Jignasa Journal Of History Of Ideas And Culture Part 01

Author(s): Vibha Upadhyaya and Others
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 136

98
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Jijñasä
world is not given' or 'readymade' but constantly shaped and reshaped by one's consciousness as an active mechanism which determines value and meaning. In other words, without reason (since reason is made of adhyāsa) one cannot see, perceive, make sense of the world. When it comes to Brahmavidya, Sankara's persistence that it should be vastu-tantric is again tricky. On the one hand, as we saw, Brahman-knowledge depends on its 'object' and is beyond the scope of the 'subjective human person who is characterized initially by her/his thinking faculty. Brahman is defined as that which cannot be thought, measured or known in the ordinary sense of the word. The impotence of the thinking faculty with regard to the Brahman is beautifully reflected in the nineteenth metric chapter of Sankara's Upadeśa-Sahasri, titled 'atha ātma-manah-samvāda-prakaranam', 'A conversation between the atman and the mind'. Here the Advaitin offers a dialogue between the atman and the manas, depicted by him as teacher and student respectively. The theme of their discussion is naturally ātmanvidyā. The ātman says to the manas:
On, my mind, you indulge yourself in vain ideas like 'me' and 'mine'. Your efforts, according to others, are for one other than yourself. You have no consciousness of things and I have no desire of having anything. It is therefore proper for you to remain quiet.
The atman explains that the notions of 'me' and 'mine created by the manas are futile in referring to the metaphysical domaim. He seems to be an 'Advaitic ātman' as he rejects the Sānkhyan position. according to which the mind (belonging to prakrti) functions for the sake of the Self (puruṣa). He further tells the manas that all its efforts are in vain since he (the ātman) is free of desire, and concludes with the recommendation: ‘be quiet!' In other words, the manas is requested to arrest both its thinking and desiring. Only secession of this sort will enable the ātman to reveal itself.
Nonetheless, on the other hand, ātmavidyā cannot be so remote and utterly independent of one's phenomenal consciousness. Had that been the case, why make a heroic effort, as Sankara does, to equate paramārthic knowledge and vyavahāric knowledge? Why instruct the seeker of ātmavidyā to follow a familiar yet infected by avidya epistemological process which as I tried to illustrate consists of an implicit puruşa-tantric layer-as the recommended route to ātman-knowledge? What I am trying to suggest, then, is that Sankara rejects but simultaneously relies upon a purusa-tantric, 'subjective, point of departure in his reconstruction of both knowledge types, phenomenal and metaphysical. In the case of vyavahāric knowledge the 'subjective' ground lies in the fact that it depends upon, is even born of, adhyāsa. It is not personal adhyāsa or personal subjectivity' but rather trans-subjective or *cosmic' Nevertheless, knowledge in its profane sense does depend, according to Sankara's system, on the human person, on reason and not merely on the outer object'. In the case of paramārthic knowledge, the 'subjectivity' lies in the implicit reliance on a vyavaharic knowledge-procedure infected with adhyāsa.
I would like to suggest that Sankara's discussion of 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity and his persistence of and emphasis on 'objective knowledge' instead of 'subjective experience' should be seen within the context of his larger philosophical project. As hinted above, Sankara's project is about objectifying or 'knowledgifying the advaitic experience. Interestingly, he prefers the notion of vidyā, even if not in its usual, phenomenal, denotation on anubhava or any other term lacking epistemological commitment, He makes tremendous efforts to prove that praman and Jñāna, phenomenal knowledge and metaphysical realization, have a common epistemological ground. For him, both are knowledge-types and share a singular procedure, even if their pramānas and object