The theory of illusion of Śaṅkarācārya

Śaṅkarācārya tactfully accused Vyāsadeva of being wrong in his conclusion, and concluded that in reality, there is no material world; everything is just the fruit of illusion.

« Vedānta-sūtra: The Govinda-bhāṣya of Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa

« Sutra 1.1.2 - janmādy asya yataḥ

The theory of illusion of Śankarācārya

Borrowing the arguments of Śankarācārya, one could argue that the idea of the external energy of the Lord passing through so many transformations and resulting in the creation of the material world violates the principle of Brahman being unchangeable, just like when we transform a piece of wood into a table, the original ingredient is transformed into something else, and can’t be recovered.

However, that’s not the case. A lump of clay may be shaped into different forms and transformed into different types of pots, and later brought back to its original form when the pots are broken and the powder mixed with water. The resulting clay could again be molded into different pots, and so on, in an unlimited cycle. In this case, the shape changes, but the structure of the ingredient doesn’t, since it can be brought back to its original form at any moment. Another example is a spider that creates a web and later eats it.

Certain types of transformation don’t violate the principle of unchangeability. When this principle is understood, the idea of Brahman being unchangeable but at the same time permuting His own energy into this material world becomes clear. The material creation exists eternally as energy, but it is sometimes manifested and sometimes unmanifested. The energy thus never changes, but it can be shaped in different ways due to the influence of the three material modes, time, and the work performed by the conditioned souls.

Prabhupāda explains this point in the Caitanya Caritāmṛta:

“The first verse of the Brahma-sūtra is athāto brahma jijñāsā: “We must now inquire into the Absolute Truth.” The second verse immediately answers, janmādy asya yataḥ: “The Absolute Truth is the original source of everything.” Janmādy asya yataḥ does not suggest that the original person has been transformed. Rather, it clearly indicates that He produces this cosmic manifestation through His inconceivable energy. This is also clearly explained in the Bhagavad-gītā (BG 10.8), where Kṛṣṇa says, mattaḥ sarvam pravartate: “From Me, everything emanates.” This is also confirmed in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad (3.1.1): yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante. “The Supreme Absolute Truth is that from which everything is born.” Similarly, in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (1.1.7) it is stated, yathorṇa-nābhiḥ sṛjate gṛhṇate ca: “[The Lord creates and destroys the cosmic manifestation] as a spider creates a web and draws it back within itself.” (CC Madhya 6.172)

Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that this process of shaping the external potency into different forms, or pariṇāma-vāda, is the correct understanding and the conclusion of Śrīla Vyāsadeva. However, Śankarācārya, anxious to advance his theory of illusion, dismissed this doctrine of by-products by mischaracterizing it as a doctrine of change and advocated instead his theory of illusion or vivarta-vāda, in which the material manifestation is false, a fruit of illusion. He argues that just like one may see a rope on the road and confuse it with a snake when in reality there is no snake, we think that the material manifestation exists when under the influence of illusion, but when attaining liberation, we see that in reality there is no material world. In this way, in advancing his theory, Śankarācārya tactfully accused Vyāsadeva of being mistaken.

This is confirmed by Lord Caitanya Himself:

“The Vedānta-sūtra aims at establishing that the cosmic manifestation has come into being by the transformation of the inconceivable potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The touchstone, after touching iron, produces volumes of gold without being changed. Similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead manifests Himself as the cosmic manifestation by His inconceivable potency, yet He remains unchanged in His eternal, transcendental form. Śankarācārya states that the theory of transformation presented in the Vedānta-sūtra implies that the Absolute Truth itself is transformed. In this way the Māyāvādī philosophers denigrate Śrīla Vyāsadeva by accusing him of error. They thus find fault in the Vedānta-sūtra and misinterpret it to try to establish the theory of illusion.” (CC Madhya 6.170-172)

This was necessary because when the sūtra is accepted at face value, “janmādy asya yataḥ“ implies that the Supreme Brahman has transcendental potencies and is the creator of the material universes, which in turn implies desire. Once we accept that Brahman has multiple potencies, desire, and creative intent, it becomes impossible to reject the idea that Brahman is a person. Thus, if Śankarācārya were to accept these two truths, it would be impossible for him to advance his impersonal doctrine and fulfill his mission of bringing the followers of Buddhism back to the Vedas.

