[INDOLOGY] Mokṣopāya completed

Fri Aug 22 17:06:29 UTC 2025

As I am now traveling, I do not have the materials with me to check exactly what's found in the Tarkajvālā, but in one of my articles that I was able to access, we have a paraphrase of the passage in a 12th c. Tibetan author:

"[Vedānta] holds that all of these inner and outer entities are of the nature of a single great Self (mahātma ). The upper regions are its head, the lower regions its feet, the sky its back, the directions its hands, the planets and constellations its hair, the peaks its breast, the mountain ranges its bones, the rivers its network of veins, the forests its body hairs and nails; its back is the celes- tial world, its forehead Brahmā, Dharma and Adharma are its two brows; its wrathful grimace is Yama, the sun and moon its eyes, its inhalations and exhalations the winds..."

It was the first sentence that I had in mind. Although clearly referring to a type of advaita doctrine, it does not mention saccidānanda, though perhaps the Tarkajvāla has more to say.

The citation is from : 2009 “Preliminary remarks on the Grub mtha’ chen mo of Bya ’Chad kha ba Ye shes rdo rje,” in Sanskrit Manuscripts in China, ed. Ernst Steinkellner. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House, pp. 137-152.

Matthew

Matthew T. Kapstein
Professor emeritus
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, PSL Research University, Paris

Associate
The University of Chicago Divinity School

Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein

https://vajrabookshop.com/product/the-life-and-work-of-auleshi/

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501716218/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-i/#bookTabs=1

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501771255/tibetan-manuscripts-and-early-printed-books-volume-ii/#bookTabs=1

https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/60949

Sent with [Proton Mail](https://proton.me/mail/home) secure email.

On Friday, August 22nd, 2025 at 2:27 PM, Uskokov, Aleksandar <aleksandar.uskokov at yale.edu> wrote:

