The Mimamsists held that everything that is said in the Vedas is to be interpreted as requiring us to perform particular kinds of action, or to desist from doing certain other kinds. This would mean that the Upanishads being a part of the Veda should also be interpreted as containing injunctions for the performance of certain kinds of actions. The description of Brahman in the Upanishads does not therefore represent a simple statement of the nature of Brahman, but it implies that the Brahman should be meditated upon as possessing the particular nature described there, i.e. Brahman should be meditated upon as being an entity which possesses a nature which is identical with our self; such a procedure would then lead to beneficial results to the man who so meditates. Shankara could not agree to such a view. For his main point was that the Upanishads revealed the highest truth as the Brahman. No meditation or worship or action of any kind was required; but one reached absolute wisdom and emancipation when the truth dawned on him that the Brahman or self was the ultimate reality. The teachings of the other parts of the Vedas, the karmakanda (those dealing with the injunctions relating to the performance of duties and actions), were intended for inferior types of aspirants, whereas the teachings of the Upanishads, the jnanakanda (those which declare the nature of ultimate truth and reality), were intended only for superior aspirants who had transcended the limits of sacrificial duties and actions, and who had no desire for any earthly blessing or for any heavenly joy.

Throughout his commentary on the Bhagavadgita Shankara tried to demonstrate that those who should follow the injunctions of the Veda and perform Vedic deeds, such as sacrifices, etc., belonged to a lower order. So long as they remained in that order they had no right to follow the higher teachings of the Upanishads. They were but karmins (performers of scriptural duties). When they succeeded in purging their minds of all desires which led them to the performance of the Vedic injunctions, the field of karmamarga (the path of duties), and wanted to know the truth alone, they entered the jnanamarga (the way of wisdom) and had no duties to perform. The study of Vedanta was thus reserved for advanced persons who were no longer inclined to the ordinary joys of life but wanted complete emancipation.

The qualifications necessary for a man intending to study the Vedanta are
(1) discerning knowledge about what is eternal and what is transitory (nityanityavastuviveka),
(2) disinclination to the enjoyment of the pleasures of this world or of the after world (ihamutraphalabhogaviraga),
(3) attainment of peace, self-restraint, renunciation, patience, deep concentration and faith (shamadamadisadhanasampat) and desire for salvation (mumukshutva).

The person who had these qualifications should study the Upanishads, and as soon as he became convinced of the truth about the identity of the self and the Brahman he attained emancipation. When once a man realized that the self alone was the reality and all else was maya, all injunctions ceased to have any force with him. Thus, the path of duties (karma) and the path of wisdom (jnana) were intended for different classes of persons or adhikarins. There could be no joint performance of Vedic duties and the seeking of the highest truth as taught in the Upanishads (jnana-karma-samuccayabhavah). As against the dualists he tried to show that the Upanishads never favoured any kind of dualistic interpretations. The main difference between the Vedanta as expounded by Gaudapada and as explained by Shankara consists in this, that Shankara tried as best he could to dissociate the distinctive Buddhist traits found in the exposition of the former and to formulate the philosophy as a direct interpretation of the older Upanishad texts. In this he achieved remarkable success. He was no doubt regarded by some as a hidden Buddhist (pracchanna Bauddha), but his influence on Hindu thought and religion became so great that he was regarded in later times as being almost a divine person or an incarnation. His immediate disciples, the disciples of his disciples, and those who adhered to his doctrine in the succeeding generations, tried to build a rational basis for his system in a much stronger way than Shankara did.

Our treatment of Shankara’s philosophy has been based on the interpretations of Vedanta thought, as offered by these followers of Shankara. These interpretations are nowhere in conflict with Shankara’s doctrines, but the questions and problems which Shankara did not raise have been raised and discussed by his followers, and without these one could not treat Vedanta as a complete and coherent system of metaphysics. As these will be discussed in the later sections, we may close this with a short description of some of the main features of the Vedanta thought as explained by Shankara.

Brahman according to Shankara is “the cause from which (proceeds) the origin or subsistence and dissolution of this world which is extended in names and forms, which includes many agents and enjoyers, which contains the fruit of works specially determined according to space, time, and cause, a world which is formed after an arrangement inconceivable even by the (imagination of the) mind (1).”

The reasons that Shankara adduces for the existence of Brahman may be considered to be threefold:
(1) The world must have been produced as the modification of something, but in the Upanishads all other things have been spoken of as having been originated from something other than Brahman, so Brahman is the cause from which the world has sprung into being, but we could not think that Brahman itself originated from something else, for then we should have a regressus ad infinitum (anavastha).
(2) The world is so orderly that it could not have come forth from a non-intelligent source. The intelligent source then from which this world has come into being is Brahman.
(3) This Brahman is the immediate consciousness (sakshi) which shines as the self, as well as through the objects of cognition which the self knows. It is thus the essence of us all, the self, and hence it remains undenied even when one tries to deny it, for even in the denial it shows itself forth. It is the self of us all and is hence ever present to us in all our cognitions.

Brahman according to Shankara is the identity of pure intelligence, pure being, and pure blessedness. Brahman is the self of us all. So long as we are in our ordinary waking life, we are identifying the self with thousands of illusory things, with all that we call “I” or mine, but when in dreamless sleep we are absolutely without any touch of these phenomenal notions the nature of our true state as pure blessedness is partially realized. The individual self as it appears is but an appearance only, while the real truth is the true self which is one for all, as pure intelligence, pure blessedness, and pure being.

All creation is illusory maya. But accepting it as maya, it may be conceived that God (Ishvara) created the world as a mere sport; from the true point of view there is no Ishvara who creates the world, but in the sense in which the world exists, and we all exist as separate individuals, we can affirm the existence of Ishvara, as engaged in creating and maintaining the world. In reality all creation is illusory and so the creator also is illusory. Brahman, the self, is at once the material cause (upadana-karana) as well as the efficient cause (nimitta-karana) of the world.

There is no difference between the cause and the effect, and the effect is but an illusory imposition on the cause - a mere illusion of name and form. We may mould clay into plates and jugs and call them by so many different names, but it cannot be admitted that they are by that fact anything more than clay; their transformations as plates and jugs are only appearances of name and form (namarupa). This world, inasmuch as it is but an effect imposed upon the Brahman, is only phenomenally existent (vyavaharika) as mere objects of name and form (namarupa), but the cause, the Brahman, is alone the true reality (paramarthika) (2).

1. Shankara’s commentary, I.i. 2. See also Deussen’s System of the Vedanta.
2. All that is important in Shankara’s commentary of the Brahma-sutras has been excellently systematized by Deussen in his System of the Vedanta; it is therefore unnecessary for me to give any long account of this part. Most of what follows has been taken from the writings of his followers.

bhagavadgita, brahman, heavenly joy, meditation, sacrifices, shankara, truth and reality, upanishads, veda, vedas