1. Philosophy of Bheda Abheda Srinivasachari Adyar

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDÃBHEDA

P. N. SRINIVASACHARI

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The Adyar Library Series-No. 74

GENERAL EDITOR . G. SRINIVASA MURTI, B.A.,B.L., M.B. & C.M., VAIDYARATNA Director, Adyar Library

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDÄBHEDA

THE

PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

BY P. N. SRINIVASACHARI, M.A. Retired Principal and Professor of Philosophy, Pachaiyappa's College, Madras

Second Edition-Revised and Enlarged

THE ADYAR LIBRARY 1950

Price Rs. 9

FOREWORD

I AM contributing this Foreword at the desire of Prof. Srinivasacharya, but I altogether fail to see the need for it in the case of a book written by one whose studies in Indian philosophy, like those relating to Rāmānuja and Bhaskara, are so well known. The main purpose of the present work is to give an account of that school of Vedanta philosophy which admits the truth of what is known as the principle of bhedabheda. The expression bhedabheda does not bear precisely the same significance in all the schools that make use of it, but it may generally be taken to indicate a belief that bheda or ' distinction ' and abheda or 'unity' can co-exist and be in'intimate relation with each other. Substance and attribute, universal and particular, whole and parts may seem to be different from, or even opposed to, each other; but really there is no incompatibility between them, for they can be reconciled in a unity which pervades the difference and is its very being. This view is some- times described also as parinamavada or 'theory of development' implying that reality, conceived as bhinnabhinna, is not static but is continually changing and that it yet maintains its identity throughout. Such

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a theory is to some a direct violation of the law of contradiction and is to be rejected as a fallacy. In their opinion, it only restates the problem to be solved and, by a certain verbal adroitness, makes it appear as the solution. But to others the theory, helped probably by its paradoxical character, makes an irresistible appeal. Whatever may be its true logical value, this principle of explanation underlies a good deal of Indian thought. Amongst the doctrines not falling within the strict limits of Vedic teaching, it appears, for example, in the Sankhya Yoga. It is also found in the purely orthodox school of Mimamsa splitting it up into two branches, one of which adheres staunchly to this mode of explanation and the other denounces it equally staunchly. The same observation holds good of the Vedanta; and while we have Vedantins who pin their faith on it, there are others who are never tired of assailing it. But the principle as it appears in the Vedanta differs in one important respect from the same as it appears elsewhere. The diverse elements of the universe are only partially reconciled in the other systems, for the application of the principle is restricted in them at some point or other. Thus the Sankhya Yoga, though it explains the whole of Nature as a unity in totality, does not extend that explana- tion to the realm of Spirit and therefore leaves the dualism of prakrti and purușa unresolved in the end. The principle suffers no such restriction here; and the result is the affirmation of the sole reality of Brahman. It is the one source of all that exists, and the whole

FOREWORD vii

world is an actual manifestation of it. This variety of the Vedantic doctrine is known as Brahmaparinamavada; and, when one remembers that 'Brahman' is the Upanișadic word for 'spirit,' its general resemblance, we may add by the way, to Hegel's philosophy of the Absolute, becomes clear. Whether such a view of the ultimate Reality is in accordance with the teaching of the Upanisads, we cannot say. But it is not at all difficult for an adherent of the view to claim their support for it. It is well known that these ancient scriptures, though they emphasise the unity of Being, sometimes distinguish Brahman from the individual self on the one hand, and from the physical universe on the other. This may be only an apparent dis- crepancy as those who look upon the Upanisads as literally the 'word of God' maintain. Nevertheless the discrepancy has somehow to be explained, and the easiest way to do it is to assign equal validity to the two teachings. That will yield the bhedabheda view; and the ultimate Reality, as taught in the Upanisads, will be neither a bare unity nor a mere plurality but a vital synthesis of both. This version of Vedanta-the one with which we are concerned here-has its own distinctions. All of them agree, no doubt, in holding that Brahman changes or becomes; but, as set forth so fully and clearly in the following pages, they differ in the manner in which they explain its relation to the individual self and to the objective universe. The doctrine is also very old and, in some form, was probably known to Bādarāyāņa,

viii THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

the author of the Vedanta Sutras. The foremost among its early exponents, so far as we know at present, was Bhartrprapañca, none of whose works, however, has come down to us. S'ankara, though he never mentions him by name, often criticises his view ; and, chiefly as a result of his criticism, the Brahma- parinamavada lost its attraction once for all for the Indian mind. Weaker echoes of it were heard once or twice in later times but they soon died away. As a consequence, the doctrine in its various phases, is little known now. Prof. Srinivasacharya has done a great service to Indian philosophy by bringing it to light, and giving an admirable exposition of it in the present volume. The exposition is followed by a critical estimate of the value of the doctrine in comparison with other Vedantic views and with the views of Western philosophers. The book deserves the careful attention of all that are interested in Indian thought, and particularly of those that wish to study the Vedānta in its several bearings. M. HIRIYANŅA

PREFACE

ENCOURAGED by the appreciation of the first edition of The Philosophy of Bhedabheda by the philosophi- cally-minded persons in the East and the West, the author ventures on the second edition in the hope that it will also be well received. Bhedabheda is midway logically and chronologically between the Advaita of S'ankara and the Visistadvaita of Rāmānuja and as a meeting of the extremes of bheda or difference and abheda or non-difference or theism and monism it has its own attraction and advantage. In addition to minor changes, the work is enlarged by a chapter on Caitan- ya's philosophy of Acintya Bhedabheda and exhaustive contents. I am very grateful to Sri K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar for his suggestion of the second edition of the work being taken up by the Adyar Library. I am also thankful to Dr. G. Srinivasa Murti, the Honorary Director of the Adyar Library, for his kindness in publishing the work and also to Professor C. Kunhan Raja, Curator, Adyar Library, in expediting the publication. My thanks are due to Messrs. G. K. Rangaswami Aiyangar, K. R. Applachariar,

x THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

P. Sankaranarayanan, A. N. Krishna Aiyangar and R. C. Srinivasa Raghavan for offering valuable suggestions and correcting the proofs. The Vasanta Press has brought out the work with its usual excellence.

SRI KRISHNA LIBRARY,) MYLAPORE, 28th May 1950. P. N. SRINIVASACHARI

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

THIS book is an amplification of the Honorary Reader- ship Lectures on "The Philosophy of Bhaskara" delivered by me under the auspices of the University of Madras. The Philosophy of Bhedabheda claims, like all other Vedantic schools, the authority of im- memorial tradition; but it has become a forgotten chapter in the history of Vedantic thought. Bheda- bheda exhibits two distinct types represented mainly by the systems of Bhaskara and Yadavaprakas'a. It is midway, logically and chronologically, between the Advaita of S'ankara and the Visistādvaita of Rama- nuja. It is not in line with the accepted expositions of Vedänta and is rejected mainly on the ground that it is a system built on the self-contradiction of bheda and abheda. The philosophy of tdentity-in-difference has, however, a strange fascination for certain tempera- ments interested in the meeting of the extremes of monism and pluralism.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi

The book is divided into two portions. The first sets out the metaphysical, moral and mystical impli- cations of the Bhedäbheda of Bhäskara. The first part of the second portion presents the Vedānta of Yadavaprakas'a and certain allied schools. Bhāskara's commentary on the Brahma Sutras is published in the " Chaukamba Sanskrit Series," Benares; but no extant edition of Yadavaprakas'a's commentary is available. The drift of his teaching is, however, gathered from the criticisms levelled against it by the expositors of other systems like Ramanuja and Vedanta Des'ika. In the second part, a critical estimate of Bhedabheda is attempted and this is followed by a comparison of this school of Vedänta with similar lines of thought in the West. The concluding chapter indicates the direction in which the varieties of Vedantic thought may benefit by mutual and sympathetic criticism and thus supple- ment the method of siddhanta by a synthetic insight into the fundamental features of the philosophic thought enshrined in the Upanisads. It will be bserved that, in summarising the philosophies considered in the course of the work, I have tried to adopt the language of their authors. My grateful thanks are due to my esteemed friends and fellow-students who have encouraged me in the publication of this book. I am indebted to Pandit Kumāravādi Srinivasachariar who helped me to go through the Bhasya of Bhaskara. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Mahāmahopādhyāya Vidyāvācaspati Prof. S. Kuppuswami Sastrigal for kindly reading the

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book in its proof stage and making valuable sugges- tions. Prof. M. Hiriyanna and Mr. S. Vasudevachariar rendered great help to me by pointing out errors and suggesting improvements. I have been profited by discussions with Mr. S. Gopalaswami Aiyangar on the philosophical relationship between Vis'istādvaita and Bhedäbheda. Messrs. G. K. Rangaswami Aiyangar and M. R. Rajagopala Aiyangar very kindly undertook the arduous task of proof correction and I am under great obligation to them for the considerable help they rendered to me in various ways. I should not omit to mention the aid given me by Mr. Jiyappa Aiyangar and Dr. K. C. Varadachariar in the preparation of the manuscripts. My special thanks are due to Professor Hiriyanna for his kindness in having written a Fore- word to this book.

SRI KRISHNA LIBRARY,) MYLAPORE, February 1934. P. N. SRINIVASACHARI

CONTENTS

PAGES FOREWORD V

PREFACE ix

PREFACE TO THF FIRST EDITION ×

BOOK I

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION : The Vedanta as a philosophy of religion-Spiritual realization as a true test-Reason. and revelation re- conciled-Threefold aspect of Vedanta: Metaphysics, Morality and Mysticism-The age of Bhaskara-His works-Bhedābheda of Yādava and Bhāskara compared -His philosophy marks a transition from Sankara to Ramanuja-His central teaching and method-Criticism of other philosophical systems, especially Mayavada-The subject.matter of the Vedanta Sutras 3-10 .

CHAPTER II. EPISTEMOLOGY : Brahman is knowable-Sāstra, the ultimate source of spiritual knowledge-The Veda a body of eternal, imper- sonal and infallible truths-Sruti and Smrti-Mimām- saka principles of interpretation-The principle of Bheda. bheda as the keynote of Vedanta-Bheda texts and Abheda texts reconciled-The truth confirmed by pratyaksa and anumana-Illustrations from the relation between cause and effect and genus and species-The Illusion theory

xiv THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

PAGES criticised-Importance of causality to Bhaskara-Sat- kāryavāda or the theory of immanent causality-Free causality-Criticism of other theories of knowledge like the Vais'esika theory of asatkāryavāda-Māyāvāda- The Sankhya theory of parinama-The Buddhistic theory of momentariness and the Jaina view of Saptabhangi- Bhedābheda reconciles idealism and realism 11-26

CHAPTER III. ONTOLOGY :

Sadvidyā refers to Brahman as kārana ātma and karya atma-The unconditioned becomes the conditioned due to upadhis-The self-limitation of the Absolute- Isvara and the Absolute identical-Criticism of the theory of two Brahmans, saguna and nirguna-The Sadvidya refers to Brahman and not to pradhāna- Vais'eşika, Budhistic, Jaina, Mahes'vara and Pāňcarātra theories of reality criticised-The Anandamaya of Taittiriya Upanişad is the Absolute which is saguna- The golden person in the sun-The akāsa, the prāna and the jyotis of the Chandogya Upanisad refer to saguņa Brahman-Bhedabheda relation explained by the Antaryāmi Brahmana in the Upanisad -Saguņa Brahman as the Vais'vānara, amrta, setu, Bhūman, akşara and parātpara puruşa-Anguștamātra purușa. 27-39

CHAPTER IV. COSMOLOGY:

Parinama as the principle of self-differentiation- Jīva pariņāma and acetana pariņāma or bhoktr sakti and bhogya sakti-Theory of pralaya and srsti-Sad- vidyā and causality-Vākyakāra, Vrttikāra and Sūtrakāra support pariņāmavāda-Brahman transcendentally per- fect though immanent in the universe-Criticism of rival theories of srsti ; Mayavada, Sankhyan theory of prakrti parinama, the atomic theory of the Vais'esika and the

CONTENTS XV

PAGES Buddhistic theories of sanghata-Bhaskara's conclusion or siddhānta 40.50

CHAPTER V. BHĀSKARA'S CRITICISM OF THE DOCTRINE OF MĀYĀ:

The doctrine of maya cuts at the very root of knowl- edge, derived from sense·perception, inference and Sastra-Real knowledge cannot arise from falsity- Conditionateness is not contradiction or sublation-Bhās- kara's criticism compared with Ramanuja's-Anirva. canīyakhyāti refuted-Jnāna kānda and Karma kāņda not opposed-Reality cannot be bare being-The negative judgment, 'neti, neti' in the Upanisad denies the finitude of reality and not the finite-Brahman is form- less but not characterless-Four views of Advaita- Isvara neither illusory nor the logical Highest. Bhaskara's Idea of God: Brahman devoid of form, but with an infinity of perfections-His relation to the acit and the jIva-Four forms of the Advaitic view of Brahman : Bhaskara's criticism of nirguna Brahman- Some modern interpretations of Ramānuja and Bhāskara considered. The Theory of the Uradhis : Isvara becomes the finite self by his parināma sakti and upādhis-Unity and multiplicity are both real-Upādhis real not illusory : the finitising process of the infinite-A complex of logical, moral and aesthetic limitations-avidyā, kāma, karma, and sartrendriya-sthūla sarīra and sūkşma sarīra- upādhi, beginningless but not endless 51-72

CHAPTER VI. BHASKARA'S PSYCHOLOGY :

The jtva as an amsa of Isvara-As bhedābheda relation-Brahman as a finite centre conditioned by upādhis-The jtva as a self-conscious entity, morally

xvi THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDABHEDA

PAGES free-Abnormal psychology-The psychology of sleep, dreams not illusory but psychic experiences-Conscious states continuous but not contradictory -- Cārvāka, Buddhist, Jaina, Sankhya, Vais'esika, Pāncarātra and Mayavada views of the finite self criticised-The Sutras support Bhedabheda relation between Brahman and the jiva, abheda real and bheda adventitious 73-83

CHAPTER VII. THE ETHICS OF BHĀSKARA:

Vedantic ethics makes no distinction between morality and metaphysics-The jīva as mumuksu-The need for vairagya-Jnana and karma: Co-ordinate and not contradictory-Jñāna-karma samuccaya as the chief means to mukti-It avoids the extremes of intellectualism and activism-Criticism of Niyogavāda -Rāga sublimated-Vişaya rāga transformed into Paramātma rāga-Divine determinism not incom- patible with individual freedom-The divine will works through the will of the finite self-Paramatma eternally pure and perfect though associated with samsara-The supreme end of man is the attainment of Brahman- The views of the Mīmamsaka and the Dhyānaniyoga- vadin about the relative value of karma and jñāna refuted. Desire spiritualised and not suppressed or sub- lated-Renunciation is not karmatyāga but nişkāma karma 84-104

CHAPTER VIII. THE RELIGION OF BHĀSKARA :

The errors and evils of avidyā-karma overcome by philosophic insight and moral endeavour-The mumuksu as a mystic-The unitive consciousness of Brahman- The nature of dhyana : meditation on Brahman as the formless or nirākāra but not as characterless or

CONTENTS xvii

PAGES nirguna-Mukti as release from the upadhis : or freedom from embodiment and not in embodiment or jtvanmukti as S'ankara says-Criticism of the theory of jtvanmukti -The Upanișadic meditations-The theories of aıkya jāna, Dhyānaniyogavāda and Nişprapacīkaraņani- yogavada criticised-Meditation on Brahman destroys sañcita karma at once and prārabdha karma only at death. Ukranti or ascent to the Absolute: The theory of ascent to karya Brahman or effected Brahman as held by Badarl refuted-Two kinds of mukti: sadyo mukti and krama mukti or progressive and immediate realization of Brahman-Mukti as self-realization by self-transcendence-Ekībhāva not svarupa aikya or iden- tity or visista aikya or inseparability-The nature of mukti explained in terms of cognition, conation and feeling-Comparison with Western mysticism . 105-139

BOOK II

PART I. OTHER SCHOOLS OF BHEDABHEDA

CHAPTER I. THE PHILOSOPHY OF YĀDAVAPRAKĀS'A: His bhasya of the Sutras lost-References to it by Rāmānuja and Vedānta Desika-The two schools of Bhedabheda of Bhaskara and Yadava compared-The former is aupādhika and the latter svābhāvika, identity and difference equally real and eternal as in the causal and generic relation-His ontology-Reality is bhinnabhinna -Brahman or Being is-The Absolute is God and the finite centres-Creation is the self-expression of Brahman; Brahmaparinama-Though immanent, He is trans- cendental-Bondage due to bodily feeling and sense of finitude-Jāna-karma samuccaya, the chief means to mukti-Mukti is the return of the finite to the infinite, in B

xviii THE PHILOSOPHY OF PHEDABHEDA

PAGES which it sheds its exclusiveness and becomes an eternal element of Brahman in the bhedabheda relation and not one with Brahman as in Bhāskara . 143-151

CHAPTER II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHARTRPRAPAÑCA : Reality is Bhedābheda as substance and modes- Brahman is Iswvara, the jiva and the physical world- Dvaitavada reconciles pluralism and monism-Pari- ņāmavāda -- jnāna-karma samuccaya, the chief means to mukti-The modal manifestations of the Absolute as Isvara, the jiva and matter -- mukti is the apprehension of Brahman and attaining unity with Him 152-154

CHAPTER III. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIMBĀRKA: It is midway between the Svābhāvika Bhedābheda of Yādava and Rāmānuja's Visistādvaita-In its abheda aspect Brahman is self-related and in the bheda aspect it is the jiva or bhokta or the subject of experience and acit or the bhogya or the object of experience-His sakti emanates into the universe without losing its perfection- Brahman the Absolute or Radha. Krsna the God of bhakti -The jiva as an ams'a of Brahman or an entity or mode in the relation of bhinnabhinna with Him-Prakrti has an immaterial or aprākrta form in Paramapada as in Rāmānuja, bhakti and prapatti the chief means to mukti; in mukti the jīva attains Brahmabhāva or sämya and there is abhinna in essence and bhinna in existence . 155-163

CHAPTER IV. ACINTYA BHEDĀBHEDA OF S'RĪ KRSŅA CAITANYA: Nearer theism than the previous schools of Bheda. bheda-Brabman is Rādhākrsna and is and has infinite

CONTENTS xix

PAGES auspicious quanues, saktis and bewitching form of Beauty owing to the relation of bhedabheda between substance and qualities and dehi and dcha-By His sakti IIe becomes cit and acit and by His chief sakti called hladint sakti He imparts His beauty and bliss to the devotee, His beloved, the world, the eternal sport of Krsna. The chief means to mukti is mathurabhāva and the goal of life is bhakti rather than mukti in which the Lord of love and the beloved are one in essence or bliss though dual in existence-Bhedabheda is thus eternal though logically inconceivable, acintya . . 164-167

CHAPTER V. S'ĀKTAISM : As the philosophy of S'iva-sakti, it harmonises monism and pluralism in terms of Bhedābheda-S'akti the finitising principle of S'iva and is inherent in Him. Siva is static and sakti is dynamic and the One becomes the many. The whole is the part and yet is the whole- s'akti sleeps in the stone and wakes up in the mumukşu. Dustbin becomes the deity by yoga. The goal of life is the attainment of S'iva-sakti which is Dvaita-Advaita midway between Sankara's Advaita and Ramanuja's theism. The logical highest is the intuitional Highest-' S'äktaism opposed to the pan illusionism and the pan- realism of other Vedantins. Its affinity to Bhedābheda . 168-173 CHAPTER VI. A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SŪTRAS: Varieties of Vedantic philosophy based on the Sutras and the teachings of Vedantins referred to in them. Crucial texts dealing with the sat, ānandamaya, ananyatva, avasthiteh, amsa, ubhayalinga and avibhāga expounded by each Acarya in his own way. Advaita of S'ankara deals with nirguna Brahman, vivartavādu, jnānayoga and jīvanmukti. Visiştādvaita of Rāmānuja treats of

xx THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

PAGES aprthaksiddha viseşana, satkāryavāda, Brahman as s'artri, bhakti and prapatti and arcirādi gati. Aupādhika Bhedābhedavada of Bhāskara expounding the nature of saguņa Brahman, upādhis, Brahmapariņāma, jñāna- karma samuccaya and ekībhāva and sadyomukti. Svābhāvika Bhedābheda of Yādava and Nımbārka and also of Bhartrprapañca, Acintya Bhedābhedu of Caitanya: S'aktaism. The different interpretations of certain important adhikaranas of the Vedanta Sutra . 174-186

CHAPTER VII. MODERN INTERPRETATIONS · OF THE VEDĀNTA:

Deussen, Thibaut and Sir S. Rādhākrsnan deal with it as philosophy and not theology. Deussen's view of Advaita as paravidyā or esoteric Vedānta ex- pounding nirguņa Brahman, māyā and jīvanmukti. His theory of upadhis, potencies and the synthesis of Vedantic monism and Christian ethics and mystic union is more allied to Bhedabheda than to Advaita. Thibaut claims to be an unbiassed expositor of the Sutra and concludes that the Sutras support Ramānuja and that the Upanisads support S'ankara. His view of the self-emanating from Brahman and merging into it fits in with Bhedabheda. Dissatisfied with Sankara and Rāmā- nuja he drifts into Bhedābheda. Sir S. Rādhākrsņan sup- ports Sankara but rejects the illusion theory and monistic identity. Advaita denies difference but does not affirm identity. Brahman underlies all things from dust to deity. It is the real in itself. The intuitional Highest and not the real for thought or the logical Highest of Rāmānuja and Hegel, mukti is not the abolition of plurality but the abolition of the sense of plurality and egoistic outlook. In his criticism of illusionism and theism he seems to come into line with Bhedābheda 187-197

CONTENTS xxi

PAGES PART II. CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

CHAPTER VIII. ADVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDĀBHEDA:

In its attempt to mediate between Advaita and Dvaita, it has antagonised both. Bhāmati's criticism of Bhedābheda as self-contradictory . 201-208

CHAPTER IX. VISISTĀDVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDĀBHEDA :

Rämanuja's criticism of Bhedabheda epistemology in "S'ri Bhasya" and "Vedartha Sangraha"-The bhinnā- bhinna relation between Brahman and the world restated in terms of prakāra-prakārin relation. Brahman and the World : Yadava's view of Isvara being less than the Absolute criticised. Bhāskara's distinction of the svābhā. vika bheda between the acit and Brahman and aupādhika bheda between cit and Brahman is untenable. Brahman is Iswvara. The theory of upädhis is untenable as it predi- cates imperfections to Brahman. Criticism of the whole theory Bralmaparinama also attributes the imperfections of samsara to Brahman. Criticism of the theory of the jiva as an amsa of Brahman in the relation of Bheda- bheda. The fatal defect of Bhedābheda is its failure to satisfy moral distinctions. Mukti : Criticism of the theories of mukti as ekībhāva or dvaitādvaita; mukti is not absorption in the absolute or the consciousness of identity in difference. Vedänta Des'ika's refutation of the whole theory. Bhedäbheda in the horns of a dilemina. If it is abheda, it is exposed to the defects of Advaita ; if it is bheda, it is the same as Dvaita. It should be reoriented as Visistādvaita which does full justice to abheda and bheda in the logical and ethical aspect 209-220

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PAGES CHAPTERS X-XII. PARALLELS IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY:

Comparison of Western theism, pantheism and monism with the Vedantic schools of thought. The essentials to philosophic understanding. Vedantic schools more definite than Western systems as proved in the history of the absolutisms of the West, especially of Neo. Plato- nism. Spinoza, Hegel and the Hegelians. Neo-Platonism with its theories of emanation and ecstasy as interpreted by Dr. Caird, Dean Inge, Frank Thilly and Mr. Shorley leans towards Bhedābheda of Bhäskara shading into Visistadvaita. Spinoza's Philosophy of substance, modes as expounded by John Caird, Joachim, Pollock and others has more affinities with Yadava's than with Sankara's or Rāmānuja's. Hegelianism or Panlogism not much allied to Vedanta and is different from Rāmānuja's view with which it is sometimes identified. Bradley's view of Reality and Appearance differs from tbe Vedāntic idea of Brahman and the intuition of Brahman, though his method is utilised in destroying theism and thought. Bosanquet's view of the Absolute allied to that of Yadava. The Pantheism of Fichte bears comparison with Bhedabheda. Vedänta on the whole different from Pantheism, Panlogism and absolution as it posits the eternity of atman, the evils of samsara and stresses the spiritual relation between Brahman and atman more than that between Brahman and the world. . 221-275

CHAPTER XIII. CONCLUSION :

Vedānta as a philosophy of religion avoids agnosti- cism and dogmatism. It correlates the metaphysically supreme with the Highest of ethical religion. Each school has its own individuality and claims to be the true

CONTENTS xxiii

PAGES exposition of the Brahma Sutras. Practical Advaita is more akin to Visistādvaita than Pure Advaita. The merit of Bhedābheda, especially of Bhāskara as a corrective to the subjectivistic tendencies of Advaita and the anthro- pomorphic tendencies of theism. Its main defect, the attribution of imperfections to Brahman. Logical and chronological transition from Bhāskara and Yadava to Rāmānuja, Vedānta as the fulfilment of true philosophy and religion brought out in the Gita 276-288

APPENDIX I. DIFFERENCE OF INTERPRE- TATION OF CERTAIN VEDĀNTA SŪTRAS BYS'AŃKARA, BHĀSKARA AND RĀMĀNUJA. 289.294

APPENDIX II. GLOSSARY . 295-303

INDEX 305-310

BOOK I

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

THE Vedanta as a philosophy of religion is enshrined in the Upanişads, the Gītā and the Brahma Sūtras, which are known as the Prasthanatraya or the triune sources of Divine know- ledge. The Upanisadic intuitions form the basis of the Vedānta and its ethical aspects are emphasised in the Gītā. The Brahma Sutras which are the systematisation of S'ruti define the nature of Brahman, determine the means and methods of realising it and discover the exact content of this realisation. Brahman is super-sensuous and spiritual and it is only the spirit that can realise the spirit. The true test of spiritual reality consists in its spiritual realisation and this is the supreme and the only way in which the rival claims of reason and revelation can be reconciled. True Vedāntic thought can thrive only in an atmosphere of intellectual free- dom which is unfettered by the dogmas and doctrines that belong to sectarianism. But mere logic and dialectics can never prove divine reality nor disprove it. Vāda is merely a battle of words that leaves us ultimately broken and barren. Heaps of syllogisms can never help us in inferring the infinite ; they only make spiritual life sterile. Reason no doubt gropes for God and makes guesses at Him; its contradictions and antinomies, its anavasthas and hetvābhāsas carry no conviction

4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHSKARA

and admit of no finality. Inaccessible to discursive reason, Brahman can be apprehended by faith in S'astra and intuitive insight. The Veda is eternal and it is intuited by the rsi and anot composed by him at any time. This presupposes a living faith in the verities of Revelation and their verifiability in personal experience. Revelation has objective certainty and is impersonal, eternal and infallible, but intuition is its inner assurance or certitude. To err is human and inerrancy is divine. The Vedanta has its roots in revelation and finds its fruition in the intuitive and integral experience of Brahman. Reason mediates between revelation and intuitive realisation. It confirms the former and corrects the latter and thus brings out the inherent coherence of spiritual knowledge. The central teaching of the Vedanta consists in the recognition by the seeker after truth, of the travails of transmigration and the possibility of his transcending them by the realization of Brahman. Reason collects and co-ordinates this teaching and constructs it as the philosophy of the Vedanta in its threefold aspect of metaphysics, morality and mysticism. The first aspect is an epistemological enquiry into the origin and the validity of spiritual knowledge, the ontological determination of the nature of Reality or Brahman, and the cosmological account of Brahman as the supreme cause of the world and its evolution and involution. Secondly, Vedāntic ethics, as a criticism of the values of empirical life, insists on the life of self-renouncement and purity as the essential condition of freedom. Lastly, Vedāntic religion defines the nature of mumuksutva or mystic longing for union with Brahman and securing immortal bliss or moksa. It thus satisfies and harmonises the three fundamental needs of spiritual life. Among the recognised exponents of Vedantic thought, S'ankara, Rāmānuja and Madhva hold the highest place. The

INTRODUCTION 5

philosophies of Nilakantha and Vallabha are also fairly well- known to students of comparative Vedānta, but very little is known about Bhāskara and Yādavaprakāsa and their philo- sophy of bhedābhedavāda. Like other Indian philosophers, Bhäskara sinks his personality in the formulation of impersonal truths and no reference is to be found in his Bhāsya to the incidents of his life or any event of his times. In the preface to the Bhāskara Bhāsya published by Mr. Dvivedin, the editor claims to have gathered all the available material relating to the biography of Bhaskara and mentions about twenty Bhās- karas known to Indian thought. Vedāntin Bhāskara or Bhatta Bhāskara is referred to in several works on Nyāya and Vedānta. He appears to have written other works on Vedānta and references to a commentary by him on the Chāndogya Upanișad are found in his Bhāsya.1 Bhāskara is alluded to by Väcaspati who is known to have flourished about 841 A.D. It is clear from his criticism of S'ankara that he is later than S'ankara, and from the criticism of Bhaskara by Rāmānuja (1017-1137) that he lived earlier than Rāmā- nuja. Later than S'ankara and earlier than Vacaspatimisra, Bhäskara should have composed his work somewhere in the early part of the ninth century. Bhāskara displays great dialectic skill in refuting and demolishing what he calls the false and distorted inter- pretations of the S'rutis and the Sutras. The main object of his philosophy from the negative point of view was his con- demnation of māyāvāda2 as a version of the Nihilism of Māhā- yānika Buddhism.3 His teaching of bhedābheda differs from the other species associated with the name of Yādava-prakāsa

1 Sūtras, I. iv. 21 and IV. iii. 14.

[I. iv. 25]. 2 & 3 Vicchinnamūlam māhāyānika bauddha gāthitam māyāvādam.

6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

about whose life and works very little is known. While Yädava postulates both difference and non-difference as the essential relation between Brahman on the one hand and the prapañca on the other,1 Bhäskara upholds the idea of Brahman as the absolute and the relative and distinguishes between cetana and acetana in the prapañca. The relation between Brahman and acetana is both different and non- different, while in the relation between Brahman and the jīva, difference is adventitious and non-difference essential. Ydava is more idealistic and he does not recognise any fundamental distinction between cit and acit ; acit is only cit in an unmanifested state. What is latent in the former becomes patent in the latter, and the unconscious is but a phase of the conscious.' In addition to the Bhedābhedavāda of Bhāskara and Yādava, there are two allied schools known as Svābhāvika Bhedābhedavāda of Nimbārka who lived after Rāmānuja and the Acintya Bhedābhedavāda of Caitanya. The philosophy of Bhāskara is called Aupādhika Bhedābheda- vāda on account of the theory of upādhis which he employs in his system. The teaching of Yadava may be called Svābhāvika Bhedābheda.3 All of them agree in their refutation of Advaita and the recognition of the three reals or categories known as Brahman, cit and acit. But in the determination of the exact relation between them, subtle differences are expressed by each school. A comparative and critical study of these systems enables the reader to realise why the view of Brahmaparināma or emanation has no value for the Vedantin today, and 1 " Yādavaprakāsa-mate sarvamapi cetanameva; tatra ghațāde-s'caitanya- anabhivyakti-matrameveti na cida-cidvibhagah."-Tātparya Dipika of S'ri Sudars'anācārya. 2 Thibaut's Sri Bhasya, p. 460. 3 The teaching of Bhaskara is systematically expounded in Book I and the other systems are expounded in Book II.

INTRODUCTION 7

why the three main schools of Vedānta have so much stability. They also bring out the genius of the Hindu for spiritual realisation rather than for mere speculative thinking. The value of the philosophy of Bhäskara is that it marks a transition from S'ankara to Rāmānuja. Every philosophy historically considered is a response to the needs of the age, when it is born and is both its criticism and fulfilment. S'ankara freed Indian thought from the agnostic and nihilistic tendencies of Buddhistic idealism and enthroned the spirit of the Upanisads once again in the heart of Hinduism. But the practical Advaita of S'ankara which recognises empirical reality does not satisfy the Advaitins who, in their monistic zeal for absolute identity, deny the plurality of souls and reject the world. The logic of ekajiva leads to the ego-centric fallacy and lapses into solipsism. Monistic idealism on the intellectual level lands us in sheer subjectivism and scepticism. Rāmānuja repudiates the theories of Nirguna Brahman, Vivartavāda and Jīvanmukti, affirms the reality of experience in all its levels, and upholds the Visistādvaitic idea of God, and the absolute dependence of the finite self or prakāra on His redemptive love and grace. Bhāskara is even more emphatic in his criticism of Māyāvāda and, while he accepts the conclusion of divine personality and causality and videhamukti, he insists on the monistic truths of abheda and absorption in the Absolute. The system of Bhāskara is built on the following doctrines which may be called its corner stones, i.e., the law of identity in difference (bhedābheda), the reality of Brahman possessed of attributes (Saguna Brahman), the acceptance of the principle of God evolving into the world (pariņāmavāda), the recognition of the means of attaining salvation or mukti as a co-ordination of both knowledge and

8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

action (jñāna-karma-samuccaya)1 and the possibility of obtaining release or mukti only after death (videhamukti). The Absolute is, according to Bhäskara, both conditioned and unconditioned kārya rūpa and kāraņa rūpa.2 It differentiates itself into the manifold of finite selves and things, and, when the condition is removed, the finite becomes one with the infinite. The merit of Bhäskara's system lies in supplying a mediating link between the metaphysical monism of S'ankara and the ethical monism of Rāmanuja and arresting the sub- jectivistic tendencies of the former and the anthropomorphic accretions of the latter. The Vedānta is treasured up in immemorial tradition and Bhäskara claims to formulate its truths on the foundations of S'rutis and Sutras without the slightest distortion of meaning and often appeals to Sūtrāksara. He is never tired of con- demning the practice of reading one's own ideas into the text3 and distorting its sense, leading to what are called srutahāni and asrutakalpana and straining the text to suit one's theory. Speculation should be subordinated to S'ruti and spiritual insight and should be made to serve their ends. The Vedāntic method employed by the Sutras consists in choosing a relevant Upanişadic text and establishing its true import by the refutation of all possible and plausible rival theories. Truth is determined by the elimination of false theories and. partial truths. Bhäskara, following the philosophy of the Sūtras, refutes and rejects the other prevalent theories of the time and in some cases restates their problem and conclusions. The

1 atra hi jfāna-karma-samuccayāt moksa-prāptiņ sūtrakārasya-abhipretā, I. i. 1. p. 2. " kāraņātmā eva kāryātmanā avasthitah, I. ii. 23. 3 sūtrābhiprāyasaņvrtyā svābhiprāya prakās'anāt 1 vyakhyātam yairidam s'āstram vyākhyayam tannivrttaye ll -Introductory verse.

INTRODUCTION 9

Mīmāmsaka, the Dhyānaniyogavādin, the Nișprapañca- niyogavādin, the Sānkhya, the Buddhist, the Jain, the Pāsu- pata and the Pāñcarātra are reviewed in turn and repudiated absolutely or in part. Bhāskara has no sympathy for atbeism, materialism, nihilism, ritualism, phenomenalism, idealism and pan-psychism as maintained in these schools. Brahman is, to him, neither an aggregate of atoms nor a contentless identity. A philosophy that favours duality or dreaminess is fatal to the spirit of the S'astra. Absolute identity as well as absolute difference is a mere abstraction devoid of meaning and both are subversive of moral and religious needs. But Māyāvāda comes in for the greatest share of Bhaskara's criticism and condemnation.' In commenting on Sūtra I. ii. 6, Bhāskara states his firm conviction that the bhedabheda darsana is the only philosophy that is acceptable to the Sūtrakāra and not the māyāvāda that makes Iswara the first born of the absolute and the highest samsarin2 or product of the cosmic figment. Reality is both one and many (abhinna and bhinna). The one is the un- conditioned absolute and the uncaused cause but the manifold is the absolute, conditioned by the upadhis or the delimiting adjuncts. The absolute becomes the relative and is immanent in it. The finite self is the one Brahman limited by the metaphysical and moral imperfections of avidyā, kāma and karma. Mukti consists in removing the barriers, transcending the boundaries of Samsāramandala and becoming one with the Absolute or attaining ekībhāva. This is the central teach- ing of Bhāskara. The Sūtras are divided into four chapters dealing with the metaphysical, moral and mystical aspects of

1 S'rutyartham ācāryoktim ca prsthatah krtvā māyāmātram svabuddhyā kalpayitvā anyad eva dars'anam racayanti [I. ii. 12]. 2 Vadanti Īs'varasyaiva samsāritvam. [I. ii. 6].

10 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHSKARA

the Vedänta. The first and the second chapters, according to Bhäskara, define the nature of Brahman as the one supreme reality which is the unconditioned but not the indeterminate; the One becomes the many and is the ground of the manifold. The third determines the means of realising Brahman and that is summed in the principle of jñāna-karma-samuccaya, and the last chapter considers the value and destiny of the finite self in terms of videhamukti (salvation after death) and ekībhāva. The metaphysical standpoint may itself be divided into the epistemological, the ontological and the cosmological aspects. The first discusses the nature of truth and accepts the authority of the S'ruti as satisfying all human values; the second as the philosophy of being defines Brahman as the Sat without a second that is immanent in all experience and the third as the philosophy of nature explains the reality of the cosmic evolution in terms of immanence, emanation and evolution or parināma sakti. We shall first consider the epistemological aspect of Bhāskara's metaphysics.

CHAPTER II

EPISTEMOLOGY

THE Vedänta affirms the knowability of Brahman as the Sat without a second, the unconditioned infinite that has the power to infinitise all finite beings and absorb them into itself. The term Brahman primarily connotes Is'vara 1 and it is only in a secondary sense that the term connotes Brahma (Hiranyagarbha) who is entrusted with the making of things and the moulding of souls. The philosophy of Bhāskara is sustained by the living faith that the self when purified and perfected can know the unknown. Brahman is unknowable to discursive reason, but the beatified soul becomes Brahman and its separate consciousness is then dissolved. There is really no contradiction or boundary line between the finite and the infinite. Like the sun and its rays, the soul is one with the self. The higher includes the lower and explains it. Of the main sources of knowledge, i.e., pratyaksa (sense-percep- tion), anumāna (inference) and S'āstra (revelation) the last is the ultimate source and centre of all spiritual knowledge. What is self-revealed and illumined does not need any external ligbt to illumine it. The Veda is the word of God and as the words are the symbols of ideas, the Veda is a body of divine ideas or eternal (nitya), impersonal (apau- ruşeya), and infallible truths. Its validity is self-established 1 Brahma s'abdena Is'varo grhyate [I. i. 1. p. 6.]

12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHÄSKARA

(svatassiddha) ; it is its own criterion. Divine truth is its own immanent criterion. Its universality and eternity are in no way affected by pralaya or cosmic dissolution, as pralaya is only a periodic cosmic sleep that precedes the dawn of creation. Vedic thought is, in pralaya, a potentiality, con- tained in the divine nature, and, along with the will of God to create the world, the Veda which is His redemptive light illumines the soul of the First-born and of the other makers of the world, and becomes explicit to the seers of the spirit (mantradraştārah). These Vedic rsis have a soul-sight of the divine content and the Upanisads are the outpourings of their intuitive insight. S'ruti being thus an immediate knowledge of the Infinite is self-posited (svatassiddha) and absolutely valid (anapeka); but Smrti has no authority of its own as its con- clusions are traced to S'ruti (s'rutisapeksa). They are there- fore known respectively as pratyaksa or intuitions and anu- māna or deductions.' When there is a conflict between the immediate truths of S'ruti and the mediate truths of Smrti, the former alone is to be relied on,2 and, in cases of conflict among the Smrtis themselves, as for example, between the metaphysical theories of Kapila and the moral rules of Manu, their validity is tested by reference to the coherence of the Smrti as a whole and ultimately to the self-evident authority of the S'ruti which is the bedrock of all Vedāntic reasoning. The Vaiyākaranas have a theory of sphota or the subtle and eternal significative unit manifested by articulate sounds in language, but Bhāskara following Upavarsa, the com- mentator on the Mīmāmsa Sūtras, rejects it as complicated and unnecessary. Similarly, the view of certain Mīmāmsakas,

1 pratyakşam s'rutiḥ anapekşatvāt anumānam smrtiḥ anuniyamāna-s'ruti- sāpekşatvāt. [I. iii. 28. p. 61.] ' Commentary on Sūtra I. i. 30.

EPISTEMOLOGY 13

that Vedic imperatives alone have full meaning and state- ments on accomplished facts (siddhaparavākya) like Brahman are not authoritative, is combated on the ground that, both in worldly life and in the Vedas, meanings are attached directly, not merely to imperatives, but to affirmations also, and that the authoritative nature ofthe S'ruti, being dependent solely on its being impersonal (apauruseya) and consequently anapeksa (not requiring confirmation from other sources of knowledge), holds good in respect of affirmations about Brahman as well as the imperatives of duty laid down.1 Thus the texts about creation are as valid as the results of sense-per- ception.ª Bhāskara accepts the Mīmāmsaka principle of the relative importance of s'ruti, linga, vākya, prakaraņa, sthāna and samākhyā. The meaning of the text is determined by the context and the primary sense is preferred to the implied. Like other Vedāntins, Bhāskara also accepts the unity of thought that underlies a specific Upanisadic topic. The same truth is introduced, developed and summed up in a given topic. Consistent interpretation therefore requires that there should be ekavisaya in the upakrama and the upasamhāra.3 Employing the above tests of interpretation, Bhāskara concludes that the principle of bhedābheda is the central truth of Vedanta and this is the key-note of his system.4 Reality or Brahman is an identity that is immanent in differences and constitutes them. That the infinite finitises itself is a fact and not a fiction. The absolute is not out of all relation to

1 na ca kārye eva prāmāņyam pratipattum yuktam ; svarūpa-avabodhe api pråmānyasya avas'istatvāt; apaurușeyatvam hi prāmāņye kāraņam; tacca avis'iștam. [I. i. 4. p. 13.] 2 yathā hi pratyaksa pramānam siddharūpa-avabodhakam tadvat srstivāk- yamapi bhavisyati. [I. i. 4, p. 13.] 3 upakramopasamhārayo ēkārthatvam. [I. i. 12]. 4 ato bhinnābhinņarūpam Brahma iti sthitam. [I. i. 4, p. 18.]

14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

the finite but is the ground of all relations and their logical prius and presupposition. The finite is sustained by the infinite, but the infinite is not necessarily conditioned by the finite. The finite as the predicate qualifies and conditions the absolute. Bhāskara selects the typical Upanisadic judg- ments that emphatically bring out this bhedābheda relation between the finite self and the infinite. The aspect of unity (abheda) is declared by the following texts: 'Thou art That,'; 'There is no other seer but He,'; 'This self is Brahman ;'3 'The fishermen are Brahman, the slaves are Brahman. Brahman are these gamblers; men and women are Brahman ; 'Woman art thou and man and boy and girl. Thou art the old man moving with a stick." The follow- ing texts declare bheda: 'There are two unborn, one knowing, the other not knowing, one strong, the other weak ;'* 'The Lord of Nature and of the souls, the ruler of the qualities, the cause of bondage, of existence and of the release from samsāra;". 'He is the cause, the Lord of the Lords of the organs;'$ ' One of the two eats the sweet fruit, without eating, the other looks on ;9 ' Having known Him only, one passes beyond death ;' 10 ' He who dwells within the self ;'" 'He should be sought, He should be meditated on ;' 12 ' He who, one, eternal, intelligent, fulfils the desires of 1 Ch. Up., VI. viii to xvi. 2 Br. Up., III. vii. 23. 3 Br. Up., II. v. 19. 4 Brahma Sūkta of Samhitopanişad. 3 S'v. Up., IV. 3. S'v. Up., I. 9. 7 S'v. Up., VI. 16. * Şv. Up., VI. 9. 9 S'v. Up., IV. 6 and Mund., III. iii. 1. 10 S'v. Up., III. 8. 11 Br., III. vii. 22, Madhy. Pāțha. 12 Ch. Up., VIII. vii. 1.

EPISTEMOLOGY 15

many, eternal, intelligent beings ;'1 ' The Lord of everything and the Ruler of the self;'' 'Embraced by the all-Intelligent Self, he knows nothing that is without, and nothing that is within ;'3 'Mounted by the all-Intelligent Self, this self of the body goes.'4 These two sets of srutis together establish the bhedābheda relation, and the Mundaka statement : "He who knows Brahman becomes Brahman,'5 affirms the essential unity of the two in the state of mukti and this is confirmed by the Brhadaranya text : 'But when the self has become all for him, wherewith should he see another.'" The Sad Vidy in the Chāndogya Upanisad asserts the principle of identity in difference in the relation between Brahman and the world of cetana and acetana. This same principle is affirmed by the judgments of sense-perception and reasoning (pratyaksa and anumāna). Reality is determined by cognitions which are not sublated by valid means of proof. Reality as an inter-related whole is not a mere aggregate of indifferent parts but a pervading identity that is realised in the differences, and the two aspects of identity and difference are distinguishable but not divisible. The clearest examples of this truth are afforded by the judg- ments which express the relation between cause and effect and genus and species. The aspect of abheda is brought out in the causal and the generic states ; but, when we think of the effect and the individuals forming the genus, we em- phasise the idea of difference.' In the judgments: "This

1 Kațh. Up., II. v. 13. ' Taitti. Up., Nārā., 10 3 Br. Up., IV. ii. 21. 4 Br. Up., IV. iii. 35. 5 III. ii. 9. 6 IV. v. 13. 7 kāryarūpeņa nānātvam abhedaņ kāraņātmanā. [I. i. 4. p. 18].

16 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

pot is made of clay," " this jewel is made of gold," the effect is surely contained in, and continuous with, the cause. Likewise, in the judgment : "This cow is short-horned," the genus is realised in the species. The effect is a real mani- festation and not a contradiction of the cause. The particular subsists and persists and is in no way sublated by the universal ; universality and individuality are harmonised in the rhythm of reality. It is true that opposites like light and darkness, or heat and cold cannot co-exist in the same thing at the same time, but it is absurd to argue from this that difference qua effected or particular aspect, and non-difference qua causal or universal aspect, are not simultaneously perceived in the same thing; for there is no such inner contradiction in the ideas of generic character and individuality or of causal immanence and organic development. The reality of the causal connection is universal, necessary and absolute. It is irrelevant to appeal to the abnormal experience of illusion in explaining the 'nature of reality. The illusion of two moons (dvicandrabhrama) can be ascribed to the opera- tion of physical and psychical defects and disorders. Besides, the determination of truth on the analogy of such subjective and abnormal experiences would land us in subjectivism and nihilism. But the theory of bhedābheda is based on the integrity of normal experience, satisfies the tests of reasoning and sruti and does full justice to the philosophical demands of monism and pluralism without in any degree sharing in their defects. The absolute manifests itself in the finite and gives a meaning to it. A supra-relational absolute is devoid of content and has no continuity with our experience. All relational thought fails in its attempt to transcend itself. Thus we fail to bridge the gulf between relational thought and the absolute and are landed in agnosticism. There is

EPISTEMOLOGY 17

no substance or subject without qualities or connections of content (no guna without the gunin or dharma without the dharmin) ; and qualification or determination is no contradic- tion of reality. The sāmānya or the universal is one and the visesa or the particular is the many and the many emanates from the one and does not sublate it. Being is one and unconditioned, and becoming is the conditioned; becoming is no illusion superimposed on the one being. Brahman is one and the world of experience (prapañca) varies. "The one remains and the many change and pass " and Bhāskara illustrates this truth in a variety of ways. From the same clayey stuff, the potter moulds a vase or an urn. The sea is one limitless expanse but the waves rising therefrom vary and vanish. Fire melts wax but hardens clay. The sun illumines all things but, when its light is refracted, it is stained and separated into the several spectral colours. Vāyu or air that animates the body is one but it functions in five different ways. Ākāsa is all-pervasive but the ākāsa in one vessel is different from that in another. Manas is one single psychical content, but its working varies with physical and psychical conditions. Brahman is the one unconditioned Being, and the finite, with all its wealth of colour and detail, is only the self evolution of the One. Reality reveals the self and does not veil it.

CAUSALITY

The idea of the upādhis or conditionateness of the ab- solute furnishes the raison d'etre of Bhaskara's epistemology. The theory of causality is to Bhaskara what the theory of avidyā is to S'ankara and that of karma to Rāmānuja. It connotes not merely a mechanical or teleological idea but the free 2

18 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHÄSKARA

causality of God, including the first cause as well as the final, and the validity of this meaning is derived a priori from the S'āstra itself. Causality as a mechanical theory commits us to infinite regress, but efficient and immanent causality implies power and purpose. The absolute idealist regards Is varatva or cosmic lordship as a limitation of the absolute by degrading Iswara to the empirical level and subjecting him to the dialectic difficulties of the empirical notions of causality. Bhaskara regards himself as a loyal expositor of S'ruti and maintains that Brahman in the causal state is the uncondi- tioned and in the effected state is the conditioned or the finite. Causality is neither a contradiction nor an external relation but a process of self-limitation. Cause is temporally and logically prior to the effect but the two are different aspects of the same reality. In spite of temporal and spatial differ- ences, they have an identical reference to reality. The effect is contained in the cause or the ground but is not contra- dicted by it. The Upanisadic idea of the immanence of Brah- man in prapañca can in no sense be construed as a denial of the cosmic objective reality. Truth is not subjective or relevant to human needs and experiences (puruşāpēksa) but a con- straining reality independent of subjective conditions. Colour blindness, for example, does not alter the existence of colour. The same sun shines on the wicked as well as the votary of God and its objective reality does not depend on the eye that sees it. Similarly, the world cannot be a fiction to the seeker after release and a fact to the empirically minded (mithyā to the mumuksu and satya to others).1 If reality were subjective and contingent, there would be no reality at all. The analogy of the illusory double moon perceived through defective eye-sight is inapplicable to the world as there is no valid 1 narabhedānna hi jfeyā vastunas-sadasatyatā. [I. i. 4.]

EPISTEMOLOGY 19

reason to disbelieve the evidence of the senses. If the illusory nature of the world is stated to be based on the teaching of the sastra, that illusion should last for ever. Besides, it will be shown later that the sästra does not teach the doctrine of illusion. Consequently, the assertion that the world is a fiction to some and a fact to others is entirely opposed to every test of truth and reality. Whatever is conditioned is no doubt finite and fleeting, but is not for that reason a con- tradiction and an illusion. There is no incompatibility between the supreme Self (paramatman) and the world of ex- perience (prapañca), between the transcendental and the empirical, but a real transition and passage from the one to the other. The cosmos is the expression of the free causality and self-directive activity of Brahman and this truth alone gives a valid meaning to the reality of mukti. Bhāskara thus employs the realistic principle of satkārya- vāda or the theory of immanent causality, and uses all his dialectic skill in defending it and demolishing the rival theories, in his exposition of the Sad Vidya and the Arambha- ņādhikaraņa.1 Pariņāma is a real identity in difference and is a vikāra and not a vivarta. The Sutra insists on the immanence, the organic unity and the continuity of causality. The cause contains the effect potentially and the effect is the cause actualised. The difference between the cause and the effect is in condition and not in kind (avasthābheda and not atyantabheda). Bhāskara first vanquishes the Vaiseșika doc- trine of asatkāryavāda which asserts the absolute difference (atyantabheda) between cause and effect and the creation of the existent from the non-existent. If in the judgment " this pot is made of clay," the effect was asat or non-existent at first and not pre-existent and is produced out of nothing, 1 II, i. 14.

20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

clay may as well produce curd or a piece of cloth. If there be a potency in the cause to account for the effect, then that potency is either eternal (nitya) or not eternal (anitya). If it be eternal, the effect would be an eternal becoming. If it be not eternal, then it should be caused by something external to it and so on ad infinitum. Bhaskara then states the case of the Māyāvādin and condemns it as a theory subversive of all S'āstraic knowledge. The Māyāvādin regards the effect as a figment of reality which somehow comes into being and ascribes the character of dreams to the whole phenomenal process. According to this theory, the world of experience is unreal (asatya) and non-existent (abhava) like the horn of a hare. Causality is a magical show and has no logical constraint. Our whole experience is a false reading of the absolute based on the perception of mere appearances and is as conventional as the letters of the alphabet and as unreal as the imaginings of an infatuated lover. They exist but have no reality. Even dreams sometimes have a prophetic and permanent nature and the cosmic dream may claim to have a certain amount of reality like them, but the claim to truth is not really justified. Besides, the idea of negation does not arise at the empirical level, and it is only when the true nature of reality is intuited in the pāramārthika state that the world dream vanishes of its own accord. The phenomenal process then ceases to be, and the absolute alone is. The cause of this cosmic illusion is māyā; it is frankly a statement of the contradictions of life and is ultimately inexplicable. When this nescience is removed by the knowledge of the absolute, the world-illusion vanishes and the riddle is dissolved. In combating this theory Bhāskara adduces very nearly the same arguments as Rāmānuja.

