body and to reappear for
the debate with Ubhaya-bhāratī. Moreover, he will only come back when his disciples,
under the leadership of Padmapāda, will come to the palace, disguised as musicians,
and sing a hymn consisting of the repetitive phrase “tat tvam asi” (“You are That!”).
This Upaniṣadic utterance is Śaṅkara’s own pedagogic device of “reminding” a disciple,
a mokṣa-candidate (mumukṣu), who he really is, namely the Ātman, above and beyond
the worldly domain. The fact that Shankara’s disciples are instrumental in “bringing
him back” implies that the pedagogic encounter is about carving out a potentiality
(conveyed by the notion of the Ātman) that preexists in teacher and student alike.
Through this encounter, in which both parties are equally significant, this knowledge
pertaining to self is realized. This realization is described here in terms of recollection. It
is Śaṅkara himself (and I remind the readers that for me, the hagiographies are nothing
less than a commentary on Śaṅkara’s writings) who speaks of avidyā, the labyrinthine
phenomenal gaze, in terms of forgetting (for instance in Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya 2.1.14),
and projects the utterance “tat tvam asi” as a reminder, or wake-up call. Shankara,
then, the protagonist of the hagiography, forgets and needs a reminder, provided
to him by his devoted disciples. But “why and how,” Neil Dalal wonders, “would a
liberated person forget his identity? Is it theoretically possible that the liberated person
can be overwhelmed by desires and sense pleasures?” (2012: 283).14 In his discussion of
the hagiographic episode, Dalal “accuses” the saṃskāras, namely Shankara’s previous
karma, as responsible for the unexpected cloudiness that overtakes him. Saṃskāras,
he writes, “may continue to stimulate previous false notions,” even after “the rise of
brahma-vidyā” (2012: 286).
Śaṅkara himself suggests something slightly different. In his commentary on
Chāndogya Upaniṣad 2.23.1, he writes that under certain circumstances, the precious
Ātman-knowledge may slip out of hand. In a discussion of the term brahma-saṃstha,
“a person rooted in the Brahman,” the pūrvapakṣin argues that if the “conviction of
unity” (as Swami Gambhirananda renders the phrase ekatva-pratyaya), of which
Śaṅkara speaks, eradicates every vidhi (injunction), then yamas and niyamas (ethical
precepts) do not apply to the renouncer (parivrājaka). Throughout this discussion,
Śaṅkara (who writes the pūrvapakṣa, i.e., the objections of the opponent, as much as
his own philosophical position) employs the terms brahma-saṃstha and parivrājaka
interchangeably. Hence the opponent in fact suggests that if he understands Śaṅkara’s
position correctly (about the interconnection of knowledge and renunciation), then
the renouncer rooted in Brahman (Dalal’s liberated person) is beyond ethical precepts.
“No,” replies Śaṅkara, “since these precepts are meant for restraining a person who may
become distracted from his conviction of unity by hunger etc.”15
According to Śaṅkara, then, under conditions of hunger, a bhikṣu (he plays with the
words bhikṣu, renouncer, and bubhukṣā, hunger) can forget the ekatva, unity, which is
the essence of ātma-vidyā. Hunger is a realistic obstacle for a wandering mendicant,
but the phrase used by Śaṅkara is bubhukṣādi, “hunger etc.” I would like to suggest that
sensual pleasures, as in the hagiographic story, can fall under the category of “etc.” The
locus of hunger, as much as of sensual pleasure, is the body.
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 381

13.8 Knowing by Living Through

It is time to estimate the knowledge acquired by Shankara in the king’s body. First,
I wish to argue that Śaṅkara’s “grand project” is the knowledgification of the advaitic,
nondual, metaphysical experience (ultimate, not personal, as Halbfass clarified). In
Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya 1.1.2, Śaṅkara suggests that knowledge is one and the same,
whether it is knowledge of a pillar or of Brahman, i.e., that the epistemological
procedure is the same, even if the pramāṇa, source of knowledge, in each of these
cases is different. By speaking of the advaitic Brahman-experience in terms of
knowledge, Śaṅkara attempts to ensure that it is “objective” and open for all, rather
than “subjective,” a matter of personal, hence always questionable, experience. He
strives to ensure that the advaitic experience, formed in terms of knowledge, is vastu-
tantra, rather than puruṣa-tantra (objective and subjective respectively, as implied by
Śaṅkara in Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya 1.1.4). The hagiographic episode works with Śaṅkara’s
concept of knowledge. Knowledge is the driving force behind the story of Shankara in
the king’s body.
Dorothy Walsh introduces the notion of “knowing by living through,” and suggests
that it is “a distinctive mode of knowing,” to be distinguished from what she refers to
as “scientific knowledge,” pertaining, for instance, to stars or volcanoes (1970: 266). “I
know that I am in pain,” she writes, “by living through the pain experience … Lived
experience is something more than just experience … Lived experience is understanding
by undergoing, by participation, by living through … [It is] knowledge from within”
(1970: 267–8).
Walsh sees pain as the most vivid human experience, on which she builds her
notion of “knowledge from within,” “by participation.” Even more interesting is
that according to her, this firsthand knowledge can be extended to the other. When
someone else is in pain, I know that he is in pain, again not in the same way that I know
something about volcanoes, but based on my own experience, through what Walsh
refers to as “an act of imaginative projection, imaginative identification” (1970: 270).
I am not in full agreement with Walsh about the distinction between knowledge of
pain and knowledge of volcanoes. Is my knowledge of volcanoes (based on books and
documentaries) similar to the knowledge of volcanoes of someone who lives near an
active volcano? Is there not an existential dimension to every knowledge, available to
“insiders” in the relevant field?
I would like to think of the knowledge acquired by Shankara in the king’s body
as “knowing by living through.” Moreover, I believe that the hagiographic episode
makes a profound point about knowledge, regardless of the yogic capacity of
entering someone else’s body or mind. Or perhaps we can think of imagination as
“yogic power,” which allows the human person, as Walsh rightly suggests, to extend
his boundaries and reach out to the other.Moreover, I would like to connect Walsh’s
notion and Śaṅkara’s concept of jñāna-niṣṭhā, literally “being within knowledge,” from
his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gītā (BG). The term niṣṭhā is mentioned in the text
of the Gītā thrice. Of these three mentions, two (BG 3.3 and 18.50) refer to paths
leading to mokṣa, or liberation. In the former case (3.3), the reference is to the paths
(I render the word yoga as path) of knowledge (jñāna) and action (karma); in the latter
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case (18.50), to the path of knowledge. In his commentary on BG 3.3, Śaṅkara glosses
the term niṣṭhā as “sthitir anuṣṭheyatātparyam,” or “steadfastness, persistence in what
is undertaken” (Gambhirananda 2003: 135). In his brief introduction to Chapter 4 of
the Gītā, Śaṅkara writes that Krishna’s teaching in the previous two chapters is about
renunciation (saṃnyāsa), which is characterized by jñāna-niṣṭhā (“steadfastness in
knowledge,” Gambhirananda 2003: 175). We are back, then, with what I referred to
above as “knowledge as a way of living.” In his commentary on BG 18.12, Śaṅkara
claims that the paramahaṃsa-parivrājaka, a renouncer of the highest order, is a jñāna-
niṣṭha, i.e., endowed with jñāna-niṣṭhā. In his commentary on BG 18.50, Śaṅkara
further elucidates that “niṣṭhā means culmination, a final stage. Of what? Of Brahman-
knowledge (brahma-jñāna).”16 And in his commentary on Muṇdaka Upaniṣad 1.1.2,
Śaṅkara writes with regard to the brahma-niṣṭha, one who is immersed in Brahman,
or endowed with Brahman-knowledge: “One who renounces all activities and remains
absorbed in the non-dual Brahman only is a brahma-niṣṭha, just as it is in the case of
the words japa-niṣṭha, absorbed in mantra-recitation, and tapo-niṣṭha, one absorbed
in austerity. For one engrossed in karma cannot have absorption in Brahman, action
and the knowledge of the Self (ātma-jñāna) being contradictory.”17
In order to explain the phrase brahma-niṣṭha, Śaṅkara looks into the phrases
japa-niṣṭha and tapo-niṣṭha, referring to those immersed in japa (mantra recitation)
and tapas (austerity). Prima facie, these two practitioners differ immensely from the
brahma-niṣṭha, because of Śaṅkara’s clear-cut distinction between karma and jñāna,
action and knowledge. The other two are “doers,” engaged in action, whereas the
brahma-niṣṭha is a knower. One could argue that the comparison is all about devotion.
Each of the three is totally devoted to “his thing.” But my hunch is that through this
comparison, Śaṅkara aims to imply that despite the fact that “officially,” knowledge and
action exclude one another, there is a “practical” dimension to Brahman-knowledge. I
would like to suggest further that this dimension is embedded in what I refer to as a “way
of living.” This is to say that besides the obvious epistemological aspect of Brahman-
knowledge (as in knowledge of a pillar), and its metaphysical aspect (pertaining as
it does to Brahman, the selfhood beyond), it also consists of an existential, or again
practical, or even physical aspect.
I suggested above that for Śaṅkara, Brahman-knowledge is a matter of
“remembering” one’s ātmanic nature, as against avidyā, the phenomenal gaze, which
conveys a sense of self-forgetting. I would now like to suggest that the hagiographers
take the notion of forgetting forward. When Shankara fails to return to the debate
with Ubhaya-bhāratī, forgetting his “real identity” (but later recalling this very identity,
when his disciples remind him “in melodious voices, observing the rules of the science
of music” who he is and who he is not), this instance of forgetting is a central feature
of the model of knowledge constructed here. According to this model, ­knowledge—
whether brahma-vidyā, or knowledge in the realm of kusumāstra-śāstra—is a matter of
resolution with regard to center and periphery. Like Escher’s painting “Sky and Water”
(1938), where birds and fish are alternately foreground or background, depending
on whether the eye concentrates on light or dark elements, knowledge as portrayed
here is a matter of foregrounding and backgrounding. Or in other words, knowledge
is not just a matter of revealment, but also of concealment. And if such is the case,
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 383

then Shankara’s instance of forgetting in the hagiographic episode is not necessarily a

sign of failure, or weakness, or drifting away, but quite the opposite. It is an indication
that he has become a niṣṭha, an “insider,” in the knowledge that he was seeking to
acquire, focusing on that which is to be known, and shifting to periphery everything
else, including his Ātman-hood. Śaṅkara’s own comment, in his gloss on Chāndogya
Upaniṣad 2.23.1, about the possibility of forgetting the “conviction of unity” that the
notion of the Ātman carries, is my answer to anyone who would raise the objection
that everything can be forgotten but not the Ātman.
What is the implication of “knowledge as a way of living,” or “knowing by living
through,” for the ideal of sarvajñāna, omniscience? I propose that the only way of
living suitable for the aspirant of omniscience is parivrajyā, or wandering, in the sense
of the capacity (here Dorothy Walsh spoke of imagination) to travel between ways of
living, to wander not (necessarily) between bodies, but between bodies of knowledge.
Shankara of the SDV, who makes a brave move—carefully pondered upon in advance
with his closest disciple—in order to obtain the knowledge that he needs for the debate,
sets an example for this model of “omniscience as wandering.”

13.9 Shankara, the Caṇḍāla, and Social Advaita

There is no social dimension in Śaṅkara’s Advaita. As suggested above, his notion of

nonduality pertains to the metaphysical realm alone. For Śaṅkara, the phenomenal
realm of duality and multiplicity is rooted in avidyā, the world-making gaze that reveals
everything external, but conceals the essential-most Brahman. Śaṅkara looks into the
mechanism of avidyā, in an attempt to neutralize, or deactivate, this very mechanism,
in order to let the air out of the balloon of externality, phenomenality, and worldliness.
But in the hagiography, the metaphysical “conviction of unity” does not negate,
or nullify, the phenomenal dimension. The notion of advaita, as interpreted here,
emanates from the metaphysical to the phenomenal; or rather, the “two truths” that
G.C. Pande sees in Śaṅkara’s philosophy complement, rather than exclude, one another.
The text raises a demand that “not-two-ness” as ideal and realization finds expression
now and here, at the level of human interaction. This demand is put forward in
canto 6 of the SDV, in the famous episode about Shankara’s encounter with a canḍāla,
an “untouchable.” Here Shankara, on his way to a midday bath in the Gaṅgā with his
disciples, comes across a caṇḍāla with four dogs (SDV 6.25). To make sure that their
party is not “polluted” by the dogs and their master, the disciples order the latter to
step aside and give way. But surprisingly, the caṇḍāla addresses Shankara and points
out the discrepancy between his advaitic teaching and his current dualistic approach,
which makes a distinction not just between “purity” and “pollution,” personalized
in this narrative by brāhmaṇa and caṇḍāla, but even—the knowledgeable caṇḍāla
­argues—between body and Ātman. “Is the sun changed in the least, if it reflects in
a liquor pot or in the Gaṅgā?” he asks in protest (Tapasyananda 1974: 60). A few
lines down the road, the reader discovers that the caṇḍāla is no other than Śiva, and
the four dogs, the four Vedas. Yes, god Śiva takes the form of an outcaste, and gives
Shankara and us a lesson in advaita, including “social advaita” which applies to the
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phenomenal realm. Śiva’s presence in the narrative, as also the presence of the Vedas,
grant authority to the demand for bringing Śaṅkara’s advaita down to earth. Through
Śiva in the form of a caṇḍāla, a divinity in disguise, the authors of the hagiographic
narrative invite the reader to follow them in translating the metaphysical into the
social domain.
Here I could take my discussion in the direction of Swami Vivekananda’s social
advaita. But Vivekananda’s contribution, both in theory and practice, in expanding
the scope of advaita as to include the social dimension has already been discussed
extensively.18 I therefore turn the bow of my ship toward Daya Krishna, one of the most
original Indian thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century, and his critique
of the lack of social conscience in classical Vedānta, from the Upaniṣads to Śaṅkara.
Like the hagiographers before him, Daya Krishna felt the limitedness of Śaṅkara’s
notion of advaita, as long as it applies merely to the metaphysical realm. His critique
of the neglect of everything worldly in Śaṅkara is sharp, as he sees the far-ranging
implications of an ideology that favors the pursuit of a “beyondness beyond” over
the here and now. “But friends,” he asserts in his Shimla Lectures (2005), published
under the title Civilizations: Nostalgia and Utopia (2012), “the vyavahāra matters!” He
attempts to free the notion of vyavahāra, pertaining to the worldly aspects of human
life, from any derogatory connotations. For Daya Krishna, the experience of the
beyond is empty and utterly futile unless it has an impact on the worldly. And since the
vyavahāra matters, social injustice is unacceptable. Daya Krishna is concerned about
the fact that too often (and here the caṇḍāla episode comes to mind) “the profound
and far-reaching insight of the Upaniṣadic quest is twisted and perverted,” as he puts
it, “to suit narrow sectarian caste-interests of a society” (2011b, 263). “Imagine!” he
addressed his listeners in Shimla,

We claim to universality. Without it, you cannot be a civilization. And this

civilization raises the following question: are śūdras and women entitled to yajña
or not? What a question! Anybody who can even raise such a question has ceased
to be a human being … If this is not the original sin, it is the original guilt of the
Indian civilization … What has happened to the Seer? I could not believe it when I
read the text. I asked myself how it is possible. (2012: 98)

Daya Krishna lashes out at the notion of adhikāra, “entitlement,” which marks the
exclusion of large sectors of the society, whether from ritual or knowledge. In this respect
he looks into the story of Satyakāma Jābāla (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 4.4.1–4.9.3), who has
acquired “liberative knowledge” not from, but despite, his guru. To demonstrate how
the text “is twisted and perverted,” Daya Krishna quotes from this Upaniṣadic story at
length in the original Sanskrit, and remarks, “Now this is simple and straightforward
Sanskrit, requiring no philological expertise for its understanding. And yet, Śaṅkara
comments on it in the following manner …” (1995: 74). Otherwise a minimalist when
it comes to quoting, Daya Krishna further quotes from Śaṅkara’s bhāṣya, again in the
original, again at length, as if to imply that otherwise the readers, like him, would not
believe that this is indeed how the famous ācārya maneuvers the Upaniṣadic text. And
he drives his point home:
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 385

The turns and twists which Śaṅkara introduces to make the story respectable and
the so-called śruti acceptable to the social prejudices of his time, would have been
laughable if they did not also have a tragic aspect to them. Imagine! The great
ācārya making the poor Jabālā [Satyakāma’s mother] not only a slave, entertaining
her husband’s guests all the twenty-four hours every day of the year, but he had to
kill her husband so that she may be provided an excuse for not knowing what the
gotra of her son’s progenitor is. (1995: 74)

For Daya Krishna, it is not merely the case that Śaṅkara neglects the worldly for
the sake of a beatific beyond. It is even worse. When he does refer to worldly affairs
(here, following the Upaniṣadic story), his views reflect “the social prejudices of
his time.” The hagiographers attempt to broaden Śaṅkara’s scope and spotlight a
necessary social aspect of advaita as concept and ideal. But what if the caṇḍāla in
the narrative was not God Śiva in disguise, but an “ordinary” caṇḍāla, and his dogs
just dogs, not the four Vedas? Would his words, about advaita as social equality,
still count? Daya Krishna, on the other hand, hardly a traditionalist, is committed
to social justice and to critical reading of tradition-texts, including Śaṅkara’s. If
Śaṅkara’s attempt, according to him, is “to make the śruti respectable and acceptable,”
this is not the way he handles Śaṅkara’s writings. About his reading method, Daya
Krishna writes that he attempts to approach the text, whatever text he placed under
his philosophical magnifying glass, with niḥsaṅga-buddhi, which is analogous, he
further suggests, to the ideal of niṣkāma-karma of the Gītā (2011a, 204). The latter
phrase refers to an action which is not taken to fulfill any end besides or beyond this
action itself. Daya Krishna’s prime loyalty, then, is to thinking itself. He attempts
to look the text, here Śaṅkara’s commentary, straight in the eye, not through any
filter, whether traditional or other. His ideal of “non-attached mind” hardly means
that he does not have beliefs and urgent concerns. As his vast oeuvre indicates,
for many years he worked primarily on social philosophy, focusing in theory and
practice on notions such as development and welfare. Daya Krishna, his oeuvre
further reveals, is ever critical of texts and thinkers that are willing to neglect the
worldly, the objective, the ethical, and aesthetic, in the name of spirituality and
religion. In his introduction to Bhakti: A Contemporary Discussion—Philosophical
Explorations in the Indian Bhakti Tradition, the proceedings of a saṃvāda—a
dialogue between practitioners and theorists, traditionalists and nāstikas, insiders
and outsiders—which took place in Vrindavan, “the heartland of Bhakti itself,”
Daya Krishna writes:

At times it almost seemed blasphemous to say the things we [theorists] said, when
the eternal flute of the Divine itself called to us every moment to give up the vain,
empty, dry world of intellect, and the greetings “Rādhe Rādhe” reminded us of
the ecstasy of divine love. But amidst these enticements and allurements, what
sustained us was the unbelievably long, hardcore tradition of the ever-seeking,
ever-doubting sāttvika quest for the ultimate truth by the buddhi in the Indian
tradition, which has never been afraid of raising the most formidable pūrvapakṣas
against one’s own position. (2000, iii)
386 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

With all reverence to “the eternal flute of the Divine itself,” Daya Krishna
confesses that he is a bhakta (devotee) of the age-old Indian “temple of reason,”
and reminds his readers that the “ever-seeking, ever-doubting quest by the buddhi”
is as deeply rooted in the Indian tradition as the “religious” strands of Bhakti.
He beautifully portrays “the free play of reason, imagination and intellectual
sensibility”—corresponding to his notion of niḥsaṅga-buddhi—as “bauddhika
yajña” (Krishna 2000: iv), “intellectual offering” in the abovementioned temple of
reason.
As I was in search for a closing line for this chapter, I passed today near Kaveri
Hostel, JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Delhi. On the hostel’s wall, I saw this biting
graffiti: “Education divorced from life is lies and hypocrisy; laḍho paḍhāī karne ko!
paḍho samāj badalne ko!” (Fight for the right to study, study to change the society!).
I wish to read it as the activist version, young and furious, of Daya Krishna’s emphatic
plea “But Friends, the vyavahāra matters!”

Notes
1 Shimla Lectures, 2005.
2 For the dates, I draw on Jonathan Bader (2000, xi and 19). W.R. Antarkar’s pioneering
work on the hagiographies also deserves to be mentioned here. He wrote a series
of articles on the subject, including Antarkar (1972). In this paper, he provides a
useful background to the SDV text, discusses its estimated date, and touches on the
role that the text plays in negotiating the hierarchy between the different maṭhas
that (according to the tradition) Śaṅkara has established, and primarily between the
maṭhas of Śṛṅgeri and Kāñcī.
3 On Śiva bhakti in the hagiography, see Bader (2000), especially Chapter 7,
“Reflections on Representing Śaṅkara.” Bader suggests that Śaṅkara of the
hagiography “is instrumental in bringing Bhakti within the fold of orthodoxy”
(2000: 312). Therefore, he raises the pertinent question “Can Śaṅkara be at once a
non-dualist and a supporter of devotionalism?” (ibid.).
On Yoga strands in the SDV see Chapter 3 of Raveh (2016), “Shankara in the King’s
Body: Knowing by Living Through.” Here I read the hagiography vis-à-vis Pātañjala-
yoga, and especially Chapter 3 of the Yogasūtra, the siddhi (“powers”) chapter, which
includes three sūtras on the capacity of entering someone else’s body and mind
(3.19, 3.30, 3.39). On Tantra and Śaṅkara’s hagiographies, see Timalsina (2012).
4 I quote from the Sutta as translated by Sister Vajira and Francis Story (1998).
5 Personal communication; the capital letters, here and in other quotes from
our correspondence, are Lath’s. Mukund Lath is a Jaipur-based thinker, pandit
and professor in one. He is the English translator of the Prakrit Kalpasūtra, a
hagiography of Mahāvīra, the founding father of Jainism (Lath 1997) and of the
Ardhakathānaka (“Half a Tale,” Lath 1981), translated from an amalgam of Brajbhāṣā
and other eastern dialects of Hindi, Khaṛibolī, and Bhojpurī. The Ardhakathānaka
is a premodern autobiography (dated 1641) which chronicles the everyday life
of the author, Banarasi Biholia, a Jain merchant during the Mughal rule, and his
metamorphosis into the Adiguru of the Adhyātma movement within the Jain
tradition, which later evolved into the present-day Terapaṇtha. Lath’s work on the
 Śaṅkaradigvijaya: A Narrative Interpretation 387

Kalpasūtra and the Ardhakathānaka makes him an ideal companion for a visit to the
SDV, such as the one undertaken here.
6 The translation is Swami Gambhirananda’s (1998: II.7).
7 On renunciation in Śaṅkara, and the question whether it is “inner renunciation”
(mental approach), or “external renunciation” (a social move in accord with the
Āśrama System), or a combination of both, see Marcaurelle (2000).
8 The two debates, between Yājñavalkya and Gārgī (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.6
and 3.8), and between Janaka and Sulabhā (in the Śāntiparvan of the Mahābhārata)
deserve close reading. On the former, see Raveh (2017). On the latter debate, see
Chakrabarti (2014).
9 Personal communication.
10 I quote from the same correspondence with Mukund Lath.
11 The phrase kusumāstra-śāstra can also be read as a bahuvrīhi: “He whose weapon (or
arrow) is the flower,” i.e., god Kāma, making the compound as a whole a synonym of
kāmaśāstra.
12 na kevalam śabdād eva kārya-kāraṇayor ananyatvam pratyakṣopalabdhi-bhāvāc
ca tayor ananyatvam ity arthaḥ | bhavati hi pratyakṣopalabdhiḥ kārya-kāraṇayor
ananyatve | tad yathā tantu-saṃsthāne paṭe tantu-vyatirekeṇa paṭo nāma kāryam
naivopalabhyate kevalās tu tantava ātāna-vitānavantaḥ pratyakṣam upalabhyante
tathā tantuṣv aṃśavo ’ṃśuṣu tad-avayavāḥ | anayā pratyakṣopalabdhyā lohita-śukla-
kṛṣṇāni trīṇi rūpāṇi tato vāyu-mātraṃ ākāśa-mātram cety anumeyam | tataḥ paraṃ
brahmaikam evādvitīyam (Brahmasūtra-bhāṣya 2.1.15, in G. Thibaut (1994) part I,
331–2; the translation is Thibaut’s).
13 The intricate question of the pramāṇas, sources of knowledge, their status, hierarchy,
and interaction or collaboration, including the unique status of śruti, and of the
mahāvākya “tat tvam asi” as the heart of the śruti and the ­pramāṇa-of-pramāṇas in
Śaṅkara is beyond my present discussion. For an interesting attempt in this direction,
see Rambachan (1991).
14 Dalal’s paper appeared in a special issue of the Journal of Hindu Studies (2012: 5.3)
edited by J.E. Llewellyn. The articles collected here arose from a conference panel
titled “Selves and Experience: Śaṅkara and The Self Possessed.” This discussion was
inspired, Llewellyn explains in his introduction, by Frederick M. Smith’s study of
possession in South Asia. “Taken together,” he writes, “the articles explore the role of
experience in the attainment of saving knowledge (and other kinds of knowledge) and
the nature of the self conjured up in writing by and about Śaṅkara” (2012: 251). Dalal
is the only author whose work I am in a direct dialogue with, but the other papers,
for instance Llewellyn’s own “Knowing Kāmaśāstra in the Biblical Sense: Śaṅkara’s
Possession of King Amaruka,” are also interesting and related to my discussion.
15 na bubhukṣādinaikatva-pratyayāt pracyāvitasyopapatter nivṛtty-arthatvāt (Ten
Principal Upaniṣads with Śaṅkarabhāṣya, 2007: 407); the translation is Swami
Gambhirananda’s (1998: 153).
16 niṣṭhā paryavasānaṃ parisamāptirityetam. kasya, brahmajñānasya yā parā
(Gambhirananda 2003: 719).
17 hitvā sarva-karmāṇi kevale ’dvaye brahmaṇi niṣṭhā yasya so ’yaṃ brahma-niṣṭho japa-
niṣṭhas tapo-niṣṭha iti yadvat | na hi karmiṇo brahma-niṣṭhatā saṃbhavati karmātma-
jñānayor virodhāt (Gambhirananda 1998: 2.04).
18 See, for instance, Nicholson (2020). Out of numerous writings on Vivekananda on
social advaita, I mention Nicholson since he implies that Vivekananda’s emphasis
on the social dimension of Advaita is not unrelated to Śaṅkara’s hagiographies,
388 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

and moreover to the episode about Śaṅkara’s encounter with the canḍāla, “which
encapsulates,” as he puts it, “what came to be understood among many in the late
medieval period as the social implications of the true awareness of non-duality”
(Nicholson 2020: 45–6). In tune with my discussion, Nicholson argues that “clearly,
Vivekananda did not establish his idea of the social and ethical consequences of
non-dualism from the writings of Śaṅkara himself ” (Nicholson 2020: 48). Instead,
he suggests that Vivekananda inherited his social conscience from his teacher,
Sri Ramakrishna, “whose access to non-dualist traditions was largely oral and
vernacular … His Śaṅkara was not the historical Śaṅkara, author of the Brahmasūtra-
bhāṣya and Upadeśasāhasrī; it was the Śaṅkara who had traveled to Varanasi and
acknowledged an outcaste as his teacher” (Nicholson 2020: 48). Hence Nicholson in
fact suggests that Vivekananda was indirectly influenced, or inspired, by the social
Advaita of the hagiographers through Ramakrishna.

References

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Brahmasūtra Śāṅkara Bhāṣyam (1998), Varanasi: Caukhambā Vidyābhavan.
Śrīmadbhagavadgītā with Śāṅkarabhāṣya, Works of Śaṅkarācārya in the original Sanskrit
(1998), Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Śrīśaṅkaradigvijayaḥ (2012), Sri Shivprasad Dwivedi, ed., Varanasi: Caukhambā
Vidyābhavan.
Ten Principal Upaniṣads with Śāṅkarabhāṣya (Īśā, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Muṇḍaka,
Māṇḍūkya, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Chāndogya, Bṛhadāraṇyaka), Works of Śaṅkarācārya
in the original Sanskrit (2007), Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,

Sanskrit and Pāli Sources in Translation

Gambhirananda, Swami (1998), Eight Upaniṣads with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya
in two volumes (Īśā, Kena, Kaṭha, Taittirīya, Aitareya, Muṇḍaka, Māṇḍūkya, Praśna),
Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
Gambhirananda, Swami (2003), Bhagavadgītā with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya,
Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
Lath, Mukund, trans. (1997) Bhadrabāhu, Kalpasūtra, Śrīdaśāśrutaskandhāntargata-
śrīparyuṣaṇākalpākhya vividh-varṇak-prācīn citrakalit evaṃ hindī-āṃglabhāṣāānuvād
sahit Bhadrabāhusvāmiviracit, Hindi commentary by Vinaysagar, paintings and
introduction by Chnadramani Singh [Prakrit Bharati Series], Jaipur: Prakrit Bharati
Sansthan [2nd and 3rd editions, Mumbai: Prakrit Bharati Academy, 1984 and 2006].
Lath, Mukund, trans. (1981) Half a Tale: A Study in the Interrelationship between
Autobiography and History—The Ardhakathanaka, Delhi: Rūpa [reprinted 2005].
Olivelle, Patrick (2008), The Life of the Buddha by Ashva Ghosha [Clay Sanskrit Library],
New York: New York University Press.
Tapasyananda, Swami (1974) Śaṅkara Digvijaya, Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math.
Thibaut, G. (1994), Sacred Books of the East, vols. 34 and 38: The Vedānta Sūtras with the
Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya (Part I and II), Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Vajira, Sister and Francis Story (1998), Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha,
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Other Sources
Allen, Michael S. and Anand Venkatkrishnan (2017), “Introduction to Special Issue:
New Directions in the Study of Advaita Vedānta,” International Journal of Hindu
Studies 21 (3), 271–4.
Antarkar, W.R. (1972), “Saṅkṣepa Śaṅkara Jaya of Śrī Mādhavācārya, or Śaṅkara Digvijaya
of Śrī Vidyāraṇyamuni,” Journal of the University of Bombay 61.77, 1–23.
Bader, Jonathan (2000), Conquest of the Four Quarters: Traditional Accounts of the Life of
Śaṅkara, Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.
Chakrabarti, Arindam (2014), “Just Words: An Ethics of Conversation in the
Mahābhārata,” in Arindam Chakrabarti and Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, eds., Mahabharata
Now: Narration, Aesthetics, Ethics, Delhi: Routledge, 244–83.
Dalal, Neil (2012), “Clouding Self-Identity: Śaṅkara, Saṃskāras and the Possession of King
Amaruka,” Journal of Hindu Studies 5.3, 283–92.
Daya Krishna, ed. (1995), “The Mīmāṃsāka versus the Yājñika: Some Further Problems
in the Interpretation of Śruti,” Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical
Research 12.2, 63–79.
Daya Krishna, ed. (2011a), “The Shock-Proof, Evidence-Proof, Argument-Proof World
of Sampradayika Scholarship in Indian Philosophy,” in N. Bhushan, J.G. Garfield, and
D. Raveh, eds., Contrary Thinking: Selected Essays of Daya Krishna, New York: Oxford
University Press, 191–204.
Daya Krishna, ed. (2011b), “The Vedic Corpus and the Two Sūtra-Texts: The
Mīmāṃsāsūtra and the Brahmasūtra,” in N. Bhushan, J.G. Garfield, and D. Raveh,
eds., Contrary Thinking: Selected Essays of Daya Krishna, New York: Oxford University
Press, 257–74.
Daya Krishna, ed. (2012), Civilizations: Nostalgia and Utopia, Delhi: Sage Publishers.
Daya Krishna, ed., with Mukund Lath and Francine E. Krishna (2000), Bhakti: A
Contemporary Discussion—Philosophical Explorations in the Indian Bhakti Tradition,
Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research.
Ganeri, Jonardon (2008), “Sanskrit Philosophical Commentary,” Journal of the Indian
Council of Philosophical Research 25.1, 107–27.
Halbfass, Wilhelm (1992), India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding,
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Larson, G.J. (1980), “Karma as a ‘Sociology of Knowledge’ or ‘Social Psychology’ of
Process/Praxis,” in Wendy Doniger, ed., Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian
Traditions, Berkeley: University of California Press, 303–16.
Larson, G.J. (1993), “The Trimūrti of Smṛti in Classical Indian Thought,” Philosophy East
and West 43.3, 373–88.
Malinar, Angelika (2001), “Śaṅkara as Jagadguru According to Śaṅkara-Digvijaya,” in Vasudha
Dalmia, Angelika Malinar, and Martin Christof, eds., Charisma and Canon: Essays on the
Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 93–113.
Marcaurelle, Roger (2000), Freedom through Inner Renunciation: Śaṅkara’s Philosophy in a
New Light, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Mohanty, J.N. (1992), Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mohanty, J.N. (1995), “Philosophy of History and its Presuppositions,” in J.N. Mohanty,
Essays on Indian Philosophy, Traditional and Modern, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 303–12.
Nicholson, Andrew J. (2020), “Vivekananda’s Non-Dual Ethics in the History of Vedānta,”
in Rita Sherma, ed., Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics,
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 45–64.
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Pande, G.C. (1998), Life and Thought of Śaṅkarācārya, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Perrett, Roy (1999), “History, Time, and Knowledge in Ancient India,” History and
Theory 38.3, 307–21.
Pollock, Sheldon (1985), “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian
Intellectual History,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.3, 499–519.
Pollock, Sheldon (1989), “Mīmāṃsā and the Problem of History in Traditional India,”
Journal of the American Oriental Society 109.4, 603–10.
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Academy of Religion Thematic Studies 48, 111–25.
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of Valid Knowledge in Śaṅkara, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Raveh, Daniel (2016), Sūtras, Stories and Yoga Philosophy: Narrative and Transfiguration,
London and New York: Routledge.
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in Chapter 3 of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad,” Journal of the Indian Council of
Philosophical Research 35.1, 159–74.
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International Journal of Hindu Studies 4.1, 39–60.
Timalsina, Sthaneswar (2012), “Embodiment and Self-Realization: The Interface between
Śaṅkara’s Transcendentalism and Shamanic and Tantric Experiences,” Journal of Hindu
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Research 31.2, 265–72.
 Part Five

Cross-Cultural Explorations
392
 14

A New Debate on Consciousness: Bringing

Classical and Modern Vedānta into Dialogue
with Contemporary Analytic Panpsychism
Anand Jayprakash Vaidya

Panpsychism is the view that consciousness (psyche) is present everywhere (pan).

