Thus I have crossed the ocean of the world, That frees mankind from sorrow, pain, and death. This imperfect sketch of Buddhism in its earliest and purest phase may conduce to the better understanding of the other lines of Indian rationalism, which differed from it in pretending to accept the authority of the Veda. These lines were before described as six in number, but they are practically reducible to three, the Nyāya, the Sankhya, and the Vedanta. They all hold certain tenets in common with each other and to a certain extent also (especially the San-khya) with heretical Buddhism. A common philosophical creed, as we have already hinted, must have prevailed in India long before the crystallization of rationalistic inquiry into separate systems. If not distinctly developed in the Upanishads, it is clearly traceable throughout Manu1; and as it is not only the faith of every Indian philosopher at the present day, but also of the greater number of thinking Brāhmans, whether disciples of any particular philosophical school or not, and indeed of the greater number of educated Hindus, whether nominal adherents of Vishnu or Śiva or to whatever caste they may belong-its principal features may be advantageously stated before pointing out the chief differences between the six systems. 1. In the first place, then, rationalistic Brahmanism-as I propose to call this common faith-holds the eternity of soul, both retrospectively and prospectively. It looks 1 See Manu XII. 12, 15-18. 2 Plato appears to have held the same: Ψυχὴ πᾶσα ἀθάνατος, τὸ γὰρ ἀεικίνητον ἀθάνατον, Phaed. 51. And again : Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἀγένητόν ἐστι, καὶ ἀδιά upon soul as of two kinds: a. the supreme Soul (called variously Paramātman, Brahman, &c.); b. the personal individuated soul of living beings (jivātman); and it maintains that if any entity is eternal it cannot have had a beginning, or else it must have an end. Hence the personal soul of every human being, just as the supreme Soul, has existed everlastingly and will never cease to exist2. 2. In the second place this creed asserts the eternity of the matter or substance constituting the visible universe, or of that substance out of which the universe has been evolved; in other words, of its substantial or material cause3. It is very true that one system (the Vedānta) φθορον αὐτὸ ἀνάγκη εἶναι, Phaed. 52. And again: Τοῦτο δὲ οὔτ ̓ ἀπόλλυσθαι οὔτε yiyveobai duvaróv. Cicero expresses it thus: Id autem nec nasci potest nec mori, Tusc. Quaest. I. 23. Plato, however, seems to have given no eternity to individual souls, except as emanations from the divine; and in Timaeus 44 he distinguishes two parts of the soul, one immortal, the other mortal. 1 All the systems, as we shall see, are not equally clear about the existence of a supreme Soul. One at least practically ignores such a soul. With regard to the Sutratman, see the Lecture on the Vedanta. The Buddhist also believes that all souls have existed from the beginning of a cycle, but, in opposition to the Brahman, holds that their end is Nirvana. 2 The Muslims have two words for eternity: 1. Jl azl, 'that eternity which has no beginning' (whence God is called Azali, 'having no beginning'); and 2. abd, that eternity which has no end.' 3 The term for substantial or material cause is samavāyi-kārana, literally, 'inseparable inherent cause;' in the Vedānta upādāna-kāraṇa is used. With regard to the word 'matter,' see note, p. 64. Though the Greek philosophers are not very definite in their views as to the eternity of matter or its nature, yet they seem to have acquiesced generally in the independent existence of some sort of primordial substance. Plato appears to have held that the elements before the creation were shapeless and soulless, but were moulded and arranged by the Creator (Timaeus 27) out of some invisible and formless essence (ávóparov eiðós tɩ KaÌ aμoppov, Timaeus 24). Aristotle in one passage describes the views of older philosophers who held that primeval substance was affected and made to undergo changes by some sort of affections like the San-khya identifies soul with this substance by asserting that the world was not made out of gross particles of matter, but out of soul itself, as its illusory material cause; but to affirm that the universe (Tò πâv) is a part of the one only existing soul is of course equivalent to maintaining the eternal existence of both. In real truth a Hindu philosopher's belief in the eternity of the world's substance, whether that substance has a real material existence or is simply illusory, arises from that fixed article of his creed, Ex nihilo nihil fit, navastuno vastu-siddhiḥ. In other words, A-sataḥ saj jāyeta kutas, 'how can an entity be produced out of a nonentity?'1 Gupas, whence all the universe was developed: Τῆς μὲν οὐσίας ὑπομενούσης τοῖς δὲ πάθεσι μεταβαλλούσης, τοῦτο στοιχεῖον καὶ ταύτην τὴν ἀρχήν φασιν εἶναι TV ÖVTOV, Metaph. I. 3. (See Wilson's San-khya-kārikā, p. 53.) Aristotle adds his own opinion, 'It is necessary there should be a certain nature (púois)—either one or more-out of which other entities are produced.' 