He thus tactfully accused Vyāsadeva of being wrong in his conclusion, and concluded that in reality, there is no material world; everything is just the fruit of illusion caused by the covering of Māyā. In this way, in his doctrine, there is no necessity to accept that Brahman creates anything, because nothing factually exists apart from the qualityless Brahman.

One could argue that this theory implies that parts of Brahman fall under the influence of illusion, becoming individual souls, but a Māyāvādi would reply that Brahman is indivisible and without internal differentiation. In this way, Brahman can’t be broken into pieces. They explain that the jīvas are Brahman reflected in ignorance (avidyā-upādhi) and not broken parts of Brahman, just like the Sun being simultaneously reflected in many pots with water. The material world, they argue, is thus real on the vyāvahārika level (practical reality), but false on the pāramārthika, the level of ultimate reality, where only Brahman exists. This is just another way of saying that the material world exists only under the illusion created by Māyā, and is thus ultimately false, while only Brahman is real.

This argument has, however, many faults. If Brahman is undifferentiated and indivisible, and the whole monistic theory is based on the conclusion that nothing exists apart from Brahman, how can ignorance appear in front, on top or around Brahman and reflect it? If māyā reflects Brahman, creating a separate reality, even if illusory, this means something exists outside Brahman, contradicting the very foundation of the monistic doctrine of Śankarācārya. And if māyā comes from Brahman, then māyā can’t be false, since Brahman is real, and therefore anything that comes from it must also be real. A dream or a computer game may be illusory, but they are not unreal. They factually exist as a product of something real: the mind in the case of the dream, or a computer in the case of the game.

Confronted with this argument, a Māyāvādi could insist on the fallacy of avidyā being indefinable: not real, not unreal, and not in between. In his Vivekacūḍāmaṇi, verse 109, for example, Śankarācārya wrote:

sannāpyasannāpyubhayātmikā no
bhinnāpyabhinnāpyubhayātmikā no
sāngāpyanangā hyubhayātmikā no
mahādbhutānirvacanīyarūpā

“Māyā is neither existent nor non-existent, nor a combination of the two. It is not separate nor unseparated from Brahman, and not in between. It is not broken in parts or devoid of parts; therefore, it is anirvacanīya, indescribable in words.”

As you can see, this is a circular argument. Whenever pressed to commit to a conclusion, a Māyāvādi refuses to commit, running in circles around the idea of things being anirvacanīya (undefinable, indescribable), juggling with words in a way that appears attractive to the unintelligent, who can’t properly understand the argument, and are thus forced to agree. This is again a testament to the strategy adopted by Śankarācārya to confuse the atheists, fulfilling his mission of attracting people back to the Vedas, but keeping the envious away from Kṛṣṇa, offering a philosophy that could distract the envious and unintelligent.

Behind all the word jugglery, the Māyāvāda doctrine is a flawed philosophy that contradicts itself by propounding monism, while at the same time implying the existence of a separate force, Māyā, that has the power to subjugate Brahman, putting it under illusion, a contradiction Śankarācārya tactfully tries to hide by explaining māyā as indefinable in advancing his vivarta-vada.

All our ācāryas vehemently protested these arguments. On CC Adi 7.122, for example, Śrīla Prabhupāda mentions Jīva Gosvāmī:

“How the Supreme Personality of Godhead remains as He is, never changing, is explained in the Īśopaniṣad: pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate. God is complete. Even if a complete manifestation is taken away from Him, He continues to be complete. The material creation is manifested by the energy of the Lord, but He is still the same person. His form, entourage, qualities and so on never deteriorate. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī, in his Paramātma-sandarbha, comments regarding the vivarta-vāda as follows: “Under the spell of vivarta-vāda one imagines the separate entities, namely the cosmic manifestation and the living entities, to be one with Brahman. This is due to complete ignorance regarding the actual fact. The Absolute Truth, or Parabrahman, is always one and always the same. He is completely free from all other conceptions of existence. He is completely free from false ego, for He is the full spiritual identity. It is absolutely impossible for Him to be subjected to ignorance and fall under the spell of a misconception (vivarta-vāda). The Absolute Truth is beyond our conception. One must admit that He has unblemished qualities that He does not share with every living entity. He is never tainted in the slightest degree by the flaws of ordinary living beings. Everyone must therefore understand the Absolute Truth to possess inconceivable potencies.”

