tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-313228182024-02-28T00:27:41.513-08:00Explorations in Neo-Vedanta and PerennialismInformal Essays and Book Reviews Examining Basic Themes and Ideas in Neo-Vedanta, Neo-Advaita, Perennialism, and Transpersonal TheoryUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-76054385258409755072008-02-26T14:42:00.000-08:002008-11-12T12:26:40.593-08:00The Neo-Vedanta of Swami Vivekananda: Part Two<strong>Introduction</strong><br /><br />Part Two of this essay will look at the Neo-Vedanta of Swami Vivekananda in greater detail by way of a direct examination of his writings, specifically those contained in the convenient one volume anthology, <em>Selections from Swami Vivekananda</em>. In the first five sections of Part Two, particular attention will be paid to the rhetorical features of Vivekananda's writings. The seven sections that follow (which will be posted at a later date) will look at some of the more original aspects of Vivekananda's Neo-Vedanta. Part Two will then close with a brief look at Vivekananda's Indian addresses with the hope that they will help put into relief those writings by Vivekananda that were intended for Western audiences. Where relevant, Vivekananda's ideas will be related to those of his Neo-Hindu "forerunners," the European philosophy he had been exposed to as a youth, and to the traditional Vedanta and Yoga of classical India.<br /><div align="center"><br />***<br /></div><div align="left">Several related themes emerge from a critical reading of Vivekananda. Many of these themes reappear in the writings of later scholars of Indian thought, such as T.M.P Mahadevan and Chandradar Sharma, and in the writings of later Neo-Vedantins and perennialists, such as Sarvapella Radhakrishnan, Aurobindo Ghose, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Swami Rama, Adi-Da (Franklin Jones), Georg Feuerstein, and Ken Wilber.<br />Some of the more prominent of these themes involve various dichotomies. These dichotomies are used toward particular rhetorical effects by Vivekananda. </div><div align="left"><br /><strong>I. The Guru vs. the Pundit</strong> </div><div align="left"><br />One of the more interesting dichotomies put to use by Vivekananda is the contrast between the "Guru" and the "Pundit." In his writings, Vivekananda delineates a well marked distinction between the two. He associates the Guru, or "true teacher," with the world renouncers of India -- the samnyasins, parivrajakas, bhikshus, shramanas -- while he identifies the Indian pandita as a kind of substandard, corrupt and even false teacher. Echoing Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda writes:</div><blockquote><p>In our country, the imparting of knowledge has always been through men of renunciation. Later, the Pandits, by monopolising all knowledge and restricting it to the Tols, have only brought the country to the brink of ruin. India had all good prospects as long as Tyagis (men of renunciation) used to impart knowledge.... From "Conversations." <em>Selections</em>, p. 384.<br /></p></blockquote><p>In this passage, Vivekananda indirectly addresses the charge that it is the renunciatory attitude that is responsible for India's ills by countering that all that is good in the Indian tradition can be traced back to its great spiritual personages, i.e., its world renouncers. The allusion to the "downfall" of the Hindu tradition and its association with the panditas brings to mind Rammohan's idea of the degeneration of Hinduism and his contention that the "selfish pundits" have concealed the true purport of Vedanta by way of the "dark curtain of the Sungskrit language." While Rammohan's rhetoric has probably provided the main inspiration for Vivekananda here, it is also possible that Vivekananda picked up a tendency to downplay the importance of the traditional pandita-education from his own master, Ramakrishna, who hated the local village school he attended as a youngster.</p><p><br />Vivekananda further develops the contrast between the "Guru" and "Pundit":<br /></p><blockquote>You will find that not one of the great teachers of the world went into the various explanations of texts... You study all the great teachers the world has produced and you will see that no one of them goes that way.... As my Master used to say, what would you think of men who went into an orchard, and bruised themselves counting the leaves, the size of the twigs, the number of branches, and so forth, while only one of them had the sense to begin to eat the mangoes? So leave this counting of leaves and twigs, and this note taking to others.... Men never become spiritual through such work; you have never once seen a strong spiritual man among these "leaf counters." From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 54-55.<br /></blockquote><br />In this largely rhetorical flourish, Vivekananda treats the teacher-as-realized-sage and the teacher-as-pundit as if it the two are mutually exclusive. Of course, the claim that none of the great teachers of India was ever an exegete is mere hyperbole that flies in the face of the fact that recognized masters like Shankara and Abhinavagupta were also great commentators. It is worth noting that Vivekananda is here addressing a largely Western audience who would have been, for the most part, ignorant of Indian intellectual and religious history.<br /><br />Other aspects of the Vivekananda's distinction between the "Guru" and the "Pundit" recall the discourse of Rammohan in other ways. In a manner reminiscent of Rammohan, Vivekananda relates the "book learning" of the panditas to their purported conceit and pride:<br /><br /><blockquote>The various methods of explaining the dicta of the scriptures are only for the enjoyment of the learned. They do not attain perfection; they are simply desirous to show their learning. From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, p. 54-55.<br /></blockquote>Here, Vivekananda appears to dismiss the tradition of expounding upon the purport of the Upanishads and the consideration of that purport. But it is actually only the exposition of a particular class of teachers that Vivekananda dismisses here -- that of the "Pundits." The exposition of the "Gurus," and apparently Vivekananda's own interpretation of Vedanta, remain intact.<br /><br />The contrast between the "Guru" and the "Pundit" in Vivekananda's writings is closely related to another theme, the contrast between "book learning" and "experience." This distinction sheds light on how Vivekananda understands the distinction between the "Guru" and the "Pundit." In the following passage Vivekananda combines the two dichotomies and forms a contrast between knowledge derived from books, which "serves the intellect," and esoteric initiation from the Guru, which "serves the spirit."<br /><br /><blockquote>This quickening impulse, which comes from outside, cannot be received from books; the soul can receive impulse from another soul, and nothing else. We may study books all our lives, we may become very intellectual, but in the end we find that we have not developed at all spiritually... In studying books, we sometimes are deluded into thinking that we are being spiritually helped; but if we analyse ourselves we find that only our intellect is being helped, and not the spirit. That is why almost every one of us can speak most wonderfully on spiritual subjects, but when the time of action comes, we find ourselves so woefully deficient. It is because books cannot give the us that impulse from outside. To quicken the spirit, that impulse must come from the another soul. That soul from which this impulse comes is called the Guru, the teacher.... From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 51-51.<br /></blockquote>It is not clear what Vivekananda means by "action" in the above passage, but the reference here to "spirit" and its apparent association with action suggests that Vivekananda has conflated two senses of the term "spirit" -- one having to do with "pure consciousness" (chit; chaitanya), which transcends the intellect in Advaita, and another having to do with inspiration, will and vitality. In any case, the reference to "action" here resonates with Vivekananda's notion of a "practical Vedanta," which we will discuss below.<br /><br /><strong>II. Book-learning vs. Realization</strong><br /><br />The theme of "booking learning" recurs frequently in Vivekananda's writings. Its contrast with "experience" parallels, and indeed invokes, the empiricist distinction between "knowledge by description" and "knowledge by acquaintance."<br /><br />Vivekananda's use of the contrast between "book learning" and "experience" also invokes the traditional Indian distinction between higher knowledge (para vidya) and lower knowledge (apara vidya). The distinction between "higher" and "lower" knowledge can be traced back to the Upanishads, which present themselves as the esoteric (guhya; rahasya) teaching implied by all the Vedas. The first explicit mention of the distinction is Mundaka Up 1.1.4-6, but this is prefigured by Chan Up 7.1.13, which contrasts knowledge of the self (atma-vidya) with various other forms of knowledge.<br /><br />Echoing Mundaka 1.1.4-6, Vivekananda writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>All these talks, and reasonings, and philosophies, and dualisms, and monisms, and even the Vedas themselves, are but preparations, secondary things.... The Vedas, Grammar, Astronomy, etc., all these are secondary. The supreme knowledge is that which makes us realise the Unchangeable One. From "The Sages of India." <em>Selections</em>, p. 237. </blockquote><br />Interestingly, this passage implies that the supreme knowledge is not final realization per se but that which gives final realization, not a "knowledge by acquaintance" but a "knowing how." At other times, however, the disjunction drawn by Vivekananda is more absolute:<br /><br /><blockquote>You must keep in mind that religion does not consist in talk, or doctrines, or books, but in realisation; it is not learning but being. No amount of doctrines or philosophies or ethical books that you have stuffed into your brain will matter much, only what you are, and what you have realised. From "The Need of Symbols." <em>Selections</em>, p. 64-65.</blockquote><br />While several Indian traditions refer to a distinction between "higher" and "lower" knowledge there is by no means universal agreement as to what actually counts as "higher" and "lower" knowledge. For his own part, Shankara refers to a number of related distinctions, such as between worldly (lokika) means and ends, and ultimate (paramartha) soteriological concerns; or between teachings that are to be taken at face value and teachings that are "figuratively true" and merely propaedeutic (cf. GK 3.14). Following the Mundaka Up, he also refers to the distinction between higher and lower knowledge. But in Shankara's works, the distinction between higher and lower knowledge is not used to contrast "book learning" with "experience," even though this is a typical interpretation given by modern scholars. Rather, Shankara uses the distinction to distinguish knowledge that concerns ritual action from soteriological knowledge, that is, knowledge that leads to the heaven realms (brahma loka) from knowledge that leads to ultimate release (moksha). He does so primarily to make known his break with the jnana-karma-samucaya Vedanta of his contemporaries.<br /><br />Shankara does not exclude the Vedas from the domain of higher knowledge since the Upanishads, which give soteriological knowledge, fall within the range of the Vedic revelation. For Shankara, the "higher knowledge" forms a kind of continuum from hearing the words of scripture (sruti) to final realization (samyagdrashana). As for the Mundaka's referring to the Rg Veda, Sama Veda, etc. as belonging to the lower knowledge, Shankara takes this as a reference to brahmanic ritualism, which he relegates to the domain of ignorance (avidya).<br /><br />In contrast to Shankara, Vivekananda treats the Vedic scriptures in toto, as well as the revealed word of other traditions, as instances of the "ossification" of religion:<br /><br /><blockquote>The whole world reads scriptures, Bibles, Vedas, Korans, and others, but they are only words... the dry bones of religion.... Those who deal too much in words, and let the mind run always in the forest of words, lose the spirit.... "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 54-55.</blockquote><br />Vivekananda relates the contrast between "book learning" and "realization" to another of his favourite dichotomies -- that between the "East" and the "West." In the following passage, he associates book-learning with the "Western" attitude:<br /><br /><blockquote>The network of words is like a huge forest in which the human mind loses itself and finds no way out.... To be religious, you have to first throw all books overboard. The less you read of books, the better for you.... It is a tendency in Western countries to make a hotch-potch of the brain.... In many cases it becomes a kind of disease but it is not religion. From "The Need of Symbols." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 64-65.</blockquote><br />We do not know if the "hotch-potch of the brain" referred to here has anything to do with the state of confusion that Vivekananda's initial encounter with European philosophy left him in. Nor does Vivekananda tell us whether his own books -- <em>Raja Yoga</em>, <em>Jnana Yoga</em>, <em>Karma Yoga</em>, etc. -- fall into the class of materials that make a "hotch potch of the brain."<br /><br /><strong>III. Talking School vs. Practising School </strong><br /><br />Book learning and exegesis are in turn related to what Vivekananda refers to as "talking." Indeed, at times, "talking" takes the place of "book learning" in juxtaposition with "experience." By "talk" Vivekananda could mean various things -- the practice of sermonizing and expounding upon a teaching, or the practice of philosophical discussion (vada), which is an aspect of deliberation (manana) upon a teaching. The distinction between "talk" and "practice" may also imply the well known distinction between "talk" and "action," in the sense of someone who "talks the talk but does not walk the walk," or someone who does not "practice what they preach," or someone who is "all talk but no action." This latter sense would be in keeping with Vivekananda's notion of a "practical Vedanta."<br /><br />The next passage relates "talk" to the intellect and at the same time uses the notion of "common sense" as a check on intellectualism:<br /><br /><blockquote>We may deliver great intellectual speeches, become very good rationalists, and prove the tales of God are all nonsense, but let us come to practical common sense. What is behind this remarkable intellect? Zero, nothing, simply so much froth.... A little more common sense is required. Nothing is so uncommon as common sense, the world is too full of talk. From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, p. 59.<br /></blockquote>In the following passage, Vivekananda again relates "talking" to intellectual understanding:<br /><br /><blockquote>What you only grasp intellectually may be overthrown by a new argument, but what you realise is yours for ever. Talking, talking about religion is but little good. From "Inspired Talks." <em>Selections</em>, p. 325.<br /></blockquote>This passage echoes Shankara's comments at Br Su 2.1.11 where he dismisses traditions, such as Samkhya, that claim to arrive at truth through rational argument on the grounds that arguments used to establish one truth are continually being supplanted by more ingenious arguments claiming to establish another truth. Because of this, suggests Shankara, reason requires the guidance of revealed scripture.<br /><br />The following passage appears to invoke GK 3.17 and 3.18, which state that the non-dualists conflict with no one (na virudyate):<br /><br /><blockquote>I have discovered one great secret -- I have nothing to fear from the talkers of religion. And the great ones who realise -- they become enemies to none! Let the talkers talk! They know no better!... We hold on to realisation, the Brahman, to become Brahman. From "Letter to E.T. Sturdy." <em>Selections</em>, p. 456.<br /></blockquote>The theme of the contrast between "talking" and "realization" occurs frequently in the writings and speeches of Vivekananda:<br /><blockquote><br /><p>Religion is realisation, and you must make the sharpest distinction between talk and realisation. From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, p. 59.<br /></p><p>There is, you remember, all the difference of pole to pole between realisation and mere talking. Any fool can talk. Even parrots talk. Talking is one thing, realising is another. Philosophies and doctrines, and arguments, and books, and theories; but when that realisation comes these things drop away.... So the man of realisation says, "All this talk in the world about its little religions is but prattle; realisation is the soul, the very essence of religion." From "The Real and the Apparent Man." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 137-138.<br /></p></blockquote>While it is not immediately evident what Vivekananda means by "realization" here, elsewhere, it becomes clear that he means a direct cognition or intuition of the nature of reality -- an "experience" that transcends discursive and intellectual understanding:<br /><br /><blockquote><p>You say there is a soul. Have you seen the soul?... You have to answer the question, and find out the way to see the soul.... If a religion is true, it must be able to show us the soul, to show us God.... We have to go beyond the intellect; the proof of religion is in direct perception. From "The Need of Symbols." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 63-64.</p><p><br />Until superconsciousness opens for you, religion is mere talk.... You are talking second-hand, third-hand and here applies that beautiful saying of the Buddha when Brahmins. They came discussing about the nature of Brahman, and the great sage asked, "Have you seen Brahman?" "No," said the Brahmin"; "Or your father?" "No, neither has he," "Or your grandfather?" "I don't think even he saw Him." "My friend how can you discuss about a person whom your father and grandfather never saw?".... Let us say in the language of Vedanta, "This Atman is not to be reached by too much talk, no, not even by the highest intellect, no, not even by the study of the Vedas themselves." From "The Sages of India." <em>Selections</em>, p. 236.</p></blockquote><br />The first passage referred to by Vivekananda in the above paragraph is similar to a passage from Digha Nikaya 1.238, noted by Jayatilleke (see Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, p. 183), in which certain brahmins are asked by the Buddha if they have seen brahma "face to face" (brahma sakkhidittho). The second passage is an interpolation of Katha Up 1.2.23 and Mundaka Up 3.2.3.<br /><br />While Vivekananda often contrasts "talking" with "realization," he also contrasts an approach that emphasizes "talking" with an approach that emphasizes "practice":<br /><br /><blockquote>We always forget that religion does not consist in hearing talks, or in reading books, but is a continuous struggle, a grappling with our own nature.... From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, p. 54.<br /></blockquote>Here, Vivekananda shuffles the dichotomy, shifting it from a distinction between absolute and relative truth ("realization" vs. "talking") to a distinction between two relative forms of practice ("talking" vs. "real" practice):<br /><br /><blockquote>It is imperative that all these Yogas should be carried out in practice; mere theories about them will not do any good. First we have to hear about them, then we have to think about them... and we have to meditate on them, realise them, until at last they become our whole life. No longer will religion become a bundle of ideas or theories, nor an intellectual assent; it will enter into our very self... Religion is realisation; not talk or doctrines nor theories... It is being and becoming not hearing and acknowledging. From "The Ideal of a Universal Religion." <em>Selections</em>, p. 161.</blockquote><br />The roles of listening and discussion have now become ambiguous. Note that the above passage begins by recommending the practices of listening (shravana) and deliberation/discussion (manana), but then concludes with their dismissal. This kind of inconsistency is typical among modernist reinterpretations of Vedanta that attempt to draw upon the authority of traditional Vedanta while simultaneously attempting to dismiss it. Perhaps, it might be argued, the point is that listening and deliberation/discussion are not, on their own, sufficient for realization. This makes for an facile compromise, but it does not adequately take into account Vivekananda's repeated denunciations of "talking."<br /><br />I would suggest that the dichotomy here between "talking" and "practising" is largely a polemical construct, and that Vivekananda has someone in mind when he refers to "talking" -- be it the Christian minister, European professor of philosophy, or Indian pandita. In other words, it is only the talk of certain teachers that need be dismissed; the rants of the Neo-Vedantin may still be taken to heart.<br /><br /><strong>IV. Experience as the Essence of Religion and the Basis of Authority</strong><br /><br />As already noted, Vivekananda replaces traditional revelation with personal "experience." Like Debendranath and Keshab, Vivekananda views religious experience as the essential core of religion:<br /><br /><blockquote>Religion consists soley in realisation. Doctrines are methods, not religion. From "Inspired Talks." <em>Selections</em>, p. 33</blockquote><br />In the following passage, Vivekananda adopts the empiricist principle that all knowledge is rooted in experience and then transposes it into the domain of religion. He then makes the claim that all the great world religions find their true source and inspiration in "experience":<br /><br /><blockquote>All our knowledge is based upon experience.... Now the question is, has religion any such basis or not? Religion as it is generally taught... is said to consist of faith and belief, and... consists only of different sets of theories, and that is the reason we find all religions quarrelling with each other.... This is why religion and metaphysical philosophy have a bad name nowadays.... Nevertheless, there is a basis of universal belief in religion, governing all the different theories.... [G]oing to their basis we find that they also are based upon universal experiences.... If you go to the fountainhead of Christianity, you will find that it is based upon experience. Christ said he saw God.... Similarly in Buddhism, it is the Buddha's experience. He experienced certain truths, saw them, came into contact with them, and preached them to the world. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 71-72.</blockquote><br />The idea of religions "quarrelling with each other" because they are based on different doctrines is similar to an argument used by Shankara, namely, that the different heterodox darshanas, such a Buddhism, Samkhya, etc., are all mutually contradictory (paraspara-viruddha) because they are based upon heterogenous teachings. Shankara's solution to this problem of the "multivalency of truth" is to insist upon the authority of the authorless Veda. Vivekananda's solution is to replace scripture with "experience." The implication appears to be that if people recognized that all religion is based upon experience, quarrelling among the various religions would disappear. Here, Vivekananda hastily infers the <em>uniformity</em> of religious experience from the premise of its <em>universality</em>. He does not stop to consider the possibility that personal experience too is multiform.<br /><br />Like the other world religions, Hinduism too, for Vivekananda, is based upon experience. Drawing on classical authors like Yaska and Vatsyayana, and possibly moderns like Debendranath, Vivekananda argues that the Veda itself finds its basis in the experience of the ancient seers, the rishis:<br /><br /><blockquote>So with the Hindus. In their books the writers, who are called Rishis, or sages, declare they experienced certain truths, and these they preach. Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge -- direct experience. The teachers all saw God; they all saw their own souls, and what they saw they preached. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 71-72.<br /></blockquote>In his famous 1893 address to the World Parliament of Religions, Vivekananda makes a similar point. Here, however, he makes the modified claim that the Vedas are not books but a body of knowledge:<br /><br /><blockquote>The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas.... By the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasure of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times.... The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings. From "Address to World Parliament of Religions," Sept 19, 1893. <em>Selections</em>, p. 4</blockquote><br />Like Vatsyayana, Vivekananda insists that the Vedas are intuited or "seen" through super-sensory (ati-indriya) perception (pratyaksha):<br /><br /><blockquote>How comes then the knowledge which the Vedas declare? It comes through being a Rishi. This knowledge is not in the senses....... Beyond the senses, men must go, in order to arrive at the truths of the spiritual world.... These are called Rishis, because they come face to face with spiritual truths. The proof therefore of the Vedas is just the same as the proof of this table before me, Pratyaksha, direct perception. From "The Sages of India." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 235-236.</blockquote><br />Vivekananda does not elaborate on how it is that the entire contents of the Vedas are "seen," exactly. It is the kind of claim that may sound plausible initially, but begins to make less sense the more one considers its details. In any case, Vivekananda claims that the means to obtaining the super-sensory perception needed to "see" the Veda is the practice of yoga. The ancient rishis were thus practising yogins.<br /><br />In the next passage, Vivekananda interprets the doctrine of the "two truths" as a distinction between sensory perception and inference, on the one hand, and yogic experience on the other:<br /><br /><blockquote>Truth is of two kinds: 1) that which is cognisable by the five ordinary senses of man and by reasonings based thereon; 2) that which is cognisable by the subtle supersensuous power of Yoga.... The person in whom this supersensuous power is manifest is called Rishi, and the supersensuous truths which he realizes by this power are called the Vedas. This Rishihood, this power of supersensuous perception of the Vedas, is real religion. From "Hinduism and Shri Ramakrishna." <em>Selections</em>, p. 429.<br /></blockquote>If experience is the source and basis of all religion, then it is also the supreme authority. Accordingly, for Vivekananda, personal religious experience is the basis of the authority of the guru:<br /><blockquote><p>No one can teach a single grain of truth until he has it in himself. From "The Teacher of Spirituality." <em>Selections</em>, p. 66. </p><p><br />Have you seen this God whom you want to preach? If you have not seen, vain is your preaching; you do not know what you say. From "The Sages of India." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 236-237.</p></blockquote><br />We are now in a position to put Vivekananda's views on experience and authority into context. While Vivekananda's relationship towards the Vedas remains ambiguous, it is at least clear that, for Vivekananda, the authority of the Vedas does not have to do with their being anonymous revealed scripture (shruti) per se, but with their being the "record" of the religious experience of certain individuals. In other words, it is not scripture here that grounds and authenticates personal religious experience, but religious experience that grounds and authenticates scripture.<br /><br />What this does, in effect, is wrest control away from the perceived traditional mediators of authority, represented here by the "Pundits," and sets up in their stead a new priest-craft, the "Gurus," whose claim to authority is based not on the Veda but on their own personal experience. The oligarchy of the "Pundits" and their self-validating scripture has effectively been replaced by the tyranny of the Guru and his whimsical "experience."<br /><br />It is sometimes claimed that Shankara also downplayed the importance of the role of scripture. I would like to briefly examine the basis of this claim. The point in doing so will not be to assert the superiority of Shankara's Vedanta over that of Vivekananda. (Shankara's own position on the authority of scripture <em>vis a vis</em> the authority of his Advaitic interpretation of Vedanta is not without its own share of problems.) The point here is simply to compare how Shankara dealt with the issue of authority and the role of experience.<br /><br />At times in Shankara's commentaries, an interlocutor points out that if we are always already free, then the teachings found in scripture are not necessary. "Let them be unnecessary," Shankara responds, "for the one who has realized his oneness with brahman; but for those still under the spell of ignorance, they are necessary." At other times, as in his comments on Gita 18.66, Shankara says, somewhat rhetorically, that 100 scriptural passages will not make fire cold.<br /><br />Such passages, which are very infrequent in the works of Shankara, are given great weight by certain scholars, such as T.M.P. Mahadevan, who, being impressed by modern sages like Ramana Maharshi, seek to find the Neo-Advaitin teachings confirmed in the works of Shankara. But we should not take such passages out of context. While it is true that Shankara gives priority to reality or "suchness" (yathabhutatva) over scripture (shruti), insofar as it is the reality (vastutva) of brahman that gives mahavakyas like "You are That" (tat tvam asi) their force, the context in which Shankara makes the second comment noted above is one in which he is claiming that scripture does not have authority over the worldly means of knowledge. And while Shankara maintains that brahman-jnana is indeed the cognition of a real state of affairs (tattva) akin to the perception (pratyaksha) of a fruit held in one's hand, he sees the difficulty in accepting mere personal religious experience as authoritative, for such experience is multiform. Experience, for Shankara, must be in accord with the Vedic revelation, and he carefully insists that personal experience submit to the rule of scripture. In Shankara's thought, it is revealed scripture that legitimates personal experience, and not the reverse.<br /><br /><strong>V. Practice and "Verification"</strong><br /><br />While certain classical commentators such as Yaksha and Vatsyayana had held that the Vedas were "intuited" via super-sensory means, in classical India such extraordinary means of knowledge were not seen as possibilities for people other than the ancient rishis. Occasionally, the founders of various schools, such as the Buddha, Mahavira, and Kapila, were seen by their followers as possessing rishi-like powers. But for certain modern Neo-Hindus like Debendranath and Vivekananda revelation is not, and cannot be, a one shot affair: if it was possible in the past then it is possible today. In this way, Vivekananda distinguishes his Yoga and Vedanta from other religions:<br /><br /><blockquote><p>Only there is this difference, that by most of these religions... a peculiar claim is made, namely, that these experiences are impossible in the present day.... This I entirely deny. If there has been one experience... it absolutely follows that that experience has been possible millions of times before. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 71-72. </p><p><br />The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based on the experience of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has the same perception himself. It is not much use to talk about religion until one has felt it.... If there is a God we must see Him, if there is a soul we must perceive it. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, p. 72.<br /></p></blockquote>As was the case with the ancient rishis, the means to acquiring these super-sensory capacities is the practice of yoga:<br /><br /><blockquote>Yoga is the science which teaches us how to get these perceptions. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, p. 72.<br /></blockquote>The theme of yoga as "science" is a recurring theme in the writings of several Indian yoga teachers who follow Vivekananda to the West. We find it exemplified in books such as Parmahansa Yogananda's <em>The Science of Religion</em>, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's <em>The Science of Living and the Art of Being</em>, and the works of Swami Rama, founder of the Himalaya Institute. Here, yoga, specifically patanjala-yoga, is presented as a kind of "scientific method" with results that can be "verified" for oneself through the application of an "experimental method" implemented in the "laboratory of the mind":<br /><br /><blockquote><p>Verification is the proof of any theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the worldby the Rishis." From "Address to World Parliament of Religions," Sept 19, 1893. <em>Selections</em>, p. 7-8.<br /><br />The science of Raja-Yoga proposes to put before humanity a practical and scientifically worked out method of reaching this truth.... Each science must have its own methods. I could preach to you thousands of sermons but they would not make you religious, until you practiced the method. These are the truths of the sages.... They all declare that they have found some truth higher than what the senses can bring to us and they invite verification. They ask us to take up the method. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, p. 73.<br /></p></blockquote>In such passages we find an early version of a theme found in the writings of Ken Wilber: the need to "take up the injunction." The idea that the truths experienced by the ancient rishis can be "replicated" through a process of "testing," in a manner to akin to the methods of modern science, is also found in the writings of Debendranath Tagore. Debendranath understood the classical inquiry or "examination" (pariksha) as kind of "experimental method." He too suggested that the authors of the Upanishads were "inviting" or "challenging" us to "take up the injunction." Of course, while the Upanishads do contain injunctions for brahmins to "meditate upon the self" and so on, until the time of Debendranath there is no indication within the classical tradition that individuals were required to become self-styled rishis and seek out their own personal revelation; nor can it be said that the classical tradition advocated the adoption of a free and open-ended inquiry like that of modern science and philosophy.<br /><br />Vivekananda interprets the process of yoga as a kind of introspective procedure in which the mind "watches" itself. This idea parallels conceptions found in European thinkers from roughly this same period. Henri Bergson's "intuition," William James' "stream of consciousness," and Edmund Husserl's "phenomenology of internal time consciousness" all imply similar connotations. Vivekananda describes the procedure thus:<br /><br /><blockquote>The perfected mind... has the reflexive power of looking back into its own depths. This reflexive power is what the Yogi wants to attain; by concentrating the powers of the mind and turning them inward he seeks to know what is happening inside.... The Yogi proposes to attain that fine state of perception in which he can perceive all the different mental states. There must be a mental perception of all of them. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 79-80.</blockquote><br />Apparently, this is supposed to be a description of the process of patanjala-yoga. But if that is the case, it is not clear which passages from the Yoga Sutras Vivekananda has in mind here. Yoga Sutra 3.53 does say that meditation (samyama) upon the moments (kshana) and their succession yields discriminative knowledge (viveka-jnana). But apart from this, there appears to be no indication that Raja-yoga is primarily concerned with an impartial introspection of the mind and its contents.<br /><br />That for Vivekananda, the yogic procedure does not simply entail a passive observation of the mental flux becomes evident in the following passage:<br /><br /><blockquote>The science of Raja-Yoga... proposes to give us such a means of observing the internal states. The instrument is the mind itself. The power of attention... directed towards the internal world, will analyse the mind, and illuminate facts for us... That is the only way to anything which will be a scientific approach to the subject. When by analysing his own mind, man comes face to face, as it were, with something which is never destroyed, something which is, by its own nature, eternally pure and perfect. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, p. 74.</blockquote><br />Here, Vivekananda reveals that, for him, more than a mere passive observation is involved in the yogic process; an active "analysis" of mental states is also entailed. And indeed, this is more in line with the teachings of traditional patanjala-yoga. Yoga Sutras 4.18-20, for example, describe how it is that the changing mental states presuppose an unchanging witness, and it is within this context that YS 3.53 should be situated. What such passages indicate is that a certain kind of understanding is required by the yogin, an understanding that is guided and informed by the teachings of patanjala-yoga. What is required, in other words, is a discriminative understanding (prajna) that regards the self-luminous (svabhasa) unchanging (aparinamatva) spirit (purusha) as essentially distinct (vivikta) from the mental flux (citta-vrtti). In patanjala-yoga, it is precisely this discriminative perception (viveka-khyati) that is required for release, or "independence" (kaivalya) from conditioned existence (samsara).<br /><br />It is for this reason that Vivekananda himself "frames" his description of the yogic process within the larger context of the teachings of Samkhya:<br /><br /><blockquote>Before proceeding further I will tell you a little of the Samkhya philosophy, upon which the whole of Raja-Yoga is based. According to the Samkhya philosophy the genesis of perception is as follows: the affections of external objects are carried by their outer instruments to their respective brain centres or organs, the organs carry the affections to the mind, the mind to the determinative faculty, from this the Purusha (the soul) receives them, when perceptions results.... With the exception of the Purusha all of these are material, but the mind is much finer matter than the external instruments.... That is the psychology of the Samkhya. From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 79-80.</blockquote><br />What the teaching of Samkhya does here is provide an interpretive framework within which the "observation" and "analysis" of the mental contents as they relate to "pure consciousness" can be situated. Here, the "mind" will not be something passively perceived like a chemical reaction in a flask; nor will it be an object of "verification" like an object of the empirical sciences. Rather, the mental process will be "seen-as," that is, interpreted as a function of the categories of "citta," "buddhi," and "manas," which are all pre-defined for the yoga practitioner as per the teachings of Samkhya-Yoga.<br /><br />It is unlikely that the original Samkhya philosophers arrived at the above doctrine through a mere "intuition" of the natures of the "mind" and "spirit." Just as the yogic process does not simply involve a neutral perception of the mind as "given," so too the contents of the Samkhya and Yoga darshanas were not simply the result of a mere "super-sensory perception." Clearly, speculative reason also played a significant role in the development of these traditions, and to suggest otherwise would be historically naive. Vivekananda as much as admits the role of speculation when he writes:<br /><br /><blockquote>There is in this no question of mere belief; it is the analysis arrived at by certain philosophers.... From "The Aim of Raja Yoga." <em>Selections</em>, pp. 79-80.</blockquote>To conclude this section, while the language of "replication" and "verification" may be out of place as far as the description of the yogic process is concerned, and while it is unlikely that the contents of the Yoga, Samkhya and Vedanta systems were developed as a result of mere yogic perception (yogi-pratyaksha), a certain "concordance of vision" can be said to obtain between the founders of Yoga and Vedanta, on the one hand, and the followers of these paths on the other. But this "vision" is not like the perception of a given empirical reality passively absorbed through the senses (if such a thing even exists); nor is it something acquired through the application of a neutral open-ended enquiry. Rather, it involves the development of a certain kind of "seeing," an understanding of oneself and the world in accordance with a particular teaching. In this sense, it is more like the active incorporation of a perspective, a change of view that allows the practitioners of these traditions to understand and comport themselves in a particular, and hopefully more liberating, way.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-1158000619764176802006-09-11T11:35:00.001-07:002006-09-25T17:35:01.656-07:00The Neo-Vedanta of Swami Vivekananda: Part One<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b> I. Introduction</b><br /><br />The figure of Swami Vivekananda casts a long shadow in the history of late nineteenth and early twentieth century religious thought. His influence, which extends now into the twenty-first century, can be seen in a variety of contexts. Later Indian teachers of spirituality who have worked in the West, such as Yogananda, owe a large debt to Vivekananda, as do Western self-styled gurus, like Adi Da (Franklin Jones). Likewise, many of the ideas of perennialist writers who deal with Indian yoga and mysticism, such as Ken Wilber and Georg Feuerstein, echo ideas originally popularized by Vivekananda. While many remember Vivekananda as a teacher of spirituality and prominent leader of a religious community, he was also, and perhaps more importantly, an influential rhetorician and apologist for what he referred to as the "sanatana dharma," the "eternal tradition" of Hinduism. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For Vivekananda, the primary expression of India's "eternal tradition" was the Vedanta, in particular, Advaita Vedanta. But a question has lingered in the minds of historians of religion over the degree to which Vivekananda's "Vedanta" can be said to correspond to the classical Advaita of Gaudapada, Shankara, Mandana and their successors. For the discerning historian, it is apparent that Vivekananda significantly modifies the classical Vedanta, and that his modifications are not derivative of the traditional interpretations; no, they appear as the expression of something new.<br /><br />In one of the few historically critical articles on Vivekananda, the German Indologist Paul Hacker posed the question thus:<br /><br /></p><blockquote>The student of Indian thought must ask himself whether this modification is a straight prolongation of the lines traced out by the ancient masters of the monistic Vedanta, or whether there is a break between the ideas of the old school and Vivekananda's presentation of the Vedanta.... The result of such scrutiny is that there is actually a break... ("Aspects of Neo-Hinduism," <i>Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Vedanta</i>, W. Halbfass, editor, p. 240.)</blockquote><p></p><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A noted scholar of the classical Indian tradition, Hacker was also interested in the relation between Indian traditionalism and modernity. Hacker proposed the term "Neo-Hinduism" to refer to various Hindu modernists and nationalists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, authors and political leaders such as Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894); B.G. Tilak (1856-1920); Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1947); Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941); and Vinoba Bhave (1895-1982). Other writers and religious leaders, such as Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905), Dayananda Sarasvati (1824-1883), and Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884) are considered "forerunners" of Neo-Hinduism by Hacker, since the theme of Hindu nationalism remains undeveloped in their works. Hacker also occasionally used the term "Neo-Vedanta" to refer to the writings of religious thinkers and writers within Neo-Hinduism whose orientation was more specifically Vedantic, figures such as Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Aurobindo Ghose (1872-1950), and the noted intellectual historian and statesman, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975).</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What, then, does it mean to call Vivekananda a "Neo-Vedantin?" What Hacker has in mind when he speaks of Neo-Hinduism is specifically the adoption of Western values and approaches, and the subsequent attempt to find those values imbedded in the indigenous Indian tradition. There are, of course, various degrees to which a writer or movement can be said to be "Neo-Hindu" in this regard. Interestingly, Hacker finds the writings of the Neo-Vedantins to be the most characteristic expressions of the Neo-Hindu type.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Though it is primarily through the work of Hacker that the term "Neo-Vedanta" has come into its current usage, the term itself predates Hacker's work. A Bengali work from 1817, for example, speaks of the "new Vedanta" (abhinava-vedanta) of Rammohan Roy. And an article in the Calcutta Review of 1844 compares the term "Neo-Vedanta" to the usage "Neo-Platonism"; the article remarks:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>So, in like manner, ought much of what, nowadays, is made to pass for Vedantism -- consisting as it does of a new compound arising from an incorporation of many Western ideas with fragments of oriental thought -- to be designated Neo-Vedantism to distinguish it from the old.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The context of the above remark is one that is already apologetic and polemically charged, with Hindu traditionalists, Christian missionaries, and early Hindu modernists constituting the primary factions. In the years to come, the Neo-Vedantins will answer the charge that their innovations do not entail the incorporation of foreign elements by arguing that these elements are to be found originally in the primordial Vedanta. Thus, Hacker's secondary characteristic -- that of attempting to find modern values in the ancient tradition -- is also an extension of the polemical context from which the term "Neo-Vedanta" arises.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What distinguishes Hacker's specific application of the term "Neo-Vedanta," vis-a-vis earlier applications, is that it is more or less descriptive and not normative. I say "more or less" since Hacker was also interested in the "Hindu-Christian dialogue" of his day. This being the case, it can be difficult, at times, to separate clearly Hacker's purely historical and Indological concerns from his theological ones; Hacker himself believed that the aim of "pure" objectivity was an abstraction. Nonetheless, in his studies, Hacker was able to identify some important differences between the classical Indian tradition and certain modern expressions of Hinduism, and he managed to reveal the essentially rhetorical elements of the latter in the process. Thus, from an Indological point of view, his categories of "Neo-Hinduism" and "Neo-Vedanta" make for useful historical descriptions.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My work here is meant to complement and extend the work of Hacker and the late Wilhelm Halbfass. My approach to Vivekananda's presentation of Vedanta will be historical and critical, and yet at the same time hermeneutically sensitive. By the term "critical" I do not mean that I will simply supply a critique of Vivekananda's thought as such. What I mean is that I will not take what he says at face value, as a phenomenologist might; rather, I will subject what he says to the scrutiny of critical reason and fact. At the same time, I will not indulge in the mere "deconstruction" of either the person of Vivekananda or his thought, and this is what I mean by the designation "hermeneutically sensitive." For, whatever his "influence," there is much that is of historical interest in the thought of Vivekananda.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br />II. A Note on the Sources of this Study</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The <a href="http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/complete_works.htm">works of Vivekananda</a> amount to nearly four thousand pages. To facilitate access to the wide range of Vivekananda's writings, the editors at Advaita Ashrama assembled a single-volume collection of some of Vivekananda's more memorable tracts. First published in 1944, it is an commendable edition, in my opinion, as it provides not only a fair representation of Vivekananda's ideas and general vision, but suggests an interesting impression of the character of Vivekananda himself. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Running at close to 500 pages, <i>Selections from Swami Vivekananda</i> contains many of the more forceful chapters from his four well-known books on yoga -- <i>Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga</i>, and<i> Jnana Yoga</i>. It also contains several important essays and lectures, as well as some of his more interesting addresses and inspired speeches to his Indian countrymen. Rounding out the contents are various interviews, conversations, private discourses to students, and letters to friends and correspondents.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The collection shows Vivekananda at his rhetorical best -- or worst, depending on how one views such things. This makes it a useful document for students and teachers of the history of Indian religion, as it brings together Vivekananda the philosopher and teacher of spirituality with Vivekananda the political visionary and religious propagandist. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I will be focussing on the words and ideas of Vivekananda in this essay and not dwell extensively on his biography. Instead of referring to page numbers from the various books of Vivekananda, I will simply refer to the page numbers of the one-volume edition, <i>Selections</i>. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In Part One of this essay I have drawn largely from the studies of Paul Hacker and Wilhelm Halbfass (listed at the end of Part One). I have also consulted Swami Nikhilananda's <a href="http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda_biography/vivekananda_biography.htm">biography of Swami Vivekananda</a>. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In Part Two of the essay, I collate various recurring themes found in <i>Selections</i>. The aim will be to contextualize aspects of the thinking and rhetoric of Vivekananda by relating select ideas to their classical and modern antecedents. In this way, I hope to give meaning and content to the designation "Neo-Vedanta" as it applies to his thought.<br /><br /><b><br />III. The Intellectual Context Prior to Vivekananda: Three Forerunners</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">All thought arises relative to a particular intellectual milieu. The thinking of Vivekananda is not different in this regard, and accordingly, several of the themes in Vivekananda's thought can also be found in his intellectual and rhetorical forerunners. Three of the most important of these are Rammohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, and Keshab Chandra Sen.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) was a Hindu "reformer" from Bengal. He is sometimes associated with the so-called Hindu "renaissance" and has been called "the father of modern India," even though he was by no means a Hindu nationalist. A brahmin by birth, he came from a family of successful businessmen. As a result of his family's business ventures, he had extensive contact with English and Muslim cultures during his youth. Financial security later allowed Rammohan to dedicate his time to scholarly and journalistic interests. In 1828, he founded the Brahma Samaj, a movement concerned with Hindu reform. Perhaps his most famous campaign opposed the practice of "suttee." </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of the most important themes in Rammohan Roy's thought is that of universalism, a theme that occurs with increasing frequency in his writings. Rammohan was among the first to point to commonalities shared by the world's religions. M. Monier-Williams and B.N. Seal saw him as an early practitioner of the field of "comparative religions." In 1829, Rammohan published a work with the title, <i>The Universal Religion: Religious Instructions founded on Sacred Sources</i>. In this work, we find the germ of the idea that the Hindu tradition is superior to all others due to its ability to subsume the foreign. In Rammohan's thought, this receptivity to the foreign is presented as an essential aspect of Hinduism. Here, perhaps for the first time in history, Indian "inclusivism" is extended toward religions and traditions outside of India.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rammohan attempted to find a traditional basis for this universalism by referring to classical Hindu sources, such as the scriptures of Vedanta and the commentaries of Shankara. He also referred to the Mahanirvana Tantra. A text of questionable date and origin, the Mahanirvana Tantra is an important text in the history of Indian inclusivism. It speaks of the kaula-dharma as super-ceding all other Hindu revelation: just as the elephant's footprint obliterates the footprints of all the animals of the forest, so too the kaula-dharma subsumes every other Hindu tradition. The Mahanirvana Tantra is also interesting in that it speaks of the kaula community as open to all men, an idea that may indicate influence from Mahayana Buddhism. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Rammohan regarded the Deism of the rationalists as the supreme theology. In regards the Indian traditions, he viewed the Vedanta as particularly authoritative. In an attempt to bring the two together, he came to understand the monism of Advaita Vedanta as the expression of a "pure monotheism." As for Rammohan's readings of Shankara, they are rather forced. For one, the stringent requirements of "qualification" (adhikara) set out by Shankara are systematically avoided by Rammohan in his commentaries. Indeed, Rammohan sought to do away entirely with the notion of caste-based "qualification"; unlike Shankara, he understood ultimate truth as accessible to everyone. Rammohan also sought to relate the teachings of the Upanishads and Advaita Vedanta to "practical" and utilitarian concerns, such as the achievement of social ends. But in the classical Vedanta of Shankara, the domains of worldly means-and-ends, on the one hand, and salvation (moksha), on the other, are sharply demarcated. As Shankara says at the end of his introduction to Brhad Up 3.2.1, "means and ends constitute bondage (sadhya-sadhana-lakshano bandhah)."</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Though the Mahanirvana Tantra provided a degree of inspiration for Rammohan, his interest in universalism appears to have stemmed from his preoccupation with another idea, that of religious egalitarianism. This interest in egalitarianism derived in large part from his encounter with Western liberal thought, in particular, J. Bentham's idea of the "greatest good for the greatest number." In his writings, Rammohan appears to have retrofitted the idea to Hinduism and then read it back into his Sanskrit sources.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Paralleling the themes of universalism and egalitarianism is another theme that functions as their reflex. This is the idea that the traditional brahmanic pandits have appropriated the Vedic revelation and adapted it to serve their own purposes. According to Rammohan, the pandits, who are only interested in their own ends, are the real perpetrators of the idea of qualification (adhikara). These "selfish pundits" (svarthapara pandita) have at the same time dissembled the real purport of the scriptures; Rammohan writes:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>But from its being concealed within the dark curtain of the Sungskrit language, and the Brahmins permitting themselves alone to interpret or even to touch any book of the kind, the Vedant, although perpetually quoted, is little known to the public.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Accordingly, Rammonhan had little interest in maintaining the traditional schools of the pandits. Rather, he supported the idea of instituting the English system of education in India. In keeping with his liberal predilections, Rammohan saw education as an important means of levelling caste hierarchy. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In the above quotation from Rammohan, we also find implied another important theme. This is the idea that the sources of Hinduism are pure in their original essence, but that their contents have been distorted by those who have appropriated their transmission. As opposed to this "corrupt" and ossified tradition, Rammohan advocates a return the "primordial intent" of the Vedas and other sources of Hinduism. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another interesting aspect of Rammohan's writings concerns not so much the content of his thought as its rhetorical form. Like some of his Neo-Hindu successors, especially those who wrote in English, Rammohan wrote not only for Indian audiences, but for, and against, Europeans. An interesting aspect of his writing is the degree to which his various addresses differ depending upon whom he is addressing. When he is addressing a primarily European audience, he appeals to concepts such as "common sense," "reason," and "the dignity of the human," all the while playing down ideas like reincarnation. But when he is addressing his Bengali audiences, for example, we find the expression of familiar Indian themes such as the tension between "yukti" (reason) and "shastra" (scripture).</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">According to Hacker, Rammohan Roy's thought should not be understood as an expression of "Neo-Hinduism" proper since we do not find the theme of Hindu nationalism present in it, a theme that Hacker sees as characteristic. Nonetheless, we do find the beginnings of Hindu self-assertion in Rammohan's writings, and many of his conceptions anticipate ideas that will reappear in the writings of Neo-Vedantins, especially those of Vivekananda, who more than once refers to him favourably. In this sense, he can be considered an important forerunner of Neo-Vedanta and Neo-Hinduism in general.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another leader of the Brahma Samaj was the influential thinker and writer Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905), father of the poet Rabindranath Tagore. In a much more overt way than what we find in Rammohan, Debendranath questioned the degree to which the Hindu scriptures are to be taken as authoritative; he openly challenged those portions of the scriptures that he saw as unsuitable for the "worship of Brahma," as he conceived it.<br /><br />One theme that follows from this challenge to scriptural authority is the search for the foundation of authority in self-certainty. For if traditional authority is to be challenged, then some other form of authority will be needed to replace what has been displaced. So it is that we find in Debendranath's thought the idea that validity and authority lie, most authentically, in the "experiential" and "intuitive" confirmation of truth. Significantly, Debendranath tells us that the ancient seers (rishis) "experimentally tested" (parikshita) and confirmed the truths expressed in the Upanishads. In this scenario, the Upanishads become documents chronicling the "experiences" of ancient yogins. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Debendranath also believed that the ancient seers had intended us personally to realize and "experientially confirm" the truths they had discovered, and he saw himself as a kind of seer who had personally realized such truths. It is important to note that for Debendranath, scriptural revelation does not hold the same kind of authority it does in traditional Hinduism. Truth for him is not implicit in the religious text itself; it is to be found in the "intuitive confirmation" of what the text denotes. The scriptures are mere secondary reports of such experience; what matters is the intuitive experience of truth itself, which Debendranath claims has its ground in his one's "own heart." He writes accordingly, "I evolved the foundation of the Brahma Dharma from my own heart."</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Unlike Rammohan, Debendranath did not recognize the authority of Shankara's writings. He appears to have realized that Shankara's allegiance to scriptural authority would not be in keeping with his own understanding of the role of the Hindu scriptures. He also saw the austere soteriology of Advaita Vedanta as out of touch with religious life and its social expression as he envisioned it. Abandoning the classical commentaries of Shankara, he wrote his own commentaries upon the Upanishads in their stead.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While it is possible that Debendranath may have been inspired by the mystical traditions of his native Bengal, his most important ideas appear to come from modern European thought, in particular, from the Scottish school of Common Sense. In his writings, Debendranath attempts to find Indian equivalents for the principles of self-certainty and common sense; for example, when he uses the compound "svatahsiddha-atmapratyaya" it is clear that he means "self-evident intuition." While Debendranath's notions concerning "intuition" (atma-pratyaya) and the "heart" (hrdaya) sound much like the "personal conviction" (atma-tushthi) and "inner voice" (hrdaya-koshana) referred to in the dharmashastra literature, and his use of the term "svatahsiddha" reminds us of the concept of "svatahpramanya," the "self-validating authority" of the Vedas referred to by the Mimamsakas, it is important to note that Debendranath reverses the priority established by Kumarila and other orthodox commentators. This is to say that Debendranath takes "self-evidence" and "intuition" as primary and the Vedic texts as their mere secondary effect. This indicates that he gives initial priority to the modern concepts of "self-certainty" and "common sense" and only subsequently attempts to find their analogs in the Indian lexicon.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Debendranath's adaptation of the Indian term for "examination" (pariksha), which for him refers to a kind of "experimental verification," shows influence from the camp of the empiricists as well. Indeed, Debendranath is important in the history of Neo-Hinduism, and in regard to the writings of those who will follow in its wake, because he is among the first to articulate a philosophical basis for what has been called "mystical empiricism." The central idea of mystical empiricism is the principle that spiritual truths can not only be "empirically verified" through spiritual or "transpersonal" experience, but that they are required to known in such a manner. We find this idea not only in the writings of Vivekananda, Aurobindo, and Yogananda, but in the works of perennialists like Wilber and Feuerstein.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One more figure should be referred to before turning to the life of Vivekananda, and that person is Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884). Keshab was a compatriot of Debendranath in the Brahma Samaj. In Keshab's thinking, the idea that "intuition" is superior to scripture is even more pronounced. But unlike Debendranath, Keshab was more open to the suggestion that there are sources of truth outside of Hinduism, and to the idea of the universal harmony of all religions. For Keshab, the Buddha, Christ, and Moses are all rishis. In the <i>Gospel of Ramakrishna</i> it is suggested that Keshab's view was shaped largely by his encounter with Ramakrishna, who also held the view of the universal harmony of all religions. But though Keshab did meet with Ramakrishna on several occasions, his biography shows that he arrived at his belief in the universal harmony of all faiths independently of the influence of Ramakrishna.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Like Rammohan and Debendranath, Keshab's writings also show the influence of European thought. Familiar Western philosophical turns of phrase such as "common sense," "a priori truth," and so on, pepper his writings. We also find in Keshab's work the development of an important theme that will reappear among later apologists like Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Yogananda and Wilber. This is the idea that "Western" scientific enquiry and "Eastern" spirituality need not be mutually incompatible, but that they can complement each other and indeed, supplement each other's deficiencies; Keshab writes:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Europe, the Lord has blessed thee with scholarship and science and philosophy, and with these thou art great among the nations of the earth. Add to these the faith and intuition and spirituality of Asia, and thou will be greater still. Asia honours thy philosophy; do thou honour, O Europe, Asia's spirituality and communion. Thus shall we rectify each other's errors and supplement mutual deficiencies. (<i>Lectures in India</i>)</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The stage is now set for the appearance of Vivekananda.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><br />IV. Four Events in the Life of Vivekananda that Shaped his Thought </b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vivekananda, i.e., Narendranath Datta, was born in 1863 in Calcutta. He was a member of the kayastha, a scribe caste that viewed itself as a sub-caste of the kshatriyas. In 1879 he entered Presidency College in Calcutta, and later he studied at Scottish Church College. In 1884, he received a B.A. degree.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">During his time at college, Narendra became acquainted with European philosophy. He studied the positivism of John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte, the scepticism of David Hume, and the agnostic thought of Herbert Spencer. The works of these European philosophers had been exerting their influence in Bengal for some time. Comte was particularly well known in Bengal. Enthusiasts in Europe had sent positivist "missionaries" to Bengal at one time to spread the word, and Comte came to have a dedicated following there. Thomas Paine's <i>Age of Reason</i> (1794) had, over a period of time, been translated into Bengali. Hume was taught at the Hindu College in Calcutta. And the empiricism and Utilitarianism of J.S. Mill were well known among Bengali intellectuals. Rammohan Roy himself had corresponded with Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart's mentor.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Throughout most of his youth, Narendra maintained a belief in God, a belief that was in part shaped by the teachings of the Brahma Samaj. But as a result of his study of European positivism, in particular Mill's <i>Three Essays on Religion</i>, his faith in theism collapsed. This <i>shattering of his faith</i> was a significant event in the life of young Narendra, and it eventually helped orient him away from theism and motivate him to move toward the Vedanta and Yoga. We find evidence in his later writings of the perceived effects of the Enlightenment critique of religion:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Modern science and its sledge hammer blows are pulverising the porcelain foundations of all dualistic religions everywhere. "The Vedanta," <i>Selections</i>, p. 229</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Under the terrific onset of modern scientific research, all the old forts of Western dogmatic religions are crumbling into dust; ... the sledge-hammer blows of modern science are pulverising the porcelain mass of systems whose foundation is either in faith or in belief... "In Defence of Hinduism," <i>Selections</i>, p. 419.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Some time after these events, one of Narendra's friends, Bajendranath Seal, introduced him to the metaphysical monism of Advaita Vedanta and to the Hegelian concept of reason ("the real is the rational, and the rational is the real"). With Bajendra's help, Narendra was able to construct a philosophical perspective that allowed him to ameliorate the effect that positivism and scepticism had exerted upon him. This perspective combined Vedanta with elements of rationalism. This amalgam remained with Narendra throughout his life, and he eventually came to understand Advaita Vedanta as particularly capable of resisting the Enlightenment critique of religion. On the Vedanta, he later writes:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>We have seen how here alone we can take a firm stand against all the onrush of logic and scientific knowledge. Here at last reason has a firm foundation.... Therefore, preach the Advaita to everyone so that religion may withstand the shock of modern science. "The Vedanta," <i>Selections</i>, pp. 220; 230.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The influence of empiricism can also be discerned in his later writings; we will return to the question of how he adapted classical empiricism to the Indian tradition by fusing it with yogic mysticism. For now, we can note that he did not agree with the classical empirical view that experience is primarily sensory experience. Concerning empiricism, he asks rhetorically, "Who dares say that the senses are the all-in-all of man?" "The Sages of India," <i>Selections</i>, p. 235</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In the years immediately following the death of his spiritual master in 1886, Narendra lived in a small monastery in Baranagore with others disciples. But he grew restless, and so he began wandering the country as samnyasin. During this period, we find Narendra continuing to seek out knowledge and spiritual experience -- meeting with various religious leaders and teachers, receiving instruction in Sanskrit from pandits, and living life as a traditional ascetic. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Narendra's letters from this time display a concern that his growing interest in the welfare of others might be hampering his own quest for spiritual enlightenment and liberation. But sometime during 1893, a change in his attitude begins to take place. A letter written in 1894 reveals that his interest had grown to the point where he had become alarmed by the despair and impoverishment of the people of India. This <i>experience of Indian humiliation</i> was another determinative event in his life, and it proved to be something of a turning point for him. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Other Hindu modernists and Neo-Hindu thinkers had experienced this sense of humiliation as well, and there was a general feeling among them that India, and Hinduism in particular, had grown too accustomed to its spiritual resignation and political inertia. S. Radhakrishnan describes the state of dejection he experienced as a student at Madras Christian College:</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>I was strongly persuaded of the inferiority of the Hindu religion to which I attributed a political downfall of India.... I remember the cold sense of reality, the depressing feeling that crept over me, as a causal relation between the anaemic Hindu religion and our political failure forced itself on my mind. ("The Spirit of Man")</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">No doubt, this feeling of inferiority was directly related to India's years of political subjugation. But it was also related to the Indian encounter with European civilization and culture. To an extent, this involved its confrontation with European science, technology, and rationality. But it also involved the social and ethical challenge presented to Hinduism by the Christian missionaries and others. Vivekananda refers to this challenge at various points in his writings; he writes:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Look at the books published in Madras against the Hindu religion. If a Hindu writes such a line against the Christian religion, the missionaries will cry fire and vengeance. "In Defence of Hinduism," <i>Selections</i>, p. 416</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This critique of Hinduism took particular aim at Advaita Vedanta. In their attack on the Vedanta, the Christian apologists enlisted the aid of the principle of utility. An article from the <i>Calcutta Review</i> of 1852 reads, "Let Utility then answer if she prefers Vedantism to Christianity." When referring to the superiority of Christianity, the Christian apologists often pointed to the social and ethical consequences of adopting Vedanta. The implication was that the Vedanta lacked the ability to address properly ethical and social concerns.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">This idea, that Advaita Vedanta suffers from a kind of "ethical apathy," is traced by its critics to the doctrine of the witness (sakshin), that is, to the teaching that the soul is, in its essence, merely a passive spectator and never truly an active agent (kartr). This is the familiar charge of "quietism," the accusation that contemplative traditions are negligent of the needs of society and theoretically inadequate to the task of social activism. Again, we find evidence that Vivekananda was aware of this critique:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>"Oh" they say, "you Hindus have become quiescent and good for nothing, through this doctrine that you are witnesses!" "The Vedanta," <i>Selections</i>, p. 217</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The critics of Vedanta also related this doctrine to another problem: Under the auspices of eternalism, any action becomes possible since any action can be rationalized. Bhagavad Gita 2.19 reads, "Neither he who sees the Self as a killer, nor he who sees the Self as killed, sees things correctly. For the Self is not a killer and nor is it killed." Surely, they argued, this sort of teaching is anathema to ethically justifiable conduct. Many centuries earlier, the Jains and Buddhists had raised a similar objection. They pointed out that any doctrine that teaches that the real can only be the permanent (nitya) and unchanging (avichalita; kutastha) reality will teach the akriya-vada, the teaching that nothing can be done, since all action is impossible.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Another way that monism was viewed as ethically challenged was related by its critics to its inability to provide an adequate frame of reference for morality. Again, it is worth noting that the Indian tradition itself had noticed this problem well before the appearance of Christian missionaries in India. The classical critics of Vedanta posed the problem thus: If we are all one Self, then moral retribution in the case of individuals is senseless; and if we are all essentially one with God, then our sins will attach to God. The modernist critique of Advaita continues this line of thought, if in a less sophisticated manner: If duality is illusory, then good and evil do not exist; and if we are all God, then we can do no wrong. In his later writings, Vivekananda also shows an awareness of this type of critique; he writes:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Our boys blithely talk nowadays, they learn from somebody -- the Lord knows whom -- that Advaita makes people immoral, because if we are all one and all God, what need of morality will there be at all! "The Vedanta," <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 222</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">With regard to the question of Hinduism, and religion in general, some Indian reformers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had come to the conclusion that Hinduism itself was to blame for India's political and social stagnation. But there is little indication in his writings that Vivekananda ever seriously entertained this idea. Since his discovery of Vedanta, and his encounter with Ramakrishna, he appears convinced that Hinduism, and Advaita Vedanta in particular, is not the problem, but the solution. For Vivekananda, spirituality is India's strength. This meant that, "religion was not to blame; men were to blame." </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Determined that he should seek to find a way to improve the lot of the people of India, Narendranath, who at this time begins calling himself Vivekananda, decided to leave India in search of the resources needed to improve the well-being of India's masses. And so, in 1893, he set sail for America. He remained there until 1896, taking occasional excursions to England and continental Europe. While in the West, he experienced American and European civilization and culture. This <i>exposure to Western lifestyles</i>, and culture in general, was another formative factor in the thought of Vivekananda. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Throughout Vivekananda's writings we find stereotyped descriptions of the "West." Most typically, the West is "materialistic" and dominated, as he puts it, by the ideals of "eating and drinking." But he acknowledges that Europe and America have mastered the "outer world," and he contrasts this with the Indian mastery of the "inner world." Like Keshab Chandra Sen, Vivekananda speaks of the value of an exchange of learning between the two "complementary" cultures:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>I would say, the combination of the Greek mind represented by the external European energy added to the Hindu spirituality would be the ideal society for India.... India has to learn from Europe the conquest of external nature, and Europe has to learn from India the conquest of the internal nature.... We have developed one phase of humanity, and they another. It is the union of the two that is wanted. Interview from "The Hindu," (Madras) 1897, <i>Selections</i>, pp. 290-291</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">At the same time, however, Vivekananda is not as conciliatory toward the West as Rammohan Roy or Keshab Chandra Sen. He insists that India should resist Western social norms and cultural attitudes, and make no concessions to Christianity. It must discover its own hidden potential and recover its forgotten greatness; if anything, it must follow the lead of Japan, which found and maintained its own identity even while learning from the West:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>There in Japan you find a fine assimilation of knowledge, and not its indigestion, as we have here. They have taken everything from the Europeans, but they remain Japanese all the same, and they have not turned into Europeans; while in our country, the terrible mania of becoming Westernized has seized upon us like a plague. "Conversations," <i>Selections</i>, p. 386</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Nonetheless, there are a number of features of American and European civilization that Vivekananda comes to admire. He admires its technical expertise and science; he admires its industry, vigour and work ethic; he admires its social order, in particular the organization of its educational systems; he admires its ideals of equality and liberty; he admires its traditions of philanthropy, altruism, and cooperative action; and perhaps above all, he admires the self-confidence of the West, to which he attributes its strong sense of national identity.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Upon returning from his travels abroad, Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission, the principle aims of which were to be practical philanthropy and education. In his speeches, Vivekananda himself says that his establishing of the Ramakrishna Mission was directly influenced by his life in America. His opening statement at the inaugural meeting of what will become the Ramakrishna Mission begins thus:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>The conviction has grown in my mind after my travels in various lands that no great cause can succeed without an organization. "Conversations," <i>Selections</i>, p. 343.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But the most significant event in the life of Vivekananda was undoubtedly <i>his encounter with Ramakrishna</i>. Ramakrishna (i.e., Gadadhara Chattopadhyaya, 1836-1886) was a temple priest at Daskshineshwar, Bengal, and devotee of the goddess Kali. An ecstatic and mystic, he viewed Hinduism as an organic whole comprised of several different, yet equal, paths to the divine. For Ramakrishna, this equality was a demonstrable truth, and for periods of time, he was alternately a devotee of Rama and Krishna, receiving religious visions of both while practising as their devotee. At the same time, Ramakrishna was also a universalist whose inclusivism went beyond the various forms of cultic Hinduism. He believed that Islam and Christianity were equally paths to God, to the "one water that we all drink," and he thought he could demonstrate, experientially, that this was the case.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We find present in the person and teaching of Ramakrishna the familiar themes of "experience" and "inclusivism." But Ramakrishna was no Hindu modernist, and nor was his teaching, strictly speaking, a form of Neo-Hinduism. He distanced himself from modernist Hindu movements; his negative view of the Brahma Samaj was closer to that of the traditional pandits. Like some of his contemporaries, Ramakrishna referred to the Hindu tradition as the "sanatana dharma," "the eternal religion," and for him this meant that Hinduism was in no need of "reform." Nonetheless, Ramakrishna's universalism, and his conception of Hinduism as a unity, was also a response to the situation of modernity and to the Indian encounter with the West. His teaching can thus be seen as a form of a Hindu self-assertion in that it implies that Hinduism is capable of absorbing the foreign while retaining its self-identity.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Narendra first met with Ramakrishna in 1881, while he was a student at college. At first, Narendra was reticent toward Ramakrishna. He was sceptical of Ramakrishna's "visions" and suspicious of the idolatry practiced around him; nor did he did not share Ramakrishna's emotional and ebullient religiosity. But after several years of association with him, he acquired a fondness for Ramakrishna, and became one of his disciples. He was soon Ramakrishna's favourite, and he would become the best known apostle of Ramakrishna's gospel of universalism. In time, Vivekananda came to share some of his master's fervour for the religious life, though he continued to distance himself from religious sentimentality and emotionalism. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While Narendra did not seek to relive the various devotional experiences of his master, Ramakrishna did immerse him in mystical spirituality, and under his tutelage, Narendra underwent a series of mystical experiences. For Narendra, such experience was the final proof of religion, the refutation of scepticism, and the answer to positivism.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">As a mature devotee, Vivekananda came to regard Ramakrishna as an incarnation of God. He viewed him as a kind of "living commentary" on Hinduism, as the embodiment of its vitality and truth, and the fulfilment of its potential. While there is no reason to doubt that Vivekananda's devotion to his master was real, he also made use of the traditional cult of the guru to forward his own agenda and to propagate his own teachings. After the death of his teacher in 1886, Vivekananda believed that the spirit of Ramakrishna was working through him. But while Ramakrishna may have been a source of inspiration and grounding for Vivekananda, he was not the primary source of Vivekananda's ideas. Ramakrishna was not a Neo-Vedantin; nor did he share Vivekananda's later interests in "practical Vedanta," philanthropy and education. Nonetheless, when confronted by these differences, Vivekananda presented himself as the "instrument" of his master. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In <i>Selections</i>, there is recorded the following conversation between Vivekananda and another disciple of Ramakrishna, Yogananada (not the author of <i>Autobiography of a Yogi</i>, but another). The conversation followed the inaugural meeting of what would be the Ramakrishna Mission:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vivekananda: So the work is now begun this way; let us see how far its succeeds, by the will of Ramakrishna.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yogananda: You are doing these things with Western methods. Should you say Shri Ramakrishna left us any such instructions?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vivekananda: Well, how do you know that all this is not on Shri Ramakrishna's lines? He had an infinite breadth of feeling, and dare you shut him up within your own limited views of life? I will break down these limits and scatter broadcast over the earth his boundless inspiration. We have to realise the teachings he has left us about religious practice and devotion, concentration and meditation and such higher ideas and truths, and preach these to men. The infinite number of faiths are only so many paths. I haven't been born to found one more sect in a world already teeming with sects. We have been blessed with obtaining refuge at the feet of the Master, and we are born to carry his message to the dwellers of the three worlds.... So casting all doubt away, please help my work, and you will find everything fulfilled by his will.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Yogananda: Yes, whatever you will, shall be fulfilled; and are we not all ever obedient to you? Now and then I do see how Shri Ramakrishna is getting these things done by you. And yet, to speak plainly, some misgiving rises at intervals, for as we saw it, his way of doing things was different. So I question myself: Are we sure that we are not going astray from Shri Ramakrishna's teachings? -- and so I take the opposing attitude and warn you.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vivekananda: You see, the fact is that Shri Ramakrishna is not exactly what the ordinary followers have comprehended him to be. He had infinite moods and phases. Even if you might form an idea of the limits of Brahmajnana, the knowledge of the Absolute, you could not do the same with the unfathomable depths of his mind! Thousands of Vivekanandas may spring forth through one gracious glance of his eyes! But instead of doing that, he has chosen to get things done this time through me as his single instrument, and what can I do in this matter, you see? "Conversations," <i>Selections</i>, pp. 344-345.</p></blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>V. Vivekananda's Neo-Vedanta in Relation to His Predecessors and Successors</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Like Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda takes the Vedanta as the quintessential expression of Hinduism; at times he virtually equates the two:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>The Vedanta, then, practically forms the scriptures of the Hindus, and all the systems of philosophy that are orthodox have to take it as their foundation. "The Vedanta Philosophy," <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 95.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If the Vedanta is the heart of Hinduism for Vivekananda, then Advaita is its crowning glory. While Aurobindo questioned the value and relevance of the classical Advaita of Shankara, Vivekananda adopts Advaita Vedanta and applies the inclusivist agenda of the later Advaitin doxographers to the Indian tradition, making it not only the basis for harmonizing the various traditions of Hinduism but the inspiration for his conception of the national unity of India; indeed, he refers to the Vedanta as "our national philosophy." (<span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 182) This general attitude toward Advaita Vedanta stands in contrast to the view of Ramakrishna, who saw Advaitism as simply one path among many.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In his scheme for harmonization, Vivekananda adopts the traditional Vedantic distinction between the karma-kanda and the jnana-kanda, or as he puts it, between "ceremonialism," which aims at bhoga, enjoyment, and "spirituality," which aims at moksha. To the former he assigns the Samhitas and Brahmanas, while to the latter he assigns the Aranyakas and Upanishads, which he refers to as the "rahasya," or "esoteric" portion of the Vedas.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The moksha-marga is further divided by Vivekananda into the orientations and practices of jnana and bhakti:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Now all the sects in India can be grouped roughly as following the Jnana-Marga or the Bhakti-Marga. "In Defence of Hinduism" <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 412.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Here, Vivekananda adapts Shankara's division between higher knowledge (para-vidya) and lower knowledge (apara-vidya), that is, between jnana proper, which takes brahman as formless (nirguna), and upasana, which worships the brahman with form (saguna). Vivekananda then applies this division to the various sub-schools of Vedanta. The implication is that the dualism and modified non-dualisms of Madhva, Ramanuja, Vallabha, and Chaitanya all fall within the lower knowledge of the bhakti-marga.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Vivekananda also makes use of ideas that recall Rammohan's notion of the "pure origin" and subsequent degeneration of Hinduism. The idea that aspects of modern Hinduism are "degenerate" was not an idea explicitly endorsed by Ramakrishna, who saw Hinduism as a totality of paths. Nonetheless, Vivekananda appeals to such ideas -- for example, when describing the purpose of Ramakrishna's incarnation:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>But when by the process of time, fallen from the true ideals and rules of conduct, devoid of the spirit of renunciation, addicted only to blind usages and degraded in intellect, the descendents of the Aryas failed to appreciate even the spirit of these Puranas etc., which taught men of ordinary intelligence the abstruse truths of the Vedanta in concrete form.... And when as a consequence, they reduced India, the fair land of religion, to a scene of infernal confusion by breaking up into fragments the one Eternal Religion of the Vedas (Sanatana Dharma), the grand synthesis of the aspects of the Spiritual Ideal, into conflicting sects.... then it was that Shri Bhagavan Ramakrishna incarnated himself in India, to demonstrate what the true religion of the Aryan race is; to show where amidst all its many divisions and offshoots, scattered over the land in the course of its immemorial history, lies the true unity of the Hindu religion... "Hinduism and Shri Ramakrishna," <i>Selections</i>, p. 430.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Like Ramakrishna, Vivekananda extends this "harmonization" include all the worlds religions; he continues:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>So at the very dawn of this momentous epoch, the reconciliation of all aspects and ideals of religious thought is being proclaimed... This epochal dispensation is the harbinger of great good for the whole world. "Hinduism and Shri Ramakrishna," <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 432.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of Vivekananda's central aims is to revive interest in the Vedanta in India and to foster interest in it abroad. This proselytising instinct is much more pronounced in Vivekananda than in his predecessors. On the surface, Vivekananda teaches that India is the home of "tolerance" and the land of "spirituality," and he presents it as his mission to teach this to the world. The West, he suggests, is ready for the teachings of "Eastern spirituality," and it desires instruction:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Today the West is awakening to its wants, and the "true self of man" and "spirit" is the watchword of the advanced school of Western theologians. "In Defence of Hinduism" <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 417.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The world is waiting for the treasures to come from India...; little do you know how much of hunger and of thirst there is outside of India for these wonderful treasures of our forefathers. "Reply to the Calcutta address." <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 189.</p></blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But the teaching of "universal harmony" and "tolerance" is at the same time the view that the Vedanta is in truth the all-encompassing tradition. Here, the Vedanta is not just one religion among many; it is the <span style="font-style: italic;">essence</span> of all religion. Thus, the universalism of Vivekananda is a form of Hindu self-assertion in so far as it implies that the Vedanta is superior to all other traditions by virtue of the fact that it simultaneously transcends and includes them all:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>Ours is the universal religion. It is inclusive enough, it is broad enough to include all ideals. All the ideals of religion that already exist in the world can be immediately included, and we patiently wait for all ideals to come in the future to be taken in the same fashion, embraced in the infinite arms of the religion of the Vedanta. <span style="font-style: italic;">Collected Works</span> III, p. 251.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While Vivekananda presented himself as interested in instructing the West about the truths of "spirituality," he was not interested in simply founding another sect. In an interview to an English newspaper he states:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>It is contrary to our principles to multiply organizations, since in all conscience there are enough of them already. <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 280.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Nonetheless, he does speak of Hinduism and Vedanta as "conquering" the West in a manner analogous to the way that India had "conquered," i.e., absorbed, the Moghuls:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Before many years the English people will be Vedantins. (Interview from the "Hindu," Selections, p. 286)</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The only condition of national life, of awakened and vigorous national life, is the conquest of the world by Indian thought. <span style="font-style: italic;">Collected Works</span> III, p. 276.</p></blockquote><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">In this last quotation we find reference to one of the most interesting and significant features of Vivekananda's project. Upon his return to India from America, Vivekananda discovers that his recognition in the West has greatly affected his image and standing in India; as a result he is asked to give a series of addresses. In his initial address, "In Defence of Hinduism," given in Madras, 1894, he states:<br /><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><blockquote>It is most gratifying to me to find that my insignificant service to the cause of our religion has been acceptable to you.... Generous is your appreciation of Him whose message to India and to the whole world I... had the pleasure to bear. It is your innate spiritual instinct which saw in Him and His message the first murmurs of that tidal wave of spirituality which is destined at no distant future to break upon India in all its irresistible powers... raising the Hindu race to the platform it is destined to occupy in the providence of God... fulfilling its mission among the races of the world -- the evolution of spiritual humanity. <span style="font-style: italic;">Selections</span>, p. 403.</blockquote><p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Like the message of "tolerance," Vivekananda's proselytising becomes of mere secondary importance; his primary interest is the national identity of Indians. Realizing the opportunity that now presents itself, he begins to utilize his recognition by the West, and Western interest in Vedanta, to bring attention to the Vedanta in India, and to generate Hindu confidence in its own traditions. Aghenanda Bharati has referred to this phenomenon as the "pizza effect" -- the idea being that the foreign acceptance of an idea or tradition helps to foster its appreciation among the indigenous populace.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">But the most distinctive characteristic of Vivekananda's Vedanta is his suggestion that Vedanta needs to become "practical." It is here that the modern European elements in Vivekananda's thought are most conspicuous and where we can refer to it specifically as a form of Neo-Vedanta. </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It was with respect to the practical and ethical domain that Debendranath Tagore and Dayananda Sarasvati had distanced themselves from the classical Advaita of Shankara. They did so for good reason: Shankara clearly separates ultimate soteriological concerns from worldly means and ends. Vivekananda, on the other hand, proceeds undaunted; he believes he can derive an ethical teaching from the principle of non-dualism. How he does so will form a significant portion of the discussion in Part Two of this essay.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It is not merely with respect to the content of his thought that European elements play a role in Vivekananda's Vedanta. As Halbfass points out, it is also important to note the role played by the <i>context</i> of the Indian encounter with modernity, European culture, and Christianity, for it is only within such a context that we can fully appreciate Vivekananda's interest in emphasizing the social and ethical domain. In other words, his concern that Vedanta become "practical" is as much a <i>response</i> to the challenge presented by Christian and Utilitarian ethics as it is an interest in the value of practical concerns as such. This response is important to Vivekananda as it is integral to his project of inspiring Indian self-confidence.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">While European thought played an important role in the development of Vivekananda's notion of a "practical Vedanta," Indian elements influencing its development also can not be ignored. Ramakrishna himself had introduced Vivekananda to forms of "tantricizied" Advaita, such as the teachings contained in the Ashtavakra Gita and Yogavashishta. While he remains theoretically committed to Shankara's Vedanta, Vivekananda also incorporates into his teaching elements not characteristic of Shankara's thought. In his conception of non-dualism, Shankara emphasized the discrimination of the world from transcendent brahman; for Shankara, a-dvaita means that brahman has "no other," no second. Vivekananda, on the other hand, emphasizes a monistic version of non-dualism wherein the world is "non-other" than brahman. This acceptance of the world, which is an aspect of Tantric thought in general, lays the theoretical backdrop against which action in the world, in accordance with the principle of "non-dual ethics," becomes possible.<br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It Part Two of this essay, we will look at selected features of Vivekananda's Neo-Vedanta in greater detail.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>VI. Further Reading</b><br /><br />From Paul Hacker, <i>Philology and Confrontation: Paul Hacker on Traditional and Modern Hinduism, </i>Wilhelm Halbfass, editor:</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"Aspects of Neo-Hinduism as Contrasted with Surviving Traditional Hinduism"<br />"Schopenhauer and Hindu Ethics"<br />"Vivekananda's Religious Nationalism"<br /><br />From Wilhelm Halbfass, <i>India and Europe: An Essay in Philosophical Understanding</i>:</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"Rammohan Roy and His Hermeneutic Situation."<br />"Neo-Hinduism, Modern Indian Traditionalism, and the Presence of Europe"<br />"Supplementary Observations on Modern Indian Thought"<br />"The Adoption of the Concept of Philosophy in Modern Hinduism"<br />"Reinterpretations of Dharma in Modern Hinduism"<br />"The Concept of Experience in the Encounter between India and the West"<br />"'Inclusivism' and 'Tolerance' in the Encounter between India and the West"<br /><br />See also Aghenanda Bharati, "The Hindu Renaissance and Its Apologetic Patterns," <i>Journal of Asian Studies</i> 29 (1970).</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-1155076870501781262006-08-08T15:02:00.000-07:002020-05-24T14:25:48.493-07:00The Philosophy of Adi Shankaracharya<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <br />Introduction</span><br />
<br />
This post will look at the classical Advaita Vedanta of Shankaracharya and how he dealt with some basic questions of epistemology and soteriology. The presentation will stay close to what Shankara actually said and avoid speculative interpretations of his thought, such as how Advaita Vedanta might be meaningfully adapted so as to suit the needs of modern Westerners. For the most part I will draw upon Shankara's commentaries on the Brahma Sutra and Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, perhaps his most important works, but I will also refer to his other writings. What follows will consist of translations of some of the more pertinent meta-theoretical discussions in Shankara's works followed by commentary upon selected passages. At times, I have modified and condensed Shankara's discussions so as to clarify their meaning. The translations are often not literal but I think I have faithfully encapsulated Shankara's sense. I invite readers to consult the standard translations of Thibaut and Madhavananda, both of which are fairly reliable.<br />
<br />
<b>I. Epistemology and Authority</b><br />
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<b>A. Perception</b><br />
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Shankara begins his introduction to the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad by delineating the domains of revelation and worldly knowledge. With respect to the former, he says the Vedas have authority in two areas: with regard to the knowledge of the brahmanic ritual, which ultimately aims at attainment of the heaven-world (svarga), and with regard to soteriological knowledge, which aims at the highest end of man -- release (moksha). Here, Shankara acknowledges that the Vedas do <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> have authority in the worldly domain of practical affairs:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The Vedas are devoted to teaching the correct means to attain what is beyond the range of reason or perception. As for matters within the range of worldly experience, perception and reason alone are valid but not the Vedas.... Thus the Upanishads give instruction about the Self...</blockquote>
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Because the Self transcends the worldly means of knowledge, it is only known by way of revealed scripture (shruti; agama), i.e., the Vedas (Brahma Sutra Bhasya 1.1.3; 2.1.3; 2.1.6; Brhad Up Bhashya 3.3.1; 3.9.26; 4.4.20; 4.4.22 etc.). Specifically the Self is known through those scriptures that teach about the nature of the Self, i.e., the Upanishads. The other means of knowledge, such as reasoning, can help in the imparting of such knowledge, but they are not valid sources of knowledge about the nature of the Self when they are not guided by scripture.<br />
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Early in Shankara's introduction to the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, an objector asks if the self is not known from perception:<br />
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<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Is not the existence of the self a matter of perception (pratyaksha)?<br />
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Answer: No, for we see a divergence of views (vadi-viprati) on the matter. The Buddhists and materialists, for example, dispute the existence of the self. So it cannot be a matter of perception for no one disputes the existence of a real object before oneself, like a jar held in one's hand.<br />
<br /></blockquote>
Here, Shankara makes use of one of his favourite arguments against the worldly means of knowledge. When the worldly means of knowledge are extended beyond their legitimate application and delve into areas that are not their domain, they descend into conflict. Here, he points out that the nature of the self cannot be a matter of perception since we find so many different theories as to the nature of the self. If it were simply a matter of perception, we would not find so many different theories.<br />
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The question of the perception of the self is also raised in the opening sections of the Brahma Sutra commentary. There, Shankara says that though the Self, or brahman, is a reality (vastu), it is not an object (vishaya) of knowledge. At Brahma Sutra 1.1.2, an interlocutor suggests that if brahman is a reality, it ought to be an object of perception:<br />
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<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Well then, if brahman be a real thing it should be amenable to the means of knowledge like perception (pratyaksha).<br />
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Answer: No, for brahman is not an object of sensory (indriya) perception.</blockquote>
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The primary reason that Shankara gives as to why the Self cannot be seen is that it has no form (rupa). But generally, Shankara holds that the Self cannot be an object of knowledge because the Self is the pure subject (vishayin), and as such, it cannot become an object of knowledge. Here, Shankara basically follows the teaching of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, which says that the Self, as the Seer (drashtr), is never the seen (Brhad Up 3.7.23) as one cannot see that which is the Seer of sight (Brhad Up 3.4.2).<br />
<br />
On the other hand, Shankara likens the knowledge that derives from scripture as akin to perceptual knowledge. On this point, he follows the Brahma Sutra itself, which, at 1.3.28, refers to scripture as "perception" (pratyaksha):<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Only those who have quelled their conceit (shanta-darpa) and who follow the revealed scripture (shruti) are able to determine the meaning of scriptural passages concerning the nature of the gods and so on, as if they were the objects of perception (pratyaksha-vishaya). (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 1.4.6)</blockquote>
Likewise, Shankara says that scriptures concerned with knowledge of the Self teach by informing about the nature of the Self. In this regard, scriptural knowledge is akin to ostensive demonstration and perception:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
But the teachings concerning brahman instruct by merely indicating, in a manner analogous to indicating some object of sight (aksha). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.1)</blockquote>
Shankara also says that knowledge of brahman is like direct perception in that the cognition of brahman, like perception, is dependent upon a real thing, and not on some human construct:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Knowledge (vidya) of brahman is... dependent upon reality (vastu-tantra), like the other valid means of knowledge such as perception (pratyaksha). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.4)<br />
<br /></blockquote>
<b>B. Apperception</b><br />
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But is the Self not known from apperception? Shankara acknowledges that reflexive awareness or apperception (aham-pratyaya, literally, the "I-cognition") can give knowledge of the existence of the self. But apperception cannot give specific knowledge about the nature of the Self. Shankara states that we do indeed know that the self <i>exists</i> from the fact of apperception. But he adds that though apperception demonstrates that the self exists, it does not tell us about the specific nature of the Self. Again, to back this claim, he points to the conflict of opinion as to the nature of the self:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Is this brahman known to exist or not? If it is not known to exist, then how can we enter into enquiry about something that we know absolutely nothing about?<br />
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Answer: It is known to exist, for brahman is the self of all, and no one says, "I do not exist" (na na aham asmi iti).<br />
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Interlocutor: Well, then, there is no need for further enquiry, since the self is known (from apperception).<br />
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Answer: No, for there is a conflict of opinion (vipratipatti) as to the specific (vishesha) nature of the self. The materialists think it is the body; some think it is the senses endowed with the quality of sentience; others say that it is merely the stream of cognitive moments; others again say it is empty...and so on. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.1)</blockquote>
Here, Shankara raises the issue as to what, specifically, the Self is. This is important because the answer to this question will give content to the teaching of the Upanishads and at the same time allow it to be distinguished from other teachings.<br />
<br />
At Brahma Sutra 1.1.4, the question as to whether or not the Self is known from apperception is raised once again. Here, the objector wishes to do away with the necessity of scripture. In his answer, Shankara argues from the transcendent nature of the Self:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: It is not necessary to say that the Self is known only from the Upanishads because it is the object of apperception (aham-pratyaya).<br />
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Answer: No, because the Self is the transcendent witness of apperception. The Self, which is the witness of apperception, cannot be apprehended by any of the other means of knowing such as reasoning.</blockquote>
Here, Shankara makes it clear that the witness is not some kind of reflexive "state of consciousness" or "introspection." As the witness, the Self is the transcendental condition of such states; this is what Shankara means when he says that the Self "sees" or witnesses the I-cognition (aham-pratyaya) and when he speaks of the "Seer of sight." Since the Self is the condition for the possibility of such states, it cannot be known by way of them, any more than a tumbler can stand on his own shoulders.<br />
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While Shankara admits apperception, he does not accept the doctrine of apperception (svasamvedana) that the Vijnanavadins epsouse. The Vijnanavadins hold that cognition (vijnana) illumines both its object and itself. Though in a similar manner Shankara refers to the Self as self-luminous (svayam-jyotir), this does not mean transcendental apperception (svasamvedana) for him; it merely means that the Self needs no other of light than itself. At several points in his commentaries, Shankara rejects the possibility of transcendental apperception on the grounds noted above: the Self does not directly intuit the Self because the Self cannot become an object of knowledge, anymore than a eye can see itself, a knife, cut itself, fire, burn itself, or a tumbler stand on his own shoulders.<br />
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On the question of whether or not the inner self (pratyag-atman) is known by way of apperception, Shankara is less clear and his statements are somewhat paradoxical. Following Kena Upanishad 1.4, Shankara says that the Self is neither known nor entirely unknown (Upadeshasahashri 1.15.48-49; Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.4).<br />
<br />
In his comments on Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 3.4.2, which states, "we cannot see the Seer of sight," Shankara says it is not possible to see the inner self, which is the "Seer of sight" (pratyagatmanam drsterdrastaram na pashyeh). Elsewhere, in the comments at Brhad Up 1.4.10, an interlocutor asks if it is not contradictory to speak of Self-knowledge when, as the scripture says, we cannot see the Seer of sight. In his response, Shankara says that there is no contradiction. The Self is simply known <i>as</i> the Seer of sight. And when this is understood, the desire to see the Self falls away as an impossiblity (asambhava). Self-knowledge does not mean that the Self is an object of knowledge (vishayi-karana). The same objection is posed in the comments at Brhad Up 4.4.20. There, the Upanishad itself says that the Self is to be understood as eternal and one. It then says that the Self is unknowable (apramaya):<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: But it is not contradictory to say that the self is known (jnayata) and then say it is unknowable (aprameya)?<br />
<br />
Answer: There is no fault here. When the scripture says that the Self is not an object of knowledge (aprameya) this means that it is not known by any means of knowledge (pramana) other than scripture (agama). Identity with the self that is immediate (sakshat-atma-bhava) is not something that needs to be achieved (kartavya) because it is already existing (vidyamanatvat). For everyone is always already (nitya) identical with the Self (atmabhava).</blockquote>
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And yet, at the same time, early in his introduction to the Brahma Sutra, Shankara admits that the inner self (pratyag-atman) does, in a way, present itself:<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
Interlocutor: How it is that the mind and body can be superimposed upon the Self when the Self is not an object; superimposition only occurs with respect to objects.<br />
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Answer: The Self is not absolutely (atyanta) a non-object, since, in a way, it appears as the "object" (vishaya) of the I-cognition, and because the inner self presents itself with a kind of immediacy (aparokshatva).</blockquote>
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This last turn of phrase is a reference to Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 3.4.1, which refers to the self as immediately present (sakshat). In his comments at 3.4.1, Shankara says that this means that the inner self is well known or common knowledge (prasiddha).<br />
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In his comments on Gita 2.18, Shankara brings these two conceptions together. Gita 2.18 says that the transcendent reality, or supreme Self, is unknowable (aprameya). Shankara comments as follows:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The Self is unknowable means it is not an object of knowledge; that is, it is not definitely determinable (parichedya) by the regular means of knowledge (pramana) like perception (pratyaksha), etc.<br />
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Interlocutor: The self is determinable by scripture and by perception prior to scripture.<br />
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Answer: This is not entirely true, for the Self is self-established (svatahsiddha). Only when the self, as the knower (pramatr), is established (siddha) can the search for knowledge begin. For objects of knowledge are not determinable when the self, as the "I am," is not known. And it is not the case that the self not well known (aprasiddha) to anyone. Scripture, which is authoritative, teaches by merely removing what has been falsely superimposed upon the Self, not by indicating something (entirely) unknown.<br />
<br /></blockquote>
Thus, though the Self is known only from scripture, scripture is not "proof" of the Self. The Self does not need of such "evidence" since it is self-established (svatah-siddha). And because it is self-established, it is also well known (prasiddha). As Shankara makes clear in the above, the Self is the condition of the possibility of knowledge; as such, it cannot itself become an object of knowledge. But as the condition of knowledge, it is, in a sense, "known" in all acts of knowledge (see Kena Upanishad Bhashya 2.4). It cannot be seen, and yet it <i>shows</i> itself through a kind of self-presentation whenever there is knowledge.<br />
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Nonetheless, though the Self is known directly (sakshat) in this manner, it is not seen for what it is in itself. As Gita 15.10 says, the deluded (vimudha) do not recognize the (anupashyati) the true nature of the Self. In Shankara's psychology, the individual (jiva) is a combination of the "I-sense" (ahamkara), mind (manas), intellect (buddhi), etc., on the one hand, and the inner self (pratyag-atman), the true and essential core of the individual, on the other. As noted above, Shankara calls the inner self (pratyag-atman) the "object" (vishaya) of the I-cognition (aham-pratyaya). What this means is that the I-cognition "denotes" the Self. How so? For Shankara, the Self is of the nature of consciousness, and because of its power to illuminate, is likened to light (prakasha; jyotir). This light illuminates the inner organ (antahkarana) and all objects of knowledge (prameya). The intellect (buddhi) catches some of this light and a "reflection" (chaya; pratichaya; abhasa) of the Self appears in the intellect. This reflection is the basis of the "I-sense." But due to ignorance (avidya), the functions (vyapara) of the inner organ (i.e., mind and intellect) are mixed up (mishra-bhuta) with the inner self (Brhad Up Bhashya 4.3.9). The true nature of the Self should be discernable by way of discrimination (viveka). But because of the conflation (samkirnatvat) of the Self with the mental self, it is not possible to determine (avadharitum) the true nature of the Self (Brhad Up Bashya 2.1.15). Thus, due to non-discrimination (aviveka), the Self is thought to be a knower (pramatr), doer (kartr), enjoyer (bhoktr), etc. when in truth it is none of these. In reality, the Self and its various limiting adjuncts (upadhi) -- the body, senses, vital airs, mind, intellect, I-sense -- are absolutely distinct (vivikta).<br />
<br />
It is for this reason that a teaching (upadesha) based upon revelation (shruti) is required. Only in this way can the true nature of the Self be indicated. Shankara's general position is that knowledge of the nature of the Self needs the guidance of scripture. As he says in his comments on Brahma Sutra 4.1.2, the "Thou," in the scriptural formula "Thou are That," initially refers, for the student, to the inner self (pratyag-atman) understood as an agent and so on, but later it is finally ascertained as the nature of pure consciousness (chaitanya). Similarly, in his comments on Gita 8.3, Shankara says that the Self is first (pravrttam) presented as the inner self (pratyag-atman) and later, this presentation culminates (avasana) in ultimate reality (paramartha), that is, in the supreme Self (paramatman). In his comments on the Katha Upanishad, Shankara notes that this "continuum," from the inner self to the supreme self (paramatman), is known as the "adhya-atma." Thus, though the inner self presents itself with a kind of indeterminate immediacy, its true nature can only be indicated by means of scripture.<br />
<br />
<b>C. Experience</b><br />
<br />
What about direct experience (anubhava)? Is the self not known through direct experience? While Shankara does admit that the self is known through a kind of direct experience, it is important to note that for him, this experience is carefully circumscribed by the Vedic revelation (shruti). One passage where Shankara speaks explicitly about experience (anubhava) occurs in the opening sections of the Brahma Sutra. He says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
But Vedic revelation (shruti) is not the only valid means of knowledge in the enquiry into brahman; both scripture and direct experience (anubhava) are, since brahma-jnana has its culmination (avasana) in direct experience (anubhava) and because it has an established reality (bhuta-vastu) as its object. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.2)</blockquote>
Wilhelm Halbfass comments on the above: "This passage... is as significant as it is ambiguous and elusive" ("The Concept of Experience," <i>India and Europe</i>). One way to approach the question as to what Shankara means by "experience" here is to eliminate various possibilities.<br />
<br />
For one, Shankara is not talking about a spontaneous mystical experience arising independently of the teaching (upadesha) of the Upanishads. Though he speaks of experience existing alongside scripture, he is also careful to say that this experience is the culmination of brahma-jnana. Since he refers to "culmination" here, the term "brahma-jnana" in the above passage refers to both the path of knowledge (jnana-marga), i.e., the inquiry into brahman (brahma-jijnasa), as well as to the final cognition of brahman. For Shankara, and the classical Vedanta in general, such inquiry always occurs in accordance with scripture since the Self can only be known from scripture. Thus, what he is saying here is that a particular cognition, fully comparable to direct experience, is the culmination of hearing (shravava), thinking (manana), and contemplating (nididhyasana) upon the meaning (artha) of the words (vakya) of the Upanishads.<br />
<br />
Shankara also does not speak of this "experience" as some sort of "pure consciousness event" like the asamprajnata samadhi of the yogins. He is aware of the existence of such states, and though he associates samadhi with the state of deep sleep, wherein the jivatman temporarily "merges" with brahman, he does not associate brahma-jnana-anubhava with samadhi. We will deal with samadhi and meditation below.<br />
