Our three Vedantist philosophers all wrote commentaries on the Vedanta Sutras (also called Brahma Sutra). There are 555 sutras or sayings and they are, similar to the Yoga sutra, virtually unintelligible without commentary. "A sutra is a code that expresses the essence of all knowledge in a minimum of words. It must be universally applicable and faultless in its linguistic presentation" (Quoted in Readings in Vedic Literature, p. 44).

Ramanuja's Qualified Non-dualism (Vishishtadvaita) (1017-1137)

Selves and the world are real as creations of God. Individual selves maintain their individuality after moksha. Highest Brahman is personal. Knowledge is always differentiated. Stressed Bhakti-Yoga: the liberated self has a beatific vision of God. A more meaningful word to describe Ramanuja's views is "panentheism," a view he shares with Madhva. Ramanuja's guru was an Advaitin, who, according to one story, was so angry at him for going against his views that he hired someone to murder Ramanuja. Vishnu intervened to save him from this fate.

Madhva's Dualism (Dvaita) (Pluralism, too?) (1197-1276)

Brahman is Vishnu.  A panentheism transcendent and immanent deity. Selves and world existence eternally (not created). The self is not absolute. Each and everyone is unique. God cannot be intuited directly. This is the main difference between him and Ramanuja. Both philosophers were Vaishnavas, and Madhva seemed to have most influence on the Krishna worshippers in the North.

Shankara (788-820) and his Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta. Shankara was a Shavite; in fact his name is a name for Shiva as creator, sometimes as a Bhairava--the fierce form of Shiva.

Shankara's "Cartesian" method. Systematic doubt will lead to one indubitable truth: the thinking self. "All means of knowledge exist only as dependent on self-experience and since such experience is its own proof there is no necessity for proving the existence of self" (Source Book, 506). But Shankara goes beyond Descartes to posit a higher Self that is pure, immortal, and infinite. Descartes' self is a finite thinking substance created by God; the Vedantist equivalent would be buddhi. The Buddha had already rejected the existence of either jiva or atman substances, but Shankara seemed to think that there was direct evidence of eternal, immutable spiritual substance. The Buddha of course thought that such substances were pieces of speculative fiction.

507: The objective world is dependent, but it is not a mental fiction. It is simply not ultimate reality. That is, of course, Atman-Brahman. It seems that "illusion" as a translation of maya is now the correct one for Shankara, and critics are right in calling his position "illusionism." Please note in the prism analogy below that when the prism of ignorance is removed, then the world is nothing but an illusion.

Please note that since Madhva believes that we have no direct intuition of God, the soul cannot look back directly into the reality of God.  Also this diagram is not quite correct for Ramanuja either, because he believes, like Madhva, that Brahman is Vishnu.  I choose to leave the diagram as it is because it allows us to "have our cake and eat it, too."  Looking back with the "mystical" third eye we can experience union with Brahman, but looking forward we can experience a real world in all of its incredible richness and also our own particular interpretation of it through our own prism self.

To distinguish his position from the Buddhists, Shankara was careful to avoid saying that Brahman was non-being, even thought some of the Upanishads indicated that. The Buddhists were rejected as "Voidists" and "Nihilists," but all the Buddhists mean by non-being is that all things are empty of substance, not that all things were absolute nothings. For Buddhists things do exists as interdependent, but nothing exists as an independent, self-sufficient, self-contained, eternal, immutable substance.

The nature of superimposition (adhyasa): "the apparent presentation, in the form of a remembrance, to consciousness of something previously observed, in some other thing. . . The apparent presentation of the attributes of one thing in another." Better phrasing: taking the attributes of the absolute and superimposing them on the non-absolute. Taking the attributes of Atman and giving them to buddhi.

The process of superimpostion is reciprocal: it "is the superimposition of the Self of what does not belong to the Self (finitude and change) and the superimposition on the non-self of what does no properly to Self (infinitude and eternality) that constitutes avidya" (Eliot Deutch, Advaita Vedanta: A Philosophical Reconstruction, p. 34).

