This is not a detailed portrait of Sri Shankara but a bunch of fleeting thoughts which occurred to me while reading a couple of passages from the commentaries of Sri Shankara.  One passage is from the commentary on chAndogya upaniShat and the other is from brahma-sUtra (the aphorisms on the nature of Brahman).

The passage from the chAndogya upaniShat is about the clash of gods and demons (1-2-1). This is about an upAsana on Om. Initially Shankara explains what upAsana is about. It is a chitta-vRRitti – a mental process of meditating on a slightly delimited (IShad-vikRRita-brahma, as he says) Brahman for material benefits. Shankara compares it with the knowledge of Atman, which is also a mental process having an akhaNDa vRRitti, i.e. seeing oneself as the Supreme Consciousness. Based on this similarity upAsana finds a place in the upaniShat, he explains. Then the episode of gods and demons follows.

Both gods and demons are children of the same PrajApati (hiraNyagarbha), the first being. Each group wants to excel the other. Here the explanation by Shankara is based on the etymological meaning of the terms. Deva is derived from the root ‘div’ – ‘to shine’. They are the functions of senses which are refined or illumined by scriptural education. Asura is derived from the roots ‘asu’ and ‘ram’, meaning those functions of senses reveling in sensual pleasures, or engaged in a multitude of pleasurable objects, and are guided by the quality of tamas – sloth. So deva-s, the gods, and the asura-s, the demons are nothing but our own sensory functions which are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Sometimes they follow the scriptural injunctions and sometimes rebel and indulge in prohibited acts. These tendencies clash in our mind, each trying to overpower the other. Shankara goes on to say that this has been an eternal conflict in every human mind since the beginning of creation. prajApati,  who is the parent of both is no other than the human being, he says. The passage continues to say how the gods (good tendencies) wanted to do the upAsana of Om on each of the senses but every time the demons (bad tendencies) ‘seduced’ the senses.

How did they seduce? By making the senses forget the selfless enjoyment of objects and by creating a sense of rAga – attachment – to objects. Because of attachment they lost the sarvAtmabhAva (seeing Brahman in all things).  The demons made the eyes to see things which they should not see, ears to hear what they should not hear and so on. Finally the gods meditate on the life force – prANa – as Om, where the sense of attachment cannot be induced and thus overpowered the bad tendencies. Anandagiri, (the commentator on Shankara) says that this is a ‘clash within’ (AdhyAtmika-sa~NgrAma). Such explanation of gods and demons, which is seen given in other upaniShat-s by Shankara, demolishes our childhood ideas about some clash taking place in the sky high above. Similarly, (in a connected passage) while not in any way rejecting the popular notions on the celestial worlds and the nether worlds, he almost suggests that loka-s (the worlds) are different states of experience, pleasant or unpleasant.

The other passage I was referring to is from the brahma-sUtra (1-1-19) where there is a discussion of whether the ‘blissful self’ – Ananda-maya – can be called the Atman. (Chapter-I of brahma-sUtra tries to reconcile various statements in the Upanishads and tries to establish a unity of thought in them in accordance with the advaita view). Here the discussion is on the five sheaths or five levels of the self that are described in the taittirIya upaniShat. The individual self is conceived at five levels – the flesh and blood level (annamaya), the vital force level (prANamaya), the cognitive level (manomaya), the intellectual level (vij~nAnamaya) and the blissful level (Anandamaya). A seeker trying to know the nature of his self starts identifying first with the body, rejects it and identifies with the vital force level and so on and at last comes to the Anandamaya level.

The question here is whether this can be equated with the Brahman. The opinion of bAdarAyana, the composer of the aphorisms, as well as that of the commentators up to Shankara was that this category i.e. the blissful level of the self could be equated with the Brahman. Here Shankara presents a detailed argument to show that this self can, at the most, be called a qualified Brahman but not the Supreme Self. I will not go into the detailed arguments given by Shankara here, but the point to be noted is that Shankara does not hesitate to differ with the most revered personality of the time and submit his views. He has not only differed with the earlier commentator (which he has done several times to reject the dualist arguments) but he also presents his views on the untenability of the wording of the aphorism. It appears that there was an atmosphere for honest debate on issues in Shankara’s time true to the spirit of the invocation ‘saha nAvavatu…………….mA vidwiShAvahai’, which means that the student-master relationship flourished in a healthy debating environment.

