One Consciousness, Many Mirrors

Advaita-Vedānta is a non-dualist tradition that sees the many individual selves as mere reflections of a single transcendent self. This chapter examines the concept of ahaṃkāra (the “I-maker”), an entity that arises from the mistaken identification of mind with consciousness and mediates between them. It provides the first analysis of Śaṅkara’s reinterpretation of the Sāṃkhya model of consciousness reflected in the mind, later developed by Padmapāda and Prakāśātman, and later mirror models that identify god with individual selves, as reported by Appayya Dīkṣita in the sixteenth century. These texts of the Vivaraṇa sub-school have been seriously understudied.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on the non-dualist tradition of Advaita-Vedānta, which holds that the multiplicity of individual selves is nothing but reflections of one transcendent self. This school develops the notion of ahaṃkāra (the “I-maker”) as an entity supervenient upon the illusory identity between the mind and consciousness and mediating between the two. The chapter examines, for the first time, Śaṅkara’s (seventh to eighth centuries) non-dualist reinterpretation of the Sāṃkhya model of consciousness reflected in the mind, its development by Padmapāda (eighth to ninth centuries), with further elaborations by Prakāśātman (eleventh to twelfth centuries), as well as later developments (mirror models of one consciousness reinterpreted in terms of identity between the god and individual selves, reported by Appayya Dīkṣita in the sixteenth century). The texts composed by these philosophers, representing what came to be known as the Vivaraṇa sub-school of Advaita, have been seriously understudied to date.