Advaita - Buddhism in disguise?

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Here's the final post in the series. I thank the list members for their

interest and encouragement.

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The central problem in Astika or orthodox philosophy is that though

the Upanishads assert that Brahman made the world out of itself and

the relation between Brahman and the world is like the relation

between gold and an ornament made of gold, still they could not

bring out a full fledged philosophical system based on this. Thought

does not leap from one level to another. It only develops step by

step and as we say the early philosphical systems all could envision

only a pluralistic world made up of infinite souls, matter or atoms

and in some cases - God.

 

With the Buddha comes an incredibly important breakthrough - the

doctrine of anatta. It is only because of the "I", that we have "you"

and "that" - plurality. When there's no "I", where's "you" and

"that"?

 

The early Buddhists - the HinayAnists - could not handle such a

radical breakthrough. They leaned too heavily on the anatta and

denied any permenent essence in man. For them nirvAna is an

unknown quantity, which comes after the cessation of consciousness.

 

Another very important reason can be shown as to why it is generally

believed that anatta means "no soul". Actually Buddha never uses

the word,"Atman", to refer to the self of man. The only self that

we know, is our normal self which experiences pain and suffering -

this the Buddha refers to as "pudgala". By "Atman" the Buddha means

an eternal, unchanging substance. So when he teaches "anatta" or

"nairAtmaya", he only says that nothing that we know has any

substance. When he teaches nairAtmaya with reference to the self of

man, he only uses it in conjunction with the pudgala

- pudgala nairAtmaya i.e, the phenomenal self is without substance.

There's a very similar teaching which many miss in the YAgnavalkya

- Maitreyi dialogue in the BrhadAranyaka Upanishad, where the sage

says the self has neither any inside nor outside and that it is just

a mass of knowledge. The "selfness" which is basically due to the

concentration of consciousness or particular consciousness as some

refer to it, itself is the greatest illusion.

 

The extent of VedAntic influence upon Buddhism itself is not really

known. Ashvaghosa's ShradothpAda ShAstram reads like an Advaita

manual and he is said to have been a VedAnti. DT Suzuki in his

translation of the text cites many similar passages from the Gita

itself. Ashvaghosa as a VedAntin himself could have been the turning

point in Buddhism which steered it towards VedAnta. And when

the VijnAnavAda school initially surfaced, one of its earliest

MAdhyamika critics accuses of being too similar to the VedAnta. If

an absolutistic VedAnta was non-existent then, how could such an

accusation be made? Even the sphotavAdin Bhartrhari, who lived

earlier than GaudapAda confirms that mAyA was a VedAntic concept. So

it might be that there were Advaita VedAntins earlier but still they

could not logically reconcile Brahman with the phenomenal world.

 

Another strange thing in Indian philosophy is that the history of

VedAnta itself seems to be shrouded in mystery. Between BAdarAyana

and GaudapAda, there's no available text. What texts that we know

of in this period seems to be mainly from later VedAntic authors. Rival

schools don't seem to have been really aware of VedAntic doctrines.

For e.g, in the JainA work "Saddarshana Samuccaya" of Haribhadra Suri,

there's no mention of VedAnta at all.

 

One of the reasons for this might have been in that VedAnta represents

orthodox Vedic thought. Upanishads normally was considered "rahasya"

or secret doctrines, jealously guarded and taught only to qualified

aspirants and probably predominently only inside Brahmanical circles

(Shankara also is very particular about the qualifications of the

aspirant). Plus it might also have been that since the school was

heavily based on the Veda, the VedAntins like the Buddha were more

inclined towards a practical way to liberation, than metaphysical

speculation. So it is quite possible that they were not the technical

/theoretical philosphers. They might have just believed in Advaita

based on the shruti and practiced it, without bothering about the

logical consistency. Even BAdarAyana in his Brahma SUtras asserts the

essential unity underlying all phenomena, not based on any logical

argument, but on the authority of the Veda.

