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This is volume one of the six-volume Shankara Source Book, which contains writings by Shri Shankara, arranged systematically by subject.Shri Shankara was a great philosopher-sage who expressed the non-dual teachings in such a complete and satisfactory way that his formulation has been followed by authentic teachers of the non-dual tradition ever since.Most of his writings are in the form of commentaries on revealed texts such as the principle Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahma Sutras, so what he said was placed around those texts, which are far from systematic.His aim was to demonstrate that underlying the apparent contradictions and differences on the surface, all the great revealed scriptures in fact point ultimately to one Supreme Truth. He wished to do this in order to overcome the confusion that was causing hardship to the people at large, and creating difficulties for dedicated seekers. Shankara probably lived in the 8th century, and died in his early 30s.Shankara considered other views in great detail, sometimes provisionally accepting elements of their arguments, and then pointing out where those views lead to difficulties. One of the great qualities of the non-dual teachings as formulated by Shankara is that they are able to recognise and incorporate what is valid and useful in other views.All this can make it difficult to find what Shankara said on particular subjects. To meet this difficulty, in the Source Book, the writings have been freshly translated, and brought together under subject headings. These in turn have been arranged in six volumes each covering one broad topic. These are: Volume 1 Shankara on the AbsoluteVolume 2 Shankara on the CreationVolume 3 Shankara on the SoulVolume 4 Shankara on Rival ViewsVolume 5 Shankara on DiscipleshipVolume 6 Shankara on Enlightenment

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Philosophie et théologie

Philosophy

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	19 décembre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780854240821
Langue	English

