During the last general phase of the development of Advaita Vedānta in its classical form, a number of compendia were written in which the authors, together with showing their own preferences for various ideas, summarized a vast amount of the doctrinal differences which had developed between the sub-schools of Advaita and between various individual thinkers. The Siddhāntaleśasa graha by Appaya Dīksita (who lived in the sixteenth century) is among the better known of these works.
Appaya Dīksita was most favorably disposed towards the Bhāmatī reading of Advaita, but in his Siddhāntaleśasa graha he treats the rival doctrines in a straightforward, objective manner. The following brief selections are from the translation of S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri (Madras: University of Madras, 1935) and deal primarily with the controversy over the multiplicity or singularity of the jīva and whether a doctrine of “subjective idealism” (d i-s i-vāda) is compatible with Advaita.
Now, is this jīva one or many?
Some ... adopt the unity of the jīva and say thus: the jīva is one; and therefore, it is only one body that has a jīva; others, like the bodies seen in dreams, have no jīvas; the world is posited by the ignorance of that (jīva); for that (jīva) there is empirical usage as long as there is nescience, as in the case of dream perception; there is not even the distinction between the bound and the released, because of the unity of the jīva; even the release etc. of Śuka is assumptive, like the release etc. of persons other (than the dreamer) in dreams; and the washing off of the mire of all objections that may occur to this (view) is to be effected solely in the continuous torrent of the dream-analogy.
Others, however, not gaining mental faith in this view of a sole (animated) body and a sole jīva, and thinking that there is conflict with such aphorisms as “But (the Lord is) more, because of the designation of difference,” “But as in the world, (the creative activity is) mere sport,” which teach that the Lord, who is more than the jīva, is alone the creator of the universe, not the jīva, and that, though there is no fruit for Him, there is creation of the world merely in sport, adopt the (following) view of a single jīva with many distinctive bodies: Hira yagarbha, the sole reflection of Brahman, is the principal jīva; others, however, which are of the nature of reflections of that (Hira yagarbha), are apparent jīvas, similar to the apparent clothes put on the bodies of human beings sketched on an artistically worked cloth, and are subject to transmigration etc.
Yet others, however, thinking that, because of the difference of Hira yagarbhas in each aeon, there is nothing to determine which Hira yagarbha is the principal jīva, prefer the (following) view of a single jīva (animating) many bodies without distinction: a single jīva alone controls all bodies without distinction; nor thus is there the contingence of the remembrance of one another’s happiness, in spite of the difference in bodies, just as (there is remembrance) in the case of the different parts of the body; for, since there is not seen the remembrance of the happiness etc., of another birth, it is settled that difference of body is the cause of the non-remembrance of that; in the case of yogins, however, the remembrance of the happiness etc., of a host of bodies is, like the apprehension of objects at a distance, conditioned by the might of yoga, and hence that is not an instance (to the contrary).
Still others, however, who are dissatisfied ... resort to the view of many jīvas, through the admission of the internal organ, etc. as adjuncts of the jīva, and obtain the distinction of the bound from the released.
Of these, some say thus: though ignorance, which has the pure Brahman for locus and content, is but one, and only the destruction of that is release, yet, because of the admission of the persistence of a trace of ignorance in the state of release while embodied, ignorance has parts; hence that itself, when, in some adjuncts, there is the rise of the understanding of Brahman, ceases in part, while in other adjuncts it persists as before through (its) other parts.
Others, however, say thus: just as, in the view of some Logicians, the determinant of the presence of the absolute non-existence of pot on the ground is non-existence of conjunction with the pot and hence the absolute non-existence of pot which exists in association with many places possessing that is not in association with some places, when by the rise of conjunction with pot that non-existence is removed, similarly, since for the presence of ignorance is intelligence the determinant of the mind, the ignorance that exists in association with parts of intelligence, through that adjunct, is not in association with some when, by the rise of the realization of Brahman, the mind is removed, in the manner declared by the Scriptural text “The knot of the heart is cut”; elsewhere it remains as before; it is only the association and non-association with ignorance that constitute bondage and release.
Yet others, however, say thus: ignorance does not have pure intelligence as locus, but has the jīva for locus and Brahman for content; and that (ignorance) being, like generality in the particulars, separately realized in all the jīvas which are reflections in the internal organ, abandons some one for whom knowledge has arisen, as generality (abandons) a destroyed particular; this alone is release; in others it resides as before; this is the distinction.
Still others, however, establish the distinction between bondage and release only by admitting a different nescience for each jīva, and the persistence and removal of that (individual nescience).
On this view, by whose nescience is the world effected? If this be asked, (the reply is), since there is no determining consideration, it is effected by the nesciences of all, and is on a par with a cloth caused by several threads. When, on the release of one (person), his nescience is destroyed, then, as for the cloth when a single thread is destroyed, there is destruction of the world common to him; even at that time, like (the origination of) another cloth by the other existing threads, there is the creation of another world, common to all the rest, by the other nescience: thus say some.
Like the merely apparent silver produced by the respective (individual) ignorances, and like the duality which, in the view of the Logicians, is produced by the respective (individual) enumerative cognitions, the universe of ether etc., produced by the respective (individual) nesciences, is different for each individual; there is only the delusion of identity, as (in saying) in respect of nacre-silver, “The silver seen by you that itself (is seen) by me too”; thus say others.
Māyā alone, which is different from the host of nesciences located in the jīvas and is (itself) located in the Lord, is the cause of the universe; as for the nesciences of the jīvas, they are of service in bare obscuration and in the projection of the merely apparent nacre-silver etc.: thus say yet others. (2:32) (pp. 176–181)
Those, however, who maintain that perception is creation (d is i-vādins) accept, for the whole world of waking, creation contemporaneous with perception, since the uncognized reality of what is assumptive is unintelligible; and they say that even the waking experience of elephant etc., is not an object of the sense of sight, since the cognition of the concomitance of the perception of pot etc. with the contact with the sense of sight, which (concomitance) is irreconcilable with the non-existence of pot etc., prior to the perception, is justified by them, only as in the case of dreams.
Now, if basing oneself on (the view of) perception as creation, one admits of the whole world of waking that it is assumptive, who is he that posits it? Is it the unconditioned self or the self conditioned by nescience? Not the first; for, since, even in release there exists the person who posits without the need of any other instruments, the world would persist, and there would be non-distinction from the state of migration. Not the second; for, since nescience has itself to be posited, the establishment of the person who posits has to be declared even prior to the assumption of that (nescience).
To this some say thus: he who is conditioned by the earlier posited nesciences is he who posits the subsequent nesciences. And since, in the case of the stream of positer and posited, it cannot be said “This is the first,” there is not the defect of infinite regress.... (3:711) (pp. 298–299)