World of Philosophy

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

Page 803

DOCTRINE OF MAYA-A CRITICAL STUDY
Prof. Dr. Yajneshwar S. Shastri Adi Sankaracārya is one of the most outstanding philosophical personalities in the history of world-thought. There is no second opinion among the scholars that in metaphysical profoundity, logical acumen and spiritual insight, he is unparalleled among Indian thinkers. His Advaita philosophy is a rare contribution to mankind. Śankarathe chief exponent of Advaita, adopting absolutistic approach to Reality maintains that the real is Existence, Consciousness and Bliss.1 It is one without a second.2 It is attributeless, beyond space and time, indeterminate, real being, but it appears to be non-being to dullminded people.3 It is the highest universal in which all the particulars merge. 4 He declares in clear terms that, Brahman is the only ontological Reality and except it everything else is just name and form. For Sankara, Brahman is all-pervading energy. "The most outstanding feature of Sankara is that he proclaims the ultimate identity of the individual self (Jiva) or consciousness with the universal Principle of consciousness-Brahman." He also advocates the nondifference of the entire world with the Brahman-Absolute existence,? but by that non-difference he does not mean the same kind of identity as that of the self with it. Vacaspati Miśra rightly points out that, nondifference to Sankara is merely a denial of difference or independent reality, and not an affirmation of identity in the strict sense. And it is, according to him, only, when a person has directly realized his own identity with Brahman, that can have a fully convincing experience of the universal non-difference.8
Again, it is most essential to know the definition of 'real' (Satya) and 'unreal' (anṛta) given by Sankara to understand his philosophy. Without giving the notice to this fact, critics of Sankara have missed the essence of Advaita philosophy of this great genius. Śankara maintains that 'a thing cannot be said to be real simply because it is perceived, for, perception is common to both the real and the unreal things. Real is something which is never non-existent, something uncontradicted in triple-time (i.e. in past, present and future). It is not subject to change, is unalterable in its essential nature. That object, which essentially remains what it is, is truly real. Thus, Śankara has defined the real as 'that the ascertained nature of which does not undergo any change' or as 'that about which our understanding does not vary'.10 In this sense only the Brahman is real which is unchangable,
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