He elaborates on this topic in the 20th chapter of Teachings of Lord Caitanya:

“When explaining the second aphorism of the Vedānta-sūtra, Śankara has most unceremoniously tried to explain that Brahman, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is impersonal. He has also cunningly tried to switch the doctrine of by-products into the doctrine of change. For the Supreme Absolute Truth, there is no change. It is simply that a by-product results from His inconceivable powers of action. In other words, a relative truth – a by-product – is produced out of the Supreme Truth. For example, when a chair is produced out of crude wood, it is said that a by-product is produced. The Supreme Absolute Truth, Brahman, is immutable, and when we find a by-product – the living entity or this cosmic manifestation – it is a transformation of the Supreme’s energies, or a by-product of the Supreme. It is like milk being transformed into yogurt. In this way, if we study the living entities in the cosmic manifestation, it will appear that they are not different from the original Absolute Truth, but from the Vedic literature we understand that the Absolute Truth has varieties of energy and that the living entities and the cosmic manifestation are but a demonstration of His energies. The energies are not separate from the energetic; therefore the living entity and cosmic manifestation are inseparable truths, part of the Absolute Truth. Such a conclusion regarding the Absolute Truth and the relative truth should be acceptable to any sane man.”

“The Supreme Absolute Truth has His inconceivable potency, out of which this cosmic manifestation has been produced. In other words, the Supreme Absolute Truth supplies the ingredients, and the living entity and cosmic manifestation are the by-products. In the Taittirīya Upaniṣad it is clearly stated, yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante: “The Absolute Truth is the original reservoir of all ingredients, and this material world and its living entities are produced from those ingredients.”

“Understanding the inconceivable energies of the Absolute is the only solution to the question of duality. This is because duality arises from the inconceivable energies of the Absolute. By His inconceivable energies, the Supreme Absolute Truth can remain unchanged and yet produce this cosmic manifestation with all its living entities, just as a touchstone can produce unlimited quantities of gold and yet remain unchanged. Because the Absolute Truth has such inconceivable energies, the material quality of ignorance cannot pertain to Him. The true variegatedness which exists in the Absolute Truth is a product of His inconceivable energies. Indeed, it can be safely concluded that this cosmic manifestation is but a by-product of His inconceivable energies. Once we accept the inconceivable energies of the Supreme Lord, we will find that there is no duality at all. The expansion of the energies of the Supreme Lord is as true as the Supreme Lord Himself. But despite all the variegated manifestations of the Supreme Lord’s energies, there is no question of transformation for the Supreme Lord Himself. Once again the example of the touchstone can be cited: in spite of producing unlimited quantities of gold, the touchstone remains the same. (We therefore hear some sages say that the Supreme is the “ingredient cause” of this cosmic manifestation.)

Also, the example of the rope and the snake is not irregular. When we accept a rope to be a snake, it is to be understood that we have experienced a snake previously. Otherwise, how can the rope be mistaken for a snake? Thus the conception of a snake is not untrue or unreal in itself. It is the false identification that is untrue or unreal. When, by mistake, we consider the rope to be a snake, that is our ignorance. But the very idea of a snake is not in itself ignorance. Similarly, when we accept a mirage in the desert to be water, there is no question of water being a false concept. Water is a fact, but it is a mistake to think that there is water in the desert.

Thus this cosmic manifestation is not false, as Śankarācārya maintains. Actually, there is nothing false here. It is because of ignorance that the Māyāvādīs say this world is false. The conclusion of the Vaiṣṇava philosophy is that this cosmic manifestation is a by-product of the inconceivable energies of the Supreme Lord.” (ToLC ch.20)

This topic of Brahman as both the ingredient and the cause will also be discussed in the 4th Pada, topic 7 (Prakṛty-adhikaraṇam).

The originality of the scriptures

Concluding this session, Śrīla Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa elaborates on another argument that could be offered by our impersonalist opponent. One could object that people in general already think that they are different from the Supreme Brahman, so what would be the point in the scriptures speaking about something that is already widely believed? If the scriptures simply repeat what the readers already know, that’s a waste of time. To be useful, the scriptures must teach what is not known to the readers. Therefore, it makes more sense to accept the view that the scriptures teach that the Supreme Brahman and the individual soul are identical in all aspects, an idea that is novel and relevant.

