History of Indian Philosophy

SR No.: 007593
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Surendranath Dasgupta
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 2517
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 125 MB

Page 439

422
The Sankara School of Vedānta [cu. I do not know of any evidence that would come in conflict with this supposition. The fact that we do not know of any Hindu writer who held such monistic views as Gaudapāda or Sankara, and who interpreted the Brahma-sútras in accordance with those monistic ideas, when combined with the fact that the dualists had been writing commentaries on the Brahma-sūtras, goes to show that the Brahma-sūtras were originally regarded as an authoritative work of the dualists. This also explains the fact that the Bhagavadgitā, the canonical work of the Ekānti Vaisnavas, should refer to it. I do not know of any Hindu writer previous to Gaudapāda who attempted to give an exposition of the monistic doctrine (apart from the Upanişads), either by writing a commentary as did Sankara, or by writing an independent work as did Gaudapāda. I am inclined to think therefore that as the pure monism of the Upanişads was not worked out in a coherent manner for the formation of a monistic system, it was dealt with by people who had sympathies with some form of dualism which was already developing in the later days of the Upanişads, as evidenced by the dualistic tendencies of such Upanişads as the Śvetāśvatara, and the like. The epic Sāmkhya was also the result of this dualistic development.
It seems that Bādarāyaṇa, the writer of the Brahma-sūtras, was probably more a theist, than an absolutist like his commentator Sankara. Gaudapāda seems to be the most important man, after the Upanişad sages, who revived the monistic tendencies of the Upanisads in a bold and clear form and tried to formulate them in a systematic manner. It seems very significant that no other kārikās on the Upanişads were interpreted, except the Mandíkyakārikā by Gaudapāda, who did not himself make any reference to any other writer of the monistic school, not even Bādarāyana. Sankara himself makes the confession that the absolutist (advaita) creed was recovered from the Vedas by Gaudapāda. Thus at the conclusion of his commentary on Gaudapāda's kārikā, he says that "he adores by falling at the feet of that great guru (teacher) the adored of his adored, who on finding all the people sinking in the ocean made dreadful by the crocodiles of rebirth, out of kindness for all people, by churning the great ocean of the Veda by his great churning rod of wisdom recovered what lay deep in the heart of the Veda, and is hardly attainable even by the immortal