The famous analogy of the rope as snake. Just as some of us say that the real self (Atman) is the empirical ego (jiva) so does it happen that some take a rope as a snake. We superimpose our false image on the true thing. Here it does seem that the snake is an illusion. Think, however, of the prism analogy: the sensible world is real insofar as it is viewed from the standpoint of ignorance (the prism).

510: "the interior self (Atman) is well known to exist on account of its immediate (intuitive) presentation." Is this true? What would Hume or the Buddha say? Atman, as free from all contact with sensation, perception, and the body, is still a knowing agent. How? As a completely external spectator? A non-sensible knower?

I. i. 1: Spiritual requirements to start a study of Brahman. Knowledge of Brahman destroys ignorance and Samsara. Is Brahman known or not known before we enter the inquiry. If known, the inquiry is not necessary; if not, then we cannot.

Shankara is confident that Brahman is known. Brahman is known as all-knowing, all-powerful, eternity purity, intelligence and freedom. These attributes are known, presumably, as the absolute Self within us. Proof: No one ever says "I am not."

I.i.2: Brahman is creator, preserver, and destroyer. How can Brahman, presumably nirguna Brahman, be omniscient or omnipotent, or even be a cause? or is this saguna Brahman as Ishvara? The world can't come from eternal substance, atoms, non-being, etc. Brahman is not an object of the senses. The senses have external things as their objects. But presumably these external things are forms of saguna Brahman. If Brahman is the origin of the world, is not Brahman the object of the senses? If Brahman is a cause then the world is an effect of Brahman.

Does anything really proceed out of Brahman? Only by virtue of ignorance do we perceive a created world.

I.i.3: The omniscience of Brahman follows from it being the source of Scripture. Again, which Brahman? The previous verse identified it as Lord Ishvara. And is Brahman just the source of knowledge or a knower, too?

Again we have cause and effect language. And the logic of this language is that if Brahman is the cause, then the world and all its contents are its effects.

Shankara is talking the logic of pantheism (Brahman is the cause of everything in the world as its effect), but he otherwise denies pantheism (i.e., the world is divine being).  See White's article where he argues that Shankara's alleged absolute monism should be called a transcendental dualism, at least until all souls are liberated.  Note White's main point: how can the world exist for the ignorant ones but not exist for the liberated ones.  Does not this involve Shankara in a rather serious contradiction?  See the summary of White's article below.

I.i.4: Again, a string of qualities are imputed to Brahman. This cannot be nirguna Brahman, but the saguna Brahman of Ishvara.

Dhyana Yoga or Jnana Yoga? Meditation on Brahman will lead to release or discernment of this treatise (shastra). The latter would be Jnana Yoga. On p. 513 it is said that comprehension is necessary to be free from the body.

There is no question about obtaining Brahman because it is already here in us. Brahman cannot be obtained by purification rites, because as Atman it is forever pure.

No action of any kind, excepting knowledge, can lead to release.

Shankara seems to definitely affirm Jnana Yoga: Brahman is obtained only by knowledge, or more precisely, the elimination of ignorance.

I.i.11: Shankara again repeats that Brahman is the cause of the world.

Brahman is of two forms. One with qualities and one not limited by qualities. The first is the object of ignorance and the second is the object of knowledge. The devotees [of Ishvara] are the ignorant.

Atman is in all things movable as well as immovable. The Self reveals itself in "a graduated series of beings."

I.i.17: A transmigrating self (jiva) and one that doesn't (Atman).

Metaphor of real juggler and illusory juggler. Hard to make out the meaning. The syntax suggests that the Lord Ishvara is to the real juggler as the unreal self is to the illusory juggler. Note: the illusory juggler reminds one of the out of control yogi, who uses his siddhi powers foolishly and irresponsibly.

I.i.19: The Jiva self must be fully joined with the Atman in order to be released from transmigration. Mystical union. A true definition of mysticism: absolute identity with Atman without remainder.

I.ii.8: Echoes of the Gita--only the jiva self is doer and enjoyer. But Brahman is nonetheless connected to this active self--presumably through Atman. How do the spectator self and the active self connect? The one accrues karma and the other does not.

I.iii.19: First reference to an Upanishad and the Vedantist identity of knowledge and being: "He who knows the highest Brahman becomes even Brahman" (Mundaka 3.2.9).