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Nor does Shankara refer to his own mystical experience or the personal attainment of extraordinary states of consciousness when he speaks of "anubhava." We may wonder why it is that Shankara does not refer to his own "experience." Similar questions have been asked of Meister Eckhart, Nagarjuna and others. This may strike us as odd, until we realize that the importance of "personal experience" has a relatively recent history. Wilhelm Halbfass comments astutely on this point:<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
The historically and philosophically significant question is not whether or how Shankara privately valued "personal experience," but why and how he tried to anchor it in a text, the Veda, and how he experienced this text itself as an objective revelation or epiphany that guides and anticipates all legitimate "personal experiences..." "The Concept of Experience," in <span style="font-style: italic;">India and Europe</span>, p. 391.</blockquote>
<br />
The allusion to brahma-jnana as a kind of "experience" implies is that brahma-jnana, when fully developed as the final realization (samyag-darshana) of brahman, is akin to the direct perception of a real object, which is precisely what Shankara says in the passage above that speaks of brahman as an established reality (bhuta-vastu). Though this knowledge is direct, like perception, it is not contentless or indeterminate. It has as its content the identity of the inner self (pratyag-atman) with the supreme Self (paramatman). And it is determinate in that it indicates the specific (vishesha) nature (svabhava) of the supreme Self. These two facets are coordinated by Shankara in the first prose portion of his Upadeshasahashri. There, he says that once the qualifications for inquiry are met, the student should be taught the oneness of the Self (2.1.6); and then after this, the specific nature of brahman should be taught (2.1.7). Likewise, in his comments on Brahma Sutra 4.1.2, Shankara says that the experience of the Self (atma-anubhava) consists of the knowledge, "I am pure consciousness, one, and free from all suffering." (sarvaduhkhanirmukta-eka-chaitanya-atmako 'hamityesha atma-anubhavah). Shankara's favorite description of the nature (svabhava) of the Self is the compound "eternal, pure, awakened, and free" (nitya-shuddha-buddha-mukta). This specific nature is important for Shankara because it distinguishes the Advaita Vedantin's conception of self from that of the Buddhists and others.<br />
<br />
Though this knowledge is determinate, it is, for Shankara, also immediate or direct, and it is for this reason that he refers to it as an "experience" (anubhava). Shankara likens this immediacy to the recognition or realization experienced by the "tenth boy," who, after counting his party several times to see if they have all safely crossed a river, neglects to count himself and thereby fails to see that he is the tenth -- until it is pointed out to him, "You are the tenth!" The example shows how it is possible for there to be a cognitive realization that is immediate and direct, and yet at the same time determinate, meaningful and with content.<br />
<br />
In his comments on Chandogya 7.1.3, Shankara attempts to clarify the nature of this determinacy. The context is one in which there is a question as to how it is that the word "atma" denotes the Self:<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
Interlocutor: Is the Self not denoted by the term "atma?"<br />
<br />
Answer: No. The Self is beyond description; as the Taittiriya Up says (2.4.1), "that from which words are turned away..."<br />
<br />
Interlocutor: Then how do words denote the Self?<br />
<br />
Answer: Though strictly speaking the Self cannot be denoted, the inner self is "denoted" by virtue of it being the remainder (pratishishta) once the adventitious conditions falsely associated with the Self are negated, just as there is the determinate specification (vishesha) of a king once his subjects are ruled out, even if we do not actually see the king.</blockquote>
<br />
But, it may be said, transcendent reality is beyond distinction and differentiation (nirvishesha). How can the Self be so determined? This is one of the central paradoxes in Shankara's thought. In a similar way, Shankara says that the Self is said to be discriminated (viveka) from its limiting adjuncts (upadhi), and that brahman is distinct (vyatireka) from name and form (nama-rupa). And yet brahman and the Self are also said to be beyond difference (abheda). In his comments on Brahma Sutra 3.2.34, Shankara briefly discusses this problem. There he says that difference (bheda) does not actually belong to brahman but is metaphorically said to apply to the relationship (sambandha) between brahman and its limiting adjuncts (upadhi). In reality, however, there is no real conjunction (samyoga) or contact (samparka) between brahman and its limiting adjuncts, for all relation (sambandha) is but a projection of ignorance (avidya). This same idea underlies the asparsha-yoga described in the Gaudapada Karika: In reality, the Self remains untouched (asparsha) by the effects of ignorance as its true nature is without a second (advaita) and beyond all relation (sambandha).<br />
<br />
<b>D. Independent Reasoning and the Conflict of Reason</b><br />
<br />
In the opening sections of the second adhyaya of the Brahma Sutra, Shankara deals with the Samkhya and Yoga schools. It is this context that he treats reason as an independent means of knowledge. Here, an objection is raised that reasoning is closer to direct experience than scripture:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Reason (yukti) allows us to determine something unseen (adrshta) on the basis of its accordance (samya) with what is already seen (drshta); in this sense it is closer to, and in accord with (samnikrshyate), direct experience (anubhava). Scripture (shruti), though, is less in accord and more remote (viprakrshyate) since it transmits (abhidhana) its meaning indirectly by oral tradition (aitihya). And, since inquiry (which makes use of reasoning) culminates in direct experience, its result is something seen (drshta), and so reasoning is applicable. Moreover, scripture itself says that the self is "to be enquired into" (mantavya) and thus it enjoins reflection (manana), showing that reasoning (tarka) is applicable. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.4)</blockquote>
Shankara gives his answer to this objection in his comments on Brahma Sutra 2.1.6:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Answer: Although brahman is an established (parinishpanna) reality, because it is without form (rupa), it is not within the range (gocara) of perception (pratyaksha); and because it has no inferable marks (linga), it, as such, is not subject to inference (anumana). It can only be known through revealed scripture (agama). As the Katha Upanishad says, "This one cannot be attained through reasoning (tarka)" (Katha Up 1.2.9). And as the Gita says, "Neither the gods nor the maharshis know of my origin" (Gita 10.2). The passage from the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, "the self is to be enquired into," should not be taken as referring to the application of autonomous (shushka; literally, arid or fruitless) reasoning (tarka), but to reasoning in accord with scripture (shruti-anugrhita) and as an auxiliary to direct experience (anubhava).</blockquote>
Shankara often points out in his commentaries that independent reasoning gives rise to conflicting theories. He derives this idea from the Gaudapada Karika (3.17), which is, no doubt, influenced by Chandrakirti and Buddhapalita on this point. In his commentary on the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad he writes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Those logicians who reject the authority of revealed scripture (agama) give conflicting (viruddha) statements about the nature of the self -- that it is a doer, that it is not a doer, that it exists, that it doesn't exist, and so on -- and confound (akulikrta) the meaning of the shastras, and thereby make its purport difficult to grasp. (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhasya 1.4.6)</blockquote>
Shankara's most developed statement of this idea of the conflict of reason occurs in the second adhyaya of the Brahma Sutra:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
With respect to matters that are only to be known from revealed scripture (agama), independent reasoning (kevala-tarka) is not to be relied upon for the following reason: reasoning (tarka) that is without the guidance of revelation (agama) and instead attached only to human imagination/speculation (purusha-utpreksha) is without basis (apratishtata), because speculation (utpreksha) is without restraint (nirankusha; literally, "without a crook;" the image is of a lost sheep wandering about). For we see that the metaphysical arguments of clever men are shown by more intelligent men to be fallacious, and how these in their turn are refuted by still others; and so, there is no possibility of a foundation for reason (tarka) bereft of the guidance of revelation, because of the diversity of human views (purusha-mati-vairupya) on such matters. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.11)</blockquote>
Shankara's language in this passage is much like that used by Bhartrhari in his Vakyapadiya (1.34). As an interesting aside, Bhartrhari also points out that much the same can be said with respect to the various interpretations of scripture. There is also the matter, first pointed out by the materialists of ancient India, that the Vedas themselves make all sorts of contradictory (vyaghata) statements. With respect to the problem of conflicting statements occurring within the scriptures, Shankara's approach toward them is to order them hierarchically in accordance with the principle of "harmonization" (samanvaya). On the problem of the conflict of interpretations of scripture, he is less clear. Although he follows the Mimamsakas with respect to the worldly means of knowledge and with regard to the nature of brahmanic ritual, with respect to ultimate soteriological concerns, he treats the Mimamsakas with the same regard he extends toward the other logicians (tarkika), i.e., with contempt. As for rival interpretations of the Vedanta, his approach is simply to reject the idea that there is any valid interpretation of scripture other than the non-dualist interpretation. He suggests that other interpretations are not "attuned" to the ultimate meaning and spirit of the scriptures, though he often defends his case by means of citation and logical argumentation. In any case, though interesting, such problems are beyond the scope of the present study.<br />
<br />
<b>E. The Authority of the Siddhas</b><br />
<br />
As noted already, the second adhyaya of the Brahma Sutra deals with rival schools and sampradayas; in particular, it is concerned with the Samkhya. Its approach is first to question the authority and integrity of the source-texts of these other schools and then to refute their arguments. We have already looked at Shankara's general attitude toward independent reasoning. As for the secondary sources (Smrti), since they are attributed to various sages, the Brahma Sutra's tack here is to question the authority of the founders of these schools:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Your account does not leave open the possibility of the authority of the Smrti-texts, such as the Yoga Sutras and the Samkhya source-texts, or the authority of rishis like Kapila. The Samkhya is also not concerned with things that are "to be done" but only with true knowledge, which is the means to release. But there is no room in your account for the texts of the Samkhya and so they thereby become meaningless. Since many people cannot understand the meaning of the shruti-texts, they rely on the Smrti-texts, which are composed by recognized authorities (prakhyata-pranatr). And the knowledge (jnana) of such men, like Kapila, is said to be unobstructed (aprahita) like that of the rishi (arsha).<br />
<br />
Answer: If we admit your doctrine, then it, in turn, will render other Smrti-doctrines useless (like the "Vedantic" portions of the Gita, e.g.). And it is not possible for someone to perceive (upalabhate) super-sensory (ati-indriya) objects (artha) without the aid of revelation (shrutim-antarena), because there are no means (nimitta) to do so.<br />
<br />
Interlocutor: It is possible in the case of siddhas like Kapila because they have unobstructed (aprahita) knowledge (jnana).<br />
<br />
Answer: No, because powers (siddhi) such as super-sensory perception are dependent upon certain practices (anushthana) and such practices are characterized by things that are "to be done" (codana). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.1)</blockquote>
Here, we can see that generally, Shankara does not accept the authority of sages who themselves do not recognize the Vedas as ultimately authoritative. This section of the Brahma Sutra is concerned with refuting rival schools on their own terms, but we can see here that where the authority of source-texts is concerned, there is very little that can be said when two parties simply disagree as to which source is authoritative. Shankara's argument here would appear to be that it is inconsistent to say that the Samkhya is not concerned with things that are "to be done" when its own authority is dependent upon its founding sages acquiring various siddhis, which are dependent upon things "to be done." Interestingly, as the passage continues, Shankara accuses the Samkhya of inventing the idea that Kapila was a siddha and then retrospectively reading his authority back into the tradition.<br />
<br />
In the next passage, Shankara resorts once again to his favorite prasanga-style argument as to why sources other than the Vedas are not authoritative. Having dispensed with the validity of reasoning independent of scripture, he turns to the suggestion that the authority of the sages might serve as a foundation:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Nor can we count on some recognized (prasiddha) sage (mahatmya) like Kapila, since even here there will be no foundation, because the teachings of these recognized sages (mahatmya), as well as the founders of the other schools (tirthakara, i.e., the Buddha, Mahavira, etc.), all mutually contradict one another (paraspara-vipratipatti). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.11)</blockquote>
<br />
Elsewhere, Shankara develops this argument, expanding on its implications. He then goes on to contrast revelation (shruti) with the secondary sources (Smrti):<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Besides, even assuming that we can trust in the authority of these siddhas, because they instruct by way of so many different doctrines (bahu-siddhanta), their teachings will all be in conflict (vipratipatti) with one another. And then, as people are multiform (vaishvarupa) in their opinion (mati), (if we accept these teachings) the undesirable consequence (prasanga) will follow that truth (tattva) will be unregulated and without basis (avyapasthana). The Vedic revelation, on the other hand, is an absolutely independent (nirapeksham) and self-constituting authority (svarthe pramanyam). But human dicta (purusha-vacasam) are dependent upon an external basis and mediated (vyavahita) by memory (smrti) and discourse (vaktr; literally: 'talkers'). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.1)</blockquote>
Here, Shankara relates the term for the secondary sources, Smrti, to its more basic sense: memory (smrti). What he is saying is that memory and verbal transmission form the basis of Smrti. (This is precisely what the interlocutor above had said about scripture, that it requires transmission (aithya).) In his commentary on Shankara's Bhashya, Vacaspati Mishra relates the issue back to the authority of the siddhas and brings "experience" (anubhava) into the equation. His argument appears to be that even though these siddhas may have various transcendent experiences, they are still required to remember those experiences, translate what they mean into a teaching, and then transmit that teaching to students. Here, being human as they are, this process may be fallible. He concludes that experience and memory (anubhvava-smrti) are less direct than scripture. Here, interestingly enough, we do have a explicit reference to the idea that the teachings of certain siddhas may be based upon their "experience." But the context is clearly one in which the authority of the siddhas is in question, which is to say that the need for authority is the actual source of the idea. And it is explicitly denied by the Vedantins that scripture has such a basis.<br />
<br />
<b>II. Soteriology</b><br />
<br />
<b>A. Knowledge vs. Action</b><br />
<br />
Shankara's commentary upon the first four sutras of the Brahma Sutra constitutes his most basic statement of his interpretation of Vedanta. There, the over-riding concern is the relation between action (karma) and knowledge (jnana), duty (dharma) and release (moksha). The next two passages deal with the general difference between action and knowledge. Here, Shankara rejects the idea that the Upanishads teach an injunction to know the Self:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The fruits (phala) of religious duty (dharma) are transitory (anitya) since they are dependent (apeksha) upon the performance of certain practices (anushthana). But the fruit of the knowledge (jnana) of brahman, which is release (moksha), is permanent (nitya) since it is not dependent upon such actions. Religious practices involve that which is to be brought into being (bhavya), and they depend upon human effort and activity (purusha-vyapara). But the object of enquiry here, brahman, is something that is already existent (bhuta), for it is always-already (nitya). Scriptures dealing with religious and spiritual practices instruct people by enjoining (niyujyan) them to act. But the teachings concerning brahman instruct by merely indicating, in a manner analogous to indicating some object of sight (aksha).... Now, the Upanishads teach that the highest end of man is realized by the knowledge of brahman, which destroys ignorance and ends samsara. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya, 1.1.1)<br />
<br />
Things that are "to be done" (kartavya) are dependent upon man (purusha-adhina). But there can be no option (vikalpana) with respect to what is really existing (vastu). Choosing whether to do something or not is entirely dependent (apeksha) upon the human intellect and will (purusha-buddhi-tantra). But the knowledge (jnana) of a real thing as it is in itself (vastu-yatha-atmya) is not dependent upon the mind of man; it is dependent upon the reality of the thing (vastu-tantra).... Just as validity with respect to really existing things depends upon the things themselves, so it is with brahma-jnana; it is dependent upon reality alone, because it has as its object an established reality. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.2)<br />
<br /></blockquote>
In the next passage, Shankara deals with a rival interpretation of the Vedanta, an interpretation that holds that knowledge in conjunction with action (jnana-karma-samuchaya) is the means to release. Almost all of the other Vedantins of Shankara's period held this teaching. Most of them -- such as Bhartrprapanca, Shankara's principle rival, and later, Bhaskara -- were bheda-abheda-vadins. But Mandana Mishra, the great Advaitin and contemporary of a Shankara, also held a version of this teaching. Here, Shankara is most likely addressing the bheda-abheda-vadins, who held a doctrine of gradual release (krama-mukti) as opposed to the doctrine of release in this life (jivan-mukti):<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: The Vedas instruct about brahman but only in so far as that instruction is connected to injunctions (vidhi) to practice (karya).... Moksha arises due to ritually prescribed devotion and meditation (upasana). If the Vedic revelation only concerns declarations about what is, there will be nothing to be avoided and nothing to strive for (hana-upadana).... Moreover, we see that sometimes those who have only heard (shruta) about brahman continue to be affected by samsara. Moreover the scripture says that the self is not only to be heard, but to be enquired into (mantavya) and contemplated (nididhyasitavya). Therefore, enquiry and contemplation are enjoined by injunctions.<br />
<br />
Answer: No. Those who practice the ritual meditations in conjunction with esoteric knowledge only attain as high as Brahma-loka, which is a temporary state.... But moksha is eternal. If moksha were dependent upon such practices and activities, it would be impermanent. And the scriptures say that release follows immediately (anantara) from the knowledge of brahman.... Knowledge of brahman is not dependent upon human activity (purusha-vyapara); it is dependent upon reality, like the other valid means of knowledge such as perception (pratyaksha).... For this reason, moksha is not something attained (prapta), like an effect (karya) brought about (utpadya) in some way; and it does not involve some kind of transformation (vikara) of the self; nor is it a gradual union or mental identification (sampad) with brahman; nor does it involve some kind of gradual purification (samskara) of the self, like the polishing of a mirror. Moksha is nothing but the identity of the self with brahman. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya, 1.1.4)</blockquote>
Here, Shankara rejects four different soteriological theories concerning the "cause" of release. Though moksha is described as a "fruit" (phala) of knowledge, Shankara does not accept that it is an effect (karya). For the same reason he rejects the idea that it is a "transformation" of the self; nor does it involve some form of purification, though he accepts purification as a secondary, indirect means. He also regards the mental identification of the self with brahman as an artificial mental product. Release is nothing but the realization that the inner self is none other than the supreme Self.<br />
<br />
In the next passage, an objection is raised concerning the nature of knowledge. Here, as in his introduction to the Chandogya Upanishad, he admits that knowledge involves mental action; but, he insists, knowledge is essentially different from such action:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: But knowledge too is a kind a kind of mental action (manasi kriya).<br />
<br />
Answer: No. The two are different in nature. For such action is not dependent upon the nature of some real thing (vastu); it is dependent (adhina) upon the operation (vyapara) of the human mind (purusha-citta). Meditation (dhyana) and consideration (cintana) are mental (manasam), but because they are dependent upon man, they can either be performed or not. But knowledge has as its object a real thing (bhuta-vastu); it is not something man-made, but relates to reality only. It is not grounded in injunctions (codana), nor is it dependent upon the merely human. Thus, although knowledge involves the mental (manasatva) it is completely different from it. The mental state involved in the meditation "man and woman are the fire" described in the ritual portions of the Vedas is a human activity since it is dependent upon injunctions (codana). But the cognition (buddhi) of fire itself is not dependent upon the injunctions of the Vedas nor upon anything man-made; it is dependent upon a real thing, which becomes an object of perception. It is thus a form of knowledge (jnana) which is not like an action (kriya). The self is not something to be strived after, nor does it involve avoiding anything; and the knowledge concerning it is not something that needs to be performed or effected. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.4)</blockquote>
In the above, Shankara provides a rather stark and absolute disinction between knowledge and action. At yet in his comments on Brahma Sutra 3.4.26-27; 33; and 35, he admits a role for action. Some have suggested that Shankara contradicts himself here. But what he is saying is that action is merely an indirect means. Basically, Shankara is constrainted by the Brahma Sutra itself which itself probably held to something like jnana-karma-samuchaya.<br />
<br />
Shankara's commentary on the Gita is important because it is here that he explains the relationship between those means that he does not consider direct and those means he does consider direct. In his introduction to the Gita, he states this relationship clearly:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
When the Lord created the world he first made Prajapati and others and had them to practice the dharma of the path of action (pravrtti). He then created others and had them adopt the dharma associated with the cessation of action (nivrtti) characterized by knowledge (jnana) and renunciation (vairagya). This twofold Vedic dharma sustains the cosmos and leads to both prosperity and happiness on the one hand, and the highest end of man, moksha, on the other... The aim of the Gita is the highest end of man and the cessation of samsara. This comes about by devotion to knowledge (jnana-nishta) and the renunciation of karmic action. The path of action leads to prosperity in this world and rebirth in the deva-lokas. But when it is practised with complete devotion to the Lord and without any expectations (abhisamdhi) concerning its fruits (phala), the path of action is conducive to the purification of the heart, mind and intellect (sattva-shuddhi). The one whose inner organ has become clear and pure (shuddi-sattva) qualifies for the path of knowledge (jnana-nishta), which leads to the arising of knowledge (jnana). Thus, the path of action, too, is also a kind a means (hetu) to the highest end of man.</blockquote>
<br />
Here, Shankara admits a role for those yogas other than jnana-yoga or "devotion to knowledge" (jnana-nishta). Ultimately, they prepare the aspirant for the path of knowledge. In his Gita commentary, Shankara implies a distinction between nivrtti-marga and moksha-marga. He allows room for the various yogas of the Gita by assigning them a place in the moksha-marga. But these "means" are, nonetheless, ultimately distinguished from jnana-marga, which, properly speaking, is the only direct means to release.<br />
<br />
<b>II. The Threefold Means</b><br />
<br />
In the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, we read that the Self is to be known through hearing, thinking, and contemplating. In his commentary upon the Taittiriya Upanishad Shankara states that these three are to be considered direct means to release:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
While austerity (tapas), celibacy (brahmacharya), and so on, are aids to purification, they are not direct means to release, while hearing, consideration, and contemplation of the meaning of the shastras are direct means to moksha. (Taittiriya Upanishad Bhashya 1.11.2-4)</blockquote>
<br />
Perhaps the first point to be noticed here, is that consideration and contemplation are to be practiced strictly in accordance with what has been "heard" (shruta), that is, in accordance with scripture (shruti). Meditation is not, for Shankara, some kind of "experimental" method. It is only used to confirm the truth of scripture:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Realization is not possible through independent reasoning (anumana), nor any of the other means of knowledge (pramana), though reasoning is applicable so long as it does not contradict (virodha) the Upanishads (vedanta-vakya). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.2)<br />
<br />
Just as enquiry (manana) through reasoning (tarka) must be accord with scripture (agama), so too contemplation (nididhaysana) must be in accord with scripture and with what has been determined through enquiry. The idea of contemplation being something independent and separate (prthak) is meaningless (anarthaka). (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 5.5.1)<br />
<br /></blockquote>
We have disussed the role of reasoning in the inquiry into brahman (brahma-jijnasa) above and will discuss contemplation, meditation and yoga in greater detail below. Before continuing it should be pointed out that "discussion" is one of the senses of the term "vichara." Thus, when Shankara speaks of "vichara" we can also take it as referring to discussion:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The realization (avagati) of brahman follows from ascertaining (adhyavasana) the meaning (artha) of pertinent passages (vakya) from the Upanishads after their consideration and discussion (vicharana). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.2) </blockquote>
<br />
Shankara often talks of the role of the teacher (acharya) in instruction and the compounds "acharya-agama" and "shastra-acharya" occur throughout his works. In his commentary upon the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad he refers to the value of discussion:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Another traditional means of acquiring knowledge (vidya-prapti-upaya)... is association with those in possession of knowledge (vidvat). Association with these sages and discussing (vada-karana) with them increases one's understanding (prajna-vriddha). (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 3.1.1)<br />
<br />
Some matters... are difficult to understand, even for a group of panditas let alone someone by himself. Where the determination of subtle matters (dharma-sukshma) is concerned, it may be desirable to seek counsel (parishad), depending upon the abilities of those involved. (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 4.3.2) </blockquote>
<br />
The next question to consider is whether inquiry and contemplation are necessary. Frankly, here, Shankara is not entirely consistent. At one point in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, he says that hearing is not enough:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The self is first to be heard (shrotavya), from scripture (agama) through a teacher (acharya), then considered (mantavya) through reasoning (tarka), and then contemplated (nididhyasitavya), that is, meditated upon (dhyatavya) with determination (nishchayena). It is seen (drshta) by the accomplishment of these means (sadhana), hearing, consideration, and contemplation. When there is the coincidence of these three, then the vision of truth (samyag-darshana), the oneness of brahman, can occur, but not otherwise, that is, with mere hearing (shravana-matra). (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 2.4.5)</blockquote>
In his comments above, Shankara may simply be constrained by the content of the passage he is commenting upon. The overwhelming evidence, however, is in favour of the interpretation that hearing, in some cases, is sufficient:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: But hearing (shravana) about brahman needs to be followed by consideration (manana) and contemplation (nididhysana).<br />
<br />
Answer: Not necessarily. Reflection and contemplation only serve the end (artha) of realization (avagati), just as is hearing does. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 1.1.4)</blockquote>
<br />
This point is reiterated by Shankara when he deals with the issue of repetition. In the Upadeshasahashri, the value of repetition is raised:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The means to moksha is knowledge. It should be repeatedly imparted until it is apprehended by the student. (Upadeshasahashri 2.1.2)</blockquote>
<br />
A passage from the Brahma Sutra commentary deals extensively with the issue of repetition. At the end of the passage, Shankara admits that for some, "hearing" is sufficient. Basically, the interlocutor argues that if brahman is like an object of perception, like a jar sitting on a table, of what use is repeated instruction? If you point out a jar to someone and they do not understand what you mean, what good will pointing it out again do?<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Of what use is repetition when the object of knowledge, the supreme brahman, is an established reality.... If the passage "Thou are That" does not impart knowledge the first time, what good will repetition do?<br />
<br />
Answer: For the one who is unable to experience the true nature of brahman at first, repetition is useful. In the Chandogya Upanishad, for example, Svetaketu asks to be instructed several times.... For we see that some people only gradually come to a true understanding of the meaning (artha) of what they have heard by the removal of false understanding.... People wrongly superimpose various objects onto the self -- the body (deha), the senses (indriya), the mind (manas), and the intellect (buddhi). Thus by one act of inquiry, one of these parts is removed and by another act, another part is removed, and so on; and thus a kind of gradual cognition takes place, though it is prior to the actual cognition of the Self. But for those with an acute intelligence (nipuna-mati), the meaning of such phrases is not clouded over with ignorance, doubt and wrong knowledge, and they are able to intuit (anubhavitum) the meaning the first time they hear it; for them repetition is not needed. For once knowledge of the Self arises, ignorance is dispelled and in that case, gradual understanding is not necessary. (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 4.1.2)</blockquote>
<br />
From this passage, it can be seen that Shankara admits a kind of subitism wherein enlightenment (atma-bodha) can happen "all at once."<br />
<br />
<b>III. Meditation and Contemplation</b><br />
<br />
In his commentary on Brhadaranayaka Upanishad 1.4.7, Shankara considers various soteriological means other than knowledge of the Self. There, various forms and aspects of meditation, contemplation and yoga are discussed. One form of meditation that he rejects as not conducive to release is "upasana," a term used collectively to refer to the meditations, devotions and rituals of the jnana-karma-samuchaya Vedantins. We have seen how Shankara generally deals with the jnana-karma-samucaya-vada in the opening portions of the Brahma Sutra commentary. In his commentary on the Brhadaranayaka Upanishad he deals repeatedly with this interpretation of Vedanta, as well as with the brahmanic ritualists in general.<br />
<br />
In the next passage, the jnana-karma-samucayin suggests that the Upanishads provide an injunction to practice a particular form of meditation (upasana) and that this meditation creates a special knowledge through which the Self is known:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Ritually prescribed meditation (upasana) generates another knowledge, a special state of consciousness (vishishtam vijnana-antaram), and it is through this, and not merely through hearing scripture, that the Self is known.<br />
<br />
Answer: This is wrong. The Vedic teaching, "the self is to be meditated upon" is not an injunction, and it does not enjoin this form of meditation, for nothing is to be done either inwardly or outwardly with regard to the Self. (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 1.4.7) </blockquote>
<br />
Again, it is apparent that Shankara admits that in some cases, hearing is sufficient. In the above, Shankara reiterates that knowledge is not something "to be practiced" and that nothing needs "to be done" with respect to it.<br />
<br />
This line of interogation continues in the following tract. Shankara begins by rejecting the idea that yoga is necessary to first calm the mind:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
There is no other way to silence the mind than knowledge of the self and its continuous remembrance (smrti)... And no effort in involved in this...<br />
<br />
Interlocutor: Is not the continuous (samtana) remembrance (smrti) of cognition (vijnana) of the self something different from knowledge arising from hearing and hence something enjoined?<br />
<br />
Answer: No; and the remembrance of the self arises spontaneously. (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 1.4.7)</blockquote>
Here, we encounter the idea that no effort is involved in knowledge of the Self. This idea is related to Shankara's suggestion that knowledge of the Self is like a form of perception. The idea is that no effort is required to see a jar that is before one, as long as the line of sight between oneself and the jar is not occluded. A more developed presentation of this idea is given in the Gita Bhashya:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
The self is not something unknown to us at any time. It is not something to be acquired.... In this sense, for those who qualify, the devotion to knowledge (jnana-nishta) is easy... It is not for the knowledge of brahman that any effort (yatna) is required as something "to be done" (kartavya); it is only required for the cessation (nivrtti) of the false cognition of the Self, that is, of what the Self is not. (Gita Bhashya 18.55)</blockquote>
<br />
At this point, a consideration of what Shankara means by "contemplation" (nididhyasana) might be helpful. Generally, in English, the terms "meditation" and "contemplation" are used synonymously. And yet, the senses of the Latin terms "meditatio" and "contemplatio" are very different. Basically, the distinction between the two is the distinction between thinking and knowing, ratio and intellectus, or as the Greek has it, logos and nous, dianoia and episteme. In this sense, the terms "meditation" and "contemplation" make for useful translations of the Sanskrit terms "manana" and "nididhaysana." This distinction parallels Shankara's comments at Gita 3.42. There he distinguishes the functions of mind (manas) and intellect (buddhi). Mind (manas), he says, in involved in thinking (samkalpa/vikalpa), while intellect (buddhi) is concerned with ascertaining (nischaya). As noted above, Shankara asscociates contemplation (nididhyasana) with determination (nischaya).<br />
<br />
That "nididhyasana" is actually a kind of knowing is also apparent in Shankara's own comments. The reference above to the "continuous (samtana) remembrance (smrti) of cognition (vijnana) of the self" (Brhad Up Bh) would appear to be a reference to contemplation (nididhyasana). This turn of phrase can be compared with the following two excerpts from his commentary on the Gita:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Meditation (dhyana) consists in a continuous (samtana) uninterrupted (avicchina) cognition (pratyaya), like a stream of flowing oil. (Gita Bhashya 13.24)<br />
<br />
Devotion to knowledge (jnana-nistha) is intent application toward effecting the continuous (samtana) cognition (pratyaya) of the inner self (pratyag-atman). (Gita Bhashya 18.55)</blockquote>
<br />
Indeed, at times, Shankara omits the third "means" altogether and simply refers to the cognition of the Self in its place:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Through knowledge of brahman we become brahman, that is, through having heard (shrutva) from scripture (agama) and through a teacher (acharya), having considered (mantva) it through reason (tarka), and having cognized (vijnaya) it directly (sakshat). (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 2.5.15) </blockquote>
<br />
To close this subsection, I would like to make a general comment about the nature of inquiry and meditation in the soteriology of Shankara. In modern Western appropriations of Advaita Vedanta, there is, among some, a tendency to regard "spiritual inquiry" and "meditation" as involving a kind of special, "supra-mental" process that somehow transcends "mere thought" and "intellection." I would suggest that this attitude arises from the fact that in modern Western appropriations of Advaita Vedanta, inquiry and meditation are lifted from their original, classical Indian context, a context that anchored such practices in scriptural revelation. For Shankara, there is nothing special or "transcendental" about inquiry or meditation as such. What sets his form of inquiry and meditation apart is that they are guided by the Vedic revelation. As far as he is concerned, inquiry and meditation become "special," if you wish, when they are in accord with scripture. But in certain forms of modern spirituality, reliance upon scriptural revelation is seen as "dogmatic." In that case, however, something is will be missing, something that distinguishes "inquiry" and "meditation," something that sets it apart from mere worldly "ratiocination." It is for this reason, I would suggest, that "inquiry" and "meditation" have come to be seen as some kind "esoteric" cognitive process. My point here is simply that this kind of mentality is missing in the soteriology of Shankara. Thinking and contemplation are what they are. When they are in accord with revealed scripture, they are valid means to knowledge of the Self; and when they are not in accord, they are not valid.<br />
<br />
<b>V. The Role of Yoga</b><br />
<br />
Generally, Shankara rejects the idea that the classical yoga of Patanjali plays a direct soteriological role in the final end of man:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: Several Upanishads have enjoined (vihita) yoga as a means to the realization of truth (samyag-darshana). The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad itself implies meditation when it says, "the self is to be heard, considered and meditated upon." And the Yoga-shastra says that yoga is the correct view (samyag-darshana).<br />
