Indian
Philosphy
by
Brahmasrii
Dr K C Varadachari
RECONSTRUCTION IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy in India
has a heritage much longer and perhaps profounder than elsewhere. The several
trends of philosophy such as the darsanas, both astika and nastika have had a
long interplay so as to leave us with no pure philosophic system to-day.
Whatever darsanas today operate as independent darsanas reveal one significant
fact, namely they appear to be abstractions. The consideration of the extant
sutras of each darsana reveals the appalling picture of ‘cold storage’ of the
darsanas other than two: namely materialism (carvaka) and Vedanta.
The basic problem of philosophy to which all philosophical thinking has
been directed has been the problem of freedom which was recognized as more
fundamental in a sense than the problem of reality. Reality and Freedom are the
twin fundamentals of COMPLETE WORKS OF DR K.C.VARADACHARI – VOL10
Philosophic exploration and attainment. Thus
the essential concept of Indian Philosophical thinking (including the
hedonistic freedom of the Carvaka) has been Reality-Freedom, (or expressed in the
modern language, essential axiological nature of truth. Truth is something not
merely to be known but something to be lived and entered into.
This being the general nature of Indian Philosophical tradition, any
attempt to separate the two spheres as western Philosophy has been trying to do
is foredoomed to failure. Psychologically as well as humanly it is impossible
to speak of a reality that is static and is claimed to be dynamic only in the
sense of static dynamism of the mechanical view of life.
The mechanistic concept of materialism is unhelpful in solving the problem
of freedom. The biological concept of reality is equally helpless though it
also reveals some type of freedom only one step removed from mechanistic
activity, for there is always a tendency of biological activity to settle down
to mechanistic activity. It has been found that even mental activities tend to
develop mechanistic tropisms
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in the field of thought both individual and
social. Stereotyped behaviour is the contradiction of freedom though it is most
valuable for the fixed patterns of activity.
The search for freedom obviously defeats itself at each one of the levels.
Like Indra in the great discourse of the Chandogya Up. (8.vii.xv) one discovers
that each level though gained through freedom becomes in its turn a bar to
higher progress. Thus the attainment of absolute freedom is identical with the
attainment of that Reality which does no longer bar a continual progress or experience
of liberty – these two being realize to be synonymous.
This seems to be the ancient realization in India revealed in the twin concepts
of Moksa and Reality which are integral to each other.
Our present problem is whether this knowledge is indeed helpful to us at
present. There is no doubt that somehow the mechanical or mechanistic
conception of reality has caught the imagination of the mass of the people.
This is not surprising at all because
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other factors such as economic security and
industrial potential and possibility of economical and social meliorisms
through the instrumentality of scientific inventions have changed the attitude
towards the problems of Reality and Value. Indeed even this is clearly seen to
be linked up with the concept of freedom. It is freedom that is determining the
concept of reality and concept of value. Thus it is through the concept of
Freedom that we could link up the two great adventures of Reality-Value and
Scientifico-Economic-Value. This could be but the reformulation of the ancient
dualism of Mukti-purushartha and Kamyartha Purushartha. This duality has the
double power of integration and disintegration – the dialectical opposition
being the lower integration whereas dialectical subsumption through law is the
power of higher integration.
Reconstructions:- Reconstruction can proceed either from the stand-point of
the materialistic mechanistic end or from the idealistic freedom conserving and
promoting end.
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Of course to-day we are confronted with the
double reconstruction. This is something that cannot be helped, for Philosophy
aims at a comprehensive understanding of the totality of Reality, however
variegated Reality may be in itself.
The spiritual attitude is the experience of the axiological status of
Reality as Freedom. The materialistic attitude is equally an axiological one
but it is freedom of the materialistic hedonistic life. The concepts of Iha and
Para illustrate the double synthesis that is being sought, through a two
fold realization of the value of Reality.
We claim that the goal of Philosophy is the attainment of a consistent
explanation of Reality taken as a Whole or Unit. All Vedantas are but
formulations of the Nature of Reality. It would be fundamentally wrong to say
that there has never been any reconstruction or reformulation, nor need there
be any reformulation or reconstruction.
In the fields of Sastras – ethical and social dynamics – we have evidence
of continuous
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reformulations of the ethical codes and even
practices. These have not always been in the direction of a superior of
morality of freedom – more often they have been dictated by the secular needs
of adjustment for survival or the recognition of the imperfection of man or
rather his inability to pursue the ‘nisus’ of the spiritual.
