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The third stage of
development is seen in the theories of the various schools of Vedanta, which tackle the
question whether it is possible to reduce the two into one. The systems of Ramanuja,
Madhva, Nimbarka and Vallabha teach that the world is real, but dependent upon God in one
way or another. Thus one of the two categories is made subordinate to the other. Samkara
goes a step further. He does not deny the reality of the world, as he is often erroneously
supposed to do. Far from teaching such a doctrine, he takes pains to refute the Buddhist
theory of illusionism.
According to him, the world
is as real as every one of us. perceiving subject implies the perceived object, and
vices versa. Each depends upon the other. If the perceiving subject were entirely
independent of the objective world, he would move in a phantom world of his own creation:
And if the objective world were entirely independent of the perceiving subject, it would
be a chaos of dark forces and vibrations and not a world of light and colour, and of law
and order. The former view leads to a fanciful idealism and the latter to a crude realism.
The world is emphatically not an illusion. It exists in its own
right, as the human mind exists in its own right. As long as our minds are real, the world
is also real. But both are long to a lower order of reality than the Absolute. They are
only relatively real, while God is absolutely real. This view may be made clear by means
of an
illustration. Within the limits of a drama everything is real plot, situation and
characters. In Kalidasa's, famous play, Dushyanta is as real as the hermitage of Kanva
that he sees. But if we compare Dushyanta and his fellow characters with Kalidasa and his
readers, we must admit that the latter belong to a higher order of reality than the
former.
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