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152 THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION IN INDIAN RELIGIONS LIBERATION ACCORDING TO ADVAITA VEDĀNTA
Gaudapāda (circa seventh century A.D.) in his Agamaśāstra or the Māndūkyakärikā, for the first time gave a systematic exposition of Vedānta on the lines of advaita. After him Samkarācārya perfected the non-dualistic system of the Vedānta in his commentaries on the old Upanişads, the Brahmasutra and the Bhagavadgita. Several medieval and modern scholars have suggested the influence of Mahāyāna Buddhist thought on Advaita Vedānta.74
According to Samkara, self, also called brahman, is the one and only ultimate reality. It is the being in itself, wholly conscious, luminous and of the nature of bliss. It is universal and infinite. The objective world is dependent; it is not self-existent, nor is it ultimately real. A distinction between the transcendental self (ātman) and empirical existence is basic to advaita system. Confusion about this distinction leads to ignorance. Brahman is said to be entirely different from the world of multiplicity. Atman is identical with brahman. This principle of unity is absolute. The world depends upon it. The Advaita Vedānta also makes room for the idea of God or īśvara. This is called saguna brahman is contradistinction to nirguna brahman. The distinction between God or fśvara, the world and the selves is said to be empirical and not ultimate. The individual self is a limited version, as it were, of the universal self. It is this individual self which is bound. Liberation means the realization of the real nature of the universal self.
Practice of moral virtue, devotion to God and the pursuit of knowledge lead to the attainment of release (mok şa). Relea se means direct apprehension of the highest truth which is eternal and infinite. According to Radhakrishnan “on the attainment of freedom nothing happens to the world; only our view of it changes. Mokşa is not the dissolution of the world but is the displacement of a false outlook (avidyā) by the right outlook, wisdom (vidya)”,76
The cycle of life and death or samsāra ceases when the unity of brahman is realized. The I sa-Upanişad makes the following statement :
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Vijñānabhikṣu has described Samkara as a "crypto-Buddhist while the Padmapurāņa refers to māyāvāda as a Buddhist system. For modern views on Vedānta's indebtedness to Buddhism see L.M. Joshi, Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India, pp. 439-448. S. Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore, A Source Book in Indian Philosophy, p. 507.
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