A History of Indian Philosophy Part 64

The notion of a jug does not require the notions of other things for its manifestation. Moreover, when I say the jug is different from the cloth, I never mean that difference is an ent.i.ty which is the same as the jug or the cloth; what I mean is that the difference of the cloth from the jug has its limits in the jug, and not merely that the notion of cloth has a reference to jug. This shows that difference cannot be the characteristic nature of the thing perceived.

Again, in the second alternative where difference of two

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things is defined as the absence of each thing in the other, we find that if difference in jug and cloth means that the jug is not in the cloth or that cloth is not in jug, then also the same difficulty arises; for when I say that the absence or negation of jug in the cloth is its difference from the jug, then also the residence of the absence of jug in the cloth would require that the jug also resides in the cloth, and this would reduce difference to ident.i.ty. If it is said that the absence of jug in the cloth is not a separate thing, but is rather the identical cloth itself, then also their difference as mutual exclusion cannot be explained. If this mutual negation (_anyonyabhava_) is explained as the mere absence of jugness in the cloth and of clothness in the jug, then also a difficulty arises; for there is no such quality in jugness or clothness that they may be mutually excluded; and there is no such quality in them that they can be treated as identical, and so when it is said that there is no jugness in cloth we might as well say that there is no clothness in cloth, for clothness and jugness are one and the same, and hence absence of jugness in the cloth would amount to the absence of clothness in the cloth which is self-contradictory. Taking again the third alternative we see that if difference means divergence of characteristics (_vaidharmya_), then the question arises whether the vaidharmya or divergence as existing in jug has such a divergence as can distinguish it from the divergence existing in the cloth; if the answer is in the affirmative then we require a series of endless vaidharmyas progressing _ad infinitum_. If the answer is in the negative then there being no divergence between the two divergences they become identical, and hence divergence of characteristics as such ceases to exist. If it is said that the natural forms of things are difference in themselves, for each of them excludes the other, then apart from the differences--the natural forms--the things are reduced to formlessness ([email protected]_). If natural forms (_svarupa_) mean special natural forms ([email protected]_) then as the special natural forms or characteristics only represent difference, the natural forms of the things as apart from the special ones would appear to be identical. So also it may be proved that there is no such quality as [email protected] (separateness) which can explain differences of things, for there also the questions would arise as to whether separateness exists in different things or similar ones or whether separateness is identical with the thing in which it exists or not, and so forth.

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The earliest beginnings of this method of subtle a.n.a.lysis and dialectic in Indian philosophy are found in the opening chapters of _Kathavatthu_. In the great [email protected]_ on [email protected] by Patanjali also we find some traces of it. But Nagarjuna was the man who took it up in right earnest and systematically cultivated it in all its subtle and abstruse issues and counter-issues in order to prove that everything that appeared as a fixed order or system was non-existent, for all were unspeakable, indescribable and self-contradictory, and thus everything being discarded there was only the void (_s'unya_). [email protected] partially utilized this method in his refutations of Nyaya and the Buddhist systems; but [email protected] again revived and developed it in a striking manner, and after having criticized the most important notions and concepts of our everyday life, which are often backed by the Nyaya system, sought to prove that nothing in the world can be defined, and that we cannot ascertain whether a thing is or is not. The refutations of all possible definitions that the Nyaya could give necessarily led to the conclusion that the things sought to be defined did not exist though they appeared to do so; the Vedantic contention was that this is exactly as it should be, for the indefinite ajnana produces only appearances which when exposed to reason show that no consistent notions of them can be formed, or in other words the world-appearance, the phenomena of maya or ajnana, are indefinable or anirvacaniya. This great work of [email protected] was followed by _Tattvadipika_ of Citsukha, in which he generally followed [email protected] and sometimes supplemented him with the addition of criticisms of certain new concepts. The method of Vedanta thus followed on one side the method of S'unyavada in annulling all the concepts of world-appearance and on the other Vijnanavada Buddhism in proving the self-illuminating character of knowledge and ultimately established the self as the only self-luminous ultimate reality.

The Theory of Causation.

The Vedanta philosophy looked at the constantly changing phenomena of the world-appearance and sought to discover the root whence proceeded the endless series of events and effects.

The theory that effects were altogether new productions caused by the invariable unconditional and immediately preceding antecedents, as well as the theory that it was the cause which evolved

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and by its transformations produced the effect, are considered insufficient to explain the problem which the Vednta had before it. Certain collocations invariably and unconditionally preceded certain effects, but this cannot explain how the previous set of phenomena could be regarded as producing the succeeding set.

