Indian
Philosphy
by
Brahmasrii
Dr K C Varadachari
The
principle of Bhara-nyasa on the other hand is more integral, and direct
approach and is the easiest and safest path. But even here we may ask whether
and if so how the divine avoids the transference of Karma to Himself or abolish
it. The divine is supremely pure, sukram, akayam, avranam, apahatapapmanam, one
who immediately destroys the papa or sin of whomsoever he comes into
contact with and so of the bhara transferred to Him. It is perhaps to show this
immediate destruction of the sins, the Arcavatar of
Srinivasa on the Hills has an incurable hurt on the chin1, which
is daily filled in with medicated camphor. The Lord shows the daily acceptance
of burden and the transference of the sickness and diseases of His devotees on
to Himself and how He annihilates them. The Lord is praised as the Ausadha, The
absolute cure of all diseases and karmas; it is well known that those who visit
Tirupati get cured of diseases.
1 The story in the Venkatesa Mahatyam is that
God prevented the axe-blow from falling on the Cow by receiving it on Himself,
a very suggestive Bhara-grahana act of Sri Venkatachala Mahatyam: Bhavisya U.P.
Ch. 3
VENGADAM
Srinivasa
is known more as Vengadavan or Vengadanatha. The term Vengadam refers to the
Hills. Vengadam is explained in the traditional commentary on the Tiruvaymoli
(III iii.6) Idu. as comprising vem and kata. Kata means
the triple rnas or debts and Vem means that which removes these three debts to
rishis, devas and pitris. A visit to Vengadam accordingly secures the complete
repayment of debts and one is thereafter free from debts. Debts have been at
all times held by Hindus to be oppressive and difficult to repay. This meaning
of course does not get any sanction from any other source. Apparently the term
is Sanskrit but Tamilised. And we do not get this meaning from the term Venkata
in Sanskrit. In Sankrit the term Kata means excess. It is used along
with aksa in kataksa: grace-glance. Kata thus means grace.
Ven is the word that denotes worshippability. It means: to recognize, to
reflect, to praise or worship (cf. A.Fick’s Worterbuch
Indo-Germaniscen Sprachen P.415 Vol. I). Thus Vengadam rightly means the
place of ‘excess of worshippability’. The Lord Srinivasa is the presiding deity
of the Hill. It is through His presence on the hills that the Hills get their
sanctity and worshippability. It is most so because Srinivasa is the supreme
Lord as intimated in the great verses of the Alvars and Sri Ramanuja. Rightly
also we find that Sri Venkatanatha (Sri Vedanta Desika) sings of the Lord as
the Dayanidhi and Vengadam as the sugar-candy of Grace of the Lord (iksusarasrsvantaiva
yan murtya sarkarayitam), almost bearing in mind this meaning of Vengadam.
The Lord on the Hills is of the form of Grace, as all avatars are but
manifestations of the never-exhaustible Grace of the Lord to the creatures.
Archa typifies the fullest possibility of Grace to all man kind. Srinivasa is a
svayamvyakta form, not invoked and got by any seers or sages. Thus
rightly has the Lord himself been called Vengadam, and his Hill by transferred
epithet is known as Vengadam.
Another name by which the abode of the Lord Srinivasa is
known is Vaikuntha. He also called Vaikuntha. The Santiparva
(Mahabharata ch. 279, 29) states that Vaikuntha means “One who brings
together all creatures”. The Tiruvaymoli(II.vi.1) states that kuntha is a
weapon used in by the Lord to destroy sins. The word however is used in a
different sense by Kalidasa (Kumarasambhava III. 12; Vikramorvasiya, I.14) to
mean blunt, or dull and it is also meant to refer ‘to hide’. ‘Vi-kuntha means
the reverse of kuntha or to hide. That is, it is the opposite of all that kuntha
means. Vaikuntha is the place of utter freedom, completest light and
knowledge. There no darkness or limitations which hide can exist. It is the
world of transcendental perfection. Vaikuntha is the parama-pada of Srinivasa,
even as Vengadam is the archa-padam of Srinivasa. There perfection resides.
Here grace pervades. By these two words the nature of God Srinivasa is
perfectly comprehended. The world of Grace is what the human seeks, the world
of Perfection is what ultimately will be led to by the Lord Himself. The Lord
is the granter of all the four Purusharthas, but only one must seek the feet of
the Lord. Grace calls when the world around is dark
and sorrowful and terrible. Humbled man should seek the
feet of Grace. The glory of the Archa is to lead men through the path of grace
to the paths of light.
