베단-따(Vedanta)학자들의 佛敎觀 검토(I) - 샹까라와 '僞裝한 佛敎徒'의 관계를 중심으로 -

Sankara, one of the greatest masters in Advaita Vedanta school, have been appraised as a representative revivalist of Vedantic philosophy against Buddhism, but also branded as a crypto-Buddhist(pracchana bauddha) covertly accepted Buddhistic views. Surely, the disgrace as a crypto-Buddhist does not came from the results of modem researchers who know well of the relationship between Buddhism and Non-dulalistic view of Vedanta, but mainly from Vedana scholars like Bhaskara(A. D. 750-800) who belongs to Bhedabheda lineage and Ramanuja(A.D. 1017-1137) of Visistadvaita school. It is, however, rare in the history of Indian philosophy that the critical views on the other schools had been recognized with full approval with them Nevertheless, the blemish brand like 'Crypto-buddhist' still remains its efficacy and even regarded as useful without any valid investigations when it comes to the resemblence between Sankara and Buddhism. The earliest comment on 'Cripto-buddhist' in Vedantic texts is shown in BS-bhasya by Bhasaka, in which advaita has been critisized as mayavada(nihilism) or as scholars who depend on Buddhist views(bauddJhamatav-alambinah), that is, Crypto-buddhist After his evaluation, such attitude have been kept and recapitulated by Ramanuja, Yamuna, Vallabha, Madhava, and Vijnanabhiksu, by whom one very interesting common view is shared in their critical commentaries. It is that their refutation to the Buddhist views was always followed by the refutation to the mayavadin in their logical sequence of commentaries. This common attitude is quite clear in their way of refutation that they have tried to reject 'real Buddhist' by pointing of logical flaw, and doing so, mayavadin(advaita) that they regard as same could have also been refuted with easy. Thus our question should now go for the validity on which they regarded 'real buddhist views' as same with that of advaita. It will now be a evidence that the critics regarded Buddhist view as mayavada(nihilism) and rebuked them from the point of realistic view, especially of BS. For example, the term sunya(-ta) of the Buddhist School(Sunyavada, Madhyamika) was misunderstood as a sheer sense of 'nihil' only, and Vijinanavada was taken as nihilism rejecting the real sense of out-worldness except mind only. The attitude for Cripto-buddhists showed above is not from the modern scholars who are familiar with Buddhit views and Advaitin views both. This unfair evaluation was begun with the comments of Vedantins who are antogonistic to advaitin, and their criticisms were founded on the misunderstanding for Buddhism that was regarded as nihilism, and Advaita as Crypto-buddhist. It is thus quite probable that the critics for Buddhism and Advaita were far from the real information and understanding on them. Therefore, the uncritical acceptance of the resemblence between Buddhism and Advaita should be problem, because, though the results of the modern scholars's research would also show the resemblance that the commentators tried to show in eight or nine century A.D., the context of understanding and its significance are completely different.