Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
200Extract 4: J.L. Brockington ‘Bhakti in the South’ and ‘The Orthodox
Synthesis’ (1996)
Taken from: J.L. Brockington, The Sac red Thread: Hinduism in Continuity and
Diversit y, (Edinburgh University Press, 1996), Chapter 6 Sectarian developments
and Chapter Bhakti in the south 7, pp. 109–112, 134–40.
Sankara, traditionally said to have been a Nambudiri Braham from Kerala in south
India, is regarded as the founder of the Advaita (non-dual) sc hool of Vedanta whic h
insists on Brahman as the sole reality, denying any duality. In an apparently short
lifet ime (t radit ionally 788–820 A.D.), he ac hieved not only an impressive output of
philosophic al works but also a remarkable amount of propagat ion of his views
dir ec t ly and by t he inst it ut ion of an organisat ional framework. His major work is a
c ommentary on the Brahmasutra (thereby by later standards establishing his status
as the founder of a sub-school – innovat ion validat ed by t radit ion), but he also
w ro t e c o mme ntaries on the Bhagavadgita and on several Upanishads, as well as an
independent work the Upadesasahasri. It is not c ertain whether various minor
works on Vedanta asc ribed to him are really his, but there is no justific ation for the
attribution to him of various Sakta works praising the goddess.
As an orthodox Brahman, Sankara subsc ribes to the authority of the Vedas but
uses verbal t est imony almost exc lusively t o est ablish his c ent ral doc t rine of t he
ident it y of atman and Brahman, gleefully quoting sc ripture (BAU 4.3.22: ‘Then [i.e.
in liberation]... the Vedas are not Vedas’) to prove that scripture ceases to be valid
with the arising of knowledge and c onvic ting his opponents of the absenc e of true
knowledge wit h his c ust omary flair in debat e. However, in order to reconcile the
contradictions of the Vedas, he adopts an exegetical device already used in
Buddhism, the c onc ept of the two levels of truth. On the lower level of c onventional
reality, the world exists and evolves ac c ording to the Samkhya pattern under the
creative guidance of Isvara, the personal deity propounded in some Upanisadic
texts, but on the higher level of absolute reality the whole world is unreal, an
illusion (maya) assoc iat ed wit h ignoranc e (avidya), and Brahman alone really
exists.
The mult iple and finit e ent it ies of t he phenomenal world are essent ially
ident ic al t herefore wit h Brahman, t he Absolut e. T heir mult iplic it y and individualit y
lie in t heir separat e ident it ies whic h avidya superimposes on the absolute. But, just
as in ordinary life a man might see a piece of rope coiled up and in poor light
mist ake it for a c obra c oiled ready t o st rike, t hus superimposing an illusory snake
on a real rope, so all perception and experience is of something and does not refer
to nothing. Whenever we perceive something, it is because there is something.
When we perceive the world around us, we do perceive something but our mistake,
our avidya, c onsists in taking it as something other than Brahman. Sankara is here
at pains to avoid the negativism of the Madhyamika sc hool of Buddhism, whic h
dec lares t hat everyt hing is a void wit h no realit y underlying it. Sankara also largely
avoids defining the nature of avidya or it s subst rat um, unlike some of his followers;
but Sankara no doubt was aware of the logical problem involved, whereas his pupil
Suresvara declares that avidya resorts to and belongs to the atman, and the
question divides the two sub-sc hools of Advaita whic h subsequently emerge. For
Sankara himself the nature of avidya was indesc ribable, sinc e if it were unreal we
should not be entrapped by it but if it were real then Brahman would not be the
sole realit y. Sankara also applies t his c onc ept of indesc ribabilit y or inexplic abilit y t o