It is the true that the Alvars
and Acharyas of Vaishnavism have held that Vaikuntha is Vengadam itself1. But
for a proper understanding of the two-fold worlds of God, both are to be
accepted. The Acharyas and Alvars felt that service here is of equal merit and
enjoyment as service or rather enjoyment there in the Paramapada. Vaikuntha
refers to the transcendent nature of God, whereas Vengadam refers to the
immanent and dynamic father-mother nature of God. As the Upanishad states it,
we must worship God in both ways and attain to the fullest perfection in
service and realization of God.
1 One may perhaps
fancifully deduce from Vaikuntha: Vainkutha Vainkuta, Venkuta, Venkata,
Vengada.
INDIAN
PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS
The
aim of all philosophical systems excepting the Carvaka materialist is moksa or
liberation of the individual soul from the bondage to the world of
manifestation and society, for these are fields of misery rather than of
freedom, fields or pleasure trailed by pain.
So
the pratijna of each system, Vaisesika, Nyaya, Samkhya, Yoga, and the
Vedanta appears to be escape from misery by knowing the truth about nature,
soul, and all relations which is that they are binding and abridging man’s
consciousness or existence. Karma Mimamsa which promises the enjoyment of the
yonder world and also of this world by performing yajnas and other sacrifices
finally tells us that such enjoyments of heaven etc. are not permanent but
transitory though very much prolonged than the instantaneous perishing
events of the material world (ksanika). Buddhism
is definitely world-negating; so too Jainism. As it was pointed out the only
school that tried to make the best out of this world was Carvakas who did not
run out of the world because the things of this world are momentary and misery
producing. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
The
social organization accordingly was biased towards escape form the world to the
permanent world beyond or even to nothingness if it meant that.
The
four purusarthas are graded in such a way as to lead to renunciation or moksas.
The four asramas are, though natural, also directed towards exalting the
renunciation of the world as the goal. Education is motivated towards the nisreyas
and moksa values as against the values of life.
Thus
this world is not the home but the yonder world of God or Brahman is the home
of each individual soul, and of all souls
The four varnas or orders of society and the duties
pertaining thereto are essentially to serve this trans-earthly life. Whether it
is trans-social beyond is secondary. Further each individual soul has to make
its own effort to be free from the bondage to the world.
It
appears therefore that pessimism is the reigning attitude to life. No one tries
to make the world a better place to live in even during the period of
precarious sojourn in it, but it should be said every effort is made to make
life here miserable, more miserable than it is, so that one could strive to
escape from it even before the allotted span. Life is hard and made more hard,
and for the spiritual man these are previous indications that he is beloved of God:
they are boons and gifts of God ripening his wisdom towards renunciation-vairagya
and jnana.
Even
Yoga or God-union is said to be impossible except through sannyasa. This
leads to detachment from all attachments and produces a person who acts
impersonally on the basis of the law of dharma or renunciation of fruits if not
of all karma
A Second Approach can be made.
The
Vaisesika world-view is pluralistic. There are infinite number of souls and
they have to live together. They adopted the fourfold society as well as the
four asramas. A pluralistic society is based on the acceptance of the atomistic
world with all its aggregating and disintegrating processes. The permanent
souls have to liberate themselves from this eternal process-chance or adrsta
works all though. But it is human will that should aim at dharma or law
and create it however temporarily. Nyaya system reveals how this could be done
by reasoning and discovery of concomitances and helps using them.
Pluralism
is also the philosophy of individualism and democracy. However it also tends to
get over the hard process of self-government by giving up or renouncing the job
of government to a leader either by a covenant or by a convention or by just a
course of habit of disinterestedness in the affairs of the world into the hands
of a monarch or a living God who is a delegate of God the cosmic creator or any
clique or coterie. As Svami Vivekananda pointed out in a speech
he made in U.S.A.,
India
loves monarchy. It cannot give up that. Pluralism that surrenders individual
rights of freedom to govern oneself is pretty difficult to accept. We have
disowned monarchs in this twentieth Century; pluralism exalts the finite
individual by almost apotheosizing him into a God. And every one could become a
God, but maintain a world of peace.
The
individualist conception of society provides for the equal growth of every
individual. His society must provide for growth and not merely for the
preservation of the abstract liberty of each individual.