<br />
Answer: No. The Yoga tradition is only partly true. And yoga as such is not a direct means to the highest state. Only the knowledge (vijnana) of the oneness of the self (aikatmatva) as revealed by the Vedas gives moksha. The Samkhya and Yoga, which are dualist (dvaitin), do not reveal the oneness of the self (atmaikatva). (Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.3) </blockquote>
<br />
In his commentary on Brhadaranayaka Upanishad 5.5.1, Shankara speaks briefly of Patanjali's yoga:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Interlocutor: What about controlling the fluctuations of the mind-stuff (citta-vrtti-nirodha). Is it not enjoined?<br />
<br />
Answer: No, and it is not a means to moksha. There are no other means to the attainment of the highest end than brahma-atma-jnana. (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad Bhashya 5.5.1) </blockquote>
<br />
On the other hand, with respect to Shankara's attitude toward yoga, there are two passages in the Brahma Sutra Bhashya that stand out as anomalies. In his comments on Brahma Sutra 3.2.24, Shankara says that in perfect concentration (pranidhana), certain yogins see (pashyanti) the Self, free from all plurality (prapancha) and they do so by means of absorption (dhyana) and devotion (bhakti). He then goes on to refer to those passages from the Katha Upanishad, Mundaka Upanishad and Mahabharata that speak of "seeing" the self while in meditation or through the purification of the mind. His commentary here parallels comments made at Brahma Sutra 3.2.5. There, Shankara says that occasionally, the supreme Lord (parameshvara) dispels the ignorance of those who meditate devotedly (abhidhyayate) on the Him and through his grace (prasada) these yogins are given extraordinary powers of "sight."<br />
<br />
How are we to understand such passages? First, I think it is important to note that Shankara is, once again, constrained by the content of what he is commenting upon. This is to say that he is required to follow what the Brahma Sutra says here. But I think we can also understand what he says in light of his more attitude toward yoga as found in his commentary on the Gita.<br />
<br />
In his comments on Gita 2.10, Shankara distinguishes karma-yoga and jnana-yoga. This parallels the distinction made by the Gita itself between Yoga and Samkhya. Here, "karma yoga" is used in a general sense to refer to any yoga of action. But in his comments at Gita 2.39. Shankara divides this yoga into karma-yoga proper and samadhi-yoga. In a similar manner, at Gita 6.2, Shankara distinguishes karma-yoga from dhyana-yoga. Now by "karma-yoga," we not mean the free giving of one's time to peel potatoes for the communal ashram, or charitably volunteering one's services at Mother Theresa's orphanage. Here, the term "karma" refers to the prescribed rites of brahmanism and "karma-yoga" means performing those rites while remaining detached (asanga) from their fruits (phala).<br />
<br />
In his commentary on chapter 12 of the Gita, Shankara provides further distinctions. At 12.10-11 he distinguishes mere karma-yoga from karma-yoga practiced in conjunction with bhakti. And in his comments running from 12.6-9, he distinguishes mere dhyana-yoga from dhyana-yoga practiced in conjunction with bhakti. Thus, in his commentary on the Gita, Shankara provides a kind of hierarchy of yogas: karma-yoga; bhakti-karma-yoga; samadhi-yoga; and bhakti-samadhi-yoga.<br />
<br />
This being the case, I take the comments at Brahma Sutra 3.2.24 and 3.2.5 as referring, in a conciliatory manner, to the practice of bhakti-dhyana yoga. Shankara acknowledges that in the case of some of those who practice this form of yoga, the Lord grants special powers of insight. But this yoga is still, properly speaking, only propaedeutic to jnana-yoga for Shankara. As we read on in his commentary, he makes it clear that such practices are still within the domain of duality. As he says in his comments at 3.2.6, the self is in fact not distinct from the Lord. And as he says at 3.2.25, there is, in truth, no one meditating and no one being meditated upon, as the Upanishads only really teach non-difference. In the end, then, though Shankara acknowledges the practice of yoga in this manner, it remains subordinate to the knowledge of the oneness of the self and brahman, which for Shankara, is the only true means to release.<br />
<br />
For further discussion on the role of samadhi in Shankara's thought, see Micheal Comans' article <a href="http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/cf_eng.htm">"The Question of the Importance of Samadhi in Modern and Classical Advaita Vedanta"</a><br />
<br />
This concludes the series of posts introductory to the forthcoming series on Neo-Vedanta.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-1154464244173674092006-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:002019-09-19T03:55:51.647-07:00Knowledge and Metaphysics in Ancient India: Some Themes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <br />Introduction</span><br />
<br />
This post will examine selected aspects of the problem of knowledge as it presented itself in ancient Indian thought, in particular, in the Upanishads and early Buddhism. It will begin by looking at various ways that the Upanishads arrived at their doctrines and will then move to the problem of how the self was known in the early and middle Upanishads. The problem of Vedic authority will then be taken up through an examination of the nature of the Buddhist critique of the Vedas as well as the brahmanic response to that critique. The post will then close with a critique of K.N. Jayatilleke's contention that early Buddhism constituted a form of "empiricism."<br />
<br />
For the most part here, I follow Jayatilleke's excellent monograph, <span style="font-style: italic;">Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge</span>. Indeed, the post as a whole can be read as a reflection upon, and review of, Jayatilleke's book.<br />
<br />
<strong>I. Metaphysics and Ways of Knowing in the Upanishads</strong><br />
<br />
The Upanishads are often associated with the earliest developments of Indian speculative thought. They are also associated with some of the earliest expressions of Indian mysticism. A general claim is sometimes made, by Neo-Vedantins and others, that the contents of the Vedas are based upon the mystical and illuminative "experiences" of the rishis who composed them. A version of this theory is the contention that the various metaphysical conceptions found in the Upanishads are based upon the "yogic experiences" of ancient rishis.<br />
<br />
While there may indeed be a relationship between certain experiences and various conceptions found in the Upanishads, it would be difficult to maintain that the entire contents of the Upanishads are based upon the yogic experiences of the ancient rishis. This is not to say that this is a general claim of the Neo-Vedantins; Aurobindo, for one, made a point of distinguishing those parts of the Upanishads that are "experientially based" from those that are not. Nonetheless, in light of the above, a critical account of how specific conceptions in the Upanishads find their basis might be in order.<br />
<br />
Before beginning, a review of the idea that metaphysical concepts, in general, are derivative of mystical experiences might be useful. The idea that the metaphysical content of a spiritual discipline is derived from the mystical experiences following from its practice is an idea most closely associated with what is sometimes called "mystical empiricism." Empiricism generally holds that any legitimate metaphysical conception must be empirically verifiable. It also contends that all our concepts ultimately derive from experience. Mutatis mutandis, mystical empiricism holds that the truth of a particular spiritual teaching can be "verified" by way of direct, transpersonal or mystical experience. Its contention is that various metaphysical truths -- as well as various metaphysical "structures," such as "higher planes of being," and so on -- were "discovered" by the founders of the different traditions of spirituality, and that these truths, and structures, can be personally "verified" by experimentally replicating the experiences of the founders via the spiritual techniques first used to discover them. The implication of this contention is that the metaphysics underpinning a spiritual discipline is based upon, and drawn from, the experiences of its founders. Recently, a similar notion has beed put forward by certain scholars of Yogachara and Vijnanavada thought, who have suggested that the contents of the philosophy of that school is, in part at least, derivative of meditative experience.<br />
<br />
While such ideas are suggestive, they are also theoretically problematic. They are problematic as it is difficult to say which of the two, the metaphysic or the experience, is logically prior. Did an experience determine a particular metaphysic, or did the teaching, which implies a metaphysic, determine the experience? The two seem inextricably intertwined. In what follows will argue from the direction of the latter point of view and offer an alternate interpretation of what is actually achieved by the practice of a spiritual tradition.<br />
<br />
Though the Upanishads relate various states of consciousness, such as dreaming, to certain metaphysical conceptions, there is no unanimity in the Upanishads as to how such states are to be conceived. We find, for example, more than one theory associated with the state of dreaming. According to one account, the self wanders around outside the body during dreaming. It is in the context of this idea that Brhad Up 4.3.14 says, "do not wake him too suddenly," lest his dream-self not find its way back into its body. But according to another idea the self remains inside the body while dreaming (Brhad Up 2.1.8). This is the interpretation favored by Shankara. Here, it is apparent that we have two very different conceptions of dreaming. Now if these conceptions of dreaming were derived entirely from the experience of dreaming itself, we would not find different interpretations of what happens when one dreams. This means that account of dreaming found in the Upanishads also derives from speculation and that it is not based solely on the "raw" experience of dreaming.<br />
<br />
A parallel example can be found in the later yogic tradition. In the kundalini yoga of the Naths, the yogic process, and the experience associated with it, is said to occur "within" the body. But in the shabda yoga of the northern Sants, the yogic process, and the experience associated with it, is thought to occur "outside" the body. Here, it is apparent that how a teaching initially conceives of yogic experience is determinative of how that experience is later interpreted. This is to say that the metaphysical conceptions underpinning a particular teaching will, to a significant extent, pre-determine the experiences that follow from that teaching.<br />
<br />
Given this point -- that a pre-conceived metaphysics is already at work interpreting "yogic" experience even while it is occurring -- there is certain <span style="font-style: italic;">circularity</span> to the "verification" theory of the mystical empiricists. According to mystical empiricism, spiritual truths, and various metaphysical structures, are "re-discovered" or "verified" by practitioners of a spiritual tradition through its practice. But accepting a particular practice will mean adopting the specific <span style="font-style: italic;">form</span> of that practice; it will mean accepting the teaching that informs it, along with the metaphysical edifice underpinning that teaching. It is no accident, then, that these "metaphysical structures" are "re-discovered" by practitioners. For what is practice (abhyasa; bhavava) but the <span style="font-style: italic;">inculcation</span> of a teaching to the point where one comes to understand one's experience in terms of it, where one begins to <span style="font-style: italic;">see</span> reality in accord with that metaphysic? We will return to this point below.<br />
<br />
One experience that appears to have been, more or less, directly related to certain metaphysical conceptions is the experience of ecstasy (i.e., the so-called "out of body experience"). Since the time of the Rg Veda, the experience of ecstasy has been related to the idea of the separability of the personality or "soul" (anu; manas; atma) from the body. The Keshi-sukta section of the Rg Veda (10.136), for example, describes the ecstatic experiences of the keshins, long-haired munis, who appear to drink some sort of psychotropic compound (visha) and fly through the air with the winds, "looking down on those below." More significantly, Rg Veda 10.59 describes how the soul (manas) of someone thought to be dead has "wandered" some distance in the nether worlds before returning to its body. Later, the Katha Upanishad speaks of the practice of separating the inner self (antar-atma) from the body just as the core from a stalk of grass is pulled from its sheath (2.3.17). Even the Buddhists speculate about the ability to separate the "mental body" from the physical body (mano-maya-rddhi).<br />
<br />
While there appears to be a relationship between the experience of "bodily transcendence" and certain metaphysical conceptions, such as the separability of the soul from the body, a one-way relationship between the two cannot be established, for the same reason that the experience of dreaming does not necessarily imply the idea that the soul wanders around outside the body during sleep. There are, in other words, other ways of intepreting the experience of ecstasy. Again, this is because there is a degree of speculation involved in understanding of the experience of ecstasy. Thus, descriptions of the ecstatic experience cannot be taken as accounts of some "raw" experience.<br />
<br />
In his comments on Rg Veda 10.59, A. MacDonnell suggests a relationship between the experience of ecstasy and ideas concerning the continuation of the soul after the death of the body. Eric Frauwallner and K.N. Jayatilleke have also both suggested that meditative experience (jhana) may have contributed to speculations concerning the existence of a "mental-body" (mano-maya-kaya). The Vedic tradition itself appears to have attempted to use the experience of ecstasy as grounds for positing the existence of the disincarnate soul. That they had attempted to do so is evident from the remarks of the materialists. Interestingly, the materialists take the very argument, turn it around, and use it against the Vedic tradition. The materialists argue that the disincarnate soul does not exist precisely because it cannot be separated from the body the way we can separate a stalk of grass from its sheath. In other words, we do not actually <em>see</em> a soul rising from the bodies of people who have recently died.<br />
<br />
While it would appear, then, that the experience of ecstasy was related to conceptions concerning the existence of the soul, I think it is worth pointing out that speculation about the afterlife, the immortality of the soul, the existence of heaven, and so on, had as much, if not more, to do with wonder about, and <em>desire for,</em> life after death than it did with trying to simply understand the experience of ecstasy. In other words, the attempt to base the existence of the soul on the experience of ecstasy would appear to be an ad hoc attempt to rationalize and justify the desire for life after death. The Buddhists, who are critical of just such desire, appear to have recognized this; the Potthapada Sutta points out that we should not be lead astray by the language of the Buddha when he speaks of the mental body (mano-maya) as some sort of "constructed self" (atta-patilabha). In other words, the mental body is not to be taken as an actual self; this is indicated by the fact that it "comes and goes." Much the same can be said for later conceptions concerning the existence of the "subtle body" (sukshma-sharira; linga-sharira). The postulation of a "subtle body" had more to do with the explanatory need for a vehicle for the karmic "seeds" (bija) that remain after the death of the physical body than it did with the need to explain or understand a particular "meditative experience."<br />
<br />
Another domain where mystical experiences would seem to be determinative is soteriology. While we cannot rule out the possibility that mystical experience was involved in conceptions of liberating insight or enlightenment (avabodha), it is important to note that the eschatological and soteriological conceptions in the Upanishads are also essentially related to certain patterns of thought. While the early Upanishads do contain content relating to the older brahmanic ritualism, they generally offer a significant critique of the personal eschatology associated with the sacrificial cult and its ritualism. At several points in the Upanishads (Brhad Up 1.4.15; 3.8.10; 4.4.6; Chan Up 5.10.5; 8.1.6; Mundaka Up 1.2.9) it is stated that when the karmic results of the rite are "used up," the beneficiary of the rite leaves the heaven-realms (svarga) and returns back to the world of men. In other words, there is a growing recognition in the Upanishads that the fruits of ritual action (karma) are only temporary. The logic behind this kind of thinking is as follows: whatever comes into being, goes out of being; the effects (karya) of ritual action (karma) come into being; therefore, they will, in time, go out of being. This same logic underpins the soteriology of Advaita Vedanta, with its notion that moksha is, in reality, "always already" established (nitya; siddha), and it is this same reasoning that Shankara uses when he rejects the idea that liberation is the causal effect of some means (sadhana). Moksha must be permanent; therefore, it cannot be the result of an action. Here, rather than an experience, it is a certain kind of inferential thinking that is determinative of how moksha is to be conceived.<br />
<br />
Other metaphysical conceptions in the Upanishads can be shown to be related to basic observation and inference. For example, discernable in the Upanishads are certain clusters of ideas forming rudimentary "theories" about the mysterious processes of life and death. These theories are each based upon one of the elements of life: "fire" (tejas); breath (prana); and water (apah). That these theories derive in large part from simple observation and inference is not difficult to see. The monsoons bring new life to plants; vegetation dies during periods of drought; living bodies are warm and respiring; corpses are cold and breathless. This act of observation is related to the term "darshana" in the oldest Upanishads, and "observation" is one of the earliest senses of this term. We also find the term used in the later classical tradition with a similar sense. In philosophical writing, darshana and its cognates mean, "it can be seen that..." or "we see that...." This "seeing" acts as a substitute for other senses, like the sense of touch. We might say that the term "darshana" refers to perception in general. Accordingly, Chandogya 3.13.8 says, "This is the perception (drshti) of that, when one cognizes (vijanati) the warmth (ushniman) in the body (sharira) by touch (samsparsha)."<br />
<br />
In the Brhararanyaka Upanishad, knowledge of the self is related to this "seeing." There we read that the self is "to be seen" (drashtavyam), as well as to be heard, reasoned about, and contemplated (Brhad 2.4.5). The later tradition takes this four-fold group as referring to a sequential process through which truth is gradually revealed. But there is no reason to assume that the four were originally meant to reflect a progressive unfolding of knowledge and understanding. What these four probably originally referred to were four different, though inter-related, manners of knowing.<br />
<br />
The early Upanishads did, however, distinguish knowledge of the self from other forms of knowledge. Chandogya Upanishad 7.1.2-3 reads: "O sir, I have studied the Rg Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda, the Epics and Puranas, grammar, ritual, mathematics, meteorology, mineralogy, debate, etiquette, etymology, ritual science, the elements, archery, astronomy, herpetology, and the fine arts. O sir, I know all these. I am a knower of these mantras and sciences (mantra-vid). But I am not a knower of the self (atma-vid)."<br />
<br />
In the Taittiriya Upanishad, which is later than the Brhad Up and Chandogya Up, we read that study (svadhyaya) and discussion (pravacana) are to be practised (Tait Up 1.9.1). This can be taken as referring to the practices of 'hearing' (shravana) and 'thinking' (manana) referred to above. It would appear, then, that at this point in the tradition, listening, discussion, recitation, and debate were important aspects of the teaching of the Upanishads. Accordingly, some etymologists take the term "upanishad" to mean, "come, sit near (and listen to this teaching)."<br />
<br />
In the Katha and Mundaka Upanishads, which are later still, we find the beginnings of a more critical gnoseology. Katha Up 1.2.7 says, "The self cannot be attained through mere hearing (shravana)." The next verse, 1.2.8, reads, "This self is not known when spoken of (prokta) by people... (and) it is beyond reasoning (tarka)." Apparently referring to the Taittiriya Up, Katha Up 1.2.23 says, "The self cannot be grasped through discussion (pravacana), through the intellect (medhyaya), or by repeated hearings (bahuna shrutena)." And Katha Up 2.3.12 says, "The self cannot be obtained through speech (vacas), through the mind (manas), nor by the eyes (cakshus)." Such passages can be read as a critique of the practices of "seeing," "hearing," and "reasoning" referred to above.<br />
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However, according to Katha 1.3.12, the self can be seen (drshyate) with the subtle intellect (sukshmaya buddhya) by those seers (darshi) who are able to perceive the subtle (sukshma). In the Mundaka Upanishad this idea is clarified. At 3.1.8-9 we read that the self is seen (pashyate) while meditating (dhyanamanah) through the clarification of knowledge (jnana-prasadena), or by the mind (citta) that has been purified (vishuddha). The Gita contains similar expressions. Gita 13.24 also says that one can see (pashyati) the self by way of meditation (dhyana).<br />
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It would appear then that by the time of the Katha Upanishad, yogic meditation entered the picture as a new means of knowledge in the Indian tradition. It would also appear that this tradition of mystical vision begins to understand itself in contradistinction to the older tradition of inculcation through recitation, listening, discussion and debate. Significantly, we find mention of two kinds of knowledge in the Mundaka Upanishad: a "lower knowledge" (apara-vidya) and a "higher knowledge (para-vidya). Here, the four Vedas and various sciences mentioned above in Chandogya Up 7.1.2-3 are explicitly referred to as the "lower knowledge" (Mundaka Up 1.1.5) and the "higher knowledge" is related to that which is "unseen" (adrshya), "ungraspable" (agrahya), "subtle" (sushkshma), and "without eyes or ears" (Mundaka Up 1.1.6). It is this "higher knowledge" that is said to be the means to attaining the "indestructible" (akshara).<br />
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<strong>II. Authority and Knowledge in the Brahmanic Tradition and Philosophical Darshanas</strong><br />
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When the Vedic tradition was the only tradition practiced in India, there was little questioning of its authority, except perhaps among the materialists. But with the rise of heterodox traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism, its authority became a matter of great interest. According to the early Buddhist accounts, the brahminic tradition claimed that the Vedas were "composed" by the rishis. We do find occasional references to the Vedas being the "utterances (vakya) of the rishis" that support this contention. But it is difficult to determine whether or not the brahmins of the Buddha's time actually made this claim or whether this is merely a polemical construction on the part of the Buddhists.<br />
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In the Rg Veda, we find the idea that the Vedas are produced by the sacrifice of the cosmic person, Purusha (Rg Veda 10.90). In the later Brahmanas, the Vedas are said to arise from the divine Word, Vak (Taittiriya Brahmana 2.8.8.5). Elsewhere in the Brahmanas, Prajapati, the creator god, is said to be the source of the Vedas (Taittiriya Brahmana 3.3.2.1; Shatapata Brahmana 6.1.1.8). At times, Prajapati is identified with Brahma, and Brahma is related to the three Vedas. In the Upanishads, Brahma is said to have taught the Vedic tradition to Prajapati (Chandogya Up 8.15.1) and Prajapati is said to have taught the gods (Brhadaranyaka Up 5.2.1) and Manu (Chandogya Up 8.15.1). If Brahma is understood to be the creator and source of the Vedas, this can be taken as a reference to a personal (pauruseya) if superhuman origin for the Vedas.<br />
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In the later brahmanic commentarial tradition we find a more novel theory as to the origin of the Vedas. According to Yaska (5th century BCE), the rishis directly intuit (sakshat-krta) the Vedic dharma (Nirukta 1.20). In a similar way, the Vedartha-prakasha, a commentary on the Taittiriya Samhita, states that the Vedas are "seen" (drshta) by the rishis through "super-sensory perception" (ati-indriya pratyaksha). Here, it would appear that the brahmanic tradition is beginning to be concerned with establishing the authority of the Vedas by relating their origin with the most direct means of knowledge: perception.<br />
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In the Indian philosophical systems (darshana), we find a further development of the idea that the rishis directly intuit the Vedas through super-sensory perception. In his commentary on the Nyaya Sutras, Vatsyayana states that the rishis are "reliable witnesses" (apta) and legitimate sources of knowledge (1.1.8). The reference to the idea of a "reliable witness," or authoritative expert, is a reference to the epistemic theory that in some cases "word of mouth" (shabda), that is, testimony from a reliable source, is a legitimate source of knowledge (pramanya). The case of the rishis, here, is interesting. According to Vatsyayana, the rishis are reliable because they have directly intuited (sakshat-krta) the Vedic dharma (Nyaya Sutra Bhashya 2.1.68), even though the Vedas are said to belong to the domain of non-empirical facts (adrshtha). This is clearly an adaptation of Yaska's idea recast in terms of the epistemological categories of classical philosophy.<br />
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The Samkhya tradition also makes use of the idea of the seer's super-sensory ability, but applies it in another manner. It claims that the insights of its founder Kapila, whom it regards as a primordial knower (adi-vidvan) and great sage (maha-muni), are authoritative. The implication appears to be that great sages like Kapila have the same kind of authority as the rishis of old. This theory is referred to, and rejected, by Shankara in his account of the Samkhya's claim to authority.<br />
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Another later Naiyayika philosopher, Jayanta Bhatta, makes some rather interesting comments about the nature of immediate, pre-predicative perception (nirvikalpaka-pratyaksha). Some of the Mahayana Buddhists and Advaita Vedantins of his day had made claims about nirvikalpaka perception as a means of apprehending absolute reality or "things as such." Jayanta notices that even though the Buddhists and Advaitins both lay claim to this unmediated perception, they differ as to what it is that "direct experience" apprehends. Jayanta asks, "Is it pure being as such (sat), as Mandana Mishra claims? Or is it the thing in itself (svalakshana) as the Mahayanists claim?" What he's getting at here is that though both the Advaitins and the Buddhists had a doctrine of nirvikalpaka pratyaksha, they held diametrically opposed views as to what it is that pre-predicative perception apprehends. For Mandana, it is pure being as such where being is the supreme, all-pervasive universal (samanya). For Dharmakirti, however, it is the thing in itself, which for the later Buddhists is the concrete particular shorn of all qualities. Jayanta remarks that, at first glance, it may seem that "direct perception" offers a means of resolving the problems of metaphysics. But, he asks, who is it that determines <em>which</em> awareness is most direct and truly immediate? He concludes his remarks on the topic by commenting that even the "greatness (mahatmya) of perception (pratyaksha)" has its limits.<br />
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The Mimamsakas, who inherit the brahmanic tradition, reject in its entirety the notion that the Vedas are "composed" by any being, human or divine. For the orthodox Mimamsakas, the Veda is "authorless" (apaurushya), and by this they mean that it has no reference to any agency, human or super-human or divine. They also reject the contention that the Vedic dharma is "intuited" by the rishis through some kind of super-sensory perception. For the Mimamsakas, the Veda exists eternally as the body of timeless knowledge and transcendental truth. Kumarila, perhaps the most sophisticated of the Mimamsa exegetes and philosophers, rejects the contention that "super-sensory" (ati-indriya) knowledge, or "yogic perception" (yogi-pratyaksha) as he calls it, is authoritative. Being the traditionalist that he is, Shankara follows the Mimamsa acharya Kumarila almost entirely on these points. We will look at Shankara's position on such matters in another post.<br />
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Kumarila also subjects the dharmashastra theory, concerning the various means of deriving the dharma, to critical scrutiny. The dharmashastra literature gives four sources from which the dharma can be derived. The dharma can be learned from revealed scripure (shruti); it can be learned from transmitted scriptures and authoritative secondary literature (smrti); it can be learned from the conduct (achara) of "virtuous individuals" (sadhu); and it can be obtained via "personal conviction" (atma-tushti). But for Kumarila, the conduct of "virtuous individuals" can only refer to the conduct of those who are already learned (shishta) and "well-cultured" (samskrta) in the dharma. For Kumarila, the authority of the "sadhu" cannot in any way compete with the Veda; the conduct (achara) of the good (sadhu) can only mean conduct that conforms with the Vedic norms. The same goes for the so-called fourth source of the dharma, "personal conviction" (atma-tushti), also referred to as the "inner voice of conscience" (hrdaya-koshana). In Kumarila's view, "personal conviction" (atma-tushti) can only mean the "inner voice" of those who have thoroughly internalized the Vedic dharma, to those who "know the Veda" (veda-vid). Here, the Veda itself is the ultimate source of dharma (veda-mulatva), and the other means are but derivative from it.<br />
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Later commentators on the Nirukta place similar limitations on Yaska's theory that the Vedas are "intuited" by the rishis. In his commentary on the Nirukta, Durga insists that the term for "seeing" used by Yaska (sakshat-krta) must be taken as fiugurative; the dharma cannot actually be "seen" in this manner. Likewise, in the later dharmashastra literature, limitations are imposed on the powers of "extraordinary individuals" -- the seers, sages, and siddhas. In his writings, Medhatithi comments that deriving the dharma from the authority "super-human" (purusha-atishaya) individuals is a view belonging to the non-Vedic "outsiders" (bahya), such as the Buddhists and Tantrikas. Besides, he adds, seers and sages come and go, but the Veda is eternal.<br />
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<strong>III. Authority and Knowledge in Early Buddhism</strong><br />
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As is well known, the early Buddhist tradition was critical of the authority of both the Vedas and the Vedic tradition. The term the early Buddhists use for Vedic traditionalism is "anussavika," which appears to mean "listening repeatedly." This may be a reference to what the Katha Upanishad means when it refers to those who attempt to apprehend the self "by repeated hearings" (bahuna shrutena).<br />
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According to K.N. Jayatilleke, the Buddhist critique was based on the idea that both the brahmins and the Vedic poets had no personal knowledge of that which they talked about. The Buddhists contended that the brahmins, their teachers, and their teacher's teachers, all the way back to the Vedic seers, are not "reliable witnesses" (apta) and that their testimony cannot be trusted. In the Canki Sutta, for example, the Buddha says of some brahmins: "They do not know, and do not see what their scriptures (mantapadam) speak of. They do not say, 'I know this, I see (passami) this'." The Buddha also criticizes the dharma of the brahmins on the grounds that neither the brahmins, nor their teachers, nor the original Vedic seers, claim to have the super-sensory knowledge (abhinna) of their dharma. In the Tevijja Sutta, we also find the implied charge that none of the teachers of the Vedic tradition have direct knowledge of Brahma (Digha Nikaya 1.238): "they have not seen Brahma face to face (brahma sakhidittho)."<br />
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Given that this was the nature of their challenge to the authority of the Vedic tradition, we are now in a position to understand why the later brahmanic tradition posited the theory that the rishis intuited or "saw" the Veda through super-sensory vision or direct perception. It is clearly an ad hoc response to the Buddhist critique that is retrospectively read back into the tradition.<br />
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In contrast to the Vedic tradition, the Buddha claims that he does not teach his dharma on the basis of what he has heard from another ascetic or brahmin, but rather from the authority of his own knowledge: "It is from what I have seen myself, what I myself have realized, what I know personally, that I speak." (yad eva me samam natam samam dittham samam viditam tam evaham vadami) (Majjhima Nikaya 3.186) The operative term here is "samam" which is a reflexive term like "myself." Thus, the distinction being drawn here is between what one has "seen for oneself" and what one has "heard from tradition" (samam dittho va hoti anussavasuto) (Majjhima Nikaya 1.465).<br />
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The Buddha also occasionally exhorts others to follow him and his teaching (dharma): "Let an intelligent person come to me, sincere, honest, and straightforward; I will instruct him and teach the doctrine so that on my instructions he would conduct himself in such a way that before long he would himself know and see for himself." (Majjhima Nikaya 2.44) Thus, the contrast between the two traditions is such that the Buddhist truth is "personally known in this life (sacchikato sayam)" (Theragata 1.331), while the Vedic tradition is not "personally realized by oneself" (samam sayam abhinnatam attapaccakkhadhamman).<br />
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<strong>IV. Jayatilleke on Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge</strong><br />
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Jayatilleke compares this claim, that the Buddhist dharma is to be "personally known," to the principle of verifiablity put forward by empiricists and positivists. In <em>Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge</em>, he writes:<br />
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<blockquote>
The emphasis that 'knowing' (janam) must be based on 'seeing' (passam) or direct experience, makes Buddhism a form of Empiricism. We have, however, to modify the term to mean not only that all our knowledge is derived from sense-experience but from super-sensory experience as well.... Early Buddhism should therefore be regarded not as a system of metaphysics but as a verifiable hypothesis discovered by the Buddha in the course of his 'trial' and 'error' experimentation with different ways of life. (<em>Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge</em>, pp. 463-464) </blockquote>
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At the same time, Jayatilleke wishes to distinguish the "empiricism" of early Buddhism from mysticism. He begins by distinguishing the Upanishadic gnosis from Buddhist wisdom. The Upanishadic gnosis, he says, is due to the grace of God, while in Buddhism, mental concentration (samadhi) is the causal factor (upanisa) in the rise of knowledge (p. 420). Discussing the nature of abhinna, he continues:<br />
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<blockquote>
Buddhism does not make the claim of the mystic that this knowledge was derived from a supernatural source... but that it is a product of the natural development of the mind.... It would be wrong to call this mystical or intuitive knowledge in the context of Buddhism.... We shall therefore refer to this kind of knowledge as 'extrasensory perception' in the Buddhist context. (<em>Ibid.</em>, p. 426) </blockquote>
Apparently, when describing this early Buddhist "naturalism," it is not correct to characterize it as a form of mysticism though it is appropriate to speak of it in terms of ESP. But Jayatilleke is not consistent on this point. Given some of his other characterizations of early Buddhism, it seems difficult not to admit that what he is describing is indeed some form of mysticism. In the closing pages of <em>Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge</em>, he writes:<br />
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<blockquote>
The transempirical cannot be empirically described or understood but it can be realized and attained.... It is not that there was something that the Buddha did not know, but that what he 'knew' in the transcendent sense could not be conveyed in words because of the limitations of language and empiricism. (<em>Ibid.</em>, p. 476)</blockquote>
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If this is not a description of some form of mysticism, it is difficult to imagine what might count <em>as</em> mysticism. I am not suggesting that early Buddhism needs to be understood as a form of mysticism. My point here is simply that Jayatilleke's account of early Buddhism ends up sounding very much like a description of mysticism.<br />
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In order to bolster his claim that early Buddhism is a form of "empiricism" in which practitioners can personally "verify" the Buddha-dharma, Jayatilleke must put in check the element of faith (shraddha) that the Buddhist tradition speaks of. He locates a passage from a later philosophical work in support of his contention that faith is not essential to Buddhism:<br />
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<blockquote>
Just as a learned one (pandita) tests gold by burning it and rubbing it with a touch-stone, so should my statements be accepted after examination (pariksha) and not out of respect for the guru (gaurutva). (Tattvasamgraha 3588)</blockquote>
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This passage, from Shantirakshita's Tattvasamgraha, is not found in the Pali canon, and it is not clear if it is from some text that has been lost or if it is a construct of the later tradition. In any case, according to Jayatilleke, it "reflects the attitude of the Buddha" and he takes it to mean that the practice of Buddhism is not based upon faith in the Buddha. This is an odd claim given that, as Jayatilleke himself notes, the Buddhist critique of the Vedic tradition had hinged on the matter of who counts as a "reliable witness" (apta) and on whose teaching can be trusted.<br />
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Jayatilleke also interprets the Pali expression "safeguarding the truth" (saccanurakkhana) along positivistic lines. He suggests that it means that the Buddha-dharma should only be provisionally accepted by the practitioner until such time as its truth may be personally verified. The analogy here is with the scientific method of assuming a hypothesis until its veracity can either be confirmed or discounted. As for those passages from the early Buddhist writings that are more explicitly dogmatic, Jayatilleke says that they "emerged only in the latest stages of the Pali Canon" (p. 401).<br />
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In an analogous manner, Jayatilleke interprets the parable of the arrow as the expression of a kind of Buddhist Pragmatism:<br />
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<blockquote>
