what earth to a jar, and gold to a bracelet. He is both creator and creation 1, actor and act. He is also Existence, Knowledge, and Joy (Sac-cid-ānanda), but is at the same time without parts, unbound by qualities (nir-guna, see p.95), without action, without emotion, having no consciousness such as is denoted by 'I' and 'Thou,' apprehending no person or thing, nor apprehended by any, having neither beginning nor end, immutable, the only real entity. This is surely almost tantamount to asserting that pure Being is identical with pure Nothing, so that the two extremes of Buddhistic Nihilism and Vedāntic Pantheism, far as they profess to be apart, appear in the end to meet. I add two or three extracts from Sankarācārya's comment on Sutra II. 1. 343: It may be objected that God is proved not to be the cause of the universe. Why? From the visible instances of injustice (vaishamya) and cruelty (nairghṛinya). Some he makes very happy, as the gods, &c.; some very miserable, as the brutes, &c.; and some in a middling condition, as men, &c. Being the author of such an unjust creation, he is proved to be subject to passions like other persons-that is to say, to partiality and prejudice-and therefore his nature is found wanting in 1 A true Vedantic spirit is observable in the Orphic hymns when they identify Zeus with the universe; thus, 'Zeus is the ether; Zeus is the earth; Zeus is the heaven; Zeus is all things.' Orphic. Fragm. IV. 363, VI. 366. Compare also Virgil, Aeneid VI. 724, &c.: 'Principio caelum ac terras, camposque liquentes 2 As shown by Professor Banerjea, Sankara compares the second person Thou with darkness, because there cannot be a real Thou. So Sankara affirms that 'Thou' and 'I' are as opposed as darkness and light. Plato speaks similarly of darkness and light in connection with nonentity and real entity. Sophist. 254 3 Quoted by Professor Banerjea and Mr. Mullens, and translated by them. Dialogues, p. 120, &c. Essay on Hindu Philosophy, p. 190. The Aphorism is, Vaishamya-nairghṛinye na sāpekshatvāt tathāhi darśayati. spotlessness. And by dispensing pain and ruin, he is chargeable with malicious cruelty, deemed culpable even among the wicked. Hence, because of the instances of injustice and cruelty, God cannot be the cause of the universe. To this we reply: Injustice and cruelty cannot be charged upon God. Why? Because he did not act independently (sāpekshatvāt). God being dependent (sāpekshaḥ) creates this world of inequalities. If you ask on what he is dependent, we reply, on merit and demerit (dharmādharmau). That there should be an unequal creation, dependent on the merit and demerit of the souls created, is no fault of God. As the rain is the common cause of the production of rice and wheat, but the causes of their specific distinctions as rice and wheat are the varying powers of their respective seeds; so is God the common cause in the creation of gods, men, and others; but of the distinctions between gods, men, and others, the causes are the varying works inherent in their respective souls. In commenting on the next Aphorism (35), he answers the objection, 'How could there be previous works at the original creation?' The objection and reply are thus stated1: The supreme Being existed at the beginning, one without a second (see p. 113). Hence, before the creation there could be no works in dependence on which inequalities might be created. God may be dependent on works after distinctions are made. But before the creation there could be no works caused by varying instruments, and therefore we ought to find a uniform creation (tulyā sṛishţiḥ). We reply: This does not vitiate our doctrine, because the world is without beginning (anādiṭvāt samsārasya). The world being without beginning, nothing can prevent works and unequal creations from continuing in the states of cause and effect, like the seed and its plant (vījānkura-vat). Other objections to the Vedanta theory are thus treated by Sankara: How can this universe, which is manifold, void of life, impure, and irrational, proceed from him who is one, living, pure, and rational? We reply The lifeless world can proceed from Brahma, just as lifeless hair can spring from a living man. enjoys and him who is enjoyed; are the changes of the sea. different from the sea. There is no difference between the universe and But in the universe we find him who how can he be both? We reply: Such Foam, waves, billows, bubbles are not 1 The original Sūtra is, Na karmāvibhāgād iti ćen nānāditvāt. Brahma. The effect is not different from its cause. He is the soul; the soul is he. The same earth produces diamonds, rock-crystal, and vermilion. The same sun produces many kinds of plants. The same nourishment is converted into