The
social consequences of the illusionistic philosophy have already been stated in
the sec.I. (approach). So long as the social four order arrangement is not
seriously threatened, it does not matter what a man seeks or does or strives
after. Once liberty is secure so long as one does not break the laws of the
conventional society built up on the principles of society order, truth,
justice, non-violence, chastity, and other virtues of Indian ethical or social
life, no one is bothered about society. The yamas of Yoga are not only for the mumuksu
but also for the bubhuksu.
Let us turn to the collectivistic view that might be
developed out of the Advaita view or the Absolutistic view.
The
Absolutist does not recognize the diversity and as such does not accept the
liberty of each individual unless it be of the highest spiritual consciousness.
A realized individual is already integral to the whole or the Absolute and his
consciousness would be super consciousness. But no one can say except perhaps
oneself whether he has arrived at that superconscious state and is permitted to
legislate for all other individuals less endowed than himself. But the
individuals of the whole would have already begun to lose their individual
separateness, would participate in the super consciousness. The moksa of
one individual would entail the moksa of every other individual, and
vice versa, if the individuals do not feel moksa, no one has been
liberated so far.
The
rational version of liberty as rationality solves certain problems whilst
raising some others. The hierarchy of rationality even like consciousness
levels
would hinder the collectivist hypothesis as satisfactory
to the social dynamism of evolution.
The
only view that may help to solve the social evolution and flexibility or
freedom would be the organic view of the mutually complementary opposites or
polar opposites operating continuously to maintain a dynamic growth along with
equilibrium of what today passes for homeostatis. The world and the individuals
interlocked in polar opposition are dynamically modifying each other, in
releasing the divine potentialities of matter or nature and the divine
potentialities of each individual soul under the concept of the one divine
immanent in booth as their self or Ideal. They have been thrown together to
bring out the cosmic meaning of being, the inherent freedom in all the three.
This solves the problems of pluralism as well as holism. It cannot be said that
this has been worked out in the context of a politico-social organization but
it was verily worked out by Ramanuja in the context of temple organisation and
his hierarchy of God-hood or statuses of God-as transcendent, as cosmic, as
heroic, as inner ruler, and as the loving image or icon of infinite radiation
in Matter.
A temple centered culture has more significance for
social dynamics than perhaps the modern temple, the industrial estate. But then
all arts and sciences could be moulded to bring out the eternal significance of
liberation and freedom not only here but also beyond. If in the past the
freedom was sought beyond because of its richness in infinite measure, in the
present it has to be sought here for this too is the necessity in God’s
Universe.
To
Conclude,
Every
philosophy as a view of reality entails a practical aspect. Some Philosophies
deny a practical aspect for they affirm their ‘contemplative’ attitude as
all-sufficient. They however accept a practical aspect for attaining the
contemplative state and all social institutions are serviceable to engender
this practical process or ethic to promote the theory of contemplation or dhyana
or meditation which is said to promote the disengagement from Nature and
promote liberation.
There
are others who hold that after one attains a philosophy the practical may be
said to be the
consequence of the theory. It is the technique or art
that expresses the freedom-this is the concrete freedom, a freedom in and not a
freedom from, a freedom in and though. Society as a vale of soul making is one
view, society as the ksetra of freedom or gnostic yoga is
another. They however are not contradictory though both cannot be practiced by
the same person. The individuality of any individual lies in his different
fitness or adhikara.
The
self-finding of this adhikara is very difficult at the early stages. The
social organization in ancient times did provide guide lines. Since that
organization has undergone sea changes what is needed is a rethinking on
institutions today all over the world. Vedanta has shown three major lines, the
pluralistic, absolutistic and the organistic and they could be synthesized
where there is a will towards freedom and flexibility.
Social
meliorism and humanistic work was said to be canalized towards spiritual
upliftment of the individuals comprising the society or community by the sannyasi
leaders-leaders who have arrived at the
vrddha or
maturity or old age having renounced personal attachments of all kinds. In one
sense they are said to have renounced artha, wealth and power, kama, desire for progeny or love of them, and have
taken to the way of dharma, righteousness completely, impersonally.
The
Buddhist Monk was one who had dedicated himself to possessionlessness, who had
shaken himself off from all social contact, but even he later on was asked to
help every thing on its upward way. Compassion was the quality of the bhikku,
a non-possessive compassion.
Jains
also discarded society and social concerns were not theirs. Though all sannyasis
in a sense were dependent on the lay society and prescribed duties for the
householders to help these monks, sannyasins, avadhutas, bhikkus, they have
been prescribed only the duty to live an unattached life of purest virtues of satya,
ahimsa, aparigraha, asteya and brahmacarya and rigid observance of
these, though they had also to renounce all lay duties of dharma.