No doubt, Shankara’s main mission was to advocate the advaita view, but his interpretations show that he was aware of the need to respect the prevalent religious practices. For instance, the sA~Nkhya-s, yogi-s and the logicians did not talk of a god with name and form but the practice of worshiping a god with name and form was very much prevalent in society. One would expect that Shankara, an advocate of nirguNa (attributeless) Brahman, would more seriously reject the idea of god with name and form, but he did not do so. He accepted whatever was the existing practice, but accorded it a lower place in the ladder of sAdhanA, spiritual journey. In brahma-sUtra (1-1-20) he says that the all pervading Brahman can be accepted to be visualized with a name and   form for the benefit of the sAdhaka-s i.e. spiritual practitioners. In an earlier passage (1-1-12) he refers to the idol worship which befits the dull witted persons as the initial level to understand the subtle nature of Brahman. We see a benevolent social reformer who took care of different levels of seekers worshipping different deities and provided guidance at those levels through his writings by bringing them all under the umbrella of Vedanta by showing that all  these forms are that of the self same Brahman.

Sometime ago in these blogs (by other writers) there was a discussion about who can be an ideal guru. I do not know since when the tradition of jagat-guru (teacher of the world) has come into practice, but the meaning of the word is worth examining. The word jagat means ‘the world’.  Etymologically it says – gachChati iti jagat – that which keeps on moving is jagat, the world. So a guru is a person who understands the changing needs of the world and evolves strategies to educate the society. He cannot be inflexible in his approach, but try to accommodate the impact of change. Shankara knew this when he said in one passage in brahma-sUtra(3-1-25): ‘what can be considered as dharma in a particular time, place or context may not be dharma in another time, place or context. Scripture has to provide the guidance needed.’ And he interpreted the texts accordingly.

It is ironical that in India we have erected idols of the self same person who prescribed them for the dull witted, and are also worshipping him by according a place in the pantheon of deities. While Shankara wrote hymns on several deities, we have not fallen behind, but have composed hymns with his hundred and eight names and so on.

If we read Shankara and not about him in his biographies, we come across a man with a mission, a strong logician who chose to win scholars in arguments rather than force his ideas on the multitude, respected tradition and strengthened it while healthily disagreeing where required. In India, of course, he is regarded at different levels – the intellectuals (mostly the left-wingers who dominate the scene) dismiss him as a retrograde fundamentalist, the handful of traditional scholars observe prostrations and study his texts with reverence but keep them exclusive to the few, while the rest are content with visiting the temple and break a coconut in front of his idol instead of breaking their heads with any of his writings. The silver lining is the handful of modern teachers of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, Chinmaya or Dayananda schools who are enlivening the tradition of lively spirit of Vedanta by interpreting it to the jagat, the changing world.   

In an earlier blog I was giving my observations on the gender of gods and goddesses. A similar issue that can be examined is the color. Practically every god and goddess has a unique color associated with a unique function or characteristic. We find many examples in the vedic literature, which have further come down into literature in the same form.

Students of advaita are familiar with mAyA, the indefinable, beginningless force which emanates from Brahman, or rather appears in Brahman, and by its twin powers of AvaraNa (enveloping) and vikShepa (projecting divergence) ‘projects’ the world we see. All the deities who are responsible for creation, sustenance etc. and all the living and non-living are the products of the same mAyA. It follows that we are all the products of mAyA, and it would be interesting to see its colors and colors of its products. When we say mAyA and its colors we refer to the world and its colors. It is intriguing why and how the RRiShi-s conceived of colors to represent the deities and their nature.

The shwetAshwatara-upaniShat provides a context for this in two verses. Verse 4-1 says how the attributeless Brahman is a-varNa – without any color. mAyA, the appearance on Brahman has three colors, she (because mAyA is a female) is tri-colored, lohita-shukla-kRRiShNA. She is a combination of red, white and dark colors. So the nirguNa Brahman is colorless whereas the mAyA and her creations are colorful.

The first verse mentioned above, rendered into English, reads as follows:

The One colorless, who with power of mAyA, releases multiple colors for no gain of Self, and in whom the world exists and dissolves, may He give us good discrimination.

(The Sanskrit phrase eko.avarNaH has also been interpreted as eko varNaH by deleting the negative - ‘a’ to say that one varNa i.e. substance which is consciousness, takes diverse shapes. Another interpretation is that the one letter ‘a’ takes different shapes and constitutes the alphabet and thus constitutes the whole creation. This is the version of those who say that the ‘word’ is Brahman. Another interpretation is that the ‘one’ is the letter ‘Om’ in which the entire creation inheres, gets released and withdrawn into the same. I will not go into these interpretations but I will take one meaning given by Shankara.)

Shankara interprets the word to mean ‘nirvisheShaH’ – attributeless. mAyA, the lady, has been described in the next verse (4-4) in a rather colorful manner. An English rendering is as follows:

The beginningless and the only one (mAyA), who is red, white and black, creates multiple offspring of self-same nature. One beginningless keeps enjoying and staying with her, while the other who is also beginningless, having enjoyed, rejects her.

