Abstract

This dissertation explores the uses of Paradox and Negation--in contrast and comparison--through the Upanishads and Buddhism to the Advaita Vedanta of Sankara. Paradox and Negation employed are not of ordinary parlance but are philosophic and dialectic tools indicating a state beyond the world of appearances--the Supreme. ;The Upanishads indicate the Supreme state by positing the Transcendent Atman--The Transcendent Subjectivity--and the Transcendent Brahman--the Transcendent Existentiality. In both aspects, the Supreme is seen as the antecedent state to the nest of appearances: Its existence supports all phenomena. By juxtaposing two apparently incongruous statements--thus producing a Paradox--the Upanishadic seers pushed the mind beyond its normal boundaries into a meditative insight. Similarly, through Negation, the seers denied the self-sustaining validity of phenomena. ;The Buddha, in contrast, forwarded a pragmatic' philosophy, refusing to speculate about the existence or nature of the Supreme. Rather, he examined the conditions of daily life, their cause, their cessation and the route to their cessation. Passing through the nominalist teachers of the Hinayana school to the Mahayana school, a growing use of Paradox and Negation is seen and culminates in the dialectics of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna pushed Paradox and Negation to extremes in his Catuskoti, four-fold argument, which revealed the logical inadequacies of all concepts. They have only causal or relational validity within the boundaries of the intellect. Outside that boundary, they have no self-nature or existence. ;Sankara, in his Advaita Vedanta, rising to another level on the spiral of Indian philosophy, takes from the teachings of the previous two traditions and elaborates and develops both. He recognizes that the phenomenal world has reality--but a temporary one. It exists only so long as the mind is held in sway by illusion and ignorance. Once the mind has been restored to its true state--which is a meditatively disciplined one--the phenomenal world is seen as having relative existence only and as totally dependent on the Supreme Brahman. ;The uses of Paradox and Negation by the three schools will be examined as contrasts and complements to each other