I.iv.14: Now we learn that Ishvara is the cause of the world. Is this what Shankara has been trying to say all along?

I.iv.15: Discussion of non-being. "Non-being indeed was this in the beginning" (Taittiriya 2.7) Shankara should never have been afraid that Vedic non-being means absolute non-being, like the Greek ouk on, which is indeed unthinkable. This Vedantist non-being is a no-thing-ness which is all. It is being prior to differentiation, prior to nama-rupa (name and form). So Shankara does admit to the intelligibility of non-being in this sense.

He also should have known better to interpret the Buddha's no-self as absolute non-existence. The Buddha simply meant that the self was not a substantial self like Atman. Shankara can dispute this if he likes, but he has not right to call the Buddhists "voidists" or "nihilists."

Shankara refers to passages in the Upanishads that indicates pantheism and an emanation theory of creation--e.g., the Brahman wished to be many. Sounds like Brahman as material cause of creation, which he explicitly supports at I.iv.23.

Shankara wants to relegate Brahman as non-being as undifferentiated as the secondary sense of Brahman? Why not primary sense? This is after all what nirguna Brahman means.

p. 517 fn. Brahman-Atman as the fire and jiva selves as sparks. Again this implies emanation theory and pantheism. It also indicates that the soul-sparks at least have temporary existence apart from Brahman-fire. But the ultimate analogical implications for Advaita Vedanta is that the fire is not really burning, nor are sparks really flying. But most all sparks die out, so this would be analogous to the illusory nature of individuality. In I.iv.22 (bottom, p. 518) Shankara admits that the implication that the spark has a separate existence "must be viewed as based only on the limiting adjuncts of the self."

I.iv.21: Reference to strong personal theism in Mundaka Upanishad (3.2.8)--"the divine person who is greater than the great." No response to this personalism, which is incompatible with Shankara's monistic impersonalism. The individual self loses name and form, just as individual rivers merge with the great sea. Again the implication is pantheism, not Shankara's transcendental dualism.

I.iv.22: The Hindu equivalent of Adam naming the animals, except we have Atman naming and forming individual selves: "The wise one (Atman). . . sits calling the things by their names."

Again the language is one of emanation and pantheism: "Let me enter into them with this living Self and evolve names and forms."

Scripture does not mention the creation of individual selves. This is because they have eternal existence as individual instantiations of Atman.

"Is of Identity" is assumed for the famous phrase "That thou art."

Name and form do not actually abide in the individual Self, but only in the buddhi or jiva.

p. 519: Shankara keeps driving home the point, using his favorite Upanishadic phrases "When the Self is known, all this is known" and "All this is that Self," that Atman is pure knowledge and that all that is--all of reality--is Atman-Brahman, one without a second.

"The whole world. . . springs from one being, and is merged into one being." Again the language is pantheistic in tone.

p. 520: "All adherents of the Vedanta must admit that the difference of the self and the highest self is not real, but [is] due to. . . ignorance."

p. 520, bottom: it is senseless, then, to insist on the plurality of selves and to maintain that the individual self and Atman are different.

I.iv.23: Brahman is "material" cause. Which one? Saguna Brahman? If the effect is non-different from the cause, that means that Brahman is the substance of the world. This again means pantheism.

All other material causes, such as clay and wood, have external "operative" (Aristotle: "efficient") causes-- potters and carpenters respectively. Atman is the operative cause of Brahman which is the material, which is to say, because of their identity, Brahman is efficient cause of itself.

II.i.5: "From all this it follows that this world is different in nature from Brahman, and hence cannot have it for its material cause." Is he taking all of what he said above back?

II.i.6: Brahman and the world share one feature: that of existence. But John White interprets Advaita Vedanta differently. Only Atman-Brahman exists; the world simply "subsists" by virtue of its relation to ignorance--a negative cause, if that term has any meaning.

As Brahman is devoid of form, it cannot be an object of perception. But earlier Atman was declared the object of sight!

Brahman, "like religious duty, is known solely on the ground of holy tradition"?? No: reason and revelation together. More in II.i.11.