hair, nails, &c. As milk is changed into curds, and water into ice, so is Brahma variously transformed without external aids. So the spider spins its web from its own substance. So spirits assume various shapes. Such a creed as this does not necessarily imply what the later Vedāntists teach-that the world is all Māyā, 'a mere illusion.' This illusion theory, now so popular among Indian philosophers, receives little countenance in the Upanishads, being rather imported from Buddhism. A true Vedāntist, though he affirms that Brahma alone is real, allows a vyāvahārika, ‘practical existence' to souls, the world, and Iśvara, as distinguished from pāramārthika, 'real,' and prātibhāsika, apparent or illusory existence.' How, indeed, can it be denied that external things exist, when we see them before our eyes and feel them at every instant? But how, on the other hand, can it be maintained that an impure world is the manifestation of a pure spiritual essence? To avoid this difficulty, the supreme Spirit is represented as ignoring himself by a sort of self-imposed ignorance, in order to draw out from himself for his own amusement the separate individuated souls and various appearances, which, although really parts of his own essence, constitute the apparent phenomena of the universe. Hence the external world, the living souls of individual men, and even Īśvara, the personal God, are all described as created by a power which the Vedantist is obliged, for want of a better solution of his difficulty, to call A-vidya1, generally translated 'Ignorance,' but perhaps better rendered by False knowledge' or False notion.' Of this power there are two distinct forms of operation, 1 Something like the 'Ayvoía of Plato. See Banerjea's translation of the Sūtras, p. 3. viz. 1. that of envelopment (avaraṇa), which, enveloping the soul, causes it to imagine that it is liable to mundane vicissitudes-that it is an agent or a patient; that it rejoices or grieves, &c.—as if a person under a delusion were to mistake a rope for a snake: 2. that of projection (vikshepa), which, affecting the soul in its state of pure intelligence, raises upon it the appearance of a world, producing first the five subtile elements and drawing out from them seventeen subtile bodies (also called linga-sarira, comprising the five organs of sense, the five organs of action, the five vital airs, with buddhi and manas), and the five gross elements in the same order as in the San-khya (see p. 93). Hence the soul mistakes itself for a mere mortal, as it mistook the rope for a snake1. By reason of A-vidya, then, the Jivātman, or 'personal soul of every individual,' mistakes the world, as well as its own body and mind, for realities, just as a rope in a dark night might be mistaken for a snake. The moment the personal soul is set free from this self-imposed Ignorance by a proper understanding of the truth, through the Vedanta philosophy, all the illusion vanishes and the identity of the Jīvātman and of the whole phenomenal universe with the Paramatman, or one only really existing spirit,' is re-established". Let me here introduce a version of part of a short Vedantic tract in verse, called Atma-bodha, 'knowledge of soul,' attributed to the great Sankarācārya. It is highly esteemed as an exposition of Vedantic doctrines, and has therefore been inserted by Dr. Häberlin in his anthology of shorter poems3. The following metrical lines 1 See Ballantyne's Lecture on the Vedānta-sāra, p. 25. Reference may also be made to the Vedanta-paribhāshā, a text book of the most modern Vedantic school. 2 See the passage from the Mundaka Upanishad, quoted p. 42. 3 There is also a Tamil version and commentary translated by the may serve as a specimen of some of the ideas contained in this well-known epitome of Hindu pantheistic philosophy: Knowledge alone effects emancipation. As fire is indispensable to cooking, So knowledge is essential to deliverance (2). The world and all the course of mundane things In which Ambition, Hatred, Pride, and Passion So at first sight the world deludes the man As golden bracelets are in substance one So is the soul disburdened of its sheaths By force of meditation, as by threshing (15). Rev. I. F. Kearns, Madras, 1867. I have consulted the Tamil commentary as given by Mr. Kearns. 1 Cf. Shakspeare's 'We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.' Tempest, Act iv. Scene 1. 2 That is, the mother-of-pearl oyster (sukti). This is called Panći-krita or Panći-karana, the production of the body, and indeed of the whole world, by the action of the five elements (see p. 93), being a dogma of the Vedanta. 4 See the remarks, p. 123. 5 Yukti seems here to be equivalent to yoga. It may also mean ‘argument,' 'reasoning.' |