Recent analytic philosophers of mind, such as Galen Strawson (2006), David Chalmers
(2015), Philip Goff (2006, 2017a, 2017b), and Itay Shani (2015, 2018), building off
of the work of earlier pioneers, such as Thomas Nagel (1979), have articulated and
defended some version of panpsychism. Strawson defends micropsychism, Chalmers
defends panprotopsychism, and Goff and Shani advocate different versions of
cosmopsychism. Although many of these philosophers draw from historical sources
in the Western tradition, such as Baruch Spinoza, William James, or Bertrand Russell,
none of them seriously explores the possibility of some kind of panpsychism in non-
Western philosophy, and, more importantly, the consequences of what a constructive
engagement between Western and non-Western theories of panpsychism might
provide.1
In contrast to analytic philosophers of mind, a growing number of scholars working
in cross-cultural philosophy have begun to investigate both Western and non-Western
approaches to panpsychism. For example, Douglas Duckworth (2017) has investigated
panpsychism in relation to Yogācāra Buddhism, while both Luca Gasparri (2017) and
Miri Albahari (2019) have investigated Advaita Vedānta in relation to cosmopsychism.
This chapter aims to continue the work of cross-cultural philosophy by doing the
following. First, it provides a background for current analytical discussions of
panpsychism, which begins with the work of Galen Strawson, and moves through the
work of Sam Coleman and Philip Goff in relation to micropsychism, cosmopsychism,
the combination problem, and the decombination problem. Second, using a central
claim from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, as well as recent work in analytic metaphysics

I would like to thank Ayon Maharaj for extensive help and comments on various stages of this paper.
Special thanks also go to Mark Stratton and my Fall 2017 Philosophy of Mind course in which we
explored analytic panpsychism in relation to Vedānta.
394 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

on grounding, it presents two different ways of understanding three major schools

of Vedānta on consciousness. Third, it discusses the recent attempts of Albahari and
Gasparri to show how Advaita Vedānta is different from cosmopsychism. Fourth,
it presents an epistemological problem for the Advaitin view, and argues that other
Vedāntic traditions do not face the epistemological problem that Advaitins face.
Fifth, in a forward-looking direction, it articulates a framework for a new debate
on consciousness, by bringing the role of the self in panpsychism into contact with
debates over illusionism about consciousness. Sixth, it charts out future directions for
widening and enriching this new debate on Vedānta, panpsychism, and illusionism
in consciousness studies. The driving question of the new debate is: Which illusion, if
any, should we accept—consciousness, the self, both, or neither?
The best way to drive toward this new debate on consciousness and the self is by
asking the question: In the age of materialism about the mind, how have we found
our way back to panpsychism, perhaps the oldest theory of consciousness across
cultures? By answering this question and tracing our way forward through the debates
in analytical philosophy of mind, we can come upon a connection with classical
Indian philosophy, and construct a new debate. The new debate derives in part from
looking at what is at issue about the self and consciousness across Vedānta and analytic
panpsychism.

14.1 The Rebirth of Panpsychism

Within contemporary philosophy of mind, promissory note materialism (PNM),2
is the view that although physics + chemistry + biology + neuroscience do not at
present offer a complete account of consciousness, in the future a complete theory
will be found through the development of these disciplines in combination with one
another. The slogan of PNM is that our current ignorance is not an absolute barrier
to understanding consciousness, but merely a limitation of our current theorizing.
Moreover, PNM holds to the view that consciousness is rationally understandable.
PNM ought to be contrasted with Colin McGinn’s (2000) mysterianism, which holds
that consciousness is fundamentally mysterious and that no amount of development
within these paradigms will lead to an increase in our understanding of how a physical
theory of consciousness could be true. On this view, even if physicalism is true, we
cannot understand how it offers a complete account of consciousness. However, we
should ask: Are there any other options available?
Within the space of non-mysterian views, panpsychism has slowly risen in
contemporary philosophy of mind as a competitor to PNM and mysterianism. At
least one reason it has risen is because of the perceived implausibility of substance
dualism and property dualism as viable alternatives to PNM within contemporary
science. Substance dualism is found in Western philosophy in the work of Descartes.
It holds that there are fundamentally two distinct kinds of things in nature: matter,
which is essentially extended; and mind, which essentially has the capacity for thought.
Property dualism is an alternative to substance dualism. It was articulated and
advanced by Chalmers (1996). It holds that there are fundamentally two distinct kinds
of properties, physical and mental, but not two distinct kinds of substances. Both kinds
 A New Debate on Consciousness 395

of dualism have a hard time explaining how mental causation works, since causation
is best understood as operating within kinds as opposed to across disparate kinds.
Given the importance of mental causation to a theory of consciousness, both kinds of
dualism have very little to offer over PNM.3
Panpsychism offers an alternative to PNM by holding to the position that taking
consciousness to be a fundamental feature of the universe has greater explanatory
power than taking consciousness to be derivative of and reducible to matter.
It is worth noting that panpsychism is not a new metaphysical framework for thinking
about consciousness. Rather, it is one of the oldest theories of consciousness. Some of the
key ancient Greeks who advocated a form of panpsychism include Thales, Anaxagoras,
and Heraclitus. And it is a view that in the middle part of the twentieth century was
ridiculed as being implausible and incoherent because it implies that stones and dirt
are conscious. One way to understand what I call the stone-objection to panpsychism is
through consideration of an argument generated around the connection challenge.

14.1.1 The Connection Challenge to Panpsychism

1. When panpsychists argue that consciousness is everywhere, either “consciousness”
is being used in the same sense when we say that a human and a stone are
“conscious,” or “consciousness” is being used in a different sense.
2. If “consciousness” is being used in the same sense, then it is incoherent, since we
have no idea how a stone could be conscious in the same sense that we are: it has
no agentive behavior or perceptual capacities or sentient experience or registration
of information from its surroundings that correlate with consciousness in us.
3. If “consciousness” is being used in a different sense, then we are faced with the
connection challenge: How is the kind of consciousness that is found in the stone
related to the kind of consciousness found in humans? What does an account of
consciousness in humans have to do with giving an account of consciousness, in a
very different sense, for stones?
Therefore,
4. Either panpsychism is incoherent, or it must answer the connection challenge.

The connection challenge forces skepticism about panpsychism: What is the motivation
for the current resurgence of interest in panpsychism, given the challenge? Assuming
that panpsychism is not incoherent, one might specifically wonder: What resources
make it a superior theory to that of PNM? What justification do we have for the view?
And importantly, what can we gain from a cross-cultural inquiry into panpsychism,
something that is missing in the contemporary analytic literature on panpsychism?

14.2 Enter Micropsychism

Panpsychism is a rather general thesis that can be developed in a number of ways. The
core claim of panpsychism is that consciousness is everywhere. However, this leads us
immediately into further questions.
396 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

On the one hand, we ought to ask: What kind of consciousness are we talking
about? For example, following Ned Block (1995), we can draw a distinction between
access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness is
the more commonly understood notion of consciousness that has to do with what
Nagel (1974) has called the what it is like component of experience. For example,
the phenomenology of experiencing the color red or the smell of a rose is different
from the phenomenology of experiencing the color blue or the smell of lentil curry.4
These experiences have a what-it-is-like component which captures their phenomenal
character. By contrast, access consciousness pertains to a mental state’s capacity to
be exploited in cognition, such as in reasoning and rationally guided speech and
action. Given this distinction there are four questions we can ask. First, is access
consciousness actually a kind of consciousness that could be everywhere, given
that some things don’t have mental states? Second, what is the relation between
phenomenal and access consciousness? Third, what kind of consciousness is at
play in the claim that consciousness is everywhere? Fourth, whose consciousness
is it that is everywhere? And if we answer with the specification that we are talking
about phenomenal consciousness, one might further ask: Is the kind of phenomenal
consciousness that is present everywhere more like human consciousness, where
a sense of ownership typically accompanies one’s phenomenal experience, or is it
absent? Human consciousness is typically felt as owned when reflected upon. And if
consciousness is everywhere and impersonal, how do we make sense of the ownership
component of consciousness?
On the other hand, what does it mean to say that consciousness is everywhere? In
what sense is it everywhere? Is it everywhere because it is fundamental, in the sense
of being an ineliminable property or constituent of the universe? Or is it everywhere
because the universe itself is simply a conscious field?
David Chalmers (2015) offers helpful guidance on how to understand contemporary
panpsychism. Goff (2017a) presents Chalmers’ distinction in a slightly modified form:

Constitutive panpsychism—Forms of panpsychism according to which facts

about human and animal consciousness are not fundamental, but are grounded
in/realized by/constituted out of facts about more fundamental kinds of
consciousness, e.g., facts about micro-level consciousness.
And
Non-constitutive panpsychism—Forms of panpsychism according to which facts
about human and animal consciousness are among the fundamental facts.

According to Goff the most common form of constitutive panpsychism is:

Constitutive micropsychism—The view that all facts are grounded in/realized by/
constituted out of consciousness involving facts at the micro-level.

One way to understand the motivation for contemporary panpsychism within analytic
philosophy of mind is to look at an analysis of the argument for micropsychism and the
corresponding problem it faces: the combination problem.
 A New Debate on Consciousness 397

Strawson’s (2006) argument for micropsychism is a two-stage analogical argument.

In the first stage of the argument he shows that macro-level, human consciousness is
a nonfundamental property of the universe, and that it must have evolved through
a process of gradual emergence. In the second stage of the argument he examines
two competing hypotheses concerning how the emergence could have occurred.
PNM is the view that macro-level, human consciousness emerges from fundamental
elements of the universe that are not conscious in any sense. Micropsychism is the
view that macro-level, human consciousness emerges from fundamental elements
of the universe, at least some of which are conscious in some sense. My evaluation
of Strawson’s argument begins with the second stage where we compare PNM and
micropsychism. The core question is: Why favor micropsychism? Strawson’s main
argument at this stage is analogical:

1. We cannot understand how something extended in space can emerge only from
entities that are non-extended in space. It is inconceivable that entities with zero
extension, such as points in Euclidean space, combine with one another in some
way to generate something that has extension in Euclidean space.
2. The case of consciousness in relation to matter is sufficiently similar to the case
of extension in relation to points. While we can understand how certain things
can emerge from other things, we cannot understand emergence in every case.
We cannot understand how nonconscious matter can give rise to conscious
experience. It is inconceivable that matter, which lacks the crucial ingredient, can
combine in some way to generate conscious experience.
Therefore,
3. Micropsychism is a far more promising approach to emergence than PNM, since
it minimally posits the correct ingredients for a process of emergence to operate
on in order to generate macro-level, human consciousness.

For this argument to be good, micropsychism must provide an account of mental

chemistry, an account of how the emergence of macro-level human consciousness
emerges from fundamental entities that are conscious operating in combination with
nonconscious fundamental entities. The question of how things combine leads to
the notorious generalized combination problem: for micro-conscious entities to play
an explanatory role in the emergence, regulation, and behavior of macro-conscious
human and animal states, we must know: (1) how micro-conscious entities combine,
and (2) what principles of combination regulate micro-conscious entities interacting
with nonconscious entities. This version of the combination problem is voiced via a
strong skepticism: we don’t even know how to begin offering an account of mental
chemistry. However, the generalized combination problem is not as severe a threat
to micropsychism as the real combination problem. Sam Coleman (2014) holds
that it presents a far more serious problem for micropsychism than the generalized
combination problem.

1. Macro-conscious states, such as conscious human mental states, are perspectival

in the sense of always having a limited point of view. From the phenomenology of
consciousness.
398 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Therefore,
2. Anything that is conscious is perspectival. From (1).
Therefore,
3. Micro-conscious states are perspectival. From (2).
4. If micro-conscious states combine together with other micro-conscious states or
nonconscious states, then macro-conscious states would be perspectival in virtue
of the combining of micro-conscious states that are individually perspectival.
Principle of combination.
5. Individual perspectives (at the micro-level) cannot sum to make a macro-
perspective.
Therefore,
6. Macro-consciousness cannot be built out of micro-conscious entities.

Importantly, we should ask: Why believe (5)? One line of reasoning is the following.

1. Perspectives are essential to the identity of micro-subjects.

2. If micro-subjects combine to make macro-subjects, then the combination, for it
to be genuine, must preserve the identity of the micro-subjects in the combined
macro-subject.
3. The individual perspectives of micro-subjects don’t survive when they
are combined; rather, they merge together into a new unified perspective.
Consider A who sees all and only red, and B who sees all and only blue. When
they are combined in a higher point of view C, where both red and blue are
seen, the identity of A and B disappears, and so do their perspectives. Now
everything comes from the perspective of C, where A and B don’t remain.
Therefore,
4. Micro-subjects cannot combine, while holding their identity, and yield macro-
subjects of conscious experience.5

The real combination problem is stronger than the generalized combination

problem because the former articulates a concrete problem, while the latter simply
voices skepticism about how to combine micro-conscious entities with other
micro-conscious entities and nonconscious entities. The generalized combination
problem is really just a request for a theory of mental chemistry. However, the
real combination problem takes an essential feature of conscious experience, the
subjectivity of perspectives, and manufactures a block for any kind of combination
by noting that from individual micro-conscious nonhuman perspectives one
cannot arrive at macro-conscious human perspectives, since perspectives don’t sum
and preserve their identity. The upshot of the problems is that they force one to
reconsider panpsychism, and how it could be developed. On the assumption that
micropsychism is the only viable option for panpsychism, we reach a dead end quite
quickly.
 A New Debate on Consciousness 399

14.3 The Move to Cosmopsychism

If micropsychism suffers from a structural problem related to the issue of combining

small conscious entities together in order to get to a larger whole conscious state at the
human level, then perhaps panpsychism is better pursued in a different metaphysical
frame. The metaphysical assumption underlying the micropsychist approach is that
macro-conscious states are grounded in and derive from micro-conscious entities. But
this explanatory route assumes that parts are prior to wholes. Priority Monism (PM),
developed and defended by Jonathan Schaffer (2010), is the view that facts about wholes
are prior to facts about their parts. If PM is correct, then we might pursue panpsychism
by claiming that there is one unified conscious whole—the universe—of which each
macro-conscious entity, dolphin or human, is a part, and whose consciousness is
explained derivatively from the consciousness of the whole universe. The resulting
view is called cosmopsychism. Following the earlier distinction by Chalmers between
constitutive and non-constitutive panpsychism, Goff (2017a) articulates the
combination of priority monism and constitutive panpsychism as follows:

Constitutive cosmopsychism—The view that all facts are grounded in/realized by/
constituted out of consciousness-involving facts at the cosmic level.

Goff (2017a, 2017b) carefully points out that it is not the case that cosmopsychism
is committed to the thesis that the universe is God. The claim that the universe is
conscious is the minimal commitment of cosmopsychism, but that claim is not the
same as the thesis that the universe is God. For either it is possible that an entity
exhibits some kind of consciousness without exhibiting the kind of consciousness that
is necessary for thought and agency that is found in accounts of God’s nature; or it could
be that the universe as a whole is a mess of consciousness that is not coherent enough
to count as grounding any God-like properties. Moreover, cosmopsychism is open
to the view that consciousness is fundamental even if it is no person’s consciousness
that is fundamental. That is, on cosmopsychism it is possible that consciousness is
everywhere, since it is the one fundamental feature of the universe, but it is no one’s
consciousness that is everywhere, because fundamental.
But why believe cosmopsychism? Cosmopsychism makes a commitment to priority
monism and the view that the universe is conscious. Are those commitments problematic?
Is the leap to cosmopsychism based on the fact that it simply avoids the combination
problem or is there a real metaphysical advantage with respect to other components of
consciousness that we seek an explanation for, such as causation or agency?
The general and real combination problems are based on the idea that we need
to explain how micro-conscious entities can combine, but since cosmopsychism
rests on priority monism, it does not face the combination problem. Nevertheless,
cosmopsychism faces the combination problem’s twin sister, the decombination
problem: How is it that we can arrive at multiple unified macro-conscious states from a
universe that is conscious? This is a version of the age-old question: How can we arrive
at the many from the one?
400 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Goff (2017b) offers several analyses of how to solve the decombination problem. If
the problem in the case of micropsychism is that when A only sees blue and B only sees
red, they cannot combine to form C who sees blue and red, the composite perspectives
of A and B, then the problem for cosmopsychism is to show how something like
C, a unified perspective, can decompose to form A’s perspective of blue only and
B’s perspective of red only. There are two subtle questions here. First, how does
decombination happen? What is the mechanism for decombination? Second, what
does decombination look like?
One of Goff ’s analyses of how to solve the decombination problem focuses on
allowing the universe to be the grounding base for individual states of consciousness
through decomposition.

Universe: The whole unified conscious field has both (i) and (ii) as parts:
(i) blue-to-perspective-A;
And
(ii) red-to-perspective-B.
Therefore,
Individual: Each individual inherits from the unified conscious field what it is
phenomenally conscious of by decomposition.
(iii) A sees only blue;
And
(iv) B sees only red.

On this account, cosmopsychism grounds the phenomenal character of A’s and B’s
experiences by simple decomposition. Notice here that we have an answer only to the
second question. We have not been told how the decombination happens. What we
are told is what the decombination metaphysically involves. That is, we have been told
that neither A’s nor B’s experience is anything over and above the decomposition of the
universe’s experience of blue-to-perspective-A and red-to-perspective-B, so that A sees
only blue and B sees only red. But we have not been told how this decomposition happens.
Critically, concerning what we have been told, it might be argued that on this
proposal neither A nor B owns their experiences in any real way; they simply inherit
their experience from the experience of the universe as a whole, thus robbing them
of genuine ownership. If the kind of consciousness that needs to be explained in the
case of macro-level human consciousness involves not only the what it is like aspect
of experience, but also the for me aspect, then this cosmopsychist attempt to solve the
decombination problem will pay a heavy price. Moreover, if Strawson’s micropsychism
fails to solve the combination problem because perspectives from individuals cannot
sum to make another perspective, then this attempt fails to solve the decombination
problem because the ownership of experience cannot be inherited downward in
the relevant sense of “ownership.” While it is true that a person can inherit a house
from a relative, and thus own a house through inheritance, the sense in which the
inheritance of an experience needs to yield ownership is more intimate than what we
get with the legal notion of ownership through inheritance. If what is transferred to
A is blue-to-perspective-A, and to B is red-to-perspective-B, we arrive at a conscious
 A New Debate on Consciousness 401

state that is phenomenal, and perhaps even directed, but clearly not owned in the
intimate sense in which we think of our experiences as being owned when we reflect
on them. Delimiting the field of consciousness does not entail ownership, in the rich
sense where our phenomenology is tied to the feeling of ownership and subjectivity.6
This representative, yet incomplete, tour of panpsychism has led us to the
combination and the decombination problem. One might ask: Is panpsychism really a
promising account of how to explain consciousness over what we get from promissory
note materialism? And to the point of this chapter: What can be gained from an
engagement with Vedāntic traditions with respect to panpsychism, if panpsychism
already faces both the combination and decombination problem in both of the ways
it has been developed? With regard to the promise of panpsychism, I see no reason
to stop pursuing it simply because we face challenging problems. More importantly,
after over one hundred years of research on promissory note materialism, substantial
questions remain. Therefore, it seems reasonable to investigate panpsychism further.
And importantly, that exploration should take us to certain Vedāntic traditions
where the core ideas of ­panpsychism—that consciousness is present everywhere and
that it is fundamental—is developed in different ways. Perhaps the different ways in
which it is developed provide an alternative way of seeing what advantages it has over
promissory note materialism. In Section 14.4, I will provide an analytical survey of
three schools of Vedānta as a prelude to a more substantial exploration of what the
Vedāntic traditions have to offer.

14.4 An Analytical Taxonomy of Vedānta

One way to taxonomize the different schools of Vedānta is to look at a central statement
from Chāndogya Upaniṣad. At 3.4.1 it is written, sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ brahma. This
passage is often translated as:
(*) All this is verily Brahman.
However, it can be interpreted differently by other Vedāntic schools.
Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta interprets (*) as follows:
(a) Brahman alone is real.
The core idea is that all this is ultimately identical with Brahman, which is the only
reality.
Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta interprets (*) as follows:
(b) Everything is dependent on the reality of Brahman.
The core idea is that all this is dependent on Brahman, but there are varying degrees
of reality.
Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta interprets (*) as follows:
(c) Everything in the universe actually is Brahman in different forms.7
The core idea is that all this is nothing but different forms of Brahman itself.
402 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Because many contemporary panpsychists use research on grounding in

metaphysics to articulate their view, it will be useful to cast the Vedāntic views above
in the framework of grounding as well. Arguably, grounding is a binary, irreflexive,
and asymmetric relation. Nothing grounds itself, and if x grounds y, then y does not
ground x. In addition, the notion of grounding is closely related to the notion of in
virtue of. Plato, for example, is famous for asking, through the mouth of Socrates: Is
an act lovable by the gods in virtue of its being pious? One could replace the notion
of in virtue of in the question with grounded in or grounded by. We would then get
the question: Is an act lovable by the gods grounded in its being pious? Grounding is
also a making-true relation. If x grounds y, then facts about x make true facts about
y. Importantly, grounding is not the same relation as supervenience, which is often
defined in modal terms: a set of properties A supervenes on a set of properties B just in
case no two things can differ with respect to their A-properties without also differing
with respect to their B-properties.8
Within research on grounding one important question concerns what can be
inferred from a grounding claim, such as “X is grounded in Y.” In particular the
question concerns what follows about fundamentality, reality, or degrees of reality.
Supposing (i) is true, one might ask: Which of (ii) to (v) follows?

General Claim  
Example
(i) X is grounded in Y. A table, T, is grounded in its parts, P1...Pn.
Therefore,
(ii) Y is more fundamental than X. P1...Pn are more fundamental than T.
(iii) X is not real, but Y is. T is not real, but P1...Pn are.
(iv) X is real, but less real than Y. T is real, but less real than P1...Pn.
(v) X is just as real as Y. T is just as real as P1...Pn.

According to Schaffer (2009), metaphysics need not be taken only as a search for
what exists. It can also be taken as a search for what is fundamental as opposed to what
is derivative. On the ordered conception of reality, where some things are fundamental
and others are derivative, we should say that from (i), (ii) follows. If X is grounded
in Y, then Y makes X true, but X does not make Y true. So, Y is more fundamental
than X. However, the inference to (iii) is more controversial. Should we say that the
grounded is not real, while the ground is real? Or, should we simply say that (iv): X is
real, but less real, than Y? Or, should we affirm (v): X is just as real as Y? I will use the
difference between the inference from (i) to (iii), (iv), or (v) to draw out another way of
seeing how the three Vedāntic schools differ. Where “Anand” is the name of a person,
all Vedāntic schools accept the claim that from (i), (ii) follows, but they differ in their
understanding of the relation between (i) and (iii), (iv), and (v).

Śaṅkara’s Advaita Vedānta claims the following:

(i) Anand is grounded in Brahman, and (ii) Anand is less fundamental than Brahman.
 A New Debate on Consciousness 403

However,
(iii) Anand is unreal, and Brahman is real.
Rāmānuja’s Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta claims the following:
(i) Anand is grounded in Brahman, and (ii) Anand is less fundamental than
Brahman.
Nevertheless,
(iv) Anand is real, just less real than Brahman.9
Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta claims the following:
(i) Anand is grounded in Brahman, and (ii) Anand is less fundamental than
Brahman.
Yet,
(v) Anand is just as real as Brahman.10

With this basic taxonomy of Vedāntic positions on consciousness, we are in a

position to ask: To what extent does cosmopsychism differ from these Vedāntic views?
And do these Vedāntic schools provide conceptual resources that can be effectively
used in current debates on consciousness? Since there is quite a bit of recent work on
Advaita and cosmopsychism, my focus in Sections 14.5 and 14.6 will be on Advaita and
a critique of it that separates it from the other schools of Vedānta. I will use my analysis
of Advaita to articulate a new framework for a cross-cultural debate on consciousness
and the self.

14.5 Cosmopsychism and the Comparison with Advaita Vedānta

Both Itay Shani (2015) and Anand Vaidya and Purushottama Bilimoria (2015) note
that cosmopsychism and Advaita Vedānta share some features in common. Neither,
however, claims that cosmopsychism and Advaita Vedānta are identical views of
consciousness or that they are two variants of the exact same type. Noting parallels is
not sufficient for identifying a unifying underlying type. Gasparri (2017) and Albahari
(2019) go much further in their analysis of the metaphysics of Advaita, explaining
how it differs from cosmopsychism and outlining some of its explanatory benefits over
cosmopsychism with respect to consciousness.11
Gasparri provides an important engagement with the comparative question: Does
Advaita Vedānta present a version of cosmopsychism? He looks into the roots of how
a promising version of cosmopsychism is constructed metaphysically by looking at
the role Jonathan Schaffer’s (2010) priority monism plays in the development of it.
To understand priority monism, one needs to see how it differs from other important
kinds of monism. Gasparri draws a useful contrast between existence monism, (EM),
and priority monism (PM):
404 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

(EM) There exists exactly one concrete particular: the whole cosmos.
And
(PM) There exists exactly one basic concrete particular: the whole cosmos.

The metaphysical distinction between (EM) and (PM) is that the former allows for
the existence of only one concrete particular, while the latter allows for the existence
of a plurality of concrete particulars, but of only one basic particular. (EM) is about
existence, while (PM) is about fundamentality. When cosmopsychism is formulated
against the backdrop of (PM), Gasparri claims that we get the following four theses
that constitute priority cosmopsychism (PC):
(PC1) There is exactly one natural ultimate: the physical cosmos.
(PC2) The physical cosmos instantiates phenomenal properties.
(PC3) There are macro-level subjects of experience.
(PC4) The phenomenal properties of macro-level subjects of experience are
derivative of cosmic consciousness.
Against this account of (PC), Gasparri provides the following four theses as an account
of Advaita Vedānta (AV):
(AV1) There is exactly one (fundamental) entity: Brahman.
(AV2) Brahman is not a physical entity instantiating phenomenal properties: it is
pure consciousness.
(AV3) Physical plurality and individual selfhood are illusory appearances: there
are no real macro-level subjects of experience.
(AV4) The apparent phenomenal properties of macro-level subjects of experience
are derivative of Brahman.
So, what differentiates these two views? Gasparri offers the following analysis:

Similarities (PC1) and (AV1); (PC4) and (AV4)

Differences (PC2) and (AV2); (PC3) and (AV3)

Both (PC) and (AV) accept some type of monism at the fundamental level and
hold that there is a relation of derivation of nonfundamental facts from fundamental
facts. The central differences between (PC) and (AV) come from two directions. On
the one hand, (PC) maintains that there is a physical universe that instantiates cosmic
consciousness, while (AV) holds that there is no physical universe that instantiates
Brahman.
On the other hand, there is a difference with respect to the distinction between
reality and unreality. Advaita Vedānta holds that nondual universal/pure consciousness
alone is real, and that individual subjects, such as Anand, are unreal. Although Anand’s
consciousness is real, Anand as a subject is unreal. Priority cosmopsychism holds that
cosmic consciousness is real, and strictly speaking, is neutral about the reality of subjects
of experience. However, if priority cosmopsychism is to solve the decombination
problem in a convincing way, it is likely that it will need to accept the reality of subjects.
 A New Debate on Consciousness 405

For how is there even a decombination problem to be solved, if human subjects are
unreal? A diagram comparing the two views is useful, as shown in Figure 14.1. Where
italic font stands for what is “real,” normal font stands for what is “unreal,” downward
arrows stand for “derives from,” upward arrows stand for “grounded in,” we have the
following contrast.

Figure 14.1 Priority Cosmopsychism and Advaita Vedānta

However, Gasparri’s presentation of the ontology of Advaita Vedānta’s priority

cosmopsychism overlooks two important aspects of comparison. On the one hand,
there are different ontological categories at play in the analytical metaphysics that backs
priority cosmopsychism and Advaita Vedānta. On the other hand, the very notion of
“consciousness,” while in the semantic range of the relevant Sanskrit term “cit,” needs
further explanation and clarification. One might summarize the important missing
difference between the two views by adding to (PC1–4) and (AV1–4) the following
zero-base claim:

(PC0) Cosmic consciousness is neither implicitly nor explicitly characterized as

being essentially spiritual and eternal, no matter how else it is characterized.
And
(AV0) Nondual universal/pure Brahman consciousness is explicitly characterized
as being essentially spiritual, eternal, and real. It is nirguṇa (impersonal and
without attributes); and it is essentially nirguṇa. But saguṇa Brahman (personal
with attributes) is only empirically real. It is ultimately unreal.

On one side of the coin, in Advaita Vedānta, the only reality is nondual universal/
pure consciousness, which is spiritual, eternal, and completely devoid of attributes.
The essential nature of Brahman is nondual universal/pure consciousness without
406 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

attributes. On the other side of the coin, in Advaita Vedānta, what is spiritual, as an
ontological category, is neither mental nor physical.12 In Advaita Vedānta the mind
is as insentient as physical matter, and nondual spiritual reality underlies both mind
and matter. As a consequence, we might note that the structural similarity between
(PC) and (AV) in the embrace of monism might not be sufficiently robust to even
constitute a strong similarity, since the very monistic entity structurally in common is
too different. As a consequence, we should never think that the kind of consciousness
that is fundamental in (PC) is the same as what is fundamental in (AV). There is
a hard separation between the two views at the fundamental level. With respect
to Figure 14.1, we see that in (PC) the physical cosmos is the instantiation base for
cosmic consciousness, which suggests that cosmic consciousness has a relation to the
physical. However, in (AV), nondual universal/pure consciousness is neither physical
nor mental, it lacks attributes, is impersonal, and has no other instantiation base. It
fundamentally exhausts the category of what is real.

14.6 Is the Advaitic View of Consciousness Superior to

That of Cosmopsychism?

Given that the Advaitic view is different from priority cosmopsychism at a

fundamental level, one might naturally wonder whether the Advaitic view is superior
to priority cosmopsychism, or if it has any resources for dealing with contemporary
problems in the philosophy of consciousness. Albahari (2019) sums up the problem
for cosmopsychism as a prelude for making the case that the Advaitic view is superior.13

1. Cosmopsychism, within the analytic terrain, faces the decombination problem.

2. Solving the decombination problem, as some attempt to do, by grounding through
inheritance leads to the view that the cosmos is not a subject of experience or that
the contents of experience for the subject are epistemically incoherent.
3. Either giving up on the cosmos as a subject or allowing for the resurfacing of the
decombination problem in terms of incoherent contents is problematic within the
analytic terrain.
Therefore,
4. The decombination problem is insurmountable within the analytic terrain.14

If the problems for cosmopsychism are so severe with respect to the decombination
problem, what can Advaita Vedānta offer? Albahari offers one point of view by arguing
that Brahman consciousness does not belong to a subject in Advaita. Rather, it is a field
of consciousness without any subject. So, within the nonanalytic terrain, giving up on
universal consciousness having a subject might not be problematic. Gasparri offers
another point of view by emphasizing the fact that within the framework of Advaita
Vedānta, human subjects are unreal.
Arguably, the advantage of (AV) over (PC) comes from two differentiating sources.
First, (AV) does not allow for the generation of the question: How can we generate
human-level individual consciousness from nondual universal/pure consciousness? If
 A New Debate on Consciousness 407

there are no human subjects to account for, then there is no problem of explaining how
we decompose from the unified nondual universal/pure consciousness. Second, (AV)
provides a picture of nondual universal/pure consciousness where it lacks a subject.
As a consequence, we get a view that holds that both fundamental consciousness
and nonfundamental local consciousnesses are without a subject. Subjectivity is put
into question. According to (AV), only the fundamental field of nondual universal/
pure consciousness is real. Thus, one might think that the core advantage is that (AV)
does not have a subject generation problem, since there are no subjects at either the
fundamental or derived level.
A novel and forward-looking way to capture the difference between analytic
metaphysics of mind and the Vedāntic traditions is to take note of the problem
space each is engaged in. In analytic metaphysics we appear to be aiming at a project
where we show how we can construct human-level consciousness from the reality of
cosmic consciousness. With respect to cosmopsychist theories, the central problem
concerns how we recover the reality of subjects, such as you and I, from cosmic
consciousness. By contrast, in the Advaita tradition of Vedānta, the core view is that
nondual universal/pure consciousness is real, but subjects are unreal. There is no need
to require that a theory of consciousness show that subjects can be reconstructed,
for they are unreal. Furthermore, the non-Advaitic schools of Vedānta engage
Advaita precisely on the question of whether subjects are real. As a consequence
of juxtaposing these positions, one might wonder whether the goal of analytic
metaphysicians of mind is misguided. That is, should we even try to regain the reality
of human-level consciousness, if the only thing that is real is nondual universal/pure
consciousness and not human subjects? Is the question fundamentally misguided?
Are the twin problems of combination and decombination that micropsychism
and cosmopsychism respectively face merely illusions sustained by the background
metaphysical assumption that subjects are real?
One can gain a comparative understanding of the relation between (PC) and
Vedāntic traditions by bringing them into contact with Keith Frankish’s (2016) defense
of Illusionism. He maintains that illusionism denies:

that experiences have phenomenal properties and focus[es] on explaining why they
seem to have them. They [illusionists] typically allow that we are introspectively
aware of our sensory states but argue that this awareness is partial and distorted,
leading us to misrepresent the states as having phenomenal properties. Of course,
it is essential to this approach that the posited introspective representations are not
themselves phenomenally conscious ones. (2016: 13)

Now, consider the following differences across the three positions.

With this background set, the core question is: Which illusion, if any, should we
accept? Should we believe that both phenomenal consciousness and subject-hood are
real, or that at least one is an illusion?
Cosmopsychists can be taken to hold that cosmic consciousness is real and fundamental.
They seek to explain how human-level consciousness arises. Their project makes sense on
the assumption that human subjects are real. Illusionists, in contrast, deny the very claim
that human-level consciousness is real. One can conceive of their project as one that
408 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

assumes that human subjects are real, and seeks to explain the unreality of phenomenal
consciousness. Advaitins take a different route. They hold that only nondual universal/
pure consciousness is real. They deny that nondual universal/pure consciousness has a
subject that is real and that the subject-hood of human consciousness is real. They seek
to explain how our ignorance facilitates worldly illusions.

Theory Subject Phenomenal Comment

Consciousness
Cosmopsychism Real Real Holds to the reality of macro-subject
consciousness, and seeks to explain
it in terms of the reality of cosmic
consciousness in relation to the reality of
macro-subjects.
Illusionism Real Unreal Holds to the reality of macro-subjects,
but denies that their phenomenally
conscious experiences are real. Instead
it seeks to offer a theory of how
phenomenal consciousness is illusory
and generated by something that is not
conscious.
Advaita Vedānta Unreal Real Holds only to the reality of nondual
universal/pure consciousness and denies
that there are real macro-subjects of
experience. It seeks to explain the illusion
of individual subjects.

Having gained this comparative insight, we should now turn to a critical examination
of Advaita Vedānta in relation to the other schools of Vedānta. But before I do so, it will
be useful to simply lay out a position I hold, which affects the viability of illusionism
and Advaita directly. I will then turn to a direct critique of Advaita.
As I see it, it is much easier to defend the idea that we have ordinary and scientific
knowledge when we accept the following two claims. First, human consciousness is
real and some experiences are illusory/unreal, while others are non-illusory/real. For,
if human consciousness is an illusion, how can it support the acquisition of knowledge?
Can an illusion really be the basis for knowledge? Second, the subject of experience is
real, such that there is an actual individual who can be said to have evidence for believing
something. For, if there is no subject, then who is there to believe on the basis of the
evidence? Who is the epistemic subject that has the evidence? We need both the reality
of the self and consciousness for real evidence. Without real consciousness and real
subjects, there is no medium nor base for any beliefs about the nature of consciousness.
My point is that if one wants to save scientific explanation and knowledge as well as
offer a plausible theory of human consciousness, then one cannot accept the view that
human-level consciousness is unreal either because the subject is unreal or because
phenomenal consciousness is unreal. In general, I reject bi-directional illusionism—
the thesis that both the self and consciousness are an illusion.
The central problem for Advaita that I will develop here is intended to show how
Advaita is different from other Vedāntic traditions because of an epistemological
 A New Debate on Consciousness 409

problem that it faces. I call this problem the epistemological problem for Advaita Vedānta.
In my view, if consciousness is the datum that cannot be denied in the investigation
of it, then we cannot be justified on the basis of conscious experience in believing
something about consciousness when we take human-level consciousness to be unreal.
How can that which is unreal provide us with a foundation for believing something
that is real? We might put this worry in the following way: what is unreal can only lead
to what is unreal while what is real can lead both to what is unreal and real.
Remember that Advaitins claim that consciousness is real while subjects are unreal.
Noting that human-level consciousness is a combination of three c­omponents—
intentional aboutness, ownership/for-me-ness, and phenomenological feel—we might
wonder how the composite could be real, if any of its parts are unreal. It is unstable to
hold that the composite <human-level consciousness of x> composed of <aboutness
toward x, for-me-ness of the experience of x, and the phenomenal feel characteristic
of experiences of x> by human subjects can be real, if any of its parts are unreal. The
assumption comes from a plausible logic for combining parts. Real + Real = Real.
Real + Unreal = Unreal. Unreal + Unreal = Unreal. Based on this logical assumption
governing composition, I will now argue that Advaitins are committed to the position
that human-level consciousness is unreal, even though they only commit to the claim
that human subjects are unreal. For the purposes of generality in the argument, let R
be a generic epistemic relation, such as evidence, justification, or knowledge, and x and
y variables ranging over the relata of R, such that R(x, y) is an epistemic relation of
support. Consider the following:

1. Either x and y are both real, both unreal, or one is real while the other is unreal.
2. If both are unreal, then R cannot be an epistemic relation of any kind, since
epistemic relations do not hold between unreal states and entities.
3. If x is unreal and y is real, then although R can be a causal relation, it cannot be a
normative epistemic relation. Nothing that is unreal can epistemically support a
belief in something that is real.
Therefore,
4. R can be an epistemic relation only if at least x is real.

