The Double Revolution in Hindu Philosophy:
Mimamsa Ultra-realism and Vedanta Non-dualism
At the turn of the 700s, Hindu philosophy moves into the center of intellectual
space. Until this time the Buddhists have been dominant, and their innova-
tions generate the responses of imitation and counterattack. Hereafter Hindu-
ism acquires that space, and the dynamics of creativity become the splits
and adjustments among Hindu schools. Two major new positions emerge on
the Hindu side—Mimamsa realism and non-dualist Advaita Vedanta. These
are genuinely new philosophies, though both claim ancient links; they emerge
in the process of creating the Veda-centered ideology which is the defining
mark of “Hinduism.” They establish a new standard of sophistication in
Hindu philosophy, upstaging Samkhya as amateurish, and pushing Nyaya-
Vaisheshika to a new level of argument to regain its stature.
The emergence of philosophical Mimamsa and Advaita constitutes a rear-
rangement of networks. During its period of dominance, one of Buddhism’s
advantages had been that its organizations focused the center of intellectual
attention, above all in the northern heartlands of the major empires. Hindu
domination in the south had few intellectual consequences, insofar as these
were the “provinces,” away from the high-prestige cultural centers, too scat-
tered to focus attention. The initial upsurge of Hinduism in abstract philosophy
(not popular literature and religion, which developed centuries earlier) comes
when leading Hindus make direct contact with the Buddhist networks.
In the generations around 700, the Hindu invasion of Buddhist territories
is especially visible. Gaudapada, the supposed grand-teacher of Shankara, is
in northern Bengal, a longtime Buddhist stronghold. Kumarila, who sets off
the new Mimamsa with his rival Prabhakara, is located in the central Ganges,
perhaps at Allahabad; his pupils supposedly include Mandana Mishra, who is
reputedly delegated by his aged master to debate Shankara.^50 Into this network
comes Shankara, a youth from south India, moving to the center to study at
the holy city Varanasi and debate the Buddhists in their own monasteries; he
leaves a lineage of famous pupils after him. Visible in the network for the first
time are clusters of major Hindu philosophers matching those which Buddhism
displayed for centuries, repeating the world pattern in which the most influen-
tial thinkers tend to appear in personally connected groups. From now on until
the rise of Vaishnavism in the south about 1100, insofar as we can trace
locations, much of the intellectual action of Hindu philosophies is in the older
Buddhist strongholds. In the 800s and 900s, the great Nyaya-Vaisheshika
philosophers are in Kashmir, the old Sarvastivadin territory; at the same time
comes the upsurge of Kashmir Shaivism and Shaktism. Mithila, in Bihar, has
become the center for Hindu philosophy, challenging nearby Nalanda. Man-
External and Internal Politics: India • 241