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Materialism, Idealism and Dualism
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in his Brahmasūtra and by all the Vedānta schools excepting those headed by Śankara and Madhva; (as we shall see, Sarkara in a way endorsed the rabid variety of idealism and Madhva dualism). This position was an idealist one inasmuch as it posited a mental reality in the form of the root cause of all worldly phenomena, but it was not a rabid idealist position inasmuch as it refused to dismiss all material phenomena as an illusory show. Really, the rabid idealist position that all material phenomena are an illusory show was first advocated by the Vijñānavăda Buddhist school and was in fact an improvement upon the earlier Śūnyavāda Buddbist school's position that all material as well as mental worldy phenomena are an illusory show. Thus as against the sheerest nihilism of the Śūnyavāda Buddhist school the Vijñānavāda Buddhist school advocated rabid idealism. Sarikara on his part maintained a position which rather lay midway between the Śūnyavādin's nihilist position and the Vijñānavādin's rabid idealist position. For he sided with the Śūnyavādin in treating all material as well as mental worldly phenomena as an illusory show but he sided with the Vijñānavādin in maintaining that the ultimate reality is somebow mental in character—this because like all Vedāntins Sarkara declared a mental reality Brahmon to be the ultimate reality. (As for Madhva, his adherence to Vedāntism was but nominal inasmuch as he refused to endorse the general Vedānta position that Brahman is the ultimate cause of all material as well as mental worldly phenomena; instead he, like other dualists, maintained that mind — be it supreme mind of the form of Brahman or an ordinary mind - is co-eternal with matter. ) In this background it will be useful to distinguish between three (rather than two) varieties of idealism preached in India, viz. tbe mild idealism of the non-Sankarite and non-Madhvite Vedāntins, the rabid idealism of the Vijñā navāda Buddhists, the near-nihilistic idealism of Sarkara. And all these three varieties of idealism are basically misconceived inasmuch as the hypothesis of a mind without body is even more untenable than the hypothesis of SP-5
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