VEDĀNTA. – One of the six orthodox philosophical systems, and perhaps the most important, since it still has millions of followers among Indians of the educated classes. It is founded on the Upaniṣads (v.), the speculative part of the Veda, and is generally associated with another system of a theological character, the Mīmāṃsā, or “Investigation,” which is instead based on the ritual part.
The connection between the two systems, limited to their common belonging to Vedic literature, is thus indicated by their titles: Pūrva-mīmāṃsā, or “prior investigation,” given to the theological doctrine, and Uttara-m., or “further investigation,” given to the V., or end of the Veda. Mention has been made of the contradictions existing among the Upaniṣads, which represent a philosophy in formation, with all the luxuriance of a plant not yet pruned. But this philosophy could not be touched; it was regarded as revelation. Badarāyaṇa, a philosopher who lived between 200 and 450 A.D., of whom nothing is known except his name, succeeded in bringing order to the conflicting Upaniṣadic theories. But the 555 aphorisms (sūtra) of his systematic treatise, entitled Brahma-sūtra, are, owing to their extreme concision, so enigmatic that they have allowed commentators, centuries later, to give two different interpretations of the Brahma-sūtra: the pantheistic interpretation of Śāṅkara (c. 800 A.D.) and the theistic one of Rāmānuja (d. 22 January 1138 A.D.) and of other followers of his.
In order to resolve the most serious conflicts between his interpretation, the text of Bādarāyaṇa, and the Upaniṣads, Śāṅkara, a formidable dialectician, constructed on the basis of the sūtra two philosophical systems: one empirical, exoteric, for coarse minds; the other metaphysical, esoteric, for the few capable of understanding II. He called the first aparā vidyā, “lower knowledge,” and the second parā vidyā, “higher knowledge”; the latter he led to triumph over empiricism, and its substance is, in brief, as follows. The varied and manifold world, the plurality of souls, and their destiny in the hereafter are, for Śāṅkara, an illusion (māyā), because in reality only Brahmān (God) exists—not the personified demiurge susceptible of worship, but the Unknowable, which can be approached only through anubhava, “intuition.” This makes man partake of the divine essence at the very instant when he recognizes: “I am Brahmān.” From that moment he is jīvanmukta, “liberated in life.” He has neither desires nor passions, because he has attained supreme fulfillment, and he truly loves his neighbor as himself, recognizing himself in him. He lives in the world and in its illusion, but without being deceived by it; and when he dies he does not transmigrate but enters into Brahmān (v.), “as a river into the sea.” The transmigration of souls, or sam-sāra, resulting from karman (v.), is moreover a conception belonging to aparā vidyā; from the esoteric point of view, it is merely a metaphysical truth expressed in allegorical form to make it accessible to empirical knowledge. Everything is illusion except the Ātman, the self, the I that identifies itself with Brahmān, with which the human soul shares the attributes of omnipotence, eternity, and omnipresence, although these divine qualities remain latent “like fire in wood” until liberation (wakṣa) makes them manifest. This, in nuce, is the idealistic monism disseminated by Śāṅkara in his Brahmasutrabhāṣya (commentary on the Brahmāsūtra). The work, held in the highest esteem by the great majority of Indian pandits, is scholastic in character, and the distinction between the two vidyās is rather artificial, despite Deussen’s admiration for this device.
Ferdinando Belloni Filippi