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 451

The Sankara School of Vedanta
434
[CH.
a particular conclusion. As explained by Śankara, most of these sūtras except the first four and the first two chapters of the second book are devoted to the textual interpretations of the Upanisad passages. Sankara's method of explaining the absolutist Vedānta creed does not consist in proving the Vedanta to be a consistent system of metaphysics, complete in all parts, but in so interpreting the Upanisad texts as to show that they all agree in holding the Brahman to be the self and that alone to be the only truth. In Chapter I of Book II Śankara tries to answer some of the objections that may be made from the Samkhya point of view against his absolutist creed and to show that some apparent difficulties of the absolutist doctrine did not present any real difficulty. In Chapter II of Book II he tries to refute the Samkhya, Yoga, Nyāya-Vaiseṣika, the Buddhist, Jaina, Bhāgavata and Saiva systems of thought. These two chapters and his commentaries on the first four sutras contain the main points of his system. The rest of the work is mainly occupied in showing that the conclusion of the sutras was always in strict agreement with the Upanisad doctrines. Reason with Sankara never occupied the premier position; its value was considered only secondary, only so far as it helped one to the right understanding of the revealed scriptures, the Upanisads. The ultimate truth cannot be known by reason alone. What one debater shows to be reasonable a more expert debater shows to be false, and what he shows to be right is again proved to be false by another debater. So there is no final certainty to which we can arrive by logic and argument alone. The ultimate truth can thus only be found in the Upanisads; reason, discrimination and judgment are all to be used only with a view to the discovery of the real purport of the Upanisads. From his own position Śankara was not thus bound to vindicate the position of the Vedanta as a thoroughly rational system of metaphysics. For its truth did not depend on its rationality but on the authority of the Upanisads. But what was true could not contradict experience. If therefore Sankara's interpretation of the Upanisads was true, then it would not contradict experience. Śankara was therefore bound to show that his interpretation was rational and did not contradict experience. If he could show that his interpretation was the only interpretation that was faithful to the Upanisads, and that its apparent contradictions with experience could in some way be explained,