empirical self, it focuses on an absolute standpoint which is reached through
the self.^56 The highest standpoint, that which is ultimately and completely real,
is that which is absolutely undoubtful; and this is Brahman, which admits no
standpoint from which it might be doubted. The world, by this criterion, is
relatively unreal, although it is relatively real when compared to the phenome-
nal illusions (e.g., rope/snakes) which it throws into doubt. The world should
be called neither real nor unreal, but appearance.
Within the phenomenal world, however, the cogito leads to a world of
plural objects. The experience of the phenomenal “I” always includes a sense
of separation from objects standing outside oneself (Brahma-sutra-bhasya
2.2.28). It is this very plurality, and the possibility of subjecting objects to
specific doubts, that makes this world inferior to the higher Absolute, which
transcends doubts by transcending the subject-object distinction.
The problem then arises of accounting for how the Transcendent, about
which no distinctions or qualifications can be made, gives rise to the world of
apparent plurality, how Brahman produces maya. Shankara adopts the position
of satkaryavada, the Parmenidean conception of being held by the Samkhya
and opposed by the Nyaya-Vaisheshika and Mimamsa. The world cannot be
produced by a relation of distinct cause and effect; for the relation between a
cause and its effect adds a third reality, the relation itself, and thus leads to
the necessity for further relations to fill in the intervening links, and these in
turn to further relations, ad infinitum (Brahma-sutra-bhasya 2.1). It is an
argument against the reality of distinctive causal moments, which reflects
backwards to Nagarjuna and forwards to Bradley. The effect preexists in its
cause, and indeed is ultimately non-different from it. How this could be so
would provide a fertile ground for differentiation among subsequent Advaita
philosophers.
Shankara became the most famous individual thinker in the history of
Hindu philosophy by embodying almost every aspect of Hinduism’s rise to
institutional and intellectual dominance. He critiqued rival positions across the
field, drawing from them a set of sophisticated technical arguments while
discarding the rest. After Shankara, most other Hindu schools lost their capac-
ity to generate further creativity; only Nyaya-Vaisheshika was able to rise
to a new level of defense. Advaita laid down the basic position to which all
other factions adapted, and out of which new lines of division emerged; it
controlled not so much the solutions as the puzzle space of the new intellectual
field. Shankara was not the only individual who made the move toward
Advaita, with its combination of transcendental monism and world illusion.
But Shankara was the great energy star, and his activities gave him several
advantages in long-term reputation over predecessors such as Gaudapada and
Bhartrihari, as well as his contemporary Mandana.
External and Internal Politics: India • 249