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A KARA SOURCE-BOOK
VOLUME ONE
A KARA ON THE ABSOLUTE
A KARA ON THE ABSOLUTE
A KARA SOURCE-BOOK
VOLUME ONE
by
A.J. ALSTON
SHANTI SADAN
LONDON
First Edition 1980
Reprinted 1981, 1987
Second Edition 2004
ISBN 0-85424-055-1
eBook edition 2023
978-0-85424-082-1
Copyright Shanti Sadan 2023
29 Chepstow Villas
London W11 3DR
shantisadan.org
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher .
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The present volume is the first of a series of six which aims to bring together the most important texts of a kara in a systematic and digestible form. They have been extracted from the commentaries in which they were for the most part embedded and re-arranged in topics, so that the six volumes into which they are divided broadly speaking cover six basic themes of religious philosophy, namely (I) The Absolute, (II) God and the World, (III) God and the Soul, (IV) Polemics, (V) Spiritual Discipline and the r le of Revelation and (VI) the Spiritual Path itself, culminating in this case in Enlightenment or Liberation .
A bibliography and a conspectus of the main topics covered in the whole Source Book are included at the end of each volume, together with an index of a kara s texts.
Apart from some introductory historical matter, appearing mostly at the beginning of the opening volume, the work consists mainly of groups of a kara s texts in translation, interspersed only by a few passages from the anthologist designed to draw attention to the main features of the material to come, somewhat in the manner of programme notes at a concert. Explanations designed to help the nonspecialist reader have been placed in notes at the end of each chapter, along with a few discussions and references which will mainly be of interest to the specialist. The work is based only on texts of well-established authenticity, namely the Commentaries, including those on Gau ap da and the Bhagavad G t , plus the Upade a S hasr .
The work is dedicated with the greatest reverence to our spiritual Teacher, the late Hari Prasad Shastri, founder of Shanti Sadan, who demonstrated to his pupils by his own life that the texts of a kara are not merely an interesting and historically important exposition of the ancient upanishadic teaching, but are also, when properly approached, a sure means to a direct intuition into one s own true nature as the Self of all. It was he who originally instructed me to collect a kara s texts under topics, and the work has been carried out from first to last with the help and guidance of Dr. A.M. Halliday, the present Warden of Shanti Sadan.
For this second edition I have only made a few minor corrections to the translations. The burden of scanning the text for computerized presentation, and the setting up of the Notes pages and the Index in greatly improved format, has been undertaken by Michael Halliday, and all the taxing duties of a copy-editor have been carried out by Anthony Collins. To these colleagues I am indeed grateful.
A. J. ALSTON
LONDON 2003
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter I. Sources of a kara s Doctrine: His Life and Works
1. A Doctrine of Transcendence
2. Vedas: Sa hit s, Br hma as, Upanishads
3. The Sm ti: Vi u-worship and iva-worship
4. The Bhagavad G t
5. The Brahma-S tras and their Background: Bhart prapa ca
6. The True Tradition: Gau ap da, Dravi a, Brahmanandin, Sundara P ya
7. Doctrine of Illusion before a kara: M y V da and Avidy V da
8. a kara s Date, Life and Works
9. a kara s School
Notes to Chapter I
Chapter II. The Doctrine of Nescience
1. The Nature and Results of Nescience
2. Nescience as Non-Comprehension and False Comprehension
3. The Self and the Not-Self: Non-Discrimination and Mutual Superimposition
4. The Standpoint of Nescience and the Standpoint of Knowledge
Notes to Chapter II
Chapter III. Knowledge of the Absolute
1. The Absolute is already known in a general way
2. The Absolute is not known as an object
3. The Path of Negation
4. Going Beyond the Mind
Notes to Chapter III
Chapter IV. The Absolute as Being, Consciousness and Bliss
1. The Definition of the Absolute as Reality, Knowledge, Infinity
2. The Absolute as the Self-Existent Principle
3. The Absolute as the Self-Luminous Principle
4. The Absolute as Bliss
Notes to Chapter IV
List of General Abbreviations
Bibliography
Conspectus of the a kara Source Book
Index of a kara s Texts
CHAPTER I
SOURCES OF A KARA S DOCTRINE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS
1. A Doctrine of Transcendence
a kara Bhagavatp da ( circa 700 AD ), or a kara c rya as he later came to be called, was the man who produced, through his commentaries, the earliest surviving synthesis of the teachings of the main Upanishads, the Bhagavad G t and the Brahma S tras. The highest result and final aim of the study of the upanishadic texts according to traditional methods was for him Brahma-vidy , variously rendered in English as enlightenment , God-realization or realization of the Absolute . For a kara enlightenment implied that the individual awoke to a sense of his perfect identity with the Absolute, the principle of Being and Consciousness that illumines the body and mind but is not identified with them or subject to any form of limitation, or to pain or extinction.
Not everyone who is called to the task of realizing his latent spiritual powers is ready for a path leading to the transcendence of all the finite elements in the personality. To some it suggests the prospect of impoverishment or extinction. Hence it is understandable that at a later time other Teachers, such as R m nuja, Nimb rka and Vallabh c rya, should have arisen and made a different synthesis of the upanishadic teaching, regarding the highest result of it as a condition in which the soul retained its individuality, but remained in perpetual proximity with and adoration of the Lord of the Universe, conceived in personal form and understood as the great whole of which the individual worshipper was an infinitesimal part. But a kara adhered to the principle of transcendence that had been enunciated in the earliest Upanishads. That which is not seen by the eye, but which beholds the activities of the eye - know that that, verily, is the Absolute (brahman) and not what people here adore . 1 He could not accept that deliverance from the bondage of illusion and plurality had been attained as long as the notion of any difference between the worshipper and the object of his worship remained. Hence he regarded the theistic teachings of the ancient texts as provisional doctrine, aimed partly at introducing the student to the pure transcendent principle through clothing it in forms which he could readily conceive, and partly at preserving him from the grosser errors of materialism and spiritual negligence. He did not regard them as statements of the final truth. It is on account of his strict adherence to the principle of transcendence that a kara s writings have been regarded as providing the classical formulation of the Indian wisdom. He alone could account for all the upanishadic texts. None of the pantheistic and theistic commentators who followed him were able to give satisfactory explanations of the negative texts which deny all empirical predicates of the Absolute. And yet, as we shall see, a tradition (samprad ya) which judged these negative statements to be the key texts of the entire Veda had existed long before a kara s day.
2. Vedas: Sa hit s, Br hma as, Upanishads
a kara was primarily a commentator. The student of his writings needs to know something of the works on which he composed commentaries and something, too, of earlier works which influenced his own views. He wrote commentaries not on books in our sense of the word, but on bodies of texts memorized and handed down the generations by families or schools of priests. The hymns of the ancient Aryans of the Punjab, dating from perhaps the middle of the second millenium BC, constituted the g Veda. Addressed, say, to Varu a, god of the heavens, to Indra, the storm-god, or to Agni, the deity of fire (cp. Latin ignis ) who carried the oblations up to the gods in heaven, they would often ask in simple-hearted fashion for material boons. Though a kara shows some knowledge of these hymns, they were of little practical concern to him, as he was a monk who had given up the householder s ritual.
Later the sacrifices grew more intricate. The formulae used in the big sacrifices were codified as the Yajur Veda and handed down by special schools of priests (such as the Taittir yakas, K hakas, V jasaneyins, etc.) who specialized in carrying out the main ritualistic acts in the big sacrifices, each of which had to be accompanied by the murmuring of a benedictory formula. Meanwhile some of the hymns of the g Veda were re-arranged, with additions, in a special form for singing, and in this form were known as the S ma Veda. a kara refers to schools of priests who specialized in this discipline too, such as the T ins, Talavak ras and others. For long, these three bodies of texts (sa hit s) must have constituted the whole recognized Veda. Later a fourth collection of texts, a mixed bag consisting partly of ancient incantations and charms but including some noble cosmological hymns in a later vein, gained Vedic status as the Atharva Veda. Schools of priests began to specialize in the memorization and transmission of these texts also.
Gradually the required learning of the various schools of priests was extended to include a whole range of new matter, embodying new speculations about the symbolic significance of various elements of the ritual, as well as legends of various kinds and scraps of cosmology. According to the texts of this period, advantages flow from a knowledge of occult correspondences , and in this connection distinctions were made betwe