...the gist of it is that a man struck with a poisoned arrow should be concerned with removing the arrow and getting well rather than be interested in purely theoretical questions (about the nature of the arrow, who shot it, etc.) which have no practical utility. The moral is that man should only be interested in truths which have a practical bearing in life. (<em>Ibid</em>., p. 357) </blockquote>
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This interpretation jibes well with Jayatilleke's positivist reading of the Buddhist rejection of the various "views" (drshti): just as positivism regards metaphysical questions as "meaningless" insofar as they cannot be empirically verified, so too Buddhism dismisses the various metaphysical theories or "views" (drshti) as pragmatically irrelevant.<br />
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Admittedly, there are elements of Jayatilleke's reading of early Buddhism that ring true. For one, he is correct to suggest that early Buddhism did not advocate some form of agnosticism, as we often find the rejection of this position in the Buddhist writings. But other aspects of his interpretation are intermingled with problematic elements. For example, the various metaphysical theories (drshti) may indeed have been rejected by the early Buddhists as soteriologically irrelevant. But Buddhism also presents itself as the correct view (samyag-darshana), and that claim would seem to entail that it held to its own share of metaphysical presuppositions. So it is unlikely that the various views were rejected purely on the grounds that they are merely "theoretical" or "metaphysical."<br />
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It may be that the metaphysical theories of the rival teachings were understood as irrelevant simply because they were seen as incapable of bringing release (nirvana). As the Vacchhagotta Sutta says, the views are to be rejected because they are not efficacious in that they are not conducive to nirvana. This point is developed by Richard Robinson in his article, "The Unexplained Points." Robinson argues that early Buddhism understood its teaching as a kind of metaphysical gnosis (vidya) like other teachings of its time; the difference was that it understood its teaching as the only teaching conducive to nirvana. Thus, the other views are rejected not because they are "metaphysical," but because their gnosis does not lead to freedom from rebirth. As Robinson puts it, "It is not a question of metaphysics versus pragmatic wisdom, but rather one of which metaphysics is most efficacious in attaining an existential objective." Robinson continues:<br />
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<blockquote>
Przyluski drew attention to the deep significance of the terms derived from upa-as: "Upas, upasana, upasaka bears witness to a fund of common ideas of an ancient teaching in which deliverance is the fruit of the act" (J. Przyluski and E. Lamotte, "Bouddhisme et Upanisad"). In primitive Buddhism, upasaka seems to have meant a devotee or adherent either in the householder life or in the homeless life. This is why Vacchagotta... can be said to have become an upasaka.... His becoming an upasaka involved commitment to a teaching he accepted. His goal... was arhatship, and eventually he attained it by a process of combined moral and mental cultivation, which is essentially the Upanisadic upasana, except that it concentrated on a different gnosis -- the fourfold truth and the twelvefold dependent coarising, rather than the identity of Brahman. ("The Unexplained Points.")</blockquote>
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Robinson's article is as much a paper on early Buddhism as it is a methodological reflection on various approaches to early Buddhism. The value of his presentation lies in the fact that he attempts to understand early Buddhism on its own terms, or at the very least, in terms of how the various movements at that time in India understood themselves. Much of Jayatilleke's interpretation, on the other hand, comes off as a projection of modern concerns onto the blue-screen of ancient India. This makes his account contentious on several points. For one, it is highly unlikely that early Buddhism advocated the kind of systematic doubt and openness to alternative hypotheses that characterize modern scientific method. Like other soteriological teachings, Buddhism speaks of the insidious nature of doubt (samshaya) and lays stress on the importance of faith (sraddha) in the teaching.<br />
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Let us look again at a passage that Jayatilleke himself quotes:<br />
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<blockquote>
Let an intelligent person come to me, sincere, honest, and straightforward; I will instruct him and teach the doctrine so that on my instructions he would conduct himself in such a way that before long he would himself know and see for himself. Majjhima Nikaya 2.44 </blockquote>
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As I read the passage, the Buddha is saying, "Let me teach this sincere, intelligent person the dharma; and let that person then conduct himself faithfully and earnestly in accordance with the dharma; and then let that person see if the dharma makes a difference in his life." While it may be tempting to interpret this point in accordance with James' Pragmatic Rule, I would suggest that it might more favourably be seen in terms of existential commitment.<br />
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In this case, "conducting himself in such a way..." does not refer to the implementation of some kind of experimental method; and "seeing for oneself" will not mean the empirical verification of some fact. "Conducting oneself in such a way that one may see the truth of the dharma" means inculcating the dharma into one's life, into one's very existence, to the point where one begins to see oneself and the world in a new, more meaningful and more liberating way. It is, in other words, to understand the world and our place in it in terms of the Buddha-dharma. Accepting the Buddha-dharma as only "provisionally true," as Jayatilleke suggests, will, quite simply, not achieve this end, because such an approach will not involve the kind of existential commitment that is required. Rather, understanding oneself and one's place in the world in terms of the Buddha-dharma will only be effected through faith in that very dharma.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-1153777961002226942006-07-24T14:51:00.000-07:002006-09-26T12:58:25.510-07:00Are Brahman and Emptiness the Same? Part III<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />VI. The Question of Concordance in Svatantrika Madhyamika</span><br /><br />At this point I will turn to the writings of Bhavaviveka and examine in detail the evidence for identifying brahman and emptiness on their basis.<br /><br />Bhavaviveka, or "Bhavya" as he is often known, was a follower of Nagarjuna. He founded the school of Madhyamika that became known as Svantantrika Madhyamika, a school that had set itself up in contradistinction to Buddhapalita's interpretation of Nagarjuna. He is the author of the Madhyamaka-hrdaya, one of the first Indian doxographies (works that survey the doctrines of the various schools of the Indian tradition). One of the chapters of the Madhyamaka-hrdaya is devoted to the examination and refutation of Vedanta. The chapter is titled, "Vedanta-tattva-vinischaya," or "An Inquiry into the Truth of the Vedanta."<br /><br />This chapter has been translated and commented upon by several scholars including V.V. Ghokale, H. Nakamura, and most lately Olle Quarnstrom. It contains elaborate refutations of the Vedanta metaphysics and soteriology, and some of its material reappears in later Buddhist and Jain doxographies. I will not dwell on the details of Bhavya's refutation of the Vedanta at this time. It is perhaps enough to note that the fact he chooses to refute the Vedanta indicates what he thought about the relationship between the two schools.<br /><br />It was the scholar V.V. Ghokale who first pointed to the possibility that brahman and emptiness, or brahman and the dharmakaya, might be comparable on the basis of certain comments found in Bhavya's Madhyamakahrdaya. Ghokale published an important translation-article on the Vedanta-tattva-viniscaya chapter of Bhavya's Madhyamakahrdaya. Near the end of that article, he observed:<br /><br /><blockquote>Bhavya's own detailed estimate of the Vedanta position... confirms the recognition of some common ground between the two idealistic trends in Indian philosophic thought. Bhavya is generous enough to acknowledge that whatever is good in the Vedanta may be considered as taught by the Buddha himself.</blockquote><br />This comment is based upon something that Bhavya says in an earlier chapter. In a chapter of the Madhyamaka-hrdaya that that deals with the Hinayana, Bhavya makes the following comment: vedante ca hi suktam tat sarvam buddhabhashitam. Translated literally the passage says, "Whatever is well said in the Vedanta, that has been said by the Buddha." Now, this statement is, in turn, actually a response to a criticism made by a Hinayana detractor against the Mahayana. The Hinayana interlocutor says: "The Mahayana cannot represent the teachings of the Buddha because it is not included in the Sutranta (i.e., the Pali canon), and because it teaches a false path like the Vedanta." (Interestingly, this criticism is analogous to the sort of accusation the non-dualist Vedantins will later face from the dualist schools of Vedanta.) It is at this point that Bhavya responds, "Whatever is well said in the Vedanta, that has already been said by the Buddha." Here, a commentator to Bhavya's text explains that if the Vedas say something that is in conformity with the Buddha-dharma, it need not be taken as false simply because it is found in the Veda; likewise, just because the Madhyamika says something that happens to agree with certain brahmanic doctrines does not mean that the Madhyamika is wrong. As Bhavya suggests, the coincidence may very well have to do with the fact that certain teachers of Vedanta have borrowed from the Buddha-dharma. And indeed, at one point in his refutation of Advaita Vedanta, this is precisely what Bhavya says: "Being interested in our own faultless teaching, you have made it your own. But your teaching is heterogeneous and contradictory and as such no one will want to have faith in a heterogeneous and contradictory teaching." Thus, Ghokale's interpolation of the passage distorts the direction that Bhavya is taking the discussion.<br /><br />From comments found elsewhere in his article, Ghokale seems interested in the perennialist idea of a "common ground" between the Madhyamika and Advaita Vedanta. In a footnote, he says that the Ratnagotravibhaga (a tathagatagarbha text) insinuates a comparison between the Tathagata and Brahma and speaks of the "brahmyam padyam." Ghokale brings up the issue of a "common ground" between the two again in another article that draws upon chapter three of Bhavya's Madhyamakahrdaya. There he quotes an entire section dealing with the nature of the dharmakaya. The passage is interesting and deserves careful examination.<br /><br />Verse 276 of chapter three says that because the dharmakaya is inconceivable, or rather beyond the bifurcating conceptions (avikalpatva), it is indescribable (avacya). This idea actually implies a piece of Buddhist linguistic philosophy, according to which predication is dependent upon the bifurcating conceptions (since in order for a thing to be an X it cannot be non-X).<br /><br />Verse 277 says with regard to the dharmakaya, "Here, words are turned away; it is not within the range of the thought." The Sanskrit of this verse is interesting; it reads: atra vaco nivartante cittasya ayam agocharah. This verse can be compared with two others. Consider first Taittiriya Upanishad 2.9.1: yato vaco nivartante aprapya manasa saha... "Words being turned away it cannot be grasped by the mind." And now note Nagarjuna's Madhyamika Karika 18.7: nivrttam abhidhatavyam nivrtte cittagocare... "When there is the turning back of what is within the range thought, there is the turning back of that which can be talked about." Bhavya's verse would appear to be a kind of composite that draws from both the Upanishads and the works of Nagarjuna, as the first part of the verse is a reference to TaitUp 2.9.1, while the second part refers to MK 18.7. In this verse, Bhavya brings our attention to the proximity of the language used by the two traditions. He is as much as saying that Nagarjuna is drawing upon the earlier mysticism of the Upanishads, something suggested by the scholar Frits Staal in his book <em>Exploring Mysticism</em>.<br /><br />Verse 278 says that the dharmakaya is the beneficent/quiescent (shiva) calming of discursive proliferation (prapancha-upashama). This is a reference to Nagarjuna's definition of nirvana at MK 25.24.<br /><br />Verse 279 says that the dharmakaya cannot be seen by either the physical eye or the divine eye (divya chakshu), nor grasped by either savikalpa or nirvikalpa cognition. This would appear to be a reference to early Buddhist works that describe the extreme subtly of the highest teachings. Interestingly, as I have pointed out previously, the Katha Upanishad uses language that closely parallels this kind of language.<br /><br />Verse 283 is the most important for our present purposes. It says literally that the dharmakaya is the supreme "brahman" that cannot be grasped by the gods Brahma and the rest. At this point, a commentator to the work says that the term "brahman" here can mean either the creator God of the Vedantins, or nirvana. He then says that it is to be understood in the latter sense. He adds that it cannot be grasped by the gods because they remain deluded by the conception of a self, and because their knowledge remains attached to an object (sa-alambana). The final clause here can be interpreted as: because their conception reifies the absolute into some kind of "thing."<br /><br />Ghokale comments on the above: "Thus we have in the above passage a Madhyamika criticism of the Vedantic term 'Brahman' which, if properly understood could be equated with Nirvana or Dharmakaya according to Bhavya."<br /><br />I think that Ghokale's rather loose language here leaves the door open for some spurious interpretations of Bhavya's intent. Ghokale's presentation makes it sound as if all that is needed is a rejection of the conception of brahman that takes brahman as the creator god, that is, as the brahman with form, and that once this is done, brahman and the dharmakaya can then be seen as identical. It means, in other words, that as long as the Vedantin applies the critical method of discrimination toward his conception of brahman, the Madhyamaka and Advaitin are in full agreement.<br /><br />Now there may be something to this idea that Bhavya is asking the Vedantin to apply the critical method to his conception of brahman. But the outcome here, I would suggest, will not what the perennialist has in mind. If Bhavya is indeed suggesting something like this, he is saying that the Advaitin has not gone far enough in his application of the negative method, that though the Advaitin is willing to accept the "emptiness of other," he does not accept the "emptiness of self," and the truth is: "the emptiness of self and other." In other words, as far as Bhavya is concerned, for the Advaitin and the Madhyamika to "agree," the Advaitin would have to accept the teaching of the emptiness of self. But this would be tantamount to rejecting the Upanishadic teaching concerning the absolute self and converting to Buddhism. This, as we have seen above, is something that Shankara clearly rejects. So I think Bhavya's intent here is much more ironic, and polemical, than Ghokale suggests.<br /><br />On Bhavya's approach to the Vedanta, Wilhelm Halbfass has written:<br /><br /><blockquote>The Buddhists... also utilized the inclusivist model in their argumentation against other schools, including the Vedanta. As the Madhyamaka philosopher Bhavya stated, the ultimate concern of the Vedanta, although misunderstood by the Vedantins themselves, is the principle of absolute 'emptiness' (shunyata) and freedom taught by the Buddhists; the concept of Brahman ultimately amounts to the Buddhist notion of nirvana and sunya. On the other hand, Bhavya countered the Buddhist thinkers who tended to interpret the principle of 'suchness' (tathata) as a real entity with the argument that this would amount to adopting the Vedantic Atman ("The Sanskrit Doxographies", in <em>India and Europe</em>, p. 357).</blockquote><br />Here, Halbfass says that for Bhavya, the conception of brahman "ultimately amounts to the Buddhist notion of nirvana and shunya." While what he says here is essentially correct, I think we need to be careful in understanding just what this statement means in terms of Bhavya's thought. The Buddhist doxographers like Bhavya did indeed use "inclusivist" language in their doxographies. But their intent was not, as the perennialists suggest, some kind of happy syncretism where everyone joins hands as equals; rather it was primarily polemical and apologetic. The classical traditions of Buddhism and Jainism were "outsider" traditions, and as such, they made references to mainstream brahmanic culture and thought whenever they could -- incorporating it where it proved advantageous, rejecting it where it didn't. Jain thought in particular relishes in twisting the doctrines of their opponents into ideas that conform with their own teachings by showing how the original presuppositions of their detractors logically entail the Jain point of view. Therefore, when Halbfass says that for Bhavya, brahman "ultimately amounts to shunya," this means that the Madhyamaka is saying that ultimately, the "neti, neti" must be turned against the conceptions of brahman and atman. Otherwise, it stops short of its implied goal, and thereby remains inconsistent.<br /><br />Bhavya does indeed use the term "brahman" to describe the dharmakaya. But in doing so, I don't think Bhavya has some kind of ecumenical spirit in mind here. Rather, Bhavya is appropriating the Lankavatara Sutra's rhetorical and "skillful means" use of the term "brahman." We find such literary usages in many Buddhist works -- for example, in the positive use of terms such as "brahmin" and "arya" in Buddhist narratives. It is clear from the contexts in which such terms appear that their use in no way implies the acceptance of traditional Vedic values other than accepted norms of usage wherein the terms "brahmin" and "arya" neutrally refer to noble beings. At the same time, however, they are also using such terms ironically. Indeed, the point in the Buddhist and Jain narratives and stories is often that the "true" brahmin is not the one who blindly follows the Vedic ritual dharma to the letter, but the one who lives his life morally and with pure intent. Vasubandhu seems to be attuned to Bhavya's basic spirit here when he comments that the term "brahman" here means "quiescent and cool," an apparent reference to the use of the term "shiva" in the Buddhist description of nirvana.<br /><br />Thus, Bhavya may indeed be admitting that there is a kind of kinship between the traditions of Advaita and Madhyamika. But all this need mean is that at the time of Bhavya's writing, the proximity of the Mahayana schools and Advaita Vedanta had already been noticed by others. This being the case, one of Bhavya's aims in writing the Vedanta chapter was to distinguish the two schools. So, he is not simply acknowledging the proximity of the two when he compares them. He is using this proximity toward his particular rhetorical end, that of "converting" the position of the Advaitin into that of the Madhyamika, and thereby showing the ability of the latter to absorb and super-cede the former.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">VII. The Question of Concordance According to the Prasangikas</span><br /><br />In this next section I will address how I think the Prasangikas would respond to the question of identity.<br /><br />It is generally thought that the teaching of "emptiness" represents a kind of extension and radicalization of the teaching of an-atma, or "no-self." The teaching of no-self is also related to the teaching of a-nityatva, "impermanence," the teaching that there are no eternal entities and that all being is transitory being. When the Buddhist schools taught that there is no self, what they meant is that there is no eternal self, no independent self that will continue to abide after death and for all time. It is important to note that the teaching of impermanence here is no mere metaphysical doctrine. It has a practical dimension related to the practice of detachment and renunciation. The idea is that if all beings are transitory, then we should not become attached to them, and certainly we should not treat them as if they will last forever, for to do so is to invite duhkha, suffering.<br /><br />In order to understand how the teaching of emptiness is kind of extension of the teaching of no-self, it is necessary to consider first what is meant by "atman" or "self." In Sanskrit, the term "atman" does not simply refer to the personal self. It has a much broader semantic range. It is often used with personal pronouns to denote reflexivity, as in "he did it himself." And when incorporated into a Sanskrit compound as the final component, it means "the nature of...". In this latter case, it takes on a metaphysical sense in that it denotes the essence of a thing -- "the thing in itself." In this sense, it is synonymous with terms such as "svarupa" and "svabhava".<br /><br />With the Prajnaparamita Sutras we find the no-self teaching extended to include all things, all "dharmas" (dharma-nairatmya). This can be understood as both a specific critique of the Abhidharmists, who had attempted to re-describe reality in terms of individual "dharmas," and a general critique of all forms of metaphysics. What the Prajnaparamita Sutras say is that all dharmas are without "self," are an-atma, and by this they mean that all dharmas are without an essential nature (nih-svabhava). The other way they express this is by saying that all things, all dharmas, are empty (shunya) of an essential nature.<br /><br />To understand what exactly they mean by this, we must first elucidate what they mean by an "essential nature." The term used by both the Prajnaparamita Sutras and the Madhyamika for "essential nature" is "svabhava." The exact definition of "svabhava" is given by Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti. Literally it means "own-being," and according to both this means independent, unchanging, self-existent being. Here, it would appear that Nagarjuna is in fact invoking the old Upanishadic definition of being or "sat." In the Upanishads, true being is absolute being, being that never comes into being nor goes out of being; the implication, drawn by the later tradition, is that it is being that never changes. What Nagarjuna is saying, is that essence means "svabhava" and "svabhava" means absolute being. At this point, however, he breaks with the Upanishadic connotations. What Nagarjuna and the Prajnaparamita Sutras are saying is that all beings are empty of this very "own-being." This is tantamount to saying that there are no self-existent independent entities, or, in other words, that there are no absolute beings. Another way of saying this is to say that all things are dependent on other beings, and thus that all beings are, in a sense, interdependent. This latter idea is how the Prajnaparamita Sutras and Nagarjuna reinterpret the teaching of pratitya-samutpada, "conditioned co-arising." It is in this sense that Nagarjuna speaks of pratitya-samutpada and shunyata as synonymous.<br /><br />Now even though Nagarjuna adopts the Upanishadic definition of being, this does not make him beholden to admitting, like the Upanishads, that absolute being exists, as those who wish to turn Nagarjuna into an absolutist claim. I would suggest that Nagarjuna expresses his teaching in the form of a kind of conditional: "Being means absolute being. <em>If</em> being is absolute being, then there are no absolute beings." Again, what Nagarjuna is doing is drawing upon the assumptions of a rival tradition, here the Upanishads, and using them toward a particular effect.<br /><br />The precedent for this kind of move can be found in the earliest Buddhist Suttas. As K.R. Norman has shown, in "A note on atta in the Alagadupama-sutta," some of the Buddha's earliest addresses make use of contemporaneous brahmanic conceptions of the atman. One such conception is the notion that the self is bliss. In his analyses of the skandhas, the Buddha has his audience agree that the skandhas are not the self, since they are not conducive to happiness. But this is no way entails that the "Buddha" (and I use this term metonymically) accepts the existence such a self. Jayatilleke remarks that in such contexts, the Buddha "makes use of the definition of the concept of the atman without assuming its existence." (p. 39) Thus, though the Buddha's approach here is similar to the "this is not mine, this is not my self" formulation that we find in the Samkhya and the Upanishads, it does not mean that he accepts the Upanishadic teaching of the self. What the Buddha is doing in such contexts is addressing an audience that is already acquainted with certain methods and conceptions of the self and using that familiarity for a particular persuasive effect.<br /><br />The early Suttas also suggest that the Buddha was able to turn a teaching against itself. Quoting an early work, Jayatilleke writes of the Buddha, "He is also reported to have 'known the trick (mayam) of turning (his opponents over to his views) with which he converted the disciples of heretical teachers'." (p. 408) The procedure here would be to start with the assumptions of a rival teaching and then show how they entail a contradiction or some other undesirable consequence.<br /><br />Occasionally, the Madhyamika and the Prajnaparamita Sutras use the term "svabhava" in its more traditional sense, that is, as referring to "the nature of reality." They use other terms, such as "tathata" and "dharmata," in this way also. When they do so, however, we need to understand that they are doing so in a non-technical way only, in accordance with the hermeneutic principle of primary and secondary meanings of terms. This usage sometimes leads Western commentators astray. Some, such as Alex Wayman, who has a rather obvious perennialist agenda, even elevate this kind of usage to a matter of fact, making the exception into a kind of rule. I would suggest that when we do find terms such as "svabhava" used in this manner, we need to interpret such usage as a kind of figurative application. The Prasangika commentators are clear on this point: the "svabhava" or "essential nature" of reality is, precisely, its emptiness of essential nature.<br /><br />This brings us to a general evaluative difference between the emptiness of the Madhyamikas and the formless Brahman of Advaita Vedanta. If emptiness refers to the emptiness of our essential selves, of things in the world, and to our views, then if there is an analog to emptiness, it should be "maya," "mithyatva" (illusoriness), and so on, and not brahman. Occasionally, however, especially in Mahayana scriptures, we find the term "emptiness" used in a "nominal" manner as if it were referring to some kind of absolute or supreme state. D.S. Ruegg has pointed to the bi-valency of the term "emptiness": it refers to both the emptiness of the world, considered as consisting of absolute objects, but also to ultimate reality (paramartha). But according to the Prasangika Madhyamikas, when this term is used it should be taken as referring to the teaching of the emptiness of all dharmas, and not to some reified entity. Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti are quite clear on this point. Nagarjuna says, "An improperly conceived emptiness is like a badly seized cobra." And what is the nature of an improperly conceived emptiness? Nagarjuna warns, "Those who think that emptiness is some kind of view (drshti) are said to be incorrigible." We can extrapolate from this and say that for Nagarjuna, "emptiness" does not refer to some kind of absolute entity like "the non-dual Void." Chandrakirti is even more explicit on this point. "Emptiness," he tells us, is itself empty of own-being. This aspect of the Madhyamika teaching is known as "the emptiness of emptiness," and it shows the reflexivity of the concept of emptiness itself. Buddhapalita comments, "As for those attached to emptiness as an entity, that attachment cannot be removed by anything else.... Those who see that emptiness is empty see reality."<br /><br />The Gelukpas have their own way of anchoring "emptiness" in the Buddha-dharma. They do, in fact, speak of particular "emptinesses" and liken them to objects of cognition. Yet even for them, there is no emptiness as such. For them, each emptiness is tied to a particular thing. Emptiness is always the emptiness of something, as Streng notes, and in this sense, it always has a kind of "intentionality" or relatedness involved with it.<br /><br />We are now at a position to consider more specific differences between the Prasangika approach and Shankara's advaita. In <em>Meditation on Emptiness</em>, Jeffery Hopkins brings out the basic difference between the two approaches. He acknowledges that there are similarities between the two (though it is not clear, due to the odd manner in which this work is written, whether this similarity was recognized by the Prasangikas themselves or whether Hopkins is entertaining a question that has entered his mind on its own). Following the Prasangikas, Hopkins characterizes the difference thus: the approach of Advaita Vedanta can be described as aiming at the "emptiness of other," or "parata-shunyata." Given our description of Shankara's advaita above and Shankara's own comments on the shunyavada, this would appear to be an appropriate description. Following the lead of the Brhadaranyaka Up, Shankara's advaita aims at the discrimination of what is "other" than Brahman, or the highest Self, and at the negation of this "other" as "an-artha", worthless (Brhad Up 1.1.1), and "an-rta", false (Brhadaranyaka Up 3.5.1; Brahma Sutra Bhashya 2.1.14). At the same time, the "neti, neti" leaves the highest Self, or formless brahman, untouched, as Shankara says.<br /><br />In contradistinction to Advaita, the Prasangika path teaches, in addition to the emptiness of other, "the emptiness of self," or "svatah-shunyata". Now, we should not assume that this simply refers to the emptiness of a personal self (pudgala-nairatmya), of a subject in opposition to objects, as if this were simply a restatement of the an-atma doctrine. The term "self" here also, and perhaps more importantly, refers to the idea of a metaphysical essence. So it refers not only to our personal selves, but to the nature of things and reality in general. In a way then, the two paths could not be more diametrically opposed. One seeks by means of its negative dialectic to unearth a metaphysically ideal reality beneath or beyond appearances. The other also seeks to dissolve the veil of appearance but, at the same time, it is also designed to undermine the very search for such metaphysical idealities.<br /><br />As Shankara admits, the shunyavada does not leave the highest Self or formless brahman untouched in its negative dialectic. Similarly, though Gaudapada accepts Nagarjuna's definitions of svabhava, he insists that there is at least one being that is not empty of svabhava: the non-dual Self, which for Gaudapada is self-existence itself. For the Madhyamikas, though, the non-dual Self is also empty of all sva-bhava or "own being." Given that Advaita Vedanta defines the highest Self and formless brahman with every manner of reflexive term -- "self-luminous" (svayam-jyotih), self-established (svatah-siddha), self-reliant (sva-tantra), self-existent (svayam-bhu), self-abiding (sva-stha), and so on -- the Madhyamika approach of "emptiness of self" is tantamount to the denial of the Vedantin's very conception of reality.<br /><br />Thus, the Madhyamaka's conception of reality and the Advaitin's conception of reality are diametrically opposed to one another. For the Advaitin, reality is ultimately that which is the self-existent, while for the Madhyamaka, reality is ultimately empty of such self-existence. While both indeed refer to the ultimate truth as "signless" (animitta), the similarity stops there as their conceptions of reality are completely contrary to one another.<br /><br />There is another manner in which the Madhyamika and the Advaita Vedanta are fundamentally opposed in their conceptions of reality. As noted above, part of the point of Nagarjuna's analysis is to undermine the way in which language and conceptualization serve to reify "things" in the world. Although Nagarjuna does not specify in his analysis any theory as to how words are related to reality, other than to say that they are conventional and relational, it may be possible to abstract certain assumptions from the Prasangikas' presentation that are suggestive as to how they might be related for them. To begin, for the Prasangikas, words do not obtain their meaning by referring to "objects" in the world. Nor do they obtain their meaning due to the effect of some transcendental essence. In other words, the Prasangikas accept neither an extensionalist nor an intensionalist theory of meaning. Rather, words have meaning, and are able to predicate objects, primarily by virtue of their use (prayojana) and imputation (aropita). In this sense, words are mere nominal signifiers (prajnapti) and their application is merely conventional (vyavahara). This line is in general keeping with the Buddhist tendency toward nominalism. Drawing upon this analysis, later Buddhist thinkers will articulate a theory of meaning something like Saussure's: words refer to objects by virtue of the exclusion (apoha) of their counter-positives.<br /><br />There are parallels here with the thoughts of Wittgenstein on such matters, though it is important not to emphasize such similarities beyond the point of their being mere heuristic devices for understanding the Madhyamika. Wittgenstein, for example, also held that words do not obtain meaning by reference to objects. For him, the primary determinant in meaning is how words are used. The Madhyamakas, however, go further than Wittgenstein by insisting that, in reality there is no "thing" as such to which words refer, and that all such "things" are but conceptual constructs that are logically dependent upon their conceptually constructed counter-positives. At this point, a better analog for Prasangika thought might be the Derridean analysis of the Husserlian conception of "essence." According to Derrida, there is no unchanging self-same "essence" that fixes the denotation of signifiers -- no "transcendent referent" that anchors meaning. This is because "essence" is as much determined by its own iterations as it determines those iterations. Like the Prasangikas, Derrida argues that "meaning" is determined by a series of oppositional relations -- signifier/signified, universal/particular, substance/attribute, essence/iteration, concept/thing, scheme/content, map/territory -- in which both poles are mutually determinate, and in which no priority can be granted to one of the poles. Similarly, for the Prasangikas, there is no independent thing or essence that determines meaning. Thus, for the Prasangikas, there is no transcendent referent that determines and has priority over the term "emptiness". As Chandrakirti says, "emptiness" is itself empty of any essential nature. There is, then, no ultimate "thing" to which the term "emptiness" refers.<br /><br />As a Vedantin, the Advaitin sees things differently. He does not reject both poles of the dichotomy between the absolute and relative, the transcendental and contingent. As we noted above, the Advaitin is only concerned with the emptiness of "other." But he does not negate the essence, the "self", the transcendent referent.<br /><br />With respect to this difference between Advaita and Madhyamika, T.R.V. Murti has written in an article, "Samvriti and Paramartha in Madhyamika and Advaita Vedanta":<br /><br /><blockquote>The Vedantist will not reject both terms as relative; he accepts one as the reality or basis of the other. For the Madhyamika, substance and attribute are equally unreal, as neither of them can be had apart from the other. The Vedanist would say that... substance or the universal is inherently real...; it has a transcendent nature without the relation. The general formula applicable to the Vedanta is: the terms sustaining a relation are not of the same order, one is higher and the other lower; the terms are not mutually dependent.... One term, the higher, is not exhausted in the relationship; it has a transcendent... existence which is its intrinsic nature.</blockquote><br />The upshot here is that to suggest that the terms "emptiness" and the "formless brahman" both <em>refer</em> to the same unconditioned reality begs the question as to the nature of the relation between designators and their referents, and prejudices the Vedantin's position by presupposing an account of the relation between language and reality that the Madhyamika rejects.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">VIII. Concordance and Respective Conceptions of the Path</span><br /><br />I will conclude this essay with a consideration of what I understand to be the basic difference between Advaita Vedanta and Prasangika Madhyamika, considered as soteriological paths.<br /><br />The ideas of "emptiness" and "brahman" are both place-holders that only make sense within the respective traditions in which they occur. So it is actually something of an abstraction to suggest that "brahman" and "emptiness" can be removed from their respective soteriological contexts and be treated in terms of some rather superficial metaphysical similarities. It is not metaphysics that ultimately counts for either tradition but soteriology. Thus, it is in terms of their respective paths that these two traditions need to be considered if we are to ultimately judge the similarities and differences of their respective metaphysics. In other words, their respective conceptions of reality need to be considered in relation to their respective conceptions of the nature of release (nirvana; moksha) and the nature of the path to release.<br /><br />According to Frederick Streng, the Madhyamika is best understood as the application of a particular soteriology. It is within this context that Streng situates the meaning of the reflexive nature of emptiness. This line of interpretation has recently been developed by C.W. Huntington. For both Streng and Huntington, the teaching of emptiness is meant to address not only our attachment to the mundane "things" in the world; it also is meant to address our need to attach ourselves to "transcendent realities" and "metaphysical absolutes" like "brahman" and "God." According to this line of interpretation, the Madhyamika analysis is designed to show that there are no metaphysical absolutes to which we might anchor ourselves and in which we might find shelter. The Madhyamika analysis is thus also meant as a kind of remedy for the need for such absolutes, as a kind of therapy for the search for transcendental idealities<br /><br />It is here that I think we can enunciate a basic difference between Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika as soteriological paths. To highlight these differences, I think it might be helpful to return to their respective roots and underscore some of the assumptions these two traditions hold as to the nature of release and the path to release.<br /><br />We begin with the how release was conceived in the Vedanta. According to the Brahma Sutra 4.4.1, moksha is the "manifestation of the 'own-nature' (svena rupena) of the Self". This definition is derived from Chandogya Upanishad 8.12.3 and it was accepted by both Shankara and Mandana Mishra. However, the way this conception was understood by the early Vedantins was not entirely satisfactory for the Advaitins. Shankara adjusts the definition so that it comes to mean that moksha is the Self's state of being "established in its own nature." For the Advaitins, release cannot be something "becoming manifest." The Self is always ever self-established; all that is required is the removal of that which obscures this reality. In his Brahma Siddhi, Mandana Mishra agrees that moksha is the "manifestation of the own-nature of the Self" (p. 122). Both Shankara and Mandana Mishra liken this "manifestation" to the removal of a red flower that has been sitting next to pure crystal. When the flower is removed, the crystal no longer appears red, and it then shines with perfect clarity. Here, nothing has really changed with respect to the crystal. All that has happened is that an adventitious condition, which has been artificially imposed upon the crystal, has been removed. The crystal then abides as it is.