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Studies in Indian Philosophy
rience of the highest order arrived at on an arduous path through several stages (bhūmis) involving the development of superhuman perfections (pāramitās) which is a very individualistic and elitist achievement.
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Thus the eightfold path of a follower of the Buddha was replaced by the Bodhisattva path and the description of the goal was also reformulated. At the same time the docrinal component of Buddhism grew in the context of Mahāyāna mysticism more and more until it developed into new and lofty metaphysical systems in which both the impersonal and personalised approaches found full and elaborate expression. On the one hand we have the tri-kaya doctrine of layers of reality converging in the dharma-kaya and on the other we are faced with the overwhelming hierarchy of cosmic buddhas and bodhisattvas presided over by Adi Buddha. The dichotomy and the inevitable coexistence of the personal and the impersonal in the attempted conceptual and symbolical descriptions of the experience of the ultimate reality again make thier unavoidable appearance.
The mystical doctrines of Mahāyāna have quite a number of features which were developed in a somewhat similar way and almost simultaneously by European mystical theology based as it was on the neoplatonic philosophy as transmitted by pseudo-Dionisios Areopagita. It is hardly possible to imagine a better example of corresponding development in two mystical traditions.
Within the Hindu system mysticism as doctrine and experience as well as path reached its new peak in Sankara's system of advaita vedanta. The experience of oneness domin ated Sankara's thinking and understanding of older sources, particularly the Upanisads, and it completely determined his doctrinal formulations which partly overshadowed Śankara as practical mystic and teacher of a Yoga path. In his cammitment to a specific doctrinal formulation Sankara was dependent on Gauḍapada, his teacher's teacher, on Badarāyaṇa, the
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