Given that I have argued that Advaitins must hold that human-level consciousness
is unreal, since human subjects are unreal, they are now driven to the conclusion
that there is no human-level conscious evidence to which humans can appeal, since
human-level consciousness is unreal and evidence requires reality on the side of the
subject. Let me close this section by mentioning the strategy that Advaitins would use
to respond to the epistemological argument.
In response, Advaitins would likely appeal to the distinction between pāramārthika
(ultimate) and vyāvahārika (empirical) levels of reality. That is, Advaitins would
accept that (4) is true, and add the qualification that there are different levels of reality.
From the perspective of ultimate reality, human-level reality is unreal, but from the
perspective of empirical reality, human-level reality is real. Thus, they would argue that
at the empirical level, they are fully entitled to hold that conscious human experience
410 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

is real and a foundation for an evidential relation. It is only from the perspective of
Brahman consciousness that human-level consciousness is unreal, and thus from this
perspective, there is no appropriate evidential relation. One might see their response
along the lines of an analogy with solidity. From the perspective of human-level
interaction with objects, we have to admit that there are solid and nonsolid ordinary
objects. However, from the perspective of quantum mechanics, there is no presentation
directly of solidity and nonsolidity. Solidity is perspectival, not absolute. Although
this line of response is thought to be profitable in many schools of classical Indian
philosophy, such as various schools of Buddhism, a two-tiered approach to reality
that is coupled to an appropriate epistemology has not yet been thoroughly pursued
within analytic philosophy. An engagement between analytic epistemology and both
Vedānta and Buddhism on two-tiered metaphysics and epistemology would be highly
profitable. It would even yield important results for thinking about the epistemology of
conscious experience when we are entertaining views in the space of panpsychism—a
topic we will turn to in the conclusion of this essay.

14.7 Realism in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta

Unlike Advaita Vedānta, which accepts monism and takes human-level consciousness
to be unreal, insofar as it is human, Viśiṣṭādvaita accepts a different form of monism
and takes human-level consciousness to have a lower degree of reality, insofar as it is
not Brahman. In my view, the ontology of this school is far better suited than Advaita
for delivering a plausible realist account of human consciousness that resonates
with the production of scientific knowledge about it. I will first present an intuitive
understanding of Viśiṣṭādvaita ontology and then show that it is not vulnerable to the
epistemological argument raised against Advaita.
On the Viśiṣṭādvaita ontology Brahman is the only independently existing reality.
However, the fact that it is the only independently existing entity does not entail that it is
the only entity that is real. Rather, all entities are dependent on Brahman, and thus real
to some degree.15 More importantly, the fact that all things are dependent on Brahman
does not make them identical to Brahman, as we would find in the case of Advaita.
Freschi (2019: 1) offers a brief account of the Viśiṣṭādvaita ontology of qualities:

Qualifications are … a function of changing points of view. For instance, a given

form qualifies a body, which in turn qualifies a self, which, again, qualifies
Brahman. The only thing that is said not to qualify anything further is Brahman,
since that is itself the ultimate basis of all qualifications.

Another important point of contrast between the two schools is that Brahman in
Advaita Vedānta is nirguṇa (impersonal and without attributes), while in Viśiṣṭādvaita
Vedānta, Brahman is saguṇa (personal and with attributes). To say that Brahman is
saguṇa is to say that Brahman has infinite positive attributes. Moreover, in Viśiṣṭādvaita,
the dependence relation that takes us from quality to quality is one of grounding, but
perhaps not the same kind of grounding we find in the work of Schaffer. Rāmānuja, the
 A New Debate on Consciousness 411

founder of the school, upholds the doctrine of ādhāra-ādheya-bhāva: the world remains
distinct from Brahman but derives its existence from Brahman. The phrase ādhāra-
ādheya-bhāva can be translated as “the relation between the ground and the grounded.”
Rāmānuja also frequently conceives the relation between Brahman and the world in
terms of the relation between soul and body. Just as the body is entirely dependent
on the soul, the universe—conceived as Brahman’s “body”—is entirely dependent
on Brahman. As Christopher Bartley helpfully points out, both the Viśiṣṭādvaitic
doctrine of ādhāra-ādheya-bhāva and the doctrine of the world as Brahman’s “body”
express the fundamental thesis that Brahman is the ground of the world, which has
no independent existence: “This relation between self and body is that between ontic
ground (ādhāra) and dependent entity (ādheya) incapable of independent existence
(pṛthak-siddhi-anarha), between controller and thing controlled, between principal
and ancillary” (Bartley 2002: 76; my emphasis).
Let me now turn to a constructive evaluation of Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta in relation
to Advaita Vedānta. Remember that Advaita Vedānta faced an epistemological
problem. If human consciousness is unreal, because individual human subjects are
unreal, then it is not possible for there to be an evidential relation between any object
in the world and human consciousness of it, such that being conscious of the object
supports a belief about it for the subject. However, on the Viśiṣṭādvaita approach,
human consciousness is grounded in universal consciousness. And on the present
account it does not follow that human consciousness (qua human) is unreal from
the perspective of Brahman consciousness. Rather, we get the weaker result that it is
less real. As an immediate consequence, we can block the epistemological problem
raised against Advaita. Again, in the case of Advaita, the problem occurs because
only human-level consciousness is real, but subjects are unreal. As a consequence,
we are unable to show how human-level consciousness of anything could serve as
evidence for believing anything else. However, on the Viśiṣṭādvaita view, all of the
elements in one’s experience of red are real, albeit less real than Brahman. Recall that
when one experiences red, there are three factors, the aboutness, the for-me-ness,
and the feel. On the Advaita view, both the aboutness and the for-me-ness are unreal,
since the human subject is unreal. In addition, the feel component of the experience
of red is unreal from the perspective of Brahman consciousness, since Brahman is
impersonal and without attributes. By contrast, on the Viśiṣṭādvaita view, human
subjects are real, though less real than Brahman. The aboutness and the for-me-ness
of experience are real, but their reality derives entirely from Brahman, and so they
are less real than it.

14.8 Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta

Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita are two distinct options within the Vedāntic tradition.
Are there others that can offer resources for thinking about panpsychism? In this
section I will focus on the Vedāntic philosophy of the modern Bengali mystic Sri
Ramakrishna (1836–86), which I believe to be highly profitable for contemporary
panpsychism.
412 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy is notoriously hard to interpret. Some scholars,

for instance, have interpreted him as an Advaitin while others have interpreted him
as a Viśiṣṭādvaitin.16 Since our purpose here is not to defend a view of his overall
philosophy, but to offer resources from an interpretation of his views for debates on
panpsychism and consciousness, I will use the interpretation of Sri Ramakrishna’s
philosophy defended by Ayon Maharaj in his book Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality
(2018). According to Maharaj, Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy is best characterized as
“Vijñāna Vedānta,” a nonsectarian philosophy—rooted in the mystical experience
of what Sri Ramakrishna calls “vijñāna”—that harmonizes a multitude of Vedāntic
perspectives, including both Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita.17
On Maharaj’s view there are six main tenets of Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta.
Let us look at (VV3) and a passage from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna:

Vijñāna Vedānta 3 (VV3): The Infinite Divine Reality is both personal and
impersonal, both with and without form, both immanent in the universe and
beyond it, and much more besides. (Maharaj 2018: 33)
God alone is the Master, and again, He is the Servant. This attitude indicates Perfect
Knowledge [pūrṇajñāna]. At first one discriminates, “Not this, not this,” and feels
that God alone is real and all else is illusory. Afterwards the same person finds that it
is God Himself who has become all this—the universe, māyā, and the living beings.
First negation and then affirmation. This is the view held by the Purāṇas. A vilwa-
fruit, for instance, includes flesh, seeds, and shell. You get the flesh by discarding
the shell and seeds. But if you want to know the weight of the fruit, you cannot find
it if you discard the shell and seeds. Just so, one should attain Saccidānanda [the
Divine Reality-Consciousness-Bliss] by negating the universe and its living beings.
But after the attainment of Saccidānanda one finds that Saccidānanda Itself has
become the universe and the living beings. It is of one substance that the flesh and
the shell and seeds are made, just like butter and buttermilk.
It may be asked, “How has Saccidānanda become so hard?” This earth does
indeed feel very hard to the touch. The answer is that blood and semen are thin
liquids, and yet out of them comes such a big creature as man. Everything is possible
for God. First of all reach the indivisible Saccidānanda, and then, coming down,
look at the universe. You will find that everything is Its manifestation. It is God alone
who has become everything. The world by no means exists apart from Him. (Gupta
[1942] 1992: 395; my emphasis)18

Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta is a monistic ontology, which seeks to

harmonize the opposing doctrines of Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita. In the first paragraph
of the passage, one can see that in the sentence where Ramakrishna discusses how
one first negates, and then affirms, the negation phase corresponds to Advaita, the
world-negating doctrine that Brahman is real and the world is unreal. The affirmation
phase—which Sri Ramakrishna elsewhere characterizes as the spiritual realization
of “vijñāna”—resembles Viśiṣṭādvaita, which upholds the world-affirming doctrine
that Brahman is real and the world is real, just less real than Brahman. However,
 A New Debate on Consciousness 413

Ramakrishna goes further than Rāmānuja by maintaining that everything is God’s

manifestation. For Ramakrishna, as Satis Chandra Chatterjee puts it, “everything in
the universe is actually Brahman in different forms.”19 Rather than negating the reality
of the world in relation to Brahman or embracing it as a lesser reality than Brahman,
Sri Ramakrishna sees everything as God Himself in different forms. Interestingly, in
the second paragraph, Sri Ramakrishna goes on to discuss the objection: How is the
earth hard, if the fundamental nature of everything is Divine Consciousness, which
is nonmaterial? His response is analogical. If we don’t have a problem with believing
that a man or woman can come from liquids, why do we have a problem believing
that something hard can come from consciousness? In this question Sri Ramakrishna
anticipates Strawson’s later work.
In his 2016 piece, “Consciousness Isn’t the Mystery. Matter is,” Strawson challenges
the late twentieth-century idea, put forward by Chalmers, that consciousness is both
deeply easy to understand and yet the deepest and most puzzling mystery to be
engaged. Strawson forwards the idea that consciousness is not the puzzling part of the
inquiry. Rather, matter is mysterious; given what we know about quantum mechanics
and phenomena in the quantum realm we ought to wonder about matter. Strawson,
inverting Chalmers’ hard problem of consciousness, says, “In particular, we don’t know
anything about the physical that gives us good reason to think that consciousness can’t
be wholly physical … So, the hard problem is the problem of matter” (Strawson 2016).
Not surprisingly, but from a different frame, Sri Ramakrishna runs up against the
very problem posed by Strawson. Sri Ramakrishna’s answer appears to be that matter
is simply a different form of consciousness. Now, we might not understand that move,
but it is consistent with the move that Strawson wanted to make. Strawson holds that
consciousness cannot come from nonconscious entities. Sri Ramakrishna would agree,
but would then point out that nonconscious entities can come from conscious entities,
by being a different form of them.
For Sri Ramakrishna ultimate reality is both nirguṇa (impersonal and without
attributes) and saguṇa (personal and with attributes). In addition, there is no longer
a distinction between reality and unreality with respect to the attributes of ultimate
reality, nor is there a hierarchical relation of being. Everything is just as real as everything
else, yet everything in the world is dependent on ultimate reality. On this view, being
grounded in ultimate reality does not make something less real than ultimate reality;
it simply shows that there is dependence. A hierarchy of elements might all be real, yet
still remain dependent on the one that is fundamental.

14.9 Future Discussions

Philosophy not only benefits from a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary engagement,

it also requires it for the purposes of generating the best possible set of views from
which one should seek the truth. A comprehensive understanding of a phenomenon
is wide and a precondition for a proper search for the truth about a phenomenon.
This cross-cultural engagement hopefully has yielded several valuable insights. These
insights can be formulated as questions for future discussion.
414 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

14.9.1 The Metaphysics of the Fundamental Category of Consciousness

What is the category to which consciousness fundamentally belongs? Is consciousness
physical, mental, neither, or both? In contemporary Western philosophy it is common
to hold that consciousness is either physical or mental. However, could there be a
distinct category to which consciousness belongs in virtue of which it is fundamentally
neither physical nor mental? Could consciousness be essentially spiritual?

14.9.2 The Metaphysics of Subjects and Consciousness

What is the metaphysical nature of the individual subject that is supposed to be derived
from, or fundamentally related to, the cosmic consciousness that cosmopsychism
posits? Are individual conscious subjects real? Which illusion, if any, should we accept?
Are individual subjects the illusion, or is consciousness the illusion, or are subjects and
consciousness both an illusion produced by the brain in two directions: one about the
internal world and another about the external world?

14.9.3 The Metaphysical Reconstruction of Nonconscious Reality

It goes without saying that our modern ordinary conception of reality contains within
it the idea that some things are conscious, such as cats, cows, and humans, while other
things are nonconscious, such as rocks, tables, and guitars. If the fundamental ground
of all of reality is consciousness, then how do we reconstruct the view that there are
nonconscious entities, such as rocks, tables, and guitars? Is the view that holds that
there are nonconscious entities the illusion? Is the illusion that rocks appear to be
nonconscious, while the reality is that they are, if we are? By holding everything to be
conscious, do we not place upon our theory the demand to explain how our ordinary
conception goes astray in thinking of things as being either conscious or nonconscious?

14.9.4 The Epistemology of Universal Consciousness

What is the epistemological justification for positing universal consciousness as a
solution to the problem of consciousness? While there are good arguments for thinking
that phenomenal consciousness at the human level cannot come from nonconscious
entities, what are the means for defending this position? Are certain approaches
more profitable than others? Which arguments or means are more successful than
others? Can we provide a successful non-analogical argument for some version of
panpsychism?

14.9.5 The Epistemological Sources for Understanding Universal

Consciousness
What are the epistemological sources for knowledge of universal consciousness? Given
that universal consciousness is something far different and grander than individual
human consciousness, what are the ways in which we can have an epistemological
 A New Debate on Consciousness 415

connection to it? We can use introspection to access our own conscious states, but how
do we access universal consciousness? Are meditation and mystical experience sources
for knowledge of universal consciousness?
Let me begin with the three metaphysical questions, before turning to how Sri
Ramakrishna’s philosophy can be used to advance an answer to the two epistemological
questions.
Our inquiry started with the idea that panpsychism is a plausible theory because
there is no way to explain how consciousness arises from something nonconscious
because of the analogy, made by Strawson, with the non-derivability of extension
from non-extended points. This argument, while strong, provisionally led us to
micropsychism, but ultimately led us to posit cosmic consciousness, because there
was no convincing way to solve the combination problem for micropsychism.
From there we were led to the conclusion that cosmic consciousness is equally
problematic because it faces the decombination problem. Thus, while the argument
for panpsychism from Strawson is intuitively strong, both micropsychism and
cosmopsychism face problems of their own. At the heart of these problems is the
issue of the category to which consciousness belongs at the fundamental level, and
the reality of individual subjects of consciousness. Concerning the first question,
we might simply note that when Goff describes panpsychism, he repeatedly uses
the notion of mentality: “Panpsychism is the view that mentality is fundamental
and ubiquitous in the natural world. The view has a long and venerable history in
philosophical traditions both East and West, and has recently enjoyed a revival in
analytic philosophy” (Goff 2017a: 1).
It could be true that in the West, panpsychism is defined in this way. But it is not clear
that it would be true of Vedānta. While it is true that for most people consciousness is
experienced as fundamental to our mental lives, we might still wonder: Is consciousness
fundamentally mental? In the West, both James and Russell have taken to the view,
known as neutral monism, that fundamental reality is neither physical nor mental.
What stops a Vedāntin from saying that fundamental reality is Brahman, nondual
universal/pure consciousness, which is neither physical nor mental, but also spiritual?
What if nondual universal/pure consciousness is only accidentally mental, and only
mental in relation to the consciousness of some creatures? Moreover, if everything
belongs to some category, and consciousness is neither physical nor mental, what
prevents it from being fundamentally spiritual as opposed to falling under some other
fundamental category?
Concerning the second question, we are driven to a question about the metaphysics
of subjects.

14.9.6 The Metaphysics of Subjects

Is being a subject real or unreal, or does it have some degree of reality that is different
from the level of reality present in cosmic consciousness or nondual universal/pure
consciousness, which is fundamental?
This question is important because we cannot develop a proper solution to either the
combination problem or the decombination problem unless we first determine what
416 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

it is that we have to recover when we say we have composed up or we have decomposed

down to make a subject of consciousness.
Suppose one consciously sees a red ball against a wall. There are three factors at
play: (1) the intentional aboutness component, a person’s mind being directed at the
red ball; (2) the ownership “for-me-ness” component, a person’s conscious experience
being felt as her own; and (3) the phenomenological feel component, a person’s
conscious experience of red being felt as red as opposed to blue.
Now, both the combination problem and the decombination problem arise against
the background issue of whether genuine perspectives can be recovered with respect
to cases like consciously seeing a red ball. Recall Coleman’s real combination problem:
How do we arrive at a unified perspective through a combination of perspectives?
Perspectives don’t sum and divide without loss of identity. But why are perspectives
important for explaining consciousness anyway?
They are important because they give us a grip on intentionality and subjectivity.
Minds are directed when they have a perspective. And it is through a perspective that
a person can feel the ownership of their experience. So, perspectives are at the base
of the metaphysics of subjectivity that is at play in conscious human experience.
The phenomenal component is present, but it is not perspectival. The redness of my
experience of a ball is perspectival, but the redness is not perspectival; it is just captured
in the perspective of a subject. In other words, both the aboutness and the for-me-ness
of an experience are essentially perspectival. But the phenomenological character of
experience, the feeling, is not essentially perspectival.
At the heart of the combination and decombination problem is the generation
of the subject as an experiencing creature. The question is: How do we make up
from micro-consciousness or divide down from cosmic consciousness to get to
individual macro-consciousness, such as human consciousness, which essentially
involves a subject? But if this is the question, then we need to step back and ask:
Is subject-hood real? Are perspectives real? Is ownership real? The problem is the
following. If subject-hood is unreal, then what is the target that we are aiming for
when we try to solve the combination or decombination problem? Are we simply
trying to explain how the illusion of subjectivity arises or are we trying to actually
account for the features that are present in conscious subject-based subjective
experience? How can the combination and decombination problem be formulated
to be pressing problems, if subjects are unreal or have less reality than universal
consciousness?
Now the claim here is not that subjects are unreal. Rather, the claim—one of
the results of our cross-cultural investigation—is that through looking at Vedāntic
traditions we come to see less of a focus on how subjects are generated and more of a
focus on the reality of subjects, given that they are grounded in, and not as fundamental
as, ultimate reality, which is universal consciousness. So, it seems that at least one
path forward in the debate on analytic panpsychism is to start debating the reality
of subjects in relation to the cosmic consciousness that they posit. Putting this in the
context of illusionism about consciousness, we find ourselves facing a clear question:
Which illusion, if any, should we accept? Is it our subject-hood that is the illusion, is it our
phenomenal consciousness that is the illusion, is it both, or neither?
 A New Debate on Consciousness 417

The third metaphysical question concerning the generation of nonconscious reality

can be addressed by considering the view that there exists both a vertical and horizontal
theory of consciousness. What we have been exploring at present is a vertical theory
on which fundamental cosmic consciousness plays a role in explaining human-level
phenomenal consciousness. However, we might add to this view a horizontal theory
that tells us that there are degrees of consciousness on a scale, such as on Tononi
and colleagues’ (2016) integrated information theory. For it might just turn out that
everything is conscious and what matters in different cases concerns the degree of
consciousness and the capacities that underwrite those degrees of consciousness. With
a horizontal story in play, one can make sense of our ordinary conception of reality by
positing that insentient matter in our physical world is just noncomplex consciousness.
Dirt, unlike Anand or an amoeba, exhibits noncomplex consciousness, while Anand and
the amoeba exhibit more complex forms of consciousness. As Sri Ramakrishna would
have said, dirt is just another form of universal consciousness. We might add to that, that
it is a noncomplex form of universal consciousness, while Anand is a more complex form
of universal consciousness. The illusion worth taking on in the space of metaphysical
options is an inversion of our current thinking. Pure absolute insentient matter is the
illusion. Subject-hood and phenomenal consciousness need not be the illusion. They are
simply dependent on universal consciousness, but they are not illusions.
Our two epistemological questions engage the issue of how we are justified
in believing in panpsychism. In general, we can think of the investigation of
consciousness in terms of two stages. In stage one, we chart out the possibilities for
explaining consciousness. In stage two, we go through each option starting with the
one that is most plausible. Using the mid-twentieth century as the point of departure,
these stages might go as follows. We start with materialism. We see it fail because of
the hard problem of consciousness, which asks for an explanation of how and why
anything physical has phenomenal properties.20 We move to substance dualism and
property dualism. We see them fail because of problems concerning causation. We
move forward to panpsychism, in the form of micropsychism. We see it fail because
of the combination problem. So, we posit cosmopsychism. And perhaps we are now
at the stage where cosmopsychism could be seen to fail because of the problem of
decombination. The overall approach to justifying the move to cosmopsychism is that
the prior options have failed.21
The important move in the story above requires seeing what I call the central
justification for cosmopsychism (CJC), which is composed of two components: (1) that
the other options have failed, and (2) that there is an intuitive argument that supports
the claim that consciousness cannot come from nonconscious entities. However, it is
important to note that both of these arguments are negative in character. They tell us
nothing positive about the nature of universal consciousness, which is being posited
by cosmopsychists to explain human consciousness. Are we to assume that the kind of
consciousness that we have, which, at times, we don’t even feel comfortable attributing
to nonhuman animals, is exactly what the nature of universal consciousness is? I call
the positive answer to that question the projection view. On this account, universal
consciousness just is our consciousness projected outward and enlarged. But is that
really plausible?
418 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Recall the connection question that was raised as an objection to panpsychism at the
outset of our inquiry. We find ourselves facing it again. What is the connection between
the kind of consciousness that we have and the kind of consciousness that the universe
has? We need to push into this question and ask the even more pressing question: How
can we come to know anything positively about universal consciousness? It is here that
Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy can help even if that role is controversial. A core tenet of
Sri Ramakrishna’s Vijñāna Vedānta is:

Vijñāna Vedānta 2 (VV2): Since the rational intellect is inherently limited, spiritual
experience is the only reliable basis for arriving at supersensuous spiritual truths.
On the suprarational basis of vijñāna, we can affirm truths about God and spiritual
experience that appear to be contradictory or illogical to the rational intellect.
(Maharaj 2018: 30)

The claim here sets a limit to the kinds of ways in which we can come to understand
the nature of universal consciousness. There are three ways to interpret the central
justificatory claim in (VV2).
First, there is the oppositional reading of (VV2). On this reading, (VV2) stands
in opposition to (CJC). In effect, (VV2) is offered as the only justification for
cosmopsychism, while (CJC) consists of two components, neither of which is a
genuine justification for cosmopsychism. Second, there is the conjunct reading of
(VV2). On this reading, (VV2) stands as a conjunct to (CJC). In effect, (VV2) is offered
as additional support for cosmopsychism. (CJC) gives us one support composed of
two parts, and (VV2) gives us another. Third, there is the complement reading of
(VV2). On this reading, (VV2) does not simply add a conjunct to (CJC), it offers
complementation by justifying a different side of the coin. (CJC) gives us rational
negative justification for believing in cosmopsychism. It does not characterize universal
consciousness; it only gives us reason to believe that it is a coherent and reasonable
position to pursue in virtue of the failure of other views. By contrast, (VV2) gives us
positive suprarational justification for believing and understanding the precise nature
of universal consciousness.
Another way to see how (VV2) can be joined to (CJC) is to consider it alongside
the mysterianism of Colin McGinn discussed in Section 14.1. On the one hand,
mysterianism can be understood as the claim that human consciousness is a mystery
that humans cannot rationally understand. On the other hand, mysterianism can
be understood as the claim that human consciousness is a mystery that humans
cannot understand currently rationally. (VV2) provides a new way of understanding
mysterianism. On this reading mysterianism is only true with respect to the rational
intellect, because the positive nature of universal consciousness is not something
that can be rationally understood. But this does not mean that mysterianism is
the complete truth about consciousness. It is simply the truth that we arrive at by
noting (VV2)—namely, that rationality has inherent limits. Mystical knowledge of
universal consciousness is not mysterious; it is just hard to come by. And perhaps the
combination of mystical knowledge and rational knowledge provides for the right
kind of understanding that makes mysterianism take a back seat to a cross-culturally
informed version of panpsychism.
 A New Debate on Consciousness 419

Maharaj (2018) offers us six tenets for Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy, three of which
I have already mentioned. It is now time to present the remaining three tenets as a final
closing thought on the potential sources of justification for believing in the positive
character of universal consciousness.

Vijñāna Vedānta 1 (VV1): After attaining brahmajñāna in nirvikalpa samādhi,

ordinary people leave their body within twenty-one days, but certain divinely
commissioned people known as īśvarakoṭis are able to return from the state
of nirvikalpa samādhi and attain vijñāna—a spiritual state even greater than
brahmajñāna—in which perfect jñāna and perfect bhakti are combined. (2018: 27)
Vijñāna Vedānta 4 (VV4): There are two levels of Advaitic realization: while the
jñānī realizes the acosmic nondual Reality of nirguṇa Brahman in nirvikalpa
samādhi, the vijñānī returns from the state of nirvikalpa samādhi and attains the
richer, world-affirming nondual realization that God has become everything.
(2018: 38)
Vijñāna Vedānta 5 (VV5): The vijñānī, who accepts the reality of both the nitya
[the Eternal Reality] and the līlā [God’s play], is able to adopt various attitudes
toward—and attain various forms of union with—God on different planes of
consciousness, all of which are true. (2018: 41)

A core idea of Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy is that mystical experience is the only
positive access point into the nature of ultimate reality. In addition, and in relation
to Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita, his view is that human consciousness is just as real as
universal consciousness. It is just that our rational intellect is not going to get us to
see that everything is Divine Consciousness. Our rational intellect only gets us to see
that we cannot explain consciousness through materialism. However, that should not
lead us either to illusionism or mysterianism about consciousness. Rather, it should
lead us to engage in spiritual practice, culminating in a mystical experience that
provides justification for a positive understanding of universal consciousness. And our
mystical justification provides us with positive empirical support for the reality and
phenomenology of nondual universal/pure consciousness.22

Notes
1 It is worth noting that although these philosophers do not engage with non-Western
sources, some of them are in fact aware of non-Western ideas and their possible
significance for panpsychism. Strawson and Shani are two such figures who are
aware of the possible connections between analytic panpsychism and Indian
philosophy.
2 I am borrowing this phrase from the work of Edwin May. For a more detailed
discussion of what I mean by promissory note materialism, see Vaidya and
Bilimoria (2015).
3 See Kim (2005) for a discussion of problems for dualism.
4 See Garfield (2016) for a critical engagement with the notion of what it is like.
420 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

5 See Lewtas (2016: 11) for discussion of whether or not the combination problem is as
threatening as it initially appears.
6 Importantly, this objection brings out the issue of what exactly constitutes our
ownership of experience. It is obvious that no one else can possess my experience.
Thus, it must mean something more to say that we own our experience. Ownership is
more intimate than what is expressed by the generic idea that everyone’s experience
is only their own. The intimacy is more caught up in the phenomenology than in the
possession.
7 See Maharaj (2018: 27–45; 51–63) for extended discussion of the theory.
8 See McLaughlin and Bennett (2018) for this definition.
9 Barua (2010: 11–18) seems to defend this interpretation of Rāmānuja.
10 Interestingly, Laura Guerrero has pointed out to me that it might turn out that
grounding is a relation that cannot obtain between the real and the unreal or
things that are equally real. While it is true that it can obtain between real and
less real entities, it is restricted to the real, and excludes relations where things are
equally real. As a consequence of this point, one might note two things. First, it
might be that grounding is not the appropriate relation to be grafted over from
analytic metaphysics in order to make sense of what is going on in classical Indian
philosophy. Second, it might be that grounding is the appropriate relation, but
that there is a debate to be had between classical Indian philosophers and analytic
metaphysicians over whether and how grounding can be a relation between the real
and the unreal and between equally real things.
How can something real ground something that is unreal? How can things that
are equally real have a grounding relation between them? For the case of the unreal,
we might hold the following. If what is unreal in some cases overlaps with what is an
illusion, the idea would be that something real can be, and is, the ground of something
unreal, when the other thing is in fact an illusion. In the case of being equally real,
we might simply note that grounding is a relation concerning fundamentality; as a
consequence, one cannot hold that x is the ground of y but that x and y are equally
fundamental. But given that fundamentality is not the same as reality, it could be that
x is more fundamental than y, but that x and y are equally real. One need not use
fundamentality as a necessary and sufficient condition for being real.
11 See Neil Dalal’s and Jeffery D. Long’s contributions to this volume (Chapters 1 and 5
respectively) for detailed discussion of Advaita and Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy
respectively.
12 In this sense Advaita Vedānta matches the central claim of neutral monism: ultimate
reality is all of one kind, and it is neither mental nor physical. See Stubenberg (2018)
for discussion of the position in the West. Different versions of neutral monism have
been held in the West by Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell.
13 The argument below is my rendering of Albahari’s argument.
14 See Albahari (2019: 121–24) for her extended summary of this point.
15 See Barua (2010: 14).
16 See Maharaj (2018: 13–17).
17 Maharaj also defends the broader claim that Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy is an
attempt to harmonize all religions. However, for our purposes here, it is sufficient to
explore the harmonization with respect to Vedānta only.
18 This is a slightly modified version of Swami Nikhilananda’s English translation of the
original Bengali passage from Mahendranāth Gupta’s Śrīśrīrāmakṛṣṇakathāmṛta. For
the original Bengali, see Gupta ([1903–32] 2010: 393).
 A New Debate on Consciousness 421

19 See Chatterjee ([1963] 1985: 112).

20 See Chalmers (1996: 3–31).
21 One could view the inference here as being an inference to the best explanation. It would
have the following form. Given that E2 … En have failed, the best explanation is E1.
22 See Maharaj (2018: Chapter 6) for discussion and defense of the position that
mystical experience has epistemic value. It is outside the scope of the current
investigation for me to defend the idea that mystical experience has such epistemic
value. Nevertheless, it is rational to look to a potential source of knowledge for
a domain of inquiry, when other sources of knowledge fail to give justification
adequately within that domain.

References
Albahari, Miri (2019), “Beyond Cosmopsychism and the Great I Am: How the World
Might be Grounded in Universal ‘Advaitic’ Consciousness,” in Bill Seager, ed., The
Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism, New York: Routledge, 119–30.
Bartley, Christopher (2002), The Theology of Rāmānuja: Realism and Religion, London:
Routledge.
Barua, Ankur (2010), “God’s Body at Work: Rāmānuja and Panentheism,” International
Journal of Hindu Studies 14.1, 1–30.
Block, Ned (1995), “On a Confusion about a Function of Consciousness,” Brain and
Behavioral Sciences 13.4, 596–8.
Chalmers, David (1996), The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Chalmers, David (2015), “Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism,” in T. Alter and
Y. Nagasawa, eds., Consciousness in the Physical World, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 246–77.
Chatterjee, Satis Chandra ([1963] 1985), Classical Indian Philosophies: Their Synthesis in
the Philosophy of Sri Ramakrishna, Calcutta: University of Calcutta.
Coleman, Sam (2014), “The Real Combination Problem: Panpsychism, Micro-Subjects,
and Emergence, Erkenntins 79, 19–44.
Duckworth, Douglas (2017), “The Other Side of Realism: Panpsychism and Yogācāra,” in
S. Emmanuel, ed., Buddhist Philosophy: A Comparative Approach, 1st edn., Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 29–44.
Frankish, Keith (2016), “Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness,” Journal of
Consciousness Studies 23.11–12, 11–39.
Freschi, Elisa (2019), “Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta,” in S. Goetz, and C. Taliaferro, eds.,
Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
Garfield, Jay (2016), “Illusionism and Givenness,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 23, 11–12.
Gasparri, Luca (2017), “Priority Cosmopsychism and Advaita Vedānta,” Philosophy East
and West, https://doi.org/10.1353/pew.0.0139.
Goff, Philip (2006), “Experiences Don’t Sum,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 13.6, 53–61.
Goff, Philip (2017a), “Panpsychism,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/panpsychism (accessed
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Goff, Philip (2017b), Consciousness and Fundamental Reality, New York: Oxford
University Press.
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Gupta, Mahendranath ([1942] 1992), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami
Nikhilananda, New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center.
Gupta, Mahendranāth ([1902–32] 2010), Śrīśrīrāmakṛṣṇakathāmṛta: Śrīma-kathita,
Kolkātā: Udbodhan.
Kim, Jaegwon (2005), Physicalism or Something Near Enough, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Lewtas, Pat (2016), “Building Minds: Solving the Combination Problem,” Inquiry, https://
doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2016.1216464.
Maharaj, Ayon (2018), Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-
Cultural Philosophy of Religion, New York: Oxford University Press.
McGinn, Colin (2000), The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World, 2nd
edn., New York: Basic Books.
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The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/
entries/supervenience (accessed January 9, 2020).
Nagel, Thomas (1974), “What is it Like to be a Bat?,” Philosophical Review 83.4, 435–50.
Nagel, Thomas (1979), “Panpsychism,” in Mortal Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 181–95.
Schaffer, Jonathan (2009), “On What Grounds What,” in D. Chalmers, D. Manley, and
R. Wasserman, eds., Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 347–84.
Schaffer, Jonathan (2010), “Monism: The Priority of the Whole,” Philosophical Review
119.1, 31–76.
Shani, Itay (2015), “Cosmopsychism: A Holistic Approach to the Metaphysics of
Experience,” Philosophical Papers 44.3, 389–417.
Shani, Itay. (2018), “Beyond Combination: How Cosmic Consciousness Grounds
Ordinary Experience,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4.3, 390–410.
Strawson, Galen (2006), “Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism,”
Journal of Consciousness Studies 13.10–11, 3–31.
Strawson, Galen (2016), “Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery. It’s Matter,” The Stone, New York
Times, May 16, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/consciousness-isnt-a-mystery-
its-matter.html (accessed January 9, 2020).
Stubenberg, Leopold (2018), “Neutral Monism,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/
neutral-monism (accessed January 9, 2020).
Tononi, Giulio, Melanie Boly, Marcello Massimini, and Christoff Koch (2016), “Integrated
Information Theory: From Consciousness to its Physical Substrate,” Nature Reviews
Neuroscience 17, 450–61.
Vaidya, Anand and Purushottama Bilimoria (2015). “Advaita Vedānta and the Mind
Extension Hypothesis: Panpsychism and Perception,” Journal of Consciousness
Studies 22.7–8, 201–25.
 15

Mystical Experience as a Skeptical

Scenario: Śrīharṣa’s Skeptical Advaita in the
Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya
Ethan Mills

The Advaita Vedānta philosopher Śrīharṣa (c. twelfth century CE) has frequently
been read as a skeptic of some kind, especially in light of his sustained attacks on
other philosophers’ arguments in support of the means of knowledge (pramāṇas) and
his refusal to argue in favor of a counter-proposal of his own.1 In a previous work
(Mills 2018), I explored some of Śrīharṣa’s arguments, claiming that he was influenced
by the development of skeptical methods represented by earlier Indian philosophers
such as the Buddhist Nāgārjuna (c. second century CE) and the Cārvāka Jayarāśi
(c. eighth–ninth centuries CE). Such arguments are based on appeals to unwanted
consequences (prasaṅga) for the opponent, infinite regress (anavasthā), and so forth.
While acknowledging Śrīharṣa’s indebtedness to a long tradition of Indian
skepticism, this chapter will focus on one of his distinctive contributions to the Indian
skeptical tradition, and if I am right, a unique contribution to world philosophy more
generally. Śrīharṣa explicitly mentions his mystical experiences of nondualism, which
seem to fit William James’s characterization of mystical experience—namely, they
typically have noetic quality (they are states of knowledge) and they are ineffable.
Śrīharṣa’s experiences also possess another characteristic that others have attributed to
mystical experience: a feeling of oneness. Furthermore, such experiences have objects
that cannot be accessed via sensory perception.2 But such experiences do not form
any part in an argument in favor of dogmatism about nondualist metaphysics; rather,
I argue that for Śrīharṣa, the possibility of such nondual mystical experience functions
as a sort of skeptical scenario meant to dislodge one’s philosophical confidence in one’s
everyday metaphysical assumptions. Much like skeptical scenarios in contemporary

I would like to thank Ayon Maharaj and two anonymous reviewers for helpful and extensive
comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
424 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Western epistemology, such as hypotheses involving dreaming, computer simulation,

or brains-in-vats, Śrīharṣa’s point is that the possibility of nondualism ought to leave us
ready to question the ultimate truth of everyday dualistic beliefs.
But unlike contemporary forms of epistemological skepticism, Śrīharṣa does not
reach this point via a single argument such as the argument from ignorance, a type
of argument I shall explain in Section 15.1; rather, he mentions nondual mystical
experience while also engaging in a thorough philosophical destruction of the strongest
arguments in favor of epistemological and metaphysical realism, especially from the
Nyāya school. Neither does he argue in favor of a positive conclusion that nobody
knows anything about the external world. His method is much more circuitous and
therapeutic, bringing him much closer not only to his Indian counterparts such as
Nāgārjuna and Jayarāśi, but also to Hellenistic Pyrrhonian skeptics such as Sextus
Empiricus (c. second century CE). The fact that Śrīharṣa’s own work was probably
an impetus for dramatic refinements in Nyāya realism starting with Gaṅgeśa
(c. fourteenth century CE) shows that it was sometimes taken in a similar vein as
Cartesian methodological skepticism. Thus, Śrīharṣa is unique in the global history
of skepticism: genealogically in line with the negative, purely therapeutic skepticism
of Nāgārjuna and Jayarāśi (with comparative echoes of Pyrrhonian skepticism), but
with a focus on the relation between mind and world that hints at something more like
modern, epistemological skepticism.
My plan for this chapter is to begin with an overview of the concept of a skeptical
scenario as it has come to be understood in contemporary Anglo-American analytic
philosophy with roots going back to early modern European philosophers like René
Descartes (1595–1650) and David Hume (1711–76). I will then give an overview of
Śrīharṣa and his major philosophical work, the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, which I
loosely translate as Buffet of Destruction, as well as several of his arguments against
Nyāya realism in both epistemology and metaphysics. After articulating my own
interpretation of the text as a form of mystical skepticism with roots in the Upaniṣads,
I will put all of this together to argue in favor of my thesis: the possibility of mystical
experience of nondualism can be thought of as a skeptical scenario that dislodges
one’s confidence in commonsense realist beliefs of the kind championed by the Nyāya
and Mīmāṃsā schools. Śrīharṣa aims to demonstrate (but not explicitly argue) that
ultimate reality may be, for all we know, radically different from what most of us take
it to be.

