Adhyāropa-apavāda (Part 2)

ADHYĀROPĀPAVĀDA: REVISITING THE INTERPRETATIONS OF SVĀMI SACCIDĀNANDENDRA SARASVATĪ AND THE POST-ŚAṄKARĀDVAITINS (continued)
by Manjushree Hegde
(Read Part 1)

  1. Levels of Deliberated Attribution in the Prasthānatraya Texts

According to SSS, deliberated attribution occurs on three distinct levels in the texts of the prasthānatraya:16 words, sentences, and methodological procedures or prakriyās employed to articulate the inquiry.17 Each of these levels can be illustrated with examples. Consider the level of words. It is notable that most words themselves can be categorized as adhyāropas. Indeed, even a term as fundamental as ‘ātman’ is itself an adhyāropa. In the CUB 7.1.3, Śaṅkarācārya writes:

The term ‘ātman’ serves as a means of identifying it in contradistinction to the corporeal vehicle it inhabits. Moreover, the term is extended to convey the referent which persists after the repudiation of the body and other non-self entities as illusory. Finally, the word is used to reveal what is inexpressible by words.18

The term “ātman” is an adhyāropa; the aim of invoking the term is not its designation per se, but rather to draw attention to its distinctiveness from the nonself entities, to discriminate it from the nonself referents (body, mind, etc.). Loundo writes, “[Understanding it as an adhyāropa] prevents the reification of ātman and, concomitantly, of its negatum, in the process of distinguishing the former from the latter (body, etc.)” (Loundo 2015, p. 72). Similarly, the term “brahman,” derived from the verbal root “bṛḥ, expansion,” is an adhyāropa that seeks to invalidate the potential limitations associated with “ātman” (BUB 2.3.6). Most words of the prasthānatraya texts—including jīva, īśvara, jagat, avidyā, māyā, bandha, mokṣa, and so on—are adhyāropas.

In his TUB 2.1.1, Śaṅkarācārya illustrates how individual words in a sentence mutually control one another’s meanings, exemplifying adhyāropa at the level of words and sentences. Under consideration is the sentence, “satyaṃ jñānam anantaṃ brahma.” Each word, Śaṅkarācārya writes, operates to correct or exclude unwanted connotations of the other words of the sentence. “Satyam” (real/unchanging) distinguishes brahman from what changes. “Jñānam” (consciousness) serves to nullify the undesirable connotations of “satyam,” which may imply nonconsciousness when interpreted as a material cause. “Jñānam” in turn raises the difficulty that brahman may be considered an agent of knowing, implying both change and limitation in brahman. “Anantam” (infinite) restricts the inappropriate connotations of “jñānam” thus underscoring that brahman is what is not unconscious, changing, or unreal.19

An example of adhyāropa at the level of prakriyā is the Upaniṣadic passages that discuss the origin/creation of the world (BU 1.4.1, CU 6.2.1–4, TU 2.1.1, etc.). In each of these passages, the creative act is described in a rather nonuniform manner. Yet, brahman is uniformly posited in them as the cause (kāraṇa) of the world of multiplicity which is uniformly posited as its effect (kārya). Here, “causality” (kāraṇatva) is a deliberate (but false) attribution to brahman; it is an adhyāropa. The purpose of this adhyāropa is not to establish the distinct ontological status of brahman or to describe the origin/creation of the world; it is to deny the latter its independent ontological existence—to establish non-difference between the “cause” and the “effect” (kārya-kāraṇa-ananyatva).

This adhyāropa is pre-emptively rescinded in different/other portions of the texts.20 In SSS’ words, “… according to the Upaniṣadic pedagogical method, ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ are first taught to be distinct [from each other] not in order to establish the causal relation between the two but to show that the effect is non-different from the cause” (Saraswati 1964, III.34, p. 54).21 Śaṅkarācārya writes in his BUB 1.4.7: “The Vedic passages referring to the creation of the world, etc., do not actually refer to any real creative process. They aim solely at pointing to the oneness of the ātman” (trans. Loundo 2015, p. 92).22

V. Vyāvahārika and Pāramārthika Dṛṣṭi

Central to the method of adhyāropāpavāda is what SSS calls the “two-standpoint approach,” or rather, the “double-sided” approach of the prasthānatraya texts. Accordingly, the texts employ two (contradictory) standpoints—two different epistemic grounds—to conduct the inquiry into brahman: (1) lokadṛṣṭi/vyāvahārika dṛṣṭi/empirical view, and (2) śāstra dṛṣṭi/paramārtha dṛṣṭi/Vedāntic view.

