A History of Indian Philosophy Part 8

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[Footnote 1: Cha. III. 14. 4.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._ VII. 25. i; also [email protected]@daka II. 2. ii.]

[Footnote 3: Cha. VI. 10.]

[Footnote 4: Deussen's translation in _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, p.

164.]

[Footnote 5: [email protected] III. 8. i.]

[Footnote 6: S'vetas'vatara IV. 6, and [email protected]@daka III. i, 1, also Deussen's translation in _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, p. 177.]

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But in spite of this apparent theistic tendency and the occasional use of the word _is'a_ or _is'ana_, there seems to be no doubt that theism in its true sense was never prominent, and this acknowledgement of a supreme Lord was also an offshoot of the exalted position of the atman as the supreme principle. Thus we read in [email protected] [email protected] 3. 9, "He is not great by good deeds nor low by evil deeds, but it is he makes one do good deeds whom he wants to raise, and makes him commit bad deeds whom he wants to lower down. He is the protector of the universe, he is the master of the world and the lord of all; he is my soul (_atman_)."

Thus the lord in spite of his greatness is still my soul. There are again other pa.s.sages which regard Brahman as being at once immanent and transcendent. Thus it is said that there is that eternally existing tree whose roots grow upward and whose branches grow downward. All the universes are supported in it and no one can transcend it. This is that, "...from its fear the fire burns, the sun shines, and from its fear Indra, Vayu and Death the fifth (with the other two) run on [Footnote ref 1]."

If we overlook the different shades in the development of the conception of Brahman in the [email protected] and look to the main currents, we find that the strongest current of thought which has found expression in the majority of the texts is this that the atman or the Brahman is the only reality and that besides this everything else is unreal. The other current of thought which is to be found in many of the texts is the pantheistic creed that identifies the universe with the atman or Brahman. The third current is that of theism which looks upon Brahman as the Lord controlling the world. It is because these ideas were still in the melting pot, in which none of them were systematically worked out, that the later exponents of Vedanta, [email protected], Ramanuja, and others quarrelled over the meanings of texts in order to develop a consistent systematic philosophy out of them. Thus it is that the doctrine of Maya which is slightly hinted at once in [email protected]@nyaka and thrice in S'vetas'vatara, becomes the foundation of [email protected]'s philosophy of the Vedanta in which Brahman alone is real and all else beside him is unreal [Footnote ref 2].

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[Footnote 1: [email protected] II. 6. 1 and 3.]

[Footnote 2: [email protected] II. 5. 19, S'vet. I. 10, IV. 9, 10.]

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The World.

We have already seen that the universe has come out of Brahman, has its essence in Brahman, and will also return back to it. But in spite of its existence as Brahman its character as represented to experience could not be denied. [email protected] held that the [email protected] referred to the external world and accorded a reality to it consciously with the purpose of treating it as merely relatively real, which will eventually appear as unreal as soon as the ultimate truth, the Brahman, is known. This however remains to be modified to this extent that the sages had not probably any conscious purpose of according a relative reality to the phenomenal world, but in spite of regarding Brahman as the highest reality they could not ignore the claims of the exterior world, and had to accord a reality to it. The inconsistency of this reality of the phenomenal world with the ultimate and only reality of Brahman was attempted to be reconciled by holding that this world is not beside him but it has come out of him, it is maintained in him and it will return back to him.

The world is sometimes spoken of in its twofold aspect, the organic and the inorganic. All organic things, whether plants, animals or men, have souls [Footnote ref 1]. Brahman desiring to be many created fire (_tejas_), water (_ap_) and earth ([email protected]_). Then the self-existent Brahman entered into these three, and it is by their combination that all other bodies are formed [Footnote ref 2]. So all other things are produced as a result of an alloying or compounding of the parts of these three together. In this theory of the threefold division of the primitive elements lies the earliest germ of the later distinction (especially in the [email protected] school) of pure infinitesimal substances (_tanmatra_) and gross elements, and the theory that each gross substance is composed of the atoms of the primary elements. And in Pras'na IV. 8 we find the gross elements distinguished from their subtler natures, e.g. earth ([email protected]_), and the subtler state of earth ([email protected]_). In the Taittiriya, II. 1, however, ether (_akas'a_) is also described as proceeding from Brahman, and the other elements, air, fire, water, and earth, are described as each proceeding directly from the one which directly preceded it.