 

So when NAgArjuna comes out with his world denying dialectic the

VedAntins might have simply adopted it, since it fitted quite well with

their doctrine. And NAgArjuna himself might only have built on VedAntic

ideas to develop his dialectic (the philosophical gap between NAgArjuna

and his Bauddha predecessors - the HinayAnists - is too wide to support

the claim that NAgArjuna was building only on Bauddha thought. Without

external influence, the leap in thought - from no-soul/material nirvAna

to non-dual absolutism - is not too convincing). GaudapAda endorsing

NAgArjuna's dialectic (itself might signal the VedAntin's acceptance of

the dialectic since it provided logical base to his theory, which was

only derived from the Upanishads.

 

Plus the fact that most of the Buddhist philosophers came from a

Brahmanical background, lends support to the Brahmanical influence

on Buddhism.

 

But again Advaita only means non-dualism - that man in his essence

is not different from reality itself. It is a spiritual experience

as taught in the Upanishads. And it is not really necessary to read

either the MAdhyamaka dialectic or Advaita VedAnta theoretical

philosphy to attain liberation. Else YAgnavalkya and UddhAlaka Aruni

would not have been jnAnis. What is essential is inward search which

brings true knowledge. Advaita VedAnta as a theoretical philosophy is

basically reconciliation of such experience with reason. But however

great might one's understanding of Advaita theory be, still it cannot

effect liberation. You still have to probe inward and know yourself -

for that is higher knowledge which the jnAnis posessed. Shankara

himself confirms this when says all the philosophies and the shruti

are only lower knowledge and knowledge of the Self - Atman JnAnam -

alone is the highest. He also says that he would not be

bothering with dialectic and philosphy, if it were not for too many

false views being prevelant.

 

So when Shankara says that the Upanishadic Rishis taught Advaita,

he only means that they taught that truth was non-dual and can

be spiritually experienced. As I explained in my "Understanding

MAdhyamaka" posts, till NAgArjuna nobody was able to come out

with a logically consistent absolutistic vision. Even in him, it

is only implied. Advaita VedAnta just uses his dialectic to

produce a full fledged absolutism from the Upanishads.

 

Advaita only means non-dual spiritual experience which is very

clearly taught in some Upanishadic passages - YAgnavalkya/Maitreyi

dialogue, UddhAlaka/Shvetaketu dialogue etc. So Advaita VedAnta is

firmly rooted in the Upanishads in its main tenet that reality is

non-dual, but it is indebted to the MAdhyamaka for its dialectic

which provides philosophical support for its non-dual philosophy.

 

And the Vaishnava criticism of Advaita as prachanna bauddham,

is also only directed at this. They complain only about the concept

of MAyA in Advaita. Ofcourse, that itself is the linchpin of

Advaita philosophy - for without mAyA the world would be real.

If the world is real then where would Brahman be? Since Brahman

made the world out of himself, we could only have either Brahman or

the world - nirvAna or samsAra. To have both Brahman and the world

would be like having darkness and light together - logically

impossible.

 

Hence the dialectic which shows us the world is not what we think

it is. This is the driving logic behind mAyA and non-dual absolutism.

 

If this is understood, we'll have no confusion whether Advaita is

prachanna bauddham or not.

 

I actually had a doubt that Advaita might infact differ from Buddhism

in one vital ultimate fact - that reality is something to be "known".

The MAdhyamaka school says that all knowledge has to cease before

reality takes over - "When objects of experience have ceased, knowledge

too has ceased" - MAdhyamaka ShAstram. But I was mistaken, for Advaita

too says the same thing - knowledge only removes ignorance. When

ignorance is removed reality shines forth. In short, whether Astika or

nAstika, all non-bhakti schools seem to be agreed on one thing - chitta

vritti or mental modifications is the ignorance and chitta vritti

nirodha - cessation of the mental modifications is what brings about

liberation. But I'm not sure whether this is really consistent with the

Upanishads, for there're so many instances in the Upanishads where it

is taught that reality is to be known - brahmavid brahmaiva bhavati. Any

opinions from the mystics on this list?

 

And Shankara doesn't merely use the dialectic to bring out the non-dual

absolutism of the Upanishads. There are some very subtle metaphysical

speculations about the implications of shUnyatA or anirvAchaniya as

Advaita calls it. One has to really understand both systems to appreciate

the significance of Shankara's contribution to Indian philosophy. At a

higher level, philosophical innovations and advances cannot be measured in

leaps and bounds, but only in extremely small measures - because at that

level there's not too much room to speculate and the thought involved is

very subtle.

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