Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 205

OCTOBER, 1933]
THE MANDOKYOPANIŞAD AND GAUDAPADA
193
Drávidaih do not mean by the Gauda people and Drávida people' but by the Gauda teacher and Dråvida teacher,' i.e., 'by Gauda pada and Sankara.' The meaning of stanza 44ab, therefore is, “This has been thus explained by our revered teachers, Gaudas-pâda) and Sankara"; and there is no mention in this stanza of the Gauda people and the Dravida people.34
For the rest, it also becomes plain from the Brhadaranyakopanipad-bhagya-vártika of the same author, namely, Sureśvara, that he knew well that the Gauda pâda-kårikås were written by the teacher named Gauda pada. See, for instance, 1. 4. 389 (p. 510): anibcita yatha rajjur iti nyayopabrmhitam sphutârtham Gauda padiyam vaco 'rthe 'traiva giyate | ; 2. 1. 386 (p. 951) : nihéesa-veda-siddhanta-vidvadbhir cpi bhasitam | Gaudácáryair idam vastu yatha 'smábhiḥ prapancitam Il; and 4. 4. 886 (p. 1866): slokamś ca Gauda pádáder yathoktárthasya saksinah | adhiyate trayatnena sampradaya-vidaḥ svayam. The second of the stanzas cited here shows that pada in Gauda pada is added only for the sake of respect (compare the words bhagavat-pada, acarya-pada, pújya-páda, pitr påda, etc.), and that the real name is Gauda only. It is very probable that this was not originally a personal name but was an epithet applied to the teacher in order to distinguish him from other teachers, and that, in course of time, it wholly supplanted his personal name. Naişkarmyasiddhi, IV. 44, cited above affords another instance of this word Gauda being used as a personal name.
VI. There is thus not the least doubt that there existed a teacher known as Gaudapå da, and that he produced the work known as Agamasastra. As observed above, this work is a whole, conceived and executed on a well-arranged plan. It is the purpose of the work to establish the reality of Advaita ; and this it effectively accomplishes, positively, by showing in the first prakarana, that the atman in the turiya condition, when the world has disappeared, is identical with Brahman, and, negatively, by showing, in the last three prakaranas, that Dvaita is unreal.
This work is thus the earliest systematical work on Vedanta that has come down to us. And it says much for the genius of Gaudapåda that he should have picked out, from the heterogeneous mass of teachings contained in the upanigads, that about the jágrat, svapna, and suşupti conditions, as the one that would directly prove the truth of Advaita, given it clear-cut shape in the Agama-prakarana, and made it the corner-stone of his system of Vedanta.
The value of this achievement is by no means lessened even if Gaudapâda borrowed some theories, arguments, stanzas and even passages from various other writers; for, after all, it is his genius that has bound all these diverse elements into a single whole.
It follows from this that the writers who have interpreted passages from Gauda pada's work in a non-Advaitic sense are merely deluding themselves and are in the wrong; for, it must he remembered that, in case the passages in question have been borrowed by Gaudapâda, whatever their original meaning may have been, they are interpreted by Gauda pada in an Advaitic sense, and used by him to support his exposition of the Advaita philosophy.
The Agama-sastra contains, as already pointed out by Deussen (op. cit., p. 574), all the essential teachings (máyá váda, ajáti-vada, rajju-sarpa-drstânta, etc.) of the Advaita system. Sankara 35 has but elaborated and systematised these teachings, in the same way as Plato did those of Parmenides; and Deussen's comparison of Gaudapáda and Sankara with Parmenides and Plato is, now that we know that the Mândûkya too is the work of Gaudapada, true to a greater extent that was thought of by him.36
.84 nah pujyair Gaurlair Drdvidai) is equivalent to nak půjyair Gaudácáryair Drávidacáryaih; the plural here is honorific.
35 And it is perhaps this fact that gave rise to the tradition that Sankara was the grand-pupil of Gaudapâda.
36 Lately, there have been published by Mr. B. N. Krishnamurti Sarma two articles entitled 'New Light on the Gaudapáda Karikas' and 'Further Light on the Gaudapâda Kårikås' in the Review of Philo. sophy and Religion (2. 35 ff. : and 3. 45 ff.) in which he hag endeavoured to show that not only the Mândükya but) the 29 karikás also of the Agama-prakarann were regarded as sruti by not only Madhva and Karanarayana, but by Sankara himself, and also by Anandagiri, Fureśvara, Madhusudana Sarasvati and other advaitin writers. I shall therefore review on another occasion the argumente employed there by Mr. Sarma.