Traverses on Less Trodden Path of Indian Philosophy and Religion

Author(s): Yajneshwar S Shastri
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 50

Doctrine of degrees of reality...
41
conditioned is not ultimately real.50 Parinispanna is the only truth, it exists independantly by itself. It is beyond the subject-object duality, nonconceptual Consciousness. 51 It is pure, undefiled Existence. It is beyond. finite thought; it is the Good, it is the Eternal, Blissful, it is Liberation. It is the Buddha's body of pure Existence. It transcends the categories of thought as well as the plurality of the phenomenal world. 52
Advaitic View ;
Sankara, the chief exponent of Advaita philosophy has introduced this distinction between transcendental (Pāramarthika) and empirical (vyāvahārika) orders of reality with certain purposes.
First of all he has accepted these so called gradations of reality to reconcile the contradictory statements of the Upanisads. In the Upanisads, we come across divergent views almost side by side. In certain passages the ultimate reality is described as beyond thought and words, acosmic, attributless, indeterminate, one without a second, and so on. But there are also passages which describe ultimate reality as cosmic, all-comprehensive, creator, sustainer and destroyer of the world, full of all good qualities and so on. It was Sankara who took up this difficult task of bringing these contradictory statements into intelligible and coherent relation with. the help of these so-called degrees of Reality. His second important purpose in accepting the orders of reality is to show that this conception of distinction between transcendental and empirical level of reality is as old as Upanisadic thought and not new contribution of Jainas or Bauddhas. At the time when Sankara rose on the Indian philosophical horizon, great Jaina and Buddhist philosophers were dominating the intellectual fields of society through their writings. Sankara was undoubtedly, wellaquainted with important Jaina and Buddhist works. He saw that, people are under the impression that this distinction between transcendental and empirical level of existence is original contribution of Jainas and Buddhists. His main aim was to re-establish the lost glory of Upanisadic thought Sankara, throughout his writings applies this distinction of real and empirical existence and quotes Upanisadic passages in several places to prove that, this idea is already accepted by the Upanisadic sages. The terms used by the Upanisadic seers to show the difference between empirical and transcendental level, may be different trom Jainas and Bauddhas
50. Para antrasvabhāvastu vikalpaḥ pratyayodbhavaḥ-T. M. S. 21.
51. Ibid 21
52. Sa eva anasravodhätuḥ acintyaḥ kušalo dhruvah. Sukho vimukt ik ayosau dharmakhyoyam mahāmuneḥ-T. M. S. 30.
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