15.1 Skeptical Scenarios in Early Modern Europe

and Contemporary Analytic Philosophy

Contemporary philosophers in the analytic tradition, but also in the continental

tradition, generally understand skepticism in a specific way based on a particular
history. The paradigm example of skepticism for many contemporary philosophers is
found in Descartes’s Meditations (Descartes 1984, 13; AT VII: 19).3 The basic dream
argument for external-world skepticism is:
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 425

1. If you have knowledge about the external world, then you must know you are not
dreaming.
2. You do not know you are not dreaming.
3. Therefore, you do not have knowledge about the external world.

This argument is most often ignored in contemporary continental philosophy (see,

for example, Heidegger’s famous scorn for the problem of the external world),4 but it
is a major topic in epistemology in the contemporary analytic tradition. For instance,
Keith DeRose schematizes the argument into a basic form he calls the Argument
from Ignorance, where “H” is a skeptical hypothesis (equivalent to what I am calling a
“skeptical scenario”) and “O” is ordinary knowledge of the external world:

1. I don’t know that not-H.

2. If I don’t know that not-H, then I don’t know that O.
3. C: I don’t know that O. (DeRose 1995, 1)

This characterization allows for a wide variety of skeptical scenarios: hallucinations,

being a brain-in-a-vat, living in a computer simulation, and so forth. There are few
actual skeptics among contemporary analytic philosophers5 (Descartes himself was
no skeptic, either); “the skeptic” is, for the most part, a fictional character employed
within the theoretical project of “answering the skeptic.”
While external-world skepticism remains the paradigm case of skepticism in
contemporary philosophy, similar forms of skepticism have been directed toward
other domains, such as other minds, religion, ethics, and induction.6 Skepticisms about
the external world, other minds, induction, and religion may also have analogues in
the classical Indian tradition.7
While the history of these various forms of skepticism is fascinating, my present
concern is with the concept of a skeptical scenario as it has been typically used as part
of external-world skepticism. What all skeptical scenarios have in common are the
following two features:

1. Such scenarios would be radically different from what most people pre-
philosophically take their experience to be (that is, roughly as a real distinct
individual knower interacting with a real world of external objects that exist more
or less as they appear).
2. Such scenarios, although they would be radically different from reality, are
compatible with the available evidence of experience (that is, nothing in everyday,
pre-philosophical experience can definitively rule out a skeptical scenario).8

While the skeptical scenario itself has these features, another important factor of
the use of skeptical scenarios in the argument from ignorance is that it is not asserted
that a skeptical scenario actually is the case, but rather that it could be the case in
the sense that either the everyday commonsense scenario or the skeptical scenario is
compatible with our available evidence. In other words, the argument from ignorance
uses skeptical scenarios to undermine confidence in knowledge of the external world,
426 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

yet without in any way suggesting that such scenarios obtain in reality. This argument
raises an epistemological problem about our knowledge, but it does not proffer a
metaphysical conclusion about the world.
I will eventually argue in favor of my thesis that Śrīharṣa uses nondualistic mystical
experience as something very much like a skeptical scenario, but first I need to
give an overview of Śrīharṣa as a philosopher as well as his intricate philosophical
argumentation and some contemporary interpretations of it.

15.2 The Complexities of Śrīharṣa and His Arguments

To say that Śrīharṣa is a complex figure within Advaita Vedānta and the Indian
tradition more generally is an understatement. He comes after a few hundred years of
development of the Advaita tradition starting with Gauḍapāda (c. 500 CE) and Śaṅkara
(c. 700–50 CE). By Śrīharṣa’s time (c. twelfth century CE), the Advaita tradition had
evolved a diverse and sophisticated body of ideas. Readers interested in the complex and
fascinating history of Advaita are encouraged to turn elsewhere, including some of the
other contributions to this volume.9 While some (e.g., Ganeri 2017 and Granoff 2016)
have recently questioned whether Śrīharṣa should properly be thought of as a member
of the Advaita tradition on account of his criticisms of later developments such as
the concept of indeterminacy (anirvācanīyatva), here I will take Śrīharṣa as a unique
addition to the diversity of the tradition.
There are a handful of biographical details about Śrīharṣa in his own texts as well as
in one Jaina text: the Prabandhakośa of Rājaśekhara.10 Śrīharṣa composed at least two
texts: the Naiṣadhīyacarita, an epic poem recounting a story from the Mahābhārata, and
the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, a prose philosophical text. The Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya,
whose title I loosely translate as Buffet of Destruction,11 is a large and complex text, and
I shall not attempt to summarize all of its contents here. The Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya
(hereafter KhKh) contains four chapters, and Chapter 1 is longer than the other three
chapters combined. Śrīharṣa covers a wide variety of topics in each chapter, but the
first two chapters tend to focus on topics in debate, logic, and epistemology. Chapters 3
and 4 focus on issues in philosophy of language and metaphysics.
To give just a small taste of Śrīharṣa’s argumentative style, I will briefly paraphrase
one of his most famous and often discussed arguments concerning the means of
knowledge (pramāṇas) as well as one of his arguments against the realist conception
of existence (sattā).12
Chapter 1 begins with a brief introduction, after which Śrīharṣa raises an objection
from an imagined realist opponent, perhaps a follower of Nyāya: “Now, debaters believe
there is a restriction of this kind in a disputation: both disputants must agree that those
categories exist that are established by the doctrines admitted by all the schools, i.e.,
means of knowledge (pramāṇas), etc.” (KhKh 5).13 In other words, the realist is saying
that one must accept the existence of the means of knowledge (pramāṇas) in order for
there to be any meaningful debate whatsoever. The Nyāya attitude here is compatible
with its underlying realism: human epistemic activity presupposes the existence of
external objects and some means of knowing these objects that are at least sometimes
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 427

successful. This attitude is most clearly expressed in Nyāya’s parasitism objections to

idealism, or the notion that idealism is incoherent because the very concept of illusory
cognition is parasitic upon veridical cognition (Dasti 2012).
Śrīharṣa responds to this realist objection by setting up the kind of unwanted
consequence (prasaṅga) argument pioneered by Nāgārjuna and Jayarāśi.14 That is,
Śrīharṣa sets up several options to make sense of the opponent’s view and demonstrates
that each one is unfounded:

Others do not accept this. For what is the reason for the disputant to accept the
existence of the means of knowledge (pramāṇas) and such? 1. Is it because, for
speakers both pro and con not accepting that [i.e., the existence of the means of
knowledge], it is not possible to begin the practice of debate, which is restricted to
the community of those who do accept that? 2. Or is it due to being the cause of the
disputants beginning the practice of debate? 3. Or because it [i.e., the existence of
the means of knowledge] is commonly accepted in the world? 4. Or is it because
for one who does not accept that, there would be an unwanted consequence with
regard to results like victory and ascertaining the truth? (KhKh 6)15

Needless to say, Śrīharṣa’s treatment of each option is complex, often involving a

further refinement into sub-options and sub-sub-options. Readers interested in the
details of those arguments can see my discussion of them elsewhere (Mills 2018:
Chapter 7). Śrīharṣa is calling into question the realist assumption that one must accept
the means of knowledge (pramāṇas) at the level theorized by realist philosophers.
Naiyāyikas and other realists assume that their philosophical treatment of the means
of knowledge captures both everyday epistemic practice and a deeper level of reality
in need of philosophical elaboration. Śrīharṣa explicitly questions this assumption,
a questioning he says he shares with Cārvākas and Mādhyamikas. Śrīharṣa argues
against the first reason quoted above (that debate is restricted to participants who
accept the means of knowledge), “because one understands the extensive discourses
of Cārvākas, Mādhyamikas, and so forth even though they do not accept that [i.e., that
the pramāṇas exist]” (KhKh 7).16
Śrīharṣa goes on to question the metaphysical basis of realism as well. The core
concept of Nyāya’s metaphysical realism is existence (sattā or tattva). Sattā for Nyāya
does not function merely as a grammatical copula, nor is it similar to contemporary
deflationary theories of truth.17 In Nyāya, sattā is a real universal that inheres in all
existing objects. Existing objects are defined as follows: (1) they are ontologically
independent from cognition, (2) they are not sublated in later experience, (3) they
constitute the intentional objects of veridical cognition, and (4) the true features of
such objects are not conceptually constructed. These concepts of sattā and existing
objects form the core expressions of Nyāya’s basic realist stance.18
Śrīharṣa presents numerous arguments against the concept of sattā, some of which I
discuss elsewhere (Mills 2018: Chapter 7). The argument I will consider here is that sattā
is a redundant qualification of the objects of experience. Sattā is supposed to qualify all
existing objects; it tells us what all existing objects have in common. In a discussion of
causation, Śrīharṣa considers whether sattā could be internal to a cause. He rejects this,
428 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

because “the fallacy of having itself as its own basis (svāśrayatvam) would obtain since
its own qualifier (viśiṣṭa) is partly dependent on itself ” (KhKh 29).19 In other words,
if sattā is part of the cause already, then to posit that it possesses the qualifier of sattā
adds nothing to the cause. Ram-Prasad explains the idea as follows: “To say, ‘this tiger
exists’ is to say ‘this tiger (which exists) exists’” (Ram-Prasad 2002: 171). Positing sattā
as part of the internal essence of a cause adds nothing to the experiential assumption of
sattā (i.e., within experience we already assume sattā of the objects of experience). The
realist notion of sattā is superfluous.
Perhaps the realist could say that sattā exists separately outside of the objects
themselves. Śrīharṣa rejects this option, “because it is seen invariably that that which is
separate from its self-dependence, being already possessed of that which is outside its
self-dependence, is not in that qualifier in itself, and neither can that very sattā be in
that [i.e., in that qualifier]” (KhKh 29).20 The rule here is that a quality must be different
from that which it qualifies.21 For instance, one might describe a hat (that which is
qualified) as green (the quality), but it makes no sense to say that a hat is a hat—being
a hat is already its nature. Śrīharṣa’s point is that it is entirely uninformative to argue
that existing things possess the quality of existence (sattā), since existing is already part
of their nature, at least as assumed within everyday experience (outside of everyday
experience is a different matter, of course, which I will discuss toward the end of this
chapter). Once again, sattā is superfluous.22
I call this the Redundant Qualification Argument, which goes as follows:

1. Sattā is either a qualifier internal or external to existing things.

2. Sattā cannot be internal because a qualifier cannot be part of itself, which makes
sattā a redundant qualifier.
3. Sattā cannot be external because a qualifier must be distinct from that which it
qualifies, but sattā is supposed to be in all existing things already, which makes it a
redundant qualifier.
4. Therefore, sattā is a redundant qualifier that adds nothing to our understanding of
everyday experience.

A more general character of what Śrīharṣa refers to as his “destructive arguments”

(khaṇḍanayuktis)23 is that they are typically directed toward his opponents’
philosophical definitions. He says that these destructive arguments are effective
“with regard to the establishment of all philosophical views in a similar manner”
(KhKh 126).24 Later he says, “definitions are unestablished” (KhKh 130).25 Like
Jayarāśi, Śrīharṣa’s method is to destroy the very definitions upon which his opponents’
philosophical theories rest. As Ayon Majaraj explains, “If Śrī Harṣa is correct, then any
philosophical account of the nature of reality must be invalid” (Maharaj 2014: 96).
These are but tiny tastes of the vast buffet of Śrīharṣa’s philosophical destruction. For
my purposes here, it is important to note that he provides negative arguments against
realist assumptions. Śrīharṣa aims to demonstrate that we are by no means bound to
accept realist assumptions as pertaining to a deeper reality beyond experience, and
in any case, such assumptions are self-contradictory when thoroughly examined.
At the same time, it is worth noting that Śrīharṣa has not yet provided any positive
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 429

argument in favor of nondualism. He aims to demonstrate (yet not to argue explicitly)

that there are limits to how far philosophical reasoning can take us. Could there be
other kinds of experience beyond philosophical conceptualization?

15.3 Śrīharṣa as a Mystic

That Śrīharṣa discusses nondual experience is obvious from the textual evidence. What
is far less obvious is what he intends such descriptions to accomplish. Are they part of a
larger philosophical argument in favor of Advaita metaphysics? Are they nondogmatic
possibilities he encourages readers to explore for themselves? Something else?
First, let’s look at some of the textual evidence. Near the end of the KhKh, Śrīharṣa
discusses his own meditative experiences. He refers to himself as “he who … directly
perceives (sākṣāt kurute) in meditations (samādhiṣu) the ultimate Brahman, the ocean
of bliss” (KhKh 754).26 Elsewhere Śrīharṣa says that his arguments are meant to lead
the reader toward nondualism and away from the mistakes of realism.27
Another example of Śrīharṣa’s descriptions of nondual experience are the following
poetic descriptions that are paired with citations from sacred texts:

This cognition of nondualism cannot be destroyed by the wise who set down a
hundred reasons. Thus, scripture (śruti) says, “This knowledge (mati) is not to be
destroyed by reason.”28
Therefore,
Those wishing for the prize of knowledge (dhī), offer then your wisdom toward
the refutation of this, if you were to throw a wishing jewel already grasped in
your hand into the ocean.

This beholding of nondualism is practical (dṛṣṭārtha) as well. As it is said, “Even a

little bit of this truth (dharma) releases one from great fear.”29
Therefore,
Men’s wish to abide in nondualism is due to the favor of the Lord (īśvara).
There is release from that which produces great fear in those two or three in
whom it is produced.
Therefore,
This nondualism, which has been examined by the meaning of the scriptures
(śruti) that have immediately declared the nonduality of this world,
That [nondualism], becoming self-illuminating ultimate consciousness, is led
away from stifling (niṣpīḍita) dispute. (KhKh 123–5)30

In Section 15.4, I will discuss how to understand these passages against the background
of Śrīharṣa’s negative, skeptical project, but for the present I point out that none of
430 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

the above constitute philosophical arguments. Even though the longer passage above
contains the word “therefore” (tasmāt), which in Sanskrit as well as English often
serves to indicate the conclusion of an argument, in this context it should be seen as
indicating further explanations of the effects of cognizing nondualism, with some of
these descriptions found in scripture (śruti).
In what sense are such passages mystical? According to a popular characterization
of mysticism from William James, mystical states have two primary features, ineffability
and noetic quality, as well as two secondary features, transiency and passivity
(James [1902] 1958: 319). Some scholars have added that mystical states can also be
characterized as a feeling of oneness (e.g., Gimello 1978 and Stace 1960). Other scholars
have added that such experiences are furthermore characterized as having objects
that are not accessible via sensory perception (e.g., Gellman 2019: section 1.1–1.2).
In this chapter I do not have the space to delve into theories of mysticism (How is
it characterized? Is there a “common core” of mystical experiences?) or fascinating
issues in the epistemology of mysticism (Do such experiences give either mystics or
nonmystics epistemic warrant for beliefs about the existence of God or other religious
matters?).31 While acknowledging that my account is incomplete, I will, for the purposes
of this chapter, stipulate that mystical states, at least of a certain kind, contain at least
four characteristics: noetic quality, ineffability, a feeling of oneness, and having objects
not accessible via sensory experience.
Śrīharṣa describes these experiences as having a noetic quality. They are some
kind of knowledge state most similar to perceptual knowledge, yet, importantly,
their objects are not accessible via regular sense perception. Thus, Śrīharṣa says that
nondualism is “perceived” or “cognized” in the above examples but not with reference
to regular sensory perception. Also, such experiences are ineffable because they cannot
be directly or fully described: hence Śrīharṣa’s turn to poetic imagery like the “ocean
of bliss” and his discussion of the idea that such experience cannot be overturned
by linguistic or conceptual reasoning. Such nondualistic experiences also evoke a
feeling of oneness: consider the “ocean of bliss,” the frequent explicit use of the word
“nondualism” (advaita), and even the idea that rational dispute is stifling (niṣpīḍita)
when compared to the liberating openness of nondualism. One might also notice the
ethical effects, such as reducing fear in those who experience nondualism.
Is referring to Śrīharṣa as a mystic to admit that he is an irrationalist of some kind? In
some contemporary discussions, at least outside the philosophy of religion, mysticism is
sometimes associated with irrationalism or sloppy thinking: one might think, for example,
that Śrīharṣa is offering a wholesale denigration of reason at the expense of mystical
experience. Such a characterization will obviously not fit a figure like Śrīharṣa, whose texts
contain many more incisive logical arguments than descriptions of mystical experience.
B.K. Matilal argues that logical arguments are important for mystics like Śrīharṣa for at
least two reasons: “First, the logical arguments are useful, for they illuminate the mystical
instead of deepening its mystery … Second, the human mind is an incurably restless
organ” (Matilal 1977: 24).32 Śrīharṣa’s “illumination” consists of illuminating the problems
endemic to realism rather than illuminating the mystical directly, but his argumentation
is a beneficial exercise for those with restless minds, especially philosophers. Śrīharṣa is
trying to show his readers how to obtain rest for the restless mind.
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 431

But what is the relationship between these descriptions of mystical experience and
Śrīharṣa’s larger philosophical project? According to Stephen Phillips (1995), Śrīharṣa
has a “positive program … Some of his refutations … may be read as indirect proofs
and thus be themselves positive argumentation bolstering planks of the Advaita
stance” (Phillips 1995: 77). According to Phillips, Śrīharṣa accepts scripture (śruti) as
a means of knowledge, although scripture is eventually sublated by “supreme mystical
awareness”; all of Śrīharṣa’s negative arguments are aimed at supporting the positive
Advaita Vedānta conclusion that “Brahman is to be accepted” (Phillips 1995: 83).33
For Phillips, Śrīharṣa is more or less in line with Advaitic aims, appealing both to
philosophical arguments and mystical experience to defend a traditional form of
Advaita. Thus, Phillips emphasizes Śrīharṣa’s positive philosophical and mystical
methods. I will return to the issue of whether Śrīharṣa accepts scripture as a means
of knowledge in Section 15.5, but first let us turn to scholars who have emphasized
Śrīharṣa’s skeptical methods, especially his explicit use of the skeptical method
of vitaṇḍā.

15.4 Śrīharṣa as a Skeptic

A primary consideration in the interpretation of Śrīharṣa as a skeptic of some kind is

his explicit support for a form of negative debate called vitaṇḍā. Śrīharṣa considers an
objection that he cannot simply destroy his opponents’ definitions, means of knowledge
(pramāṇas), and explanations without providing his own contrary views; he answers
that this is not so, “because my refutations are stated having their basis in vitaṇḍā debate”
(KhKh 127).34 Vitaṇḍā is a purely negative form of debate in which the opponent’s views
are attacked but no counter-position is articulated. In Nyāya Sūtra 1.2.1–3, vitaṇḍā is
opposed to friendly debate for the purpose of establishing the truth (vāda) and debate
for defeating an opponent by establishing a contrary position (jalpa).35
Although Phyllis Granoff does not outright refer to Śrīharṣa as a skeptic, she
presents Śrīharṣa as primarily engaged in negative dialectic. While Śrīharṣa is an
Advaitin and has his own views about Advaita (1978: 53–4), Granoff sees the KhKh
as primarily negative along the lines of a vitaṇḍā debate as explained above. She says,
“Śrīharṣa does no more than to show that the opponents’ own doctrines contradict
themselves” (1978: 3), and he “never independently proves anything at all” (1978: 54).
She focuses on Śrīharṣa’s refutation of the means of knowledge (pramāṇas), his critique
of realism, and his critique of conventional reality (saṃvṛttisattva) in Buddhism and
Vedānta (1978: 3, 54–6).36
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad (2002) reads Śrīharṣa as developing a subtle position
that Ram-Prasad calls “non-realism,” which he traces back to earlier Advaitins such
as Śaṅkara and Vācaspati Miśra. Non-realism is neither idealism, nor realism, nor
even anti-realism. It is not idealist because, “The objects of cognition … must be
assumed to occur in some way extrinsic to cognition, because to deny that … is to
deny the features of experience” (Ram-Prasad 2002: 164). Non-realism is also against
realism:
432 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

But from the fact of their being assumed to occur (in order to explain the features
of experience), it cannot be asserted that these objects which make up the
world can be proven to occur (i.e., established as occurring) independently of
cognition of them … Consequently, there is no way to establish—or even explain
­coherently—the essential nature of objects. (Ram-Prasad 2002: 164, bold in
original)

Non-realism is a middle way between realism and idealism, equally critical of both.
Ram-Prasad does not want to call it anti-realism, however, because he takes anti-realism
to imply a revisionary metaphysics that requires a re-description of our basic cognitive
lives, whereas non-realism has no revisionary pretentions (Ram-Prasad 2002: 10). He
summarizes the position succinctly: “It may be characterized as being realist from an
idealist point of view, idealist from a realist point of view, and sceptical about both
points of view” (Ram-Prasad 2002: 91).37
Although Ram-Prasad claims that non-realism is a variety of anti-skepticism (e.g.,
Ram-Prasad 2002: 164, 201–10), he is referring to epistemological skepticism about
the external world. Even if Ram-Prasad is correct that Śrīharṣa is against this variety of
skepticism, Śrīharṣa is a skeptic at another level, which is where my own interpretation
begins.
I have fully articulated my own interpretation of Śrīharṣa elsewhere (Mills 2018:
Chapters 6–7), but here I will give a quick overview before moving on to my new
point about skeptical scenarios. I see the deeper disagreement about Śrīharṣa revolving
around the sense in which he is endorsing a truth claim about the nature of reality.
Phillips reads Śrīharṣa as positively endorsing a claim in favor of Advaita metaphysics
as a result of both his philosophical arguments and his mystical experiences, whereas
Granoff and Ram-Prasad read Śrīharṣa as somewhat circumspect about what he is
willing to say about the truth of Advaitic metaphysical claims, at least as a result of his
philosophical investigations.
I agree with Phillips that Śrīharṣa is an Advaitin, but I disagree that this implies
that he is arguing in favor of positive conclusions.38 I think Granoff and Ram-Prasad
are correct to stress the negative, vitaṇḍā style of the KhKh. The conclusions of
Śrīharṣa’s arguments are not positive counterstatements but rather mere rejections of
opponents’ claims. Nonetheless, I think Śrīharṣa employs philosophical arguments to
clear the mind of dogmatic underbrush, thereby opening up the possibility of nondual
experience.
My reading is closest to that of Maharaj (2014), who likewise sees Śrīharṣa’s
philosophical project as skeptical in the sense that it employs the negative, vitaṇḍā
form of philosophical debate. Maharaj reconciles Śrīharṣa’s vitaṇḍā method with his
stated support for Advaita by separating Śrīharṣa’s procedure into two s­ tandpoints—
philosophical and soteriological:

From a soteriological standpoint, however, Śrī Harṣa’s assertion [about

nondualism] should be read as a post-philosophical call for his opponents to adopt
the standpoint of Advaita for the sake of their own salvation. As I have argued, it
is perfectly legitimate for Śrī Harṣa to step out of his role as a vitaṇḍin and endorse
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 433

the positive standpoint of Advaita, since his positive endorsement of Advaita is

only motivated by—but not itself part of—his skeptical philosophical program.
(Maharaj 2014: 101)

While I find Maharaj’s interpretation plausible, I prefer to unravel the tension between
Śrīharṣa’s mysticism and his skepticism by going back to the primary source of Advaita:
the Upaniṣads.
Although I am not the first to call Śrīharṣa a skeptic,39 the target and aims of his
skepticism have seldom been made entirely clear. On my reading, he is skeptical
about philosophy, and he specifically develops what I have called Upaniṣadic mystical
skepticism. Upaniṣadic mystical skepticism has two parts:

1. There is mystical knowledge of Ātman/Brahman; and

2. This mystical knowledge cannot be gained through the senses or through philosophical
means such as reasoning, analysis, linguistic conceptualization, and so forth.40

While Advaita is typically seen in both classical and contemporary contexts as focused
primarily on the first part of the above characterization, Śrīharṣa is focused on the
second part. He uses skeptical methods similar to those of Nāgārjuna and Jayarāśi in
an attempt to undermine the philosophical intelligibility of the means of knowledge
and realist conceptions of existence, especially insofar as these are meant to represent
ultimate reality.41
On this interpretation, Śrīharṣa developed the second, skeptical part of Upaniṣadic
mystical skepticism to a degree hitherto unseen within the Advaita tradition. While he
claims to have had nondual experiences and thinks readers should be open to having
such experiences as well, he nowhere presents philosophical arguments in favor of the
truth of Advaita on the basis of such experiences. For Śrīharṣa, the first mystical part
of Upaniṣadic mystical skepticism becomes a suggestion of a possibility rather than a
positive claim in itself.

15.5 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario

Mysticism is sometimes equated with a sort of irrational dogmatism in the sense that
mystics reject rational methods and strongly endorse beliefs that are not subject to
rational examination, beliefs that cannot be corroborated by publicly available reasons.
But Śrīharṣa does not quite fit such a characterization. The KhKh is packed with wall-to-
wall argumentation and, at least if the sort of interpretation I have presented is correct,
Śrīharṣa is reticent when it comes to fully endorsing any dogmatic conclusion. Śrīharṣa
is attempting to cultivate a nondogmatic attitude about what philosophy can do, a deep
intellectual humility. The Buffet of Destruction is meant to cause r­ eaders—appropriately
enough—to lose their appetite for constructive philosophical activity. But neither is he
offering any dogmatic argument that mystical insight will inevitably follow from this loss
of appetite. Śrīharṣa aims to make readers more open to the mere possibility of mystical
experience of nondual Brahman, but he does not argue for a thesis of nondualism.
434 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Pushing this interpretation a bit further, I want to argue for the thesis of this
chapter: the possibility of mystical experience of nondualism can be thought of as a
skeptical scenario that dislodges one’s confidence in commonsense realist beliefs of the
kind championed by realists in Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā. Śrīharṣa means to demonstrate
(but not explicitly argue for) the notion that ultimate reality may be, for all we know,
radically different from what most of us take it to be.
This thesis is an interpretational conjecture that I think offers a coherent answer to
a puzzle about the KhKh: If Śrīharṣa is so reticent about the ultimate nature of reality,
why does he mention his nondual mystical experiences at all? Why not, rather, remain
reticent about those as well? Would not silence be the more appropriate stance as one
travels the via negativa?
Interpretations like Phillips’s and more recently that of Nilanjan Das (2018)
take Śrīharṣa’s negative arguments to be in the service of his positive claims.
Phillips cites a passage in which Śrīharṣa claims that scripture (śruti) is a means of
knowledge (pramāṇa), at least of an indirect sort “after the manner of our opponents”
(parābhyupagamarītyā) (Phillips 1995: 82; KhKh 55). Thus, on this view, Śrīharṣa
discusses his mystical experiences in order to tell us what he has been arguing for all
along: namely, a positive metaphysical conclusion of nondualism.
Keeping in mind the overwhelmingly negative thrust of the text, I would like
to suggest that we might look at the KhKh in precisely the opposite way. Śrīharṣa’s
seemingly positive claims are in fact in the service of his negative aims; his
declarations of mystical experience are not articulations of a positive thesis for
which he has been arguing all along, but rather a negative argument by other means.
That is, if readers have followed Śrīharṣa to the end of the text, they have seen the
flaws endemic to realism. Once realism is dislodged from its position as obvious
truth, then nondualism is at least possibly true—it enters the domain of candidates
for ultimate truth. And if nondualism is at least possibly true, then we should have
much less certainty about the extent to which everyday experience and reasoning
capture the nature of reality, at least far less certainty than most of us do in fact have.
All of this would leave us with a nondogmatic attitude about the nature of ultimate
reality.
If I am right, then this nondogmatic attitude is the aim of Śrīharṣa’s engagements
with philosophy. Although he reports having had nondual experiences himself and
seems to hope that his readers will follow suit in striving to cultivate such experiences
for themselves,42 Śrīharṣa’s philosophical project is at best a partial preparation for
this entirely different project. The philosophical project is only related to the mystical
project in the sense in which stretching one’s left calf before running a marathon might
be related to crossing the finish line or writing a character’s name on a cocktail napkin
in a moment of inspiration could be related to publishing a novel.
It would have been entirely consistent for Śrīharṣa’s negative philosophical project
to withhold any mention of mystical experience. That he did not do so may be evidence
that he felt such declarations could simultaneously serve to accomplish two things:
(1) to indicate the sort of project he hoped his readers would embark upon next, having
sated their appetites for philosophy, and (2) to help readers cultivate the nondogmatic
attitude necessary as preparation for a mystical project.
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 435

Let me lay out the shape of the argument schematically, noting that this line of
reasoning is implied rather than stated by Śrīharṣa:

1. If realism is flawed, then nondualism could be true.

2. Realism is flawed.
3. Therefore, nondualism could be true.
4. If nondualism could be true, then we should be uncertain about the assumptions
of everyday experience and nondogmatically open about the nature of ultimate
reality.
5. Therefore, we should be uncertain about the assumptions of everyday experience
and nondogmatically open about the nature of ultimate reality.

Of course, I am not denying that Śrīharṣa discusses his mystical experiences, nor that he
urges others to embark upon a quest to have such experiences themselves. I agree with
Phillips and Das that such experiences are Śrīharṣa’s ultimate goal. My disagreement
concerns the relationship between his philosophical project and his mystical project.
As I see it, Śrīharṣa’s relatively brief discussions of nondual experience do not serve to
point backward to a positive philosophical conclusion; instead, they simultaneously
point backward as part of his negative philosophical project and forward to an entirely
different sort of experience, one that is necessarily beyond linguistic conceptualization.
However, one might object that this leaves unexplained the place of scripture
(śruti), which Śrīharṣa seems to endorse as a means of knowledge in some sense. As
noted earlier, Phillips and Das in fact treat scripture or faith as a means of knowledge
in at least an indirect sense (Phillips 1995: 82; Das 2018: Section 5.2).
In response, I would first of all note that even one of the pieces of textual evidence
to which Phillips points (1995: 82) is itself extremely qualified. Here is the passage in
question:

This is indeed illuminated by scripture (śruti), which is a means of knowledge,

with the purpose of implication. By this is meant: for the purpose of separating the
existence of that which can be expressed in words from the actual expression of
ultimate reality. Scripture is said to be a means of knowledge in the custom of our
opponents with reference to this condition of ignorance. However, in reality this
form of consciousness is established only in itself. (KhKh 55)43

That is, śruti is a means of knowledge only in a conventional sense from within an
ignorant state of mind. There is nothing in this that would contradict Śrīharṣa’s
arguments against the means of knowledge elsewhere in the text. Even though śruti
may have an instrumental value in indirectly implying the truth, at best it points one
in the right direction or encourages one to engage in certain practices. In fact, Śriharṣa
has already discussed the idea of accepting the means of knowledge in a provisional
sense for everyday purposes in his discussion of whether one can engage in debate
without accepting the ultimate existence of the means of knowledge: “the debate
begins by perceiving the existence of the means of knowledge that are conducive to
everyday practice” (KhKh 22).44 Likewise, śruti can be accepted as a sort of provisional
436 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

means of knowledge, but it must be remembered that the type of nondual experience
to which Śrīharṣa refers is entirely beyond the scope of linguistic conceptualization,
even that of śruti.
Furthermore, Śrīharṣa himself admits that even such alleged production of
knowledge of nondual Brahman is itself ultimately illusory. Consider his response to
the following objection:

But one might object: how is the production of that [knowledge of nondualism]
from scripture (śruti) possible? This would be true in this manner if the production
of that knowledge were ultimately from scripture. But that production is
conformable to ignorance, [whereas] there is no contradiction by non-production,
which is ultimate reality. (KhKh 122)45

In other words, because key parts of the very concept of scripture or faith as a means
of knowledge (e.g., production, language, etc.) are embedded within dualism, they are
not ultimately real and are to be relinquished in favor of nondual experience. Thus,
it is best not to see Śrīharṣa as endorsing scripture or faith as a means of knowledge.
His evocations of nondual experience must have some other function, and I have
suggested that they work as part of a negative philosophical project while also pointing
to an entirely different sphere of experience.
To put this another way using the framework from Maharaj (2014), the statements
about nondual mystical experience, even those from scripture (śruti), are part of Śrīharṣa’s
post-philosophical soteriological program, not his philosophical program, which is
entirely negative. In terms of what I have called Upaniṣadic mystical skepticism, such
statements are attempts to articulate the type of knowledge expressed in the first part
(“There is mystical knowledge of Ātman/Brahman”), which are nonetheless necessarily
inaccurate because of the attitude expressed in the second part (“This mystical knowledge
cannot be gained through the senses or through philosophical means such as reasoning,
analysis, linguistic conceptualization, and so forth”). In other words, even if scripture is
a means of knowledge in some sense, Śrīharṣa is not interested in any attempt to mount
a philosophical defense of scripture or any sort of positive philosophical illumination of
its contents such as what contemporary philosophers of religion call the argument from
experience. Rather, such experiences speak for themselves.
Next I would like to suggest that comparing my understanding of Śrīharṣa’s take on
nondual experience to the contemporary notion of skeptical scenarios is a profitable
way to understand Śrīharṣa’s aims. Recall that I noted earlier that skeptical scenarios
share the following features:

1. Such scenarios would be radically different from what most people pre-
philosophically take their experience to be (that is, roughly as a real distinct
individual knower interacting with a real world of external objects that exist more
or less as they appear).
2. Such scenarios, although they would be radically different from reality, are
compatible with the available evidence of experience (that is, nothing in everyday,
pre-philosophical experience can definitively rule out a skeptical scenario).
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 437

Premise 4 of the earlier argument above contains, I think, the sense in which
nondualism functions as a skeptical scenario for Śrīharṣa: nondualism could be
true, it would be radically different from what we typically take our experience to
imply, and the evidence of everyday experience is entirely compatible with the truth
of nondualism. That is, Śrīharṣa is not giving a philosophical argument with the
conclusion that nondualism is true, but rather he mentions nondualism as a means of
making his readers less sure about the nature of ultimate reality. The mystical project
comes later.
This is not, of course, exactly the same as the contemporary Argument from
Ignorance that I discussed earlier. Most obviously, Śrīharṣa does not mean his
arguments to take place as moves within epistemology to support a philosophical
thesis about human knowledge. As his extensive critiques of the means of knowledge
demonstrate, he is giving up on epistemology altogether in favor of a less theoretical
project. Moreover, Śrīharṣa’s use of nondual experience in the KhKh is not presented
in a single explicit argument; instead such descriptions of nondual experience are part
of a much larger, more ambitious attack on an extensive variety of philosophical views.
Despite these differences, I would like to suggest, in a comparative, cross-cultural
vein, that nondualism could be used as a skeptical scenario within contemporary
epistemology alongside dreaming, computer simulations, and the like. This would be
an easy way for philosophers with little background in non-Western philosophy to
make their philosophical activity slightly more cross-cultural.

