________________
CV1
SAMAYASARA notions of Thou and Ego and which are opposed to each other as light and darkness. The two cannot be identified. Hence it follows that it is wrong to superimpose on the subject the attributes of object and vice versa.” Thus he starts with a sufficient waining that the subject and object are quite distinct and they should not be confounded with each other. He warns against the superimposition of attributes-Adhyasa. The subject should not be associated with the attributes of the object nor the object with those of subject The two are distinct in kind One is a chetana entity and the other an achetana thing. Sankara starts just where Sankhya started. There also Chetana Purusha is different from achetana Prakriti. Again the starting point of modern thought in Europe was the same. Descartes started with the distinction between the thinking thing and the extended thing. Yet by an inscrutable logic adopted by both Descartes and Sankara the goal reached by them is fundamentally different from the starting point. Cartesianism ends in Spinozistic monism where the ultimate substance engulfs all things Chetana and Achetana within itself. And similarly Sankhara ends with an all devouring absolute which could not brook by its side any other entity. Sankara in the same introductory passage suggests that this Adhyasa is a common vice of our experience and is due to our ignorance or avidya. The only way to get rid of it is by Vidya or knowledge. Thus Adhyasa or mutual confusion of self and nonself is the result of ignorance. It is on ignorance that all the duties enjoined in the scriptures are based. Hence the doctrine of Pramanas includes perception and inference. Several vedic tests enjoining various religious duties all have for their objects world which is the resultant of the avıdya or ignorance. The world of objective reality is thus due to ignorance and even the vedic rites and injunctions are not excepted. These have no value for one who possesses real knowledge. Distinctions of caste, status in society etc., are all due to adhyasa. The conception of Vedic Dharma has meaning only with reference to Adhyasa, accidental conjunction of the true self with the extraneous conditions of caste, birth etc. But for this false conception Vedic Dharma could have no mean