EPISTEMOLOGY 21

In a rational account of reality which challenges and destroys dialectically the definitions of others, the theory of the inexplicability (anirvacanīyatva) of avidyā merely tries to silence the spirit of logical enquiry and there is no transition from the logical to the alogical. If causality is a bare identity, it is self-explanatory but such a relation is no explanation. If illusion is an experience, reason demands its causal ex- planation, and indefinability is no explanation at all. If causality is an illusion, the knowledge, which removes this illusion, is itself an experience and therefore an illusion and Brahmajñāna which removes avidyā is also a case of avidyā. When the employment of hetu, which is the heart of the whole reasoning process, is distrusted, the whole science of controversy and conviction falls to the ground, and Māyāvāda ceases to be a vāda or theory. The stuff of māyā or avidyā is out there as a sakti or adhara and the theory cannot escape the charge of dualism. Illusion, as an experience, is as real as normal experience, and, while the object perceived may be false, the subject that experiences the illusion is not itself an illusion. Illusion is due to the operation of real causes like physical and mental disorders. Empirical life is not an illusion but a real experience conditioned by the adjuncts of sensibility and samsāritva. The false imaginings of infatuat- ed love are, no doubt, a folly and a failing, but they persist as the most potent fact and factor of our experience. Idealism, in all its forms, starts with the subject and finally lapses into subjectivism, and Māyāvāda, realising the nihilistic conclusion to which the Buddhistic Vijñānavāda and Mādhyamikā epistemology inevitably drive it, falls back on realism at least at the empirical level. The Sānkhya theory of parināmavāda gives a mechanical account of causality and fails to explain the teleological nature

22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

of evolution, and the idea of a soulless pradhāna passing from the potential into the actual lacks spiritual spontaneity and the creative urge. The mechanical theory ignores the validity of thought and the value of spiritual personality. The Sānkhya has to admit the reality of final causes; but, in the absolute dualism that he creates between purusa and prakrti, he finds no place for the idea of immanent causality and purpose, and he contrives various devices to bridge the chasm between the two. He resorts to the analogies of milk be- coming curd, the lodestone drawing pieces of iron, the mirror and its reflection and the two pilgrims of whom one is blind and the other lame. But all these analogies are irrelevant and unsound and metaphors cannot be a substitute for metaphysics. The first is mechanical, as milk changes into curd in a natural way. The second connotes an inherent power which is neither in purusa nor in prakrti. The third makes the reality of mukti or freedom a mere make-believe, as the jiva that seeks mukti is itself a reflection of purusa and not a real self and the last misses the whole point of the analogy as both the pilgrims are intelligent. Lastly, the theory of proximity (sannidhānamātra) is a mere external relation riddled with the fallacies of virodha, vyabhicāra and asiddha. Proximity may result in eternal creation without involution and afford no scope for mukti. The Sankhya theory does not sufficiently insist on the reality of the subject-object relation, the finite self, its sins and sufferings, and its final unity with the Absolute which is the ground and goal of all experience. The world cannot guide itself without God and the whole theory is therefore opposed to Vedantic teaching. The atomic view of the Vaisesika goes to the other ex- treme and, while recognising the eternity of the atoms and the will of God as the operative cause, it entirely denies the

EPISTEMOLOGY 23

reality of causal immanence. The theory of adrsta applies neither to the mechanical atoms (acetana) nor to the souls which are absolutely distinct from them and are ultimately devoid of consciousness in mōksa. The view of the samavāya relation peculiar to this system is external and unnecessary and lands us in the fallacy of infinite regress. The relation is external to the relata and yet the relation is required and this goes on endlessly. If cause and effect as antecedent and consequent are separate and successive as avayava and avayavin, we cannot at the same time say that they are in- separably related (ayuta siddha). The theory of atomic causation is equally futile. Atoms (paramānu) should be considered as either active or passive. They cannot be active as they subsist in a state of passivity in pralaya. They cannot be passive; for, if they are passive, there is no creation. Nor can they be both as the terms are contradic- tory. The atoms either have eternal form or are form- less, both of which are inadmissible for similar reasons. Pluralism and atomism fail to satisfy the philosophic demand for unity. The Buddhistic theory of causality is only a part of its negative logic. To the Buddhist, reality which is both physical and psychical is only a phenomenal series, and a fleeting flux. It is a mere complex or aggregate of the skandhas. Reality is neither an identity nor a difference nor both, but a ceaseless becoming. But becoming without being is unthinkable, and if it is traced to avidyā, this avidyā itself has to be accounted for. The idea of physical order and personal identity is rooted in our normal experience and avidyā fails to explain this fåct of persistence. Avidyā, as a psychic complex, may affect our mental states, but it cannot cause the physical order. If every physical or mental state is

24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

particular and perishing, reality ceases to.be objective and permanent. The doctrine of sanghāta or samudāya-satya which regards the individual as an aggregate of atoms or a psychic series is mere phenomenalism ; for if the atom or the sensation perishes, a combination of perishing states cannot make it permanent. If the antecedent is at once abolished, there is no meaning in speaking of the consequent. Then, anything may be the cause of anything else, and a mud pot may produce a mango. If the theory of momentary mental modification (kşaņika vijñāna) were seriously maintained, then there would be no personality, and no moral respon- sibility, and life would become impossible. The Buddhist realist is himself constrained to admit the reality of causal persistence and continuity and recognise extra-mental exist- ence. The Buddhistic idea of abhāva is equally untenable and idle, as bare negation without a positive affirmation is inconceivable. How can abhāva or bare negation produce bhava or positive affirmation ? If all things pass away, why is ākāsa regarded as an eternal and all-pervading substance ? A belief in the theory of karma and vāsanā without positing a persistent personality meets neither the demands of logical stability nor the claims of moral responsibility. The Yogācāra Buddhist is a subjective idealist to whom reality is only a complex of mental states, and his position is equally untenable. Solipsism arises when the object is resolved into the subject. Every judgment is a single ideal content and, like dreams, has no reference to external things. Vijñāna is, like the dream state, without any dbjective basis and the difference between the waking state and dreams is only a difference in degree and not in kind. But this reasoning is a case of unsound analogy and involves the fallacy of petitio principii, or arguing in a circle. It may be stated as

EPISTEMOLOGY 25

follows: All dream cognitions are false because they are contradicted by cognitions in the waking state, but the cognitions in the waking state are false as they are momentary. If externality is an illusion, how is the illusion accounted for ? Every perceptive judgment presupposes the reality of external things and is therefore objective and is not subjective and private like desire and aversion. If the world of space-time were dissolved into a mere mental series, then there would be no knowledge or theory of knowledge at all. Sublation presupposes two contradictory propositions and no proposition can contradict itself. There can be no svatah nirākāra but only a paratah bādha. It is impossible to prove the truth of a cognition on the basis of its non-contradiction at any time. The law of contradiction as applied to subjective knowledge would become a bare identity without any basis in objective reality. The doctrine of ālayavijñāna is built on perishing psychical material and is therefore a baseless fabric without any adhara or substratum. In the history of Buddhism, realism leads to subjectivism and scepticism is the logical conclusion of both. The theory of bhedābheda is free from all these fallacies and the spiritual unity which it reveals is the basis and background of all differences and reconciles monism and pluralism. The Jaina theory of predication known as saptabhangī affirms nothing and denies nothing. A truth that is partly true and partly false is no truth at all. Besides, the same thing cannot be both true and false. But it may be maintained that the predications refer to the relativity of knowledge and the different view-points as they are said to inhere in the nature of the thing itself (svarūpa). If svarūpa or essential nature cannot be defined, then there is no niscaya jñāna or determinate knowledge at all. But no

26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

such charge can be levelled against the theory of bhedābheda- våda with which it is often falsely identified. It asserts the reality of the causal relation in which Brahman exists as the unconditioned one and the conditioned many and integrates idealistic logic with that of realism.

CHAPTER III

ONTOLOGY

VEDĀNTIC ontology is developed in the clearest and most classical manner in the Sad Vidya 1 and systematised in the first chapter of the Sutras. If, as the western critic says,' S'ankara mainly relies for his idealism on the teachings of Yājñavalkya, and Rāmānuja finds the surest support for his theory in the Antaryāmi Brāhmana 3 Bhāskara turns to Uddālaka for the foundations of the bhedabheda theory. The Sad Vidyā defines Brahman as the sat without a second externalising itself as the manifold of material things and thinking things. Brahman is the unconditioned, beyond the categories of time, space, and causality; but, by its infinite sakti, it finitises itself into thinkers and things. Brahman thus exists in three forms known as kārana, kárya and jīva. The first connotes Parames vara, the lord of all beings, eternal, infinite, omniscient and omnipotent Brahman in the fulness of being and bliss, power and perfection. By His creative urge, He wills the many and becomes the many. When the infinite becomes the finite, He differentiates Himself into the jivas or the subjects of experience and ' Ch. Up., VI, 2.

Upanișadic texts. 'This view is not accepted by the Acaryas. All Vedantins rely on all

8 Br. Up., VII. vii.

28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

transforms himself into the acetana or the objects of experience. The infinite itself thinks all things and creates all creators. When we say the absolute constitutes the relative, we do not mean there is a relative absolute. Mere relativity ends in subjectivity, just as the absolute as absolute becomes a mere abstraction. The bhedabheda theory corrects this one-sidedness by its conception of causal immanence. Brahman, in the causal state, is the transcendental being beyond subjectivity and the samsaramandala, beyond the stars above and the soul within; but, in the effect aspect, the infinite incarnates into the finite and becomes the finite. The eternal enters into the empirical and becomes the empirical. The two are correlative and not contradictory. While Brahman limits itself into the names and forms of the world, the world does not exhaust the whole, even as the waters of the ocean constitute the waves, while the waves do not constitute the ocean. There is no distinction between the absolute of meta- physics and the god of religion. Both express the same reality which is realisable by intuition alone. A supra-rela-, tional experience is a contradiction in terms. The infinite is not a negation of the finite but is its positive affirmation and fulfilment. It is both intelligent and intelligible and can be apprehended and attained by the jīva freed from its con- ditionateness. This intuitive apprehension is impeded by the upadhis or the principle of ignorance and evil. Ismara is nowhere mentioned in the S'ruti as a glorified samsārin, the first born of the absolute " having maximum of being and minimum of non-being." The Vedānta, as a philosophy of religion, dealing with möksa, would be entirely stultified if the god of religion is less than the absolute and a conces- sion to empirical consciousness. If the omniscience of the

ONTOLOGY 29

all-self is only nescience on a cosmic scale, there is no need for the grace of God or guru. The absolute devoid of content provides no scope for moral aspiration and religious attainment. To say that Isvara is a samsarin conditioned by cosmic illusion is a glaring instance of text-torturing and mere metaphysical imaginings. The Sutra emphatically declares the qualitative distinction between Isvara, the cosmic lord, and jiva, the other (anya) who is a samsārin. The Māyāvădin himself recognises this in his philosophy of saguna Brahman in which he contrasts the infinite Is'vara, the omni- potent lord and ruler, with the jiva who is created, dependent and imperfect. But, when he comes to the religious aspect of ultimate destiny and realisation, Saguna Brahman is assigned to the empirical world of samsāra, and promised salvation with the ceasing of the eternal world process. The lord of creation is then subject to the hazards and hardships of creation and the all-enveloping power of the cosmic figment, and while the jiva attains mukti in this very life and returns to the absolute, Is'vara's claim to the absolute is rejected and he is ultimately relegated to the function of the first-born self or Hiranyagarbha. The other theory of the Māyāvadin that Is'vara is a samsārin enveloped in cosmic fiction and the jīva is its fragmentary fiction is opposed to all authority and experience. Being absolutely free, eternal, perfect, blissful, and immutable, he cannot court imprisonment in empirical life. Logically speaking, individuation is the result of ignor- ance and Is'vara is only a jiva or the only jīva; Ekajīva- vāda thus brings out the subjectivistic implication of mere Māyāvāda. Bhäskara, following the Sūtrakāra, establishes the truth of divine causality by eliminating the rival theories of Sān- khya, Vaiseșika, Bauddha and Jaina. He first rupudiates

30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

the Sankhya contention that the S'advidya refers to the Pradhāna as the Sat without a second that accounts for the universe. The problem of philosophy so clearly stated to S'aunaka and S'vetaketu, the seekers after salvation, is "What is that ādesa by knowing which everything is known ? "1 The Sānkhya theory that it is pradhāna is entirely opposed to reasoning, revelation and the rules of Vedāntic interpre- tation. The terms aiksata and ātman cannot be explained away as mere figures of speech. No mechanism is known to seek for mukti, and volition and feeling can in no sense be ascribed to the non-living. Freedom and mechanism are entirely opposed, and the self can never be the semblance of matter. Besides, the higher alone can explain the lower and not the lower the higher. Atman is the supreme reality which is the centre and source of all beings. Thus the thesis or the pratijña contained in the text "It willed to be the many" entirely rules out the mechanical origin of the world and establishes the immanent causality of Is'vara. The reference to avyakta in the Kathopanisad3 as higher than mahat and less than Purusa, is not to the corresponding terms as used in the Sānkhya system, just as the words Purușam mahāntam in the Purușa Sūkta and Sv. Up., III. 8. refer neither to the Sānkhya mahat nor the Sānkhya purusa but to the Supreme Lord. The triple coloured ajā of Sv. Up., IV. 5 and Tai. Nara., xii, and the two ajas enjoying and rejecting her, refer not to the Sānkhya prakrti and purusa independent of Is'vara, but to the world of experience and experiencing subjects or jīvas as evolutes or fulgurations

Up., I. i. 3.] 1 kasmin nu bhagavo vijñāte sarvam idam vjnātam bhavati. [Muņd.

(Br. Up., VI. i. 43.] yenas'rutam s'rutam bhavati amatam matam avijñātam vjnātam 2 tadaikșata bahusyām (Ch. Up. VI. ii. 3.) 3 I. iii. 11 and II. vi. 7, 8.

ONTOLOGY 31

of Iswara. Further, the enjoyment of the world by the worldly and the rejection of its values by the wise indicate that jivas differ from one another, though they are essentially one in God, just like waves and foam which are distinct from one another but are all essentially one with the waters of the ocean. Hence, it is also appropriate that when the seeker after salvation is released from samsāra, the other jīvas1 abide in their own separate and samsāric being. The statement "It of itself, evolved into the world"2 proves beyond all doubt that Iswvara by His own parināma s'akti emanates into the universe and sustains it.3 But how can the indivisible niravayava Brahman evolve into the world of form and matter in the same manner as milk which is divisible (sāvayava) changes to curd ? Bhāskara replies that sāvayavatva is not the cause of the transforma- tion of milk to curd, as, if that were so, water, being divisible should also change to curd. Besides, if the capacity for trans- formation be grounded on divisibility, each component particle of the changing milk should itself be divisible and the argument would lead to infinite regress. As a matter of fact, however, the capacity for changing to curd is a separate property of milk quite independent of its being sāvayava or niravayava. The whole is not composed of the parts but constitutes them and is not discrete but organic. The chief point in the theory of parināma is its insistence on the princi- ple of self-differentiation as opposed to external origination. Just as the spider weaves its own web and the nyagrodha 1 jīvānām parasparam bheda eva, paramātmanā ca abheda, phenatarań- gādinåmiva, sati evam ekasmin mukte paro na mucyeta iti upapadyate bandha mokșa vyavasthā. [I. iv. 10.] Taitt. up., Anand., 7. 8 katham punaḥ ātmanaņ karaņam sambhavati ityāha pariņāmāt iti paramātmā svayam ātmānam kāryatvena pariņāmayāmāsa, [I. iv. 25.]

32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

(banyan) seed evolves into a mighty tree, Brahman, by virtue of His Infinite energy,1 differentiates Himself into the manifold without being affected thereby. Bhaskara next turns his attention to the Vaisesika theory of atoms and adrstas and absolutely rejects it as it contradicts Manusmrti and other S'astras. Its doctrine of causality makes God only an external designer and practically ousts Him from the cosmic scheme. Reality is either a visesa or a sāmānya or both. It cannot be the first because no unity can be extracted out of plurality; it cannot be the second as it will lead to the abstract universal. The third is an identity in difference and it avoids the mistakes of both. The world is a universe and not a multiverse and forms the concrete content of the cosmic self. The Buddhist schools are confessedly atheistic and positivistic. They start with hypothetical realism and end with solipsism, negation and nihilism. Reality is according to them a phenomenal and perishing flux without any underlying identity. If the doer dies every moment and the deed alone lives, then there is no moral responsibility or retribution, and even in the doctrine of ālayavijñāna, the version of Buddhism which comes nearest to Vedāntic reality, there is a mere series without any sub- stantiality. The Jaina theory of a plurality of souls each of which is all-pervading and infinite is a glaring self-contradic- tion. If the souls are infinite, how can they admit of quantitative measurement ? The Mahes vara theories which accept the Lordship of Iswara as the operative cause of the world fail to explain divine immanence and the existence of moral evil. Bhāskara does not reject the pāñcarātra system but he condemns its doctrine of successive emanation and the origination of the finite 1 S'v. Up., VI, 8.

ONTOLOGY 33

self,' as it contradicts the Vedic idea of the eternity of the self and furnishes no basis for immortality. We may now take up Bhäskara's interpretation of the different Upanisadic topics relating to the causality and the attributes of Brahman which are discussed by the Sūtras.2 In defining the supreme end of man, the Taitt. Up.8 adopts the language of aesthetics and predicates unconditioned bliss as the essential nature of Brahman. But the Puccha Brahma- vādin or the Māyāvādin distinguishes between saguna Brah- man and nirguna Brahman and predicates bliss to the saguna Brahman for the following three reasons :- The whole topic explicitly refers to the absolute, which transcends all ideas of determination or predication ' and hence the text regarding the blissful nature of Brahman must necessarily refer to the lower, saguna Brahman of whom predications are possible. Secondly, the term ānandamaya in Taitt. Up., Ànand., 5, cannot refer to Brahman, as the suffix mayat implies modification (vikāra) as in the case of annamaya, prānamaya, etc. Besides, the idea of organs like the head of love (priya siras) which are attri- buted symbolically to the ānandamaya cannot be ascribed to the absolute. Finally, even if the suffix mayat be taken to connote not vikāra or modification but only prācurya or maximized bliss, it would necessarily introduce the negative element of non-bliss or suffering; and, since Brahman is absolute, the term anandamaya, implying maxi- mum bliss and minimum pain, signifies only saguna Brahman.

1 But Bhäskara is not fair to the theory as it is based not on the idea of origination or emanation, but on that of divine immanence in a fourfold form of manifestation to satisfy devotional needs. Likewise his criticism of Māyā- vada is not quite fair to its mystic side. ' I. i. 13-20. 3 Taitt. up., II. v and viii. 4 yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasā saha. (Taitt. Up., Ānand., 4.) 3

34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

Bhäskara dismisses this theory of two Brahmans as the Indeterminate and the Determinate as a mere speculation full of fallacies and fancies and treats it as a typical case of s'rutahāni and asrutakalpanā. The whole topic really relates to the absolute as the Determinate. It begins with the state- ment in Anand. 1, Brahmavid āpnoti param (he who knows Brahman attains the highest) and ends with the text in Anand. 8 that the Vidvan attains the blissful Brahman. The beginning and the end (upakrama and upasamhāra) thus discuss the same ultimate reality which is characterised as the blissful Brahman, and make no reference to two Brahmans. The suffix mayat does not indicate that nanda is an appearance of the absolute to be transcended ultimately, but only the abounding or highest bliss without the possibility of any imperfection. Brahman is infinitely blissful and the pleasures of sensibility are but partial expressions of the absolute bliss and are not sublated by it. The S'ruti adopts a calculus of pleasures in a progressive scale of values and ends with the highest bliss of Brahman. Just as moonlight fades into nothing before sunlight, the pleasures of life pale into insignificance when compared to the rapture of divine bliss. A quality is a quality of some substance and bliss is the determining attribute of Brahman. If not, the only other alternative would be the acceptance of the Vaisesika view that ananda in mukti is only a negation of suffering without any positive content which is opposed to the Vedantic idea of Brahman being absolute bliss and nirguna would be a bare con- cept without any content. Predication is not a perversion of reality but is its affirmation and the definition of Brahman as bliss means that Brahman has bliss. The idea of indefinability in the text yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasā saha 1 1 Taitt. Up., II. iv.