In fact the concept of causation and production had in it something quite undefinable and inexplicable. Our enquiry after the cause is an enquiry after a more fundamental and primary form of the truth of a thing than what appears at the present moment when we wished to know what was the cause of the jug, what we sought was a simpler form of which the effect was only a more complex form of manifestation, what is the ground, the root, out of which the effect has come forth? If apart from such an enquiry we take the pictorial representation of the causal phenomena in which some collocations being invariably present at an antecedent point of time, the effect springs forth into being, we find that we are just where we were before, and are unable to penetrate into the logic of the affair. The Nyya definition of cause and effect may be of use to us in a general way in a.s.sociating certain groups of things of a particular kind with certain other phenomena happening at a succeeding moment as being relevant pairs of which one being present the other also has a probability of being present, but can do nothing more than this. It does not answer our question as to the nature of cause. Antecedence in time is regarded in this view as an indispensable condition for the cause. But time, according to Nyya, is one continuous ent.i.ty; succession of time can only be conceived as antecedence and consequence of phenomena, and these again involve succession; thus the notions of succession of time and of the antecedence and consequence of time being mutually dependent upon each other (_anyonyas'raya_) neither of these can be conceived independently. Another important condition is invariability. But what does that mean? If it means invariable antecedence, then even an a.s.s which is invariably present as an antecedent to the smoke rising from the washerman's house, must be regarded as the cause of the smoke [Footnote ref 1]. If it means such an antecedence as contributes to the happening of the effect, it becomes again difficult to understand anything about its contributing

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[Footnote 1: a.s.ses are used in carrying soiled linen in India. a.s.ses are always present when water is boiled for washing in the laundry.]

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to the effect, for the only intelligible thing is the antecedence and nothing more. If invariability means the existence of that at the presence of which the effect comes into being, then also it fails, for there may be the seed but no shoot, for the mere presence of the seed will not suffice to produce the effect, the shoot. If it is said that a cause can produce an effect only when it is a.s.sociated with its accessory factors, then also the question remains the same, for we have not understood what is meant by cause.

Again when the same effect is often seen to be produced by a plurality of causes, the cause cannot be defined as that which happening the effect happens and failing the effect fails. It cannot also be said that in spite of the plurality of causes, each particular cause is so a.s.sociated with its own particular kind of effect that from a special kind of cause we can without fail get a special kind of effect (cf. Vatsyayana and _Nyayamanjari_), for out of the same clay different effects come forth namely the jug, the plate, etc. Again if cause is defined as the collocation of factors, then the question arises as to what is meant by this collocation; does it mean the factors themselves or something else above them? On the former supposition the scattered factors being always present in the universe there should always be the effect; if it means something else above the specific factors, then that something always existing, there should always be the effect. Nor can collocation (_samagri_) be defined as the last movement of the causes immediately succeeding which the effect comes into being, for the relation of movement with the collocating cause is incomprehensible.

Moreover if movement is defined as that which produces the effect, the very conception of causation which was required to be proved is taken for granted. The idea of necessity involved in the causal conception that a cause is that which must produce its effect is also equally undefinable, inexplicable, and logically inconceivable. Thus in whatsoever way we may seek to find out the real nature of the causal principle from the interminable series of cause-effect phenomena we fail. All the characteristics of the effects are indescribable and indefinable ajnana of maya, and in whatever way we may try to conceive these phenomena in themselves or in relation to one another we fail, for they are all carved out of the indefinite and are illogical and illusory, and some day will vanish for ever. The true cause is thus the pure being, the reality which is unshakable in itself, the ground upon

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which all appearances being imposed they appear as real. The true cause is thus the unchangeable being which persists through all experience, and the effect-phenomena are but impositions upon it of ajnana or avidya. It is thus the clay, the permanent, that is regarded as the cause of all clay-phenomena as jug, plates, etc. All the various modes in which the clay appears are mere appearances, unreal, indefinable and so illusory. The one truth is the clay. So in all world-phenomena the one truth is being, the Brahman, and all the phenomena that are being imposed on it are but illusory forms and names. This is what is called the _satkaryavada_ or more properly the [email protected]_ of the Vedanta, that the cause alone is true and ever existing, and phenomena in themselves are false. There is only this much truth in them, that all are imposed on the reality or being which alone is true. This appearance of the one cause the being, as the unreal many of the phenomena is what is called the _vivarttavada_ as distinguished from the [email protected]@namavada_, in which the effect is regarded as the real development of the cause in its potential state. When the effect has a different kind of being from the cause it is called _vivartta_ but when the effect has the same kind of being as the cause it is called [email protected] ([email protected]@[email protected]@h [email protected]@h [email protected]@no [email protected]_ or [email protected] [email protected]@h [email protected]@h [email protected])_. Vedanta has as much to object against the Nyaya as against the [email protected] theory of causation of the [email protected]; for movement, development, form, potentiality, and actuality--all these are indefinable and inconceivable in the light of reason; they cannot explain causation but only restate things and phenomena as they appear in the world. In reality however though phenomena are not identical with the cause, they can never be defined except in terms of the cause (_Tadabhedam vinaiva [email protected] durvacam karyyam [email protected])_.

