Chapter 2.4(a) - Śaṅkarācārya on Mokṣa (introduction)

The Indian tradition speaks of mokṣa (liberation) as paramapuruṣārtha, i.e. the ultimate goal of human life. Therefore, each and every philosophical system in India thinks of the nature and the various means to the liberation. The mokṣa, in general sense, is the freedom from anything. In the philosophy, it is regarded as the freedom from the cycle of birth and death, caused by the series of actions. The karma-siddhānta (doctrine of action), which describes the actions and their results, is a well-known doctrine in Indian philosophy. According to this doctrine, one attains the birth due to the force of the actions. One performs various actions in each birth. Each action bears its own result and thus, the vicious circle of the actions and their results never ends and the bondage gets strengthened in every birth. One cannot stop performing the actions till he possesses the body. So, the situation becomes more complex. In the viewpoint of Kevala-advaita-vedānta system, one can act only when the agency is imposed on the Self. This superimposition takes place owing to the ignorance. Therefore, the karma is a product of ignorance and one can transcend the karma only after annihilating the ignorance. The prime doctrine of this system is that the jñāna alone can destroy the ajñāna. In this way, one can attain the liberation from the cycle of birth and death and get rid of all the misery only by attaining the knowledge.

The liberation, according to Śaṅkarācārya, means a state of being the Brahman. ^[1] The Brahman, which is one’s innermost Self, is ever-free by nature. Hence, the liberation means nothing but abiding firmly in the Self.^[2] When one imposes the body on the Self, he never gets rid of the actions and thus he is said to be in the bondage. The liberation is the state of bodiless existence, which is unchangeable supreme Truth. It is omnipresent like the space. It is devoid of all the modifications and the divisions. It is always content and self-illuminated by nature.^[3] Further, the bondage of the jīva is not real. The concepts of bondage and liberation are related only with the empirical life. After attaining the knowledge of the unity of the jīva with the Brahman, there end all the empirical dealings, such as bondage, liberation etc.^[4] The liberation is known as a result only expecting the removal of the bondage. It is not a production of any new result, but it is an ever-lasting state. It is declared as created only from the standpoint of the previous state of bondage. It is just like the attainment of the healthiness again after removal of the disease.^[5]

In the viewpoint of Śaṅkarācārya, the knowledge of unity of the jīva with the Brahman is the only means to the liberation accepted in the Vedānta. ^[6] It has already discussed that two aspects of the Brahman are accepted considering the upādhis (limiting adjuncts). These are qualified Brahman and absolute Brahman. The unitary experience is possible only with regard to the absolute Brahman. So, the liberation can be attained only through the nirguṇa-brahma-vidyā, namely the experience of the absolute Brahman. However, various higher and lower kinds of worldly results are said to be attained through the saguṇa-brahma-vidyā, namely the knowledge of the Brahman, related to the specific qualities or the symbols.^[7]

In the context of rising of the knowledge, Ācārya asserts that the knowledge rises through the means of hearing etc., only when the obstacles i.e. the fructified karmas in the way of it are destructed.^[8] So, considering these obstacles, it can be said that the knowledge might arise earlier or later. However, there can never be any atiśaya (excellence) in the form of superiority or inferiority with regard to the knowledge. The knowledge is always superior. Moreover, any distinction is not possible in the knowledge. The differences are seen in the case of the karmas and the saguṇa-vidyās and also in their results. But, they are not possible in the absolute knowledge, since it is devoid of all the attributes. So, the liberation too, which is the result of the absolute knowledge, is uniform in its nature. The means, which are useful in arising of the vidyā, cannot affect the liberation. The liberation is nothing else but the Brahman itself. And, the Brahman is not connected with various forms. Its uniformity is declared in the Vedānta-texts. So, the state of liberation, which is obtained immediately after rising of the knowledge, is one’s natural state and any kind of excellence is not possible in it.^[9]

