man, pointed out the conundrum: if the plurality of selves is an illusion, how
can one self become liberated without all the other selves being liberated at
the same time? Sureshvara held that there is no solution to the dilemmas of
transcendent unity versus the plurality of experience except to leap beyond
concepts. This version of Advaita resembles Buddhist Madhyamika. Sarvajñat-
man argued in parallel to Nagarjuna, for whom samsara is the same as nirvana:
after liberation the world does not disappear, but one has a flash of under-
standing beyond distinctions (Potter, 1976: 180). This stance is the opposite
of Mandana’s emphasis on logical argument; it eventually became dominant
in Advaita. Shankara was retrospectively interpreted as the champion of what
Karl Potter calls “leap-philosophy,” while the position of Mandana, who
seems to have been viewed by other schools as the leading Advaitin through
about the 900s, eventually faded (EIP, 1981: 17). In this battle, Shankara’s
eventual fame rested on the organizational base of having founded an order
of monks, while his opponents were overshadowed even as their arguments
were picked up.
The Advaita revolution reinstated a parallel to the three main schools of
late Buddhism on the Hindu side of the board: Bhamati, Vivarana, and
Sureshvara’s “leap-philosophy” parallel Dignaga-Dharmakirti negative logic,
Yogacara, and Madhyamika. What is left out is Abhidharma pluralism and
realism, but this slot was already taken on the Hindu side by Nyaya-
Vaisheshika, the one rival Hindu school which prospered after the advent of
Advaita. To be sure, Advaita philosophers resisted their opponents’ charge that
they were crypto-Buddhists, and stressed the difference between Buddhist
momentariness and the illusory nature of the self and their own emphasis on
a permanent self which is identical with Brahman. In Potter’s view (1976) the
Advaita revolution shifted attention in philosophical space from the “left” side
of causal multiplicity to the “right” side of Parmenidean causal monism. But,
given these shifts in the fundamental turf, the disappearance of Buddhism as
an active player made available much of its cultural capital to be used in the
new context. And in the next round, as the mystical, anti-conceptual version
of Advaita (i.e., quasi-Madhyamika) gained dominance, the intellectual re-
sources of its defeated rivals became available to fuel new rivals to Advaita
within an expanding Vedanta camp.
Jainas and Other Side Eddies:
Intellectual Stability in Minor Long-Term Niches
To complete our picture of intellectual dynamics, we must pause to consider
several positions notable for their conservatism amid the realignments going
on around them. Such schools exist for a very long time with little change or252 • (^) Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths