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rationally, and that the Advaita position would in each case be shown to be the most adequate, not surpassed by any other. Neither the upanisads nor a close scrutiny of Advaita positions lead to the conclusion that Advaita is inadequate; the only comprehensive system is that inscribed in the Advaita Text as the combination of the upanisads and their right reading in the tradition. |
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The positive argument for Advaita's plausibility in UMS II.1 is balanced in UMS II.2 by a presentation of the implausibility of selected opposing views. The goal of UMS II.2 is to show that competing worldviews cannot stand rational scrutiny, but also thereby to educate the Advaitin in the "refutability" of opponents and so to strengthen his confidence in the truth of Advaitabut without shifting the analysis to a forum where reason would be the primary standard. |
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The pada is particularly interesting because of the claim that in it the argument against adversary positions proceeds by reason alone: now, says Sankara, there follows "a refutation of their reasoning independently of the texts; we are going to refute their arguments in an independent manner, without any reference to the upanisads."
63 On this basis, one might expect that members of the identified adversarial schools could conceivably be persuaded by straightforward and convincing Advaita reasoning. |
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But not only are such conversions rare, they are not the goal of UMS II.2. We do not have here a "real-life debate" in which we can hear Advaita debating its opponents, or by which we can enter Advaita through the shortcut of reasoning, but only a carefully scripted series of Advaita adhikaranas that fit the Text's already established overall narrative. |
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I begin with an overview of the succession of the pada's adhikaranas, as counterpositions are named and described by the Advaitins.64 It divides into two groupings of positions. First, there are positions which reduce the conscious to the nonconscious, or vice versa: |
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1-10 Samkhya: the material source (pradhana), composed of the three components (gunas,) is the nonconscious cause of the world; |
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