Page:A History of Indian Philosophy Vol 1.djvu/438

4 22 The Sa}ikara School of Vedanta [ CII. I do not know of any evidence that would come in conflict with this supposition. The fact that we do not know of any Hindu writer who held such monistic views as Gau<;lapada or SaIikara, and who interpreted the Brahma-sittras in accordance with those monistic ideas, when combined with the fact that the dualists had been writing commentaries on the Brahma-si/tras, goes to show that the Brakma-sittras were originally regarded as an authoritative work of the dualists. This also explains the fact that the BhagavadgUii, the canonical work of the Ekanti V ail).avas, should refer to it. I do not know of any Hindu writer previous to Gau<;lapada who attempted to give an exposition of the monistic doctrine (apart from the Upaniads), either by writing a commentary as did Sailkara, or by writing an independent work as did Gauc;lapada. I am inclined to think therefore that as the pure monism of the U pani!?ads was not worked out in a coherent manner for the formation of a monistic system, it was dealt with by people who had sympathies with some form of dualism which was already developing in the later days of the U paniads, as evidenced by the dualistic tendencies of such U paniads as the Svetasvatara, and the iike. The epic Sarrkhya was also the result of this dualistic development. I t seems that Badarayal).a, the writer of the Brahma-szttras, was probably more a theist, than an absolutist like his commen- tator Sailkara. Gau<;tapada seems to be the most important man, after the U paniad sages, who revived the monistic .ten- dencies of the U paniads in a bold and clear form and tried to formulate them in a systematic manner. I t seems very signi- ficant that no other karikas on the Upaniads were interpreted, except the JJiI ii?ujitkyakiirikii by Gau<;lapada, who did not him- self make any reference to any other writer of the monistic school, not even Badarayal).a. Sati.kara himself makes the con- fession that the absolutist (advaita) creed was recovered from the Vedas by Gau<;lapada. Thus at the conclusion of his com- mentary on Gau<;tapada's karika, he says that "he adores by falling at the feet of that great guru (teacher) the adored of his adored, who on finding all the people sinking in the ocean made dreadful by the crocodiles of rebirth, out of kindness for all people, by churning the great ocean of the Veda by his great churning rod of wisdom recovered what lay deep in the heart of the Veda, and is hardly attainable even by the immortal