ABSTRACT
In Advaitabrahmasiddhi Sadānanda Yati draws a distinction between the subjective idealism of the Yogācāra and the absolute idealism of Śaṅkara. Both are idealists. They recognize the ontological reality of consciousness (vijñāna) only. But there is a substantial difference between them. The Yogācāra holds that cognitions are many and non-eternal. But Śaṅkara holds that there is only one, eternal, universal consciousness or Brahman. The former is a subjective idealist or sensationist. The latter is a monist or absolute idealist. The discrete, momentary cognitions in individual streams of consciousness (santāna) constitute the reality of the Yogācāra. The one, eternal, universal consciousness or Brahman constitutes the reality of Śaṅkara. The Yogācāra is a subjective idealist. He reduces the so-called external objects to mere cognitions of the individual minds or psychic continua. He is a sensationist like David Hume and J. S. Mill. He does not recognize the existence of the permanent self apart from a series of momentary sensations, feelings, and ideas. Nor does he admit the reality of external objects distinct from, and independent of, subjective cognitions. He is emphatic in his denial of external objects. They are nothing but internal forms of cognitions which appear to consciousness like external objects owing to an illusion. Śaṅkara, on the other hand, recognizes the existence of external objects distinct from, and independent of, subjective cognitions. He is emphatic in asserting the existence of external objects. His absolute idealism is not mentalism or subjectivism. He recognizes the Absolute (Brahman) alone as the ontological reality. The Absolute is pure identity. It is not identity-in-difference like the Absolute of Hegel. But still Śaṅkara is not prevented from recognizing the empirical reality (vyāvahārikasattā) of external objects and individual souls (jīva). Deussen rightly observes: “Just as Kant, along with transcendental idealism, maintained the empirical reality of the external world, and defended it against Berkeley, so the Vedāntins are not prevented by their doctrine of Ignorance as the foundation of all Being expanded in name and form from maintaining the reality of the outer world against the Buddhists of idealistic tendencies.” 1 Śaṅkara recognizes only the empirical reality of the external world and the individual souls. The external objects are real for all practical purposes of our life. They serve all practical needs. But they are unreal from the standpoint of the Absolute. When the individual soul (jīva) transcends its limitations (upādhi) and realizes its identity with Brahman, it loses all sense of plurality. The jivas and external objects are not real sub specie eternitatis in the language of Spinoza. They have only an empirical reality.