> Thank you, I was checking Qvarnstrom, will look in more detail.
>
> Aleksandar Uskokov
>
> Senior Lector and Associate Research Scholar
>
> South Asian Studies Council & Department of Religious Studies, Yale University
>
> DUS, South Asian Studies
>
>     [The Philosophy of the Brahma-sutra: An Introduction](https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Brahma-sutra-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophies/dp/1350150002?_encoding=UTF8)
>
> Office Hours Sign-up: https://calendly.com/aleksandar-uskokov
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Matthew Kapstein <mattkapstein at proton.me>
> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2025 8:23 AM
> To: Uskokov, Aleksandar <aleksandar.uskokov at yale.edu>
> Cc: Walter Slaje <walter.slaje at gmail.com>; Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Mokṣopāya completed
>
> If I recall correctly, it is in the Tarkajvāla commentary, not the kārikā. You can check O. Qvarnstrom’s translation. If not there, then my memory is fooling me.
> M
>
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 13:06, Uskokov, Aleksandar <[aleksandar.uskokov at yale.edu](mailto:On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 13:06, Uskokov, Aleksandar <<a href=)> wrote:
>
>> Dear Matthew,
>>
>> I don't find it in the Vedānta chapter of the Madhyamaka-hṛdaya-kārikā. It would be quite important if it does appear anywhere before, say, the Tattva-saṅgraha, since the formula, not just the list of qualities—think of the difference between the qualities of Brahman listed in the Taittirīya vs. the sac-cid-ānanda formula—is one of the hallmarks of Śaṅkara's Vedānta that his followers customarily use to refer to the pure (rather than the causal) Brahman.
>>
>> Yours,
>> Aleksandar
>>
>> Aleksandar Uskokov
>>
>> Senior Lector and Associate Research Scholar
>>
>> South Asian Studies Council & Department of Religious Studies, Yale University
>>
>> DUS, South Asian Studies
>>
>>     [The Philosophy of the Brahma-sutra: An Introduction](https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Brahma-sutra-Introduction-Introductions-Philosophies/dp/1350150002?_encoding=UTF8)
>>
>> Office Hours Sign-up: https://calendly.com/aleksandar-uskokov
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2025 5:32 AM
>> To: Walter Slaje <walter.slaje at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>
>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Mokṣopāya completed
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> If memory serves me well, the qualities of Brahman enumerated in the citation of Jayanta are given in pre-Śankara Buddhist authors, notably Bhāviveka, in doxographic treatments of Vedānta.
>>
>> And I know of no classical Indian Buddhist references to Śankara from any period at all.
>>
>> best,
>> Matthew
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 08:56, Walter Slaje via INDOLOGY < [indology at list.indology.info](mailto:On Fri, Aug 22, 2025 at 08:56, Walter Slaje via INDOLOGY <<a href=)> wrote:
>>
>>> [Attached is an article on the issue of Bhāskara's provenance:
>>> Kato, Takahiro, A Note on the Kashmirian Recension of the Bhagavadgītā, in: Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 62.3, 2014, pp. 1144-1150. ]
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>> WS
>>>
>>> Am Fr., 22. Aug. 2025 um 07:27 Uhr schrieb Walter Slaje < walter.slaje at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>>> Dear Alex and John,
>>>>
>>>>> Food for thought
>>>>
>>>> You said it!
>>>>
>>>> On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that even if Śaṅkara's teachings were known to a few authors in Kashmir at that time, he cannot have played a significant role, since one has to search for him with a magnifying glass in authentic Kashmiri texts, as can be seen from the two important papers sent by John and Alex. Otherwise, the question of Śaṅkara's intellectual presence in Kashmir would not have arisen. Therefore, Śaṅkara was either barely known or more or less ignored.
>>>>
>>>> However, if we assume that Bhāskara (the author of the Śārīrakamīmāṃsā- and Bhagavadgītābhāṣyas) actually came from Kashmir — for what other reason would he have known and quoted the Bhagavadgītā almost exclusively in its Kashmiri recension? — then this would suggest at least one detailed critical engagement with Śaṅkara in Kashmir. (On a less serious note, was he unable to recover from Bhāskara's final blow in Kashmir?)
>>>>
>>>> More food for thought?
>>>>
>>>> Yours,
>>>> Walter
>>>>
>>>> Am Fr., 22. Aug. 2025 um 00:39 Uhr schrieb Alex Watson <alex.watson at ashoka.edu.in>:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear All
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. I have written something about the kind of Vedānta known to Sadyojyotis (675–725 CE) and Rāmakaṇṭha (950–1000 CE): see pp. 23–27 of the attachment.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. The footnote by Sanderson on this topic, cited many times since he wrote it in the first half of the 1980s (e.g. in the article by Andrea Acri shared by John Nemec) reads:
>>>>> “When Vedānta is expounded by its opponents in Kashmirian sources of our period it is the doctrine of Maṇḍanamiśra which is generally in mind [...]. To my knowledge no source betrays familiarity with the doctrines of Śaṅkara.”
>>>>> To support the contention that Kashmirian sources draw on Maṇḍanamiśra rather than Śaṅkara to compose their Vedānta-pūrvapakṣas, he lists passages in the Paramokṣanirāsakārikā, the Nyāyamañjarī and the Tantrālokaviveka. The inclusion there of Jayaratha's Tantrālokaviveka implies that at the time of writing the footnote he had found no trace of Śaṅkara in that text. But if my memory serves me correctly, he did subsequently find it in that text of Jayaratha. That would date the earliest definite knowledge of Śaṅkara in Kashmir to the beginning of the 13th century.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3. Elliot Stern once sent me the following possible piece of evidence for familiarity with Śaṅkara in Jayanta's Nyāyamañjarī (c. 890 CE):
>>>>>
>>>>> Nyāyamañjarī (Mysore ed. p. 466.2-3):
>>>>> nanu yady ekam eva brahma na dvitīyaṃ kiñcid asti, tarhi tad brahma nityaśuddhabuddhasvabhāvatvāt muktam evāste.
>>>>>
>>>>> Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣyam (NSP 1938 edition, 2.3.40: p. 616.7):
>>>>> api ca nityaśuddhabuddhamuktātmaprati pādanān mokṣasiddhir abhimatā.
>>>>>
>>>>> (1.1.4: p. 113.1): nityaśuddhabuddhamuktasvabhāva ḥ
>>>>>
>>>>> Śaṅkara uses nityaśuddhabuddhamukta and similar expressions several times in this work. Nothing like it appears in Brahmasiddhiḥ or Gaudapāda’s kārikāḥ.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is of course not conclusive, for Jayanta could be drawing on a third source.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yours,
>>>>> Alex
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>> Alex Watson
>>>>> Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Indian Philosophy
>>>>> Professor of Indian Philosophy, Ashoka University
>>>>>
>>>>> https://ashokauniversity.academia.edu/AlexWatson
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 7:20 PM Nemec, John William (jwn3y) via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Harry, Walter, and All,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andrea Acri has written about this, and I have downloaded the relevant article from his [academia.edu](http://academia.edu/) page and attach it here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> See p. 578 environ, and Andrea may be right that I (and several others) might be wrong about whether Śaṅkara was known in the Valley around this time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Food for thought.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As Ever,
>>>>>> John
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ______________________________ _____________
>>>>>> John Nemec, Ph.D.
>>>>>> Professor of Indian Religions and South Asian Studies
>>>>>> Department of Religious Studies
>>>>>> 323 Gibson Hall, 1540 Jefferson Park Avenue
>>>>>> University of Virginia
>>>>>> Charlottesville, VA 22904
>>>>>> +1 (434) 924-6716
>>>>>> nemec at virginia.edu
>>>>>> https://virginia.academia.edu/JNemec
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Take a look at my new book:
>>>>>> https://global.oup.com/academic/product/brahmins-and-kings-9780197791998?cc=us&lang=en&
>>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of Walter Slaje via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2025 1:12 PM
>>>>>> To: Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier at gmail.com>
>>>>>> Cc: Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Mokṣopāya completed
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Harry,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Was the existence of Śaṅkarācārya and/or his writings known in 10th century Kashmir?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To my knowledge, Śaṅkara played no role in Kashmir at that time. Maṇḍanamiśra was seen as the representative of Advaita Vedānta. Significantly, the Mokṣopāya addresses and quotes Maṇḍana's theory of error (khyāti [Vibhramaviveka]) in Mokṣopāya VI.325.1–10 (the current volume), adopting "Vasiṣṭha's" inclusivistic approach by redefining the ātmakhyāti of the Yogācāra school in his own terms. As so often, he tells a parable to illustrate his point (śilopākhyāna, VI.32511–40).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Walter
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Am Do., 21. Aug. 2025 um 15:59 Uhr schrieb Harry Spier <vasishtha.spier at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dear Walter,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My congratulations also on this impressive accomplishment.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Contrary to a still-prevailing misconception, the 10th-century Mokṣopāya from Kashmir has nothing at all to do with Śaṅkara's Advaitavedānta . . .
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Was the existence of Śaṅkarācārya and/or his writings known in 10th century Kashmir?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>> Harry Spier
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ______________________________ _________________
>>>>>> INDOLOGY mailing listINDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>>>>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>>>>>
>>>>> https://ashokauniversity.academia.edu/AlexWatson
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> Confidentiality Notice: This email and any attachments may contain confidential or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender by replying to this message, and then delete the email and any attachments permanently. Thank you.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20250822/ed8ca4b1/attachment.htm>