15.6 Conclusion: Śrīharṣa’s Unique Expression of Skepticism

In this chapter I have argued that for Śrīharṣa the possibility of nondual experience
can be thought of as a skeptical scenario that undermines confidence in commonsense
realism. Śrīharṣa attempts to demonstrate that ultimate reality may be, for all we know,
radically different from what most people think it is. After discussing the concept of a
skeptical scenario in early modern and contemporary Western epistemology, I gave an
overview of Śrīharṣa, some of his arguments, and several contemporary interpretations,
including my own, that touch on his mystical and skeptical elements in a variety of
ways. Then I suggested that Śrīharṣa’s appeals to mystical nondual experience could
themselves be taken as both a move within his negative argumentation against realist
philosophy and also a way to point to an entirely different mode of experience.
Given this comparison, one might claim that Śrīharṣa is extremely close to
expressing something like modern skepticism about the external world. He provides
elaborate arguments against realist epistemologies that claim we can and do know the
world as it is, but he also refrains from making the subjective idealist move of taking
our experience to be all that exists. The true nature of reality remains beyond our
cognitive grasp, at least from within the framework of realism.
Yet I don’t think it makes sense to see Śrīharṣa as a forerunner of a Cartesian
skepticism about the external world.46 The conclusions of arguments in favor of modern
external-world skepticism concern the lack of everyday knowledge of the external
world. Śrīharṣa’s target, on the other hand, is various philosophers’ claims about both
438 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

knowledge and reality. Indeed, he frequently appeals to the everyday sense of existence
at the expense of the realist philosophers’ theory of sattā; this is, for instance, a key
move in the Redundant Qualification Argument. Nonetheless, answering Śrīharṣa’s
critiques was a major goal of Navya-Nyāya starting with Gaṅgeśa (c. fourteenth
century). It is likely that Gaṅgeśa viewed Śrīharṣa’s skepticism as something like
Cartesian methodological skepticism in that it was for him a theoretical challenge to
be answered by an extensive retooling of Nyāya realism.47 Thus, it could be said that
Śrīharṣa played an important role in the transition from the classical to the medieval
periods of Indian philosophy, if we follow the periodization provided by Perrett (2016).
And if Ganeri (2011) is right that Navya-Nyāya came to represent a new modern
attitude toward the past that developed independently of European modernity, then
we can say that Śrīharṣa is an important part of that later story as well. Yet Śrīharṣa did
not see the KhKh as a hurdle to be cleared, at least not via philosophical means. So,
although Śrīharṣa does frequently focus on cognition and the world, and others such as
Gaṅgeśa later used his arguments as a methodological impetus for further theoretical
refinement, Śrīharṣa should not be understood as a skeptic about our knowledge of the
external world.
Śrīharṣa’s anti-dogmatic attitude is aimed primarily at philosophers. Once we are
free of philosophers’ dogmatic pretentions that constrain the mind, we are free to
explore the possibility of nondual experience. And even if one does not accept my
particular interpretation of Śrīharṣa, it should be obvious that the KhKh contains
vast philosophical treasures that have, as of yet, received insufficient attention in
contemporary scholarship. Just a few examples beyond what I have discussed here
include Śrīharṣa’s treatment of the paradox of inquiry (similar to Meno’s Paradox),
his incisive critiques of epistemology via something like Gettier cases, criticisms of
theories of causation, his treatment of self-knowledge and intentionality, and more.48
Near the end of the KhKh, Śrīharṣa explains what he himself hopes readers will gain
from his work. Thus, I let Śrīharṣa have the last word:

In this knot in book form (granthagranthi) you commit to my various efforts. To a

lesser person who reads viciously and those who think they are wise: do not take
up this book up as a mere pastime. Instead, approach these tightly fastened knots
having faithfully approached a teacher who can loosen them. Indeed, a virtuous
person takes up living in the joy of being immersed in both aesthetic experience
(rasa) and this sort of reasoning. (KhKh 754).49

Notes
1 While determining dates for most classical Indian philosophers is difficult, most scholars
agree that Śrīharṣa lived sometime in the twelfth century CE (e.g., Granoff 1978,
Matilal 1986, Phillips 1995, Ram-Prasad 2002, Ganeri 2017, and Granoff 2016). There
are a variety of skeptical interpretations of Śrīharṣa, which claim that he does not argue
in favor of a positive thesis, although each of the following differ in various ways: Granoff
(1978), Ram-Prasad (2002), Maharaj (2014), Timalsina (2016), and Mills (2018).
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 439

2 See James (1958), Stace (1960), Gimello (1978), and Gellman (2019). I will say more
about characterizations of mysticism in the section below, “Śrīharṣa as a Mystic.”
3 Descartes gives a truncated version of the dream argument in the Discourse on
Method (Descartes 1985, 127; AT VI: 32).
4 For Heidegger the problem of the external world arises from an inadequate
understanding of being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1962, 244–56).
5 One exception is Peter Unger (1975), one of the few contemporary epistemologists to
have argued in favor of skepticism (although even he changed his mind later).
6 Some worthwhile treatments of skepticism in contemporary analytic epistemology
are Stroud (1984), Williams (1996), DeRose and Warfield (1999), Fogelin (2003), and
Greco (2008).
7 The Indian Yogācāra Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu presents something like
external-world skepticism in his Viṃśikākārikā, or so I argue in Mills (2016).
Something like the problem of other minds seems to be at stake in Dharmakīrti’s
Santānāntarasiddhi and Ratnakīrti’s Santānāntaradūṣaṇa (Wood 1991; see also
Dunne 2004 and McDermott 1969). See Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding, section 4, for the classic version of the problem of induction.
I explore an argument similar to Hume’s in the Cārvāka critique of inference as
presented in Mādhava’s Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha in Mills (forthcoming); see also
Gokhale (2015). The irreligious Cārvāka tradition could also be construed as a
form of skepticism about religious matters (e.g., Bhattacharya 2002; Gokhale 2015;
Mills 2015, forthcoming, etc.).
8 Troy Cross argues that a successful skeptical scenario also requires “explanatory
prowess,” that is, “A successful skeptical scenario not only entails that you don’t know
some things you take yourself to know, but also explains your taking yourself to know
those things even though you don’t” (Cross 2010, 36–7). Thus, some readers may feel
that the Advaita thesis of nondualism cannot be a skeptical scenario since it offers no
explanation for how we have dualistic experience despite the reality of nondualism.
I have two responses. First, as fun as it is to concoct elaborate backstories for
skeptical scenarios (especially science-fictional scenarios like The Matrix), it seems to
me that the two features I describe are doing all the epistemological work. Cross even
admits that the “success” of a skeptical scenario is subject to degrees and is audience-
relative (Cross 2010, 60–1), so what counts as highly successful for a twenty-first-
century analytic epistemologist may be less successful for a twelfth-century Advaita
philosopher and vice versa. Second, the Advaita tradition did expend a great deal of
effort over several centuries trying to answer the question of how nondual Brahman
and the phenomenal world of dualistic experience could possibly be related. The
history of these attempts is incredibly complex, but one distinctive response came
to be the notion of indeterminacy (anirvācanīyatva)—that is, the relation between
Brahman and the phenomenal, dualistic world is “indeterminate” as to its reality or
unreality, although this concept is understood in various ways by different figures
within the tradition. See Ram-Prasad (2002: 95–130), Timalsina (2009: Chapter 5),
and Rao (1998: Chapter 8) for helpful overviews of indeterminacy.
9 For overviews of classical Vedānta, including non-Advaita schools, see Taber (2011),
Gupta (2012: Chapter 13), and Frazier (2014). For more specific studies of Advaita
Vedānta, see Deutsch (1969), Potter (1981), Taber (1983), Wood (1990), Chakrabarti
(1992), Isayeva (1993), Comans (2000), Deutsch and Dalvi (2004), and Timalsina
(2009). In this volume, see especially the chapters by Dalal (Chapter 1), Chakrabarti
(Chapter 16), and Raveh (Chapter 13).
440 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

10 See Granoff (1978: 2, 2016) and Phillips (1995: 75–7).

11 Other translations of the title Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya are Sweetmeats of Refutation
(Phillips 1995) and Amassed Morsels of Refutation (Ganeri 2017).
12 I delve into these arguments in more depth in Mills (2018: Chapters 6–7). For more
on Śrīharṣa’s specific engagements with epistemological topics, see Carpenter and
Ganeri (2010), Ganeri (2012), Timalsina (2016), and Das (2018).
13 atha kathāyāṃ vādino niyamam etāḍṛśaṃ manyante “pramāṇādayaḥ
sarvatantrasiddhāntatayā siddhāḥ padārthāḥ santīti kathakābhyām abhyupeyam”
(KhKh 5). Note: All citations of the KhKh are from the Chowkhamba edition
(Śrīharṣa 1970) unless otherwise noted. Translations are my own unless otherwise
noted.
14 This argument is at KhKh 6–25. I have benefitted from consulting translations by
Granoff (1978) and Jha (Śrīharṣa 1986). See also Ram-Prasad (2002: 133–57), Matilal
(1977: 20–2), and Timalsina (2016: 315–20).
15 tad apare na kṣamante tathā hi pramāṇādīnāṃ sattvaṃ yad abhyupeyaṃ kathakena
tatkasya hetoḥ, (1) kiṃ tad anabhyupagacchadbhyāṃ vādiprativādibhyāṃ tad
abhyupagamasāhityaniyatasya vāgvyavahārasya pravartayitum aśakyatvāt, (2) uta
kathakābhyāṃ pravartanīyavāgvyavahāraṃ prati hetutvāt, (3) uta lokasiddhatvāt,
(4) atha vā tad anabhyupagamasya tattvanirṇayavijayaphalātiprasañjakatvāt. KhKh 6.
The KhKh is cited by page numbers from the 1970 Jhā edition of the Sanskrit text.
16 tadanabhyupagacchato ’pi cārvākamādhyamikāder vāgvistarāṇāṃ pratīyamānatvāt.
KhKh 7. In Mills (2018: Chapter 6), I argue that Śrīharṣa is mostly likely referring to
Nāgārjuna and Jayarāśi or philosophers much like them.
17 See Ram-Prasad (2002: 138–9), for more on sattā and how it differs from deflationary
views, especially Quinean versions.
18 For more on sattā, see Ram-Prasad (2002: 136–8, 162–4). Ram-Prasad traces sattā
and related concepts back to sources such as Kaṇāda’s Vaiśeṣikasūtra, Udayana’s
Nyāyakusumāñjalī, and Raghunātha’s Padārthatattvaniūpaṇa as well as Gautama’s
Nyāyasūtra and its commentaries by Vātsyāyana and Vācaspati.
19 svaviśiṣṭe svavṛttir aṃśataḥ svāśrayatvam āpādayati. KhKh 29.
20 svasmin svavṛttivyatirekavat svaviśiṣṭe svavṛttivyatirekaniyamadarśanāt na saiva sattā
tasminn iti. KhKh 29.
21 This rule is explained in more depth by both Ram-Prasad (2002: 172) and Granoff
(1978: 95).
22 Śrīharṣa also argues that adding another qualifier to qualify sattā creates an infinite
regress. And if there were an infinite series of separate existences, then sattā could
not be a universal (jāti) (see KhKh 30–1, Śrīharṣa 1986: 17–18, Granoff 1978: 94).
23 See, for instance, KhKh 126.
24 tadetādṛśīṣu sarvāsvapi darśanasthitiṣu. KhKh 126.
25 lakṣaṇāni cā ’nupapannāni KhKh. 130.
26 yaḥ … sākṣāt kurute samādhiṣu parabrahma pramodārṇavam. KhKh 754. See also
Phillips (1995: 75).
27 KhKh 125. See also Phillips (1995: 76).
28 Granoff identifies this as a quotation from Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.9 (Granoff 1978: 200).
In Mills (2018: 9) I discuss this passage as an example of what I call Upaniṣadic
mystical skepticism, which I will also discuss later in this chapter.
29 Granoff identifies this as a quotation from Bhagavad-Gītā 2.40 (Granoff 1978: 200).
30 seyam advaitabuddhir na tarkaśatamavatārya prājñair apaneyā, yad āha
śrutiḥ —’naiṣā tarkeṇa matirāpaneye ’ti tasmāt—dhīdhanā bādhanāyā ’syās tadā
 Mystical Experience as a Skeptical Scenario 441

prajñāṃ prayacchatha/kṣeptuṃ cintāmaṇiṃ pāṇilabdhamabdhau yadīicchatha//.

seyam advaitadṛṣṭirdṛṣṭārthāpi, yadāhuḥ—“svalpamapy asya dharmasya
trāyate mahato bhayāt.” tasmāt—’īśvarānugrahādeṣā puṃsām advaitavāsanā/
mahābhayakṛtatrāṇā dvitrānāṃ yadi jāyate//. tasmāt—’āpātato yadidam
advayavādinīnām advaitam ākalitam arthayā śrutīnām/tat svaprakāśaparamārthacid
eva bhūtvā niṣpīḍitād ahaha nirvahate vicārāt// KhKh 123–5. See also Maharaj
(2014: 98–9) and Granoff (1978: 200–1).
31 See Maharaj (2018: Chapters 5–6) for an excellent treatment of issues in
contemporary philosophy of religion with regard to mystical experience, including
perennialism, constructivism, and the argument from experience, all of which
Maharaj argues can be greatly enriched by the study of nineteenth-century Indian
mystic-philosopher Sri Ramakrishna. See also Maharaj’s chapter in this collection
(Chapter 7) for more on mysticism as an “oceanic feeling.”
32 See also Mohanty (1992: 277–82).
33 Ganeri (2017) also takes Śrīharṣa to commit himself to philosophical claims,
although following Granoff (2016), he does not necessarily see Śrīharṣa as a typical
Advaitin.
34 vitaṇḍākathāmālambya khaṇḍanānāṃ vaktavyatvāt. KhKh 127. See also Granoff
(1978: 302) and Maharaj (2014: 92).
35 For a translation and commentary on the Nyāya Sūtra, see Dasti and Phillips (2017).
36 Maharaj (2014) contains a somewhat similar negative dialectical interpretation of
Śrī Harṣa’s rational, philosophical program, although he identifies a much more
explicit place for the soteriological dimension of the Advaita viewpoint. I will discuss
Maharaj’s interpretation below.
37 Something like Ram-Prasad’s view can also be found in Timalsina (2016).
38 Granoff (2016) and Ganeri (2017) question Śrīharṣa’s Advaitic affiliation because
he does not accept some Advaitic views such as indeterminacy (anirvacanīyatva).
I think, however, that there is no reason Śrīharṣa cannot criticize other Advaitins
from within his skeptical Advaitic program.
39 For instance, see Matilal (1977, 1986), Ganeri (2012), and Maharaj (2014).
40 In Mills (2018: Chapter 1), I argue that this type of skepticism can be found in several
Upaniṣads, including the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Kaṭha, and Kena Upaniṣads.
I note, however, that I am not at all intending to claim that this somehow represents
the singular “philosophy of the Upaniṣads.” Such claims are, I think, untenable in
light of a vast body of texts representing multiple, often contradictory, views and
ideas.
41 Śrīharṣa was also responding to developments among earlier Advaitins such as
Śaṅkara and Vācaspati (Mills 2018: Chapter 6).
42 At one point, Śrīharṣa urges his opponent to have faith (śraddhā) in nondualism as a
means to having an eventual experience of nondualism (Śrīharṣa 1986: 79; Das 2018:
Section 5.2).
43 tad etat tu śrutyā pramāṇenopalakṣaṇanyāyāt tātparyataḥ prakāśyate; tena
paramārthato ’bhidhānābhidheyabhāvavirahe tātparyataḥ śrutis tasminn
avidyādaśāyāṃ parābhyupagamarītyā pramāṇam ity ucyate/vastutas tu
svātmasiddham eva cidrūpam// KhKh 55.
44 vyāvahārikīṃ pramāṇādisattāmādāya vicārārambhaḥ iti. KhKh 22.
45 nanu kathaṃ tasya śrutyā janyatvam upapadyate/satyam evaṃ syāt, yadi
tasya pāramārthikī śrutyā janyatāpi syād avidyāvyavasthitā tu tajjanyatā na
pāramārthikenājanyatvena viruddhyate … KhKh 122. See also Śrīharṣa (1986: 77).
442 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

46 If he was an external-world skeptic, he may not have been the first in classical India.
In Mills (2016), I argued that Vasubandhu’s Twenty Verses (c. 400 CE) has several
affinities with modern external-world skepticism.
47 For more on the relationship between Gaṅgeśa and Śrīharṣa, see Phillips (1995:
Chapter 4) and Matilal (1986: 135–40).
48 For an excellent overview of these and other topics in the KhKh, see Das (2018).
49 granthagranthir iha kvacitkvacid api nyāsi prayatnān mayā, prājñamanyamanā
haṭhena paṭhito māsmin khalaḥ khelatu śraddhā ’rāddhaguruḥ ślathīkṛtadṛḍhagranthiḥ
samāsādaya, tve tatta[r]karasor mimajjanasukheṣṭhāsañjanaṃ sajjanaḥ. KhKh 754.
Note that I have translated this passage somewhat loosely as it is especially difficult
to capture in English all the nuances of Śrīharṣa’s rather poetic Sanskrit here, such as
the punning wordplay between book (grantha) and knot (granthi). Readers may be
interested in this translation from Jha as well: “In this work of mine I have purposively
introduced certain hard knots; my purpose in so doing being that the wicked and
ignorant, thinking themselves to be clever, may not, through sheer audacity, read the
book and dabble in its reasonings;—and that, on the other hand, the gentle reader,
who has with due devotion, attended upon his Preceptor, and has (through his
help) got the knots made easy for himself, may obtain the experience of joy arising
from swimming among the waves of the essence of Reasoning and Argumentation.”
(KhKh 754; trans. Śrīharṣa 1986: 705).

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Taber, John (1983), Transformative Philosophy: A Study of Śaṅkara, Fichte, and Heidegger,
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Taber, John (2011), “Vedānta,” in William Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield, eds., The Oxford
Handbook of World Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 147–58.
Timalsina, Sthaneshwar (2009), Consciousness in Indian Philosophy: The Advaita Doctrine
of “Awareness Only,” New York: Routledge.
Timalsina, Sthaneshwar (2016), “Śrīharṣa on Knowledge and Justification,” Journal of
Indian Philosophy 45, 313–29.
Unger, Peter (1975), Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism, New York: Oxford University Press.
Williams, Michael (1996), Unnatural Doubts: Epistemological Realism and the Basis of
Scepticism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Wood, Thomas E. (1990), The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad and the Āgama Śāstra: An Investigation
into the Meaning of the Vedānta, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Wood, Thomas E. (1991), Mind Only: A Philosophical and Doctrinal Analysis of the
Vijñānavāda, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
 16

Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom:

A Contemporary Cross-Cultural
Remapping of Vedānta
Arindam Chakrabarti

Over there, there are no chariots, no steeds yoked to them, no roads—but the
dreamer creates those chariots etc . … people see the repose and relaxation of this
[dreamer], but no one sees him. They say you should not wake him up suddenly.
— Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.3.10, 14

“He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee, “and what do you think he’s dreaming about?”
Alice said, “Nobody can guess that.”
“Why, about you!” Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. “And if
he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?”
“Where I am now, of course,” said Alice.
“Not you!” Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. “You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only
a sort of thing in his dream!”
“If that there King was to wake,” added Tweedledum, “you’d go out—bang!—just like
a candle!”
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass ([1871] 1917: 67–8)

16.1 Vivekananda on Alice in Wonderland:

“Life Is But a Dream” in What Sense?

On August 28, 1900, the great Advaita Vedāntin monk Swami Vivekananda (1863–
1902) wrote to his disciple Sister Nivedita from Paris:

The world, as it is, is not real, is not eternal, thank the Lord!! How can the future be
any better? That must be an effect of this one—at least like this, if not worse! Dreams,
oh dreams! Dream on! Dream, the magic of dream, is the cause of this life, it is also
the remedy. Dream, dream, only dream! Kill dream by dream! (CW6: 435–6)

Vivekananda read and admired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
almost as soon as it came out. He liked the book because, somewhat like the “Story
446 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

of Three Non-Existent Princes” in Yogavāsiṣṭha (III: 101), it revels in exposing the

incoherent, logic-defying nature of the world we live in, using the ruse of a children’s
tale. In an 1896 lecture, Vivekananda observed:

There is no such thing as law or connection in this world, but we are thinking
that there is a great deal of connection. All of you have probably read Alice in
Wonderland. It is the most wonderful book for children that has been written in
this century. When I read it, I was delighted; it was always in my mind to write that
sort of a book for children. What pleased me most in it was what you think most
incongruous, that there is no connection there. One idea comes and jumps into
another, without any connection. When you were children, you thought that the
most wonderful connection. So this man brought back his thoughts of childhood,
which were perfectly connected to him as a child, and composed this book for
children … The world is the same unconnected thing—Alice in Wonderland—with
no connection whatever. (CW 3: 23)

In the Vedāntic tradition, the connection between the content of dreams and the
concept of māyā is established definitively in Brahmasūtra 3.2.3: “[What is experienced
in the twilight between deep sleep and waking] is mere Māyā because its own [non-
real] nature is not manifested in its entirety” (māyāmātraṃ tu kārtsnyānabhivyak-
tasvarūpatvāt) (Shastri 1980). But why should Vivekananda compare our normal
waking-life experiences—the world seen in broad daylight—to such incoherent, and
therefore illusory, dream experiences that are halfway between deep sleep and waking,
a nearly nonsensical fusion, as it were, of truth and falsehood? Of course, in one sense,
this world of our common waking-life experiences could turn out to be all a dream
inasmuch as the possibility that right now we are dreaming cannot be eliminated. We
will explore this sense of the world-dream equation in Section 16.2.
The overall plan of this chapter is the following. Exploring and repudiating, first,
the skeptical possibility that all our so-called veridical experience of the external world
is each individual’s dream, we proceed to the suggestion that our objective world is
God’s dream, not ours (as argued especially in the Yogavāsiṣṭha). Distinguishing, then,
Śaṅkara’s Advaita idealism from the pan-illusionism of Yogācāra Buddhism, we show
how the former but not the latter is compatible with commonsense realism about
the external world. In the next two sections, we try to make sense of Vivekananda’s
and K.C. Bhattacaryya’s interestingly distinct concepts of māyā, without slipping into
the stereotypical interpretation that to call the world māyā is to deny its objective
reality. Finally, we turn to the Upaniṣadic image of a difference-effacing love which
makes the Cartesian individual self dissolve into the only ultimate reality: the world
shimmering with love and consciousness. Tracing it back to Sri Ramakrishna’s
carefully developed concept of “prema” (“Love”), we claim that Vivekananda’s own
version of nondualistic Vedānta regards this “Love” to be the ultimate path, reality,
and value. The take-home lesson of all this should be a denial of worldly plurality
climbing up to a denial of that denial. The world, with all its ordinary objects and
differences, thus is affirmed as worship-worthy as identical with God, albeit lightly,
not table-poundingly.
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 447

But first comes the exposure of the dream-like illusoriness of our own indvidual
egos. As we will see in Section 16.5, Vivekananda’s three lectures on māyā collected
in Jñāna-Yoga (1896) (CW2: 88–129)1 drive home, with an avalanche of examples,
his answer to this momentous question: “In what sense is the world magically
illusory—merely māyā?” This must be the sense in which our own individuality—even
Descartes’s celebrated foundational certitude, the thinking “I”—is a mere experienced
impossibility. Our dreams—especially the vivid ones we get totally taken in by—when
broken and reflected upon, turn us into philosophers. How could what looked so
clearly real and undeniably objective be simply nothing at all? How could I then have
seen and felt it so vividly?, we wonder.
The early twentieth-century Bengali philosopher K.C. Bhattacharyya (1875–1949)
revolutionized modern Vedānta through an intricate phenomenological excavation of
this feeling of wonder at waking up from a dream or correction of perceptual error, as
we shall see in Section 16.6. Here is a foretaste of his acute meditations on this subject:
“One’s apprehension of something as illusory involves a peculiar feeling of the scales
falling from the eyes. To be aware of our individuality as illusory would be then to
wonder how we could feel as an individual at all” (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 113). At
least the self who got duped by the dream and then woke up from it and exposed the
illusoriness of it all must be real and identical before and after the dream? Mustn’t we,
thus, try to hang on to some Cartesian bedrock of certitude? Yet, the dreamer-I and
the dreamt-of-Me cannot quite be the same individual, though they cannot be utterly
distinct either! And if the “thinker/doubter/dreamer” inside the dream turned out to
be nobody,2 why could the indubitable thinker/reasoner I of the not-yet-dismantled
“waking life” not turn out to be an illusory individual too, like a fictional hero of an
absurd film?
K.C. Bhattacharyya’s Studies in Vedāntism (1909) begins with the chapter “An
Approach through Psychology,” which is, for the most part, an original analysis of
dream experience. In that chapter, he observes that dreams, like all our experiences,
must be felt in and caused by the body, but they also, often enough, liberate us from the
tyranny of the body. We see a world in dreams that, we are told, is of our own making,
yet we feel as much like passive receivers of given content as we feel in waking life. So
we begin to wonder, perhaps this whole nightmare of a “real objective life” of ours is as
much of our own making, our own imagining, as our dreams are.
“Veda,” it is well known, means knowledge. The Upaniṣads, also called
“Vedānta”—“the edge (anta) of the Veda”—take dreams very seriously. Unlike the
realist-pluralist school of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, which treats dreams, along with illusions
and hallucinations, merely as varieties of non-knowledge (apramā, avidyā),3 the
Upaniṣads consider dream experiences to be worthy of deep phenomenological
contemplation. In dream, the individual self is not only “inwardly knowing” (antaḥ-
prajña)4 but also self-luminous (svayaṃ-jyotiḥ).5 Not only is the putatively objective
waking world likened to a long-drawn, collectively shared dream (according to
Yogavāsiṣṭha, the dream of Brahmā or Hiraṇyagarbha),6 but the very conviction
of solidity and objectivity that accompanies our “veridical” waking perceptions is
questioned by the dream-analogy, insofar as objects appear just as solid and “out
there” even in dreams.
448 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

A very important contemporary logico-epistemological question is thus anticipated

by the passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad that comprises the first epigraph to this
chapter: From the fact that I am (or could right now be) dreaming that I am thinking
(even thinking this very thought of this being possibly a dream), does it follow that I
must be really thinking or does it follow that it is (or may turn out to be) false that I
think? In what sense are the contents of our dreams “false” whereas the contents of
veridical waking experiences “true”? If dream-rivers are not really rivers, dream-fights
are not real fights, is dream-wondering or dream-thinking real thinking?
Even Descartes—who fathered modern philosophy admittedly by first clearing
out all his unexamined beliefs, and then emulating the methods of science, to build
back a system of indubitable propositions—got his cue for the skeptical demolition
job preceding his foundationalist makeover of metaphysics and epistemology from
three consecutive dreams he had during a single night’s sleep on November 10, 1619
(Gabbey 2015).
Spinoza then thickened the plot in the following difficult passage from his Ethics
(1677):

When we dream that we are speaking, we think that we do so from free mental
decision; yet we are not speaking, or if we are, it is the result of spontaneous
movement of the body. Again, we dream that we are keeping something secret,
and that we are doing so by the same mental decision that comes into play in
our waking hours when we keep silent about what we know. Finally, we dream
that from a mental decision we act as we dare not act when awake. So I would
very much like to know whether in the mind there are two sorts of decisions,
dreamland decisions and free decisions. If we don’t want to carry madness so far,
we must necessarily grant that the mental decision that is believed to be free is
not distinct from imagination and memory … So these mental decisions arise in
the mind from the same necessity as the ideas of things existing in actuality, and
those who believe that they speak, or keep silent, or do anything from free mental
decision are dreaming with their eyes open. (Spinoza 1992: 107, 3p2s)

Spinoza raises here the following puzzling question. If we are not really exercising free
will when we dream that we are exercising free will, then are we ever exercising free
will even when we are awake?
Ethically, we feel obligated to try to make the world happier and more just and
to alleviate the poverty and suffering of our fellow beings. But we are stuck with
the conundrum that any reality that we can change at will is not objective, it being
constitutive of the “hardness” of hard facts that we are just thrown into them and
we cannot change them. Yet the painfulness of the human condition consists in
our free will and desire to change it into a pain-free one. For unless we wished to
be free from pain, felt pain would not bother us or goad us into action. It is only in
our imagination, then, that we can be free and exercise agency. The Yogavāsiṣṭha, as
I and other scholars have discussed elsewhere (Chakrabarti and Key Chapple 2015),
exploits this controllability feature of the worlds of imagination and suggests that the
world should be ethically and constructively engaged precisely because it is a product of
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 449

our free imagination. One should not turn away from, or sit inactively in the midst of,
the world of suffering, especially of others, because it is a world we have collectively
dreamt up and we have the freedom to make moral changes to that imaginary world
by means of our—equally dreamt up—acts of selfless love. Since our ego-making is an
exercise in illusion-mongering anyway, we should rig up altruistic non-divisive egos,
we should use our wittingly constructed individual selves to expose the falsity of our
individualities, until our good dreams destroy our bad dreams and our love makes a
sacrificial offering of our ego. Perhaps this is what Vivekananda was getting at when he
wrote, “Kill dream by dream.”

16.2 The Ineliminable Possibility that the Present/Presented

World is All a Dream

In Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates asks Theaetetus, “What evidence could be appealed

to, supposing we were asked at this very moment whether we are asleep or awake,
dreaming or talking to one another in the waking state?” “Indeed, Socrates,”
answered Theaetetus, “I do not see by what evidence it is to be proved; for the two
conditions correspond in every circumstance like exact counterparts” (Cooper and
Hutchinson 1997: 158c–e). Neither Advaita Vedānta nor Theaetetus claims that
our waking state is, generally speaking, indistinguishable from our dream state, for
without that distinction, the concept of a “dream state” would not be intelligible. But
Theaetetus’s point in calling them “exact counterparts” was, I think, the following.
Even if one found a set of decisive criteria W—consisting of, say, coherence, continuity,
clearness, and uncontradicted contents—by which one could distinguish waking life
from dreaming, one could never be sure, on any particular occasion of applying those
criteria W, whether or not one was just dreaming that the current experience satisfies
W. Inside dreams too, we do think and doubt and reason and deduce. Yet it is not clear
whether dreaming that one is thinking amounts to actual thinking.
Since Socrates’s time, many hands have been raised and displayed by G.E. Moore
and his ilk as proofs of the external world, and many arguments refuting idealism
have been offered by the Udayanācāryas and Vyāsatīrthas of the Indian tradition. But
the dream-possibility continues to haunt philosophers. When the fragility, absurdity,
unfairness, disjointedness, absurdity, and agonies of this world become unbearable
to a reflective person, one cannot but hope to wake up one day from this nightmare
of so-called waking life. Texts such as the pre-Śaṅkara Advaita Vedāntin Gauḍapāda’s
Māṇḍūkyakārikā (c. sixth century CE), the Yogācāra Buddhist Vasubandhu’s (fl. fifth–
sixth c. CE) Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi, and the Yogavāsiṣṭha7 take this ineliminable skeptical
possibility to its mystical idealistic culmination. The Yogavāsiṣṭha, a philosophical
poem of over 29,000 verses which combines ideas from Advaita Vedānta and Yoga,
shows that the conventional distinction between dreamt content and wakefully
perceived content is drawn in terms of inner versus outer, being enclosed or limited
(saṃvṛta) within the sleepy mind of a single person versus being open to the public,
being unstable versus being stable, being cancelled versus remaining uncancelled, and
450 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

so on (Chakrabarti 2015). Generalizing from these hallmarks of a dream or a sustained

illusion, Gauḍapāda (1958: 231) had formulated his favorite dictum: “That which was
not there in the beginning, will not be there at the end, must be nonexistent even at
present [when it appears to be existent]” (ādau ante ca yat nāsti, vartamāne api tat
tathā) (Māṇḍūkya-Kārikā 2.6).
The Yogavāsiṣṭha produces story after story to shake our externalist realist
conviction that the common world in which we think we are all awake, alive, and
kicking is stable, uncancelled, continuous, unenclosed, and safely reidentifiable across
times (Chakrabarti 2015). That is said, by the external realist, to be waking life which is
connected by stable, temporally continuous pieces of cognition. The kind of experience
that comes and goes, and that is fickle and discontinuous, is called a dream. But applying
the same criterion, we can, albeit through contemplative deepening of metaphysical
argumentation, deem the so-called waking life to be as much a dream as dream life. It
is also fragile, limited, and discontinuous. It is worth quoting here Śaṅkara’s crisp gloss
on why dreams are called “māyā” in his commentary on Brahmasūtra 3.2.3:

The objective order of things as they really are (paramārtha-vastu-viṣayāni) with

respect to space, time, causes, and mutual non-cancellation cannot be mapped
systematically on to a dream. It is not possible to find space large enough for
chariots etc. inside our bodies where they are “experienced” in a dream … It is
not possible for the sleeping animal to travel to and back from places hundreds of
miles away within a second … Even time-mismatch happens in dreams such that
one goes to sleep in India but finds oneself within minutes in a foreign country and
spends many, many years there waking up within a couple of hours. (Shastri 1980;
translation mine)

This idea of experienced impossibility, presented unreality, and undeniably given

illogicality becomes central to the technical concept of māyā, as we shall find out in
subsequent sections. Now, as the Yogavāsiṣṭha (IV: 20.9–10) points out, if one notices
how ephemeral and momentary the objects of wakeful “veridical” perceptions are, and
if one can have the same or continuous dream even on consecutive nights, then waking
life would become dream, and dream life, because of its continuity, would seem to be
waking.
Thus, the impermanence/incoherence thesis about the external world boils down to
the dream thesis about it. There are further arguments which show dream and waking
to be counterparts of one another—almost like mirror images, except that there is no
telling which one is the original and which one is the mirror image. Elsewhere, the
Yogavāsiṣṭha (VIb: 105.18) puts this succinctly, not with the usual Buddhist double-
moon example but with a double-sun example:

Like two isomorphic suns, or like two exactly identical persons, waking and dream
are copies of one another; there is not an iota of distinction between them.8

This claim is defended against Rāma’s realist qualms regarding sublation (the overriding
cancellation of a previous state by a subsequent, more real state): Doesn’t waking up
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 451

break or annul a dream, whereas nothing seems to annul waking life? Why should not
this be the crucial dissimilarity between them? Vasiṣṭha says, in effect, “No, just as the
span of the dream is enclosed by two periods of wakefulness, the span of each segment
of waking life is flanked by two periods of sleep. If the dream person dies as he wakes
up, the waking person also dies as he falls asleep.” Dead here in a dream, he is said to be
alive and woken up elsewhere, then dying there, he is back and born again in another
dream—living thus from one dream to another. Both the periods—the sleep life and
the waking life—have their own narrative histories, equally convincing internal stories
to tell, and thus they become analogues of one another. The Yogavāsiṣṭha puts this
point as follows:

Both wakefulness and dream are made of histories, and they have become
reference-points for comparison for each other. (VIb: 105.31)9

What is happening in the Yogavāsiṣṭha is more than mere analytical argumentation

or the throwing up of a skeptical challenge. A series of phenomenological analogies
or points of resemblance between dream and waking are being deepened through the
literary and meditative devices of imaginary narratives. The stories are very similar
to bizarre science-fiction thought experiments in contemporary Western philosophy.
They craftily interweave multiple dreams and deaths within dreams and multiple
waking-up experiences within a dream, until the possibility that one is passing from
one dream to another when one seems to be waking up and the possibility that while
falling asleep one is just waking up into another equally real—or, what is the same
thing, equally ephemeral—world comes alive. Such vividly imagined dialectical
skeptical possibilities clear the way for an objectless, nonintentional, pure, and empty
consciousness to shine forth without this flimsy ontological hierarchy of objective and
subjective worlds.
This imaginative deepening of a logical possibility is a spiritual meditative exercise.
Philosophical argumentation, vivified by identity-rupturing, even logic-defying,
fictional narratives, congeals into meditation. In the Yogavāsiṣṭha, spiritual experience
is expected to dawn through simultaneously fictional, poetic, and analytically
argumentative discourse. The underlying reasoning behind this spiritual exercise
has been formulated very succinctly in several classical Indian philosophical texts as
follows:

Waking experiences are without external basis/object

Because they are experiences
Just as dream experiences are.10

To spell it out in the form of a set of initially plausible premises leading to an idealistic
conclusion:

1. Dreams are devoid of real external objects.

2. The so-called veridical experiences of external objects during our waking life are
phenomenologically indistinguishable from dreams. (From within the experience,
452 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

the feeling of what it is like to experience the world in a dream is exactly the same
as what it is like to experience the world while awake, at least for some vivid and
cogent dreams.)
3. If two experiences are indistinguishable in their felt quality and their
phenomenological internal content, then, if one of them is known surely to be
false or devoid of external objects, the other must be so too.
Therefore,
4. The so-called veridical experiences of waking life are also as false or as devoid of
external objects as dreams.

