Mysticism East and East: comparing Sankara and Nagarjuna on absolute

reality

Initially, a basic reading of Sankaras and Nagarjunas attitudes towards absolute reality
appear to be similar in method and objective, to the extent that fellow Vedantins (such as
Bhaskara) labelled Sankara a crypto-Buddhist.
1
In this project, I wish to suggest that not
only do the two thinkers differ in method and objective, but also in the accounts of their own
understanding of absolute reality. This requires an attempt to remain sympathetic to both
scholars, displaying their positions as accurately as possible. Via this method, I wish to show
that while there are some parallels as regards to how each thinker views the dual nature of
reality as seen prior to liberation and absolute reality itself, their perspectives vary regarding
the more intricate details of their soteriological systems.
Before exploring this discussion meaningfully, it is important to be clear on the differences in
context between the two scholars. Nagarjuna, who is said to have lived around the 2
nd
century
B.C.,
2
developed his soteriology of the Madhyamika much earlier than Sankara, who lived
during the 8
th
and 9
th
centuries C.E.
3
They therefore have approximately a millenniums
worth of difference as regards philosophical, religious and soteriological development.
Inevitably a comparison must be made by examining the primary sources available and the
concepts put forth within these sources, while attempting to bear in mind the difference in
context.

Perceptions of the phenomenal world

The way the phenomenal world is perceived within Sankaras Advaita Vedanta and
Nagarjunas Madhyamika has a bearing on how each strategy views absolute reality. Since
Sankara claims the phenomenal world is illusory,
A notion present in both thinkers soteriology is that of discriminating between lesser or
conventional reality and higher or absolute reality. To Sankara, the phenomenal world is
projected by the mind
4
and is an illusion (maya) superimposed by ignorance
5
. Sankaras
approach has been described as phenomenological by scholars such as Sinari. According to
him, the phenomenological attitude is one which springs up as soon as we question our
ordinary consciousness of the world, doubt what is given to this consciousness, and by

1
Deutsch & van Buitenen, p. 92 (1971)
2
Walser, p. 1 (2005)
3
Flood, p. 239 (1996)
4
Vivekachudamani, v. 170, trans. by Swami Madhavananda (1970)
5
Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, II.V.19, trans. by Swami Madhavananda (1965)
disconnecting ourselves from it and all that goes with it...
6
This approach is not far removed
from Sankaras, who included within maya that which is given to consciousness. It is also not
dissimilar to Nagarjunas outlook since he questioned out ordinary consciousness. However
to him, it would be more appropriate to speak of doubting ones relationship to that which is
given to consciousness than to doubt that which is given to it. This is the difference between
maya and pratityasamutpada. There is more emphasis in causality within Nagarjunas
philosophy than Sankaras
An analogy used by Sankara to describe the nature of maya and its relation to absolute reality
is that of mistaking a rope for a snake. The closer one moves towards the rope, the more
visible it becomes and hence dispels the false impression that it was a snake.
7
Likewise, when
Brahman is realised, maya and the nescient perception of the phenomenal world are
diminished since one has realised the non-dual nature of atman (the self), which is non-
distinct from Brahman. In this way, perceiving the world as maya cannot be expressed as a
level of reality as such, since non-existence is inherent within the definition of maya. Rather,
scholars such as Alston have distinguished between the standpoints of the phenomenal
world and of absolute reality.
8
Therefore, the person experiencing the world from the
standpoint of nescience is not experiencing absolute reality but a reciprocal superimposition
between absolute reality and maya. Once the person has realised that the analogous snake is
in fact a rope, then the phenomenal world is experienced from the standpoint of ultimate
truth.
9

Unlike Sankara, Nagarjuna claims that the phenomenal world is a truth and hence real,
however it is only conventional. Nonetheless, this is a considerable departure from Sankaras
perspective since Nagarjunas view on the phenomenal world is not as strictly acosmic as
Sankaras and besides this, it sees conventional truth as having a necessary part to play in
ones understanding of ultimate reality:
Without a foundation in the conventional truth,
The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
Liberation is not achieved
10


Nagarjuna also highlights the significance of the distinction between conventional and
ultimate truth, since one who has not understood the difference between these two truths has
not understood the Buddhas message.
11
Despite this, there is no doubt that both the
conventional truth of the phenomenal world and its distinction from ultimate truth are only of
pedagogic use to the Madhyamikan practitioner, since nirvana is expressed by Nagarjuna
apophatically:

6
Sinari, p. 283 (1972)
7
Brahma-Sutra Bhasya trans. by Swami Gambhirananda, p. 2n (1983)
8
Alston, p. 103-104, Samkara on the Absolute (1980)
9
Ibid., p. 104
10
Mulamadhyamakakarika, XXIV, 10
11
Ibid., 9
Unrelinquished, unattained,
Unannihilated, not permanent,
Unarisen, unceased:
This is how nirvana is described
12

The difference between the scholars portrayal of the phenomenal world as seen prior to
liberation has an impact on each of their philosophical positions and how absolute reality is
viewed by them. For example as Ingalls has shown, Sankara is burdened with the problem of
whether ones nescience of the phenomenal world is itself an illusion: If this avidya is a real
entity, then monism ends. On the other hand, to say that it is an imaginary entity is to destroy
the very doctrine of avidya. As Descartes could not doubt that he doubted, so the
Kevaladvaitins could not find illusion itself to be an illusion.
13
In other words if the
unenlightened persons nescience about the phenomenal world is not itself an illusion, then
reality is no longer non-dual since it contains nescience within it; however if it is an illusion,
theoretically the world must be real since what was at first thought to be nescience is an
illusion.
Sankara refuted this dilemma for the most part by evading it. Ingalls observes that Sankaras
approach to truth is psychological and religious. His interest in metaphysics and logic is
always subordinated to the center of his attention.
14
The dilemma has little to do with ones
spiritual advancement and is hence irrelevant to Sankara, in the same way as creation stories
are immaterial to attaining realisation unless they are used as a means for dispelling avidya.
15

He goes further than this however, implying that the dilemma itself is proof that the one
posing it is afflicted by avidya.
1617
Focusing on the nature of avidya shows that the inquirer
has not understood that the inquiry is as useless as an examination of non-existence.
Moreover, the realisation that nescience, what is nescient and their relation are non-existent is
one derived from experience rather than through inference.
Nagarjuna had a similar dilemma which he approached in a thoroughly different way to
Sankara. This is to do with the nature of emptiness (sunyata), which is the Madhyamikan
doctrine maintaining that no being exists inherently or independently of its relation to other
beings. In other words, no being has an autonomous essence.
18
Just as Sankara had the
problem of whether avidya could be seen within the realm of nescience itself, Nagarjuna had
the problem of whether emptiness itself is empty. Unlike Sankara, Nagarjuna asserts with
conviction that the doctrine of emptiness is itself empty.
19



12
Ibid., XXV, 3
13
Ingalls, p. 69 (1953)
14
Ibid., p. 72
15
Alston, p. 190, Samkara on Creation
16
Alston, p. 67, Samkara on the Absolute
17
Ingalls, p. 70
18
Williams, p. 61 (1989)
19
Garfield, p. 220 (1994)

Emptiness is not an ideology:

The victorious ones have said
That emptiness is the relinquishing of all views.
For whomever emptiness is a view,
That one will accomplish nothing
20


Sunya is called thus for the purposes of communication:
Empty should not be asserted.
Nonempty should not be asserted.
Neither both nor neither should be asserted.
They are only used nominally.
21


Another central difference which has been given much attention by scholars is the differing
concept of self, or atman, within the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Atman is the focal point
of Sankaras acosmic view on how reality is seen prior to liberation, and the only way
through which Brahman can be realised. It is the deathless, birthless, eternal, and real
substance in every individual.
22
In other words it is an essence within a being which
transcends the gross, subtle and causal bodies, the three upadhis, which can allegedly be
mistaken as atman.
23
This is in contrast to the no-self (anatta) doctrine of the Buddhist
tradition, which is one of the three marks of existence (the others being impermanence
(anicca) and suffering (dukkha).
24
In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha clearly states this
doctrine to five monks: any kind of consciousness whatever, whether past, future or
presently arisen [...] whether far or near must, with right understanding how it is, be regarded
thus: This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.
25

Nagarjunas view is that any conception of an existing essence commits the fallacy of
eternalism,
26
and this of course includes the concept of atman. If one is to achieve nirvana,
then inherent impressions of I or mine must cease to be attached to. However, a denial of
atman is illogical to Sankara since the one denying the existence of it is atman itself: Does
the one who would deny the Self exist or not? If he exists, he is himself the Self; if he does
not exist then the denial is not possible.
27


20
Mulamadhyamakakarika, XIII, 8
21
Ibid., XXII, 11
22
Swami Nikhilananda in Self-Knowledge, p. 149 (1967)
23
Self-Knowledge, V. 10-12
24
Harvey, p. 50 (1990)
25
SN 22.59, Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic, trans. by
anamoli Thera (retrieved in April 2011)
26
Mulamadhyamakakarika, XV, 11 (1995)
27
Brahma-Sutra-Bhasya, p. 455n

Despite being a recognised sannyasin, Agehananda Bharati mentioned that the Buddhist
refutations of both an ontological self and a transcendent being are practical for the mystic,
since he/she does not need to clarify the relationship between the two beings.
28
For example,
within Sankaras Advaita,

Nagarjuna would say that talk about God would lead to an inherent self-contradiction
involved in the categories of thought. Shankara would say that any talk about God, ends in
dualism, and, no dualistic talk can lead to non-dual Brahman
29


Sankara and Gaudapada agree: As long as there is faith in causality, the (endless) chain of
birth and death will be there. When that faith is destroyed (by knowledge) birth and death
become non-existent.
30




Nagarjuna explicitly points out that one should neither call Reality sunya (void) nor should
one call it asunya (nonvoid)
31




Absolute reality
The concept of absolute reality is far from simple to illustrate from either scholars
perspective due to the apophatic nature of their descriptions. Indeed, we are on dangerous
ground even at the point at which we call absolute reality a concept or designate it as
absolute reality, although this is perhaps more relevant to Nagarjunas soteriology than that
of Sankara.
Radhakrishnan points out that since both thinkers descriptions of absolute reality are
ineffable, affirming their soteriologies through negation, that this makes them comparable.
32

However, apophatic mystical accounts are hardly uncommon phenomena within various
traditions; examples can be found within Christian mysticism,
33
Neoplatonism,
34
Sufism,
35


28
Bharati, p. 45 (1976)
29
Masih, p. 58 (1987)
30
Mandukyopanisad, IV, 56, trans. by Swami Nikhilananda (1968)
31
Nayak, p. 478 (1979)
32
Radhakrishnan, p. 700-701 (1989)
33
Meister Eckhart writes: I would be speaking as incorrectly in calling God a being as if I
called the sun pale or black. God is neither this nor that. Sermon 9, trans. by Tobin (1986)
34
On The Unity, Plotinus writes: it is a Beyond-Good, not even to itself a good but to such
beings only as may be of quality to have part with it. Nor has it Intellection; that would
Kabbalah
36
and Taoism
37
to name a few. This does not mean that these traditions are
considerably similar, since an account of absolute reality embodies only one aspect of what
are multi-faceted soteriological systems, each with differing means
38
through which
absolute reality can be realised.

As Nagarjuna put it, in perhaps his most important verse:

That which comes and goes
Is dependent and changing.
That, when it is not dependent and changing,
Is taught to be nirvana.
39


There is a difficulty in attempting to evaluate the two soteriologies from an etic perspective
as this runs the risk of being unsympathetic towards one or both thinkers. From an observers
point of view, we can only assess the logic of the philosophies involved having not
experienced them. The two spiritual systems contain a common assertion of non-duality but
amalgamating them on this premise alone would be a discredit to each tradition. inevitably
colored by the broader conceptual contours of the philosophies which encompass them
40


comport diversity: nor Movement; it is prior to Movement as to Intellection. Enneads, VI.9.6,
trans. by MacKenna (1991)
35
Ibn Arabi states that: that which is of the Divine Unity (al-ahadiyah) none participate in it,
for one cannot designate aspects to it; it is not subject to distinction. The Unity of God
integrates the totality (of the Names or Qualities) in the principal indifferentiation. trans. by
Fusus al-Hikam (1975)
36
Scholem writes: Ein Sof, the Infinite that is, the concealed Godhead dwells
unknowable in the depth of its own being, without form or shape. It is beyond all cognitive
statements, and can only be described through negation indeed, as the negation of all
negations. No images can depict it, nor can it be named by any name. Scholem, p. 38 (1991)
37
Lao Tzu writes that: The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao; The name that
can be defined is not the unchanging name. trans. by Chu Ta-Kao (1970)
38
In some traditions (i.e. Advaita and Madhyamika) speaking of means to realisation does
not make as much sense as in other traditions due to the nature of the alleged realisation and
its relation to the phenomenal world.
39
Mulamadhyamakakarika, XXV, 9
40
Bhikku Bodhi, Dhamma and non-duality (retrieved in April 2011)