The Secret Śaṅkara: On Multivocality and Truth in Śaṅkara’s Teaching

195 Pages·2010·1.17 MB·English

by  Yohanan Grinshpon

The Secret Śaṅkara
Jerusalem Studies in
Religion and Culture
Editors
Guy G. Stroumsa
David Shulman
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Department of Comparative Religion
VOLUME 12
The Secret Śaṅkara
On Multivocality and truth in
Śaṅkara’s teaching
By
Yohanan Grinshpon
LEiDEn • bOStOn
2011
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grinshpon, Yohanan, 1948–
The secret Śaṅkara : on multivocality and truth in Śaṅkara’s teaching / by
Yohanan Grinshpon.
p. cm. — (Jerusalem studies in religion and culture ; volume 12)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSbn 978-90-04-18926-3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Sankaracarya. 2. Hindu
philosophy. i. title.
b133.S5G75 2011
181’.482—dc22
2010042537
iSSn 1570-078X
iSbn 978 90 04 18926 3
Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke brill nV, Leiden, The netherlands.
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in Memory of Wilhelm Halbfass (1940–2000),
A Philosopher and teacher

COntEntS
Preface and Acknowledgment ........................................................... ix
Chapter One On the Challenge of Listening to Śaṅkara’s
Voices: Dialogue and Monologue in Śaṅkara’s Writing ........... 1
Chapter two On Doubt and Wonder in Advaita-Vedānta:
towards Perceiving a Śaṅkara and a Śaṅkarācārya ................... 9
Chapter Three Ātman Disturbed: Self and Mind as its Other
in the Upadeśa-sāhasrī ................................................................... 23
Chapter Four individual Losses and Advaitic Consciousness:
A note on Īśvara’s, Śaṅkara’s and Śaṅkarācārya’s Sorrow ....... 33
Chapter Five On Doubt and Self-Understanding: The
Omniscience of an Author and his Arch-Exponent .................. 51
Chapter Six Śaṅkara’s Śaṅkarācārya: The invisible Author
of bSbh and his beloved Siddhāntin ............................................ 63
Chapter Seven On Rice and Mokṣa: A note on Śaṅkara’s
Voices and Aesthetics .................................................................... 91
Chapter Eight On Mud, negation and the Hungry Space ......... 101
Chapter nine Advaita Messages and Foreign Voices: Some
Philosophical Meanings of Śaṅkara’s Art of Writing ................ 115
Chapter ten Commentator’s Advaita, Exponent’s Advaita ...... 139
Epilogue The Useless Knowledge of Self as the Highest Good:
A note on Śaṅkara’s Secret teaching of Viveka-Vedānta ........ 157
bibliography ......................................................................................... 173
index ..................................................................................................... 175

PREFACE AnD ACKnOWLEDGMEnt
Primordial error with respect to a self that is intimately sensed yet
little understood—this is the ground of life as we know it. We exist
through a manifestion of self that is essentially false, blind to the rela-
tionship between our self and non-self even as we walk and speak,
read or think. it is no wonder, then, that the sage who would articulate
this stark truth remains in the shadows, concealed, as it were, behind
alleged truths that are more acceptable and sanctioned by tradition.
in the introduction to his commentary on the Brahma-sūtra, Śaṅkara,
author of the Brahma-sūtra-bhāsỵ a (bSbh), suggests that it is primor-
dial error—the common lot of human beings and animals—that sus-
tains our life (or embodied existence). The error, he states, comes about
through the superimposition (adhyāsa) of that which sees—“having an
object” (visạ yin)—on that which is seen (an object) (visạ ya), and vice
versa. Every voluntary movement of the body requires a measure of
false self-identification, or to quote his own words: “The body can only
be set in motion through an inherently erroneous projection of the
self on a non-self [which is the body]” (na cânadhyastâtma-bhavena
dehena kaścid vyāpriyate).
This, as i read it, implies that a sage who has become wholly free
of adhyāsa would cease to move his tongue (to speak) and his hands
(to write), attaining thereby a high degree of dense silence. but for a
philosopher committed to coherent speech, the condition of not mov-
ing his tongue and hands presents a paradox. Mindful of the theory of
adhyāsa Śaṅkara realizes that the speech-act “i do not exist” (nāham
asmīti; bSbh 1.1.1) presents a contradiction in terms. nor can he
ignore the existential meaning of the paradoxical statement that to
live is to exist in error. in the thirteenth section of the metrical part of
the Upadeśa-sāhasrī, the one and only self (ātman) speaks in Śaṅkara’s
voice: Having no eyes i do not see (acaksụ sṭ ṿ ān na dṛsṭ ịr me); with
no ears, how is hearing possible (tathâśrotrasya kā śrutiḥ)?; having no
organ of speaking, there is no speech in me (avāktvān na tu vaktiḥ
syāt); without a mind, how can i think (amanastvān matiḥ kutaḥ)?1
1 Upad 13.1.