Svāmī Prakāśānandendra Sarasvatī Mahārāja
5. Extracts from the Commentary on the Adhyāsa Bhāṣya Sugama
The discussion concerned adhyāsa according to those mūlāvidyāvādin Vedāntins whom we define as “sectarians” (ekadeśin) because they only partially follow Śaṃkara’s Advaita. Not only do they propose a different explanation of how the mutual superimposition of Ātman and anātman occurs, but they also base their arguments on certain assumptions that are contrary to general experience. They claim that adhyāsa is an event, the product of a process, and therefore whatever is superimposed (adhyasta) is also a product. As with any product, i.e. an effect, the existence of a material cause is required.
Śrī Śrī Prabuddhānanda Svāmījī also commented on this in his notes on Svāmī Satchidānandendra Mahārāja‘s Adhyāsa Bhāṣya, responding to them point by point. First of all, Svāmījī raised the following question: when, upon realising that it is a mother-of-pearl shell, the appearance of silver is cancelled out, the knowledge of silver is also removed. Instead, they argue that in the consciousness of the rope there is an ajñānam, a positive ignorance that transforms into a snake. Furthermore, since knowledge always necessarily requires an object, the destruction of the knowledge of silver cannot disappear together with the silver. That is, just as the snake hides in the rope, the silver merges into its material cause (upādāna kāraṇam avidyā), that ignorance associated with the consciousness of the shell. It is a terribly complicated theory.
Svāmī Prabuddhānanda by all logic counters that if the snake is eliminated and the rope is recognised, the rope is known once and for all and can no longer be mistaken for a snake. But they argue that the rope can be mistaken for a snake whenever one is in the dark. This error can recur repeatedly, causing us to fall back into the same mistake. The avidyā that is attached to the consciousness of the rope and transforms into a snake would not, therefore, be truly destroyed; it merges into the substantial avidyā and that is why it is not visible. This means that it is not permanently removed and, therefore, can reappear again.
They also add that if one does not know the substratum (adhiṣṭhāna) of substantial ignorance (mūlāvidyā), that is to say Brahman, Caitanya, Ātman or Sākṣin, whichever one prefers, the avidyā of objects will not go away. Therefore, if there are avidyā that transform into a snake, silver, a robber, etc., they will disappear definitively only by knowing Brahman. By recognising only the rope, how can the snake be completely destroyed? In fact, since the snake is produced by avidyā, it will go away only by knowing Brahman. Ajñānam will disappear completely from the rope and all other objects only by obtaining Brahma jñānam. But until Brahman is known, one will continue to mistake the rope for a snake.
If all single misunderstandings are due to ignorance, all avidyā are part of the one avidyā that is the mūlāvidyā of Paramātman. To know Brahman, one must remove total ignorance and, in doing so, also remove all partial ajñānam that cause one to know worldly objects in the wrong way. In short, there are various ajñānam concerning multiple objects, and all these ignorances are part of that mūlāvidyā which is the ajñānam of Brahman. Therefore, until Brahman is known, mūlāvidyā is not removed. But until it is removed, even all these small ajñānam that are part of mūlāvidyā cannot be removed. Therefore, when one mistakes the rope for a snake, how can one remove the snake in order to recognise that it is actually a rope? Their answer is that the snake cannot be removed permanently, but that it is part of the rope. The rope has consciousness (caitanyam); the ajñānam of the rope is attached to that caitanyam, and that same ajñānam transforms into a snake. Therefore, when a stronger light is brought to illuminate the darkness, the snake simply retreats into the ajñānam of the rope. In this way, the snake is ready to reappear in subsequent circumstances.
This is just one of many explanations. In fact, among the mūlāvidyāvādin there are many ācāryas who have explained it in slightly different ways; However, they all agree that if knowledge of the substratum (adhiṣṭhānam), i.e. Paramātman, does not destroy the mūlāvidyā that hinders His knowledge (avidyā Ātman adhyastaya Ātma jñānam virodha), all partial ignorance will continue to reappear.
If you asked them, ‘So, does avidyā pertain to the object to be known?’, they would answer that avidyā does not pertain to the object, but covers it. Ignorance envelops the consciousness of the object, thus acting as an obstacle (virodha) only to the knowledge of that consciousness. Therefore, it cannot be removed without the knowledge of that caitanyam. The snake is no longer seen because it becomes invisible by merging with the rope again. The effect simply falls back into the cause; it does not go away, but remains there until Brahma jñānam is attained.
