World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 545

prime matter of the universe. S(5). Regarding concept of Ishvara also, hacker draws our attention to many points but nevertheless holds to view that 'intuitive theism' has joined with an intellectual monism to form an illogical, but for that matter much more lively, combination. The purpose of all this study, Hacker assures us, is to lay some groundwork for answering the question: Which of the numerous writings ascribed to Shankara were really composed by him? One will have to think, of course, how to avoid vicious circle in this procedure.
'Shankaca the Yogin and Shankara the Advaitin' is an essay which tries to construct the intellectual biography of Shankara as an individual thinker. Hacker draws our attention to the problem of argumentation is Shankara and says that although Shankara's method is mainly interpretative claiming that the authoritative texts do not brook any contradiction in maintaining the main tenets of Advaita Vedanta, argumentative passages are also not rare. Purely argumentative, for example, is the second chapter of the prose part of Upadeshasahasri where the doctrine of self as self sufficient (svartha), self given (svayamsiddha), free (svatantra), unalterably permanent (kuthasthanitya) - i.e. subsisting light of spirit, is developed solely on the basis of rational grounds in that didactic dialogue: It is the most systematic exposition of Atmalogy in the works of Shankara. Hacker thinks however, and rightly so, that the sole argument for the type of rigorous monism of his time, Shankara's argument is very weak. He is surprised by this feature viz; why is monism so weakly developed on the basis of arguments in Shankara despite his emphatic avowal of it? Further Hacker thinks again on right lines that even the illusionism, which constantly serves to complement the monism of spirit, is very weakly developed in Shankara. It is striking, he contends, that in a thinker who normally in the least fight shy of providing rational grounds, the course of argument here breaks of, just when it is faced with the central thesis of the system: "we have here a characteristic trait of Shankara's personality: he wants to lead us to experience, not to argumentation" (6). How is this trait to be explained? The chapter deals with Shankara's transition from yoga to Advaita. Wherever Shankara thinks independently, he again and again inserts yoga concepts in his speculation and argumentation. It is true that in the new context they become somewhat different from what they were in the yoga system. Since, however, they were unmonistic, they were helpful in permitting Shankara to disregard or live in suspense rather unknowingly the obligatory monism of his school, when, with eye on the matter in hand he philosophize on the self. Hacker opines that the original creation of the illumination theory thus come about in the fruitful encounter between the Upanisads, yoga and Mimamsa in which self is acknowledged without much argumentation as such, as the luminous principle of the inner unity of the person. Elsewhere Paul Hacker notes that the sole argument for monism is: "the light of the self is without a second
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