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6. Prakasatman (13th)Sarirakanyayasamagraha (a synthesis of issues at stake in the more ample commentaries) |
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7. Advaitananda (17th)Brahmavidyabharana (a direct commentary on the Bhasya) |
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2. Advaita as Text: The Flourishing of a Commentarial Tradition |
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Commentaries are detailed, intricate, often difficult to use and often resistant to the questions modern readers pose to them; often, the older texts which were the subject of elucidation seem easier to follow than the commentarial elucidations of them. Though we may be sorely tempted to ignore the commentarial tradition in assessing the meaning of Advaita, this attempted shortcut is a serious error; we do better to slow down, to learn from and be educated by the commentaries. |
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If we wish to discover the most pedagogically and theologically appropriate way to read them, it makes sense to heed the announced intentions of the commentaries in question. The earliest texts are not illuminating in this regard: except for the highly important but decidedly laconic "atha," the first word of the UMS,
23 Badarayana gives us few clues as to how we are to use his text; Sankara plunges directly into his analysis of the problem of ignorance and is no more helpful. |
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The later commentaries, however, announce their purpose in passages that are highly interesting and deserving of more careful reading than is usually afforded them. I turn therefore to the introductions of the three commentaries I will use throughout, those of Vacaspati, Amalananda and Appaya Diksita, in order to indicate how reading commentaries is essential to the project of learning Advaita. |
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In the verses which inaugurate the Bhamati,Vacaspati Misra maps out the spiritual horizon within which his commentary was written: |
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1. We reverence that immortal Brahman, immeasurable bliss and knowledge, which is manifest accompanied by the two-fold inexpressible ignorance, from which emanate ether, air, fire, water, and the earth, and from which come forth all of this, movable and unmovable, great and small; |
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