There are two schools of mūlāvidyā: the first has its source in the Pañcapādikā, the other in the Bhāmatī. It is said that the Pañcapādikā was written by Padmapāda, a direct disciple of Śaṃkara. However, the Pañcapādikā, which is a commentary on only the first four sūtras of the Brahma Sūtra Śaṃkara Bhāṣya, appeared several centuries after the Bhagavatpāda. But they are convinced that it is the work of Śaṃkara’s direct disciple and therefore blindly accept everything it contains. Among them is Prakāśātma Yati who, in the 12th century, wrote the sub-commentary to the Pañcapādikā, entitled Vivaraṇa. For this reason, this current of mūlāvidyā is known as Vivaraṇa sampradāya.
The other school refers to the Bhāmatī, another sub-commentary on the Brahma Sūtra Śaṃkara Bhāṣya, whose author was certainly not a direct disciple of Śaṃkarācārya. This was Vācaspati Miśra, a disciple of Trilocanācārya, who wrote it about a century after Śaṃkara, three or four generations later. He certainly belonged to a different paramparā, which is thought to date back to another disciple of Śaṃkara who remains unknown. The Pañcapādikā-Vivaraṇa tradition is followed by saṃnyāsins, while the Bhāmatī tradition is generally represented by married Gurus. In fact, Padmapāda and Prakāśātma Yati were two renunciants, while Vācaspati Miśra was a gṛhastha. These two conflicting schools continue to be handed down, which is certainly worrying. When Śaṃkara wrote his Bhāṣya, he obviously expressed only the coherent vision of non-dual siddhānta. But today1, those who study Vedānta in secular State Universities and even with various Advaita paṇḍitas and ācāryas are faced with two explanations for each point of Śaṃkara’s teaching. Obviously, each of the two schools claims that its interpretation is the true meaning of Śaṃkara’s work, when, in fact, their interpretations diverge from the original and contradict each other. Why then not read Śaṃkara’s texts directly? Why seek the meaning of his teachings in the interpretations of the Vivaraṇa and Bhāmatī sub-commentaries, which contradict each other? How can there be two opposing ideas about the same teaching?
Based on this evidence, Satchidanandendra Svāmījī set aside these two interpretations and referred directly to Śaṃkara. In this way, he clearly demonstrated that for Śaṃkara, adhyāsa is exactly the same thing as avidyā. Contrary to those who claim that, in addition to adhyāsa, there is a positive material cause (mūlāvidyā) that transforms into adhyāsa, he proved unequivocally that, for Śaṃkara, even erroneous knowledge (mithyā jñānam) is always and only avidyā. Avidyā is neither a reality nor a positive substance that can transform into adhyāsa. Ignorance is not real because absolute Reality is Consciousness-Knowledge. Avidyā is what appears by mistake but does not exist, like the snake seen instead of the rope. Otherwise, if it were real, it would have to exist somewhere. Those who follow the Vivaraṇa say, in fact, that avidyā is associated with Brahman, while the Bhāmatīkāra denies this: ignorance is attached to the jīva. Those who seek truth in the path of Vedānta cannot accept two contradictory points of view. Nor can one accept one and reject the other. Therefore, Svāmījī denounced both as incorrect, since Śaṃkara repeatedly asserted ‘adhyāso avidyā’ and never stated that avidyā is the material cause of adhyāsa, as if the latter were an effect distinct from it. According to this erroneous view, there are two categories of ignorance: the first corresponds to ignorance about Brahman-Ātman. When one is affected by such ignorance, one finds oneself as an individual jīva and places oneself in the jagat, that is, one believes in the reality of saṃsāra from both the microcosmic and macrocosmic points of view. The second ignorance consists in ignoring, misunderstanding or having doubts about the multiple objects of the world. The first is root ignorance, the cause of all partial ignorance, which is attached to Brahman, a positive, real, coeternal and substantial matter. That ignorance that covers Brahman is transformed into jagat. The second category of ignorance is that which the jīva feels towards external objects. For example, in semi-darkness, when one does not recognise a rope and mistakes it for a snake, the snake is produced. The ignorance that covers the rope is transformed into a snake. But which avidyā is the serpent producing? The one taught by Vivaraṇa or that of Bhāmatī? The tradition of the Pañcapādikā-Vivaraṇa sampradāya states that there is only one avidyā, which, however, has two levels. One is partial and multiple ignorance (adhyāsa), the other is total and unique ignorance (avidyā). Partial and limited ignorance attaches itself to worldly objects. For example: if one does not know the rope, there is ignorance of the rope; if one does not know the book, there is ignorance of the book; if one does not know the table, there is ignorance of the table. The Bhāmatī school also considers two levels of avidyā. These are root ignorance (mūlāvidyā) and differentiated ignorance (tūlāvidyā). Tūlāvidyā is avidyā concerning the objects of perception in the external world, while mūlāvidyā is avidyā concerning Brahman. Adhyāsa requires a positive substance, a real matter that adheres to Brahman and is the material cause that transforms into tūlāvidyā.
