THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

96 THE DOCTRINE OF MAYAand meaning? As far as we are aware, nobody hasyet gone into these details, and it would certainly beno mean subject for further research. Our presentpurpose, however, precludes us from undertakingthis additional task here, and even ifany such suggestions were brought forward, they would notmaterially affect the position of the question atissue. Personally, we are inclined to take Sankaraas the best and the most satisfactory exponent ofWeBadarayana s views on the Vedanta problems.do endorse the view that to Sankara was handeddown the tradition in its genuineness. But dogmatizing on such points is of no use, and one is atliberty to hold whatever view one likes on mattersHence we now passincapable of any direct proof.on to a discussion of Sankara s contributions on thequestion of Maya.As an interpreter of the Vedic tradition and theVedanta of the Upanisads, Sankara found himselfin a difficult and peculiar situation. He observed,on the one hand, the different ways of explainingthe problem of Reality in these philosophicaltreatises : all of them as such could not be taken asultimately true. Their seeming contradictions, evenas such, could not be merely ignored. Yet on theother hand, all these were to him Vaidic (i.e.,basedon the Sruti), and hence revelations of the DivineTruth, which by the force of his tradition he had toaccept. He noticed, e.g., that the purely metaphysical standpoint of Yajnavalkya was at any