This being the relation of cause and effect or Brahman and the world, the different followers of [email protected] Vedanta in explaining the cause of the world-appearance sometimes lay stress on the maya, ajnana or avidya, sometimes on the Brahman, and sometimes on them both. Thus [email protected], the writer of [email protected]@sepa-s'ariraka_ and his followers think that the pure Brahman should be regarded as the causal substance (_upadana_) of the world-appearance, whereas Prakas'atman [email protected], and

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Madhava hold that Brahman in a.s.sociation with maya, i.e. the maya-reflected form of Brahman as is'vara should be regarded as the cause of the world-appearance. The world-appearance is an evolution or [email protected] of the maya as located in is'vara, whereas is'vara (G.o.d) is the vivartta causal matter. Others however make a distinction between maya as the cosmical factor of illusion and avidya as the manifestation of the same ent.i.ty in the individual or jiva. They hold that though the world-appearance may be said to be produced by the maya yet the mind etc. a.s.sociated with the individual are produced by the avidya with the jiva or the individual as the causal matter (_upadana_). Others hold that since it is the individual to whom both is'vara and the world-appearance are manifested, it is better rather to think that these are all manifestations of the jiva in a.s.sociation with his avidya or ajnana. Others however hold that since in the world-appearance we find in one aspect pure being and in another materiality etc., both Brahman and maya are to be regarded as the cause, Brahman as the permanent causal matter, upadana and maya as the ent.i.ty evolving in [email protected]

Vacaspati Mis'ra thinks that Brahman is the permanent cause of the world-appearance through maya as a.s.sociated with jiva.

Maya is thus only a sahakari or instrument as it were, by which the one Brahman appears in the eye of the jiva as the manifold world of appearance. Prakas'ananda holds however in his _Siddhanta Muktavali_ that Brahman itself is pure and absolutely unaffected even as illusory appearance, and is not even the causal matter of the world-appearance. Everything that we see in the phenomenal world, the whole field of world-appearance, is the product of maya, which is both the instrumental and the upadana (causal matter) of the world-illusion. But whatever these divergences of view may be, it is clear that they do not in any way affect the princ.i.p.al Vedanta text that the only unchangeable cause is the Brahman, whereas all else, the effect-phenomena, have only a temporary existence as indefinable illusion. The word maya was used in the @Rg-Veda in the sense of supernatural power and wonderful skill, and the idea of an inherent mystery underlying it was gradually emphasized in the Atharva Veda, and it began to be used in the sense of magic or illusion. In the [email protected]@nyaka, Pras'na, and Svetas'vatara [email protected] the word means magic. It is not out of place here to mention that in the older [email protected]

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the word maya occurs only once in the [email protected]@nyaka and once only in the Pras'na. In early Pali Buddhist writings it occurs only in the sense of deception or deceitful conduct. [email protected] uses it in the sense of magical power. In Nagarjuna and the _Lankavatara_ it has acquired the sense of illusion. In [email protected] the word maya is used in the sense of illusion, both as a principle of creation as a s'akti (power) or accessory cause, and as the phenomenal creation itself, as the illusion of world-appearance.

It may also be mentioned here that [email protected] the teacher of [email protected]'s teacher Govinda worked out a system with the help of the maya doctrine. The [email protected] are permeated with the spirit of an earnest enquiry after absolute truth. They do not pay any attention towards explaining the world-appearance or enquiring into its relations with absolute truth. [email protected] a.s.serts clearly and probably for the first time among Hindu thinkers, that the world does not exist in reality, that it is maya, and not reality.

When the highest truth is realized maya is not removed, for it is not a thing, but the whole world-illusion is dissolved into its own airy nothing never to recur again. It was [email protected] who compared the world-appearance with dream appearances, and held that objects seen in the waking world are unreal, because they are capable of being seen like objects seen in a dream, which are false and unreal. The atman says [email protected] is at once the cognizer and the cognized, the world subsists in the atman through maya.

As atman alone is real and all duality an illusion, it necessarily follows that all experience is also illusory. [email protected] expounded this doctrine in his elaborate commentaries on the [email protected] and the Brahma-sutra, but he seems to me to have done little more than making explicit the doctrine of maya. Some of his followers however examined and thought over the concept of maya and brought out in bold relief its character as the indefinable thereby substantially contributing to the development of the Vedanta philosophy.

Vedanta theory of Perception and Inference [Footnote ref 1].

[email protected] is the means that leads to right knowledge. If memory is intended to be excluded from the definition then

[Footnote 1: Dharmarajadhvarindra and his son [email protected]@[email protected] worked out a complete scheme of the theory of Vedantic perception and inference.

This is in complete agreement with the general Vedanta metaphysics.