Now the following problem arises: how can ignorance be removed so that the serpent disappears? Vivaraṇa‘s explanation is as follows: ignorance envelops consciousness, and until one knows the absolute Consciousness, that is Brahman, ignorance will not go away. This is because the snake appears due to ignorance, and that ignorance attaches itself both to the consciousness of the rope and to Consciousness-Caitanya. All ignorance concerning worldly objects is part of the total and supreme ignorance about Brahman. In this perspective, when a light is brought near and the rope is recognised, the snake goes away, but not completely. The material cause of the snake, mūlāvidyā, or causal ignorance (kāraṇa avidyā), will not disappear. With the knowledge of the rope, the snake returns to merge with this causal avidyā and hides there. What happens to all misunderstandings about the objects of the world? Their individual avidyās will temporarily merge as effects into their ignorance-cause. Therefore, on any other occasion, time or place, whenever they can be misunderstood, they will reappear again; they will disappear again by merging into their cause and reappear again. The totality of singular ignorances will disappear at once when Brahman is known. This is the point of view of the Vivaraṇa school.
Even for the author of the Bhāmatī, there are two avidyās. When one mistakes the rope for a snake, it is tūlāvidyā that covers the consciousness of the rope. Thus the rope is transformed into a snake, but when you know the consciousness of the rope, the snake disappears. In this case, only the ignorance of the snake disappears definitively, which does not affect the persistence of mūlāvidyā that covers Brahman and prevents its knowledge.
In his notes to Pūjya Satchidānandendra Svāmījī‘s Adhyāsa Bhāṣya Sugama, Svāmī Prabuddhānanda is crystal clear on this point: according to the Vivaraṇa, the countless partial avidyās about the objects of the world are parts of the one mūlāvidyā, so they will not go away until the latter is definitively erased from the knowledge of Brahman. On the other hand, according to the Bhāmatī, even if the tūlāvidyāsare completely removed, the one mūlāvidyā remains as ignorance of the Absolute (Brahma ajñānam). The bhāmatīvādinsthink that ignorance is potentially inherent in Consciousness (śāktika avācīna Caitanyam), therefore they assert that mūlāvidyā is Ātma ajñānam located in Ātman itself and that only the latter can destroy it. Similarly, worldly objects also have ignorance potentially inherent in them. In the illustration of the rope, ajñānam adheres to the limited consciousness of the rope, the avācīna caitanyam of the rope. In this way, when one tries to know the rope, one cannot see it completely because there is a thin layer of ignorance covering the rope and preventing one from knowing it. It is this single avidyā of the rope that transforms into a snake. The destruction of the illusory form of the object does not at all entail the destruction of the ultimate ignorance that resides in the Ātman. Therefore, when one knows the object, only its tūlāvidyā disappears. The snake ceases to appear only when one knows the rope, removing the tūlāvidyā from the rope. The reader will be surprised that we continue to repeat the exposition and criticism of these theories, but it is absolutely necessary for him to realise the sophistry with which Vedānta is transmitted in certain circles. Even the writer of these lines studied Vedānta in this way, and that is how he taught it for some time.
Only when Svāmī Prabuddhānanda Mahārāja introduced us to the teachings of Pūjya Satchitānandendra Svāmījī did all these speculations vanish into thin air, like the snake when one recognises it as a rope. The practice of discrimination swept away all these absurd creations of the mind.