ONTOLOGY 35

does not deny the possibility of the knowledge of Brahman, but denies only its accessibility to the mind tainted by desire. The logical highest is thus the same as the intuitional highest. When the buddhi is purified, it can realise the absolute and attain immortal bliss as revealed in the texts drsyate tvagryayā buddhyā' and jnāna prasādena visuddha sattvah .? The absurdity of treating Is vara as a glorified samsarin with maximum of pleasure and minimum of pain has already been pointed out. The text " He enjoys all the qualities with Brahman "3 really refers to the attainment of Brahman with the determining qualities, and not to the pluralistic experience of qualities alone. In pure consciousness there is identity of content between the subject and the predicate and this identity in difference gives a monistic meaning to the pluralistic perfections. The Chāndogya texts I. vi. 6 and I. vii. 5 that speak of the " Golden Person in the sun " and " the Person in the eye " 4 do not refer to the finite self but to Parames vara who, absolutely free from all imperfections, assumes forms suited to the nature of the meditating devotee in the interests of his redemption and release. This form is no fictitious creation of maya but a real manifestation of the Lord and His redemptive impulse and the idea does not admit of any anthropomorphism. As ākāsa, He is not the elemental ether but is the Paramākāsa, who shines as the immanent being of the whole universe, without being tainted by its imperfections. As jyotis, He is not the physical light but is 1 Kațh. Up., I iii. 12. ' Muņd. Up., III. i. 8. 3 Taitt. Up., Ãnand., II. 1. 4 While Bhaskara holds that the shining self is a Person without any form, other Bhedäbhedavådins like Yādava and Nimbarka say that He has a shining form on the basis of this text. I. i. 21.

36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

the supreme light (jyotisām jyotis) that illumines all lights and shines eternally in the stars above and the souls within, and at the same time transcends the light of suns and selves. Brahman is the eternal prana or the Life of our life that sustains the whole universe like the axle supporting the spokes of a wheel. Vāmadēva, the Vedic seer, attained this cosmic consciousness when he said: " I am the Sun, I am Manu, etc."1 and became one with Brahman and attained ekībhāva. The Upanisadic meditation on Brahman as the All-Self in Ch. Up .: " All this is Brahman. It lives, moves and has its being in Him "2 is not to be identified with the pantheistic theory which ascribes the imperfections of the world to God, as He eternally loves the good (satyakāma) and wills the true (satyasankalpa) and is the cosmic ground which only a purified mind can apprehend. While it is true that Brahman becomes life and consciousness (prāna and manas), the converse that these are Brahman does not follow. This theory is free from the charges of vitalism and pan-psychism. The seeker after God is quite different from God Himself. The subject-object relation is well brought out by the Gita which defines the immanence of Brahman in all beings. The monistic texts like ' Thou art that ' refer to the absolute as the unconditioned. The dualistic passages refer to the same Brahman when He is conditioned by the upadhis. The theory of bhedābheda alone is acceptable to the Sūtrakara and sanctified by sam- pradāya or tradition. The jīva is the amsa or element of the absolute which subjects itself to metaphysical and moral imperfections and gets implicated in endless samsāra and suffering and when it is free, becomes one with Brahman. The all-pervading (sarvagata) absolute incarnates into the

1 Br. Up., I. iv. 10. ' sarvam khalvidam Brahma tajjalān. [Ch. Up., III. xiv. 1.]

ONTOLOGY 37

hearts of beings (as sthāna for meditation) like the pervading ākāsa permeating the eye of a needle, with a view to rescuing the finite from its finiteness, and even as the ākāsa is not affected and destroyed by fire, so in the in-dwelling of the infinite in the finite, there is not the slightest trace of evil, error, or imperfection. The idea of mukti as fruition is not the figment of false knowledge but is a real attainment. The Kath. Up., that refers to the two beings entering into the cave 1 asserts the distinction between the supreme self and its otber. Though the jiva is really one with the infinite (sajātīya, samānasvabhāva), it is, in the conditioned state, caught up in the trammels of karma. The one is really eternal and immutable; but the other has its exits and entrances. The finite seeks the infinite and is separate from it. The Br. Up. text' that defines Brahman as the inner ruler immortal that is immanent in all thinkers and things, refers to the Lord as ruler and redeemer (niyantā and amrta). The idea of the antaryamin most adequately brings out the truth of the bhedabheda relation. Both the Kanva and Madhyandina readings emphasise the bheda aspect between the jiva and Brahman and they cannot be ignored.3 These texts do not set forth the distinction between the metaphysical Absolute and the Brahman spatialized for meditational needs. The perfect enters into the imperfect and then makes it perfect. Brahman is the only subject of knowledge, and, when the text refers to two subjects, it does not speak of their logical contradiction to be transcended in the self-identity of the Absolute, but brings out the bhedābheda

1 rtam pibantau sukrtasya loke guhām praviștau parame parārdhe; chayatapau. [Kath. Up., I. iii. 1]. 2 eşa te ātmā antaryāmi amrtah. [Br. Up., III. vii. 3 to 23]. 3 na hyasyās's'rute vacanam subhagā vacanamiva anādaraņiyam. [I, ii. 20].

38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

relation between the two.1 The text in Mund. Up., I. i. 6' that defines Brahman negatively as invisible, etc., does not deny determination, it only affirms the transcendental per- fections of saguna Brahman. As stated in the succeeding text II. i. 2, Brahman is the real reality that is different both from aksara or pradhāna and from the jīva. The meditation on the Vais'vānara self in Ch. Up., V. xi. 6 refers, as Jaimini says, to the Supreme Self as He alone pervades the organism of the universe. The term setu or bund of immortality in Mund. Up., II. ii. 5 does not connote mere consciousness without content but points to paramātmā as the goal of immortal life. The Sūtra I. iii. 5, bhedavyapadesāt, finally establishes the distinction between Isvara and jiva as the subject and the object of experience. The Bhūma Vidyā3 insists on the meditation of Brahman as the blissful self, that is the life of our life, in which alone the jiva finds temporary rest in sleep and eternal stability in mukti. In both, the jīva is viewed as being soaked through and through by the infinite and yet different from it. The term aksara4 employed by Yājñavalkya in Br. Up., III. viii. 8 has no reference to the Sānkhyan pradhāna but connotes the cosmic ruler under whose command (prasāsana) nature performs its duty in a uniform way. Brahman is the supreme self (parāt para) of Prasmna Up., V. 5, superior to the jīvaghana, the relative self, with physical and metaphysical imperfections of avidyā and karma (ghanah mūrtih avidyākarmabhyām mūrtibhāvam āpannah jīvah) and the goal of Brahmaloka mentioned there is appositional with Brahman, and, in no way, indicates the

1 Rāmānuja bases his theory of Brahman as s'arīri on this text. 2 I. ii. 22. 8 I. iii. 8. 4 I. iii. 10.

ONTOLOGY 39

world of Hiranyagarbha. The Sutra I. iii. 13 does not con- template any distinction between saguna Brahman and nirguna Brahman based on the view of self-stultification. The Dahara Vidyā1 text in Ch. Up., VIII. i. 3 defines Brahman as the perfect self which sustains and supports the world of relativity. The reference in VIII. 3, 4 to samutthāna or ascent and upasampatti or attainment clearly brings out the reality of ascending to and attaining Brahman. The jīva is Brahman obscured by avidyā, kāma and karma, and when it is purified, it shines in its eternal light illumining all lights. The idea of the self as of the size of the thumb2 (angustha- mātra purușa) in Kath. Up., II. iv. 12-13 refers not to the finite or spatialized self but the infinite, meditated on as the finite. Bhaskara thus closely follows the method of the Sūtra and establishes the nature of reality as saguna Brahman by controverting all the rival theories. Brahman is the absolute being (kāranātmā) with boundless qualities and perfections. The same Brahman exists in the conditioned form as the world of nature (kāryātmā) and the world of souls (jīvātmā). The idea of the absolute as and in the conditioned is, according to Bhäskara, the only view that satisfies the authority of s'āstra (revelation), sampradāya (tradition) and other tests of truth and is entirely opposed to the theory of Māyāvāda based on the law of contradiction and self-identity, and the theistic conclusions based on eternal distinctions.

1 1. ili. 14. 2 I. iii. 25.

CHAPTER IV

COSMOLOGY

UDAYANĀCĀRYA, the famous logician, refers to the Brahma Pariņāma Vāda of Bhāskara, and this idea ștrikes the key-note of the cosmological theory of Bhāskara. Parināma is the principle of the self-differentiation of Brahman or the real limiting adjuncts or upādhis that inhere in Brahman .! The Veda is a body of divine truths, which abides potentially in the state of pralaya or dissolution, and, when the divine creative impulse asserts itself, it manifests itself again and illumines the minds of the world-makers and becomes the intuitions of seers and saints. Consequently, it is the only source of the knowledge of the cosmic order. Brahman is of the nature of bhinnābhinna. In the causal state or kāranarūpa, it is one and in the effected state or kāryarūpa, it is many. Brahman is the one that becomes the many without losing its unity. Such unity is not bare identity as held by Advaita, nor is it abstract unity becoming concrete unity. Bhāskara seeks the foundation of his ideas in the truths of revelation and posits a twofold sakti in Brahman known as jīva pariņama and acetana pariņāmā or bhoktr sakti and bhogya sakti. Brahman is the unconditioned one; but, in His infinite wisdom, purity and power, He enters into the finite and

1 I. iv. 25.

COSMOLOGY 41

emanates into the multiplicity of names and forms. Finite existence is, therefore, distinguishable into the jīva, the subject of experience (bhoktā) and the acetana or the object of experience (bhogya). Finite selves and material states thus con- stitute the whole universe of prapañca. In discussing this truth and demolishing antagonistic theories, Bhāskara shows his polemic ingenuity and dialectic power. The Sad Vidyā of the Chāndogya Upanișad, VI. 2, furnishes to him the classical text of cosmology. Its thesis is the dis- covery of the One by knowing which everything else is realised, and thus, at the very outset, it brings out the identity of the operative and the immanent cause. Reality is the self-existent Sat without a second which is absolutely devoid of differentia- tion in the pralaya state. The multitudinous variety of names and forms that make up the universe is absorbed in the absolute like salt dissolved in water. The universe is indistinguishable from Brahman but not identical with it; it is in a bhinnābhinna relation with it. The effect disappears in the cause but is not thereby destroyed or contradicted, and, when the world form vanishes, its potentiality remains as a part of the divine content. Creation is nothing but the renewal of cosmic life and activity. Brahman wills to be the manifold and becomes the manifold by His own infinite power of parināma. Creation follows pralaya like day following night. The world is a living process sustained by periodic pause and repose alternating with activity, and this process is an infinite series and its drift is to relieve the jivas from their self- imposed limitations. This may be a puzzle but is no preten- sion. The expression sadeva etc., in Ch. Up., VI. ii. 1 connotes causality and not inner contradiction. Differentiation is in no way a denial of the absolute. The cause is pre-existent, and therefrom we cannot say the effect is non-existent. The

42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

effect is contained in the cause and is continuous with it. The difference is only in the aspect (avasthābheda) and there is no illusion or avidyā at the heart of reality corrupting the very foundation of cosmic experience. To the Māyāvādin, causality implies infinite regress and is therefore a contradiction. The idea of God as causa sui or the first cause is unthinkable, and causality does not bring out the unity of reality and its self- identity. William James thinks that causality is an altar to an unknown God, but the S'ruti which has specialised in God affirms that it is the only category that adequately brings out the immanent unity and activity of God, and thus reconciles the claims of intellectualism and voluntarism. Unity in variety is the plan of srsti and it is the One alone that becomes the many and explains the many. The potential 'evolves into the actual. The implicit develops into the explicit. The absolute itself assumes the form of the relative. The infinite is the prius and the presupposition of the finite and is revealed in and through the finite. Like the spider weaving its web, the absolute by the immanent energising power transforms itself into the relative and becomes its explanation. The cosmic order is the self-alienation or eternal determination of the absolute. The Upanisads and the Sütras based on them assert this truth in unequivocal terms and Bhäskara claims that the traditional interpretation of the Chāndogya Upanişad given by the Vākyakāra and the Vrttikara is absolutely in his favour.1 The Sutras develop the same truth and Bhāskara regards the Sutras I. iv. 25 and 26, II. i. 14 and II. i. 27 as the very fulcrum of his cosmic philosophy in terms of Bhedābheda. The first asserts the immanent causality of the infinite

1 sūtrakāraḥ s'rutyanukārī pariņāmapakşam sūtrayāmbabhūva, ayameva chāndogye vākyakāravrttikārābhyām sampradāyam atah samās'ritah. [I. iv. 25.]

COSMOLOGY 43

(ātmakrteh pariņāmāt) ; I. iv. 26 defines Brahman as the very seed of the universe, and II. i. 27 explains the nature of pariņāma sakti and the ways of its self-revelation. But II. i. 14 sums up the doctrine of divine causality and establishes the truths of immanence, unity and continuity. The cause is eminent, eternal and necessary, while the effect is evanescent and contingent and the cause alone explains the effect. Brahman transforms Himself into the cosmic manifold and both the living and the non-living are rcal modifications (vikāra) of the absolute. The question "How the formless infinite (niravayava) can become the finite and composite (sāvayava) ? " may now be answered. The Veda which is divine thought or the word of God and thus the only guide in spiritual matters answers this problem thus: God is the All-Self and absolutely free and by His viksepa sakti or infinite power of transformation emanates into the universe and ultimately absorbs it. It is the nature of the infinite to become the finite self and infinitize it by freeing it from the upādhis. A particular srsti or creation becomes an episode in the endless cycle of empirical life. From the creative urge there emanates the primeval deep containing the seed of the universe. The sced becomes the golden egg or creational possibility, and Brahma the totality of selves, is the first-born of the absolute. The Lord, out of His own fecundating thought and free will, conditions Himself into the five tanmātras or ultimate elements of matter, incarnates into Brahmã or Logos, and, through him, externalises Himself into the heterogeneous forms of living and non-living beings, according to the moral and spiritual needs of jīvas. By a process of tripartition1 or quintuplication, these elements are ' II, iv. 19.

44 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHĀSKARA

made to cohere without losing their nature, and constitute the world of nature. By His mere volition, Brahman gradually evolves into the manifold of material things, the thirty-three Gods and the infinite variety of plants, animals, human beings, and other existences. The universe is the soul-making process and nature forms the soul's environment and instrument. The archetypes or the jati or the samsthana of the Devas, rsis and others are eternal, while the individuals are particular perishing things.1 The forms are the same though individuals may vary. Indras may come and go but indratva remains for ever and each Deva has his own form and function in the cosmic scheme. The universe is a cosmos and not a chaos, as it is ordered by divine intelligence and will; and owing to the reign of divine law, there is uniformity in nature and every new creation is but a repetition of an earlier one and illustrates the same law. Novelty and sameness refer to continuity within differences. The self-differentiation of the absolute is not tainted by the evils and imperfections of the finite. Brahman trans- forms Himself into the finite and yet transcends it. His will being eternally self-realised (avāpta samastakāma), He has nothing to gain hedonistically by the creative process. Creative evolution is essentially the outcome of the sportive spontaneity (svabhāva) of God2 and is sustained by His goodness. The apparent injustice in the operation of the moral law is entirely due to the freedom of the finite self. Spiritual freedom functions through moral necessity and there is no disparity between the divine law of love and the moral idea of righteousness. Even as the same rain-drops cause the seeds to sprout in their own different ways, the

1 I, iii, 28. 8 TT i 33

COSMOLOGY 45

omnipotent love of God operates on all alike though, in effect, it is determined by the moral differences of the jivas. Virtue is fecundative; it grows from less to more and gives eternal happiness. Vice also multiplies itself and is self- destructive and the vicious man is hurled into hell. But this law of retribution is governed by the principle of divine love, and cosmic history has thus a spiritual import. In establishing all these truths, Bhāskara examines and repudiates the false theories of the philosophies of nature. To the Máyāvādin, the whole cosmic process is but an inner discrepancy and an illusion which exists but is not real. To him, the eva in the Chand. text Sadeva connotes the reality of the cause and the unreality of the effect. Brahman in the transcendental sense is the one without a second and the world is the effect of cosmic illusion which is unreal and unaccountable. But, on the empirical level, there is no illusion or contradiction. Though avidyā is unreal like dreams, it makes the Absolute an appearance. Bhāskara dismisses this explanation as a mere speculation of the Māyāvādin without any rational or revelational basis. His arguments against the Māyāvādin may be summed up as follows :- The unreality of the effect might affect the integrity of the cause itself, and scripture, as the effect of avidyā and relational thought, loses all its value and validity. Illusion is no contradiction at all, but is a real experience due to the constraining power of reality, though its validity is vitiated by physical and psychical disorders. Knowledge is both subjective and objective, and mere subjectivity does not sublate reality. If the absolute is real and its appearance false, then falsity itself has a focus and factual reality. The fact of life is a phantom and phantom is a fact : reason is

46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHÄSKARA

thus entangled in a vicious circle and this given unthinkable cannot stultify itself. Bhäskara is equally strong in his condemnation of the Sānkhya system. The Sānkhya theory of pradhāna or pri- mordial matter being the cosmic cause may be formulated as follows: (1) Pradhana or prakrti is constituted by the three gunas, and the purusa reflected in prakrti is the jīva, subject to pleasure and pain; (2) the processes of parināma can be enumerated and classified ;- there are twenty-three evolutes from the pradhana starting with mahat and ending with gross matter; (3) parināma is an activity; (4) it gives rise to the operation of causality ; and (5) it is a process of manifestation. Bhaskara's criticism of this theory may be briefly stated seriatim. Evolution implies a conscious end and pradhāna, as a mere non-sentient entity, is devoid of purpose. Besides, pleasure and pain are psychical experiences and matter has no such feeling tone. The last three conditions may be ascribed to Brahman as well as to prakrti and do not there- fore form its differentia. The power of self-differentiation (svatah pravrtti) can never belong to the non-self. The uni- formity of natural law is determined by divine purpose and is not blind necessity. It is by the will of God that the sun shines and the soul functions. Besides, if prakrti be eternally active, then creation would be an endless process without any pause. Natural effects are not explained wholly by mechanical causes. Mere eating of grass by the cow does not account for the secretion of milk, as, in that case, the bull also should secrete milk. If evolution is for the experience of pleasure and pain, there is no meaning in the purusa desiring mukti. If purusa is, by nature, eternal and free, there is no meaning in his seeking and attaining freedom. The Sānkhya doctrine that rationality, activity and bliss are the products of prakrti

COSMOLOGY 47

arising from its proximity to the purusa is not tenable. For, if the theory of proximity were true, then there would be eternal creation or dissolution, or both. If the gunas are harmonised in the pralaya state, how are we to account for all the later tensions which give rise to creation? The Sänkhya theory has, therefore, to be stated in terms of Brahmaparināma and evolution is not in the presence of the self but is the process of the Self. Brahman is one and in- finitely blissful and the jiva as His amsa is controlled by his own karma or freedom and implicated in samsāra. Fire which burns other things does not burn itself and the self as a subject always implies an object. The same self cannot be both sovereign and subject. Brahman is the absolutely bliss- ful being and the jiva is subject to the hazards and hardships of samsāra. Brahman and the jīva are different like tāpaka and tapya, one who causes and one who undergoes experience ; and, when jivatva is removed, the jiva becomes one with Brahman and obtains absolute bliss. The Vaisesika theory of atomism and pluralistic realism asserts the absolute distinctness between cause and effect. The cosmic order, according to it, is only an atom-complex. The atoms are the ultimates of matter. Owing to the operation of divine design, they coalesce and form the world- aggregate. Creation is due to the composition of three causes. The atoms are the samavāyi kārana and they inhere as the cosmic stuff. Their union or coalescence is the asamavāyi kārana and the adrsta of the jiva (the invisible merit or demerit of the finite self) and the will of Is'vara form the nimitta kārana. The four kinds of atoms, fire, air, earth and water, furnish the stuff of creation, out of which the Lord fashions the universe by a fiat of His will. Pralaya is the dissolution of parts due to the Divine will. Bhäskara, in criticising this

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theistic system, contends that uncreated matter in the form of atoms is like another God and asks " Does the adrsta function in the atom or in the ätman, the finite self ? " It cannot be in the atom, as the latter is non-sentient (acetana) nor can it be in the atman, which, according to the Vaisesika, is essentially unconscious. Besides, the Vaisesika doctrine of samavāya as an eternal and external relation lands us in infinite regression. Further, what is the nature of the paramanus? Are they active or passive, or both ? If they were active, there would be endless or eternal creation; if passive, there would be no creation or s'rsti; they cannot be both, as contradictories cannot co-exist. It is not adrsta but the absolute that condi- tions all things and explains them. Otherwise, the whole system would suffer from the fatal defects of occasionalism and pre-established harmony. The creationistic view should be rejected in favour of the Brahmaparināmavāda. The Buddhistic system of sanghata and momentariness has already been shown to be untenable. The Buddhistic realist speaks of the skandhas as constituting personality or the phenomenal series and denies the reality of the absolute. He fails to account for the way in which the super-sensuous atoms become concretised. The theory of avidyā may explain subjective states but not the reality of external things. How can the fleeting flux become a permanent sanghāta ? A series can never become a self. The idea of antecedent and conse- quent has no place in a theory of momentariness. As there is no fixity or substantiality in a fleeting flux, clay may as well cause a piece of cloth as it does a pot and thus anything may be the cause of anything else. The Buddhistic view of space (ākāsa) as a mere non-existent (abhāva) is untenable. Buddhism cannot also account for the persistence of memory and personality. The Yogacāra or Vijñānavādin asserts the

COSMOLOGY 49

reality of vijñana as a mere mental complex and a single psychical content without any substantiality or objective reference. Knowledge is immediate (aparoksa) and objective (sākāra) or mediate (paroksa) and subjective (nirākāra). The former is given in sense-perception and the latter refers to subjective feelings like desire and aversion. The Vijñāna- vādin fails to recognize the objectivity of knowledge and explains away externality as a mere illusion. His comparison of the waking life to dreams is open to the fallacy of petitio principii as already pointed out. The Māyāvādin adopts the same logic and subjects himself to the same fallacies of subjectivism and nihilism and, says Bhäskara, the condem- nation of the yogācāra in Sūtra II. ii. 29 is directed equally against him.1 Thus, Bhäskara's account of the origin and nature of the universe in terms of bhedābheda seeks to avoid the perils of pancosmism, creationism, pan-illusionism, and subjectivism. While insisting on the immanence of God in the universe, it, at the same time, frees Him from the imperfections of finite life. The universe is the moulding of matter for the evolution of souls and their ultimate absorption in the absolute. While the self thus becomes one with Brahman, the world of nature exists as an eternal necessity of the divine nature but does not exhaust its infinity. If the cosmogony of bhedābheda based upon causality is presented in its modern western form, it will be seen that causality is not an "altar to an unknown God " nor is the creational view the root error of all false metaphysics and dogmatics. Logically, cause refers to necessity and is inter- preted philosophically as the ground of all things and finally as the immanent activity of God. Thus, logic is one with 1 Māyāvādinopi anenaiva nyāyena sūtrakāreņaiva nirastāh. [II. ii. 29.]

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metaphysics and religion. Time and space' belong to the world of sense and contingency, and being a sensuous series cannot be infinite. But the causal relation involves necessity and relativity and it also suffers from the defect of endless- ness. Philosophically, cause is the real ground or reason of all things; and since relativity and absoluteness go together, the causal relation is rooted in the self relation of reality and is the unfolding of the immanental idea. All process is in, and not of, reality and the self-activity of reason fulfils itself through contingency. Religion reconciles the finite- infinite conflict by regarding the universe as grounded in the divine nature. Infinity is spiritual and not sensuous and creation is not spatial nor an incident in time but is the self-imparting of the infinite to the finite. It is the eternal self-revelation of God. The temporal view refers only to the finite but, spiritually, it is the whole that incarnates itself in and as the parts, and realises itself through them. Time and space are the stuff of reality, tbe divine nature fulfils itself through contingency and the eternal is in and more than endless duration. In this way the opposites like transcen- dence and immanence, mechanism and finalism, are reconciled in a pervading identity and purpose. God is as necessary to the world as the world is necessary to God.

CHAPTER V

BHĀSKARA'S CRITICISM OF THE DOCTRINE OF MĀYĀ

SINCE the refutation of Māyavada is the main theme of Bhäskara's destructive philosophy, his criticism may be con- veniently summed up in a separate chapter even at the risk of prolixity. He ignores the plausible contention that Māyāvāda is a philosophic deducticn or descent from the monistic ex- perience of Advaita, akin to his own experience of ekībhāva. To him the upādhi is not a false but a real adjunct of the absolute and this can be subdued but not sublated. The Māyāvādin, who styles himself a specialist in Vedāntic thought as opposed to its theology, employs the logical idea of contradiction in the determination of truth, and confirms his conclusion by the analogy drawn from the universal ex- perience of illusions and sleep. Brahman is, to him, the transcendental Sat without a second and the empirical world is an illusion super-imposed on reality and therefore sublated by it. Even Is'vara is only an appearance of the Absolute who has no doubt maximum validity and value, but He is caught in the contradictions of relativity. The negative judg- ments employed by the Upanisads deny the reality of phenomena and affirm the Absolute. The judgments relating to divine causality apply only to apparent reality and not to

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real reality. Brahman is mere being and thought, all be- coming is but an illusory projection conjured up by the māyā- made mind, and mukti consists in denying the negation and affirming the absolute. The Māyāvādin says that māyā is anirvacanīya (indefinable); and is a confession of the self- contradictions of life. Self-discrepancy or the impasse of illusoriness is finally dissolved in the immediacy of self- identity. The givenness of māyā and avidyā is first explained in terms of causality and contradiction, or relational thought and inexplicability respectively and then dissolved in mystic jnana. When the non-self is stultified, the self shines of itself. Bhäskara devotes all his dialectic skill in demolishing these speculations which, according to him, are absolutely unwarranted by S'ruti and reasoning and are opposed to all metaphysical and religious truths and values. The doctrine of causality contained in the Sad Vidya is discussed in all its detail in the Sūtras in the Arambhanādhi- karaņa, II. i. 14. et seq. Causality, according to S'ankara, is ultimately based on contradiction and illusion. Brahman is the absolute, devoid of all determination, and the empirical world is enveloped in cosmic illusion, which claims to be true, but is not really true. The manifold is only the making of māyā. But this does not involve the absolute denial of the reality of sense-experience, or moral and spiritual aspirations. At the empirical level there is no contradiction or negation, and causality is a real process of effectuation involving immanence and continuity and is phenomenally true. Negativity at this stage implies the relativity of knowledge; at a higher stage it becomes a riddle of life (a vivarta and not vikāra). But, when the identity of the absolute dawns in one's consciousness, all this finiteness becomes a fiction and vanishes for ever. The term sadeva

BHASKARA'S CRITICISM OF THE DOCTRINE OF MAYA 53

emphatically declares the reality of the cause and the un- reality of the effect. Clay, for example, is one homogeneous stuff; but its varied names and forms are modifications which have only a relative and verbal value. Māyā is a falsity, but yet it may appear to be a fact satisfying certain practical needs. The unreal world may appear to be real and have a pragmatic value for empirical needs, like the prophetic character of certain dreams, the conventions of the alphabet, the fancies of infatuated love and a false statement producing fatal consequences. But this claim to truth is only an appearance and the world becomes absolutely false like the flower in the sky and the horn of a hare when it refers to the self-evidencing absolute. Then reality merely is and no ism or logical account of it is possible or adequate. Bhāskara rejects this doctrine of māyā as a baseless fabrication. In seeking to establish the stability of the absolute by this theory of causality, the Māyāvādin, he says, cuts at the very root of knowledge. If, in the judgment, "The pot is made of clay," the effect is a negation of the cause and not its revelation, then the unreality of the effect as effect should affect the cause as well, and māyd, as a cosmic illusion, would taint the very foundations of the absolute. Avidya gnaws at the very root of reality and would infect the whole range of experience, spiritual as well as secular. Since causality is a condition of māyā, the attempt to destroy it is itself an illusion and is futile and idle. All cognition is a determination and a denial, and Brahmajñāna being an experience, is caught in the meshes of the all-enveloping power of māyā. Māyā stifles every effort to overcome it and it does not contain the possibility of its own destruction. If the causal relation involves mediacy and necessity, and if the absolute is immediated and self-identical, then there is no

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logical transition from the mediate to the immediate, and the dual experience of the empirical and the transcendental lands us in dualism. Thus, in the causal category, there is no passage from the illusoriness of the effect to the self-identity of the cause, from the logical to the alogical; Brahman is self-established and māyā is self-stultified. If the category of causality does not fully bring out the nature of the absolute, the absolute is identical with itself and there need be no philosophy of identity to establish it by reasoning. A sid- dhänta is arrived at by means of reasoning applied to revela- tion and the whole body of the Sutras, starting with causality and cosmology and ending with the value and destiny of the self, is a system of thought based on interrelated judg- ments and is therefore really an identical whole in which differences are strung together. If this view be not accepted, then there would be no method of thought at all, and Māyā- vāda itself as a monistic logic would become a fiction and not a theory. The contention that it is the end of philosophy to eliminate all false theories is then refuted by the argument that elimination cannot be the test of truth. Double negation based on bare negation is meaningless and the admission of degrees of falsity leads to agnosticism. The 'that' can have no 'what' at all. Besides, it is false to say that real knowledge can arise out of false judgment. Avidyā is not subjective but objective and positive. The objects that are presented in dreams may be real or unreal; but dreams themselves are a positive ex- perience. The visaya or the object presented in a dream may be unreal, but the vișayajñana or the knowledge of the object is real. Likewise, all illusions are real cognitions. Abnormal experience is not a contradiction of the normal but constitutes a real factor in the whole world of our experience.

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Besides, existence cannot be abstracted from the things that exist or from the real immanent in. them. Finite thought is conditioned and not contradictory. Reality is objective in the waking state and subjective in dreams. The one state does not sublate the other. The contrasted states imply each other and form an identity of opposites. Illusions, halluci- nations and other abnormal experiences are caused by real physical and mental disorders. Illusion is a fact of experience and the distinction between reality and illusion is based not on contradiction but on causality. The cause is contained in the effect without in any way sublating it. The manifold that is given in experience is a revelation of reality and not the veil of illusion. The absolute actualises itself and becomes the world. Writing is a real motor experience and the word is the symbol of thought, and langnage, as a system of meanings is a real medium of thought including monistic truth. Doubt leads to supposition claiming truth and is an undoubted experience of our logical life. The fancies and follies of infatuated love are an integral part of our aesthetic experience and therefore cannot be dismissed as mere illusion. Māyā, as the principle of illusory individuation and multipli- city, is said to conceal the one (āvarana sakti) and project the many (viksepa sakti). The former as a theory of knowl- edge lands us in subjectivism and the latter as a cosmological theory cannot explain away the world-order, as mukti is only the elimination of the individual (svarūpanāsana) and not the annihilation of the world (prapañcanāsana). The whole conception of māya has its foundation in the theory of avidya, with its account of relative reality and the duality that arises from the subject-object relation, and Bhās- kara's brilliant polemic against this subjectivistic theory anticipates Rāmānuja's classical refutation of Māyāvāda known

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as the saptavidha anupapatti. The Māyāvādin does not define the locus or āsraya of avidyā. If avidyā is an innate defect or obscuration of knowledge, is that element of obscuration inherent in the jiva or in Brahman ? It cannot belong to Brah- man as Brahman is absolutely self luminous, pure (visuddha), perfect and blissful. Thus the absolute cannot be the locus of avidyā; nor can avidyā reside in the jīva as the jīva itself is the projection of avidya or a reflection of Brahman and is an illusion which has no reality at all. If the jīva has its origin in avidyā and avidyā has its origin in the jīva, the whole reasoning is circular and specious. If avidyā has its basis in consciousness, then the sublation of avidyā would destroy the substratum itself. The roots of avidyā are nowhere. Avidyā is not a name for finitude. It is a mere fiction like the horn of a hare. But the Māyāvādin posits its finiteness and relative reality, and when he is forced to account for its origin and locus, he resorts to the analogy of sleep and asks us to give up our logical views of relativity and rise to the philosophic intuition of the self-identical or static absolute. If avīdyā is a defect of relational thought, is it inherent in and co-eternal with Brahman or is it non-existent like the round square or the son of a barren woman? If it is the inherent sakti that is somehow in the self, it is eternal and absolute, and it cannot be destroyed by the intuition of iden- tity, and the possibility of full cosmic liberation is then entirely ruled out (anirmokşaprasanga). But, if it is bare negation, without any positive basis, then it has no existential import, and phenomenal reality is not accounted for. If it connotes the fleeting flux of finite life, then it should have had some origin and therefore an element of reality. If avidyā is a self-projection of Brahman, then, with the dis- solution of avidya, Brahman itself would be stultified and

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destroyed. Avidyā is thus neither being (vastutā) nor non- being (avastutā), nor is it both. , The object of the Māyāvādin is the repudiation of plu- rality and the establishment of the integrity of the absolute. Now, if avidy is the lapse of the self into the non-self, then Bhāskara asks : " Is avidyā a monistic experience (abheda darsana) or is it an experience of plurality (bheda darsana) ? It cannot be the former as it is a real defect of thought and therefore different from the non-dual experience. Nor can it be the latter, as that would be an admission of pluralism. This difficulty has given rise to two conflicting schools known as the Ekajīva Vāda or the theory of a single self, and Nānājīva Vāda or the theory of a plurality of selves. If avidyā is the single all-pervading illusion of the self, then we are landed in solipsism and the ego-centric fallacy. But, if it is a principle of individuation, subjective and objective, then mukti also becomes a case of partial release from finiteness. To say that the self is only the subject caught in objectivity and adhyāsa, and that mukti is freedom from finiteness is to deny the reality of the That by whose grace the thou becomes free. The theories of partial reality and unreality can never explain reality at all, because there can be no degrees of the nought or tuccha. Avidyā is said by the Māyāvādin to be sublated and dissolved by knowledge. It is, according to him, a logical defect residing as buddhi and obscuring reality, and jñāna is defined as the immediate and non-relational knowledge of the absolute. This is the same as saying that the absolute is ever self-realised. If so, it evades the point at issue. The whole question is: "How does the integral, indeterminate absolute project the phenomenal and create its false values ? " If jñāna or knowledge is a case of consciousness returning

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to itself (ātmarūpa), then how does avidyā arise from vidyā as these are absolutely opposed like light (dīpa) and darkness (timira) ? Is avidyā prior to jñāna or is it co-existent with it and contradicted by it ? It cannot be prior to jñāna, as consciousness is presupposed even in its denial. The two cannot co-exist as they are contradictories, and pure conscious- ness cannot be co-present with illusoriness. If it is bare negation, there is no meaning in denying a denial. Besides, jñana itself is relational and illusory and therefore cannot transcend itself. If reality admits of degrees of truth and error, and if a thought which is a lapse of reality is to be sublated by another, then we have to transcend that also and thus we are landed in infinite regression. If there are degrees of truth, then there is no truth at all. Avidyā is neither false predication nor predication of falsity as the real has no predicate. Whether avidyā is a fragment of māyā or cosmic fiction or the whole of it, its obscuring power is all-pervading and leads to an endless process of samsāra. The consciousness of finiteness and plurality (bhedajñāna) is so powerful that it leaves no scope for its sublation (advaita) or hope of salvation (moksa). Release is progressively attained when the cause of finiteness is removed and it is a contradiction to speak of jīvanmukti. Mukti is not merely the apprehension of reality, but its attainment as well. As long as there is embodiment and empirical thought individually and collect- ively, there is no chance of transcending it. To the Māyāvādin the absolute is a self-identity and there can be no partial mukti or degrees of mukti. When the cause that conceals truth destroys itself, then there should be a complete cessation of reality and relational thought. When a man who mistook a rope for a snake

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perceives the rope, his conduct is completely changed. But, in the case of the jivanmukta, there is no such cessation. He continues to function as a particular mind attached to a particular body, though such activity is opposed to his identity with the absolute. In sublation, there is immediate and entire knowledge; and to predicate residual activity (s'eșa) and relativity to the absolute (nirvis'eșa) is like predi- cating degrees of truth and reality to the horns of a hare. Defeated at every point, the Māyāvādin ultimately takes refuge in the theory of indefinability or anirvacanīyatva and tries to escape between the horns of the dilemma. But he creates a yawning gulf between the absolute of intuition and the relativity of thought and then confesses his inability to connect the two. The law of contradiction pervades all knowledge and perverts its very foundations, and Māyāvāda relies more on the twist and abnormality of experience than on its trueness and normal integrity. The discrepancy between the infinite and the finite, being and becoming, Brahman and the world, knowledge and activity, freedom and causality, the eternal and the ephemeral, lands us in dualism, and the ideas of causality and transcendence are mere make-shifts, which cannot really bridge the chasm. A philosophy that mercilessly dissects and destroys other theories cannot consistently take refuge in and justify in- definability or anirvacaniyatva. The "somehow" of the absolute instead of satisfying the quest of thought completely defeats its purpose and stifles it. Every vacana or word connotes some meaning and if avidyā is anirvacanīya, having no meaning, then it explains nothing. Besides, a theory of truth that seeks non-contradiction is confessedly inconsistent when it predicates reality, unreality and indefinability to the same experience of avidyā. The doctrine of Māyāvāda is

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said to be deduced from S'astra or revelation. But revelation itself belongs to the world of relativity and appearance. Consequently, S'ästra itself would become a case of self- contradiction and Buddhistic nihilism would be the inevitable result of the theory of māya and māya-ridden S'astra. The theory of may, as a process of the illusory projection of the infinite, overpowers all things and thinkers and the seeking of release from māyā becomes itself a semblance. Therefore Bhāskara concludes that relational knowledge is a real experience and not an inner contradiction. Divine causality denies external determination only and not self-limitation (svābhāvika srsti). When we say that the nyagrodha seed sprouts and grows into a tree, we refer to a real vital process of evolution and not to any illusory projection. Likewise, the indeterminate sat or the absolute divides itself into the heterogeneity of names and forms (vijātīya pariņāma) by its own viksepa sakti (power of projection). Bheda or difference does not sublate undivided unity but subsists in and explains abheda as the principle of self-effectuation (svabhāva- siddha). The Māyāvadin dichotomises reality into the absolute and the empirical and relegates the science of Karma Kānda to the realm of the phenomenal and the fictitious. Every theory has a definite end in view, and, if Karma Kānda satisfies the empirical needs of karma, then Jñāna Kānda satisfies the spiritual needs of realizing Brahman, and the latter does not sublate or stultify the former but is co- ordinated to it. Reality is a bhedābheda in which the one emanates into the many and explains it. The unity of Jñāna Kānda is synthesised with the pluralistic experience of Karma Kānda and then freedom is a fact as well as fruition.

