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Śaṅkara’s
Two-Truth Strategy How to Make Doctrine Undeniable Without Making It True By the druid Finn 1. The political philosopher of metaphysics Ādi Śaṅkara
(8th c. CE) stands at the intersection of theology, politics, and
metaphysics. His declared aim was to restore śruti—the
revealed Vedic canon—to supreme authority at a time when Buddhist and Sāṅkhya rationalisms had eroded the priest’s
monopoly on truth. To achieve that, he required not merely a metaphysics but
an epistemic constitution: a system that would appear universal and
rigorous while remaining invulnerable to empirical refutation. The result was
the celebrated Advaita Vedānta, a
monism that speaks in two voices, one worldly and one transcendental. 2. The problem to be solved The Upaniṣads proclaim with devastating simplicity: “Sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ
brahma” — “This whole world is Brahman.” (Chāndogya
Upaniṣad 3.14.1) This
statement admits no remainder, no other domain of lesser reality. Yet the
ritualist Vedas, to which Śaṅkara owed
sacerdotal allegiance, presuppose duality—gods and humans, sacrifice and
reward, doer and deed. To maintain Vedic supremacy while affirming Upaniṣadic oneness was logically impossible. Śaṅkara’s solution was not to resolve the
contradiction but to institutionalize it: to posit two orders of truth
and thereby two vocabularies of reality. 3. The invention of double truth Śaṅkara distinguishes between: 1. Paramārthika-satyam – the
ultimate truth in which only Brahman is real, and 2. Vyāvahārika-satyam – the
empirical, transactional truth within which the world of difference, duty,
and devotion operates. A later
scholastic layer adds a third, prātibhāsika-satyam
(illusory appearances, as in dreams), completing a convenient hierarchy. This
division allows any statement to be preserved by simply relocating it to the
appropriate level. If the Upaniṣads declare
“all is Brahman,” that is paramārthika.
If daily experience contradicts this, that belongs to vyāvahārika.
Thus, contradiction is domesticated rather than resolved. Śaṅkara justifies the device with
analogy. The classic example: “As the
one space appears divided by pots, the one consciousness appears as many selves.” (Brahma Sūtra
Bhāṣya II.1.14) The
distinction between pot-space and infinite space is not real but
functionally useful. Likewise, the empirical world is not false enough to
ignore nor true enough to threaten monism. It is provisionally real—a
category invented for survival. 4. The epistemic armor: six pramāṇas (valid truths) To make
this layered truth scheme appear impregnable, Śaṅkara
expanded the range of pramāṇas—means
of valid knowledge. Earlier schools accepted fewer:
Śaṅkara adopted the Mīmāṃsā’s full six:
perception, inference, comparison, postulation, non-apprehension, and verbal
testimony. Yet he simultaneously subordinated all to śabda—the
authority of Vedic revelation—whenever Brahman was in question: “Na pratyakṣādiṣu brahma-viṣayatvam
asti.” The
gesture is masterly. By admitting every conceivable path to knowledge he appeared liberal and comprehensive; by making
śruti the sole valid path to ultimate
truth he ensured that every road led back to priestly interpretation. Six pramāṇas thus function as epistemic armour
plating: inclusivity masking control. 5. The self-sealing logic Once the
dual-truth and six-pramāṇa systems are
combined, Advaita becomes unfalsifiable. ·
If perception or reason contradict the Veda, they
belong to the lower (vyāvahārika)
order. ·
If they coincide with revelation, they confirm
the higher (paramārthika). Either
way, śruti remains supreme. The
doctrine becomes undeniable by design—immune to both empirical
disproof and logical contradiction. It is, in modern terms, a perfect closed
semantic loop. 6. The hidden cost: truth versus survivability This
architecture was politically brilliant but philosophically ruinous. By
multiplying epistemic instruments while hierarchising them, Śaṅkara transformed philosophy into a system
of graded permissions rather than of open inquiry. The result was an undeniable
but unverifiable worldview—stable enough to restore Brahmin authority,
yet conceptually stagnant. His “non-dualism” remains parasitic on the dualism
it claims to transcend. 7. A procedural reinterpretation (Finn’s critique) From the
standpoint of Procedure Monism, such two-tiered truth is unnecessary. Reality
unfolds as a single iterative procedure whose local and universal phases are
continuous, not hierarchically true or false. The jīva
is not a deluded appearance but a bounded iteration of the universal process;
its difference is real, its sameness procedural. Truth here is defined
operationally—what coheres and functions—not by appeal to any
transcendent revelation. Where Śaṅkara made contradiction disappear by
semantic partition, the procedural view dissolves it by structural
explanation. There is only one truth level: the level of successful
iteration. 8. Conclusion Śaṅkara’s
two-truth theory, reinforced by his six-pramāṇa
epistemology, created an unassailable doctrinal citadel: ·
Undeniable, because every possible
objection was pre-classified as lower truth. ·
Not necessarily true, because
its coherence depended on strategic exclusion of counter-evidence. It was
the perfect political theology—an elegant instrument of metaphysical
governance masquerading as universal reason. The Upaniṣadic
declaration “This whole world is Brahman” was thus not elucidated but
domesticated, transformed from an ontological insight into a hierarchical
license. Śaṅkara made his doctrine
undeniable. Whether he made it true is another question—one the priestly
system he founded was designed never to let be asked. |