II.i.7: The "effect" (the universe?) is not non-existent before the cause (that's absurd), but it is present in "the self of the cause (Atman?)." So the origin of the qualities of the world lie in Atman not Brahman? Are they actual present potentially?

II.i.8: Emanation out of Brahman and "reabsorption" back into Brahman. (Does this ever actually happen?) The effect never existed separate from the cause.

II.i.9: Proof by the "Existence of Parallel instances" (analogical reasoning?): Just as the magician is not affected by the illusions (effects) he produces, likewise the cosmic magician Atman-Brahman is not affected by its own maya. This analogy strongly suggests that we should take the world to be an illusion.

Just as the person is never affected by her dreams, so is Atman-Brahman not affected by the world. But notice that in each analogy the magician/dreamer did produce the illusions/dreams. But one important disanalogy: neither the dream nor magical illusions emanated out of the agent in the same way that Shankara has spoken of Brahman as the material cause of the world. The magician/dreamer is only an efficient cause, not material cause.

The dream analogy suggests this line of reasoning. Compared to the total bliss of union with Atman-Brahman, the normal waking state is just as much an illusion as the dream state is to the awakened one.

II.i.11: Reasoning must have scripture as its proper foundation. From the best reasoning of the brightest minds can be fallacious. The diversity of human opinion must be guided to the truth by scripture. (Thomas Aquinas says exactly the same thing about reason in Christian theology.) But human disagree about the meaning of scripture! So what do we do?

One would not have expected so much reliance on scripture in what one would have taken as a pure form of Jnana Yoga.

II.i.13: In the commentary on this sutra Shankara qualifies the authority of scriptural knowledge, or is this the view of the person who is objecting? It is authoritative when it comes to Brahman as first cause. Reasoning is not authoritative when it comes to questions of religious duty, but "scripture cannot be acknowledged to refute whaat is settled by other means by right knowledge." If some readings of scripture lead to contradictions, then we should follow reason instead of scripture.

The identity of cause and effect in Brahman, just as waves (effects) and the sea (cause).

II.i.14: The analogy of clay as material cause and things made of clay (effects). If you know the former, you know the latter. The latter is distinguished only through name and form, which are merely conventional. So separation by qualities and attributes are ultimately meaningless. "In so far as they are names. . .they are untrue; in so far as they are clay they are true."

All there is no know is clay is parallel to all there is to know is Atman-Brahman. Again we see the identity of cause and effect and the illusory nature of differentiated forms.

526: By the knowledge of one thing (Brahman), everything is known. Actually this does not turn out to be a very substantial truth claim. It is certainly not like knowing everything that science can teach us, for example.

526 bottom: Famous rope-snake example. If the "snake" is an illusion, then the whole phenomenal world, which this self produces, is also an illusion.

527: Upanishadic warning: He who persists in seeing diversity will go from "death to death." The Vedantist equivalent of a Christian theologian telling another that she will go to Hell for her heresy!

527, middle: Ethical Objections to Advaitin View. Many ethical injunctions and prohibitions involve making distinctions. No distinction between guru and pupil, very wise and not so wise, good and evil? We are held to these standards until release.

Shankara's answer: "Worldly" ethics must go with a world, whereas if one is in union with Atman-Brahman, then ethics is not an issue. Gita: Krishna will accept all at their own spiritual level of development. Also Gita: Go ahead and kill your cousins. It's OK from the divine perspective? Analogy: Dream knowledge is "true" knowledge until the dreamer awakes. "Hence, as long as true knowledge does not present itself, there is no reason why the ordinary course of secular and relgious activity should not hold undisturbed." After all, no one has ever died because of the poison of an illusory snake! Gita again: Don't worry about the slaughter that is coming up: Atman is not going to be harmed one bit!

Note: although these last passages appear consistent with Shankara's views, he nontheless takes issue with them. The dreamer's dreams are real, so whatever happens to the dreamer should be taken as real to him.

Note: Please go to White's article for a definition of the word "subration."

Rough parallel with Apostle Paul: The Jewish law is our guide as long as we sin, but it doesn't apply when we join the Body of Christ, where divine grace erases all sin. This is sometimes called Paul's "mysticism," although this is a unity in which individual personal identity is preserved. This view of life under grace gave some outsiders the impression that Christians were antinomians, i.e., that they lived outside the law and beyond good and evil. This is what many yogis claim as well.

