Šaňkara versus Sāňkhya:A Competition for the Vedic Heritage and Logical Rationality. Šaňkara, Brahmasûtrabhāṣya II.2.1–10, Trans. by Vladimir K. Shokhin

Abstract

The article deals with the controversy between Advaita-Vedānta and Sāňkhya, two most influential Brāhmanic systems of the early medieval period where­from the first with Šaňkarācharya (7th – 8th centuries A.D.) at the head em­barked on the successful сonquest of the Indian philosophical space while the second one began to surrender. While scrutinizing the controversial sections of Šaňkara’s magnum opus, the Brahmasûtrabhāṣya one can discern two theatres of this war, i.e. his attempts to disavow the Sāňkhyas’ demands both for some conceptual spaces of the Upanişads and coherency of their system whichcombined features of very specific naturalistic evolutionism and dualism.The author of the paper concludes with the upshot that Šaňkara has failed to demonstrate the absence of the Sāňkhya nomenclature in the middle Upanişads but succeeded in disproving consistency of its naturalism and dualism, while the Sāňkhyas, in turn, managed to detect difficulties in the compatibility of the Advaitists’ soteriological programm and their ontological doctrine of the ab­solute monism. In his opinion, the outcomes of this opposition can arise atten­tion of not only those dealing with the history of philosophy but are claimed by today’s philosophical reflexion as well.