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VEDANTA (A) ADVAITA
373 to rest in the relative, it is equally impossible for it, according to Samkara, to rest in absolute nothing. To use the terminology of the Upanişads, the Advaita denies only 'names' and 'forms' but not that which appears under their guise. Or, as an old writer has observed, while the Advaitin negates only distinction (bheda), the Madhyamika negates it as well as the distincts (bhidyamāna). That there is a Reality at the back of all empirical things again is not a mere assertion, for it is maintained here, as we know, that the thinking subject in us is not different from it so that its being becomes an immediate certainty. If we denied it, the very fact of denial would affirm it. We may not know what it exactly is; but its presence itself, owing to the basic identity of ourselves with it, can never be doubted.
What is the nature of this Reality? As indicated in an earlier section, it may be represented on the one hand as the infinite Consciousness implied by empirical knowledge or as the infinite Being presupposed in all finite existence. But it is neither empirical knowledge nor phenomenal being, for each of them has appearance superadded to the real and so far fails to represent the latter in its purity. Such knowledge and being, though revealing the ultimate, do not represent it truly and the same is the case with all empirical things. While they are not apart from it, they cannot either singly or in combination stand for it. That is why Brahman as the ultimate is termed nirguna or 'indeterminate,' which does not amount to saying, as it is ordinarily assumed, that it is nothing, but only means that nothing which the mind can think of can actually belong to it. Whatever we think of is for that very reason objective (dřśya) and it cannot therefore be an element in that which is never presented as an object (dřk). The familiar categories of thought therefore are all inapplicable to it. Hence no direct description of it is possible. But we can indirectly point to it utilizing the appearances as aids; for an appearance, which can never be independent, necessarily signifies a reality beyond itself. In this sense every
See SAS. iv. 20. * Ya eva hi nirākartā tadeva tasya svarūpam: Samkara on VS. II. iii. 7.