<br /><br />In the Gaudapada Karikas we find this same conception of release. Karika 3.38 says that when jnana rests in itself (atma-samstha) the state of "sameness" (samata) is attained. In his notes, V. Bhattacharya directs our attention to Chandogya Up 7.24.1 where the question arises, "Where does the Infinite rest?" The answer given is, "In its own greatness." At Karika 3.47, the highest bliss (uttama sukha), profound peace (shanti), and nirvana are all related to the term "sva-stha", which means, "abiding in one's self."<br /><br />The idea linking together all of the above definitions of moksha is the conception that release is a particular state of being -- the state in which the Self rests in its own essential nature. It is, in other words, the state of self-abiding.<br /><br />The Madhyamika orientation toward release and the path to release is, I think, very different. To see the roots of this orientation, we return to the so-called "proto-Madhyamika" writings. These works, such as the Suttanipata, enunciate a path of radical renunciation in which the general attitude and demeanor is one of complete detachment -- the total absence of clinging to any objects, conceptualizations, or metaphysical views. The dominant concept here, and the term that keeps re-occurring in these works, is that of "an-abhinivesha." The term "abhinivesha" -- which also occurs in the GK, Yoga Sutras, and elsewhere -- means attachment, but it is the kind of attachment that exists at the very core of one's being. With the negative particle "an" added -- "an-abhinevesha" -- it denotes a radical detachment. In "The Ontology of the Prajnaparamita," Conze interprets its meaning as "non-settling down." According to Conze, its technical meaning is three-fold: It means that there should be the absence of any conviction that any dharma is real; that there should be no inclination toward any dharma; and that there should be no attachment toward any dharma. According to Luis Gomez, it specifically means, "having no mooring" or "having no station." It refers, in other words, to an attitude of radical non-abiding.<br /><br />As Gomez notes in his article <a href="http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/gomez.htm">"Proto-Madhyamika in the Pali Canon,"</a> the proto-Madhyamika Suttas, Prajnaparamita Sutras, and Prasangika Madhymika are all characterized by an particular attitude that elevates "anabhinevesha" or "non-abiding" to a kind of supreme virtue. There is in all three the overriding concern that there be absolutely no "settling down," no "abiding" in any state or condition no matter how profound, transcendent, or absolute it may seem. Theirs is an attitude of extreme detachment, and this includes detachment toward all metaphysical absolutes.<br /><br />In conclusion, we can now see how the Advaita metaphysics of the Self is related to its conception of release, and how the Prasangika critique of self-existence (svabhava) is related to its conception of nirvana. Just as the Self is defined as "self-abiding" (sva-stha), so too, the ultimate "practice"in Advaita, as well as release itself, is seen as abiding in the Self, as the Self. In an analogous way, the Madhyamika critique of self-existence, and of all such absolutes, reflects its ultimate practice of non-abiding (anabhnivesha). Thus, just as their conceptions of reality are diametrically opposed to one another, so too are their conceptions of the path to release.<br /><br />This concludes the series of posts on the question, "Are brahman and emptiness the same?"<div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-1153525003979752642006-07-21T16:35:00.000-07:002006-09-26T12:57:37.500-07:00Are Brahman and Emptiness the Same? Part II<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">III. The Question of Concordance and Indian Scriptures</span><br /><br />We will now look at some scriptures that refer to the question of the identity of brahman and emptiness.<br /><br />In <em>A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy</em>, Vol. I, H. Nakamura notes that though the early Buddhist texts make mention of "Brahma" at several places, as well as to soteriological teachings associated with Brahma, they do not refer to the impersonal, neuter case "brahman." This may strike us as odd; however, the terms "brahman" and "Brahma" are used inter-changeably throughout the Upanishads. Where we do find mention of teachings concerning Brahma in the early Buddhist sources, it is almost always within the context of what the early Buddhists refer to as the "pernicious views" or drshti. In particular, "Brahma" is associated with the insidious view of permanence and eternality (shashvata-vada), that is, with the idea of an eternal (nitya) unchanging (avichalita) reality. Often, where we find mention and critique of the view relating to the motionless (kutastha) reality, we find associated with it the problematic teaching of "akriya-vada," the teaching that "nothing can nor need be done with respect to release." Here, it is worth noting that the early Buddhists are not merely criticizing a particular metaphysic when they refer to the eternality of an unchanging reality, they are also relating that metaphysic to the practice of a particular ethos, an ethos that they happen to see as anathema to the possibility of action.<br /><br />In the Mahayana scriptures, we find a few references to brahman and to what would appear to be Upanishadic thought. One of the distinguishing features of Mahayana sources is use of the hermeneutic principle of "skillful means" (upaya-kaushalya), the idea that various teachings are applicable according to the differing capacities of students. Like the Advaitins, who will later adopt this strategy, the Buddhists use this principle as a basis for harmonizing seemingly incongruous materials. "Why is it," some texts ask, "that the Tathagata at times taught the existence of a self and at others of no-self?" Answer: For the nihilists and materialists, the Buddha taught the existence of a self, but that for those who already believe in the existence of a soul, he taught the ultimate remedy of "no-self."<br /><br />One Mahayana work that does refer to brahman happens to be one whose metaphysic most closely approximates certain forms of Advaita Vedanta: the Lankavatara Sutra. In this work, Visnu, Shiva, and Brahma are given as names for the Tathagatagarbha. The Lankavatara adds, "The supreme state is also known as Brahma." However, when in the same work the bodhisattva Mahamati asks the Buddha, "does this not amount to atma-vada?" the Buddha replies, "This dharma is not the same as the atma-vada of the outsiders." He then goes on to explain that ultimately, the meaning of the Tathagatagarbha teaching is emptiness and nirvana, but that the bodhisattvas of the Mahayana, by their use of skillful means, teach the Tathagatagarbha for those who may be frightened of the teaching of no-self and the emptiness of all dharmas. Thus, in the Lankavatara Sutra, the teaching that "the supreme state is also known as Brahma" is merely a provisional and propaedeutic teaching subordinate to the final teaching of emptiness.<br /><br />At times, it is indeed the case that we find language used by these respective traditions to be remarkably similar, not only in terms of their conceptual content, but with respect to actual terminology and turns of phrase. In some cases, it may certainly be the case that one tradition is borrowing from the other. For example, the Mandukya Upanishad contains turns of phrase that are almost certainly Buddhist in their origin. Scholars have pointed out that the term "prapancha-upashama," or "the quieting of conceptual-verbal proliferation," which occurs in the Mandukya Up, does not occur in any pre-Buddhist brahmanic works. So it is highly probable that the Mandukya Up has borrowed the term from the Mahayana lexicon, which may tell us something about how late this "Upanishad" really is, and why Shankara did not regard it as revealed scripture.<br /><br />Nonetheless, the Mandukya Up is an important work in the development of the tradition of Advaita Vedanta in that it is here that we find the Upanishadic references to the "three states of consciousness" developed into a coherent doctrine. What is significant about the Mandukya Up's use of these ideas, however, is that, at the same time, it appears to incorporate ideas found in Buddhist works such as the Potthapada Sutta from the Digha Nikaya. In the Potthapada Sutta we find a description of three "selves" and the association of these selves with terms that will later be associated with the three "lokas" of Abhidharma Buddhism. The Potthapada calls the first self "gross" (olarika) and associates it with the four elements and with "food"; it is described as being "with form" (rupa). The second is also described as having "form" (rupa) but as "consisting of mind" (mano-maya). The third "self" is described as "formless" (arupa) and as consisting of "conception/consciousness" (samjna). In <em>Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge</em>, K.N. Jayatilleke notes the resemblance here to the teaching of the five "sheaths" (kosha) found in the Taittiriya Up (p. 317-318). While there may indeed be parallels with the Taittiriya Up here, the three-fold structure referred to by the Potthapada perhaps more significantly points in two directions: to the three-fold "loka" or "dhatu" scheme of the Abhidharma, and to the "gross" (sthula), "subtle" (sukshma), "causal" (karana) structure of consciousness described by the Mandukya Upanishad.<br /><br />It would appear, then, that the Potthapada is referring to certain Upanishadic teachings. But, I would suggest, it is doing so for a reason: it recasting and thematizing the Upanishadic material on its own terms. Thus, though we find a structural similarity between the Mandukya Upanishad and the Potthapada Sutta, it would be incorrect to say that the Potthapada is simply "agreeing" with the descriptions of the self found in the Upanishads. It is important to note that the Potthapada rejects the reality of these selves on the ground of their being relative to one another, or "attained" (atta-patilabha), the idea being that when one self is existent the others are not. (This idea was appropriated by Advaita Vedanta, which also speaks of the various states of consciousness as "vyabhichara," that is, as "deviating" from the self when they come and go.) Thus, the Potthapada Sutta's reference to the "three selves" should be seen as a general critique of certain Upanishadic ideas. It is for this reason that we find a resemblance between its contents and ideas found in the Upanishads: it is addressing an audience that is familiar with ideas contained in the Upanishads and making use of those ideas to steer its audience away from them. The context of their use is thus polemical, not ecumenical.<br /><br />Viewing the relationship between the sources in this way, what becomes significant about the Mandukya Upanishad is its postulating of a "fourth" state beyond the other three. The Mandukya would appear to be aware of the Buddhist critique, and indeed, if it has in fact borrowed terms from the Buddhist vocabulary, it stands to reason that it was aware of Buddhist thought. The Mandukya appears to be saying: "Yes, the three states may indeed belong to conditioned reality, as you Buddhists suggest, but there is a fourth that stands beyond the other three; and that fourth is the non-dual Self, which you have not mentioned." For the Advaitin commentators, the precedent and authority for this "fourth" will be located in the Chandogya Up's apparent rejection of the formless self of dreamless sleep at 8.11.1, and the reference at 8.12.3 to the "supreme Purusha" that stands beyond the other three. Thus, while it is certainly possible that one tradition is influencing the other, or borrowing from the other, or even that they are referring to "shared structures," it is necessary to take into account the polemical context of the interaction between the two so as to see how it is that they respectively treat what might indeed be "shared" between them. Such distinctions will point to subtle yet important differences between their respective teachings.<br /><br />We also cannot rule out the possibility that a more literary, rather than literal, message may be implied when we come across nearly identical expressions used by different traditions. One of the rhetorical strategies in both the scriptural and philosophic writings of India is that of taking the language of rival teachings and using it ironically. For example, both the Jain and Buddhist narratives take traditional brahmanic stories and twist their teachings around so as to suit their own moral purposes. The Jains are particularly fond of this sort of thing, and make use of puns and plays on words to humorous effect.<br /><br />And it may also be the case that the matter goes in the other direction, that the brahmanic sources are making use of Buddhist teachings. The Katha Up, for example, appears to ape the story of the Buddha's dissatisfaction with worldly existence in its opening sections. It also uses the term "dharma" in a sense that is Buddhistic, though it does so in contexts that imply criticisms of the heterodox teachings of the Buddhists. Here again, we have a case in which a particular text is addressing an audience that is already familiar with specific teachings but, at the same time, is using those very teachings to persuade its audience from accepting them.<br /><br />As a specific example we may note the Buddhist Udana, which contains references to a "place" where the "sun and moon do not shine," and to the stars and earth "having no footing." This may very well be an oblique reference to various teachings found in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. There, we find Yajnavalkya being asked various questions by other brahmins. Among the things he is asked is what it is that provides illumination for man once the sun has set, the moon has waned, and the ritual fire has gone out. The answer given by Yajnavalkya is that it is the self-luminous Self that ultimately serves as light for man. Yajnavalkya is also asked what the "footing" of the earth and sky is, and he answers, the ether; and when he is asked what the footing of the ether is, he answers, the Self. Thus, while it would appear that the Udana is willing to accept the Brhad Up's tendency toward "negative" descriptions of reality and transcendence, its reference to there being no "footing" for the earth and sky indicates, at the same time, that it does not accept the teaching that the supreme Self serves as the ultimate ground of existence for man and the universe.<br /><br />In the Mundaka Up, at 2.2.10, we find a similar reference to the "place" where "neither the sun nor moon shine." This same verse is repeated at Katha Up. 2.2.15. The Katha and Mundaka Upanishads, which are roughly contemporary with each other, exhibit a more pronounced emphasis upon transcendence than the earlier Upanishads. This may partly be a result of an interaction with Buddhist thought and with the world-renunciatory tendencies of its day ("mundaka" means renunciate). Or it may, at the same time, reflect an internal development associated with its own form of yogic mysticism. In any case, when comparing passages from the Mundaka with those from the Udana, and pointing to their similarities, we should also take note that for the Mundaka Up, though the "sun and moon do not shine" in that transcendent "place," there is indeed a light that shines there, the Light of lights, as is stated in verse 2.2.9. This "Light of lights" is a reference to the self-luminous Self, which for the Upanishads is the source of all being, and which, as far the later Upanishads are concerned, is what the Buddhist teachings, such as those in the Udana, either omit or do not admit. So while there may appear to be a superficial similarity between the language of the Udana and the Manduka Upanishad, when we dig a little deeper into the context underlying this similarity, some rather stark differences between their respective teachings appear.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">IV. The Question of Concordance according to Dualist Vedanta</span><br /><br />While the Indian tradition has on occasion spoken of concordances, and even identities, existing between the Mahayana schools and Advaita Vedanta, such comparisons were usually made by the opponents of the two traditions, in particular, by those schools of Vedanta that opposed the non-dualist interpretation of the Brahma Sutras and Upanishads.<br /><br />Here, it might be worth noting that dualist challenges of the non-dual interpretation of the Brahma Sutra have some basis in fact. A close reading of the Brahma Sutra itself shows that it was not originally non-dualist in its orientation. Its original position was almost certainly closer to that of the "identity in difference" school of Vedanta, as the Brahma Sutra refers favourably to both identity and difference throughout its text.<br /><br />Curiously, today, there are no extant commentaries of the Brahma Sutra earlier than Shankara's. We do, however, find references to earlier commentaries in the works of Shankara and his disciples. It would appear from these references that in its day the non-dualist interpretation was not the received interpretation of the Brahma Sutras, as Shankara's own direct disciples at times attempt to reconcile their master's teaching with the "identity and difference" teachings. The idea that Shankara was some sort of religious and philosophical "world conquerer" (dig-vijaya) would appear to be a 15th century fabrication.<br /><br />The commentatary of Bhaskara, who follows Shankara by about a century, is perhaps the closest we have to the traditional and original interpretation of the Vedanta. His school of Vedanta -- technically called "bheda-abheda," which means "identity and difference" -- posits that brahman is both the same and yet distinct from the world, just as, for example, a clay pot is the both the same and different from a lump of clay. The early Vedantavada, which Bhaskara draws upon, had posited a modal difference between brahman and the world, for reasons primarily concerned with its theodicy, to wit, if the world of samsara is basically impure and has elements of evil built into it, then brahman and the world must be distinct, for if they are the same, then brahman must share in the world's impurity and evil, for, as brahman is the cause of the world, the world must dissolve back into brahman at the end of each cosmic cycle; therefore, the two must be, in some sense, distinct. By saying that brahman and the world are both the same and different, these early Vedantins were able to safeguard brahman from the ascription of any fault. This kind of rationalization is called a "theodicy."<br /><br />The bheda-abheda point of view also posits that the jiva-atman and the param-atman are also both the same and different. For Shankara, on the other hand, any real distinction between the two cannot obtain, and he rejects this doctrine on soteriological grounds. For him, the higher self and the embodied self can only be non-different (abheda) and in essence identical (tadatmya), for if this is not the case, then jivan-mukti will be impossible, since if there is any real difference between the two, the jiva will be bound to samsara for all eternity. For Shankara there can be no question of the "transformation" of the self into the supreme self, as change belongs to the realm of impermanence and samsara. The self can therefore only be "always already" identical with the supreme. This manner of thinking, which can be referred to as a kind of “logic of being,” is something that Advaita Vedanta shares with the Madhyamika.<br /><br />At Brahma Sutra 2.1.14 -- which, in terms of metaphysics, is perhaps the most important and contentious sutra in the Brahma Sutra -- brahman is said to be non-other (an-anya) from the world. The idea here is that, as the material cause of the world, brahman cannot be said to be essentially distinct from the world. This means that the world is dependent upon brahman, its cause, as without brahman there would be no world. In his comments on this sutra, Shankara begins by first acknowledging the emanationism (technically called "brahma-parinamavada") of the early Vedanta. But by the end of his comments on 2.1.14, he has discarded the problematic metaphysics of emanationism altogether, along with any notion of a material causal relationship between brahman and the world (and hence, the ascription of the term "emanationism" to Shankara's cosmology is incorrect). Here, Shankara is not only responding to (and agreeing with) the Samkhya critique of Upanishadic emanationism -- namely, how can brahman, which is essentially consciousness, give rise to what is essentially insentient; the cause must share its essence with its product -- but also shows his understanding of the Madhyamika critique of the notion of causality, which had been applied by Buddhapalita and Chandrakirti to the Hindu theories of causation.<br /><br />Echoing Chandrakirti, Shankara speaks of how the dualist Samkhya and Vaisheshika conceptions of causality themselves exist as a polarity, as diametrically opposed to one another. This is an idea that Gaudapada appropriates from the Prasangika Madhyamakas and transmits to Shankara. For Shankara, such polarities (Samkhya: cause and effect are the same; Vaisheshika: cause and effect are different) are instances of the inherently conflicted nature of human opinion and reasoning on the basis of that opinion. Here, a close philosophical affiliation between Shankara and Chandrakirti can be seen with respect to the issue of unrestrained speculation.<br /><br />In his commentary on Brahma Sutra 2.1.1 - 2.1.27, Shankara deals repeatedly with the problems of emanationism. Finally, acknowledging that the conception of creation is inherently contradictory, Shankara, in a clever hermeneutic move, quotes Chandogya Upanishad 6.1.4: "emanation (vikara) has the word (vacam) as it is basis." In this way he is able to avoid the metaphysical quagmire that is the cosmogony of the Vedanta. Now, the traditional Vedantic interpretation of this passage had been that it refers to the idea that creation comes about due to the powers of the holy utterance (vac). But from his comments, it is clear that Shankara does not intend this idea at all. What he means -- and here he integrates Upavarsha, an early Vedantin, with the Madhyamika -- is that any mention of "creation" is but mere talk, mere words.<br /><br />The traditional Vedantin Bhaskara vehemently rejects the interpretation of Vedanta provided by Shankara and his followers. In his commentary on the Brahma Sutra, he says, "No one but a drunkard would believe such a teaching (1.1.4).... This is the teaching of the maya-vadins, who rely upon the theories of the Buddhists (2.2.29).... They destroy the meaning of the Brahma Sutras and lead its students into error (3.2.3).... They teach the worthless and groundless maya-vada and mislead the entire world (1.4.25)." What annoys Bhaskara in particular is Shankara's attempt to distance himself from the Buddhists, and when Shankara begins to criticize the Buddhists by resorting to the standard refutations, Bhaskara is infuriated by Shankara's seeming conservatism.<br /><br />Here, it may be worth pondering, for a moment, the term "maya-vada." Originally, the term "maya" meant a kind of creative power that the gods held and used toward their particular ends. There, though it had certain magical connotations associated with it, it did not necessarily refer to something negative. Later, however, especially under the influence of certain Mahayana philosophical works, "maya" becomes specifically associated with deception, illusion and delusion.<br /><br />In the later Indian tradition, the term "maya-vada" was often used in a derogatory manner by many of the Hindu schools. At first, the term was applied to the two philosophical schools of the Mahayana; but later, when a more specific terminology came into vogue, the term "maya-vada" came to refer to the school of Advaita Vedanta in particular. As such, the term functionally parallels the terms "shunya-vada" and "vijnana-vada," which were applied to the Madhyamika and Yogachara schools respectively. All three terms, mayavada, shunyavada, and vijnanavada refer to respective answers to a particular metaphysical question, namely, "what is the ultimate status/nature of the world?" Of the three schools, only the Yogachara appropriated its appellation and happily accepted the designation, "vijnana-vada."<br /><br />It is the Padma Purana, a Vaishnava text, that perhaps first calls the Advaita Vedantins -- or "maya-vadins", as they are known disparagingly -- "crypto-Buddhists" (pracchana-bauddha). Later, Yamuna, Ramanuja's forerunner, also refers to the Advaitins as "crypto-Buddhists" in his Siddhitraya. In his Shri-Bhashya commentary upon the Brahma Sutra, Ramanuja, the acharya of qualified non-dualism (vishishta-advaita), also calls the Advaitins "crypto-Buddhists" (2.2.27). Vijnana-bhikshu, who wrote one of the most important commentaries upon the Yoga Sutra, writes in another work, the Samkhya-pravacana-bhashya, that though the Advaitins calls themselves Vedantins, they are in fact "crypto-Buddhists." He then interestingly adds that they should be regarded as a sub-sect of the vijnana-vada or Yogachara. All of these teachers appear to be drawing upon the language of the Padma Purana when they refer to the Advaita Vedantins as "crypto-Buddhists".<br /><br />Even more interesting are later commentaries upon the Brahma Sutra. Another important commentator, Vallabha, who founded the third of the later schools of Vedanta, says that the Advaitins are but "another incarnation of the Madhyamika" (madhyamikasya eva aparavatarah). And Madhva, the dualist Vedantin and fourth acharya of the schools of Vedanta (Bhaskara's school is no longer extant by this time) states that the emptiness of the Madhyamikas corresponds to the brahman of the Advaitins. He writes in his commentary on Brahma Sutra 2.2.9, "yad shunyavadinah shunya, tad eva brahma mayinah.... What is called emptiness by the shunyavadins, that is the brahman of the mayavadins." Here we do find an explicit declaration from the Indian tradition of the identity of brahman and emptiness.<br /><br />But this statement of identity needs to be seen in the polemical context in which it occurs. Madhva is not talking about a favourable or ecumenical comparison of brahman and emptiness. He is saying that if we accept the Advaitin's teaching concerning brahman, we are putting our faith in a vacuous teaching, for as far as he is concerned, that is what the Advaitin's brahman is: no more than a nothing. As such, no Advaitin would ever take the word of Madhva as it stands, for Madhva was a most trenchant and uncompromising dualist.<br /><br />Madhva's declarations also touch upon an issue of some importance. What indeed do we mean by the terms "brahman" and "emptiness?" When Madhva says that the brahman of the Advaitins is the same as the emptiness of the Madhyamika, we are inclined to think that he is referring to some kind of ultimate reality or absolute. And yet, "emptiness" primary refers to the emptiness of phenomenal reality, to the insubstantiality of all subjects and objects. In this sense, emptiness should be more of an analog to the idea of maya. We will return to this point below.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">V. The Question of Concordance in Advaita Vedanta</span><br /><br />Several scholars have noted the various ways that the earliest work of Advaita Vedanta, the Gaudapada Karikas, is indebted to Buddhist thought. Basically, the Gaudapada Karikas adopt various aspects of both Yogachara and Madhyamika thought, as well as adapt the general Mahayana strategy of interpreting certain teachings as propaedeutic. Traditional Indian philosophers have also noticed the similarity between the Advaita of the Gaudapada Karikas and Mahayana Buddhism. In the works of Shantarakshita -- an important Buddhist doxographer whose own school represents a synthesis of Yogachara, Sautrantika, Svatantrika Madhyamika, and the logicians-- we do find an admission that the teachings of Advaita approximate the teachings of the Mahayana, as well as the idea that the Advaitins have borrowed Mahayana teachings. In the Tattvasamgraha, the great compendium of Buddhist thought compiled by Shantarakshita, he says with regard to the Advaita Vedantins, "Their fault is subtle, but it consists in the fact that they teach an eternal self." Here, Shantarakshita acknowledges the proximity of early Advaita Vedanta to the Mahayana. However, from his comments it is apparent that what Shantarakshita is referring to is the proximity of early Advaita Vedanta to the teachings of the vijnanavada.<br /><br />Many scholars have argued over the extent to which the Gaudapada Karikas should be called a Buddhist work, with some, like H. Nakamura and V. Bhattacharya, saying that at least the final chapter can be called Buddhist, and other more traditionally minded scholars, like T.M.P. Mahadeva and R.D. Karmakar, saying that it is not influenced by Buddhist thought at all. Both sides of the debate appear to overstate their cases and overlook the subtleties of language in this work. It is important to note that all such texts are not only philosophical but literary works as well. I tend to agree with Louis de la Vallee Poussin, who, noticing this literary aspect wrote, "One cannot but read the Gaudapadakarikas without being struck by the Buddhist character of the leading ideas and wording itself. The author seems to have used Buddhist words and sayings, and to have adjusted them to his Vedantic design: nay more, he find pleasure in double entendre." Again, we have an example of a text that is addressing an audience that is acquainted with a rival teaching and using the categories of its rival in its presentation toward a particular persuasive effect. Thus, though the Gaudapada Karikas may indeed use both Upanishadic and Buddhist ideas, it may not be as erenic or ecumenical as appears at first sight. We will return to the Gaudapada Karikas later.<br /><br />Turning to Shankara's later views on the question of the relation of brahman and emptiness we find some rather interesting comments made by him in his commentary on Brahma Sutra 3.2.22. There, the question arises as to whether or not brahman as such is negated by the "neti, neti," or whether it is only the two forms of brahman that are negated. His interlocutor suggests that not only are the two forms of brahman to be negated, but brahman itself is to be negated. Either that, or brahman alone is negated, for if brahman transcends speech and the mind, then its existence is doubtful. To this Shankara replies: "It is not possible that the 'neti, neti' negates both brahman as such and all form since this would result in the undesirable consequence (prasanga) of accepting the shunya-vada (i.e., the teaching of the Madhyamika)."<br /><br />He then says something else quite interesting for our present purposes:<br /><br /><blockquote>For whenever we negate something unreal (aparamartha), like the (illusory) snake, we always do so with reference to something real (paramartha), like the rope. And this is only possible if there is some really existing entity. If everything is negated, and nothing is left, it will not be possible to negate any other thing, which will mean that something that is actually unreal will have to be accepted as real. </blockquote><br />In other words, accepting the shunya-vada will mean the abandonment of the distinction between the real and the unreal. This kind of reductio ad absurdum is characteristic of how the other schools responded to the Madhyamika teaching of emptiness, including the Yogacharins who accused them of straying from the middle and indulging in excessive negation (apavada).<br /><br />Shankara continues that, just as the passage from the Taittiriya Up, "beyond speech and mind," does not mean that brahman as such does not exist, so too the "neti, neti" of the Brhadaranyaka Up does not negate brahman as such. It means, he says, that brahman transcends speech and mind, and that it is not an object of knowledge, and this means that it can only be the unconditioned subject, the Self, which is pure consciousness. The "neti, neti," he says, denies all "discursive proliferation" (prapanca) and all form (rupa), but leaves the pure brahman as such untouched. He suggests that the repetition can be taken to mean that it denies gross form in the first instance, and all subtle form in the second, but he says that he prefers the interpretation that takes the second "neti" as added for effect, emphasizing that whatever can be thought (utpreksha) is not brahman. He concludes: "therefore, the 'neti, neti' negates all that is 'prapanca,' but leaves brahman itself untouched."<br /><br />As for the later Advaitins, the most sophisticated among them, Shri Harsha, whose deconstructive efforts closely parallel those of the Prasangika Madhyamikas, himself admits that his own method of vitanda parallels the prasanga method of the Madhyamikas. But he distinguishes the respective outcomes of the two approaches: whereas his method seeks to describe reality as non-different (abheda), that is, as the self-same non-dual reality, the Prasangika attempts to demonstrate its inherent emptiness (shunyata).<br /><br />The later Advaitin doxographers often made use of an "inclusivist" approach to describe their relation to the rest of the Indian tradition, an approach inspired, to some degree, by earlier conceptions put forward by the Buddhists doxographers. In the model of Indian philosophy presented by the doxographers of Advaita Vedanta, the various Indian schools and sampradayas are treated sequentially and structured hierarchically, with the traditions of Vedanta grouped near the top and the school of Advaita Vedanta standing at the very pinnacle. While it may be true that this model offers a kind of "dialectical reconciliation" of the various sub-traditions and schools of the Indian tradition, it is, at the same time, essentially a reductionist model that subordinates all other schools to the tradition of Advaita Vedanta. There is no compromise here, no abandoning of the "own-position" (sva-siddhanta) in favour of some kind of syncretic holism. Rather, the own-position of the Advaitin is elevated over all other teachings through its claim to both encompass and surpass all other traditions. The Sarva-darshana-samgraha, or "Collection of All Points of View," falsely attributed to Shankara, claims that though they may not know it, all traditions ultimately seek the Atman of the Advaitins. Though we find a semblance here of the idea that one thing is "really" another, there is also clearly implied by its expression the claim that one of the two things is "more real" than the other, that one is in fact superior to the other.<br /><br />This theme of the "concordance of all philosophies" (sarva-darshana-samanvaya) continues late into the 18th century. The very late Advaitin work, Prasthanabheda, goes so far as to state that all the great sages of the Hindu tradition, Vyasa, Kapila, Patanjali, etc., taught the "same" truth, but that they adapted this "truth" in accordance with the abilities of different students -- an interpretation clearly derived from Buddhist conceptions concerning the Buddha's "skillful means" (upaya-kaushalya) and applied to the Vedic notion of "qualification" (adhikara). However, throughout the history of the doxographical works of the Advaitins, there is no attempt to truly synthesize the Buddhist teachings with the teachings of Advaita. Though the even-handed commentator Vacaspati Mishra says, in his Bhamati, that the shunya-vada is intended for the most capable of students, the heretical Buddhist tradition is, in general, treated in these works as if it were but one step removed from vulgar materialism. In the doxographies of the Vedantins, we routinely find the Buddhist schools at the bottom of the heap. The Madhyamika in particular is treated with contempt by the Vedantins, who classify the shunya-vadins as nihilists (vainashikas), and as akin to the later skeptics whose only intent is the destruction of the truth (tattva-upaplava). The doxographies of the classical Vedantins are therefore not universalist in their outlook, and they do not extend their attempts at "harmonization" to include the teachings of the Madhyamikas.<br /><br />This spirit of subsumption and subordination itself can perhaps ultimately be traced back to Upanishads like the Chandogya Up, which makes use of a reductionist method when teaching the ultimate nature of the self. Like a honeybee reducing the nectar of each flower to honey, or like the ocean absorbing the waters of all the various rivers, Being or Sat, is the final end of all beings and the ultimate nature of the self. He who knows this essential Self knows the principle underlying all teachings, as he knows the "all," the all-encompassing metaphysical principle. This idea is perhaps the metaphysical inspiration of much of Indian "inclusivism." Vijnana-bhikshu himself makes use of the image of the rivers and the ocean when he argues that all the all the various paths imply the Yoga of Patanjali.<br /><br />In its structure and function, the inclusivism and hierarchical modelling of doxographical works of the later Advaita Vedantins can be said to be based upon several preceding factors. One is a dialectical tendency in Indian thought, rooted in the traditions of debate and "dharma combat," that seeks to situate one's own-position within the larger tradition by referring to, and dispensing with, other points of view. In this way, the doxographies of the Vedantins can be seen as extensions and applications of strategies used in earlier debates, in particular those concerning the epistemological status of perceptual error (khyati), a problem that receives considerable attention from Advaitins after Shankara. In their attempt at resolving this particular problem, the Advaitins present their own position as a kind of final resolution of all other debates on the matter, that is, as the dialectical culmination of all preceding positions.<br /><br />Another source of the tendency of the later Advaitins to think inclusively and systematise hierarchically can be found in Shankara's own conception of "samanvaya" or "concordance." "Samanvaya" in general refers to the hermeneutic strategy of attempting to resolve inconsistencies within and conflicts between scriptural sources. In Shankara's case, this "harmonization" is effected by recourse to the soteriological subordination of one set of teachings to another. Those teachings, for example, that speak of a brahman with form are related to devotion and meditation -- which, strictly speaking, are not soteriologically efficacious -- while those teachings that speak of a brahman without form are intended for the "practice" of jnana, which for Shankara is the only truly efficacious means to release. Through this act of subordination, various inconsistencies and conflicts in the statements of the Upanishads are effectively neutralized. Like the Mahayana, both Shankara and Gaudapada speak of those scriptural writings that are to be taken at face value, and those that need to be taken with a grain of salt, as it were. It is in this context that Shankara invokes the notion of a two-fold truth.<br /><br />The Advaitin strategy of subsuming other traditions is perhaps first suggested by statements made by the Gaudapada Karika concerning the relation between non-dualism and the various forms of dualism. According to the GK, all duality requires non-duality. GK 3.18 says, "The non-dual is the supreme reality, and duality is said to be its effect." In other words, since all duality entails non-duality, all dualistic points of view entail non-dualism. GK 4.4 reads: "Disputing among themselves, these dualists actually demonstrate non-duality and promulgate the teaching of non-orgination!" Karika 4.5 adds ironically: "We agree with them and do not dispute this! Learn now how there is no dispute (vivada)." This last statement is a reference to the teaching of "non-conflict" (avivada), which perhaps first makes its appearance in the proto-Madhyamika literature and in the quietism of the early Indian skeptics (ajnanikas). The GK also describes non-dualism as avirodha/aviruddha (GK 3.17-18), which means non-conflicting (but also, incontestable and irrefutable). Shankara comments at GK 3.17, "Our view, the teaching of the oneness of the Self, does not conflict with other views, which are mutually contradictory (anyoyavirodha), because it is based upon the inseparability of everything (sarva-ananyatva), just as one's limbs are not in conflict with one another."<br /><br />The metaphysical principle that the conditioned requires the unconditioned is also the principle that all impermanent entities are dependent upon a permanent substrate, an idea that underpins the classical critiques of the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness. The basic argument against the doctrine of momentariness is that change implies something permanent acting as a substrate for change; otherwise we would not see causal regularity in the world and sesame oil would come from sand and mango trees would yield dates. Shankara makes use of another version of this idea when he counters the Madhyamika teaching of emptiness by arguing that whenever we negate something as unreal, we do so only with reference to something real (BrSuBh 3.2.22).