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Articles: Devotion | Journey into Adi Sankara
- Prof. venkata ramanamurty mallajosyula
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The Story of change of Periyar River Course
In India, all philosophical speculations or thoughts that accept Vedas as authority are considered as Sanathana Dharma. Vedic tradition has two sides, Karma and Jnana.The philosophical system, Mimamsa, emphasized Karma side and raised a philosophy to justify and help the continuation of Vedic rites and rituals. Vedanta took to Jnnna side of Vedas and developed and elaborated philosophy out of it. Both these were direct continuation of Vedic Culture, but known as Mimamsa and for distinction between the two, the first is purva Mimamsa and the latter one is uttaara Mimamsa. Other philosophical systems, Sankya, yoga, nyaya, and vaiseshika based their philosophy on the basis of ordinary human experience and reasoning and they did not challenge the authority of Veda but were in harmony. Other heterodox systems of ancient India, the charvaka, Buddhism and Jainism arose mainly opposing the Vedic culture and they rejected the authority of Vedas.
In all the systems, the foundation of philosophy is the experience and the chief tool is reason. The experience is again ramified into ordinary normal experience or truth discovered and accepted by people in general, and the experience of those saints who have the intuitive perception of truth. In both the cases their experience were transpired into the mundane world, through their own writing of through the writings of their disciples. In the above process, the Preacher has to explain or clarify the subject, whatever it may be even abstract, in a simple manner with the similes and examples that even a common man can understand. Always they preferred materials popular in contemporary period.
Adi sankara’s Advaita philosophy is generally summed up with another famous dhristanta, allegory of Rajju sarpa or known as rope and serpent. In order to explain the transcendental reality of the world and to establish the paramarthika or Supreme reality of Atman as the ultimate truth, Adi Sankara cites the perception of snake in the rope. Rather, the allegory is explained as under:
A man passing through a High way suddenly saw a snake interrupting his route, but on close perception, he found that the material perceived by him was only a rope and not snake. The moment he realized that he had mistook the rope for snake; the snake has disappeared or wiped out from his perception. Likewise, when real jnana emanates the ephemeral reality disappears and the aspirant realizes the ultimate Truth, ie, the real Brahman.
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