Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/453

 x] Sankara's Interpretation 437 the after world (ihiimutraphalabhogaviraga), (3) attainment of peace, self-restraint, renunciation, patience, deep concentration and faith (Samadamiidisadhanasampat) and desire for salvation (mu11lukutva). The person who had these qualifications should study the U paniads, and as soon as he became convinced of the truth about the identity of the self and the Brahman he attained emancipation. Vhen 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 (jiia1la) 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 Upaniads (j-iiii1la-karma-samuccayiibhavalt). As against the dualists he tried to show that the U paniads never favoured any kind of dualistic interpretations. The main difference between the Vedanta as expounded by Gau<;lapada and as explained by Sailkara consists in this, that Sailkara tried as best he could to dissociate the distinctive Buddhist traits found in the exposition of the former and to form ulate the philosophy as a direct interpretation of the older U pani!?ad texts. In this he achieved remarkable success. He was no doubt regarded by some as a hidden Buddhist (pracchmlJla Bauddha), but his influence on Hindu thought and religion became so great that he was re- garded in later times as being almost a divine person or an incarnation. His immediate disciples. the disciples of his dis- ciples, 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 Sailkara did. Our treatment ofSailkara's philosophy has been based on the interpretations of Vedanta thought, as offered by these followers of Sailkara. These inter- pretations are nowhere in conflict with Sailkara's doctrines, but the questions and problems which SaIlkara 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 Sailkara. Brahman according to Sailkara 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