528: the effects of maya are unreal, but the consciousness of them is not. Cartesian truth again: We exist as thinking beings, even if we are deceived. But Shankara claims that there is no differentiation in true consciousness.

529: Discussion of nirguna Brahman. If Brahman is like clay, as the scripture implies, then it must be capable of modification. Sankara replies: many more passages demonstrate that B. is changeless.

530: Omnisicence applies to B. only insofar as he is related to the world. "Belonging to the self...of the omniscient Lord, there are name and form, the figments of ignorance, not to be defined as either being (i.e., Brahman) nor as different from it...called ...maya...prakriti..."

532: "The activity of the Lord also may be...mere sport, proceeding from his own nature, without reference to any purpose." Uncanny and inscrutable Brahman. Acausal Atman-Brahman is the only way not to make A-B responsible for evil? But Ishvara the Lord is responsible?

John D. White, "God and World from the standpoint of Advaita Vedanta," IPQ June, 1981

For White's article: "If there had been only one universal spirit, the simultaneous existence of 'delivered spirits' and 'enslaved spirits' would not have been possible" (Eliade, Patanjali and Yoga , p. 46).

Advaita Vedanta has transcendence without dualism. (Panentheism has this, too; and it keeps the reality of the world.) The world, exists, but it's not real. Only Brahman is real because it cannot be "subrated" or "disvalued."

186: Three "level" argument. Dream experience is "subrated" by waking experience, which in turn is subrated by the experience of Brahman. Unreality does not mean non-existence. If something is experienced, then it exists, but only Brahman is real.

187: We experience the illusory percept of snake (or at least the "name" exists), but only the rope is real. World is not the creation of the ignorant mind? But if the world is like the snake, then it is a creation. Limits of the analogy?

189: The phenomenal world is and it is not. It's experienced in the state of ignorance, but not in the state of bliss. Relative vs. absolute.

190: Brown is enlightened, but White is not; world exists for latter, but not the former?? As Eliade states: "If one is enlightened, then all have to be" (op. cit., pp. 45-46) The world at an instant, in which both Brown and White "exists," both exist and does not exist. That's a flat-out contradiction.

Alternative: The world continues to exist but it is simply no longer experienced. Leads to dualism.

191: Side argument against subration. Scenario: "Electrical" mysticism. Is this a convincing example? This experience can obviously be subrated. White's final conclusion: Transcendence without dualism is not possible.

Ramanuja's Commentary on the Vedanta Sutras (Source Book, pp. 543 ff.)

Advaita Vedanta has no basis to prove nirguna Brahman, because all proof and right knowledge requires differentiation. This means that if nirguna Brahman exists, it must be ineffable and unknowable.

1. "All consciousness implies difference." Consciousness is always consciousness of of a particular something. Consciousness always contains judgments of the form "I perceive, know, or imagine this or that." One cannot know "mere" (i.e., undifferentiated) being, but only being as differentiated.

2. Just as consciousness operates on difference, so does language, too. Speech is not intelligible without the differentiation of words and their corresponding sounds. "Sound cannot be a means of know. for a thing devoid of all difference." Good example from Plato's Parmenides: To state that being is one requires at least two concepts, viz. that of "being" and that of "unity." Absolute monism is therefore disproved, or an undifferentiated One like Parmenides’ or Shankara is unknowable and ineffable.

3. Perception proves difference as well. It likewise cannot be a means of knowing something devoid of difference. Both determinate and nondeterminate perception involves the assumption of differences. (Note: I take nondeterminate perception to mean a perception of a tree on a far horizon without being able to identify what kind it is. Ramanuja’s reference to "generic" suggests a common distinction between genera and species--between, e.g., a generic tree and a pine tree.)

What about the mystics perception of unity? Ramanuja would say that in order to perceive this unity there must be a perceiver; otherwise the experience would be impossible.

545: Perception argument continued: "Why should a man searching for a horse not be satisfied with finding a buffalo"? Non-difference leads to reductio ad absurdum Advaitin's response? Not absurd from the standpoint of nirguna Brahman.