The absolute knowledge transcends the sphere of viśeṣa-vijñāna, namely the relative or the particularized knowledge. There does not remain a triad of the relative knowledge, viz. jñātā, jñeya and jñāna in the absolute knowledge, since there is an absence of duality in it. Śaṅkarācārya says that the Brahman is not instructed as an external thing to be known, just like the sound etc., in the form ‘That is the Brahman’ in all the Vedānta-texts. On the contrary, it is proclaimed to be one’s innermost Self in the form ‘I’.^[10] And, when the non-dual Self is known, there cannot be any pramāṇas in the absence of the knower and the things to be known.^[11] Thus, relative knowledge prevails only till there exists the avidyā and thereby the duality, but it is absent within the range of the vidyā, i.e. the knowledge of the absolute Brahman.^[12]

The liberation is not a state to be newly gained, but it is one’s intrinsic nature. It is only concealed owing to the ignorance. Śaṅkarācārya says that the liberation is not a product of the knowledge. If this state is accepted as a product, just like the product or the result of the karma, then it would be perishable. The knowledge is imagined as a cause of liberation only because it removes the ignorance, which obstructs the way to the liberation.^[13] Secondly, the avidyā is only an obstruction to the liberation, since the liberation is the eternal state and it is identical with the Self.^[14] One can get freedom from the avidyā only because it is not a natural attribute of the Self. One’s own natural characteristic, just like the heat and the light of the sun, can never be eradicated. The avidyā gets annihilated, when one gets totally established in the knowledge of the absolute Brahman.^[15] The avidyā is only imposed on the Self and it does not really exist in the Self.^[16] The unreal ignorance cannot contaminate the ultimate Reality, just as the desert cannot be mired by the water of mirage.^[17] The ignorance gets annihilated by the means of the unitary knowledge, but there is no destruction of the knowledge. So, the ignorance or the knowledge of duality never arises again, once it is destructed by the absolute knowledge.^[18]

The Brahman is said to be attained through the knowledge. In the opinion of Śaṅkarācārya, there is no difference between the knowledge of the Self and the attainment of the Self. The non-attainment of the Self is nothing else but the avidyā, since the Self is ever-present. It is not something to be newly attained, just as the non-self. In the absolute knowledge, there is an absence of the difference between a person, who attains a thing and a thing to be attained. It is just like a shell wrongly experienced as silver. This shell is actually attained all the time, but only in a wrong way in the form of the silver. Its non-attainment simply means the obstruction of the wrong knowledge and its attainment is nothing but the true knowledge, since the knowledge removes the obstruction of false knowledge. So, the non-attainment of the Self means nothing but the obstruction of the avidyā. ^[19] In this way, one is essentially the Brahman alone. Its attainment is stated only expecting the removal of the ignorance.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] I.1.4.4

[2]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Taittirīya Upaniṣad] I.12.1 Preface; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bhagavad-gītā] XVIII.55

[3]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] I.1.4.4

[4]:

Ibid I.2.1.6;cf. [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Praśna Upaniṣad] VI.3

[5]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] IV.4.1.2

[6]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad] I.4.7; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] I.1.4.4, I.1.11.28

[7]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] I.1.10.24; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] II.1.6.14

[8]:

… [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] III.4.16.51

[9]:

Ibid III.4.17.52; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] II.1.3.11

[10]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad] II.1.20; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Kena Upaniṣad-Pada Bhāṣya] II.4; [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Kena Upaniṣad-Vākya Bhāṣya] II.3

[11]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] 1.1.4.4

[12]:

Ibid I.4.6.22

[13]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Kena Upaniṣad-Vākya Bhāṣya] II.4; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad] III.2.9 Preface; [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Taittirīya Upaniṣad] II.8.5; [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad] III.3.1 Preface; [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bhagavad-gītā] XVIII.66

[14]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad] III.2.9

[15]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad] IV.3.20

[16]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Kaṭha Upaniṣad] V.11

[17]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bhagavad-gītā] 13.2

[18]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Brahma-sūtra] I.1.4.4 [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Kena Upaniṣad-Vākya Bhāṣya] II.4

[19]:

[Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad] I.4.7; See also [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad] I.1.5; [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Taittirīya Upaniṣad] II.1.1; [Śāṅkara Bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad] II.5.15