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OCTOBER, 1971
Now, Sankara, on the basis of that direct perception, affirms the reality as Brahman to the extent of absolute truth wherein Brahman remains the only reality as a positive truth and all else turns out to be false. At the advent of Brahma-jñāna all that had appeared so far as truth ceases to be truth. This multiphased world of senses is proved ultimately to be false and meaningless, just as the illusion of snake is subsided with the perception of rope. Sankara, at each step, employs the analogy of this illusion of rope and snake to explain the exact position of Brahman (reality) and Māyā (appearance). He appears to cite this analogy so frequently and with so much confidence in his works that some very eminent scholars of Indian philosophy tend to attach too much value to its valid instrumentality of proving absoluteness of Brahma-jñāna. Presently we will examine critically how far the analogy of snake-rope illusion is helpful in the realm of arguments to establish the absolute idealism of Advaita Vedanta.
Analysis of Facts
On factual analysis of this illusion we inadvertently come to the following:
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Firstly, we cognized the snake as an objective truth;
Secondly, when vision was clearer and wider, we knew that we had no sufficient ground for the cognition of snake; and
Thirdly, for want of sufficient ground the cognition of snake was cancelled and that of rope was established.
Now, if we carefully analyse, we would find that when the snake was cognized, the basis of that cognition was our sense-perception. That sense-perception was originated from a thing that was existent quite independent of the perceiving mind. But on account of the perversity of mind and insufficient objective conditions we could not acquire sufficient sensations from the object concerned. We could, for example, perceive a curved length and dark colour of the object and we reasoned, to put syllogistically, in the following manner:
(A) 1. For all instances the snake possesses curved length and dark colour (in the night);
This object possesses these qualities;
Hence, this object is snake.
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