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The negative judgment 'neti neti'' denies the finitude of reality and not the finite. Immanence is not bare identity devoid of difference. It removes the false identity of the self with embodied existence due to the empirical limitations of sensibility; but in no sense does it predicate nityatva to prapañca per se. When we say Brahman is neither acit nor jīva, we really affirm its transcendental, as distinct from its transient, nature. The absolute is in the conditioned but is not the conditioned. The infinite limits itself into the finite but is not affected by the limitations of time and space. Negation affirms the unconditioned as the basis of the condi- tioned and not as its contradiction. The Upanișadic idea "there is no plurality of existence " (neha nānāsti kiñcana) ' affirms the unity of Brahman in the causal state (karana svarupa) and does not refer to cosmic illusoriness. In the statement "one who sees duality as it were" (ya iha nāneva pasyati),3 the particle iva (as it were) does not connote appearance or illusoriness but really refers to the manifold of thinkers and things as the effectuations of the infinite, like sparks issuing from a blazing fire as described in Mund. Up. When the intuition of the unconditioned ātman arises, all these differences vanish for ever. Bhedābheda thus accounts for the transition from the infinite to the finite without creat- ing any gap or gulf between the two and is therefore nirva- canīya and not anirvacanīya like māyā. It substitutes for the 'somehow' and sublation of mya the ideas of substanti- ality, immanence, and self-transcendence. In Māyāvāda 1 Br. Up., II. iii. 6. 2 Kath. Up., II. iv. 11. 3 Kath. Up., II. iv. 11. yathā sudiptāt pāvakat visphulingah sahasras'a prabhavante sarūpah 1 tathākşarat vividhāh somya bhavāh prajāyante tatra caivāpiyanti. [Muạd. Up., II.i. 1.]

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ontology, Brahman is defined as bare being devoid of all determination; therefore it is not distinguishable from non- being. To posit the absolute as the explanation of experience and then to deprive it of all content, is the negation of thought itself. The world is an organic whole with a uniform behaviour in which there is infinite differentiation of structure and function. If reality were bare being having homogeneity alone, then there would be a cessation of all these specific functions, and there is no reason why the eye should not hear and the ear should not see. A cow would be identical with a piece of cloth, and manas would be the same as the other senses. Difference is not only a fact, but also an act of reality and it alone gives a meaning to identity. The Sanmātra- vādin reduces the living process of reality to a mere logical abstraction, and his philosophy lapses into nihilism and universal void (sarva s'inyatva) with an eternal ' night of the absolute.' The process of meditation, which the Māyāvādin pre- scribes for getting the intuition of the indeterminate lacks reality and is futile. The sections in the Sutras dealing with ubhayalinga do not distinguish between nirguna Brahman and saguna Brahman but they only insist on the meditation on Brahman as a formless being (nirākāra) as distinguished from the same Brahman in its cosmic aspect (prapañcākāra). Negation is not a denial of differentiation but only brings out the character of Brahman as the absolutely pure being (s'uddhātmasvarūpa) beyond the dual limitations of the living and the non-living (upādhi-dvaya); it denies the fini- tude of reality but not the finite. S'ruti would stultify itself if it first predicated the form of the sensible and the supersensible to reality and then denied it. To affirm the reality of saguna Brahman and then deny it has no

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meaning.' The first ' neti' in the Brhadaranyaka text, II. iii. 6, denies to the nirākāra Brahman the finiteness of Brahman in the forms of nature constituted by the five elements (bhūta- pañcaka), the subtle (amūrta) as well as the evolved (mūrta). The second 'neti' denies to it the finiteness of Brahman in its aspect of jīva. Brahman is therefore appropriately meditated on as the true of the true or the real reality (satyasya satya) that transcends the empirical subject-object consciousness. The S'ruti nowhere distinguishes between the indeter- minate and the determinate, or the absolute of metaphysics and the God of meditation. The term ' neti' refers to the formless nature of God and not to His characterlessness. The Tait. text in II. i distinguishes between Brahman and its qualities, the dharmin and the dharma, and defines Brahman as the true, the intelligent and the infinite that is beyond the finite categories of space and time. The determining quality can never be said to negate or stultify itself. Brahman as the absolute transcends the world of relativity, but does not sublate it. When the vyavahāra state vanishes, the real also ceases to be. Though it is avyakta or unknowable to the empirical mind imprisoned in embodiment, it can be realised by purified knowledge. In his commentary on Sūtra II. i. 14, Bhāskara says that the term ' māyā' in some instances points to prakrti and the gunas as the primordial stuff which modifies itself in all the manifold ways of the world. Like- wise the term ' maya' may signify the relativity of thought by which the immeasurable is measured, or, it may stand for the Veda which affords knowledge of svarga and apavarga. The

1 Thus a follower of Nimbarka. Why should scripture first ascribe various qualities to Brahman with great care and then deny any and every quality to Him, thereby contradicting itself and behaving like a mad man .- Vide-Doot- rines of Nimbarka and His Followers by Roma Bose, Vol. III, p. 143.

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Svetāsvatra text 1 employs the term ' māyā' with a view to establishing the real distinction between the finite and the infinite. There is no warrant anywhere for the view of 'māyā' as an illusion of the absolute, particularly in view of Sutra III. ii. 3 specifically contrasting the world par excel- lence in which we all live with the dream experience which alone is described as māyāmātra. The idea of Iswvara as the first-born of the cosmic figment has already been refuted and rejected; avidyā cannot be ascribed to the finite as the finite is a fiction; nor can it be predicated of Is'vara as He is eternally pure and self-luminous (nityavijñānaprakāsa). To attribute samsāritva or empirical experience to Isvara is a case of s'rutahāni and asrutakal- panā. Samsāritva is the susceptibility to the feelings of pleasure and pain; but is'varatva implies absolute freedom from them. Knowledge and ignorance, vidyā and avidyā, freedom and bondage, svātantrya and bandha are incompatible qualities which can never co-exist in the same Being. The Upanișads are never tired of glorifying the qualities of Brah- man such as purity, peace, perfection and immutability (nişkala, sānta, niravadya, nirañjana) and the lord of māyā cannot encase himself in sensibility and samsāra and become their victim. If Is'vara is the product of illusion, then there is no need for spiritual outlook and its eternal values.

BHÄSKARA'S IDEA OF GOD

Bhāskara's idea of God is thus a reconciliation of the conflicting claims of the various monistic schools. He does not favour the theory of external relations in which a personal God enters into personal relations with the finite selves with 1 māyām tu prakrtim viddhi māyinam tu mahes'varam-S'v. Up., IV. 10.

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a view to redeeming them from their career of sin and admitting them into His own perfect kingdom. But, in his absolute antagonism to the Advaitic idea of a nirguna Brah- man or the Indeterminate, his theory bas affinities with the ethical monism of Rāmānuja. Rāmānuja asserts the reality of a supreme God with a form of His own with infinite auspi- cious qualities fulfilling Himself in the manifold of finite selves and things. As the self of all beings, He is their ulti- mate source, the inner ruler and the supreme means as well as end, and His self-directive will becomes a redemptive love in which the jiva is finally soaked and saved. Personalism comes midway between theism and absolutism, and resembles the philosophy of Ramanuja, though it does not bring out the inseparable relation between the supreme self and the finite self and the unity of acit. But Bhaskara's monism is more pronounced than personalism and ethical monism and the S'uddhadvaita of Vallabha. Bhāskara has no faith in Is'vara with an aprakrta form of His own and in a religion of self-surrender and service to His supreme redemptive will. To him, Brahman is a super-personality devoid of all name and form, but possessed of infinite metaphysical, moral and spiritual perfections. The formless assumes a form to enable the self to transcend itself, but this form is real and not fictitious (pāramārthika) and not māyāmaya. It thinks all things (sarvajña) and with its self-directive will (parināma- s'akti) it expresses itself as the finite cit and acit but tran- scends their finitude and other imperfections (apahatapāpma). Its foreknowledge does not affect the freedom of the finite self. The divine purpose is mainly realised in transfiguring the self and removing its finiteness. This account frees the idea of God from the errors of anthropomorphism and also the evils of acosmism. While safeguarding the reality of

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divine immanence, it, at the same time, satisfies the monistic craving for the unconditioned absolute. Bhāskara's warfare with the Māyāvādin in his account of Is'vara shows that his main philosophic object was not merely to assert the reality of saguna Brahman but to bring out the fallacies of the theory of nirguna Brahman. There are generally speaking four main varieties of the Advaitic idea of Brahman which are derived from the doctrines of māyā and avidyā: (1) In attacking Buddhistic subjectivism and nihi- lism, practical Advaita or non-dualism insists on the reality of Is'vara as the cosmic creator possessed of all perfections and comes very near the Visistādvaita account at least from the vyāvahāric point of view. A presentation differs from its representation and consciousness itself testifies to the externality of things given in sense-perception. The finite is rooted in the infinite which is therefore the informing and inspiring spirit in all things and it is by the grace of the Lord that mukti is effected. (2) In his rejection of theism and thought, the idealist goes to the other extreme, adopts the dialectics of Mādhyamika Buddhism, dethrones Is'vara from His cosmic lordship and rulership and defines ātman subjectively as drk in relation to drsya. I alone exist and the cosmos is the objectified form of my mind or sankalpa, which is sublated in sleep and is therefore non-existent. The inevitable theory of ekajīvavāda commits him to the perils of subjectivism, selfism and soporific quietism. (3) The third theory, which may be called singularism is an attempt to escape the evils of realism and idealism. Māyā, in its cosmic form, reflects Brahman, and this reflection is known as Is vara or the world- soul with super-excellent limiting adjuncts. In its indi- viduated form of avidyā, it is the finite self. Is'vara is only an aggregate of jīvas, or a magnified mayin, and the world

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is nothing but a magician's show. He is the arch-illusionist, or the first figment of the world-fiction that emanates as the logos and the cosmic collectivity of the counterfeit selves made of the atomic avidya. What the arch-illusionist does on a cosmic scale is repeated in the inner psychic show. By negating the false, we affirm the absolute. On this view, Is'vara appears first as the absolute; then He becomes a con- tradiction and a cosmic show and finally vanishes in the absolute. (4) The fourth theory is a variety of monism which rejects the ultimate reality of saguna Brahman and, at the same time, refuses to accept the full cosmological and ethical implications of the illusion theory and is there- fore midway between the illusion theory and bhedābheda. By employing the devastating dialectics of Buddhism and Bradley, it brings out the self-contradiction in the relation between the personal god of upāsanā or religion and the absolute of philosophy or jñāna. In the religious or theistic consciousness, an element of negation enters into the absolute and causes a collision between existence and content. The finite self is over against God and yet there is a perfect unity between the two. The personal god thus becomes the crown of self-contradiction and this discrepancy is removed only when god passes beyond himself and is absorbed in the absolute. Is'vara is the logical highest entangled in relational thought and subject-object opposition. Though He can control māya and triumph over error and evil and thus be regarded as supra-personal, he is still a person (purușa vis'eșa) related to other beings and limited by them, and is therefore finite. His omniscience and omnipresence are clothed in space-time and belong to the bad infinite. Omniscience is only nescience on a cosmic scale and omnipotence is endless- ness and not infinity. The idea of a personal god as a

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concrete infinite is only a concession to anthropomorphism and is therefore a realistic defection of the true infinite. The metaphysical real is clothed in space-time to satisfy the theistic demands of meditation. In certain modern expositions of S'ankara and Rāmānuja, it is contended that, while Ramanuja thinks of reality as the logical highest, S'ankara goes beyond relational thought and regards reality as the intuitional highest. While Rāmānuja and Hegel are held to rise to the idea of saguna Brahman as the highest synthesis of thought, S'ankara realises the self-contradictions of the finite-infinite and the pluralising tendency of the logical intellect and insists on transcending it by the intuition of the indeterminate. In this integral and non-dual experience the world-consciousness alone is denied and not the world itself. In combating the doctrine of illusion and illusion-ridden Is'vara in extenso, Bhāskara repudiates the distinction between the indeterminate and the determinate, the intuitional highest and the logical highest and the metaphysical real and the meditational real. Predication is an affirmation of reality and not its perversion. Negation itself is a form of determi- nation. But if we adopt the Madhyamika logic, then we cannot resist its conclusion of the nothingness of things. God is not an idea or an ideal but is a real reality that is transfinite. A finite god is no god at all. He is the absolute or the true infinite that is the informing spirit in all things. The infinite is revealed in and through the finite and the finite is revealed in and through the infinite, and yet the infinite is more real than the finite self or all the finite selves taken together. Brahman has infinite perfections and though it evolves itself into the universe it still exceeds its content. It is not quite accurate to identify Rāmānuja's system with the dialectic process of Hegel. While Hegel thinks that the

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concrete universal logically becomes the world process, Rāmānuja insists on vairāgya and the spiritual attainment of Brahman by going beyond the historic process of samsāra. The absolute of Hegel has more affinities with the Brahman of bhedābhedavāda than with that of Visistadvaita. In an Advaitic interpretation of Bhāskara, a distinction is drawn between the intuition of the indeterminate or the nirguna Brahman and the self-intuition of the concrete infinite. Bhäskara, on this view, does not explicitly refer to the indeterminate beyond the infinite and the finite, but the idea is implicitly contained in his teaching of ekībhava. But this view is not plausible as Bhäskara does not affirm that there is an indeterminate which expresses itself dialectically as the infinite and the finite. On the other hand, his whole teaching is a criticism of the distinction between nirguna Brahman and saguna Brahman. Likewise he does not favour the theistic view of eternal distinctions. The absolute is not God and the world but God-and-the-world.

THE THEORY OF UPĀDHIS

Upadhi is the finitising process of the infinite. Brabman who is absolutely free, pure and perfect enters into the finite and differentiates itself into the manifold of jivas and sustains them. There are undoubted monistic texts which establish the unity of the finite and the infinite, like those cited on pages 14 and 15; other texts establish the difference between the two; and the essential non-difference in the state of release is affirmed by the Mund. Up.1 Then all distinctions are resolved and absorbed in the absolute. Thus this one-many ' yathā nadyaḥ syandamānāḥ samudre astam gacchanti nāmarūpe vihāya 1 tathā vidvān puņyapāpād vimuktah parātparam puruşam upaiti divyam. [Muņd. Up., III. ii, 8.] sa yo ha vai tatparam brahma veda brahmaiva bhavati [Mupd. Up., IV. ii. 9.]

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relation is not a logical or empirical category in which the infinite is reduced to the level of the finite by the empiri- cal consciousness but is an absolute spiritual truth affirmed by the S'ruti. Is'vara is not a logical version of Brahman subject to the space-time relations of samsāra, but the Supreme Self possessed of all metaphysical and moral powers and perfections. The distinction between the intuition of the indeterminate and the conceptual Isvara is a mere negative account which creates a yawning gulf between logic and intuition. Isvara by His own pariņāma sakti becomes the finite self and sustains its being. This sakti is something like the absolute of Fichte which posits itself by differentiation into the finite self, which thus becomes its other or opposite. But this impediment or obstacle is not a negative element of the absolute but is its real expression. The idea of Is'vara becoming the finite does not involve the contradiction of being and non-being or the finite-infinite nature sublated by a super-logical experience of the indeterminate. The jīva is not a historical self opposed to the absolute of metaphysics. Jiva and Isvara are not opposite but distinct, and relatedness is a real factor of reality and is opposed to the ideas of co- existence and contradiction. Bhäskara thus establishes the reality of unity as well as of multiplicity. The foundation of this truth is in the theory of the upādhis based on the S'ruti and formulated in the Sūtras, Brahman has the power to become the finite self and finally to absorb it within itself. The subject-object relation is not a seeming show superimposed on reality but is a concrete expression of the self-revealing nature of God. The eternal never changes but the finite self is a spark of the absolute and is conditioned by ignorance and evil which impede the knowledge of its infinity. Its activity arises from the sense of

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false identity with empirical life which is a complex of avidyā, kāma, karma, and sarīrendriya. Upādhi or the principle of individuation and embodiment is a psycho-physical process which distorts the one and divides it into the many and it is the body consciousness and not matter as such that accounts for the sense of particularity and imperfection. The upādhi is a complex of logical, moral and aesthetic limitations. The jiva is essentially the supreme shining self (param jyotis), and, when it attains the state of oneness with the absolute, the whole finitising process comes to an end. But, owing to avidyā, the jiva in the empirical state identifies itself with the psycho-physical process and becomes the historical self that wanders in the world of samsara. The moral imper- fections arising from this false identity account for the desires that the jiva has for the pleasures of sensibility and for its endeavours to realise them. Ignorance and empirical desires get concretised into the sarira composed of mental and material factors. The s'arīra is constituted by the five prānas, the eleven sense-organs including manas, buddhi and the five gross elements. The whole forms the sthūla sarira and the first seventeen alone form the sūksma sarira. Each of these factors has its own functions. Buddhi or self-consciousness is not, as the Sānkhya says, the reflection of purusa in pra- krti, but is an essential quality of the self. It remains as a mere possibility (anabhivyakta) in the states of sleep and pralaya and becomes manifest (abhivyakta) in the waking state and in the creational process, like the development of manhood from infancy. Manas is the psychical factor which conditions consciousness, and, if it is withdrawn from the object, knowledge itself becomes impossible. It is on account of manas, as the Vaisesika says, that we are not conscious of many things at the same time. The five prānas, including

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the mukhya, preserve the vitality of the body as illustrated by the Chandogya story of the body and its members. The prana functions in five ways with a view to maintaining the organic functions. The indriyas are really eleven including manas and the ten cognitive and conative senses and are not seven, made up of the five senses, speech and manas. Owing to the reality of utkranti or migration, these functions are atomic and individuating and not all-pervading and universal as the Sānkhya says. Each karana or sense-organ has its own presiding deity which enables it to perform its function. The god of fire for example presides over speech. All these physical and mental changes constitute the upādhis, and the jīva is the svamin or the lord that controls and utilises the apparatus and experiences the joys and sorrows of empirical life; the self wanders in the world of samsāra, and gets implicated in its evils, errors and other imperfections. The whole finitising process is a long story and its origin and working are ultimately unaccountable. How the infinite and perfect becomes the finite and imperfect is an ultimate mystery frankly recognised by all philosophers. While the Māyāvādin describes it empirically, defines its indefinability and ultimately denies it altogether, and while the theist explains it in terms of external relations, Bhāskara in his monistic scheme of bhedābheda tries to reconcile the claims of both absolute monism and theism and regards it as the only theory that is supported by the Sūtras and satisfies all philosophical and spiritual needs. While in the realm of nature, the irradiation of the one reaches the level of matter, mystically the soul ascends to and is absorbed in the absolute good. Then the upadhis which are adventitious and transient, disappear and the jīva is in the natural or svābhavika state of eternal oneness with Brahman.

