Traverses on Less Trodden Path of Indian Philosophy and Religion

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

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Traverses on less trodden path...
but idealogically, they convey the same meaning. Sankara found nothing wrong in accepting the popular terminology, current among the Jaina and Bauddha literature of his time to convince the intellectuals of society, Thirdly, his adoption of orders of reality is based on a most realistic approach. Sankara found that even at empirical level, there are two kinds of experiences, one merely appears to exist and the other is rea! for all practical purposes. It is a well-known fact that what appears perfectly real at lower level becomes unreal when we come to look at it from a higher level. The illusory objects of dream experiences are sublated at empirical level and in turn this empirical experience is contradicted by still higher experience of transcendental reality or Brahman. Thus the whole conception is based on the different kinds of human experience, rising from a lower to a higher level. Sankara's systematic analysis of human experience led him to accept these so-called orders of reality, trascendental, empirical and illusory, koown as Sattatraya. Sankara gives hair-splitting arguments and explanations about these three orders of reality and shows with his intellectual sharpness and logical vigour, how we proceed and progress from lower to bigher level of existence.
The term Prātibhäsika literally means existing only in appearance, that which appears to exist for a brief moment to a single individual. A person sees a spake (in darkness) where there is a rope, silver where there is a shell, water where there is only mirage, a thief where there is trunk of tree. In dream, some times, he sees a dream-lion, tiger and so on. These perceptions are peculiar to the single individual and last only for a few minutes. But they are real experiences and bence cannot be dismissed as unreal. According to Sankara, whatever is perceived must be admitted to be so for real. An unreal thing is never perceived by any one. No one has ever seen the hare's horn or the sky-lotus. These are all mere words with no objects corresponding to them in the real world. If something is perceived by one individual even for a brief moment, it must be granted to be so for real. 53 Water in a dream can quench thirst in a dream and a person bitten by a snake in a dream may feel himself dead in the dream. 8. Sometimes the person who imagines that he has placed his foot on a snake, takes fright, perspires, trembles all over the body. In the same way, objects that are seen in dreams are real as long as they last. The snake that is perceived in a rope lasts for a brief moment and then vanishes after keen observation. Similarly, the dream lion is created when the dream starts and it dissolves when the dream breaks up. These, snake on a rope, silver in a shell, dream lion etc. are
53. Sankara Bhäşya-II-II-28. 54. S. B. II-I-14.