1 Οὐδὲν γίνεται ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, ‘nothing is produced out of nothing. ΑΠ the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome seem also to have agreed upon this point, as Aristotle affirms (περὶ γὰρ ταύτης ὁμογνωμόνουσι τῆς δόξης änavτes oi nepì þúrews). Lucretius (I. 150) starts with laying down the same principle: Principium hinc nobis exordia sumet Nullam rem e nihilo. gigni divinitus unquam.' Aristotle, in the third chapter of the first book of his Metaphysics, informs us that Thales made the primitive substance out of which the universe originated water, Anaximenes and Diogenes made it air, Heracleitus made it fire, Empedocles combined earth, air, fire, and water. Anaximander, on the other hand, regarded the primordial germ as an indeterminate but infinite or boundless principle (rò äñeipov). Other philosophers affirmed something similar in referring everything back to a confused chaos. Parmenides made Desire his first principle, and Hesiod, quoted by Aristotle, says poetically, 'First indeed of all was chaos; then afterwards Earth with her broad breast (cf. Sanskrit prithivī); Then Desire (pos), who is pre-eminent among all the Immortals.' Lastly, the Eleatics, like the Indian Vedāntists, were thoroughly pantheistic, and held that the universe was God and God the universe; in other words, that God was rò ev, or the only one existing thing. With all these accounts compare the Rig-veda hymn on the creation, translated on p. 22. 3. In the third place, the soul, though itself sheer thought and knowledge, can only exercise thought, consciousness, sensation, and cognition, and indeed can only act and will when connected with external and material objects of sensation', invested with some bodily form" and joined to mind (manas), which last (viz. mind) is an internal organ of sense (antah-karana)-a sort of inlet of 1 It is difficult to find any suitable word to express what the Hindus mean by material objects. There seems, in real truth, to be no proper Sanskrit word equivalent to 'matter' in its usual English sense. Vastu, as applied to the 'one reality,' is the term for the Vedantist's universal Spirit; dravya stands for soul, mind, time, and space, as well as the five elements; mūrtti is anything which has definite limits, and therefore includes mind and the four elements, but not ākāśa, 'ether;' pradhana is the original producer of the Sankhya system; padārtha is used for the seven categories of the Vaiseshika. What is here meant is not necessarily a collection of material atoms, nor, again, that imperceptible substance propounded by some as lying underneath and supporting all visible phenomena (disbelieved in by Berkeley), and holding together the attributes or qualities of everything, but rather what is seen, heard, felt, tasted, and touched, which is perhaps best denoted by the Sanskrit word vishaya, the terms samavāyi-kāraṇa and upādāna-kāraṇa being generally used for the substantial or the material cause of the universe. 2 All the systems assign to each person two bodies: a. an exterior or gross body (sthula-śarīra); b. an interior or subtle body (sukshma-śarīra or linga-sarīra). The last is necessary as a vehicle for the soul when the gross body is dissolved, accompanying it through all its transmigrations and sojournings in heaven or hell, and never becoming separated from it till its emancipation is effected. The Vedanta affirms the existence of a third body, called kāraṇa-sarīra or causal body, described as a kind of inner rudiment or latent embryo of the body existing with the soul, and by some regarded as primeval ignorance united with the soul in dreamless sleep. The Platonists and other Greek and Roman philosophers seem to have held a similar doctrine as to a subtle material envelope investing the soul after death, serving as its oxua or vehicle. See Plato, Timaeus 17. This is like the idea of a deceased person's ghost or shade (eidador, umbra, imago, simulacrum). Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, VI. 390, 701. 3 Manas is often taken as the general term applicable to all the mental powers, but Manas is properly a subdivision of antaḥ-karana, which is thought to the soul-belonging only to the body, only existing with it, and quite as distinct from the soul as any of the external organs of the body'. The supreme Soul (variously called Paramātman, Brahman, neut., &c.) has thus connected itself in successive ages with objects and forms, becoming manifest either as Brahma the creator or in the form of other gods, as Vishņu and Śiva (see note 1, p. 12), or again in the form of men. 4. Fourthly, this union of the soul with the body is productive of bondage, and in the case of human souls, of misery, for when once so united the soul begins to apprehend objects through the senses, receiving therefrom painful and pleasurable impressions. It also be-. comes conscious of personal existence and individuality ; then it commences acting; but all action, whether good or bad, leads to bondage, because every act inevitably entails a consequence, according to the maxim, Avasyam eva bhoktavyam kritam karma subhasubham, 'the fruit of every action good or bad must of necessity be eaten.' Hence, if an act be good it must be rewarded, and if bad it must be punished". divided into Buddhi, 'perception or intellection;' Ahankāra, 'self-consciousness; and Manas, volition or determination;' to which the Vedānta adds a fourth division, Ćitta, 'the thinking or reasoning organ.' 1 This idea of the mind agrees to a great extent with the doctrine of Lucretius, stated in III. 94, &c. : 'Primum animum dico (mentem quem saepe vocamus) In quo consilium vitae regimenque locatum est, The remainder of his description of the mind is very interesting in connection with the Hindu theory. 2 In the Panća-tantra (II. 135, 136) we read: 'An evil act follows a man, passing through a hundred thousand transmigrations; in like manner the act of a high-minded man. As shade and sunlight are ever closely joined together, so an act and the agent stick close to each other.' F |