Of the two theories, Bhāmatī‘s explanation is somewhat more logical than the other, because it states that if tūlāvidyā, i.e. ignorance about the object, is removed, ignorance about the Absolute (Brahma avidyā) still remains. The vivaraṇavāda theory of ignorance is much more paradoxical. The claim that ignorance of the snake cannot be destroyed because the snake merges into causal avidyā, where it will remain hidden until knowledge of Brahman occurs, is a nonsensical theory. If, instead of the example (dṛṣṭānta) of the snake-object, we consider the removal of the world-object, composed of all the plurality of objects, the world could not disappear, but would have to merge with mūlāvidyā: it will only disappear temporarily, not forever, ready to reappear later. This means that a total destruction of ignorance is not possible, and this contradicts śruti, Śaṃkara’s teaching, intuition, and their own doctrine. In fact, they admit, on the basis of the Śāstra, that Liberation occurs through knowledge of Brahman; but to deny that it occurs through the removal of cosmic illusion, māyā, is to affirm the impossibility of mokṣa. Cornered by the evidence that none of this appears in any of Śaṃkarācārya’s writings, they defend themselves by saying that he had it in mind and secretly transmitted it only to his disciple Padmapāda. They claim that everyone must accept this fantasy and, if by chance someone dares to reject it, they accuse them of being against tradition2.
Śaṃkara simply said that Brahman is mistakenly taken for the world, just as a real rope is mistaken for a non-existent snake. He proposed the example of the snake and the rope to help the ignorant understand that there is no such thing as the world, but that it is only a misconception about Brahman. Such “sectarian” (ekadeśin)3 Vedāntins of the Pañcapādika and Vivaraṇa schools therefore hold something that is completely contrary to Śaṃkara’s Prasthānatraya Bhāṣyas. Their incongruous theory is also contrary to intuition (anārūḍhatva anubhava): no one, in fact, has ever experienced that there is a substantial real ignorance that transforms itself into a snake to cover the rope.
May the Sadguru lead those who struggle in the stormy seas of the mind to overcome the error (viparyāsa) of mūlāvidyā and proceed to discriminate between truth and falsehood through the Vedānta vicāra!
Oṃ Śrī Gurubhyo Namaḥ !
- Indeed, this situation is going on for many centuries. The fact is that the criticisms raised by Rāmānuja (1077–1158) against Śaṃkara actually only affect the post-Śaṃkarian doctrinal deviations of the followers of Vivaraṇa and Bhāmatī. Therefore, even the founder of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta school, a rival of Advaita, condemned the deviations of those unfaithful successors of Śaṃkara [Editor’s note].[↩]
- For example, “Svāmīni” Āgamānanda, i.e. Dr Martha Doherty, is the author of an article (“A Contemporary Debate among Advaita Vedantins on the Nature of Avidyā” (Journal of Indian Philosophy 33, 2005) in which she argues that the authentic advitīya tradition corresponds to the post-Śaṃkarian (prasaṃkhyānavādin) tradition, since the doctrine of Svāmī Satchidānandendra Mahārāja should be rejected by the advaitins she defines as “traditional”, that is the supporters of mūlāvidyā. Some Western esotericists have taken malign pleasure in relying on the writings of this “saṃnyāsinī” (a category invented by New Age Hinduism) in order to avoid recognising the true teachings of Śaṃkarian Vedānta. These Westerners, affiliated with monotheistic sects, subtly seek to sow discord, raising doubts about what they neither know nor understand, but which does not fit in with their beliefs in a “Vedānta” applied to man and even to his becoming! [Editor’s note].[↩]
- The term “sectarian” here should be understood in its etymological sense. ‘Sectarian’ in this case refers to those who have a separate, sectorial, partial, or incomplete conception of Vedāntī doctrine; it must therefore be assumed that some parts of their thinking have been misrepresented and distorted, as is the subject discussed here by Svāmī Prakāśānandendra Sarasvatī Mahārājajī. However, it should not be forgotten that those who are criticized here are still recognised as Vedāntins, duly initiated and links in an initiatory chain. People trained in a monotheistic mindset find it difficult to understand this point of view, accustomed as they are to judging on the basis of the unbreakable categories of heterodoxy and orthodoxy, heresy and adherence to dogma. It suffices to reflect on the rather positive opinion that Advaita has of Buddhist idealism, despite the many errors noted, to understand this purely cognitive and non-dogmatic point of view. This may helps understand how ekadeśin currents and purely metaphysical schools of Vedānta have been able to coexist for so many centuries without legal condemnations, excommunications, interdicts, mutual suspensions, persecutions or more or less bloody punishments. Doctrinal differences, in the Eternal Tradition, have always remained at the level of public debate among sages, with mutual recognition, respect and a great sense of civility [Editor’s note].[↩]