Advaita Vedanta.

• Author: Nicholson, Hugh
• Position: Advaita Vedanta: History of Science, Philosophy, and Culture in Indian Civilization, vol. 2 - Book Review

Advaita Vedanta. Edited by R. BALASUBRAMANIAN. History of Science, Philosophy, and Culture in Indian Civilization, vol. II, part 2. New Delhi: PROJECT OF HISTORY OF INDIAN SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, AND CULTURE, 2000. Pp. 696.

This volume consists of twenty-one articles by various Indian scholars, each treating a particular aspect of the tradition of Advaita Vedanta. It is part of a much larger (38 vols.) project, a comprehensive study of Indian civilization that includes India's scientific, economic, political, cultural, and religious history. In its treatment of the Advaita tradition the present volume shares with the series as a whole a concern with comprehensiveness. It aims at a comprehensive treatment of Advaita both historically--from pre-Sankara Advaita to the "Hindu Renaissance" of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries--and linguistically/regionally--from the classic Advaita texts in Sanskrit to the works of Advaitically inspired saints and philosophers in the various Indian vernaculars.

The volume is divided into three sections. The first, consisting of ten chapters, covers classical Vedanta. The first of these chapters treats pre-Sankara Advaita and includes, in addition to discussions of Badarayana's Brahmasutra and Gaudapada's Mandukya-karika, a brief mention of Bhartrhari and a somewhat fuller treatment of Mandanamisra, who represents a form of pre-Sankara Advaita despite being (probably) Sankara's contemporary. Two chapters cover the presence of Advaitic ideas in the epics and the puranas, respectively. Three full chapters are appropriately devoted to the towering figure of Sankara, whose conception of Vedanta not only determined the direction and shape of the subsequent tradition, but also determined the way in which the "pre-Sankara" tradition has been received, as evidenced by the authors' tendency--following the tradition--to retroject the concept of Advaita onto the Veda and the epics. Another chapter examines the ambiguous and disputed relationship between the works of Suresvara and Mandanamisra. The comparison between the two brings to light certain differences--in particular, the issue of the locus of avidya--that will form the basis of the later split between the Vivarana and Bhamati schools of Advaita. Separate chapters cover the subsequent course of Advaita thought in each of these schools, focusing on Prakasatman's Vivarana and Vacaspatimisra's Bhamati, respectively.

A single chapter tracing the course of...