Editing Moksha (section)

==== Adi Shankara's challenge ====

[[Adi Shankara]] in the 8th century AD, like Nagarjuna earlier, examined the difference between the world one lives in and ''moksha'', a state of freedom and release one hopes for.<ref name=dhhi47>Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Dharma and Moksha, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 7, No. 1/2 (Apr. – Jul., 1957), pp. 47</ref> Unlike Nagarjuna, Shankara considers the characteristics between the two. The world one lives in requires action as well as thought; our world, he suggests, is impossible without ''vyavahara'' (action and plurality). The world is interconnected, one object works on another, input is transformed into output, change is continuous and everywhere. ''Moksha'', suggests Shankara,<ref name=klausklost/> is a final perfect, blissful state where there can be no change, where there can be no plurality of states. It has to be a state of thought and consciousness that excludes action.<ref name=dhhi47/> He questioned: "How can action-oriented techniques by which we attain the first three goals of man (''kama'', ''artha'' and ''dharma'') be useful to attain the last goal, namely ''moksha''?"

Scholars<ref>see:
* Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Dharma and Moksha, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 7, No. 1/2 (Apr. – Jul., 1957), pp 41–48
* R Sinari (1982), The concept of human estrangement in plotinism and Shankara Vedanta, in "Neoplatonism and Indian thought", Ed: R.B. Harris, Albany, NY, pp 243–255
* R.K. Tripathi (1982), Advaita Vedanta and Neoplatonism, in "Neoplatonism and Indian thought", Ed: R.B. Harris, Albany, NY, pp 237; also see pp 294–297 by Albert Wolters</ref> suggest Shankara's challenge to the concept of ''moksha'' parallels those of [[Plotinus]] against the [[Gnosticism|Gnostics]], with one important difference:<ref name=dhhi47/> Plotinus accused the Gnostics of exchanging an [[anthropocentrism|anthropocentric]] set of [[virtue]]s with a [[Theocentricism|theocentric]] set in pursuit of [[salvation]]; Shankara challenged that the concept of ''moksha'' implied an exchange of anthropocentric set of virtues (''dharma'') with a blissful state that has no need for values. Shankara goes on to suggest that anthropocentric virtues suffice.