In Philosophy too, the metaphysical problem unfortunately has been diverted
to one of Monism or Absolutism, and Advaita has been exalted to the status of
the highest – the other formulations being considered to be the compromises
with the imperfect. This necessarily does not follow. The problem of Reality is
not the problem of pragmatism. This has been clearly seen by the Vedantic
thinkers who have claimed that the other schools of Vedanta have as consistent
an account of Reality as any absolutistic view can be – especially when such
absolutism is fused with Illusionisms and phenomenalisms.
Philosophy itself has had to turn critical about its own instruments of
knowledge. This critical turn is indeed the standing point of pramana-sastra.
The fixing of the limits of each pramana, is the preliminary feature
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of philosophical thinking; a training in them
is the condition of all types of knowledge. The relatively present and
postulated in respect of the knowledge granted by these different pramanas is
not to be taken as affecting the validity of their synthesis a fatal fallacy of
the illusionist view being precisely this assertion that truths of the
perceptual order are relative truths. Once we grant that they are true within
limits, nothing should later be done to deny them that too. Some philosophers
have realized this but others have forgotten this healthy restraint in their
generalization of illusion. That is the reason why enthusiastic assertions of
the discoverers of the Intuitive Experience have been met by equal vehemence
from the methodological realists, who consider that Reality though One is
composite of all types of realities, hierarchically arranged and integrated to
form a single system directed by the Highest Spirits and maintained and
sustained by that Spirit.
The conflicts between the pramanas – and therefore between the premeyas –
is referred to the nature of the pramanas themselves – intellect versus
intuition, intellect versus perception and perception versus intuition, and
intuition versus revelations etc.
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The history of Indian Philosophy is a series
of movements of thought seeking different formulations if not solutions to the
problem of Metaphysics on the one hand and life on the other. Considered in
this way it would be possible to reconstruct our entire conception of reality
not independent of experience – experience being part and parcel of that
reality – but as exhibiting itself in and through the different levels of
experience.
It is impossible to accept the view that the last word has been uttered by
ancient Philosophy in India and no more attempts are possible. This view is
shared by two classes of thinkers; (i) that Absolutistic Mayavada which
considers that Reality being beyond change and all predication not of course
limited to the rational approach alone but all approach in the sense that our
human reason cannot go beyond and cannot therefore formulate a different type
of metaphysical theory than the Identity-view. To this school obviously
Professor G.S. Malkani belongs; and (ii) the Dualistic Absolutism of the
Dvaita-vada which again considers that no other formulation could justifiably
or competently or possibly regulate the unity of the dualistic principles
experienced and distinguished as such by all. To this
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school belongs Dr. R. Nagaraja Sarma. The
latter writer concedes that a third formulation is possible but is inconsistent
metaphysics, such possibilities may indeed be many but not consistent
metaphysics. This too is the attitude of the intellectual Reason that revels in
a sort of dialectical dualism having its incentive in difference. According to
both these classes the tendency to philosophize then at the present movement
which is obviously incurable though not a disease is wrong. All that we need to
do is to make efforts to realize or experience or abide by the reality given to
us by the great teachers of Vedanta (Advaita or Dvaita). Sadhana is necessary,
that is all, for we have understood our philosophy. This sounds rather very
much like that advice which Karl Marx gave to the diligent Lenin who had
mastered Marxism, who had asked him as to what next ‘Struggle’ was the advice.
Sadhana is the advice here. We should very much incline to this solution even at
the cost of philosophy. But here comes the rub.
We have seen that Sadhana involves self-formulations however guided and
helped and canalized by the Sadhya:(the goal) and these self-formulations
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discover the planes and purposes of the
different facets of the one indivisible Reality. Philosophizing and Sadhana
cannot be compartmentalized and rigidly fixed to theoretical and the practical
spheres of Reality. It is precisely this phenomenon that we witness in the
lives of the saints as well as Philosophers; their theory and practice weave a
seamless garment.
Sadhana indeed helps reorientation or reconstruction. Ages of speculative
activity are succeeded by ages of spiritual activity and practical
reconstruction of spiritual and economic life depends on this two-fold
continuity of processes.
