From the English Victorian novelist George Eliot :

We walk about “well-wadded with stupidity. … If we had but keen vision and feeling … it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence”.

A very happy New Year to all our readers.

A short biography by John M Evans. Part 2

Obviously, there would be no world without God, just as there would be no snake without the rope. But the converse is not true, and this leads to an acceptance of the mistaken identity of the world and the omnipresence of Brahman, the Self. Remove that ignorance by enquiry and liberation is secured.

Shankara’s life is shrouded in the fog of history. This is no surprise to Orientalists since Indian religious figures are never well documented at the best of times. Despite the number of biographies about his life and his own enormous literary and physical legacy, much surmise is required to get a grip on the real Shankara. In the manner of most historical sages, he has been well endowed with the miraculous by his followers and later interpreters. So one has tactfully to dismiss the works of wonder, the fatherhood of Siva, and the belief that he completed his mighty oeuvre by the tender age of twelve.

He was born a Brahmin in the state of Kerala, South India. By some accounts he was a brilliant child, foregoing whole stages of his education and development. As a consequence, he left home in his youth to become the chela (disciple) of Govindanatha, a guru of the Advaita persuasion. Later he moved on to Benares and then to a town in the Himalayas, already with a chela of his own. Here he composed some of his most famous works, commentaries on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutra of Badarayana, the founder of Vedanta.

In the aftermath of this immense literary accomplishment, Shankara set off to travel all over India spreading his gospel of “only God is real”. He is credited with a profound interest in education and founded several institutions devoted to Advaita Vedanta and related studies, in addition to religious orders modelled on the Buddhist sangha (community of monks and nuns). His work had that brisk modernity and organization which the Buddhists introduced to India.

His monastic foundations in the North, South, West and East of the country began to radiate teachers and monks to smaller temples which served more local needs. It seems clear that Shankara was an exceptional organizer and manager, as well as philosopher, sage, writer and religious leader.

Swami Chinmayananda, in a commentary on Shankara’a Bhaja Govindam, writes of its author, “An exquisite thinker, a brilliant intellect, a personality scintillating with the vision of Truth, a heart throbbing with industrious faith and ardent desire to serve the nation, sweetly emotional and restlessly logical, in Shankara the Upanishads discovered the fittest Spiritual General.” He was Buddha, Rishi and Gandhi all in one.

He died, we are told, at the early age of thirty-two, though doubt has been cast on this. Given the immensity of his achievement, a longer life would perhaps hold greater credence.

Next : The works of Shankara

A short biography by John M Evans. Part 1

Followers of our recent series on early Zen masters (See Archives in the sidebar), may be interested in this new session of short biographies on masters of Advaita Vedanta in southern India. Advaita has many similarities with Zen.

In the dark, dissolute days of 8th Century India, the ancient religion of Hind was riven by faction and weakened through moral disintegration. Many Brahmin priests were openly corrupt. The traditional Vedic lore had degraded into superstition and was now a mere excuse for clerical power. Buddhism had spread across the sub-continent as the inheritor of Upanishadic purity and the disdainer of gods. It was time, many thought, for the healing balm of a unifying synthesis.

Shankara (c. 788-820) is perhaps the one Indian metaphysician who can claim comparison with Gautama Buddha in the influence he has had on the philosophy of his countrymen. Ostensibly, he lived for only thirty-two years. If that is so his achievement is the more remarkable. Today he is associated with the non-dual religious practices of Advaita Vedanta, which evolved from the Upanishads, a later development of the ancient Vedas hymn/scriptures.

Vedanta (meaning the end of the Vedas) is the basis for most modern Hindu thought. It has two separate, yet interlinked, offshoots, one a dualism known as Sankhya; and Advaita, meaning non-dual. Shankara was numbered in the latter camp.

Shankara is perhaps best known for his tale of the snake and the rope. This simple analogue depicts Brahman (the rope) and man’s illusory response to it (the snake).

The story begins with a man making his way through the jungle at dusk, hoping to reach home before dark. At this time there are many wild animal and insect sounds, even the the roar of a tiger and the almost-silent cheetah.

The man’s state of mind is far from tranquil. As his path approaches a large, shadowy banyan tree, he notices something dangling from one of the branches. This region is notorious for its many deadly cobras and puff adders. He freezes, hardly able to move. Behind him comes the sound of a big cat on the prowl. Caught between the two dangers he crouches beneath a nearby bush, shaking in terror, and certain that a horrible death awaits him that night.

As the dawn starts to break in the East, the first glimmers of light pick out the moist branches of the jungle canopy. The animal sounds have long since ceased and the birds are beginning to get about their business. Shivering with the cold, the man crawls out from beneath the bush scarcely knowing where he is. As he wearily raises his head, he notices a piece of rope hanging from an old banyan tree.

It seems that Shankara was fond of presenting his arguments in parable form, as had the Buddhists in the days before the Hindu revival. This particular story illustrates the Advaita view of the world — ‘God alone is real’ — which is very similar to Zen, by showing God (Brahman) as the rope, or reality, and the world as the snake, or delusion. The snake is what is technically known as a superimposition (adhyasa) caused by ignorance, which the frightened man projects onto the rope, thus veiling its true nature.

The upshot of this is that, while the snake is obviously not real, the rope certainly is. It is the true reality. The world (snake) is therefore a manifestation of the rope (Brahman), which can only be removed by a close enquiry into the existence of the snake. This enquiry reveals the absence of the snake and the presence of the rope.

Next : Part 2 — Shankara’s thought.