Looks like a little indulgence by the vedic sage to drive home a point. Following the ChAndogya upaniShat, Shankara explains the colors to represent fire, water and food respectively, denoted by the Sanskrit words tejaH, ab and annam. mAyA is also called, prakRRti (feminine) or world which has these three constituents. The one who continues association with mAyA is the ignorant one who is in the cycle of desires and keeps transmigrating. The one who leaves is the enlightened one who gets over mAyA and realizes Brahman. The word ‘one’ is used to say that jiva, the individual is one, i.e. delimited by the same avidyA, ignorance, which is common to all jiva-s. Both jIva and mAyA are beginningless, jIva (masc) is called ajaH, and mAyA (fem) is called ajA, but the cycle continues till eternity until one attains self-realization.

Another interpretation about the three colors: the three colors red, white and black stand for the three guNa-s or characteristics i.e. rajas (activity), sattwa (serenity) and tamas (sloth). These are the three dispositions we find in all sentient beings (and insentient things also). All other colors are taken as combinations of the above three. The immediate manifestations of mAyA are the trinity – BrahmA, the creator whose disposition is rajas -creativity, ViShNu, the sustainer whose disposition is sattwa - sustenance and Shiva, the deity for dissolution whose disposition is tamas - dissolving power. Their colors are somehow not tallying with their dispositions because they are white, black and red respectively. At the divine level tamas is not sloth or laziness but the power of dissolution. (The commentary on bRRihadAraNyaka upaniShat 2-2-3 says that dissolution is the negation of the world as a result of self-realization – brahma vidyA. Shiva is the master who gives realization.)

In fact, Vedanta does not talk about the above noted trinity (which seems to have come in the later period) but it talks about HiraNyagarbha, the first Being from whom all the deities have emerged. This hiraNyagarbha is described as of golden color. The golden puruSha – person described in ChAndogya upaniShad has a golden beard and golden hair (hiraNya-shmashru, hiraNya-kesha) almost fitting the description of a Caucasian.

The deities who represent different aspects of human life have different colors. The female trinity who actually are the powers of their spouses (as I noted in the earlier blog, power is represented by the female) have colors which are associated with the functions of their husbands and also their own disposition. For instance, Saraswati, the spouse of the creator and the goddess of learning is white, showing the sattwa disposition and creativity. Lakshmi, the power of ViShNu and the goddess of wealth is red, showing her rajas disposition, the quality of achieving. Shiva’s spouse is worshipped in her serene form as well as in ferocious and destructive form and hence she is white, red and also dark.

A long list of such names can be given from the vedic literature, but it may only confound a new reader. Krishna and Arjuna, the well-known duo in the Gita derive their names from colors – dark brown and white. (Peter Brooks’ movie Mahabharata could have been a more authentic masterpiece had he given a thought to the colors of the characters). Another deity seen in the upaniShad-s is gAyatri, having five faces with five different colors representing different characteristics. Meditation on gAyatri is a compulsory activity – nitya karma – for a traditionalist.

The word varNa also means ‘caste’, an important stratification in the Indian society, but I will not go into this as this does not relate to color. However, color has come into every aspect of Indian life like yoga, astronomy, astrology, medicine, dance, dress, and even the Sanskrit alphabet. Each letter of the alphabet represents a deity and has a color.

Bharata’s nAtyashAstra (200 BC), the famous treatise on dramatic art and dance forms, describes different colors for different emotions. Nine types of emotions (rasa-s) are categorized, such as shRRi~NgAra (the erotic), vIra (brave), karuNa (pity), hAsya (humour) and so on. Each is represented by a different color: dark brown for erotic, white for humour, pigeon grey for pity, red for ferocity, pale red for bravery and so on (chapter 6  verses 42-43 of nAtya shAstra). Each is again represented by a deity whose disposition tallies with the emotion – erotic by ViShNu, ferocity by Shiva, pity by Yama and so on.

Deities were perhaps visualized in different colors for purpose of upAsanA i.e. meditations, which are also described in the upaniShad-s. The opening line of bRRihadAraNyaka talks of uShA the dawn with red color, visualized as the head of the sacrificial ashwa, the horse, where Ashwa denotes sun’s rays and also horse. upAsanA was at three levels: the personal bodily level (adhyAtma), at the physical level (adhibhautika) and divine level (adhidaiva). But all such meditations were for lower goals or leading to purification of mind which would gradually lead to the knowledge of Brahman.

As a serious student of Vedanta I am not sure whether an elaborate study of the above subject would only mean getting more entangled with the lady mAyA or whether it will throw any light on the intricacies of mAyA and help to reject her. The goal, however, is to be a-varNa, colorless i.e. attributeless as the shwetAshwatara upaniShat describes.