[Advaita-l] A 5th Century AD view of Vedanta (Introduction)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

We know very little about the history of Advaita Vedanta between the
Upanishads to Shankaracharya.  He himself claims no originality but claims
to merely be a link in an ancient sampradaya.  Just as the stars are not
visible in the daytime due to the brilliance of the Sun, the sun of
Shankaracharyas brilliance has obscured nearly all his predecessors.  The
only pre-Shankaran Vedanta authors we can read today are Badarayana (the
Brahmasutras of course), Gaudapadacharya (Karikas on Mandukyopanishad)
Mandan Mishra (Brahmasiddhi) and arguably Bhartrahari (Vakyapadiya.
Actually he is a Vaiyakarana though his philosophy is Vedantic in many
ways.)  There are also some quotations in Shankaracharya, Sureshwaracharya
and Anandagiri from figures such as Sundara Pandya, Dravidacharya etc.

Outside of the Vedanta, other darshanas mention "Aupanishadas",
"purushavadins", "brahmavadins", and "atmachintakas" etc. though typically
only in an incidental way.  One of the earliest full descriptions of
Vedanta comes from a Buddhist thinker named Bhavya or Bhavaviveka.  His
date is estimated anywhere between 480-570 AD.

A couple of centuries earlier, Nagarjuna had founded the Madhyamaka school
in Mahayana Buddhism.  By Bhavya's time, the Madhyamakas faced opposition
in Mahayana from the Yogachara school.  The Shravakavada or Hinayana was
still a major force.  Various astika schools were also raising their
challenges.  So Bhavya wrote a work in verse called madhyamaka HR^idaya
kArika with his own commentary in prose called tarkajvAlA.  In it he
defines the Madhyamaka dogmas and defends them as authentic teachings of
the Buddha and criticises the views of the Shravakas, Yogacharas, Samkhya,
Vaisheshika, [Purva] Mimamsa and Vedanta.  The Sanskrit original of the
madhyamaka hR^idaya kArika/TarkajvAlA was long lost and the work was only
known in Tibetan translation.  In 1936, Rahula Sankrityayana by chance 
discovered a Sanskrit manuscript in a Tibetan monastary. It was corrupt 
and incomplete but together with the Tibetan translation it was enough to 
be able to reconstruct the original text.

The eighth chapter is called vedAntatattvanishchaya.  In standard Indian 
style, the opponents (i.e. Vedantins) views are given as pUrvapakSha 
followed by the authors refutations.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>