Sramana Tradation

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 35

Sramana Tradition
It would be seen thus that the main stream of Vedic thought as developed in the Upanişads is still one of a positive, active and robust outlook on life which does not deny life as unreal or reject it as evil but rather seeks to affirm that there is a higher reality behind what we see and which gives ultimate value to human life and quest. In this context it is undeniable that the Upanişads give evidence of an occasional but increasing impact of Śramaņic ideology especially in the Katha and the Mundaka. The later Sankarite development of Vedanta became possible only through a full synthesis of Sramanic negativism with the Vedic positivism. Sankara was indeed led in this direction by the inexorable logic which the Buddhists had discerned in the very nature of change. If change is real, eternity is impossible. If Brahman produces the world really, He must bz changeable and perishable. The only logical alternative then is to deny the reality of creation. As soon as that is done life becomes devalued and stark pessimism stare; one in the face. This is the starting point of Sramaņic philosophy - the misery of human life subject to the bondage of passions and actions, birth and death. It seeks not an upgrading of life to the level of the divine, not its perfection, but its transcendence, the return of the soul to its own realm “far from the sphere of our sorrow".