<br /><br />The Gaudapada Karika derives the essentials of many of its arguments from the Madhyamika Karikas. This should not surprise us though, as Nagarjuna takes his own "logic of being" over from the Upanishads, wherein we first find the principle, Being cannot come from nothing (Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.2). In the Madhyamika Karikas, Nagarjuna implies that the positing of self-existing entities will require that these entities be, in essence, permanent, unchanging, and non-arising. MK 15.2 describes this unchanging reality thus: " 'svabhava', self-existence, means something that is not dependent upon another (nirapeksha) and unproduced (akrtrima)." Echoing Nagarjuna, the GK says at 4.9, "self-existence (svabhava) means: that which always already established (samsiddhi), never produced (akrta), and innate (sahaja); it is that nature (prakriti) which is never abandoned." The terms "sahaja" and "akrta," are roughly synonymous with the term "akritrima" used by Nagarjuna. At MK 15.8, Nagarjuna says "a being whose nature is otherwise (prakrter anyathabhavo) is not possible." Gaudapada Karika 4.7 uses exactly the same turn of phrase: "a thing becoming otherwise than its nature (prakrter anyathabhavo) cannot be."<br /><br />With this premise in hand, Nagarjuna sets to work at demolishing essentialist metaphysics. His arguments are, perhaps, not directly intended to subvert the eternalism of the Upanshads as much as they are directed at curious developments that had been occurring in the Abhidharma schools of his day. In their attempt to overcome the various problems posed by the doctrine of momentariness, certain Abhidharmists had posited an odd sort of eternalism. This development, Nagarjuna suggests, is not accidental, but the necessary outcome of the Abhidharma metaphysics, which had understood its "dharmas" (metaphysical ultimates) as possessed of a kind of inherent existence (svabhava). Nagarjuna argues that the very idea of an inherent existence implies the idea of eternal and unchanging being. Of course, a doctrine of permanence contradicts the Buddhist teachings; and besides, we see in the everyday world that there are no permanent and unchanging things; thus these "dharmas" can have no inherent existence. But this is only because all beings are already empty (shunya) of an inherent self-existence: there are no entities that exist absolutely in this manner. In this way, Nagarjuna attempts to purge the Abhidharma of what he sees as an heretical and insidious teaching: essentialism. But along the way, he has turned the Upanishadic "logic of being" against itself. We will return to Nagarjuna's use of the concept of "svabhava" below.<br /><br />For his own part, Gaudapada takes the argument in another direction. He agrees that the positing of conditional entities requires the existence of a permanent and unchanging being, and that contingent beings are indeed without an inherent self-existence (GK 4.22). But, his comments seem to suggest, there must be at least one being that is not empty of its own being, and that being is none other than the supreme self of the Upanishads, which is described as self-established (Chandogya Up 7.24.1) and self-existing (Isha Up 8). The final few karikas of the GK suggest that this teaching is absent from the Buddha-dharma; GK 4.95-99 read: "Only those who have successfully realized the unborn that is the equality of all things can be said to have the supreme knowledge (mahajnana)... All dharmas are by their nature pure, released (mukta), and awakened (buddha). This the sages understand. The knowledge of the sage is untouched. But this teaching has not been declared by the Buddha." In his comments, Sankara unpacks the sense of the karika as he understands it: "The knowledge of the supreme non-dual reality is found in the Vedanta alone."<br /><br />Thus, though their arguments seem, at first glance, to be very much alike, in an important way, Gaudapada and Nagarjuna are diametrically opposed to one another. Gaudapada adopts Nagarjuna's "logic of being" but turns it around, giving back to it its original Upanishadic intent. In this way, Gaudapada not only meets the challenge of the Madhyamika, but does so using the very terms set by the Madhyamakas. At the same time, Gaudapada lays the ground for an inclusivist framework with which later Vedantins will use in their attempt to "accommodate" the dualist viewpoints of the other schools.<br /><br />For their own part, Nagarjuna's followers will take over Nagarjuna's idea, presented in the Bodhicittavivarana, that all metaphysical positions entail emptiness and develop it into a doxographical strategy for their encounter with other schools. This style of writing begins with the works of Bhavaviveka and it is to his Madhymakahrdaya that we will turn to next.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31322818.post-1153345431620611512006-07-19T14:33:00.000-07:002007-07-13T14:13:56.855-07:00Are Brahman and Emptiness the Same? Part I<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">This is the first of several posts examining the question, "Are Brahman and Emptiness the Same?" Collectively, the posts form an extended essay. The essay itself arises in response to a short article that appeared in the journal, <a href="http://www.wie.org/j14/buddhas_em">"What is Enlightenment?"</a> that had suggested the two are the "same" based on the impression that certain Buddhist and Upanishadic texts contain similar manners of expression. Basically, my approach here will be to contrast the typical attitude of perennialism, which tends to equate the two, with how the question might have been, and was, viewed in the classical Indian tradition. </span></p><p style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I. Historical Background to the Question of Concordance</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Before looking at how the Indian tradition viewed this question, some preliminary historical background into how the question of identity arose might prove illuminating. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Historically speaking, though the Indian tradition has on occasion suggested such identities across traditions, it is Western based traditions of thinking and inquiry that have most often suggested the identity of brahman and emptiness. Thus, the thesis of their identity is, I would suggest, more or less a product of Western interpretations of the Indian tradition. Lately, the equation has been taken over from scholars of comparative religion and put to use by various apologists for the "philosophis perennis," </span><span style="font-size:100%;">as well as by exponents of certain eclectic spiritual movements who draw from a variety of teachings and traditions and who require a unity of purpose and method.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:10;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In the recent past, the potential for the positing of the identity of brahman and emptiness came from two scholarly directions. One derived from methodologies grounded in certain forms of nineteenth-century philosophical thought, in particular that of Arthur Schopenhauer, whose general point of view was that, "the sages of all times have always said the same." During the later nineteenth century we find, for example, Paul Deussen -- an Indologist who held chairs in both philosophy and Sanskrit and is perhaps best known for his important study of Shankara's thought, <em>The System of Vedanta</em> -- publishing his ambitious world history of philosophy, </span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:10;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie</i></span></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:10;"><span style="font-size:100%;">. A disciple of Schopenhauer, Deussen was also an exponent of the "philosophia perennis," an <a href="http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/dictionaries/difficultwords/data/d0004980.html">eirenic </a>interpretive tendency that continued to attract writers, such as Aldous Huxley, well into the middle of the 20th century. At select moments in his <i>Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie</i>, Deussen indulges in noting the "inner points of unity" between philosophers such as Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer and Shankara; he writes, "In all countries and at all times, both near at hand and far away, it is one and the same nature of things <span style="font-size:100%;">that is contemplated by one and the same spirit."</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-size:100%;">In Europe at the turn of the century, the p</span>redominant interpretation of the Madhyamika was that it constituted a form of "nihilism," an interpretation that was in keeping with, and probably drawn from, the general view presented in the classical Indian handbooks on philosophy. But a distinct change in the Western interpretation of Madhyamika thought came with the publication of Theodore Stcherbatsky's <i>Conception of Buddhist Nirvana</i> in 1927. In this work, Stcherbatsky</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> broke with the received "nihilistic" interpretation of the Madhyamika and aligned it with the mystical traditions of India, recasting its negative dialectic in terms of the apophatic method of mystical theology. Stcherbatsky interpreted the polarities of the Madhyamika dialectic in terms of the Kantian antinomies: reason is unable to grasp ultimate reality and it dissolves into antinomic conflict and contradiction whenever it attempts to do so. According to Stcherbatsky, the Madhyamikas did, however, hold that it is possible to apprehend the ultimate nature of reality through what he called "mystic intuition" (for which he offers the Sanskrit, "yogi pratyaksha"). In Stcherbatcky's eyes, the Madhyamakas were not "nastika-vadins," that is, "nihilists," and nor were they mere "vitanda-vadins," a term used in the Indian tradition to describe various debaters who indulged in mere <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eristic">eristic</a> -- a group that the Madhyamakas were often associated with.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">More importantly, Stcherbatsky understood the Madhyamika "metaphysic" as amounting to what he called "monism," and by this he meant something analogous to the metaphysical conception of reality found in Advaita Vedanta. Throughout his translation of passages from Chandrakirti's Prasannapada, Stcherbatsky gratuitously inserts descriptive terms such as "monist" and "monistic." At times, these liberties with the text -- as, for example, in subsection 13 of the "Examination of Causality" -- significantly distort his presentation of Chandrakirti's thought to the point of making it incoherent. Stcherbatsky's interpretation of the Madhyamika, and Mahayana in general, was in keeping with the universalist predilections his time. He writes, "The position of Sankara is interesting because, at heart, he is in full agreement with the Madhyamikas, at least in the main lines since both maintain the reality of the One-without-a-second." (p. 44) And on Mahayana Buddhology he writes, "The conception of Buddha here is quite the same as the conception of God (ishvara) in the advaita of Shankara." (p. 214)</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Stcherbatsky's interpretation proved to be very influential. Publishing his own translations and studies of Chandrakirti a few years later, Stanislav Schayer identified the ultimate reality (paramartha) of the Madhyamika with what he called the "totality of being," and suggested that in the act of "mystic apprehension" the saint apprehends "the totality." Similarly, almost all of the essential elements of Stcherbatsky's interpretation can be found in T.R.V. Murti’s <i>The Central Philosophy of Buddhism</i>, though Murti would emphasize what he called the "epistemic" aspect of the Madhyamika over Stcherbatsky's "ontological" interpretation. (A later post will review Murti's <em>The Central Philosophy of Buddhism,</em> and his interpretation of Madhyamika, in greater depth.) Significantly, both Stcherbatsky and Murti saw the Madhyamika as a form of absolutism, and throughout their works both refer to emptiness (shunyata) as "the Absolute." This absolutism would color how the concept of "emptiness" would be understood in the West for some time, and it facilitated the idea that emptiness was in some sense analogous, if not identical, to the Advaitin's brahman.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">We find, for example, the absolutist interpretation of the Madhyamika and the Prajnaparamita Sutras at work as late as the studies of Edward Conze, another admitted perennialist, who also applied the term "monism" to Prajnaparamita thought. Like Stcherbatsky, Conze at times takes liberties with the Sanskrit of his sources so as to suit the needs of his interpretation. For example, in a passage in his article, <a href="http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/conze3.htm">"The Ontology of the Prajnaparamita,"</a> he translates a particular Sanskrit phrase as, "the unbroken unity of all dharmas," and then goes on to describe this as a kind of "monism." Yet when we look to the Sanskrit offered in the footnote (17), it merely says that no dharma is separate (sambheda) from any other dharma. The idea here is that for Prajnaparamita thought, no phenomenon is an absolutely discrete entity, which is how the Abhidharmists had defined their "dharmas." I would suggest that the point being made by Prajnaparamita, contra the earlier Abhidharmists, is that all such "dharmas" arise in relation to, and mutually determined by, each other, and that it is in this sense that the Prajnaparamita Sutras speak of all dharmas being "non-separate" from one another. Conze's label of "monism" here is thus rather misleading.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">While the absolutist interpretation of Madhyamika thought served a kind of propaeduetic ("skillful means"?) end by replacing the earlier more egregious interpretation that took it as a form of "nihilism," most contemporary scholars of Mahayana reject it as inadequate to the task of describing the subtleties of Mahayana thought. For some, however, the attraction persists. This may be so for a variety of reasons. Some appear to remain attached to the older Romantic and universalizing patterns of thought; others are lulled by the ecumenical spirit of perennialism; yet others seem to be driven by a theological need to reconcile two traditions they greatly admire -- Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika -- but that they cannot bring themselves to choose between.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The second great impetus for the comparison of Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika came with the rise of the discipline of Religionswissenschaft, Religious Studies, the principle approach for which was the act of comparison itself. One of its primary methods, which was dominant late into the 20th century, was the phenomenological method. It is worth noting that this method tends to see its objects in terms of generalities, as instances of universal "essences" transcending historical and cultural differences. Thus, like those trends in nineteenth century thought that sought out the "timeless truths" and insights that remain the "same" throughout different times and places, the phenomenological comparative approach also tends to view its subject primarily in terms of a kind of universality, often to the detriment of the particularity of traditions. An example of the application of this kind of approach is Rudolph Otto's <span style="font-style: italic;">Mysticism East and West</span>, a work that had attempted to find a "common foundation" for the theologies of Shankara and Meister Eckhart.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is along phenomenological lines that the comparison of emptiness and brahman might most profitably proceed. In the next section I will make use of a phenomenological comparative method that at the same time stays close to the Sanskrit sources that speak of brahman and emptiness. The general idea will be that, phenomenologically speaking, it is possible to understand the two respective traditions that speak of brahman and emptiness -- Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika -- as analogous expressions of a form of mysticism.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">II. The Question of Concordance Viewed Phenomenologically</span> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">To be precise, any phenomenological comparison of emptiness and brahman should first properly restrict the sense of brahman. It is purportedly the formless brahman of Advaita Vedanta, the nirguna Brahman, that is meant when it is suggested that "emptiness and brahman are the same." In Advaita Vedanta, the formless brahman is the absolute in its pure and transcendent aspect. It is named variously, the supreme (param), qualityless (nirguna), distinctionless (nirvishesha) brahman, and it is often contrasted with the brahman with quality and distinction. This contrast between the two aspects of brahman is particularly important in the exegesis of Shankara, who abstracts the essential nature of brahman from the various Upanishadic sources. Part of Shankara's aim in doing so is the reconciliation or "harmonization" (samanvaya) of conflicting passages in the Upanishads. This is achieved through the subordination of certain teachings to others. Shankara wishes to distinguish between those teachings whose aim is mere upasana, which is a collective term that covers ritual, meditation and devotion, from those teachings aimed at jnana. These two aspects of the practice of Vedanta are then coordinated with the two aspects of brahman -- with jnana being related to the formless brahman, and meditation and devotion being related to the brahman with form. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Paralleling the distinction between two kinds of texts is the doctrine of the "two truths": the relative (samvrti) or conventional (vyavahara) truth of the phenomenal domain, and the ultimate (paramartha) truth. This distinction was first posited by the Buddhist tradition. It was later adopted by Advaita Vedanta along the lines of the Upanishadic distinction between "higher" (para) and "lower" (apara) knowledge (vidya). The second truth, the ultimate truth, has historically been interpreted in various ways by the Buddhist tradition. It began its life as the idea that some texts are literally true (vis a vis those which are only metaphorically true). Among the Abhidharmists, however, it comes to refer to the truth expressed in their metaphysical re-description of reality, that is, to the result of an analysis of objects and events that reduced phenomena to their essential constituents or "dharmas" (metaphysical ultimates akin to the "sense-data" of empiricists or "essences" of phenomenologists). With the Prajnaparamita Sutras and Madhyamika, the ultimate truth eventually comes to refer to the transcendent nature of reality. The tradition of Advaita Vedanta would later adopt this latter sense of ultimate truth (with emendations). Generally speaking, it is this idea, that reality ultimately transcends discursive thought, that the Madhyamika basically shares with Advaita Vedanta.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It might serve us well to look a little at the history of the development of this idea of transcendence. One of the first declarations of the idea can be found at Taittiriya Upanishad 2.4.1 which describes Brahman as, "that before which words are turned away, it not having been grasped by the mind" (yato vaco nivartante, aprapya manasa saha). In a similar manner, the later Katha Upanishad says, "it cannot be attained by words or the mind" (naiva vaca na manasa praptum sakyo). The Katha Up also describes brahman as "indescribable" (anirdeshya), "subtle", and "beyond reasoning" (atarkya). Echoing the Katha Upanishad, the Gita describes the supreme form of Krishna as "indescribable" (anirdeshya) and "unthinkable" (acintya). The Mandukya Upanishad would, in turn, draw upon the Gita when it describes the non-dual turiya as "indefinable" (avayapadeshya) and "unthinkable" (acintya). When referring to the pure and formless Brahman, Shankara will often draw upon such passages to establish his point.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">An analogous set of terms could be drawn from the Buddhist tradition. Indeed, several Pali scriptures contain terms quite similar to those used in the Katha Upanishad. For example, with respect to the so-called "unanswered questions" (avyakrta-vastuni), we find the Buddha-dharma being described as "subtle" and "beyond reasoning" (atarkya) just as the Katha Upanishad describes its teaching. In an article on "proto-Madhyamka" in the Pali canon, Luis Gomez has drawn our attention to what can be seen as the forerunner of the Prajnaparamita and Madhyamika traditions. One of the most forceful works from this class of texts is the Atthakavagga from the Suttanipata. It refers to a truth that is beyond discussion (vada), description (kathaka), reckoning (samkhya) and discursive proliferation (prapancha). In a similar way, the Prajnaparamita Sutras contain phrases like, "the dharmas are inexpressible," "the Buddha is speechless silence," and so on. Nagarjuna, in turn, describes the ultimate truth in the following way: "What can be expressed in words comes to an end when that which is within range of the mind comes to a stop (nivrttam abhidhatavyam nivrtte cittagocare)." (MK 18.7) Frits Staal has noted the proximity of Nagarjuna's language here to that of the Taittiriya Upanishad. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is in this sense, then, that we can speak of the "mysticism" of Advaita Vedanta, the Madhyamika, and their forerunners. Before explicating more specifically the nature of this mysticism, it would be helpful to first elucidate the phenomenological category of the "mystical" and contextualize the term historically by referring it to its Western roots.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Most accounts of the history of mysticism trace the mystical stream of spirituality in the West, and the thinking associated with it, back to a work by Dionyisius the Areopagite (or the Pseudo-Dionysius as he is known): <span style="font-style: italic;">On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology</span>. It is here that the distinction between theologia kataphatika, or "positive theology," and theologia negativa, or "negative theology" is perhaps first fully elucidated. Positive theology approaches God through positive means and describes God through the use of positive epithets such as Truth, Love, Goodness, and so on. Negative theology refers to the practice of describing God primarily through the use of negative epithets, that is, through the use of terms that refer to exclusion and negation. It is this negative theology that is usually associated with the "mystical." The basic idea underlying negative theology is the teaching that God can only indirectly be referred to and not directly denoted. This is because, for the theologia negativa, God, as such, essentially transcends all words and concepts, and thereby all speech and discursive thought. Accordingly, negative theology also makes use of paradoxical formulations in its descriptions. Indeed, the very idea of attempting to describe what cannot, properly speaking, be described is itself inherently paradoxical.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Pseudo-Dionysius had actually drawn upon the work of Proclus the Neo-Platonist in his construction of a Christian theologia negativa. Christian mysticism is thus indebted to the Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean tradition. After the Pseudo-Dionysius, the negative approach was later transmitted to John Eriugena, John the Scot, who carried on the tradition of mystical theology during the dark ages. It was later picked up by Meister Eckhart during the high middle ages, and then received by Nicholas of Cusa at the cusp of the Renaissance. Among all of these theologians there is a marked tendency toward dialectical thinking and manner of expression, an inheritance from their Neo-Platonic forerunners, as the dialectical modality is aptly suited to the treatment of negation and paradox. Another theme that runs through the early dialectical theologians is that of agnosia, which refers to not agnosticism per se, but to a special kind of knowing that, according to the mystics, can only be described as a kind of "unknowing," an idea that appears in the works of Cusanus as the "learned ignorance" (docta ignorantio). The idea is that since God transcends discursive thought, God cannot be approached through ordinary means of knowledge. The defining characteristics of this form of mysticism are, therefore, the idea that God or ultimate reality transcends the categories of language and thought, and the idea that, if God or ultimate reality is to be approached at all, it must be approached in a certain negative way. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The characteristic of negativity not only applies to the end result of mysticism but to the practice of mysticism itself, and in this sense mysticism is sometimes referred as the "via negativa." Accordingly, the Western mystical tradition draws a distinction between mysticism as path and mysticism as goal, between the propaedeutica mysticum and silentium mysticum. The practice of mysticism, the via negativa, can be described as a process of removing names and concepts, or more specifically, as a kind of "emptying" of the mind and soul. In the Eastern Orthodox church, this is known as kenosis. This process is closely allied with the act of detachment, which Eckhart refers to as Abgeshiedenheit or "cutting away."</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Many of these characteristics of the "mystical" can be found in the representative works of Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika and it is with reference to these characteristics that we can, phenomenologically speaking, refer to these traditions as forms of mysticism. We have already indicated several relevant passages from both traditions. As for the tradition of Advaita Vedanta there is a wealth of evidence. To begin, it is significant that Shankara's comments on the section in the Brahma Sutras dealing with the highest brahman -- which runs from 3.2.11 to 3.2.21 -- contains many of the most pertinent passages relating to the mystical character of Advaita Vedanta. In his comments on 3.2.18 Shankara says that since the highest Self transcends speech and mind -- a reference to Taittiriya 2.4.1 -- it is to be indicated (upadeshya) by way of the negation (pratisheda) of all characteristics other than pure consciousness (chaitanya). Shankara's comments on Gita 13.12, which states that the supreme brahman cannot be said to be a "sat" (existent) or an "asat" (non-existent), reiterate this point. Here, Shankara again says that since brahman is beyond the range of speech, it can only be indicated by the negation (pratisheda) of all particular characteristics (vishesha). Shankara's comments on Brahma Sutra 3.2.17 also mention some secondary sources that refer to the highest brahman as beyond words and thought. Shankara writes, "Of similar purport is the passage that relates how Bahva, when questioned by about brahman by Vashkalin, explained it to him by remaining silent. He said to him, 'Learn of brahman, O friend,' and then became silent. When questioned (as to what the teaching was), he replied, 'I am indeed teaching you, but you do not understand. The Self is silence'."</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Perhaps the most well known of the Upanishadic passages that make use of negation is the description of brahman found in the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, in particular Brhad Up 2.3.6 which states, "There is no other more appropriate description of brahman than 'neti, neti' (not this, not that)." We also find in the Brhad Up perhaps the first use of the term "advaita." There it means "non-other" (an-anya), and by this it does not mean "non-different" so much as that there is no "other" to brahman, no second thing. The non-dualism of the Brhad Up differs in this regard from the monism of the Chandogya Upanishad, which uses images, such as many rivers flowing into a single ocean, that are more suggestive of immanence.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad is particularly important in Shankara's Advaita in that it tends to stress the transcendence of brahman over brahman's immanence. It is important to note that for Shankara, the modality of negation, exclusion and transcendence is given precedence over imputation, inclusion and immanence. In their writings, both Shankara and Gaudapada evoke a version of the principle of "skillful means" and relegate certain teachings, such as the teaching that the world emanates from brahman, to a merely propaedeutic and provisional status. But while Gaudapada teaches that the world is ultimately no different from the Self and but a projection of consciousness, Shankara emphasizes the distinctiveness of the Self from the world. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Accordingly, in Shankara's advaita, brahman is defined in opposition to the world. In the comments on Brahma Sutra 3.2.14, brahman is defined as "nih-prapancha" or "devoid of the worldly expanse." Nagarjuna too describes the ultimate truth as "a-prapanchitam". This term, "prapancha," not easily translatable into English, literally means proliferation and diversity. In Advaita Vedanta, it refers, more or less, to the "worldly expanse and its diversity." In Mahayana thinking, it takes on a different significance. Stcherbatsky notes its affiliation with verbal designation (vak) in Nagarjuna's Madhyamika Karikas (18.9). In the Madhyamika, its sense is closer to the idea of "verbal and conceptual proliferation." </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Still, there are ties between these two senses of the term "prapancha." For Shankara, the world is ultimately constituted by "name and form" (nama-rupa) and when referring to the creation of the world, or true lack thereof, he quotes Chandogya Up 6.1.4, which states that the world originates from "words only." For the Vedantins prior to Shankara, this passage had a kind of cosmic and metaphysical significance in that it was taken to refer to the idea that the creation of the world takes place via the primoridial "word." With Shankara it takes on a different sense, one that is apparently influenced by Mahayana thought. What it means for Shankara is that the world emanates in "name only." Creation is, in other words, but a figure of speech. We get a sense here that for Shankara, as for the Madhyamakas, the proliferation of "things" in the world is due in large part to the function of language. For Nagarjuna, where there is a verbal designation (prajnapti), we find a "thing" (bhava), and where there is a thing, we find a verbal designation. In a way, this can be understood as a semblance of a metaphysical theory as to the "origin" of objects in the world.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Both Advaita Vedanta and the Madhyamika describe their respective goals, the silentium mysiticum, with similar terminology. It is defined for both as "the quieting of discursive proliferation" (prapancha upashama). Gaudapada uses this terminology at Karika 2.35 to describe the muni's state of final release. In his dedication at the opening of the Madhyamika Karikas, Nagarjuna associates the supreme beatific state (shiva) with the quieting of discursive proliferation (prapancha upashama). This expression is repeated in the final verse of chapter 25, "The Examination of Nirvana" (25.24), to which Nagarjuna adds a note on the ineffability of the Buddhist truth: "At no time has the Buddha ever uttered any dharma." In his commentary on this verse, Chandrakirti says that this means that, for the Madhyamakas, nirvana is the quieting of discursive proliferation, and he glosses the term "prapancha-upashama" as the cessation (apravrtti) of speech (vacam) and thought (citta).</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">There are also resemblances between the respective paths, the silentium propaedeutica, of Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika, especially with regard to the traditions ushered in by Shankara and Chandrakirti. Both the Shankara Advaitins and the Prasangikas makes use of an kind of analytic inquiry (vichara) in their disciplines. In a seemingly paradoxical way, both Chandrakirti and Shankara admit a role to reasoning in their respective paths. For Shankara, however, such reasoning only occurs within the carefully circumscribed context of transmitted tradition (sampradaya), which for him involves receiving instruction of a teaching (upadesha), based upon divine revelation (shruti), from a fully qualified teacher (acharya). Both Shankara and Chandrakirti are highly critical of the mere "logicians" (tarkika) who think that ultimate truth can be established by means of independent reasoning alone. In this sense, both have a pronounced conservative streak. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Rather than the positive establishing or positing of some truth or other, the process of analytic inquiry aims at the removal of "discursive proliferation." For the Prasangikas this takes place through a kind of analytical undermining of the manner in which the mind constructs and reifies "things" (bhava) and "views" (drshti) about such things. The point of such analysis is to see that such "things" are ultimately empty of any essential "thing-hood." In the past, Western commentators have described this analytic process as kind of "negative dialectic" that functions to clear away conceptual obfuscations (kalpana; vikalpa). Contemporary commentators have likened it to a kind of "deconstructive" process. In any case, the result of this process is clearly described by the Prasangika commentators as the negation of "discursive proliferation".</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">For Shankara as well, there is nothing "established" by way of the process of the Advaitic inquiry, as brahman is always ever self-established. In his comments on Gita 18.50, he says that all that is necessary is the elimination of the confusion that associates the Self with what is not Self. Likewise, at Brhad Up 4.4.25 he says, "by the exclusion (apoha) of the superimposed attributes, that is, by their removal (apanaya) through the process of "neti, neti," the truth (tattva) is known." Accordingly, he describes moksha as the cessation (nivrtti) of the causal ignorance (avidya) that falsely constructs this association via the superimposition of the non-Self onto the Self. Here again, the overriding principle is one of exclusion and negation. Throughout his writings, Shankara says that the point of the path of knowledge is understanding that the Self and non-Self are distinct (vivikta). </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In this sense, discrimination (viveka) plays a decisive role in Shankara's conception of soteriological knowledge (jnana). He often refers to the saving knowledge itself as "viveka-jnana" and defines the nature of ignorance as the absence of discrimination (a-viveka). This brings his view of liberating knowledge close to conception found in the path of Samkhya, which culminates in the discriminative apprehension (viveka-khyati) of the distinction between purusha and prakriti. Shankara's Advaita goes one step further, however, as it is not enough for him that the two simply be distinguished. For him, that which is not-Self must ultimately also be negated as "an-artha," insubstantial and worthless, so that what remains is the absolute Self alone. In his comments on Chandogya 7.1.13 he writes, "once the body-mind complex and so on has been negated (pratyakhyayamana) the inner Self (pratyatma) alone remains (parishishta)." </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In his comments on Chandogya Up 7.1.1, Shankara likens the gradual form of this teaching to a kind of ascent (arohana); he says, "first the gross (sthula) is indicated, and then the increasingly subtle (sukshmam sukshmataram) until finally the self-sovereign (svarajya) infinite can be indicated." This "indication" is indirect, however, and he likens it to indirectly indicating the moon by pointing to the branches of a tree through which the moon may be seen. In other places he likens this "indirection" to pointing to a bright star that is in the vicinity of a more faint star so that the more dimly lit star might be noticed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Shankara's entire inquiry into the nature of the Self can be characterized as a process of negation and exclusion. Through a gradual reductive process, various alternatives indicated above are eliminated -- first the physical body, then the senses, then the "inner organ" (antahkarana) or mental apparatus, and so on. What remains at the end of this process is the pure "seer" or pure witnessing consciousness: the self-luminous Self. It is in this context, that we find the consideration of the various states of consciousness.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Discrimination also plays a role in the soteriological knowledge of the Prajnaparamita as well. The term "prajna" is often translated as "discriminative wisdom." In the pre-Mahayana work "The Questions of Milinda," Milinda asks, what is meant by the term "manasikara," attention, and what is meant by "prajna"? The answer given by Nagasena is that attention "gathers" while prajna "cuts through," and he supplies the image of the reaper of grain who gathers stalks together with one arm and uses a scythe to cut through the stalks with the other. In a similar way, prajna is often likened to a sword in the Mahayana. Such images are suggestive not only of discrimination and exclusion, of "cutting away," but of the related volitional act of detachment. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">T.R.V. Murti and D.T. Suzuki take "prajna" as a kind of "intuition" and by this they mean a kind of direct and non-conceptual cognition. In his article, "Reason (vijnana) and Intuition (prajna) in Buddhist Philosophy," D.T. Suzuki describes prajna as, "the noetic principle whereby the synthetic apprehension of the whole becomes possible." This idea, which reminds us of Stcherbatsky's and Schayer's interpretation of Madhyamika, is problematic and inadequate. Writing in response to Stcherbatsky and Schayer, J.W. de Jong notes, in his address "The Problem of the Absolute in the Madhyamika School," that such interpretations are, "contrary and alien to the spirit of Buddhist thought, which never at any stage visualizes unreal constituents forming a whole which is real." Indeed, the synthetic construction of wholes out of constituent parts is precisely how Buddhist thought has traditionally defined impermanent entities and conditioned reality. Simply because the Madhyamika rejects the particularism of the Abhidharmists in no way necessitates that it advocates some form of "monism." Indeed, a survey of the various analyses offered by both the Prasangika and Svatantrika authors shows that they rejected the entire metaphysical edifice that thinks in terms of "whole" and "parts", "one" and "many".</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">In his book <span style="font-style: italic;">The Emptiness of Emptiness</span>, C.W. Huntington notes that many of the differing senses of the term "prajna" can be shown to share a common sense -- that of "cutting through" illusion, delusion and so on. It is in this capacity that prajna is often related to the cognition of emptiness itself. However, here, as both F. Streng and Huntington note, "emptiness" need not be taken as referring to some positive, transcendent entity -- "the non-dual Void" -- but simply may be taken as referring to the emptiness of the delusional process itself, the process of discursive and conceptual obfuscation that constructs seemingly self-posited "things" and imputes an independent reality upon them, treating them as if they were ultimately real and independent.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;">It is at this point that the similarities between Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika, between Shankara and Chandrakirti, begin to give way to significant differences. These differences not only relate to how they conceive, respectively, of emptiness and the highest brahman, but, I would suggest, to fundamental assumptions about the nature of their respective paths and soteriological goals. I will leave the discussion of these specific differences for the final section of this essay. For now, we will close the present section by reinterating that, phenomenologically speaking, both Advaita Vedanta and Madhyamika can be understood as analogous forms of mysticism, as forms of the "via negativa."</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Neo-Vedanta and Perennialism</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com