THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

CHAPTER IIIOBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE WITHIN THE VEDANTAAMONG the many objections that have been, fromtime to time, urged against the doctrine of Maya,by Indian thinkers not belonging to Sarikara s schooland by various other writers of the East and theWest, most are based on a mere misunderstanding ofthe real significance and the correct attitude of thedoctrine, as we propose to show presently. It isnot our purpose here to take into account all suchobjections, first, because some of them are merelychildish and destroy themselves in their very enunciation, and secondly, because it falls outside ourscope. We will chiefly discuss those that lie withinthe sphere of the Vedanta proper, viz., those thathave been raised by some of the other Vedanticschools, and shall subsequently weigh briefly theprincipal theories commonly held up to-day in orderto rebut the doctrine.The Vedanta system easily divides itself into fourschools. These are represented chronologically by\Sankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, and Vallabha ;and\ their four corresponding types of interpretation are113