Whether we like it or not there is going on reconstruction of a kind in the
field of philosophical speculation. The only question then is this
philosophical speculation something subordinate to a priori concepts or
regulated by the infinite process of subjective experiences, however universal
or uniform they may be finally apprehended to be?
The reconstruction of experience has become necessary not only because of
its inevitability, thanks to
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the constant impact of the two worlds or
planes of the theoretical and the practical or ideal and the actual or Jnana
and Karma (dharma), but also because no concept however eminent can just
stand unmodified or unmodifiably during history.
We can show how our concepts (our words) have undergone transformations in
connotation and as well as denotation. We could have several papers of research
on the several crucial concepts or words used in philosophy such as Maya,
Avidya Karma, Sesa, Visesa, vijnana and so on. Our basic concepts of mind,
(manas), atman, prakrti etc., also have undergone serious changes or evolution.
Indeed the two dominant terms in evolution such as pravrtti and nivrtti have
developed a history of their own. Indeed as Dr. Alfred North Whitehead had
stated, echoing the words of Wallace: “The use of Philosophy is to maintain an
active novelty of fundamental ideas illuminating a social system. Philosophy is
mystical for mysticism is direct insight into depths as yet unknown. But the
purpose of philosophy is to rationalize mysticism not by explaining it away but
by introduction of novel verbal characteristics rationally coordinated”. But
this is not
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all. It is impossible to introduce novel
verbal characteristics just for the sake of introducing novelty in order to
attract individuals to a new jargon. It is precisely because it is not easy to
do so without what we call experience that is basic and real that we recognize
a new philosophy as a New System when we recognize that experience.
The charge that such reconstructions with new verbal characteristics could
be either old wine in new bottles or self-delusive cannot be avoided in all
those cases where there is new insight into reality – a new vision of reality
or the perception of a new factor in reality.
For the large mass of mankind insensitive to any new development, trying to
adapt the world to their old fangled notions or struggling to adapt to the new
world, it is perhaps unnecessary to toy with the idea of philosophies. But we
now are witnessing quite a new tempo of human activity and this is universal
and inevitable. The shape of the development of the mind has now become such
that it is uncomfortable except
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when it becomes aware of the larger
challenges. We cannot dismiss the problem of Reality as the Unreal.
We may yet take our inspiration from the ancient Seer who spoke about the
practice of togetherness of contraries (opposites) – vidyan cavidyanca yas tad
vedo ubhayam saha: or sambhutimca vinasamca yas tad vedo ubhayam saha – and
follow up our spiritual philosophic endeavour.
This will lead to the real Reconstruction of Indian Philosophy.
Has this been attempted? Has this been successful?
These two questions are to us very important.
The writers to the volume entitled Contemporary Indian Philosophy edited by
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan show us one way by which they had reinterpreted to
themselves the philosophies of Ancient India mainly the Vedanta. This
reinterpretation though made by the Indian mind was in the main through the
western medium of intellectual philosophy. These philosophies
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are in a profound sense impact–philosophies
rather than integrative philosophies which draw their sustenance if not
inspiration from the depths of inner spiritually – the depths of spiritual
freedom sought and chosen as such.
This ‘impact-conscious philosophies’ hardly arrive at a true integral
apprehension and thought or what Sri Aurobindo calls the Real Idea of Reality.
The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo can be said to have taken its stand on what
we may call the integral realization of the Reality in all its planes of
expression and experience. It may well be experienced in a single pulse of
Spiritual Anubhava. It is the experience that has been prophesied and
inculcated by the Vedic Seer and more. It is not merely a restatement but a
reconstruction of the ancient unity of experience of the One-Many, Changeless –
Change, Process and Progress and Purpose, Individual – Universal, and Social,
Nirguna and Saguna, Personal and Impersonal, Ethical and the Supraethical, and
so on.
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The integralism of Sri Aurobindo reveals an
insight into the integral Nature of Reality as Existence, as Intelligence and
as Delight. It is possible to show that Sri Aurobindo’s reconstructive insight
is richer and profounder than the best of he modern Eastern and the Western
thinkers. Indeed it may well be clear to any one that all the past is conserved
and transformed in the context of the Integral Philosophy. Dr. S.K. Maitra (of
the Benares Hindu University) had indeed demonstrated the advances and
modifications made in the several concepts of Western philosophy by Sri
Aurobindo and how it shows the universalism of Sri Aurobindo’s thought. It may
be possible to show this to be the case with regard to the darsanas (both
astika and nastika) too.
