Samayasara

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 93

INTRODUCTION
75
Buise.
But on this account he dare not recognise its reality lest it should set up an imperium in imperio a rival claimant to the throne of Brahma. Therefore Sankara relegates Māyā to the metaphysical purgatory where it is expected to live the life of something midway between absolute being and absolute nothing. What he further means by this curious amalgam of something. nothing we do not clearly appreciate. It is because of this precarious reality of Maya that he is able to make his readers believe that in his monism the objective reality maintains a greater dignity than assigned to it by the Buddhists. In short to avoid the sūnyavāda Sankara invents the impossible doctrine of Maya which lends plausibility to his system which would otherwise be untenable and also indistinguishable from Buddhistic nihilism. It was because of this indistinguishability between Buddhism and advaitism that Indian critics condemned advaita as Buddhistic nihilism in camouflage and called Sankara a Pracchanna Bauddha, a bauddha in disguise.
Brahma : Sat as well as Cit, Existence and Intelligence, but for Vedantin it is something more. It is not merely the substratum of the concrete world, it also stands for the transcendental goal of life. It stands for the other world to which every Indian thinker looks forward. It is that higher reality which the Indian aspires to as a haven from the ocean of Samsāra, a place of rest from the toils of transmigration. It corresponds to Buddistic Nirvana, the Samadhi of the Yogin, the Liberated Puruşa of the Sankhyas and the God Isvara of Nyāya Vaibesikas. If it is to be the negation of the ennui of Samsāra to be the end of the misery of concrete life, to be the place from where there is no return, it must embody in itself something unique and that is absent in the world of Samsāra, an unalloyed and unchanging Bliss which knows not its opposite. The Brahma therefore besides Sat and Cit is Ananda as well. It represents that transcendental bliss which no man has tasted here and which everyone is entitled to have if he walketh the path of liberation. Such a transcendental bliss is entirely different from the ephemeral pleasure of the world. Else it would not be sought after by the wise. Hence the Brahma must also be Ananda, Bliss or Joy. This absolute reality Sat Cit Ananda is the ultimate concept of Vedantism. It not only serves as the metaphysical cause of things existing, but also stands for the light shining in individual souls. It also represents the goal to which the whole creation moves. It is not only the beginning but also the end of things. Climbing the pinnacle of Metaphysical monism Sankara finds it hard to recognise the claims of ordinary mortals in his system. He cuts the Gordian Knot by invoking the aid once again of the doctrine of the distinction between the relative and the absolute points of view. There is no justification for the demands of either religion or morality in an absolute monism. In the ratified atmosphere of morism neither morality nor religion can breath and live. The inevitable conclusion of his logic may not be realised by the ordinary man nor accepted by the orthodox scholar, The Vedic scholars have faith in the injunctions of the Vedas and may still believe in the beneficial effect of