The refuter of idealism—a Mīṃāmsāka, a Naiyāyika, or a Western realist such as

Thomas Reid, or Moore, or Bertrand Russell—has admirably attacked the argument
by either questioning one or more of its premises or questioning the pan-illusionist
philosopher’s right to draw inferences at all, i.e., pointing out a self-refutation in the
idealists’ claim to have proved anything at all during what he is telling us is his own
dream. Accordingly, the refuter of idealism has all the following four avenues of attack:

1. Premise 1 is false. Dreams do have external objects. As Kant puts it, no inner
experience is possible without outer experience, and especially without a correct
location of the perceiver’s body in the objective spatiotemporal framework.11 If one
explains illusory experiences in general and dream experiences in particular in
terms of the Nyāya anyathākhyāti (otherwise-presentation) theory of error, then
every individual bit of dream experience borrows its object from the external world
given to waking life. After all, it is memories of waking life and its so-called veridical
experiences which get recombined and presented “otherwise,” in the wrong order,
in dream. Insofar as dreams have physiological causes such as indigestion or the
stimulation of the sensory centers in the brain during REM sleep, those physical
causes of a dream could be called its objective supports (ālambanas) anyway.
When, after a rich and spicy dinner accompanied by heavy drinking at a
restaurant, a philosopher dreams that night that he is having a conversation with
an attractive woman never seen before, what he could politely tell his dream-
lady is, “Madam, it was nice meeting you, but I know you are nothing but that
undigested piece of mutton I ate last night.” (This idea, of course, is borrowed from
Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol [Dickens 2006: 21]). External objects, both
as mere causes and as recognizable appearing objects with names and descriptions
that we have learnt in waking life for them, support dream experiences, since the
only objects available to us are external after all.
But the first premise may be questioned on different grounds as well. Why
must we equate “external” with “real”? Adopting a very strong realist line, the
Dvaita Vedāntin Madhvācārya challenged the equation of reality and externality.
Why can’t the inner be as objectively real as the outer? The dream objects are not
unreal. It is only our judgment that they are external objects which would be false,
because there are real but “internal” objects (a single subject’s mental objects).
As he puts it in verse 345 of Viṣnutattvavinirṇaya, “Even in dreams, a truly real
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 453

world subsisting in the mind in the form of wishful-impressions is seen as if it is

externally existing” (Madhva 1991: 269).12 The point seems to be this. As far as the
reality of the objects is concerned, dream objects are just as real as waking objects;
it is only a mistake to take them to be public external objects. In one sense,
therefore, there is nothing inherently “false” about a dream.
2. Premise 2 is false. Dreams and waking experiences are not indistinguishable.
Let us, for the moment, go outside Indian analytical philosophy and make
a brief detour via twentieth-century Western analytic philosophy. There is a
modern Western way of questioning premise 2, which is interesting and has no
parallel at all in Indian philosophy. This is the line taken by Norman Malcolm.
Malcolm (1962) holds that there are no dream-cognitions, properly so-called.
If we are dreaming, then we are asleep. If we are asleep, then we cannot be
thinking or judging. There cannot be any cognition, correct or erroneous,
without thinking or judging. Therefore, there are no experiences or judgments
in a dream even to be contrasted, let alone compared with waking experiences,
waking judgments. All we have is a language-game of talking about one’s
dreams after one has woken up, but that can be explained without assuming
that some experiences were going on in the mind of the dreamer during the
dream. Dream-talk is just that: talking as if one experienced, but not necessarily
supported by any publicly verifiable experience that one had while asleep. I
shall not spend time on this provocative view on which there is a substantial
amount of critical literature.13
3. Alternatively, a realist pluralist can insist that premise 3 is false or counter-
probative. From inside the content of the experience, the visual experience of
looking at a lifelike statue, like a Madame Tussaud wax image, or an illusionistic
painting of the sky, may be exactly similar to the visual experience of looking
at a man or through the window at the sky outside. But ex hypothesi, the two
experiences do not have the same kind of objective support. Śaṅkara, as we will
see in Section 16.4, clinches the issue in his refutation of the subjective idealism of
the Buddhist Yogācāra school in his commentary on Brahmasūtra 2.2.29: in spite,
or indeed because, of the felt similarity with the awareness of things outside us, we
say about dreams: yad antarjñeya rūpaṃ tat bahirvat avabhāsate (“That which is
merely inside appears as if it is outside”). Now, if any “outside” does not exist at all,
if the very notion of things outside the mind is as incoherent as the son of a barren
woman, then how can we even say “bahirvat”—outside-like—because nothing
can even appear to be like the son of a barren woman? Finally, the tables could
be turned against the idealist precisely on the basis of this premise: if the two
experiences are exactly similar and waking experiences are known to have real
external objects, then by the same logic, dream experiences also should have real
external objects. This could also, technically, take the form of a counterargument
proving the opposite conclusion: dream experiences have external objects because
they are experiences, just as waking experiences do!
4. The entire argument and, for that matter, any argument, is unavailable to the
idealist who believes that she is, and we are, constantly dreaming. One can get
intellectual inspiration from dreams, but if a logical argument is given only
454 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

during a dream, then one has merely dreamt that the conclusion follows from the
premises but has not proved that they actually do. The whole dream argument is
operationally self-refuting because if it is valid and sound, then it is as valueless
as sleep-talk. Of course, there can be some controversy whether a deductive
inference drawn entirely within a dream can be claimed to be valid, but, for sure,
the material (outside-the-dream) truth of a conclusion cannot be claimed from an
allegedly sound inference entirely drawn within a dream!

Given such powerful arguments on both sides, the question “Is this current experience
a dream?” seems to remain open. Without taking a stand on either side, I consider,
in the next section, the subtle distinction drawn by a contemporary philosopher
between an “immanent” dream-possibility and a “transcendent” dream-possibility.
Provisionally, our stand is that we can confute the possibility that the common external
world is all “my” individual dream, but we cannot rule out the possibility that the
cosmos is God’s dream.

16.3 On the Possibility that Our Practical Transactional Reality

is God’s Dream: Valberg’s “Transcendent Dream-Skepticism”

When we are dreaming, we usually do not know that we are dreaming, although lucid
dreams come in different kinds and grades of self-disbelief. But when I am awake, for
example right now, I know that I am awake. Yet, all THIS, my body, my open eyes,
the books I see on the table over there, the chairs and people in the room, the past
that I remember, could indeed be a long, as yet unbroken dream. But it cannot be my
dream, because then I would have to be at the same time awake and asleep, which is
not possible. The same “I” cannot be both awake inside and asleep outside the dream.
There would have to be someone—a dreamer who is asleep, while I am awake inside his
dream. This “someone” would be outside all THIS in a different transcendent plane of
existence. Thus, as J.J. Valberg (2007) concludes, after drawing the distinction between
Immanent versus Transcendent Dream Skepticism, a Moore-type proof of the external
world repudiates the Immanent Dream Possibility about the current set of my beliefs but
cannot and need not eliminate the Transcendent Dream Possibility. If THIS is a dream
wherein I have raised one hand and then another hand, then it has to be true, inside
this dream, that there are hands which are material body parts, and I need to be awake
to raise them. That I am awake, but that THIS might be a dream, can be consistently
true, but that I am awake and that I am dreaming all this cannot be consistently true.
Accordingly, Valberg argues:

I examine my hand. If THIS were a dream, would the object I am examining, this
object, be any less of a hand? Would it be of the order of an image, an internal object
of some kind? No, it would be just what it is. It would be just as real, that is, just as
independent of its presence in my experience, as it is in reality. Whatever else you
think of Moore’s proof, he might have saved himself this worry about dreaming. If
the proof works in reality, it would work in a dream. (Valberg 2007: 113)
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 455

Indeed, very ancient realist-nondualists (and perhaps Spinoza under a certain

interpretation) embraced both direct realism about physical objects of perception,
and a transcendent God’s Dream Hypothesis at the same time. God—the only reality
that is a collective universal consciousness—imagines or dreams or experiences that a
world full of living conscious individuals like and unlike us are living and dying in a
spatiotemporal world where, directly but fallibly, people perceive external (not outside
God/Puruṣa/Brahman, but outside the minds, brains, and bodies of individuals)
objects just as they really (me-independently) exist.
We could be realists, indeed naive direct realists about external objects of perception,
objects such as hundreds of suffering starving people in the face of great technological
development and material opulence—as I believe Śaṅkara and Swami Vivekananda
were—and yet contemplatively deepen, with dispassion, the possibility that all THIS
is a dream, not a dream of one of us embodied individuals, but a cosmic dream inside
which there really exists an objective external world!
The Yogavāsiṣṭha repeatedly affirms the view that this world is the dream of a
cosmic being. In the Utpatti-Prakaraṇa, for instance, Vasiṣṭha says:

O Rāma, I shall narrate to you how this creation appears to have emerged from the
one pure undivided cosmic being, even as dreams appear in the consciousness of
the sleeping person. (III.12.2)14

Similarly, Vivekananda explicitly states that this world is a cosmic, rather than an
individual, dream in the sixth stanza of his poem “The Song of the Sannyāsin” (1895):

There is but One—The Free—The Knower—Self!

Without a name, without a form or stain.
In Him is Māyā dreaming all this dream.
The witness, He appears as nature, soul.
Know thou art That, Sannyāsin bold! Say—
“Om Tat Sat, Om!”
(CW4: 394)

To appreciate the full force of my unobvious compatibilism between Advaita idealism

and Nyāya realism on this matter, we must appreciate the distinction between two
contrasts: real versus fake/artificial, and real versus unreal. (Is illusory, māyā, in between
fake and unreal?) When I ask, “Are those flowers real?” pointing at what turns out to be
silk or plastic flowers, I am not asking whether they are physical objects or whether I am
hallucinating or making a perceptual error, or whether I am the only one seeing these
flowers. The Transcendent Skeptical possibility that all THIS could be a dream cannot
deploy either of these contrasts. It is the distinction between individual and collective
dreaming. Hallucinated or dreamt content made up by an embodied limited ego is
illusory in a sense in which the common world is not illusory. The latter is objectively and
empirically real. It is transcendentally a dream of God. God is the king in whose dream
Tweedledum and Tweedledee (or one could quip in a contemporary way: Trump and
Putin) and all my “I-Me-Mine,” and you yours and others, are figments of His imagination.
456 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

16.4 Advaita Vedānta as Endorsing Direct Realism:

Śaṅkara’s Attack on the Yogācāra School of Buddhism

Although Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara ultimately smudge the distinction between dreaming
and waking, Śaṅkara is not an internalist about the content of perception. Śaṅkara
demolishes the Yogācāra idealist with a Nyāya-like gusto. The relevant aphorism,
Brahmasūtra 2.2.28, states, “There is no absence [of external objects], because they
are clearly apprehended” (nābhāva upalabdheḥ). Following the classical Indian
philosophical style, Śaṃkara starts with a mock-defense of the subjective idealism to
be demolished. He seems to be quite aware that his own absolute idealistic monism,
popularly expressed through calling the whole world mere māyā (magical illusion), is
very likely to be confused with the panpsychism upheld by the mind-only Buddhists.
The intricate polemic starts with a head-on attack on the Dignāga-Dharmakīrti thesis
that a cognitive state requires no object outside itself, that every momentary wave of
consciousness erroneously divides itself into a subject and object when actually the
consciousness-moment is necessarily self-sensing. Against this thesis, Śaṃkara argues
as follows.15

1. A pillar, a wall, a pot, a piece of cloth—this or that external object is lit up by every
piece of awareness. To deny them would be as dishonest as disowning that one
has eaten any food after enjoying a meal. The thrust of the submission is basically
like Moore raising his hands to prove that there are physical objects. But Śaṅkara
refines the reply. The same awareness which testifies to itself and its object, also
testifies to the distinction between the two. No one ever felt the sensation of
blue to be a blue sensation. The separating “of ” cannot be wished away if one is
phenomenologically faithful.
2. The idealist says that seeing what is really inner “as if ” it is outer is a habitual
mistake. But, if we have never actually encountered the physical and the external,
how could we ever mistake things as such? If, as the first (notorious six-atoms)
argument of Vasubandhu tried to demonstrate, being an extended physical object
is as incoherent as being a square-circle, how can anything appear like a physical
object? This argument of Śaṅkara anticipates Gilbert Ryle’s famous point about
counterfeit coins: some of our ascriptions of externality could not be fake unless
some others (indeed, most) were genuine (Ryle 1953: 94–5). I think the idea is
simply that falsity asymmetrically depends on truth.
3. In disposing of Dharmakīrti’s argument from constant co-cognition (niyata
sahopalambha) to identity, Śaṅkara anticipates Moore’s central point against the
idealist. Although awareness and object are inextricably presented together, they
can be conceptually segregated. When we compare our experience of a cup with
our experience of a spoon, we can isolate experience as the constant factor while
the objects—a cup as against a spoon—vary. Conversely, when we compare our
perception of a cup with the remembering or imagining of a cup, the object-cup
remains invariant while the cognitive states differ in quality. Thus object and
awareness can be isolated from one another by imaginative comparison (a kind of
fantasy-variation?).
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 457

4. Finally, the comparison with dreams, etc., is challenged by Śaṅkara on the basis
of some essential qualitative disparity between veridical waking experience and
dream or illusory experience. Subsequent cancellation and inner incoherence
characterize dreams as detectably false, whereas the coherence and uncancelled
nature of waking experiences testify to their truth. When we are ushered into a
dream, there is no such jerk or clear subversion of the previous waking life as we
feel at our exit from dreams.

We must note here that Śaṅkara’s realistic zeal strikes us as oddly hypocritical because
elsewhere he himself would claim that the self-realized mystic’s experience makes all
external plurality melt away like a broken dream. A dream, a mirage, a magician’s trick,
a universal hallucination are Śaṅkara’s own analogies for the external world!16
We can better locate the real contrast between the Buddhist empirical idealism and
Śaṅkara’s transcendental idealism at the following crucial points:

1. Śaṅkara’s is a three-level theory of unreality: (a) the unreality attaching to

absolutely unappearable nonentities like a round square cupola, (b) the unreality
that belongs to the content of individually subjective illusions, hallucinations,
and dreams, (c) the unreality that belongs to the empirical world, which is
more real than the contents of a dream but less real than pure undifferentiated
Consciousness. If we call these types of unreality the absurd, the illusory, and the
phenomenal, respectively, Śaṅkara can be consistently interpreted as blaming
the Buddhist for confusing the phenomenal with the illusory. Kant, too, blamed
Berkeley, rightly or wrongly, for reducing bodies to mere illusions, while he
himself reduced them to phenomena.17
2. Śaṅkara’s own idealism can fall back upon the changeless transcendental Self,
which is the witness of all else while remaining unknown in itself, whereas the
Buddhists have no consistent theory of reidentification of physical objects or of
correct memory or of even apparent permanence of the knower, because they
insist on the momentariness of the discrete unowned bits of sensation.
3. The Consciousness which constitutes ultimate reality for Śaṅkara has no bias
toward the mental or inner. Apparently, the Buddhist idealist also overthrows
both the inner spiritual ego and the outer material substance at one stroke. In
fact, not only do the idealist Buddhists degrade bodies to mere illusion but they
also explain away the ego as the existential error of rigging up an “owner/subject/
substance” out of a flow of momentary psychophysical states. Yet, the remaining
flow of self-grasping intentional states in Yogācāra Buddhism is still mental in
nature. The view from inside is supposed to be truer than that from outside. As
against this, a transcendental idealist like Śaṅkara regards or disregards both inner
and outer objects as equally objective, and equally non-real. According to Śaṅkara,
we cannot assign any ontic status to our intentional cognitive states that we are not
ready to assign also to their bona fide external objects, because our psychological
states are equally rent with distinctions and plurality, equally limited by temporal
and even spatial limitations. The real noumenal Consciousness which witnesses
all physical and mental phenomena is never made an accusative of any awareness,
458 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

not even of itself, and is never objectifiable by introspection.

4. Thus, the finest distinction is between the two idealisms’ notions of self-
consciousness. The Buddhist idealist uses the self-luminous character of
consciousness as a ground for concluding that awareness needs no external object.
Śaṅkara rejects the lamp analogy and apparently argues against himself that the
perceptive awareness is not self-revealing. Fire does not burn itself; it requires fuel
to burn. The lamp does not illuminate itself—it needs our eyes (ultimately, our
consciousness) to reveal the lamp.18

But without embracing some picture of self-revelation, how can Śaṅkara stop the
feared infinite regress? Śaṅkara indeed characterizes the Witness-Consciousness to
be self-intimating—not in the sense that it is its own object, but in the sense that it
is pure subjectivity immediately presenting itself (and available to linguistic and
nonlinguistic practice) without being objectified or referred to. As the later Advaita
Vedāntin Citsukha puts it, “To be self-luminous is to remain a non-knowable non-
object—while being directly available for practice as immediately felt” (avedyatve sati
aparokṣavyavahāraviṣayatvam) (cited in Trivedi 1987: 122 note 7).19
A mentalistic Yogācāra Buddhist-style subjective idealism accepts one half
of the immediately experienced world, viz. the grasping aspect, the intentional
consciousness-episode, while rejecting the other half, viz. the grasped material objects.
A deeper metaphysical idealism starts by accepting both the nodes of this subject-
object spectrum but ultimately rejects both. Nothing but the never-negated Pure
Consciousness is really real. We must resist the temptation to call it the “Universal
Public Mind” for it transcends the public/private or matter/mind distinction. It is no
mind at all. It is pure Being, a bias-less Witness indistinguishable from what it is like
to Be.

16.5 Vivekananda on Māyā: The Seven-Point Illogicality

of the World of Objects

Where does the concept of māyā come in, amidst all these intricate implications
of refuting one kind of idealism in order to support another kind of idealism? To
understand this, we must first unpack the traditional Advaitic conception of māyā as
neither real nor unreal.
The world is all that changes. Change is, paradigmatically, the change of a material
cause into a new-seeming effect. A lump of clay changes into a terracotta pot; milk
changes into yogurt; flour, water, and yeast rise up as a bread; a seed grows up to be a
tree; a bunch of cotton threads change into a piece of cloth. Take the distinction, for
example, between the milk and the yogurt. The distinction is clearly perceived, tasted,
and made use of. Yet, when we reflect upon it, the distinction evaporates. There is
nothing in the cloth and yogurt that was not there in the threads and milk. Nothing
totally new can come out of nothing. Causal transformation is but the change of form
of the enduring substance which remains the same through alterations. Hence the
distinction between cause and effect is rationally unintelligible yet given to experience.
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 459

It is not real because it cannot withstand rational analysis and scrutiny. Nor is it unreal
because it is undeniably given to our common shared experience. Therefore it eludes
the contradictory real-unreal binary and is called “indescribable: neither real nor
unreal” (sad-asad- vilakṣaṇa). And this is māyā.20
We have stolen this last sentence from Swami Vivekananda. In the third and fifth
of his Jñāna-Yoga lectures (CW2: 88–104, 118–29), Vivekananda repeats this sentence
sixteen times as a climactic exclamation following wonderfully detailed examples and
expositions of the contradictory but undeniably factual features of nature and worldly
life: “And this is māyā.” In the rest of this section, I would like to highlight Vivekananda’s
own original take on the concept of māyā. To call our life-world māyā is not to commit
it to illusoriness, but to detect—both analytically and phenomenologically—the
practical, ontological, psychological inconsistencies which make our world undeniably
real but also undeniably irrational. Māyā, as he puts it, is not illusion but “a simple
statement of facts” (CW2: 88–9).
A “terribly turbulent ocean” (taraṅga-ākul bhaba ghor)21 as a metaphor for life
seems to haunt Vivekananda in his poems, lectures, and letters. In a lecture delivered
in London on October 22, 1896, he starts by mixing the ocean metaphor with the
battle metaphor: it is amazing how the wise and the foolish equally live through this
turbulent ocean, this strife: “So on we go, till death comes and takes us off the field”
(CW2: 118). This is the first trope of māyā.
The human will is propelled by a hope for achievements, a universal ambition that
is perpetually frustrated (CW2: 118). Our moral ideals recede further and further away
as we grow older, making the battle against what Kant called a “step-motherly nature”22
a losing battle. This is the second trope of māyā.
The intelligent scientist is so absorbed in the study of insentient material nature that
he ends up imitating the objective order of nature. Vivekananda asks, “Why should it
be glory to imitate the dull, the insentient?” (CW2: 118). This inscrutable tendency of
the human intellect to mimic and mirror unintelligent purposeless nature is the third
trope of māyā.
The human self is incurably addicted to external sense-stimulation. The senses
never afford us the promised pleasure. Yet we keep resorting to them with undying
thirst until death puts an end to our vain pursuit (CW2: 119). This is the fourth trope
of māyā.
Our reason and cognitive apparatus suffer from an analogous drive toward more
and more knowledge of things as they really are. Yet it gets lost inevitably in an infinite
space of ignorance. The limits of human reason are as unsurmountable as the bounds
of sense (CW2: 119). This fifth trope of māyā, as recounted by Vivekananda, has an
unmistakably Kantian ring about it.
With each throbbing of the heart, we think we are free, yet in every breath we are
shown that we are not free, that we are “nature’s bond-slaves” both in body and mind
(CW2: 119). This is the sixth trope of māyā.
What we call unselfish love—for example, a mother’s love for her child—is invariably
blind instinctual attachment or biologically determined infatuation (CW2: 119–20).
This mist of mistaken emotions hanging over all human relations is the seventh trope
of māyā.
460 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

By distinguishing these seven tropes, Vivekananda vivifies and modernizes the

Upaniṣadic phenomenology of the magical power of māyā.23 Māyā turns out to be
a universal veil of ignorance. It at once seduces and frustrates us by making us take a
changing world “imagined” by a self-deluded individual ego to be the ultimate external
reality.

16.6 K.C. Bhattacharyya on the Doctrine of Māyā

Can this deceptive nature (prakṛti and māyā are equated in some Advaita texts), this
vanity and valuelessness of the world translate into its illusoriness? The philosopher
K.C. Bhattacharyya offers a rather complicated argument for a negative answer to this
plausible question. Like Vivekananda, but with characteristic caution and complexity,
Bhattacharyya refuses to call the external world of ordinary experience illusory. The
main points made by Bhattacharyya in his classic essay “Śaṅkara’s Doctrine of Māyā”
(originally published in 1925; Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 95–108) can be listed as
follows:

1. Our sense of vanity or lapse of value of worldly life does not quite amount to
the exposure of the total unreality of the world. Illusoriness, thus, has to be
distinguished from unreality (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 95–6).
2. The object has to be experientially accepted or posited in order to be reflectively
denied. The error-correcting sentence “This snake is not a snake” has a paradoxical
complex meaning because the subject expression “This snake” stands for a given
unreality. It must be particular enough to be pointed at demonstratively, and yet
nonexistent enough to be denied as a snake (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 96–7).
3. The “false” is not unreal, mithyā is not alīka. Hence, falsity is a sort of transcendental
valuelessness to bear which the world needs to be empirically real. Strictly speaking,
“The judgment in fact—‘it does not exist’ is inadmissible: its subject it lacks
existential import” (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 97–8). In this context, Bhattacharyya,
in his earlier work Studies in Vedāntism (originally published in 1907;
Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 1–90), makes the deep but debatable point that “the
moment something is said to be inconceivable, it is pronounced to be conceivable
by implication.” He continues, “The subject of the proposition ‘this cannot be
conceived’ is in fact a conceived inconceivability” (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 22).
4. Three stages of the process of correction of error (or breaking of a dream) have
to be distinguished (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 96). The snake is first presented,
then cancelled/corrected, and finally contemplated as corrected. Just as snakehood
is superimposed on the rope whereas, after correction, the rope is seen to be the
real basis of the snake, there is a relation of mutual implication between the real
and the unreal. As he puts it, “The real has the unreal … as its free implication”
(Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 97).
5. The last stage in the contemplative exposure of the falsity of objective content
divides into three further steps: first, snakes in general are retained as real, but
that particular snake I “saw” is reflectively known to be neither existent nor
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 461

nonexistent; second, the content of the snake-appearance is reduced to a given

unthinkable; finally, the unthinkable is reduced to absolute nought (tuchha)
(Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 98–9).

In his later phenomenologically rich paper “The Advaita and Its Spiritual
Significance” (originally published in 1936; Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 109–24), what
is unique in his reconstruction of the Advaita argument for the falsity of the objective
world is that he starts with the individual ego, the very embodied self that begins to
suspect its own illusoriness and wonders, “how on earth could I take myself to be so
embodied?” Let us quote, at some length, his inimitable words here:

The individual self means the self feeling itself embodied, the embodiment being
only a restrictive adjective of the self; and the illusoriness of the embodiment
is the illusoriness of the body itself … The idea of the object, in fact, as distinct
from the subject is derived from the idea of the embodiment, which itself is born
in the consciousness of the individual self as false in respect of its individuality.
(Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 114)

At this point, with an alerting pause (“There is, however, a complexity”), Bhattacharyya
analyzes the “me”—the accusative objectified form of the I as an immediately felt yet
rationally unacceptable equation of the first and the second person, of I and you, an
objective subject—as a sort of “you which is at once me and I” (Bhattacharyya 1983:
vol. I, 114–15). He writes, “In the spiritual consciousness in which a person wonders
how he could be what he cannot be … unless the past self were still present, there could
be no sense of intellectual absurdity” (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 114–15).
I suspect that almost all of Bhattacharyya’s original phenomenological research
on Advaita Vedānta is inspired by meticulous meditations on Śaṅkara’s famous
“commentary on illusion” (adhyāsa-bhāṣya) prefatory to his Brahmasūtra commentary.
The peculiar feeling of scales falling from one’s eyes that accompanies the Advaitic
process of realizing that one is not the embodied individual that one took oneself
to be at all is compared by Bhattacharyya, not only to the experience of exposure
and correction of perceptual error, but also to the moral consciousness of radical
repentance. As he puts it,

We can conceive this spiritual condition as a deepening of the form of moral

consciousness in which we not only repent of our past actions, but find it
hard to imagine how we could perform them. In this consciousness, our
past being is felt not only to be strangely alien to us, but as an intellectual
absurdity, as apparently at once subjective and objective, at once I and me.
(Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 113)

The process of disillusionment is thus infused with a sense of “wonder” of the

form “How could I have been that person?” This annulment of individuality is not
merely a cognitive correction or negation. It is made out to be a deeply emotional
transformation, by both Vivekananda and Bhattacharyya in their own ways.
462 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Bhattacharyya ends “The Advaita and Its Spiritual Significance” by describing the self-
revelation of the illusoriness of the individual self as an “intuition which amounts to an
ecstasy” (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 124). “Bhakti” (love of God), for him, involves the
“individual’s joy in surrendering his individuality” (Bhattacharyya 1983: vol. I, 124).
At the culminating point of Advaita Vedānta, then, is a self-surrender in ecstatic
love that echoes, as we will soon see, the nondualistic Prema emphasized by both Sri
Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.

16.7 Love’s Embrace in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad

and Sri Ramakrishna’s and Vivekananda’s Concept
of Egoless Nondualistic Prema

In more than one place, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad speaks of the loving embrace
between a man and a woman as resulting in a state similar to the Fourth (turīya) state
of complete identity with nondual transcendental consciousness, beyond waking,
dream, and deep sleep. One such passage is 4.3.21:

That is His form, beyond all desires (aticchandā), free from all taint of sins,
fearless. Like a man, fully embraced by his beloved wife, does not know anything
[is immersed in an objectless rapture] external or internal, so does this individual
consciousness [person], fully embraced by the Supreme Self (prājña) not know
anything at all, either external or internal. That is His form—in which all objects of
desire have been attained and, as a result, the Self alone is left to be desired, and is
therefore desireless, and this form is devoid of all grief (śokāntaram).24

The word for “desire” here is “chanda,” which sounds like the word for a meter or
rhythm (chandas), but in this context, as Śaṅkara says, it is a distinct word which
means just “desire” (kāma) (Madhavananda 1934: 460). And in this state, as the
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad continues in 4.3.22, “The father is no longer a father, the
mother is no mother, realms of being are no realms, … the Vedas are no Vedas”
(Madhavananda 1934: 462).
If we pause a little and analyze the word “śokāntaram” which we have translated
as “devoid of grief,” we notice that Śaṅkara glosses it as “śokacchidram,” which
literally means “a slit or hole in sorrow” (Madhavananda 1934: 462). Now the word
“chidra” means a hole, but the Mahābhārata lists “being a hole, gap, slit, opening”
as a central characteristic of ākāśa.25 The words ākāśa, gagana, kha, nabhas, vyoma,
ambara, viyat are interchangeably used to mean an opening, a blank, empty space
which is limitless. My suggestion here is to take Śaṅkara’s interpretation of this word
“śokāntaram” very seriously because it indicates that in the embrace of the Supreme
Self, the individual empties itself out into a blissful blank right in the middle of the
agonies of the world.
Another passage where the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad speaks of such a love’s embrace
between a man and woman is in 1.4.3:
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 463

He was not at all happy. Therefore people [still] are not happy when alone. He
desired a second. He became as much as a man and woman embracing each other
(sampariṣvaktau). He split this very self/body into two. From that came husband
and wife … like the two halves of a split pea. Therefore this firmament is indeed
filled by the female. He mated with her. From that men were born.26

This word “sampariṣvaktau” (in dual number), meaning “fully mutually fused in a
tight embrace,” occurs many times in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad.
What does Śaṅkara’s or Vivekananda’s apparently world-negating, individuality-
dissolving doctrine of māyā have to do with such an embrace of love? The link between
the falsity of the world (as an ontological truth) and Love as the highest intrinsic value
as well as ultimate reality is supplied by Sri Ramakrishna (1836–86), Vivekananda’s
teacher and guide. “Prema” was used as a particularly sacred technical term by Sri
Ramakrishna. Supreme duality-obliterating love, Sri Ramakrishna tells us, not only
makes us forget the embodied ego but also makes us ecstatically realize that the world
of objects, of which one’s own body is the central symbol and cognitive conduit, is
“mithyā”—illusory, negligible, and false. There is a ring of spiritual autobiography
in the passage where he makes this pronouncement, as if he was recounting the
phenomenology of his own spiritual experience:

It is not given to everybody to feel prema, ecstatic love of God. Caitanya experienced
it. An ordinary man can at the most experience bhāva. Only the īśvarakotis, such
as Divine Incarnations, experience prema. When prema is awakened, the devotee
not only feels the world to be unreal (prem hole jagat mithyā to bodh hoybei), but
forgets even the body, which everyone loves so intensely.
Prema is the rope by which you can tether God, as it were. Whenever you want to
see Him you have merely to pull the rope. Whenever you call Him, He will appear
before you.
The mature stage of bhakti is bhāva. When one attains it one remains speechless
(abāk), thinking of Saccidānanda. The feeling of an ordinary man can go only that
far. When bhāva ripens it becomes mahābhāva. Prema is the last. You know the
difference between a green mango and a ripe one. Pure love of God is the essential
thing. All else is unreal. (śuddhābhakti sār, ār sab mithyā.) (K 507; G 502–3)

In this passage, Sri Ramakrishna makes at least seven distinct points about prema,
which I have translated as “Love.” First, Love is extremely rare, it does not happen to
any and every person. Second, Love is not a passing emotion or feeling (bhāva). Third,
Love is attainable by those elevated souls who are of the stature of incarnations of God
and their companions (īśvarakoṭis). Fourth, Love makes one oblivious of the dearest
concrete object: one’s own body.
Fifth, and most importantly for us, Love leads to the clear realization of the falsity
of the so-called “objective” world (prem hole jagat mithyā to bodh hoybei). One of
our main tasks in the previous sections has been to unpack the exact meaning of
“falsity” (mithyātva) here. Interestingly, however, Sri Ramakrishna claims that these
464 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

prema-suffused īśvarakoṭis alone are capable of attaining the spiritual state of “vijñāna,”
his term for the intimate realization of God as the impersonal-personal Infinite Reality
which is both immanent in the universe and beyond it (K 505; G 500).27 The vijñānī,
according to Sri Ramakrishna, realizes that “it is Brahman that has become the universe
and its living beings” (K 50–1; G 103–4). Hence, the vijñānī looks upon the world not
as a snare of deception and a woeful trap of fakery but as a vibrantly real “mansion of
mirth” (majār kuṭi) (K 479; G 478). The world, the vijñānī realizes, is, in fact, ultimately
real insofar as it is indistinguishable from God, the only reality, natura naturans of
Spinoza, where prakṛti and puruṣa, consciousness and the dynamic dancing power of
plurality projection, become one because they are one at the source.
Sixth, Love provides one “the rope” to bind—a method of relating to—the
otherwise unrelatable “Being-Consciousness-Bliss”(saccidānanda). Seventh, when
ordinary emotional absorption in God (bhāva) matures, it becomes “mahābhāva,”
which in turn, in rare instances, may turn into prema, the sign of which is that a
person becomes “soft, tender, supple” (“narom” in Bengali) and feels self-amazement
(“avāk,” pronounced in Bengali as “awe-bāk”: literally, “speechless”) at the thought of
Saccidānanda.
Interestingly, immediately after their master passed away, monastic disciples
of Sri Ramakrishna, led by Vivekananda (then called Narendra), used to study the
Yogavāsiṣṭha while they engaged in intense meditative practices (K 1146; G 990–1). On
one occasion on May 8, 1887, Vivekananda specifically reminded his brother monks
of two episodes from the Yogavāsiṣṭha: the ethereal love between Līlā and Padma
(Vidūratha) (III.29) and between Indra and Ahalyā (III.89) (the latter was a story
of socially punished love which was still extolled as eternal and spiritually uplifting)
(K 1146; G 990–1).
In the spirit of his guru Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda takes up the question of
liberating love versus binding love in the 1900 lecture entitled “Divine Love” delivered
in San Francisco (CW6: 70–80). Symbolizing love as a triangle, he explains its
three “angles” as follows. The first angle “is when love asks nothing, [when it] gives
everything” (CW6: 70). He elaborates:

This is the real spiritual worship, the worship through love. Whether God
is merciful is no longer questioned. He is God; He is my love … All other
attributes vanish except that one—infinite love … Love never asks; it always
gives … [T]he beginning of real spiritual worship means no begging. We have
finished all begging: “Lord, give me this and that.” Then will religion begin.
(CW6: 70–1)

Vivekananda’s impassioned characterization of this first angle of love strongly echoes

Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings on the highest ideal of divine prema.
The second angle in the triangle of love, Vivekananda observes, is “that love knows
no fear” (CW6: 71). As he explains, “The fear of God is the beginning of religion, but
the love of God is the end of religion” (CW6: 71). The third angle of the love triangle is
that “love is its own end” (CW6: 71). He once again channels Sri Ramakrishna in his
eloquent description of this third angle:
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 465

The third [angle of the love triangle is that] love is its own end. It can never be the
means. The man who says, “I love you for such and such a thing,” does not love.
Love can never be the means; it must be the perfect end. What is the end and aim
of love? To love God, that is all. Why should one love God? [There is] no why,
because it is not the means. When one can love, that is salvation, that is perfection,
that is heaven. What more? What else can be the end? What can you have higher
than love? (CW6: 71)

Here, Vivekananda echoes Sri Ramakrishna’s teaching that pure Love of God is a
much higher—and more difficult—attainment than even mukti, liberation from the
transmigratory cycle. On June 2, 1883, Sri Ramakrishna asked a Vaiṣṇava pundit
to recite an episode from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa depicting the ecstatic love of the
gopīs (milkmaids) for their Lord Krishna. The gopīs, the pundit recounts, said, “We
do not understand big words like ‘liberation.’ We want to see the Krishna of our
hearts” (K 194; G 228). Upon hearing this, Sri Ramakrishna said, “Yes, the gopis
were right,” and immediately sang a devotional song from Krishna’s point of view
that begins “Though I am never loath to grant salvation, I hesitate indeed to grant
pure love” (K 194; G 228). Vivekananda, like Sri Ramakrishna, insists that love is
the “perfect end” and “can never be the means”—not even the means to the end of
mukti, the spiritual ideal of many Hindu traditions. Strikingly, the staunch Advaitin
Vivekananda embraces here the devotional Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava doctrine that pure
love of God (bhakti) is the “paramapuruṣārtha,” the supreme goal of life which is far
superior to mukti.28
Let me digress here just for one paragraph to talk about one twentieth-century
philosopher of language who once delivered a lecture on ethics where he harped on
the unsayability of ethical concerns. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s early masterpiece Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus (1922), on the surface, is a book on the world as we find it. It is
about the ontological/grammatical conditions of the possibility of saying and thinking
logical pictures of facts that make up the world. Yet the preface to the Tractatus says
that the book’s main point is ethical (Wittgenstein [1922] 1961: 3–4). The deepest
things about the world cannot be said or represented because the very conditions of
representation cannot be represented. And what cannot be said clearly must be passed
over in silence.
In an uncanny way, Vivekananda anticipates this connection between resigning to
silence and the ethical. There seem to be two connections. First, an ethical life must
culminate with the vanishing of the first-person singular—no I, only You. And second,
both Wittgenstein and Vivekananda, for different reasons, recommend renouncing the
attempt to say or picture or represent the deepest logical forms of thought which make
the world “My world.” Accordingly, Vivekananda observes:

To manifest the Infinite through the finite is impossible, and sooner or later, man
learns to give up the attempt to express the Infinite through the finite. This giving
up, this renunciation of the attempt, is the background of ethics. Renunciation is
the very basis upon which ethics stands. There never was an ethical code preached
which had not renunciation for its basis.
466 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

Ethics always says, “Not I, but thou.” Its motto is, “Not self, but non-self.” The vain
ideas of individualism, to which man clings when he is trying to find that Infinite
Power or that Infinite Pleasure through the senses, have to be given up—say the
laws of ethics. You have to put yourself last, and others before you. The senses
say, “Myself first.” Ethics says, “I must hold myself last.” Thus, all codes of ethics
are based upon this renunciation; destruction, not construction, of the individual
on the material plane. That Infinite will never find expression upon the material
plane, nor is it possible or thinkable.
So, man has to give up the plane of matter and rise to other spheres to seek a
deeper expression of that Infinite. In this way the various ethical laws are being
moulded, but all have that one central idea, eternal self-abnegation. Perfect self-
annihilation is the ideal of ethics. (CW2: 62–3; my emphasis)

Once again, in the almost autobiographical Bengali poem “Sakhār Prati” (“To a
Friend”), Vivekananda goes back to the billowy ocean metaphor:

Listen, friend, I shall speak my heart to you:

I have found in my life this truth supreme.
Buffeted by waves in this whirl of life,
There is only one boat that takes us across this ocean of the world.
(CW4: 495; BR6: 209)

And then he explodes in an ecstatic glorification of love as the only end and means of
spiritual life:

Formulas of worship, control of breath,

Science, philosophy, systems varied,
Renunciation, enjoyment, and the like
All these are but delusions of the mind—
Prema, Prema—that’s the one thing, the sole treasure!
In Jīva and Brahman, in man and God,
In ghosts, and wraiths, and spirits, and so forth,
In Devas, beasts, birds, insects, and in worms,
This Prema dwells in the heart of them all.
(CW4: 495; BR6: 209)

Vivekananda, then, learned from his guru Sri Ramakrishna that seeing the world as
a cosmic dream—as nothing but māyā—is not just compatible with, but a necessary
consequence of, the highest ecstatic Love of God.

16.8 Regaining the World: Renounce the Renunciation

Our lived everyday world—what Vivekananda would often refer to as “vanity of
vanities” (CW4: 60)—is initially dismissed as valueless and false. The lover of wisdom,
the spiritual seeker, may first turn away from this world, with its puzzling pluralities
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 467

and distressing distinctions, and seek an intellectual love of the One Reality. We may
take to ritual worship, yoga, philosophy, and science to escape the “bondage of Maya.”
We may painstakingly give up, sacrifice, renounce the world, and its dualities, we
may give up all falsehood, even transcend the opposition between the real and the
unreal, true and false. But then, the Mahābhārata, in a little-known verse, encourages
us to give up even that by which we give up: yena tyajasi tat tyaja (XII.316.41).
When Sri Ramakrishna’s fully wise, liberated, but world-affirming vijñānī renounces
renunciation, then, in the final ecstasy of unifying intuition, this disvalued world of
plurality is embraced again as identical with that One Brahman playing at being plural
and hiding Its own effulgent subjectivity.
Vivekananda seems to have Sri Ramakrishna’s vijñānī in mind in this passage from
his 1896 lecture on “Realisation”:

[W]e have to go through the negation, and then the positive side will begin. We
have to give up ignorance and all that is false, and then truth will begin to reveal
itself to us. When we have grasped the truth, things which we gave up at first will
take new shape and form, will appear to us in a new light, and become deified.
(CW2: 167)

For Vivekananda, spiritual life begins with negation and ends with affirmation.
During the negative phase, we renounce all that is false, but in the subsequent positive
phase, by negating the negation, we reaffirm what we had previously given up as a
real manifestation of God. This very world we once took to be false appears now as
“deified,” as God Himself.
When discussing this “positive side” of spiritual life, Vivekananda often gets into a
lofty emotional state and talks of an all-inundating Love of God. He recalls from the
teneth canto of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, in several lectures and lecture notes, the most
erotic prayers of the gopīs, the love-intoxicated handmaids of Krishna, who pray for
the ambrosia of the lower lip of Krishna—itself kissed by a serenely melodious fl ­ ute—
which makes one forget all other desires and attractions. He writes:

Love itself is the eternal, endless sacrifice. You will have to give up everything. You
cannot take possession of anything. Finding love, you will never [want] anything
[else] … “Only be Thou my love for ever!” That is what love wants. “My love, one
kiss of those lips! [For him] who has been kissed by Thee, all sorrows vanish. Once
kissed by Thee, man becomes happy and forgets love of everything else. He praises
Thee alone and he sees Thee alone.” In the nature of human love even, [there lurk
divine elements. In] the first moment of intense love the whole world seems in
tune with your own heart. Every bird in the universe sings your love; the flowers
bloom for you. It is infinite, eternal love itself that [human] love comes from.
Why should the lover of God fear anything—fear robbers, fear distress, fear even
for his life? … The lover [may] go to the utmost hell, but would it be hell? We all
have to give up these ideas of heaven [and hell] and get greater [love] … Hundreds
there are seeking this madness of love before which everything [but God vanishes].
At last, love, lover, and beloved become one. That is the goal. (CW6: 76–7)
468 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

With the dawning of such “scientia intuitiva”—which, as it were, in a flash, makes

adequate knowledge of God’s attributes turn into adequate knowledge of all things in
nature—the vijñānī becomes a loving “friend of the World” (viśva-bandhu). For, after
all, the first of the thousand names of Viṣṇu/God is “Viśvam,” “the World.” Matter, then,
is felt to be a masked form of Consciousness. Every clod of earth and drop of water and
whiff of air tingle with divine subjectivity, and the crazy happy fool is worshipped as
the wisest. Sri Ramakrishna’s original conception of the vijñānī thus comes closer to
the Kaśmīri Śaiva variety of world-affirming dynamic Advaita of the fusion of Śiva and
Śakti, prakāśa and vimarśa, than to Śaṅkara’s Advaita. Turning the tables on the doctrine
of māyā and its ontological denigration of the material external world, the Kaśmīri Śaiva
philosopher Abhinavagupta (1918: 306), in Tantrāloka I.332, addresses the plethora of
beings—bhāvavrāta—that make up this so-called external world, and says:

O Swarms of entities! Invading the hearts of people, suddenly by force, you make
people dance about in a variety of styles, always concealing the Pure Consciousness
that is your own heart [projecting yourselves as inert, insentient and external]!
Those ill-educated people who deem themselves sensitive connoisseurs and
call you [living beings and material objects] “inert/dense/unconscious” are of
course themselves dense and inert. Yet, I think, this denseness of theirs deserves
worshipful praise insofar as in this respect of self-concealment they can claim
sameness with You [Supreme Śiva-Consciousness].29

Abbreviations
BR Vivekānanda, Svāmī (1961), Bāṇī o Racanā, 10 vols., Kolkata: Udbodhan.
CW Vivekananda, Swami ([1957–97] 2006–7)], The Complete Works of Swami
Vivekananda: Mayavati Memorial Edition, 9 vols., Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama.
G Gupta, Mahendranath ([1942] 1992), The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami
Nikhilananda, New York: Ramakrishna-Vedanta Center.
K Gupta, Mahendranāth ([1932] 2010], Śrīśrīrāmakṛṣṇakathāmṛta: Śrīma-kathita,
Kolkata: Udbodhan.

Notes
1 The three lectures are entitled “Māyā and Illusion,” “Māyā and the Evolution of the
Conception of God,” and “Māyā and Freedom.”
2 The title of Thomas Metzinger’s 2003 book, Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of
Subjectivity, signals a non-Vedāntic deconstruction of the individual ego which is
very influential especially among comparative philosophers of consciousness with
Buddhist leanings.
3 See Chatterjee (1939: 36–52).
4 Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 4.
5 Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.3.9.
6 See Yogavāsiṣṭha III: 12.2, which I discuss in Section 16.3.
 Dream and Love at the Edge of Wisdom 469

7 It is not known when the Yogavāsiṣṭha was written. As Chapple (Venkatesananda

1984: ix–x) notes, various scholars have dated it from “as early as the sixth or seventh
century, to as late as the fourteenth century.”
8 yathā dvau sadṛśau sūryau yathā dvau sadṛśau narau | jāgratsvapnau tathaivaitau
manāgapyatra nānyathā || (Paṇśīkar 1937).
9 itihāsamayāveva jāgratsvapnāvubhāvapi | parasparaṃ gatāvetāvupamānopameyatām
|| (Paṇśīkar 1937).
10 jāgratpratyayaḥ nirālambanaḥ, pratyayatvāt, svapnapratyayavat. See, for instance,
Kumārila’s Ślokavārttika, Nirālambanavāda-Adhikaraṇa, sutra V, section 3,
verses 20–7 (Kumārila 1907: 121–3).
11 See Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism” in the second (1787) edition of the Critique of
Pure Reason (Kant 1998: B274–9).
12 svapne ’pi vāsanārūpaṃ satyameva jaganmanasi sthitaṃ bahiṣṭhatvena drśyate.
13 See, for example, Macdonald (1953).
14 suṣuptaṃ svapnavadbhāti bhāti brahmaiva sargavat | sarvātmakaṃ ca tatsthānaṃ
tatra tāvatkramaṃ śṛṇu ||
15 For a detailed discussion of Śaṅkara’s critique of Yogācāra subjective idealism,
see Ram-Prasad (1993).
16 See, for instance, Śaṅkara’s commentary on Brahmasūtra 1.1.17 and 1.2.12.
17 See Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism” (1998; Critique of Pure Reason, B274–9).
18 Anand Jayprakash Vaidya confessed to me that he could not appreciate this point
of Śaṅkara, who seems to conflate the illumination with our knowledge of the
illumination. The lamp does illuminate itself, since illumination does not require a
perceiver. Knowledge of illumination requires a perceiver. Vaidya is perfectly justified
in feeling puzzled here. The subtlety of the Advaita rejection of auto-illumination
in spite of adherence to self-luminosity comes out only in the medieval Advaitin
Citsukha’s final definition of self-luminosity, which I discuss in the next paragraph of
this chapter.
19 For further discussion of the Advaitic understanding of self-luminosity, see Ingalls
(1954) and Trivedi (1987).
20 See, for instance, the discussion of māyā in Pañcadaśī 6.128–56 (Vidyāraṇya
1967: 173–83).
21 This is a phrase from Vivekananda’s Bengali poem “Sakhār Prati” (“To a Friend”),
which I will discuss in Section 16.7 (CW4: 495; BR6: 209).
22 Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Ak. 4:394; Kant 1996: 50).
23 For instance, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.5.19 famously states, “The Lord, on account
of māyā, is perceived as manifold” (indro māyābhiḥ pururūpa īyate).
24 This is a modified version of Madhavananda’s (1934: 460) English translation of
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.3.21.
25 Mahābhārata, Book XII, Śāntiparvan, Chapter 255, verse 7.
26 This is a slighty modified version of Madhavananda’s (1934: 69) English translation of
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.3.
27 For a detailed discussion of Sri Ramakrishna’s philosophy of vijñāna, see Chapter 1 of
Maharaj (2018).
28 See Nelson (2004) for a discussion of this Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava doctrine.
29 bhāvavrāta! haṭhājjanasya hṛdayāny ākramya yan nartayan
bhaṅgībhir vividhābhir ātmahṛdayaṃ pracchādya saṃkrīḍase |
yas tvām āha jaḍaṃ jaḍaḥ sahṛdayam manyatvaduḥśikṣito
manye ’muṣya jaḍātmatā stutipadaṃ tvatsāmyasaṃbhāvanāt ||
For a discussion of this verse, see Bansat-Boudon (2016).
470 The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta

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 Index
Abhinavagupta 286, 293, 294, 298, 299
Paramārthasāra 286
Tantrāloka 296
absolute and the relative 175
absolute nonbeing 76, 80
absolute reality see Brahman (ultimate
reality)
absolute truth 175–6
acintya (inconceivable) 20, 137–53
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 34–5, 132–4
coexistence of difference and non-
difference 139
compared with anirvacanīya
(indeterminable) 140
making the impossible possible 144–5
as paradoxical 147n12
and scripture 139, 150n28
unity in difference 136, 137–41
where applicable 141–4
acintya-bhedābheda 136, 137, 142–3
Acintyabhedābheda Vedānta (Paradoxical
Difference and Non-Difference)
school 20, 237, 241
see also acintya-bhedābheda; Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavism
competing Vedāntic sampradāyas 2, 4,
5, 7, 8
adhikaraṇas (in Brahmasūtra), groups of
346, 347–57
assessing views different from/contrary
to Vedānta 351–3
Brahman, whether can be proper
object of inquiry 347–51
need for repetition in meditation
356–7
nondual nature of Brahman 353–6
Adhikārī, Kṛṣṇadāsa 134
adhyāsa see superimposition
Ādi Śaṅkarācārya see Śaṅkara (Advaita
Vedāntin)
Advaita Vedānta 2, 5, 11, 17, 45, 47, 139,
140, 246n11, 276, 446
see also Śaṅkara (Advaita Vedāntin)
Brahman in 4, 5, 410
higher and lower 235
and cosmopsychism 393, 403–6
critiques 246n11
dispute between Mādhvas and
Advaitins 111–13
historical overview 46–8
jīvanmukti (embodied liberation),
whether compatible with 281–306
learning methodology (listening,
logical reflection and
contemplation) 33, 55, 58
metaphysics of 6–7
nididhyāsana (contemplative category)
in 20, 33, 45–74
non-Advaitic traditions 10, 14, 17, 18
origins 10, 11
problem of jīvanmukti in 281, 288–92
theory of existence 113–15
Advaitasiddhi (The Proof of Nonduality)
47, 121
āgama (verbal testimony) 107
ahaṃ sukham asvāpsam (“I slept well”)
87–8
Akhilananda, Swami 217, 221n38
Hindu Psychology 216
Albahari, Miri 393, 394, 403, 406
Alfassa, Mira 181
Āllāh 166, 172, 266
Allen, Michael S. 19
Alston, William 168
Amaruka, King, Śaṅkara entering body of
39, 378–80
Anekānta Vedānta (Ramakrishna on) 20,
35, 157–77
see also pluralism; Ramakrishna, Sri
and Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG) 161, 162,
164, 165, 168, 170
interpretation of Ramakrishna’s
thought 159–60
and Jain philosophy 172–6
 Index 473

questioning whether can be classed psychology of psychic being 35–6,

as Vedānta 160–2 179–96
multireligious sādhanas 170–2 argument of Aurobindo 186–93
pluralistic nature 163–4 reincarnation, defense of 180–1
experiential character of pluralism on scripture 310–12
167–70 The Secret of the Veda 315, 316
anekāntavāda (Jain notion of complex The Synthesis of Yoga 184
nature of existence) 35, 158–9, typal worlds 190
172–6, 176n4 on the Upaniṣads in general 312–14,
Anquetil-Duperron 14, 17 316, 317, 326–7
anti-theism 229, 232
anubhava (direct experience of ultimate Bādarāyaṇa 46
reality) 35, 68n24 Bagchee, Joydeep 18
anumāna (inference) 52, 107 Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa 21, 37, 145
anvaya and vyatireka (continuity and conception of God 227, 230–2, 237,
discontinuity) 53, 54, 57, 68n27, 248n34, 248n35, 249n43
69n34, 71n71 “Dawn at the Toll-house” 238
Aristotle 187 Govinda-bhāṣya 136, 237–40
arthāpatti (postulation) 52 Tattvadīpikā (An Illumination of
asparśayoga (yoga of non-contact) 47, Reality) 9
66n2 Bansat-Boudon, Lyne 296
aṣṭāṅgayoga 206 Bartley, Christopher 411
Ātman Barua, Ankur 16, 21
see also Brahman (ultimate reality); Basu, Arabinda 184
self, individual (Jīvātman) Baudouin, Charles 204
as Brahman 1, 39, 45, 48, 51 Beardsley, M.C. 311
impersonal 320, 325 beginninglessness
nonduality of 60, 64, 65, 313, 325 defense of 238
and psychic being 181, 185 and flow 95
and pure consciousness 48, 65 and partiality of God 241
“ātmās” (selves) 182 and suffering 232–7
Aupādhika Bhedābheda 4, 5, 6 Bengali Vaiṣṇava community 135
Aurobindo Ghose, Sri 17 Bergson, Henri 204
and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG) 1, 13, 21, 33, 160,
pluralism 161 239
argument on psychic being see also Upaniṣads
186–93 and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
competitors 189–92 pluralism 160, 161, 162, 164, 165,
evaluating 192–3 167, 170
childhood and education 179 commentaries on concept of God 227,
“Integral Yoga” 162, 216, 310 245n3
Īśā Upaniṣad, mystico-immanent karmayoga 52
interpretation of see Īśā Upaniṣad meditation in 60–1
The Life Divine 20, 35–6, 179, 180, 183, other sources compared 227
187, 188, 190, 191, 214, 221n36 religious diversity 259
metaphysics of 180, 184, 193n1 scripture 1, 10
“Neo-Vedāntin” 21 translation of 13
and oceanic feeling/psychoanalysis Bhagavān (deity of Caitanya Vaiṣṇava
208, 211, 212, 214–16, 221n33 tradition) 133, 137, 138, 142–6
474
Bhāgavata Purāṇa 132–4, 147n4, 147n10,
151n36
conception of God 228, 239
and religious diversity 262, 263–4
Bhāgavata-sandarbha 135, 136, 142
bhakti (devotion) 6, 52
acintya (inconceivable) 135
and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
pluralism 162, 163
and Mādhva Vedānta 106–7
psychic being, psychology of 180
and religious diversity 258, 260
Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu 7
Bhaktivedanta, A.C. 242
bhakti-yoga (the practice of devotion) 7,
8, 52, 206
Bhāmatī (The Lustrous) subcommentary
on Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra
commentary 47
Bhāmatī subschool 47
Bharadwaj, R. 264
Bhāratītīrtha 39, 346
Bhāskara 3, 4, 5–6, 8
see also Aupādhika Bhedābheda
Bhaṭṭa, Gadādhara 123n11
Bhattacharyya, K.C. 17, 22, 41, 446
on illusion 460–2
Studies in Vedāntism 447
Bhedābheda Vedānta 20, 162
competing Vedāntic sampradāyas 2, 3,
4, 5, 7–8
spiritual practices 7–8
Bihar School of Yoga 181, 185
Bleuler, Eugen 201, 203
Block, Ned 396
Bon Maharaj, Swami B.H. 273
Bose, Subhas Chandra 2
Brahman (ultimate reality) 4, 5, 78, 133,
162, 179, 187, 191, 235, 264, 283
see also īśvara (Lord or God)
in Advaita Vedānta 4, 5, 410
Ātman as 1, 39, 45, 48, 51
body of 411
comparing with a human lord 229,
230
consciousness 49, 406, 410
defining/nature of 4, 48–51, 66n7,
139
knowledge of 175, 191, 289
Index
nonduality of 45, 48–50, 52, 61, 64,
353–6
pariṇāmavāda 5
proper object of inquiry, whether
347–51
relation with individual soul 3, 5–6, 7
relation with the world 5
as saccidānanda (“Existence-
Consciousness-Bliss”) 36, 173, 181,
186–7, 192–3
saguṇa 264
and scripture 133, 139, 144
unity of 37–8
in the Upaniṣads 46, 52, 282, 328
brahma-nirvāṇa 162
Brahmasiddhi (The Proof of Brahman)
47
Brahmasūtra (BS) 1, 3, 11, 37, 142, 146n2,
227, 239, 259, 251n63, 289
beginninglessness and suffering
problem 232–7
Bhāratītīrtha on plan of 346
Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theology 132–4
commentaries of Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja,
and Baladeva 146n2, 160, 227–53
conception of God 227, 228, 232–7,
239, 244
limiting divine power or human reason
240–4
non-Advaitic commentaries on 10, 14
other sources compared 227, 228
play activities (of God) 229–32, 234
pot metaphor in commentaries 229,
236, 242
Brāhmo Samāj 9
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (BṛU)
dreams and love 41, 446, 447, 462–6
nididhyāsana as root text in 33, 46,
54–7
Yājnavalkya and Maitreyī dialogue
55–6
Bṛhad-bhāgavatāmṛta 136
BṛU see Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (BṛU)
Buddhism 10, 18, 41, 47, 256, 262, 327,
370, 410
Bodhisattava ideal 194n6
emptiness 175
enlightenment 180
and Jainism 9, 10, 183, 258
 Index
Mahāyāna 45
noble truths 233
and reincarnation/rebirth 189, 190,
195n11
Śaṅkara on 260, 453
and suffering 233
Yogācāra 393, 446, 453, 456–8
Buffet of Destruction see
Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya (KhKh)
(Buffet of Destruction)
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 34–5, 137–53
see also Acintyabhedābheda Vedānta
(Paradoxical Difference and Non-
Difference) school
acintya-bhedābheda 136, 137
Bhagavān (deity) 133, 137, 138, 142–6
Bhāgavata-sandarbha 135, 136
competing Vedāntic sampradāyas 4, 8
confluence of traditions 136
energies 137–9, 141, 143, 145, 147n12,
148n12, 148n17
fire and light analogy 137–8
Kṛṣṇa 133, 136, 137, 141, 143, 146
and religious diversity 271, 272
scripture 141, 142
syncretic sources 136
theology, overview 132–4
unity in difference 136, 137–41
Calvinism 106
caṇḍāla (“untouchable”) 39, 383–6
Carroll, Lewis, Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland 41, 446–9
Central Channel, chakras 182, 183, 184
Chakrabarti, Arindam 22, 41, 162
chakras (centers of consciousness) 182–3
Chalmers, David 393, 394, 396, 399
Chāndogya Upaniṣad 49, 131, 161, 290
panpsychism 393, 401
Chandrashekhara Bharati Swami, Sri 273
Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra 2
Chatterjee, Satis Chandra 16
Chinmayananda, Swami 48
Christianity
see also Jesus Christ
and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
pluralism 166, 171, 172
Brahman compared with 187
Calvinism 106
475
Catholic theology 359–62
creation ex nihilo 236
medieval 177n13
missionaries 12–13, 15
and pluralism 166
and reincarnation 173
soteriological doctrines 256
Clooney, Francis X. 21, 38, 248n33,
250n54, 310, 335
cognition
see also consciousness; knowledge
anupalabdhi (non-cognition) 52
consciousness as witness of 50–1, 59
dharmabhūtajñāna (qualifying
knowledge) 75–97
of a “prior non-being” (Prāgabhāva)
88–92
of unawareness during sleep 77, 78, 86
yogyānupalabdhi (non-cognition of
something capable of being known)
78, 80
Cohen, Signe 309, 310
Colebrooke, H.T. 11–12
combination problem, panpsychism 396,
397, 417
decombination problem 400, 401, 415
real or generalized 398, 399
consciousness
see also Brahman (ultimate
reality); cognition; knowledge;
panpsychism, contemporary
analytic; self, individual (jīvātman);
unconscious
access 396
Advaita Vedāntic view compared with
cosmopsychism 406–10
Ātman see Ātman
Brahman 49, 406, 410
chakras (centers of consciousness)
182–3
and cognition 50–1, 59
direct-access theory 51
freedom of 285
and illusion 408, 416, 417
in individual self 81, 183
macro-consciousness 397
micro-consciousness 397
nature of 40
phenomenal 396, 397, 401, 419
476 Index
pure
and contemplation 48, 50, 53, 57,
65
embodied liberation 285, 286
love 458
panpsychism, contemporary
analytic 404–8, 415, 419
Pratyabhijñā system 285
saccidānanda (“Existence-
Consciousness-Bliss”) 36, 173, 180,
181, 186–7, 192–3
surface 184
universal 303n36, 406, 411, 414–15,
416–18
consequentialism 243, 244, 250n58
contemplation 33, 45, 55
see also nididhyāsana (contemplative
category)
continuity and discontinuity see anvaya
and vyatireka (continuity and
discontinuity)
Cort, John 176n4
cosmopsychism 393, 399–401
see also micropsychism; panpsychism,
contemporary analytic
and Advaita Vedānta 393, 403–6
central justification for cosmopsychism
(CJC) 417, 418
comparison with Advaita Vedānta
403–10
consciousness 406–10
priority 404, 405
counterpositive (pratiyogin) 125n33
Craig, William Lane 187
creation/God’s creation 9, 93, 142, 230,
236, 237, 294
acintya (inconceivable) 131, 133, 137,
142
creation ex nihilo 98n2, 146, 180, 236,
238, 251n65
new 76, 236, 287
non-original doctrine 284
as play 234
pot metaphor see pot metaphor
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta view 92, 94, 97,
98n2
of world/universe 76, 78, 92, 97, 233,
234
Cross, Troy 439n8
cross-cultural analysis 18, 41, 446–71
Dakṣiṇāmūrti 46
Dalal, Neil 20, 22, 45–74, 420n11
Darwin, Charles 17
Das, Nilanjan 434
Daśanāmī (Ten Names) renouncer orders
47, 263
Daya Krishna 40, 384, 385, 386
De Rose, Keith 425
Debendranath Tagore 2, 12
demons 106, 161
dependence 237, 357
dependency and neglect, Catholic
theology 359–62
on karma 238, 241
Descartes, René 394, 437
Discourse on Method 439n3
Meditations 424
detached mindfulness 207
Deussen, Paul 14, 15, 309
Devī, Mātā Amṛtānandamayī 21
devotion see bhakti (devotion)
dhyānayoga (meditation practice) 7,
60–1
Dīkṣita, Appaya 9, 107, 170
direct experience 35, 158
Divine Energy 182, 184
doxographies, Vedāntic 8–9, 16
dreams
see also sleep
content of, and concept of māyā 446,
450
correction of perceptual error 447
external objects 446–7
as non-knowledge 447
practical transactional reality, as God’s
dream 454–5
present/presented world as 449–54
and waking experiences 453
Dṛgdṛśyaviveka (Discrimination of the
Seer and the Seen) 343
dualism 47, 267, 275, 286, 352
see also nondualism/nonduality
fundamental 351
metaphysics 259
property dualism 394, 395, 417
substance dualism 394, 395,
417
 Index 477

Ducasse, C.J. 190 limitlessness 49

Duckworth, Douglas 393 material cause 79–80
Duff, Alexander 12 and non-existence 34, 112, 117, 118,
Dvaita Vedānta 2, 9, 258 121
in the Nyāyāmṛta 34, 115–19
empirical world 50 Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika and Advaita Schools,
energies theories 111, 113–15, 118
of Bhagavān 138 presence across space and time 120–1
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 137–9, 141, 143, saccidānanda (Existence-
145, 147n12, 148n17 Consciousness-Bliss) 36, 173, 180,
creative 200 181, 186–7, 192–3, 324
efficient 138 Sattvanirukti (Analysis of Existence)
excessive 232 108, 109–10, 111
external 138, 139, 141 substance 79–81, 86
of God 137, 139, 147n12, 295 subtle states 79, 99n17
Divine Energy 182, 184 transmigratory 106, 233
inconceivable 143, 145 existence monism (EM) 403, 404, 406
internal 138, 141, 148n17, 148n18 experience
Kṛṣṇa 5, 34, 133, 137, 141 see also consciousness; existence
kuṇḍalinī 184 and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
matter/material 180, 182 pluralism 158, 169
personal 148n17 direct 35, 68n24, 158
Primal Energy 163, 172 knowing by living through 381–3
religious 198 mystical, as a skeptical scenario 40–1
sexual 182, 199, 219n9 pluralism, experiential character
spiritual 210 167–70
substantial 138 psychic 36
superior 138 subjective 65
unlimited 145 extraversion 201–2
vital 324
epistemology 37, 47, 145 Fisher, David 198
see also knowledge flow/flowing along 79, 95
of perspectives 174–5 freedom 37
universal consciousness 414–15 see also jīvanmukti (embodied
essence 81–2 liberation)
eternity concept 78, 92–6 Freud, Sigmund 20, 36, 211
existence 49, 114 correspondence with Rolland 197–8,
see also consciousness; experience; 199, 202, 211–12
nonbeing debate with Rolland on oceanic feeling
anekāntavāda (Jain notion of complex 209–13
nature of existence) 35, 158–9, on mysticism 201
172–6
cause and effect 79–80 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 19, 38, 310, 334, 335
defining 108, 116, 117–18, 122 Gale, Richard M. 187
Vyāsatīrtha’s final definition Gandhi, Mahatma 2, 159, 273
119–21 Ganeri, Jonardon 441n33
determining what does and does not Garbe, Richard 15
exist 78–80 Gasparri, Luca 393, 394, 403, 404, 405
flow 79, 95 Gauḍapāda 3, 46–7, 284, 426, 449
478 Index