[Footnote 1: Cha. VI.11.]

[Footnote 2: _ibid._ VI.2,3,4.]

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The World-Soul.

The conception of a world-soul related to the universe as the soul of man to his body is found for the first time in R.V.X. 121. I, where he is said to have sprung forth as the firstborn of creation from the primeval waters. This being has twice been referred to in the S'vetas'vatara, in III. 4 and IV. 12. It is indeed very strange that this being is not referred to in any of the earlier [email protected]

In the two pa.s.sages in which he has been spoken of, his mythical character is apparent. He is regarded as one of the earlier products in the process of cosmic creation, but his importance from the point of view of the development of the theory of Brahman or atman is almost nothing. The fact that neither the [email protected], nor the Vis'vakarma, nor the [email protected] played an important part in the earlier development of the [email protected] leads me to think that the [email protected] doctrines were not directly developed from the monotheistic tendencies of the later @Rg-Veda speculations. The pa.s.sages in S'vetas'vatara clearly show how from the supreme eminence that he had in R.V.X. 121, [email protected] had been brought to the level of one of the created beings. Deussen in explaining the philosophical significance of the [email protected] doctrine of the [email protected] says that the "entire objective universe is possible only in so far as it is sustained by a knowing subject. This subject as a sustainer of the objective universe is manifested in all individual objects but is by no means identical with them. For the individual objects pa.s.s away but the objective universe continues to exist without them; there exists therefore the eternal knowing subject also ([email protected]_) by whom it is sustained.

s.p.a.ce and time are derived from this subject. It is itself accordingly not in s.p.a.ce and does not belong to time, and therefore from an empirical point of view it is in general non-existent; it has no empirical but only a metaphysical reality [Footnote ref 1]." This however seems to me to be wholly irrelevant, since the [email protected] doctrine cannot be supposed to have any philosophical importance in the [email protected]

The Theory of Causation.

There was practically no systematic theory of causation in the [email protected] [email protected], the later exponent of Vedanta philosophy, always tried to show that the [email protected] looked upon the cause

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[Footnote 1: Deussen's _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, p. 201.]

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as mere ground of change which though unchanged in itself in reality had only an appearance of suffering change. This he did on the strength of a series of examples in the Chandogya [email protected] (VI. 1) in which the material cause, e.g. the clay, is spoken of as the only reality in all its transformations as the pot, the jug or the plate. It is said that though there are so many diversities of appearance that one is called the plate, the other the pot, and the other the jug, yet these are only empty distinctions of name and form, for the only thing real in them is the earth which in its essence remains ever the same whether you call it the pot, plate, or Jug. So it is that the ultimate cause, the unchangeable Brahman, remains ever constant, though it may appear to suffer change as the manifold world outside. This world is thus only an unsubstantial appearance, a mirage imposed upon Brahman, the real _par excellence_.

It seems however that though such a view may be regarded as having been expounded in the [email protected] in an imperfect manner, there is also side by side the other view which looks upon the effect as the product of a real change wrought in the cause itself through the action and combination of the elements of diversity in it. Thus when the different objects of nature have been spoken of in one place as the product of the combination of the three elements fire, water and earth, the effect signifies a real change produced by their compounding. This is in germ (as we shall see hereafter) the [email protected] theory of causation advocated by the [email protected] school [Footnote ref 1].

Doctrine of Transmigration.

When the Vedic people witnessed the burning of a dead body they supposed that the eye of the man went to the sun, his breath to the wind, his speech to the fire, his limbs to the different parts of the universe. They also believed as we have already seen in the recompense of good and bad actions in worlds other than our own, and though we hear of such things as the pa.s.sage of the human soul into trees, etc., the tendency towards transmigration had but little developed at the time.

In the [email protected] however we find a clear development in the direction of transmigration in two distinct stages. In the one the Vedic idea of a recompense in the other world is combined with

[Footnote 1: Cha. VI. 2-4.]