In fact at one time and even now in certain sects, a Guru
should be a Sannyasi-a renounced one. Svami Vivekananda held that
they alone could carry out spirituality everywhere as torch bearers. Patriots
also must be sannyasins dedicated to the winning of freedom, spiritually and
morally.
Sri
Ramanuja in his time had non-sannyasins as Gurus to preserve the spiritual
work. He did permit sannyasa but he did insist on the non-sannyasi being
equally fit to be a Guru to lead one on to the path of moksa. The
gain was the Grhastha Guru was in sympathy with the Grhastha who
has been a much maligned person. The temples were not only like the viharas for
men sannyasins only but for all people of all asramas and all varnas and in
some cases even for the avarnas. Sri Vaisnava sampradaya thus made a
departure from the sannyasi-Guru governed society to install the householder
lay spiritual man to be the Guru in a varnasrama Society. This change
had far reaching consequences following from the omnipervasiveness of God and
his five statuses of Icon, Antaryami Vibhava-Avatar, Vyuha and Para as
enunciated by the
Pancaratra Idea of God with which Sri Ramanuja’s
philosophy of religion is fundamentally entwined.
It
is not to be compared with the Protestantism of Europe which permitted their
ministers to marry as against the Catholic view.
A
CRITIQUE OF DIALECTICAL ADVAITA
The Advaita is a very
important school in the history of thought. It is the foremost institution
about Reality. To comprehend the oneness of all Reality, to emphasize its
reality and nature as one all through in the face of all empirical and logical
evidence is one of the most important standpoints and it is not by any means
idealistic, that is to say that it is just a fantastic postulation. It is known
that one of the deepest insights into Reality begins to relate the unrelated
and bring unity where there is difference and conflict. The grouping of diverse
factors in perception which entails the apprehension of gestalt is itself one
such efforts of the mind in perception; so too the casual linkage that we make
naturally as a law of min or thought between antecendents and consequents and
on the basis of similarity reveals the operation of this unification or
Advaitic tendency in anumana whether deductive or
inductive
and casual or dynamic. In fact so imperative and obligatory to all thought does
this tendency to assume a one reality or system appear that it has been claimed
to be the real criterion of Reality itself. In all fields of existence the
search for oneness is not only an obligation of thought but also of living and
acting. We are more efficient when we know the unified law or the unifying law
or system or order whether imposed or natural. Thus the Advaita is a reality and
all that we have to do is to find out what kind of Advaita is real, and
ultimately satisfying.
In
all branches of live we have the actual existence of manynesses and
differences. The differences are so very marked and the identities so very
minute and invisible that it has become necessary to assume the absolute
distinguishability of the diverse which is the very contradictory of the
Advaita or unity of oneness of all. In fact Advaita and Dvaita are
contradictories and some ardent thinkers do not see any meeting ground between
them. If the one is true the other must be false: the law of excluded middle is
applied to this thesis and antithesis. Therefore Dvaita
rejects totally as unacceptable Advaita and Advaita
reciprocates this attitude.
Unfortunately
the law of negation (not contradiction) involves the dynamic instability of
both these for one tends to pass over to the other at least logically and
cannot exist apart from this counter-predication. They define themselves by
their opposites and real Advaita is lost sight of. This is the debacle of
dialectical procedures.
Thus
any abstract Advaita is bound to be in difficulties even as any Dvaita is bound
to come to some kind of compromise with Advaita. Thus we find Advaita assuming
a second entity, maya, however much this term is abused by giving it the
synonyms of illusion and avidya or ignorance, and thus settles down to
the acceptance of dualism and pluralism also for one cannot stay at dualism but
must wene all its way to pluralism – of course this pluralism can be abolished
at the time of ultimate liberation. Similarly Dvaita or dualism which includes
pluralism has to accept the oneness of the Ruler principle which is absolutely
different from all the rest for establishing the oneness of
Reality or Rule. All become subordinate to this Absolute
Single principle. Monotheism rescues pluralism from falling apart; it confers
the unity of all as a universe. Thus monism and monotheism are reconciled
though as it was clearly noticed monism is irreconcilable with monotheism in
religion itself, the latter reconciles this in philosophy or ontology.
Thus
we have any number of attempts to restore balance and unity to the outstanding
conflicts between pluralism (unmitigated difference, dvaita) and monism.
Sankara
himself seeks to arrive at his Advaita by an effort to seek the meeting points
of the several darsanas. Starting from a fundamental dualism in sensory
experience philosophers confront both the realms of objective material life and
the subjective experience of it. Apparently subjective experience of the
external work is the only evidence for the externality of the objective world.
