Sample Representation 

Throughout her Shankara and Indian Philosophy, Natalia Isayeva emphasizes that Shankara’s Advaita-Vedanta philosophy cannot be properly grasped without examining its relationship to other systems of Indian thought.  After reviewing Shankara’s historical context and the various works he composed, each subsequent chapter links selected key concepts of Shankara’s thought to contrasting and overlapping ideas in other schools.

Isayeva begins the introduction of her work by emphasizing the uniqueness of Shankara and his Vedånta teachings (1-3).  Having briefly surveyed the literature on Shankara and stated her intent to contribute to it (3-9), she emphasizes the need to address “the influence of Buddhism and other religious and philosophical schools on Shankara’s teaching” (10).  She points out the futility of attempts  simply “to single out ‘borrowed’ elements from this solid and complete system,” stressing that Shankara “bore full responsibility for the specific way in which [the religious concepts of his predecessors and opponents] were fitted into the balanced structure of Advaita” (10-11).  She highlights in this context Shankara’s relationship to Buddhism, and surveys and openly objects to the many scholarly views that implicitly characterize Advaita as “an obsolete tradition grafting on new tenets, whether original or derived” (12-16).  This critical examination culminates with a clear statement of her own position:

“Advaita...was by no means just a chaotic mixture of Buddhism and Brahmanism with a handful of other ideas derived from various systems thrown in....[Certainly] Advaita succeeded in reshaping and assimilating some major notions that originated within the Buddhist frame of thought.  But even more important for understanding Shankara’s teaching is the problem of Advaita’s attitude towards sacred tradition, towards Vedic sayings.  The sacred tradition here is not simply a bursting wineskin that cannot contain new wine: after audacious ‘heretics’—the Buddhists and the Jainas—dared to doubt the infallibility of the Vedas, Shankara had to rethink the role of sacred scripture, trying to tie it more strongly to the core of his own teaching.”  (16)

She concludes the chapter by describing the general sequence of chapters, and mentions again that in Shankara’s system, “Vedic texts play a serious theoretical part in securing and inner intellectual balance to his system” (17).

This articulation of Isayeva’s approach towards Shankara’s indebtedness to other systems of thought both reinforces and further clarifies her overall claim that Shankara’s thought must be considered in relation to that of others: Isayeva does not regard this indebtedness to other schools as a flaw, but rather a strength of Shankara’s approach.  In a later chapter she illustrates this approach more specifically with reference to...

 

General Notes:

• Here I’m dealing with a purely secondary commentary, so the representation is fairly straightforward--as it would be for an independent primary source.  When representing primary sources interspersed throughout secondary commentary, you will need to alert the reader of your dependence on selections and translations.  You might use phrases like “as represented by Dubois in his discussion of upanishadic texts dealing with the sun (139-52), Shankara’s states in his commentary on TU 1.10 that ’...’ (147).”

• This sample focuses on Isayeva’s intro chapter since we have read it recently; but note that in general, as mentioned under “Analytical Papers” in the “Guidelines for Paper Assignments,” you should avoid focusing on introductory or concluding remarks that give only a general sense of the particular points made in the reading as a whole.

• I’ve chosen a larger quote from the end of the reading segment in question; but you might very well choose a set of passages from the middle or earlier on in the reading, in which case you’d probably have less to say before the quote and less after.  Alternatively, you might wish to emphasize two or more medium-length quotes from different parts of your reading segment, being sure to mention what falls between them.

• You may find it useful to use this sample as an example when you review the points on formatting & style in “Notes on Written Work.”