Plurality is Not Unreal: Anticipation of White's argument: "If . . . the non-existence of a thing is cognized at the same time and the same place where and when its existence is cognized, whe have a mutual contradiction of two cognitions. . ."

546: Cognition of the snake is sublated into the cognition of the rope. Same as "subration" and also same as "superimposition"? No, sublation-subration is the solution to the mistake of superimposition. This simply constitutes a mistaken perception/cognition; it does not prove the unreality of the world of difference.

Being (sat) and Consciousness (cit) are not One. Consciousness always takes a great variety of different objects.

Indian Doctrine of Intentionality Consciousness is always consciousness of objects. The object of the "action" cannot be the agent of the action. The subject is permanent, but its contents are transitory. Consciousness is an ego cogito (a particular thinking ego), not a pure consciousness without an "I."

547: Consciousness is not a substance, let alone an ultimate reality. Rather, it is an attribute of a substance, viz., the thinking self or soul. There is no bare awareness apart from its particular instantiation in these souls.

We always say "I am conscious of this or that," not "I am consciousness." None of us have any experience of the latter.

Also it is pretty clear that some things such as jars and chairs do not possess consciousness as an attribute.

Ramanuja's argument: The religious person who has been promised a release from pain and suffering cannot be satisfied with a total loss of consciousness; rather, one satisfies the religious quest with the promise of a conscious enjoyment of bliss.

It seems appropriate to extend Ramanuja's argument from consciousness to being and bliss as well. Instead of pure being, pure consciousness, pure bliss (satcitananda) of Advaita Vedanta, Ramanuja's position would be that both being and bliss must be differentiated. Furthermore, bliss, just like consciousness, requires a subject. In fact, it might best be seen as a form of conscious awareness: viz., the opposite of the awareness of suffering.

547, bottom: All this also means that the "I" persists after moksha. Recall this was implied at the very beginning of the Gita.

Eliminating ignorance does not means that the self disappears; on the contrary, the self is now conscious of the true object of knowledge (Atman-Brahman) and not false objects of knowledge. A Christian parallel: before we knew "as through a glass darkly" (Paul), but the liberated soul will see God face to face. In neither Paul's nor Ramanuja's view is the inividual self lost.

"The 'I' constitutes the essential nature of the self." It will be always the "I" that is either ignorant or free. And consciousness of either will be an attribute of that self.

548: No scriptural text supports nirguna Brahman? If Brahman is called "true" and "infinite," then it has at least two qualities. Similar to Plato's argument mentioned above. Or Satcitananda will imply at least three basic differentiations in Brahman. If not, then being, consciousness, and bliss are one and cannot be distinguished. The fact that they can be conceptually separated proves that they are not an absolute unity.

"None without a second" simply means that there is no power even close to being like Brahman. It doesn't mean "non-duality." Why does Ramanuja continue to use the term advaita then?

p. 550: Brahman, or any form of Brahman, cannot be the "substrate" (object) of ignorance (non-knowledge), because scripture defines B. as knowledge itself.

p. 551: The real meaning of Tat tvam asi ("That thou art") "That" refers to omniscient Brahman. "Thou" refers to "the idea of Brahman. in so far as having for its body the individual selves connected with non-intelligent matter." "Doubleness of Form"--that Brahman can exist as a plurality of spiritual selves--Atman in each one of us? "By knowledge of one thing, all things coul be known." Individualized Brahman in each of us.

You "Thou's" are real individualized instances of Brahman. A unity in pluarality. Is this the principle of coordination?

552: Brahman: "free from all imperfection and comprising within itself all auspicious qualities"..."internal ruler of individual selves."

Panenthesim: Brahman has "for its body all intelligent and non-intelligent beings"--"gross state" as well as "subtle" state. "That," then, refers to all things. "the individual self (jiva) has Brahman for its self (Atman)."

NB: ignorance can in no way be conquered by knowledge: it can be removed only by the "grace of highest self" (Ishvara) "pleased by the devout meditation of the worshipper." Jnana yoga of Sankara is replaced by bhakti yoga. As bondage is real, it can be removed only by divine powers.