All experience in one sense is objective and is perceptive or sensory and as Berkeley put it to be is
to be perceived, though he was equally certain that existence as a perceiver
cannot be lost sight of. A subject is not perceived but experiences
perceiving which is of course different. The object is
something ‘felt’ to be material and inert and inactive though here again we come
to see that it is not necessary for it can stimulate the subject by such
characteristics as striking quality, contrast and intensity. However though the
object is an object because it is known by a subject and perhaps it may be
claimed that the characteristics of an object are only subjective responses to
it and not in the object as such as qualities or characteristics, the subject
is important for without him there is not experience at all. Experience means
the subjects’ experience, conscious apprehension of objects other than itself
but yet not independently of it. Having divided the real of reality into two as
subject and object it was easy to develop this dualism.
The
objective considerations or where the object plays the most important part are
the system of Nyaya-Vaisesika, Samkhya-Yoga and Purva-mimamsa. Their
considerations are capable of being classified under the adhibhautika (material),
adhyatmika (psychological) and adhidaivika (supra-psychological
or transcendental). Plurality of elements and atomism of the Vaisesika, the
plurality of the souls, and dualism of the spiritual and
the physiological-psychological of the Samkhya and Yoga and the pluralism of
the gods and the dualism of the worlds of here and hereafter (svarga),
are so much explained in these systems that they become problems of the Monism
and contrary to Monism.
All
these are relegated to the sphere of the maya, as products of maya,
and are capable of being products of ignorance and are equally perceived only
by the ignorant as such.
The problems are: (i) Dualism
and pluralism.
(ii)
Matter (object) and Spirit (subject).
(iii)
Pluralism of souls and one world.
(iv)
Evolution of the many from the one or diversification in Nature. Is it growth
or mutation or illusion?
(v)
What is the principal criterion of truth or pramana for Reality?
The
Samkhyan system accepts dualism of Matter and Spirit; it accepts the plurality
of souls; and it
accepts the oneness of prakrti and not many prakrtis
for the many souls (purusas); it accepts the evolution and
involution of prakrti without the active participation of the souls, and
this means that the subtle condition of the object becomes diversified or gross
or perceived by the purusa and then it once again regains its subtle
state after the liberation of the purusa. Thus the cause contains the
effect and the effect returns to its causal state. Thus differentiation of
Nature leads to jnana and clarity of knowledge is the goal of all
consciousness in experience. Finally it is the distinct and clear knowledge of prakrti
that makes the purusa see its difference from prakrti with
which he had identified and thus get liberation. This knowledge of difference
is the liberator of the purusa or the withdrawal of the prakrti.
It is intelligence that reveals this difference in its dispassionate and
sovereign condition of knowledge.
Vaisesikas
however hold that prakriti or nature or objects of knowledge are many,
atomic, differentiated from one another. The souls are also many. The
categories of manas (mind) are all individuated as instruments to each
soul when it conjoins the grouping of the atoms and begins its organic life.
The
Vaisesikadarsana does not
accept the growth-theory but only composition-theory. Thus the effect is
something that is new and novel, something produced – it does not matter by
whom, it in fact seems to entertain the view that there are four causes as even
Aristotle distinguished, namely the material cause (upadana), the
efficient cause (agent or his instrument) (nimitta), the instrumental
cause also comes under this category – things with which the effect is shaped
or built, the formal cause (the pattern to be produced which is in the mind of
the agent) which can be seen to have been given to the matter and as such
distinguishes the cause from the effect materially considered and lastly, the
final or purpose cause. These four are capable of being considered separately.
In a sense the definition of cause as a totality of conditions or causes in the
presence of which the effect occurs and in the absence of which the effect does
not occur and as such is the fixed law of causation (niyata-purva-vritti)
of effect is fully explained here. Thus we cannot speak of subtleness and
grossness as the distinguishing features between cause and effect. Thus the
effect is non-present in the cause in any condition taken formally
and therefore, the theory is called arambha-vada and
asat-karya-vada.
The
defect of this view is that it does not accept the identity of the material and
efficient and formal and final causes which is claimed by the Advaita. This is
against experience. Even the Samkhya cannot escape from this dilemma for it has
atleast to accept the two causes, purusa and prakrti though the
consciousness-reflection (pratibimba) in prakrti seems to do what
consciousness directly can – a claim that is no where proved by experience as
such.
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
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