Studies in Advaita Vedanta: Towards an Advaita Theory of Consciousness (review)

Abstract

kara, Vacaspati, and Padmapada to draw the larger conclusion that Advaita is will- ing to allow for multiple, context-variant senses of 'I,' in contrast to both a Naiyayika like Gadhadhara and Western thinkers like Husserl. ''Advaita Analysis of Suffering'' is an elegant and surprising essay. Much of it appears to be a fairly general survey of the manner in which different Hindu and Buddhist thinkers identify a positive cognitive error in understanding reality— avidya¯—as the cause of suffering. But Saha notes that the classical consensus on suf- fering is not an empirical statement; there are ordinary success stories, after all. He then ingeniously uses this fact to show that suffering is something structural to exis- tence. Sanukara's example of someone who feels ''I am fair-complexioned'' is a smug indication of the suffering brought to bear on others who are not, in a society that favors fair complexion. Suffering, Saha argues, is socially relative; it relates to value structures more than mere physical discomfort. If all were of the highest or lowest varna, there would be neither pride nor striving, neither bragging nor lamenting. The metaphysical discussion on suffering, it turns out, is really a commentary on Hindu society. Saha heroically—in the light of modern, especially Western scholarship, which sees Sanukara as an arch-conservative proponent of brahminical values—tends to see the Advaitin as a social reformer. In the essay above, he sees Sanukara as teaching precisely the social lesson against discrimination when he talks of suffering. Saha returns to this theme in ''Sanukara and Varna Distinctions in Hinduism.'' He puts for- ward the argument that since Sanukara held that all social distinctions were not ulti- mate (paramarthika), and since class/varna distinctions are social ones while liberat- ing knowledge is ultimate, varna is irrelevant to liberation. How those traditionally excluded from brahminical philosophy will respond to this generosity is another matter.