Gauḍapādakārikās (Verses of Gauḍapāda) grounding 394, 402

46–7 Gūḍhārthadīpikā (Illuminator of the
Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism see Caitanya Hidden Meaning) 47
Vaiṣṇavism Guerrero, Laura 420n10
genres of Vedānta 341–3 guṇas 161
Giridhara 4 Gupta, Ravi M. 20, 34–5
Gītā see Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG) Guru Nānak 170
God
see also Brahman (ultimate reality); Hacker, Paul 18, 21, 259
īśvara (Lord or God); Kṛṣṇa; play hallucinations 447
activities (of God) harmonization of world religions
acintya (inconceivable) 35 265–72
apparent lack of motivation to create Vaiṣṇava variations 271–2
232 Hatcher, Brian 265
difference and nondifference 35 Hedling, Klara 6, 16, 21
energies of 136, 137, 139, 147n12, 295 Hegel, G.W.F. 13, 14, 17, 194n4
Divine Energy 182, 184 Heidegger, Martin 187, 334
freedom of 241 Herling, Bradley L. 2, 18
grace of 8 hermeneutics
as Highest Being 75, 76, 97, 237 Advaita Vedānta 139
knowledge of 7, 76, 109, 241, 325, 326, hermeneutic circle, entering in the
360 right way 334–6
making space for 37, 227–53 of mystical immanence 21, 311–17
nature of 192 of suspicion 202
partiality of 239, 240 heterodox philosophies 10
personal 4, 6, 227, 230, 259–60, 268–9 Hick, John 194n4
qualifying knowledge of 92–6 hierarchical encompassment 258–63
relation to karma 37 Highest Being (God) 75, 76, 84, 97, 237
unity with 75–6 see also God
Western concept 187 Hinduism 2, 37, 265
gods 106 classical schools 106
Goff, Philip 393, 396, 399, 400, 415 Radhakrishnan on 269–70
Gonda, J. 262 reform of 9, 12
Gosvāmī, Jīva 20, 34–5, 237, 258 and religious diversity 269–70, 273,
acintya (inconceivable) 134–7, 143, 274
148n16, 149n21 Western concept 256
Gosvāmī, Rūpa 7, 135 Humboldt, Wilhelm von 13
Gosvāmī, Sanātana 136 Hume, David 187, 247n23, 424, 439n7
gosvāmīs 134, 147n6 Hume, Robert E. 15, 309
Gough, A.E., The Philosophy of the
Upanishads 14 ignorance 289, 293
Govinda, teacher of Śaṅkara 47 illusion 11, 14–16, 34, 40
Govinda-bhāṣya (Baladeva) 136 see also māyā
divine love and freedom 237–40 acceptance of 394, 407, 414, 416
gradualist soteriologies 272–5 Buddhism 457
Graheli, Alessandro 136, 147n11, 147n12, and consciousness 408, 416, 417
245n4 egos 447
Granoff, Phyllis 431, 440n28 and knowledge 408
Greater Vedānta 19 Mādhva Vedānta 106, 107, 111, 115
 Index 479

magical 456 mystico-immanent 16, 21, 38–9,

metaphysics 414
monism, “illusionist” 322
as non-knowledge 447
pan-illusionism 446, 452
panpsychism, contemporary analytic
394
perceptual 111
and rebirth 190
snake 289
subjectivity 416
vivartavāda (world is illusory
appearance) 5, 282–4
world as 112, 115, 116, 117, 289
in classical Vedānta 282–4
inconceivability see acintya
(inconceivable)
indeterminancy 111–12, 116–17, 124n24,
140
indissociation 218, 221n39
individuality 6–7
see also self, individual (jīvātman);
soul, individual
and Aurobindo 190
individual self (jīvātman) 77, 78
basic features and qualifying
knowledge 80–7
inference 52, 107
and perception 112–13
insentient matter 76, 78
“Integral Vedānta” 162
“Integral Yoga” (Aurobindo) 162, 216,
310
intellectual ignorance 293
introversion 201
deep 205
mystic 202, 203, 205, 206, 208, 211
prejudice against 202, 203, 214
Īśā Upaniṣad
“bhunjīthāḥ” 316
and hermeneutics of mystical
immanence 310, 311–17
interpretation by Aurobindo
“ātmahano janāḥ” 321–2
commentary 314
compared with Śaṅkara 329–30
in the context of traditional/
modern commentators 317–34
309–340
so ‘ham asmi 333
translation 318
interpretation by Śaṅkara 309,
319–21
reconciliation of opposites 310
structure 309
Islam 166, 173
see also Āllāh
īśvara (Lord or God) 50, 61, 229, 234
Jacobi, F.H. 13
jahadajahallakṣaṇā (secondary
implication) 53–4, 68n29
Jaiminīyanyāyamālā 39, 344, 345, 346
Jainism 10, 174, 176n4
see also Advaita Vedānta; pluralism
and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
pluralism 20, 172–6
complex nature of existence see
anekāntavāda (Jain notion of
complex nature of existence)
Digambara tradition 174, 175
modern interpreters 176n4
James, William 393, 423, 430
Janet, Pierre 201
Jayarāśi 423, 424, 427
Jesus Christ 166, 168, 171, 172, 266, 268,
272
jīva (soul) see soul, individual
jīvanmukti (embodied liberation) 6, 21,
38, 281–306
comparison of Advaita Vedānta and
Pratyabhijñā 295–6
idea/ideal, in Pratyabhijñā system 282,
292–8
possibility of 6–7, 281
problem of in Advaita Vedānta 281,
288–92
Jīvanmuktiviveka (The Discrimination of
Liberation-in-Life) 47
jīvātman (individual self) 80–7
jñānayoga (practice of knowledge) 7, 8,
206, 208, 447
Jñāneśvarī (Bhagavad-Gītā commentary)
264
Jones, Richard 310
480 Index
Jones, Sir William 10, 11
Judaism 256, 268
Jung, Carl Gustav 201, 202
Kabīr 170
Kālī, Goddess 171, 172, 209
Kant, Immanuel 14, 17, 187, 446, 459
Kapoor, O.B.L. 142–3
The Philosophy and Religion of Śrī
Caitanya 150n28
karma 37, 48, 58, 82, 239
dependence on 238, 241
karmayoga (the practice of unattached
action) 7, 8, 51, 52, 67n22, 206, 261
Karṇānanda 135
Kaśmīri Śaivism 38, 184, 281, 299
Kaṭha Upaniṣad 185
Kavirāja, Kṛṣṇadāsa 134, 135, 141, 143–4,
147n5
Keats, John 194n4
Kena Upaniṣad 59, 70n59
Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya (KhKh) (Buffet
of Destruction), skeptical Advaita in
40–1, 424, 426, 431, 433, 434–44
King, Richard 66n2
knowledge
see also epistemology; jñānayoga (the
practice of knowledge)
of Brahman 175, 191, 289
cognitions and objects 107
epistemological knowing 50
of God 7, 76, 109, 241, 325, 326, 360
interpretation of the “known” 311
īśvara (knower of the field) 50, 61
knowing by living through 381–3
means of 78, 107
and nididhyāsana 64
object of 51, 84, 89, 94, 107, 117, 346,
349, 350
ordinary and scientific 408
proving 91–2
qualifying see qualifying knowledge
and realism 112
self-knowledge 52, 61, 63
steadfastness in 40
sthitaprajña (person of settled
knowledge) 7
Upaniṣads as a means of 45
Vedas as 447
Koons, Robert 187
Kripal, Jeffrey 199
Kṛṣṇa 5, 34–5, 60, 272
see also bhakti (devotion); Brahman
(ultimate reality); Caitanya
Vaiṣṇavism; God
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 133, 137, 141,
143, 146
energies 5, 34, 133, 137, 141
Kṛṣṇācārya, Mannār 123n11
Kṣemarāja 284, 297
Kundakunda 175
kuṇḍalinī energy 184
Kūrmanaraharyācārya 123n11
kusumāstra-śāstra (science of love)
377–8
lakṣaṇā (secondary indication) 53–4
Lath, Mukund 40
Le Roy, Édouard 204
Lessing, G.E. 13
liberation
ambiguity about process 62–3
embodied see jīvanmukti (embodied
liberation)
and salvation 6–7
sudden 63
from transmigratory existence 106
listening (Advaita Vedānta’s learning
methodology) 33, 55, 58
logical reflection (Advaita Vedānta’s
learning methodology) 33, 55, 58
Lokāyata doctrine 161
Long, Jeffery D. 20, 420n11
love
in Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 41,
462–6
prema (selfless love) 41, 446, 459
egoless and nondualistic 462–6
Lutjeharms, Rembert 151n37
McCrea, Lawrence 110
McGinn, Colin 418
mysterianism 394
Mādhava, Jaiminīyanyāyamālā 39, 344,
345, 346
Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha 9
Mādhavācārya 39
Madhusūdana 47, 121, 290
 Index
Madhva (Dvaita Vedāntin) 106, 132, 137,
144, 146n2, 452
“The Conquest of Madhva” 105
and religious diversity 236, 237, 264
Mādhva Vedānta
see also Madhva (Dvaita Vedāntin);
Vyāsatīrtha (Mādhva philosopher)
competing Vedāntic sampradāyas 4, 5, 6
defense of realism in 34, 105–29
dispute between Mādhvas and
Advaitins 111–13
as Dvaita (Dualist) school of Vedānta
105
illusion 106, 107, 111, 115
scripture 107–9
Vedas 108
Mahābhārata 106–7, 462, 467
conception of God 234, 241, 244
Mahadevan, T.M.P. 258, 276
Maharaj, Ayon 16, 20, 21, 36, 161, 419,
420n17, 421n22, 432, 436, 441n31,
441n36
Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality 412
Maharshi, Ramana 21, 48
mahāvākyas (great sentences) 53, 68n25
Mahāyāna Buddhism 45
Maitzen, Stephen 243
Malcolm, Norman 453
Malcolm-Smith, E.F. 220n14
Malkovsky, Bradley 8
manana (logical reflection) 33, 55, 58
Maṇḍanamiśra (Maṇḍana) 47, 72n74, 284,
291–2, 297, 302n31
debate with Śaṅkara, Śaṅkaradigvijaya
(SDV) 39, 367, 373–5
Mandāramañjarī commentaries 110
Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 3, 47
Māṇḍūkyakārikā 449
Maṇipravāḷa 98n5
mantra 57, 142
Masson, Jeffrey 198, 199, 200
materialism 157
Matilal, Bimal Krishna 35, 110, 234, 241
māyā 14, 41, 50
Advaita Vedānta 286
Bhattacharyya on 460–2
Brahman, defining 50
challenging of concept 16
dream content 446, 450
481
Vivekananda on 458–60
māyāvāda 18
meditation 7, 51–2, 60–1
need for repetition in 356–7
Meissner, William 198
Mendelssohn, Moses 13
mental affliction 59
metaphysics
of Advaita Vedānta 6–7
American traditions 48
analytical, of mind 407
see also cosmopsychism;
micropsychism; panpsychism,
contemporary analytic
of Aurobindo 180, 184, 193n2
of Brahman 45
and epistemology 37
of fundamental category of
consciousness 414
grounding 394, 402
illusion 414
realist 47
reincarnation 20, 35–6
of subjects 415–19
of subjects and consciousness 414
micropsychism 395–8, 400
Mills, Ethan 22, 40–1, 441n40, 441n46
Mīmāṃsā school 3–4, 251n63, 345, 358–9,
424
Pūrva Mīmāṃsā doctrines 4
Uttara Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta school as
3, 4
mind-wandering 59
Minor, Robert 312
modern Vedānta 157
modernity 169
mokṣa (liberation in Advaita Vedānta)
45, 61
monasteries 47
monism 108, 162, 174, 184, 189, 269, 410
existence 403, 404, 406
“illusionist” 322
neutral 415, 420n12
perfect 375
priority 399, 403, 404, 406
qualified 98n1, 275
of Ramakrishna 413–14
strict 313
synthetic/comprehensive 322, 325
482 Index

monotheism 11, 12 Naya-vāda (doctrine of perspectives)

Moore, G.E. 449 174–5
Morel, Ferdinand 200, 201, 203, 205, 211, Nelson, Lance E. 6, 246n19, 261, 289
216, 218 “Neo-Vedānta” 21, 167, 256
Müller, Max 309, 316 neti neti (negative language) 53, 54, 69n34
Muller-Ortega, Paul E. 296 New Age movements 48
Muslims 166, 173 Nicholson, Andrew J. 14, 18, 21, 37, 145,
mysterianism 394, 418 250n55
mystical immanence, hermeneutics of 21, nididhyāsana (contemplative category)
310, 311–17 in Advaita Vedānta 20, 33, 45–74
see also Aurobindo Ghose, Sri; ambiguities in 45, 62–4
hermeneutics; Īśā Upaniṣad anvaya and vyatireka (continuity and
Etymological Principle 319 discontinuity) 53, 54, 57, 68n27,
Internal Consistency Principle 317 69n34, 71n71
Īśā Upaniṣad, Aurobindo’s mystico- and certainty 57
immanent interpretation of 16, 21, chronology 62–4
38–9, 309–40 epistemological significance 47
Mystical Receptivity Principle 314, lakṣaṇā (secondary indication) 53–4
315, 326 mahāvākyas (great sentences) 53,
Vedic Context Principle 315 68n25
mysticism 36, 201 neti neti (negative language) 53, 54,
introversion 202, 203, 205, 206, 208, 69n34
211 root text in Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad
mystical experience, non-dual 40–1, 33, 46, 54–7
423, 424 summary 64–6
as a skeptical scenario 433–7 underlying method 51–4
noetic quality 430 yogic practices 51–2, 67n17
poetic imagery 430 Nikhilananda, Swami 163, 176n3, 177n7,
and psychoanalysis 36, 199, 200–4, 177n8, 266, 420n18
210, 220n15 nirvāṇa 162
later mystical critiques, Rolland’s nonbeing
anticipation of 213–19 see also existence
Śaṅkara as a mystic 429–31 absolute 76, 80
cause and effect 79
Nāgārjuna (Buddhist philosopher) 175, complete 89
176n2, 423, 424, 427 consciousness 90–1
Nagel, Thomas 393, 396 earlier/prior 88–90, 91
Naiṣkarmyasiddhi 290 temporal aspect of cognition 88–92
Nakamura, Hajime 18, 228, 241 later 80
Nālāyirat Tivviyappirapantam 98n5 Non-Birth 331
Nārāyaṇa (highest Self) 259, 260, 262 nondualism/nonduality 38, 45–74, 286
narcissism 204 of Brahman 45, 48–50, 52, 61, 64,
narrative interpretation 368–70 353–6
Nath, Radha Govinda 142, 143 egoless nondualistic prema, concept of
natural selection 17 462–6
Navya-Nyāya (school of New Logic) 41, incomplete, of Advaita Vedānta 5
47, 125n33, 438 mystical experiences 40–1, 423, 424,
realism, defense of 107, 108, 110, 111, 433–7
122, 124n21 skepticism 423, 424, 433–7, 439n8
 Index
Śuddhādvaita (Pure Nondualism) 4–5
non-realism 432
Nozick, Robert 187
Nyāya Sūtra 431
Nyāya tradition 9, 18, 41, 47, 92, 246n10,
352
realism 424, 438, 455
skepticism 424, 426, 427, 434, 438, 455
Nyāyāmṛta (Nectar of Reasoning) 34,
105–29
see also Vyāsatīrtha (Mādhva
philosopher)
defense of realism in 20
existence in 34, 107–9, 115–19
Sattvanirukti (“Analysis of Existence”)
108, 109–10, 111
and Vyāsatīrtha 34, 105–29
Nyāyāmṛtamādhurī 123n11
Nyāyasiddhāñjana 96
Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika theory of existence 111,
113–15, 118, 447
objects
of enquiry 347–51
external 446–7
illogicality of world of 458–60
of knowledge 51, 84, 89, 94, 117, 346,
349, 350
oceanic feeling 36, 197–223
see also psychoanalysis
Rolland-Freud debate 209–13
omniscience 4, 84–5, 376–7
oneness, seeing everywhere 38–9, 309–40
ontology 21, 112
and acintya (inconceivable) 140, 145
ontological status of the world 4–5,
140
pluralistic 158, 174
qualifying knowledge 75–6, 77
Oupnek’hat 13–14
Padmapāda 47, 71n73
Pakṣadhara, Jayadeva 110
Pal, Bipin Chandra 2
Pañcapādikā (Five Parts) 47
Pañcapādikāvivaraṇa (Elucidation of Five
Parts) 47
Pandurangi, K.T. 123n11, 125n35
pan-illusionism 446, 452
483
panprotopsychism 393
panpsychism, contemporary analytic
combination problem 396–9, 401, 415,
417
connection challenge 395
constitutive 396
cosmopsychism 393, 399–401
decombination problem 400, 415
defining 393
dialogue with Vedānta 22, 40, 393–421
future discussions 413–19
grounding 394, 402
micropsychism 395–8, 400
projection view 417
and promissory note materialism 394,
395, 397, 401
rebirth of 394–5
taxonomy of Vedānta 401–3
pantheism 12–13, 14, 50
Pantheismusstreit (“pantheism
controversy”) 13
Paramārthasāra 286
pāramārthika (ultimate) reality 409
Paramatabhaṅga (Refutation of Other
Views) 9, 98n5, 123n16
Paramātmā/Paramātma-sandarbha 133,
148n14, 148n16
parisaṅkhyāna contemplation, in the
Upadeśasāhasrī 58–9, 70n61, 71n63
Parsons, William 198, 199, 209–11,
220n15, 221n29, 221n30, 221n32
Pātañjala Yoga 45
Patañjali 206, 217
perception 52, 107, 175
and inference 112–13
perspectives, epistemology of 174–5
phenomenology 61, 113, 198, 396, 420n6,
463
and consciousness 396, 397, 401, 419
Upaniṣadic 460
Phillips, Stephen 195n13, 431, 434, 435
Piaget, Jean 221n39
pillars of Vedānta 21, 309, 381, 382
see also Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG);
Brahmasūtra (BS); Upaniṣads
play (of God) 229–32, 241, 288
autotelicity 231
Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa on 230–2
definitions 232
484 Index

God’s creation as 234 priority cosmopsychism 404, 405

pleasure principle 204 priority monism (PM) 399, 403, 404,
Plotinus 201 406
pluralism promissory note materialism (PNM) 394,
Anekānta Vedānta 163–4 395, 397, 401
and exclusivism 257 property dualism 394, 395, 417
experiential character 167–70 psychic being
and inclusivism 257 background/concept 181–6
ontology 158, 174 chakras 182, 183
realism 35, 158 Higher Mind 183
worldview 35, 157 Overmind 183
polytheism, of Vedas 10 psychology of 35–6, 179–96
Pons, Jean François 10, 11, 13 reincarnation, Aurobindo’s defense of
postulation 52 20, 180–1
pot metaphor 53 Supermind 183
Brahmasūtra commentaries 229, 236, psychic transformation 183–4
242 psychoanalysis
Nyāyāmṛta (Nectar of Reasoning) American psychology 216
113–17 extroversion 201, 202, 216
qualifying knowledge and soul 77, 80, infantile states 204, 205
90–1, 94, 100n19 introversion see introversion
Potter, Daniel H.H. 110 and mysticism 36, 199, 200–4, 210,
Prabandhakośa 426 220n15
Prabhupada, Swami 21, 242, 258, 272 later mystical critiques, Rolland’s
practical Vedānta 17 anticipation of 213–19
prāgabhāva (cognition of a “prior non- narcissism 204
being”) 88–92 pleasure principle 204
temporal aspect 90–2 positivistic rationalism 218
Prakāśātman 47 pseudo-objectivity of 204
prakṛti 161, 248n29 reductive method of 220n15
pramāṇa (means of knowledge) 78 regression 203, 204, 212, 216
prāṇa (subtle body) 57 Rolland’s critique of 36, 197–223
prārabdha-karma 289, 290 Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda,
prasāda (ritually sanctified food) biographies 199–209
67n21 puruṣa 161
prasthānatrayī 3 Pūrva Mīmāṃsaka/Pūrva Mīmāṃsā
Pratyabhijñā system 281–306 doctrines 4, 311
and jīvanmukti (embodied liberation)
281, 282, 298–9 qualifying knowledge
as idea/ideal 292–8 see also cognition; knowledge; self,
world as a real manifestation of Śiva individual (jīvātman)
in 284–8 and cognition 100n19
Pratyabhijñā tradition 38 defining 77
pratyakṣa (perception) 52, 107 determining what does and does not
pratyaktva (inwardness) 81 exist 78–80
prema (selfless love) 41, 446, 459 flow 79, 95
egoless and nondualistic 462–6 of God 92–6
premodern Vedāntic schools 37 individual self (jīvātman) 80–7
Primal Energy 163, 172 ontology 75–6, 77
 Index
prāgabhāva (cognition of a “prior non-
being”) 88–92
and soul 20, 33–4
states of a material cause 79–81,
99n16
substance 79–81, 86, 89
Race, Alan 174, 257
Rādhā, Śrī 141, 143
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli 15, 16, 17, 20, 37
religious diversity 255, 265, 269–71
Raghavan, V. 273
Rahasyatrayasāra (The Essence of the
Three Secrets) 98n5
rājayoga 206, 207–8
Ramakrishna, Sri 17, 22, 168, 198, 200, 209
on Anekānta Vedānta 34–5, 157–77
biography 36, 198–209, 210, 212,
220n13
egoless nondualistic prema, concept of
462–6
experiential character of pluralism
167–70
and harmonization of world religions
20, 266–9
hermeneutics 313, 314, 322
interpretation of thought 159–60
on love 446, 462, 464
and psychic experience 20, 36
on Vijñāna Vedānta 411–13, 418, 419
visionary experiences 168, 171
and Vivekananda 266–9
worldview pluralism of 35, 157–77
Ramakrishna Mission 48, 185, 268
Rāmānuja (Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedāntin) 37, 144
see also Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta
commentary of 146n2, 160, 227–53
qualifying knowledge and soul 77, 78,
98n5–6, 99n17
scholarship 21, 22
Rammohun Roy 2, 12, 256
Ram-Prasad, Chakravarthi 149n25,
150n26, 428, 431, 432, 441n37
Ramsingh II 274
Ratié, Isabelle 232
Raveh, Daniel 21, 22
realism
anti-realism of Buddhism 41
of Aurobindo 180
485
defense of 20, 34, 105–29
and knowledge 112
non-realism 432
Nyāya tradition 424, 438, 455
pluralistic 35, 158
theistic 105
in Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta 410–11
reform movements 12
regression 203, 204, 212, 216
Reichenbach, Bruce 194n8
reincarnation
and Buddhism 189, 190, 195n11
metaphysical argument for 20,
35–6
past lives, remembering 36, 181
Ramakrishna on 173
religion
see also Buddhism; Christianity;
Hinduism; Islam; Judaism
diversity see religious diversity
harmonization of world religions
265–72
Vaiṣṇava variations 271–2
Western concept 256
religious diversity 37–8, 255–80
see also sampradāyas (competing
schools)
and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
pluralism 166
gradualist soteriologies 272–5
harmonization of world religions
265–72
Vaiṣṇava variations 271–2
multireligious sādhanas 170–2
“other,” hierarchical encompassment
of 258–63
reciprocal entanglement of dualities
263–5
worldview pluralism versus religious
pluralism 177n5
renunciation 162
renouncing 466–8
Ribot, Théodule 201
rituals 52
Robinson, Catherine A. 18
Rolland, Romain 20, 36, 197–223
biographies of Sri Ramakrishna and
Vivekananda 199–209, 210, 212,
213–14, 219n13
486 Index
correspondence with Freud 197–8,
199, 202, 211–12
debate with Freud on oceanic feeling
209–13
later mystical critiques of
psychoanalysis, Rolland’s
anticipation of 213–19
Life of Ramakrishna 216
Life of Vivekananda 216
Roy, Rammohun 2, 12, 256
Royal Asiatic Society 11
Russell, Bertrand 393
Saarinen, Jussi 198
saccidānanda (“Existence-Consciousness-
Bliss”) 36, 173, 180, 181, 186–7,
192–3, 324
sādhanas (spiritual practices) see spiritual
practices
Śaiva Siddhānta (“The Definitive Doctrine
of Śaivism”) 302n34, 302n36
Śaivism of Kashmir, nondual 38, 184, 281,
299
śakti see energies
śaktipāta scheme 297
salvation, state of 6–7
see also jīvanmukti (embodied
liberation)
Samaj, Brahmo 266
Sāṃkhya school 231
sampradāyas (schools) of Vedānta 1, 257,
264
emergence of 3–8
nature of Brahman 4
ontological status of the world 4–5, 140
relation between Brahman and the
individual soul 5–6
relation between Brahman and the
world 5
salvation, state of 6–7
spiritual practices, scheme of 7–8
saṃsāra (liberation from transmigratory
existence) 106
Śaṅkara (Advaita Vedāntin) 10, 15, 22,
132, 168, 227, 259, 283, 316, 344,
426, 457, 461
see also Advaita Vedānta
and Bhāskara 5–6
on Buddhism 260, 453, 456–8
commentaries
and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
pluralism 160
and Aurobindo 179
Brahmasūtra (BS) 146n2, 227–53,
450
play (of God) 234
scholarship, Vedānta 3, 10, 11, 14,
21, 37
encounter with caṇḍāla
(“untouchable”) 39, 383–6
and indigenous Indian expositions of
Vedānta 12
Īśā Upaniṣad, interpreting 309, 319–21,
323, 327, 328–9
compared with Aurobindo 329–30
in king’s body 39, 367, 378–80
prārabdha-karma 289, 290
and religious diversity 259, 260
Śaṅkaradigvijaya (premodern
hagiography) see Śaṅkaradigvijaya
summary of contemplative method
64–6
Śaṅkara lineages 261
Śaṅkaradigvijaya (SDV) (premodern
hagiography of Śaṅkara) 19, 39–40,
367–90
Maṇḍana and Śaṅkara debate 39,
373–5
omniscience 376–7
Sanskrit 10, 98n5, 193
Sarasvatī, Madhusūdana 107, 108, 264
Sarasvatī, Prakāśānanda 139–40
Sarasvatī, Saccidānandendra 21
Sarasvati, Swami Satyananda 181
Sardella, F. 272
Sarvadarśanasaṃgraha (A Compendium
of All Philosophies) 9
Sarvārthasiddhi (autocommentary) 95
sattā 427–8
Sattvanirukti (Analysis of Existence) 108,
109–10, 111, 116, 122
satyam 50
Savitri (poem) 193n3
Schaffer, Jonathan 399
Schelling, F.W.J. 14
Schlegel, A.W. 13
Schlegel, Friedrich 13
Schmid, Stephen 231
 Index 487

Schmücker, Marcus 20, 124n23 self-knowledge 268, 314, 373

scholarship, Vedānta 1–23 and contemplation 46, 52, 55, 61–3,
from 1740 to 1890 9–15 65, 68n24, 70n56
from 1890 to the present 15–19 self-reflection 81
competing Vedāntic sampradāyas 1–8 substance 79–81, 86, 89
doxographies, in medieval India 8–9 Sen, Keshab Chandra 2, 265
Indology, Western 14–15 Sen Sharma, Debabrata 297, 298
monotheism 12 sentences, secondary or implied meaning
pantheism 12–13, 14 139
terminology 1–2 sentient beings 75, 78
Schopenhauer, Arthur 13, 14, 17 sexual energy 182, 199, 219n9
Schweig, Graham 146, 151n36 sexual repression 199
scripture 41, 71n70, 133, 255, 265, 275, Shani, Itay 393, 403
356, 357, 361, 429, 430 Sharma, Arvind 310
acintya (inconceivable) 139, Sharma, B.N.K. 123n12, 124n18, 144,
150n28 145
Aurobindo on 310–12 Sheridan, D.P. 264
Bhagavad-Gītā (BhG) 1, 10 Sil, Narasingha 199
and Brahman 133, 139, 144 Simmonds, Janette 198
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 141, 142 Sinclair, James D. 187
difference and nondifference 137, 139, Śiromaṇi, Raghunātha 114, 121, 123n11
140 Śiva
interpretation of 109, 139–40 free will 288
Mādhva Vedānta 107–9 material and efficient cause of the
power of 38–9 world 287–8
sects of Vedānta 11 world as a real manifestion of
self, individual (jīvātman) 58–9, 61, 77, 284–8
78, 99n9 Śivādvaita Vedānta 9, 20
see also jīvātman; consciousness; skepticism
individuality; qualifying and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
knowledge; soul, individual pluralism 171
ahaṃ sukham asvāpsam (“I slept well”) anti-theism
87–8 external-world 425
basic features and qualifying mystical experience as a skeptical
knowledge 80–7 scenario 40–1, 433–7
Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 132 nondualism 423, 424, 433–7, 439n8
egos, illusoriness of 447 Nyāya tradition 424, 426, 427, 434,
essence 81–2 438, 455
inwardness 81, 84 Redundant Qualification Argument
Nārāyaṇa (highest Self) 259, 260, 262 438
past, present and future, recognition skeptical scenarios in Early Modern
87–90 Europe/contemporary analytic
plurality of individual selves 78 philosophy 424–6
and qualifying knowledge 20, 33–4 skeptical theism 242, 243, 250n58
referred to by the word “I” 76, 81, 82, Śrīharṣa 431–3
85, 86, 88 Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, skeptical
self-identity 48, 53, 63, 64 Advaita in 40–1, 423–44
self-illumination/self-luminosity 81–4, Skoog, Kim 291
86, 447, 469n18 sleep
488 Index

see also dreams Yogācāra Buddhism 456, 458

ahaṃ sukham asvāpsam (“I slept well”) subjects, metaphysics of 415–19
87–8 and consciousness 414
cognition of unawareness during 77, substance 79–81, 86, 89
78, 86 substance dualism 394, 395, 417
and consciousness 51 Sudarśanasūri 99n18
deep dreamless 51, 81 Śuddhādvaita (pure nondualism) 4–5
versus waking life 450, 451, 452, 453 suffering 230, 243
“social advaita” 383–4 and beginninglessness 232–7
Socrates 449 Suits, Bernard 247n26
Somānanda 284 sun analogy 138–9
soteriological project of Advaita 51 superimposition
soul, individual (jīva or jīvātman) 76, 106, erroneous 283
171 upāsana’s use 67n19
see also individuality; self, individual Western classification modes 256
(jīvātman) Sureśvara 64, 139
relation with Brahman 3, 5–6, 7 Suthren Hirst, J.G. 71n70, 259
Spinoza, Baruch 13, 14, 393, 455 Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 138
Ethics 447 Swami Vivekananda see Vivekananda,
spiritual ignorance 293 Swami
spiritual practices Swinburne, Richard 187
multireligious 170–2 syādvāda 175
pluralism of Ramakrishna 157, 171
scheme of 7–8 Tagore, Debendranath 2, 12
śravaṇa (listening) 33, 55, 58 Taittirīya Upaniṣad 49, 50, 182
Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya see Kṛṣṇa tantric thought 181, 182, 183, 185
Sri Ramakrishna see Ramakrishna, Sri Tarkatāṇḍava (The Death-Dance of Logic)
Śrīharṣa (Advaita Vedānta philosopher) 108
47, 142, 262 Tātparyacandrikā (The Moonlight
see also Advaita Vedānta Illuminating the Meaning [of the
destructive arguments 428, 431 Vedas]) 108
as a mystic 429–31 Tattvadīpikā (An Illumination of Reality) 9
as a skeptic 431–3 Tattvamuktākalāpa (TMK) 85
anti-dogmatic attitude 438 Tattva-sandarbha 258
complexities of Śrīharṣa’s Tattvasaṅkhyāna 114
arguments 426–9 Tattvaviveka 114
Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, skeptical theism, personal 260
Advaita in 40–1, 423–44 theistic schools 4, 105
unique experience of skepticism theology
437–8 Caitanya Vaiṣṇavism 132–4
Srinivasachari, P.N. 276 Catholic 359–62
śruti (scripture) see scripture qualifying knowledge 75–6
Stevenson, Ian 193n2 Thibaut, George 15–16, 309
sthitaprajña (person of settled knowledge) Thieme, Paul 310
7 Thompson, Evan 18
Stoker, Valerie 108, 123n14, 274 Torella, Raffaele 298
Strawson, Galen 393, 397, 400, 413, 415 Totāpurī 172
style of Vedānta 39, 341–66 “Transcendent Dream-Skepticism”
subjective idealism 10, 11, 13, 14, 453 (Valberg) 454–5
 Index 489

transmigratory existence 106, 233 Vācaspati Miśra 47, 149n25, 248n33,

truth 173 250n54, 256, 431
absolute 175–6 Vaidya, Anand Jayprakash 22, 403
“two truths” doctrine 175, 234, 259 Vaikuṇṭha 138
Turīyānanda, Svāmī 161 Vaiṣṇavism 172, 257, 258, 262, 263
variations 271–2
Ubhaya-bhāratī 376, 377 Vaiyāsikanyāyamālā (Garland of Vyāsa’s
debate with Maṇḍana, Reasons) 39, 344
Śaṅkaradigvijaya (SDV) 39, 367, Valberg, J.J., “Transcendent Dream-
373–5 Skepticism” 454–5
Udayana 78, 92–4 Vallabha 4, 193
ultimate reality see Brahman (ultimate reality) Vanamāli Miśra 123n11
unconscious 205, 215, 217, 414 Vasiṣṭha 451, 455
Unger, Peter 439n5 Vasu, S.C. 246n12
unity in difference 136, 137–41 Vasubandhu 439n7, 442n46
universal consciousness 302n36, 406, 411, Vaudeville, C. 264
416–18 Vedānta
epistemology 414–15 Acinytabhedābheda see
Upadeśasāhasrī (US) (A Thousand Acintyabhedābheda Vedānta
Teachings) 18, 46, 47 (Paradoxical Difference and Non-
parisaṅkhyāna contemplation in 58–9, Difference) school
70n60, 71n63 Advaita Vedānta see Advaita Vedānta
Upādhyāya, Yajñapati 110 analytical taxonomy 401–3
upamāna (comparison) 52 Bhedābheda see Bhedābheda Vedānta
Upaniṣads classical 20
see also Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad; cross-cultural analysis 18, 41, 446–71
Chāndogya Upaniṣad; Īśā defining 1
Upaniṣad; Kaṭha Upaniṣad; Kena doctrinal systems 255
Upaniṣad; Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad; Dvaita Vedānta 2, 9
Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad; Taittirīya genres 341–3
Upaniṣad indigenous Indian expositions of 12
Brahman 46, 52, 282, 328 Mādhva Vedānta see Mādhva Vedānta
commentary 160 manuals 343–6
early 179, 181, 185, 187, 227 and Mīmāṃsā 358–9
images/symbols 185 modern 20
as a means of knowledge 45 new light on 357–8
other sources compared 228 outline of important traditions 3
paradox of unity and multiplicity in panpsychism, dialogue with 22, 40,
the world 132 393–421
parisaṅkhyāna contemplation in 59 scholarship see scholarship, Vedānta
religious diversity 259 sects 11
testimony as a means of knowledge 52 Śivādvaita Vedānta 9, 20
translation of 12 sources 19
and Vedānta 1, 151n37 central differences in 227, 228
upāsana 51–2, 67n19 style 341–66
US see Upadeśasāhasrī (US) (A Thousand theistic schools 4
Teachings) and Upaniṣads 1, 151n37
Utpaladeva 284, 294 Vijñāna Vedānta see Vijñāna Vedānta
Uttara Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta school as 3, 4
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Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta see Viśiṣṭādvaita vivartavāda (world is illusory appearance)

Vedānta 5, 282–4
Vedānta Deśika see Veṅkaṭanātha Vivekananda, Swami 2, 16–18, 22, 36, 37,
Vedāntaparibhāṣā (Preliminary Rules of 41, 48, 206, 255, 258
Vedānta) 343, 346 on Alice in Wonderland 446–9
Vedāntasāra (text on philosophy of and Anekānta Vedānta/worldview
Advaita Vedānta) 11 pluralism 159, 161, 165, 166, 170,
Vedas 175, 176n4
as eternal and authorless texts 52 biography 36, 198–209, 210, 212,
as knowledge 447 213–14, 219n13
learning 168 and Christianity 15
Mādhva Vedānta 106, 108 egoless nondualistic prema, concept of
and meaning of Vedānta 1 462–6
polytheism of 10 and harmonization of world religions
rejection of non-Vedic systems 258, 266–9
261 hermeneutics 313, 314, 322
Vedic Context Principle 315 on illusion 458–60
Vedic language 98n3 on love 462, 465
Veṅkaṭanātha mysticism of 209
see also qualifying knowledge; self, “Neo-Vedāntin” 21
individual (jīvātman); Viśiṣṭādvaita and oceanic feeling/psychoanalysis 20,
Vedānta 198, 208, 212
eternity concept 78, 92–6 and Ramakrishna 266–9
Īśā Upaniṣad, interpreting 309, 323 and religious diversity 265, 274
Paramatabhaṅga (Refutation of Other on truth 173
Views) 9 on the Vedas 311
qualifying knowledge and soul in Vyāsatīrtha (Mādhva philosopher) 20,
thought of 20, 77–8, 99n17 105
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta of 33–4, 75–104 as an analytic theologian 109–11
verbal testimony 107 on existence 122
Vidyādhīśa Snātakottara Saṃskṛta final definition 119–21
Śodhakendraḥ, 123n11 in Nyāyāmṛta 34, 107–9, 115–19
Vidyāraṇya 47 influence of 107–8
Vijñāna Vedānta 411–13, 418, 419 Mandāramañjarī commentaries 110
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta 20, 33–4, 75–104, and Nyāyāmṛta 34, 105–29
162 Vyāsayogicarita (Deeds of Vyāsayogi)
see also Rāmānuja (Viśiṣṭādvaita 108
Vedāntin), Veṅkaṭanātha vyatireka see anvaya and vyatireka
competing Vedāntic sampradāyas 2, (continuity and discontinuity)
4, 6, 7 vyāvahārika (empirical) reality 409
philosophical overview 75–6
realism in 410–11 Wada, Toshihiro 110
subschools 8 Ward, William 11, 13
Vedāntic doxography 9 Werman, David 198
Viṣṇu Purāṇa 142, 148n14, 228, 236 Wilber, Ken, “pre/trans fallacy” 217, 218
Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa (Vedic god) 46, 78, 98n3 Williams, Michael 20, 124n20
Mādhva Vedānta 105, 106, 108 Wimsatt, W.K. 311
Vivaraṇa subschool 47 Witness-Consciousness 50–1, 458
Wittgenstein, Ludwig 465
 Index 491

Woodroffe, Sir John 181 regaining 466–8

world relation with Brahman 5
ajātivāda (theory that world is never Śiva as material and efficient cause of
actually born) 47 287–8
change in 458 worldview pluralism, of Sri Ramakrishna
and embodied liberation in Advaita 35, 157–77
Vedānta and Pratyabhijñā system versus religious pluralism 177n5
281–306
empirical 50 Yāmuna 76, 78
as illusion 112, 115, 116, 117, 282–4, Yogācāra Buddhism 393, 446, 453,
289 456–8
impermanence of 450 Yogavāsiṣṭha 449, 450, 451, 455
ontological status 4–5 yogic practices 51–2, 67n17
present/presented, as a dream yogyānupalabdhi (non-cognition of
449–54 something capable of being known)
as a real manifestiation of Śiva in 78, 80
Pratyabhijñā system 284–8 Young, Katherine K. 310
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