Meditation in Sankara's Vedanta.

AuthorOlivelle, Patrick

This book is an attempt to assess Samkara's views regarding the place of yogic practices in general and meditative exercises in particular in the overall scheme for acquiring the liberating knowledge of Brahman, the issue at the heart of his theological enterprise. This question is especially significant within the ongoing scholarly debate on the authenticity of the Vivarana, the sub-commentary on Vyasa's Yogasutrabhasya ascribed to Samkara.

After an introductory survey (ch. 1) of traditional and modern approaches to the study of Samkara, Bader undertakes (ch. 2) an investigation on the nature of meditation. In the next two chapters the author examines Samkara's views on meditation and reasoning in the process of acquiring the knowledge of Brahman. The final chapter deals with the question of Samkara's attitude and relationship to Yoga. Within the compass of just 111 pages it is not possible to deal with these questions at any depth or in detail. This is at best a brief introduction to the issues, rather than a thorough treatment of them. The significance of the book is in highlighting the obvious fact that Samkara is first and foremost a religious practitioner and theologian, a fact often lost sight of by scholars who attempt to dissect his thought and analyze his philosophy as if he were a simple philosopher in the modern use of that term. Samkara takes the upanisadic statements on meditative practices, especially the Chandogya preoccupation with sacred sounds, seriously.

The problem with Bader's treatment of these important questions concerns the method that he employs. Within the context of the current obsession with deconstruction, it may be viewed as fashionable to regard both the traditional theological readings of Samkara and the modern critical studies as equally mythical discourses. I want to defend, however, an old-fashioned view; I think that such an equation is quite simply wrong, even though I readily admit that scholarly methods and discourses are not totally free of biases or ulterior motives and are clearly influenced by the...

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