History of the usage of the terms --"mImAMsa", "vedAnta" and "mAyAvAda"

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan <Palaniappa at AOL.COM> wrote:

> When, if ever, did mImAMsa and vedAnta come to refer to two mutually
> exclusive entities? When is the earliest use of the term mAyAvAda?
Was
> zankara's philosophy known by any name which was not pre-zankaran?

It is a much speculated topic when the two terms came to mean
something exclusive. There is quite some speculation that sha.nkara
might have been the one to start it. However, there's not much proof.
Actually, there's some evidence against it. There was an ancient
teacher called upavarsha, who sha.nkara calls in his bhAshhya to
brahmasUtra 3.3.53 as "Lord upavarsha", (bhagavAn upavarsha). This
person is even older than shabarasvAmin who also respectfully quotes
his views in his shabarabhAshhya (again as "Lord upavarsha").

This shabara seems to have written a commentary, as per sha.nkaras and
shabaras bhAshhyas, on both the pUrva, i.e., jaiminis sUtra-s
(mImA.nsA) and uttara (vedAnta) sUtra-s. However, since shabarasvAmin
wrote a commentary only on the sUtras of jaimini, I think we can say
with some confidence that the mImA.nsA and the vedAnta were separated
by the time of shabara if not the time of upavarsha itself. shabara is
placed circa 500, if I remember right. Regarding the dates of these
folks and the history of the word mImA.nsA itself, please consult Jean
Marie Verpootens monograph, "Mimamsa Literature" in the Weisbaden
series on the history of Indian literature.

The earliest recorded usage of mAyAvAda seems to be by bhaTTa
bhAskara, a bhedAbhedavAdin, who is considered a junior contemporary
of sha.nkara. Some details can be found in "The philosophy of
Bhedabheda," by Srinivasachari, Adyar Library. The Buddhist writer
bhavya uses the term vedAntavAdinaH in his madhyamakahR^idaya and the
philosophy he describes is advaita, with the standard pot-ether
analogy found in the gauDapAdakArikas and also seems to be quoting
gauDapAda. See "The Vedanta Philosophy described by Bhavya in his
Madhyamakahrdaya," V.V.Gokhale, pp.165-180, IIJ-2, 1958. bhavaya is
placed in the 500s.

The later writer shAntaraxita (placed slightly before sha.nkara) calls
it the advaita school. See the Tattvasangraha of Shantaraxita,
translated by Ganganatha Jha, Vol 1, Motilal 1986. From the Buddhist
evidence, it seems that the advaita school alone was prominent enough
among the vedantic schools to be taken up for refutation. After
bhaTTa-bhAskara, some Buddhist writers refuted bhedAbheda in the 11th
century. Details can be obtained from the book by Nakamura.

Rama