Lokadṛṣṭi refers to the ordinary perception of oneself as an embodied being situated in a diverse universe and coexisting with other embodied beings. Śāstradṛṣṭi, on the other hand, is the contrasting perspective in which the ultimate reality is understood as the ground of all beings, the substratum of all phenomenal reality, and the essential nature of the self. According to SSS, the texts deploy deliberately a temporary attribution (adhyāropa) of a particular trait/feature from the empirical viewpoint and subsequently retract/negate it (apavāda) from the śāstric epistemological position.23 Both statements, the adhyāropa and the apavāda—contradicting, yet complementing each other— form a singular cohesive pedagogical unit to communicate the truth. According to SSS, such an approach is employed with the express purpose of precluding the possibility of reification of either statement; yet, paradoxically, the PSA— according to SSS—succumb to the temptation of reifying both.

Here, it must be noted that for SSS, the difference between the two standpoints, vyāvahārika and pāramārthika, is epistemic—not a difference in two “levels of reality.” For the PSA, on the other hand, it is ontological. The nuance is significant; it reflects what SSS and the PSA understand the function of adhyāropas to be, and in this difference lies the core of the difference between SSS and the PSA. For SSS, the precise function of the śāstrakṛtādhyāropa is to negate undeliberated ideas about brahman—it is apavāda pradhāna: the focus lies in the negated, rather than the stated. For the PSA, on the other hand, the śāstrakṛtādhyāropa furnishes a provisional explication of the empirical realm that satiates, albeit temporarily, the mind of the seeker.24 Consider, for example, Murthi’s words:

The enquirer or seeker confers a certain degree of reality to the empirical world. Therefore, from the loka dṛṣṭi standpoint, an explanation needs to be given as to how the undifferentiated reality becomes the universe that is characterized by multiplicity. The concept of māyā [for example] is only brought in to explain to the enquirer, from the empirical standpoint, to account for the creation of this world… But from the paramārtha standpoint there is no creation and therefore the idea of a causal seed form of māyā also becomes negated. (Murthi 2009, pp. 160–161)

The function of the śāstrakṛtādhyāropa is construed—by traditional and contemporary scholars alike—as a temporary description/explanation of the empirical realm.25 This, SSS refutes. He writes,

It is sometimes supposed that the Vedantic Avidyā [and other such concepts] is a mere doctrine formulated to explain the appearance of difference and manifoldness. That this is a hasty judgment, can be readily seen by any critical enquirer…. (Saraswati [1971] 2008, p. 38)

For him, it is fruitless to furnish an account of the transactional realm. A discussion of the conventional/empirical realm is only useful in so far as it refutes natural, erroneous ideas about brahman. If it is taken as an empirical judgment—temporary or otherwise—the instructional dimension of the adhyāropa (the implicit negation) is lost. Within SSS’ framework, ādhyāropa works as an active force to extirpate ignorance by refuting fallacious conceptions about the self. In a later section, I will demonstrate how, according to SSS, the PSA’s interpretation of the vyāvahārika (and the pāramārthika) has led to the lamentable reification of concepts in Advaita Vedānta. In a twist of irony, what the prasthānatraya texts—and Śaṅkarācārya—aimed to prevent by ingeniously employing the method of adhyāropāpavāda, the PSA has inadvertently accomplished.

Here, it must be mentioned that SSS’ “two-standpoint approach” has received certain criticism. In her article on the avidyā controversy, Doherty writes, “Satchidanandendra makes frequent use of shifting from a vyāvahārika to a pāramārthika standpoint in an effort to establish his position” (Doherty 2005, p. 227). She argues that SSS’ contentions are unfounded as both interlocutors (SSS and the PSA) concur that the vyāvahārika exposition is a temporary construct that is negated at the pāramārthika level. Building on this, Murthi argues, “Śaṅkara in the eyes of SS, therefore straddles between the two levels of ontology and uses the two-standpoint approach to his convenience” (Murthi 2009, p. 161).

The criticism does not take into account the crucial difference between SSS’ and the PSA’s interpretation of the vyāvahārika and the pāramārthika. SSS does not treat them as two levels of reality as the PSA do. The difference has significant ramifications. Because the PSA understand the śāstrakṛtādhyāropas as a temporary/provisional description of the conventional ‘reality,’ they try to weave them together into a (possibly) coherent and consistent system of philosophy. SSS, on the other hand, is not forced to furnish a rationale for them. For him, the śāstrakṛtādhyāropas are “very much like the temporary scaffolding used for the erection of a building” (Saraswati 1964, Introduction, p. 43); “contradictions” do not bother him whatsoever. According to SSS, it is the PSA’s attempt to “solve” the contradictions of the śāstrakṛtādhyāropas that led them far from Śaṅkarācārya’s teachings.

Ingalls makes a similar observation about the ostensible contradictions in the discourse: he writes,

There are two ways out of this dilemma. One of them has been taken by most of Śaṁkara’s followers and has come to be known as the typical Kevalādvaita point of view… There is, however, another way out of the dilemma, that is, not by solving but by avoiding it. This was the way chosen by Śaṁkarācārya himself. (Ingalls 1953, p. 69)26

This, according to SSS, is Śaṅkarācārya’s method, and also the sampradāya (tradition).

*** Read Part 3 ***

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