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the doctrine of transmigration, whereas in the other the doctrine of transmigration comes to the forefront in supersession of the idea of a recompense in the other world. Thus it is said that those who performed charitable deeds or such public works as the digging of wells, etc., follow after death the way of the fathers ([email protected]_), in which the soul after death enters first into smoke, then into night, the dark half of the month, etc., and at last reaches the moon; after a residence there as long as the remnant of his good deeds remains he descends again through ether, wind, smoke, mist, cloud, rain, herbage, food and seed, and through the a.s.similation of food by man he enters the womb of the mother and is born again. Here we see that the soul had not only a recompense in the world of the moon, but was re-born again in this world [Footnote ref 1].

The other way is the way of G.o.ds (_devayana_), meant for those who cultivate faith and asceticism (_tapas_). These souls at death enter successively into flame, day, bright half of the month, bright half of the year, sun, moon, lightning, and then finally into Brahman never to return. Deussen says that "the meaning of the whole is that the soul on the way of the G.o.ds reaches regions of ever-increasing light, in which is concentrated all that is bright and radiant as stations on the way to Brahman the 'light of lights'" ([email protected]@m [email protected]_) [Footnote ref 2].

The other line of thought is a direct reference to the doctrine of transmigration unmixed with the idea of reaping the fruits of his deeds (_karma_) by pa.s.sing through the other worlds and without reference to the doctrine of the ways of the fathers and G.o.ds, the _Yanas_. Thus Yajnavalkya says, "when the soul becomes weak (apparent weakness owing to the weakness of the body with which it is a.s.sociated) and falls into a swoon as it were, these senses go towards it. It (Soul) takes these light particles within itself and centres itself only in the heart. Thus when the person in the eye turns back, then the soul cannot know colour; (the senses) become one (with him); (people about him) say he does not see; (the senses) become one (with him), he does not smell, (the senses) become one (with him), he does not taste, (the senses) become one (with him), he does not speak, (the senses) become one (with him), he does not hear, (the senses) become one (with him), he does not think, (the senses) become one with him, he does not touch, (the senses) become one with him, he does not know, they say. The

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[Footnote 1: Cha. V. 10.]

[Footnote 2: Deussen's _Philosophy of the Upanishads_, p. 335.]

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tip of his heart shines and by that shining this soul goes out.

When he goes out either through the eye, the head, or by any other part of the body, the vital function ([email protected]_) follows and all the senses follow the vital function ([email protected]_) in coming out. He is then with determinate consciousness and as such he comes out. Knowledge, the deeds as well as previous experience (_prajna_) accompany him. Just as a caterpillar going to the end of a blade of gra.s.s, by undertaking a separate movement collects itself, so this self after destroying this body, removing ignorance, by a separate movement collects itself. Just as a goldsmith taking a small bit of gold, gives to it a newer and fairer form, so the soul after destroying this body and removing ignorance fashions a newer and fairer form as of the [email protected], the Gandharvas, the G.o.ds, of Praj.a.pati or Brahma or of any other being....As he acts and behaves so he becomes, good by good deeds, bad by bad deeds, virtuous by virtuous deeds and vicious by vice. The man is full of desires. As he desires so he wills, as he wills so he works, as the work is done so it happens. There is also a verse, being attached to that he wants to gain by karma that to which he was attached. Having reaped the full fruit (lit. gone to the end) of the karma that he does here, he returns back to this world for doing karma [Footnote ref 1]. So it is the case with those who have desires. He who has no desires, who had no desires, who has freed himself from all desires, is satisfied in his desires and in himself, his senses do not go out. He being Brahma attains Brahmahood. Thus the verse says, when all the desires that are in his heart are got rid of, the mortal becomes immortal and attains Brahma here" ([email protected] IV. iv. 1-7).

A close consideration of the above pa.s.sage shows that the self itself destroyed the body and built up a newer and fairer frame by its own activity when it reached the end of the present life. At the time of death, the self collected within itself all senses and faculties and after death all its previous knowledge, work and experience accompanied him. The falling off of the body at the time of death is only for the building of a newer body either in this world or in the other worlds. The self which thus takes rebirth is regarded as an aggregation of diverse categories.