The early Vedantists were more interested in demonstrating the illusory nature of the world of appearance, and did not work out a logical theory.

It may be incidentally mentioned that in the theory of inference as worked out by Dharmarajadhvarindra he was largely indebted to the [email protected] school of thought. In recognizing arthapatti, upamana s'abda and anupalabdhi also Dharmarajadhvarindra accepted the [email protected] view. The Vedantins, previous to Dharmarajadhvarindra, had also tacitly followed the [email protected] in these matters.]

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[email protected] is to be defined as the means that leads to such right knowledge as has not already been acquired. Right knowledge (_prama_) in Vedanta is the knowledge of an object which has not been found contradicted ([email protected]_). Except when specially expressed otherwise, prama is generally considered as being excludent of memory and applies to previously unacquired (_anadhigata_) and uncontradicted knowledge. Objections are sometimes raised that when we are looking at a thing for a few minutes, the perception of the thing in all the successive moments after the first refers to the image of the thing acquired in the previous moments. To this the reply is that the Vedanta considers that so long as a different mental state does not arise, any mental state is not to be considered as momentary but as remaining ever the same. So long as we continue to perceive one thing there is no reason to suppose that there has been a series of mental states. So there is no question as to the knowledge of the succeeding moments being referred to the knowledge of the preceding moments, for so long as any mental state has any one thing for its object it is to be considered as having remained unchanged all through the series of moments.

There is of course this difference between the same percept of a previous and a later moment following in succession, that fresh elements of time are being perceived as prior and later, though the content of the mental state so far as the object is concerned remains unchanged. This time element is perceived by the senses though the content of the mental state may remain undisturbed.

When I see the same book for two seconds, my mental state representing the book is not changed every second, and hence there can be no _such supposition_ that I am having separate mental states in succession each of which is a repet.i.tion of the previous one, for so long as the general content of the mental state remains the same there is no reason for supposing that there has been any change in the mental state. The mental state thus remains the same so long as the content is not changed, but though it remains the same it can note the change in the time elements as extraneous

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addition. All our uncontradicted knowledge of the objects of the external world should be regarded as right knowledge until the absolute is realized.

When the [email protected]@na (mind) comes in contact with the external objects through the senses and becomes transformed as it were into their forms, it is said that the [email protected]@na has been transformed into a state ([email protected]_) [Footnote 1]. As soon as the [email protected]@na has a.s.sumed the shape or form of the object of its knowledge, the ignorance (_ajnana_) with reference to that object is removed, and thereupon the steady light of the pure consciousness (_cit_) shows the object which was so long hidden by ignorance. The appearance or the perception of an object is thus the self-shining of the cit through a [email protected] of a form resembling an object of knowledge. This therefore pre-supposes that by the action of ajnana, pure consciousness or being is in a state of diverse kinds of modifications. In spite of the cit underlying all this diversified objective world which is but the transformation of ignorance (ajnana), the former cannot manifest itself by itself, for the creations being of ignorance they are but sustained by modifications of ignorance. The diversified objects of the world are but transformations of the principle of ajnana which is neither real nor unreal. It is the nature of ajnana that it veils its own creations. Thus on each of the objects created by the ajnana by its creating ([email protected]_) capacity there is a veil by its veiling ([email protected]) capacity.

But when any object comes in direct touch with [email protected]@na through the senses the [email protected]@na becomes transformed into the form of the object, and this leads to the removal of the veil on that particular ajnana form--the object, and as the self-shining cit is shining through the particular ajnana state, we have what is called the perception of the thing. Though there is in reality no such distinction as the inner and the outer yet the ajnana has created such illusory distinctions as individual souls and the external world of objects the distinctions of time, s.p.a.ce,

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[Footnote 1: Vedanta does not regard manas (mind) as a sense (indriya). The same [email protected]@na, according to its diverse functions, is called manas, buddhi, [email protected], and citta. In its functions as doubt it is called manas, as originating definite cognitions it is called buddhi. As presenting the notion of an ego in consciousness [email protected], and as producing memory citta. These four represent the different modifications or states ([email protected]) of the same ent.i.ty (which in itself is but a special kind of modification of ajnana as [email protected]@na).]

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etc. and veiled these forms. Perception leads to the temporary and the partial breaking of the veil over specific ajnana forms so that there is a temporary union of the cit as underlying the subject and the object through the broken veil. Perception on the subjective side is thus defined as the union or undifferentiation (_abheda_) of the subjective consciousness with the objective consciousness comprehending the sensible objects through the specific mental states ([email protected] [email protected] tattadams'e [email protected]_).

This union in perception means that the objective has at that moment no separate existence from the subjective consciousness of the perceiver. The consciousness manifesting through the [email protected]@na is called [email protected]

Inference (_anumana_), according to Vedanta, is made by our notion of concomitance (_vyaptijnana_) between two things, acting through specific past impressions ([email protected]