Similarly we could clearly see that certain lines of thinking have been
advanced by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. The merit of Sri Aurobindo’s approach is that
this insight is claimed to be derived from the dynamic status of the Supermind.
This transcendental concept of evolutionary power and plenitude is lacking in
the others, for this power is granted in a transmutive sense to the Ultimate
Spirit or Person in the other and earlier
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philosophies and sadhanas. Prof. Malkani
apparently holds that there is no need to assume the Supermind, as the Absolute
Spirit or intellectual intuition is enough to explain transcendence,
Intellectual intuition is a hybrid however, since it cannot dispense with the
two fold forms of Reality as noumenal and phenomenal.
It would not be correct to create a fundamental dichotomy between intellect
and intuition merely because the intellect has taken the route of analysis and
the principle of contradiction and has later attempted the synthesis on the
basis of dialectic. This is of course inherently a vicious process or as the
ancient Indian thought has stated it is intellect that operates on the basic
structure of avidya. It is perhaps the greatest merit of Aurobindonian analysis
of the human mind to show up this nature as the biological or evolutionary
result rather than a fundamental function of the intellect when it operates
from the structure of the Supermind. This is definitely to assert that the
future of Philosophy lies not in the annihilation of Intellect (and its
fulgurative functions – prapancikarana or nisprapancikarana) but
its transformation as the instrument of the Supermind.
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It is necessary to emphasize this aspect of
the future possibility. The position taken by the exponents of the opposition
between intellect and intuition is that philosophy is the attempt to explain
reality in terms of the intellect and its accidental mode of finite
intelligibility through the logic of the principle of contradiction, coherence
and so on. The metaphysics of finite logic has been found to lead one no where.
It is a dragon that slays the action, the creative being. It is necessary to instruct
intellect with the logic of the Infinite – the Real – the thing-in-itself –
which is grasped undoubtedly by the knowledge of the transcendental Saccidananda.
But where many see the end of philosophy, (indeed this is said to be the
highest of Experience) we have to see the beginnings of a new philosophy
reconstructed by the intellect now laden with the logic of the Infinite.
Indeed it was suggested by me several years ago at this Congress in 1947
that what we need is the spirit of philosophizing proceeding from the logic of
the Infinite to evaluate and understand the darsanas from the point of view
from which they were formulated (namely, the supramental). This mode of
evaluation
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seems to have been lost sight of and finally
abandoned by most or all of the commentators of the darsanas, who have left us
expositions based on the logic of the finite ostensibly for the purpose of
intelligibility to the finite pragmatic mind. It is necessary to reconstruct the
darsanas too in the light of the supramental logic of the Infinite.
It must have been some thing of a clear insight into this status of the
Intellect that was at the back of the exposition of its nature by Rene Guenon,
the French Orientalist, in his Study of the Hindu doctrines (p 41). In
India also the word Buddhi as vijnana is essentially different from the mental
for its activity is a liberating one; it reflects the Eternal and the Infinite’
and goes beyond the limiting and dichotomizing principle of contradiction.
Therefore it is clear that we are today in a position to undertake a
careful reconstruction of the Indian Philosophical schools or Indian Philosophy
itself that is based on the Logic of the Infinite and the Infinite Experience.
Though Vedanta may well claim that all has been said theoretically about the
matter, it would
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yet be necessary to attain the Being that is
creative Eternity.
Not merely has Knowledge not come to an end with Being but it is itself
Being that is the creative Infinite. This is the inner dynamics of the
Supermind. Philosophy in this New Key is yet to be fully articulated.
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BUDDHISM AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE INDIAN SYSTEMS ABROAD
I
What is it that made Buddhism possible in India? Could it be held that it
was a reaction against the Vedic Upanishad cults that prevailed? Is it a new
way of life and a new philosophy that helped the resurgence of the miserable
man of the period? Is it only an ethical doctrine since it speaks of dharma as
the path of ascent and wayfaring in this world? Several answers have been
given.
Our modern interest in India should be traced not
so much to the resurgence of the Buddha spirit in our people. It is of course
not the first time that Buddhism appealed to the people of India. Like other
views of life (darsanas), Buddhism reveals the basic fundamental aim of man to
see life from the point of view of world misery and points out that the way to
freedom from COMPLETE WORKS OF DR K.C.VARADACHARI
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
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