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coordination is the topic of the pada is of little value as an abstract appellation. It is rather a marking which guides the reader as to what kind of practice is under way at this point in the Text; if understood properly, it can be fruitfully used. |
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ii. Harmonization (samanvaya) in UMS I.1: |
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In our consideration of the connections in UMS I.1 we have already noticed that the main project of that pada is to demonstrate harmonization (samanvaya): the effort to show that Brahman is the primary and coherently described key topic of all the upanisads in their key passages. Our consideration here can be brief. |
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Rather than articulating the doctrine of Brahman as a universally available truth demanding assent, the more limited goal of UMS I is to resolve difficulties about the list of texts available for meditation. UMS I.1.12-19 asks whether Taittiriya 2.1-6a is a text meant to be used in meditation on Brahman or on the limits of the self in its reach toward Brahman, UMS I.1.20-21 asks about the use of Chandogya 1.1.6, etc. Sankara states the underlying thesis of harmonization in his comment on UMS I.1.4 ("That is known from the upanisads because it is their consistent object."): |
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"That" means Brahman, which is omniscient and omnipotent, which is the cause of the origin, existence, and dissolution of the universe, and which is known as such only from the teaching of the upanisads. How? "because it is [the upanisads'] consistent object." All the upanisads become fully reconciled when they are accepted as establishing this very fact.
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The presupposition behind this identification of a single topic is that the upanisads must speak harmoniously, in a single voice, and about a single main topic: if Brahman is the main topic, other objects of knowledge will not be proposed as alternative sources of the desired salvific knowledge. In rejection of the claim of the Samkhya and other schools that the upanisads do not consistently identify Brahman as the sole highest reality, Advaita subjects all the contested texts to careful scru- |
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