Sri Baladeva answers this argument with a quote from the Śvetāśvatara Upanisad (1.6):

pṛthag-ātmānam preritam ca matvā

juṣṭas tatas tenāmṛtatvam eti

“When one understands that the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the individual souls are eternally distinct entities, one becomes qualified for liberation and attains immortality, living in the spiritual world.” (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 1.6)

The Māyavadi idea that the soul and the Lord are identical in all respects and one merges into the Supreme Brahman when achieving perfection is not at all supported in Vedic literature. That’s an idea that is artificially imposed and sustained only by spurious arguments and word jugglery. The few texts in the Vedas that appear to support the impersonalistic view are interpreted in a personalist way by Vyāsadeva Himself, like when it’s described that the Lord has no hands and legs, in the sense that He has a transcendental body and senses.

Although people in general understand the idea that the soul is different from God, they do not understand the details of what the differences are, how we can be simultaneously similar to God, and much less about what our constitutional position is and how our eternal relationship with God can be reestablished. This is the novel idea propounded by the scriptures that is relevant to people in general. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the point Māyāvādis reject.

Exercise

Now it’s your turn. Can you answer the following arguments using the ideas from this section?

Opponent: You are trying to maintain that the word “Brahman” mentioned in the sūtra “athato brahma-jijnasa” of the Brahma-sūtras and other passages refers to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but this is not correct. The word Brahman, just like the words bhūma (the all-pervading infinity) and ātma (the Self), denotes the soul inside the body. This is clearly indicated in the Taittirīya Upanisad (2.5) and other passages: vijñānam brahma ced veda, tasmāc cen na pramādyati, śarīre pāpmānam hitvā, sarvān kāmān samaśnute: “If one knows the Self in truth, and does not deviate from it, one leaves the body and all evils behind and attains all desires”.

Brahman is the conscious living entity, or soul, living inside the body. It refers to our true self with which we should reconnect. By this, we become free from illusion and attain lasting peace. The self is the one we should meditate upon. Take this passage from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (7.23.1-7.24.1), for example: bhūmā tv eva vijijñāsitavya iti bhūmānam bhagavo vijijñāsa iti, yatra nānyat paśyati nānyac, chṛṇoti nānyad vijānāti sa bhūmā, atha yatrānyat paśyaty anyac chṛṇoty anyad vijānāti tad-alpam: “‘One should ask about Bhūmā.’ ‘My lord, I wish to know about Bhūmā.’ ‘When one attains him, one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, and knows nothing else. That is Bhūmā. When one sees something else, hears something else, and knows something else, his knowledge is very small. Bhūmā is immortal, but that which is small is mortal.”

It’s quite clear that the verse indicates we should meditate on the self, and thus attain perfection. This is the real object of knowledge. Even the Sanskrit dictionary explains: “The word brahma means that which is big, the brāhmaṇa caste, the individual spirit soul, and the demigod Brahmā who sits on a great lotus flower.” The word ātma also means the individual self, just like the word bhūma. Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad (4.5.6) states: ātmā vā are draṣṭavyaḥ śrotavyo mantavyo nididhyāsitavyaḥ, “It is the Self which must be observed, heard about, thought of, and meditated upon with fixed concentration.” Why are you misinterpreting the clear words of the Vedas, trying to imply some other meaning?

Description: This pūrvapakṣa represents another follower of the Pūrva-mīmāmsa philosophy, who subscribes to the jīva-brahman-vāda, or the conclusion that the Brahman described in the scriptures is the jīva, instead of a full-blown Māyāvādi. In general, pūrva-mīmāmsas do not believe in the existence of God; thus, when they come to study Vedānta philosophy, they adapt the conclusions of the text to their philosophy, generally concluding that the Brahman mentioned in the texts is not Viṣnu, but the individual soul itself. The goal of life becomes then just ātma-jñāna (self-knowledge), realizing that one is different from the body and thus attaining freedom from karma and rebirth. This interpretation is in many aspects similar to the atheistic Sānkhya (that we will study in detail in the 4th pāda), discarding any concept of devotional service to the Lord.

How do you answer this challenge?

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