CHAPTER VI

BHSKARA'S PSYCHOLOGY

THE NATURE OF THE FINITE SELF

PSYCHOLOGY is deduced from metaphysics and religion and it adopts the introspective method based on the light of reason and spiritual insight. In self-consciousness there is a spiritual intuition of the pure ego as distinct from the empiri- cal ego and it refers ultimately to the absolute or the un- conditioned. In his Bhásya on Sūtra II. iii. 43, Bhāskara determines the exact meaning of the relation between Brah- man and the finite self as expressed by the term ' amsa).' The Māyāvādin regards it as an appearance of the absolute riddled with contradictions and as a projection of cosmic illusion. It is not amsa but amsa iva or part as it were. Rāmānuja explains amsa as a prakāra or organ of the absolute (aprthak-siddha-visesana) which is both a monad and mode. Bhäskara generally rejects both these extreme theories of monism, abstract and concrete, and establishes his own theory of bhedabheda. It reconciles abheda texts like 'Thou art That' and bheda texts like ' the two unborn ones,' which are equally valid. The term 'amsa' is employed in three senses. It may connote (1) the relation of the cause to its effect as when thread is explained as an ams'a or component

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of cloth; (2) a share in property to be divided; or, as in this context, (3) the principle of self-differentiation through upādhi 1. The jiva as an amsa is, according to Bhāskara, a frag- ment or self-limitation of reality, and is therefore neither absolutely different from God (atyantabhinna) nor absolutely identical with Him (aikya) '. As the sparks are to the fire, the five-fold pranas to air, and the coil is to serpent,3 the jiva is related to Brahman both as bhinna and abhinna. Like the rays of the sun, the finite self is a radiation of the supreme self which is the source and centre of consciousness. The infinite posits itself and becomes the other and is there- fore both the subject and the object of all experience. Like the akasa that is enclosed in a jar, the all-pervading Brahman breaks itself, as it were, against the upādhis and becomes the finite centre of experience. When Is'vara thus becomes immanent in the finite self, He becomes the lord who thinks all things and is the ultimate subject of all experience. Yādava, like Bhāskara, insists on the many-one-ness of reality by preserving the integrity of both the elements and avoiding their dualism; but he is not able to free the infinite from the imperfections of the finite. Bhaskara avoids this pantheistic peril by predicating transcendence to Brahman. The im- mortal bliss of Brahman is beyond the world of conditions 1 and the finite itself is, as the Bhagavad Gītā says, a fragment of the infinite' and, while the amsa or the divided self is

[II. iii. 43.] 1 " upādhyavacchinasya ananya bhūtasya vācakoyam ams'a s'abdaḥ."

2 sa ca bhinnābhinna svarūpah abhinnarūpam svābhāvikam aupādhikam tu bhinnarūpam. [II. iii. 43]. 8 III. ii. 27. This analogy is often utilized by the Bhedābhedavādin to illustrate the relation between Brahman and cit and acit. 4 pādosya vis'vā bhūtāni tripād asyāmrtam divi-Puruşasūkta. 3 mamaivāms'o jivaloke. (B. G., xv. 7).

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caught up in the meshes of samsāra, Brahman, the amsin, is absolutely free from all evils and imperfections. The finite self has, according to Bhäskara, an atomic and monadic nature and abides in its own separate being.' Finite- ness or jīvatva is a defect or deprivation (aupādhika) in the jīva. The spiritual, though essentially infinite and uncondi- tioned, is, owing to the upādhis or the physical and psychical conditions, spatialised, and thus becomes the subject of measurement and enumeration. The body, the brahmapura or the temple of God with the five prānas, manas, buddhi, and ahankara, is really a prison-house of the infinite. The formless and supreme self now acquires a spatial and tem- poral setting and is capable of quantitative measurement. It is this idea of atomic individuality (ārāgāmātra and not mahat) that accounts for the endless historic process of the jīva involving the spatial ideas of exit and entrance (gati) and limits its own innate and real infinity. When the formless one creates bodily forms suited to its karma, it enters into and pervades them like a perfume or like light and experiences their pleasures and pains. The association of the absolute with its adjuncts is governed by the moral law of karma, which is an endless stream of cause and effect on the moral level and is ultimately unaccountable. Though beginningless, it has an end; and, when the jiva realises the perils of particularity and samsāratva, it dissociates itself from the upādhis, and, when these are gradually dissolved, it returns to its home in the absolute and attains its undivided unity. The Bhedābhedavādin finds no difficulty in expounding the Sūtras relating to the qualities of the jiva and in determining their exact nature. The soul is eternal and 1 II. iii. 19.

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immutable and is therefore neither produced nor destroyed. Mortality and movement apply only to the body and not to the self which is unborn, immortal and eternal (aja, nitya, and sās'vata). No Vedāntin accepts the Cārvāka view that the self is an epi-phenomenon or a bye-product of matter. Unthinking atoms and brain storms can never produce the soul and its sensations. Likewise the Buddhistic theory that the self is a mere perishing psychic series is entirely false. A stream of thought cannot strive for its own cessation or nirvana. The process of thought presupposes the thought of the process and the thinker as its foundational reality. The subject is present in all states but is not exhausted by them. Bhāskara criticises the Pāñcarātra account of the origination of the jiva from the Supreme. The Upanisadic text, Mund. Up. II. i. 1, which employs the visphulinga nyāya or the analogy of fire and sparks, in no way supports the theory of origins, but only refers, according to Bhāskara, to the limiting adjuncts by which the infinite becomes finite and fragmentary. Brahman by its own intrinsic nature externalises itself into the world of finite things. Divine causality is both efficient and phenomenal (kāraņa and kārya). The former refers to Brahman as the uncaused cause which exists by itself as the centre and source of all beings; but the latter connotes the phenomenal reality of the finite self which persists in all its changes. The jiva, as a thinker, is both self-conscious and conscious of external objects. Just as fire cannot burn itself, no idea can be its own illumination with- out presupposing the subject-object consciousness. Bhāskara distinguishes between the unconditioned 'I' and the condi- tioned 'I'. The former is one with Brahman in the state of mukti. The latter is the jiva associated with the psycho- physical organism (upādhi) consisting of material, vital and

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mental factors which persist in the whole process of samsāra, either potentially or actually, till the attainment of uncondi- tioned bliss. This upādhi is a complex of logical (avidyā), moral (karma), and aesthetic (kāma) limitations and accounts for the three states of the jiva known as cognition, conation, and feeling. The jiva has the qualities of cognition or jnatrtva, activity or kartrtva, and feeling or bhoktrtva, and the account of each of these qualities given by Bhäskara may now be briefly outlined.' Even the ordinary judgment 'I saw this' (aham idam adarsam) testifies to the persistence of the conscious self. The 'I' persists in all the cognitions as their pervading identity. The phenomena of recognition and retenitveness testify to the self abiding in all its states. The sub-conscious and the unconscious states are continuous with the waking state. The content of the self extends beyond the present and there is no temporal gap in its continuity nor the possibility of its abolition. Consciousness is the essence of the self and it is the consciousness of something. The Vaiseșika account of the abolition of consciousness in mukti reduces the self to the state of a stone (pāsāna). The Buddhistic idea of the self as a mere series without any substantiality is as one-sided and abstract as the Māyāvādin's account of the absolute without any connection of content. The only way of avoiding this abstraction consists in affirming the reality of both substance and quality, or the subject-object relation. There can be no substance apart from qualities. Bhäskara is aware of the distinction between a Vedantic truth deduced from the S'ruti and an empirical category derived from common-sense as an analogical explana- tion of the truth. Substance is the source and centre of its 1 upādhīnām ca balavattvāt sammūrchitah tanmayah samsarati. [II. iii. 43.]

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qualitative differences and cannot be identified with them and, even in our ordinary experience, it is the substratum that supports qualities. It is identity alone that changes and explains the changes. But quality is nowhere perceived to be a contradiction of substance. In the dialectic of distincts the subject of consciousness differs from its object and conscious- ness is destroyed with the destruction of this difference. Transcending triputi and relational consciousness is like burying one's own shadow. If the self-identity of the finite self that persists amidst all changes reduces reality to an abstract monadism, the conception of the absolute and its appearances or apparitions is equally abstract and futile. Though Bhaskara has a genius for controversy, he realises the futility of logic in discovering spiritual truths, and, relying upon S'ruti as the absolute authority for knowing Brahman, deduces a relation of dharma and dharmin as the only possible satisfactory explanation of reality. Bhaskara predicates the freedom of will to the finite self.1 If the self has no freedom and responsibility (kartrtva), then all Vedic and Vedāntic imperatives, like srotavyah, mantavyah and nididhyāsitavyah, would have no meaning or purpose. The very fact of the jiva seeking new bodies and wandering from world to world proves its volitional nature. The choice between the beneficial and the injurious is due to this moral freedom. The Sankhya idea of a passive self or indifferent spectator fails to explain the reality of moral endeavour; it is the witness that witnesses nothing. As the self alone is the subject of moral experience, the attribution of agency to buddhi which is the reflection of purusa gives an air of unreality to the moral life. Buddhi or self-conscious- ness only serves as a tool of the jiva and is not the 1 II. iii. 33.

BHÄSKARA'S PSYCHOLOGY 79

jiva itself. But the freedom of the self by which the jiva seeks the fetters of karma and experiences its pleasures and pains is only adventitious and not essential. If the upādhi is essential and eternal, there would be no chance of freedom or mukti. This, however, does not mean that it is apāramār- thika or unreal. Freedom is not a fiction due to nescience but is reality in its aspect of conditionateness. The affective side of consciousness known as hhokrtva or kama relates to the nature of desire and its satisfaction. Owing to its identity with the empirical conditions, the jiva seeks the pleasures of sensibility and thus subjects itself to the woes of samsāra. But when this same desire is transformed into a longing for mukti, the jiva attains immortal bliss. We may here summarise the account of abnormal psy- chology given by the Sūtras as explained by Bhāskara.' Dreams are subjective experiences arising from the memory of the past stored up in the psychic apparatus, and therefore devoid of objective reality. They belong to the world of the sub-conscious, in which suppressed desires seek satisfaction in wild and fantastic ways. The Lord creates the cosmic and the objective order. But the jiva alone is responsible for the psychic stuff that is presented in the dream world. The objects presented in dreams are the creations of the finite self, conditioned by the upadhis. Being only a fragment of the infinite, the jiva has not the power to create and control the cosmos. While the objects presented in dreams are false, the dream experience itself is real and is continnous with the other states of consciousness. But the Māyāvādin says that they are false (apāramārthika) as they are sublated by the reality given in the waking consciousness. He distinguishes between existence and reality and rejects the reality of 1 III. iii. 2-10.

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dreams though they subsist and are real. Rāmānuja rejects this distinction, asserts the reality of all experiences and ascribes the dream consciousness to the moral law of God who distributes rewards and punishments according to individual desert. But Bhāskara repudiates the metaphysical theory of contradiction and the moral law of karma and explains every experience in terms of causality. Brahman is the absolute will which conditions all things and the jīva obscured bv ajñāna and karma creates its own world of dreams, and, while the dreams are false, the dreamer shines for ever like a spark of the supreme consciousness. During deep sleep the jīva enters into what is known as the purīta nādi in the heart, and returns to its home in the absolute, for temporary rest. Sleep is not cosmic nescience in its causal state nor discontinuity of personality. The three states of the mind, the conscious, the sub-conscious and the uncon- scious, form a totality and the gap or disruption is more apparent than real. Personal identity is proved by the con- tinuity of consciousness and the moral order which provides for the unity of the doer, the deed and the consequences. In the state of swooning there is life, but no consciousness. It is different from the states of waking, dream and sleep and is midway between life and death. In all these psychic levels which are the crests and depths of consciousness, the self abides in its being but in different degrees of condi- tionateness. Bhäskara arrives at his theory of the finite self by reject- ing the claims of rival theories. The Cārvāka view that the self is made by the grouping of cells and sensations is absolute- ly untenable. Man is not a mechanism or a whole of indifferent parts. To the Buddhist, whether he is a realist or an idealist, the self is only a skandha or a psycho-physical

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series without any substantiality (avastu) and freedom or nirvāna consists in the destruction of these series (samskāra- kşaya). The idea of personality as a mere perishing presentation fails to explain the persistence of ideas in memory and retentiveness (anusmrti) and also personal identity. The sanghāta as a mere aggregate lacks the inner power of synthetic unity and continuity. The cognitive self is more than a colony or confluence of mental states. The self is really presupposed in every experience and no one ever says 'I am not' (aham na asmi). The experiencer, therefore, cannot be explained away as a mere experience, and the whole theory of conduct as a continuity of deeds without a doer contradicts itself and falls to the ground. The Jaina theory of the soul having the size of the body (ātmā s'arīraparimānah) is self-contradictory. The jīva is an im- material spirit and does not admit of measurement (niravayava). How can the human soul contract into the body of the ant and expand into the size of the elephant ? Besides, this view of the Jainas contradicts their other theory of the relativity of knowledge and truth. If that is true, then we have to say that this parināma is partially true and partially false. If the jiva in the essential digambara state of eternal freedom, is all-pervasive then how can it be subject to the modifications of contraction and expansion ? The Sānkhya purușa as a silent, solitary seer sees nothing and seeks nothing. If it is eternal and immutable and has no qualities of its own, then the ideas of bandha and moksa have no meaning at all. But the Sānkhya explains rationality, activity and bliss as the products of prakrti arising from its proximity to purusa or reflection therein. But mere proximity can never move the immovable. It is Paramesvara alone that, by his parināma sakti, emanates into purușa and 6

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prakrti and energises them. The unconditioned confines itself within the bounds of individuality owing to the contracting tendencies of avidyā and karma. The Vaisēșika account is pluralistic and deistic and is equally unconvincing. It asserts the eternal and all-pervading character of the soul, the atomicity of the manas (mind), and the abolition of con- sciousness in the condition of mukti. But the connection of an all-pervading soul with the atomic mind is unthinkable. If the soul is really all-pervading, it should occupy all bodies and have the experience of all. Consciousness is the essential nature of the self and therefore cannot be eliminated. Rāmānuja reverses the position and says that the jiva is finite and atomic, but that its essential quality (dharmabhūta jñāna) is all-pervasive. The Pāñcarātra doctrine of the origination of jīva is opposed to the Vedāntic view of its eternity. The Māyāvādin attributes jīvatva to the false reflection of the ātman in avidyā (ābhāsa pratilinga). Its atomicity is only a metaphor and has no metaphysical reality. The self is hypostatised by buddhi or the adjunct of avidyā. When this reflection is removed, the Absolute abides as the one without a second. Abhasa is either real or unreal; owing to the perverting medium the absolute must be presumed to cast its own shadow; then there is no possibility or need for mukti. If Brahman is really one, then what one man does would be experienced by others as well (sarva karma sānkarya) and the uniqueness of personal experience would be left unexplained. But the theory of the upādhis is free from all these defects. It provides for the reality of experience, recognises the self-identity of the jiva and its numerical distinctness and affirms its ultimate unity with the absolute. The Brahma Sūtras (I. iv. 20-22) discuss the relation between jiva and Brahman and determine its exact

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nature. Asmarathya holds the view that the jiva is not altogether different from Brahman; there is some essential difference between them in spite of their pervading identity and his view is identified with the bhedābheda theory of Yādavaprakās'a.1 Audulomi, on the other hand, admits the absolute difference between the jiva and Brahman, but asserts their unity when the jiva attains mukti, on the authority of the Mund. text III. ii. 8.' The Sūtrakāra, however, approves of neither of these views and cites Kāsakrtsna in support of his own siddhānta which, according to Bhäskara, is that, even in the state of bondage, it is the absolute itself that exists as the jiva owing to conditionateness or the upādhis; and Bhāskara cites in support of this the Ch. text,' " I shall enter these elements as the jiva and differentiate myself into names and forms." The jīva is in a bhedābheda relation with Brahman in the state of bondage and is in the abheda state in mukti. The other Vedāntins, however, interpret Kasakrstna's view in their own way.

1 S'rutaprakāsika, I. iv. 20. 1 See p. 69. 3 aham imāh tisro devatāh anena jivena ātmanā anupravis'ya nāmarūpe vyākaravāņi. [Ch. Up., VI. iii. 2].

CHAPTER VII

THE ETHICS OF BHĀSKARA

THE ethics of Bhaskara deals with the moral and spiritual methods by which the jiva frees itself from the trammels of the upadhis and becomes the infinite. The Indian philo- sopher, with his synoptic insight into the soul of things, does not make any hard and fast distinction between the different departments of knowledge like metaphysics, psychology, ethics and religion. He is more interested in the synthetic grasp of the underlying principles of all knowledge than in the analytic method of discovering distinctions, though, in the classification of knowledge, he reveals acute analytic genius. The result is a fusion of all sciences and disciplines into a single comprehensive scheme of inter-related parts, Vedāntic ethics does not know the absolute distinction between mere morality and religion and the antagonism between the two that results therefrom. Consequently, while we deal with moral freedom and the nature of duty and virtue, the study of their ultimate bearings on the immortality of the soul and its relation with God becomes inevitable. In Chap- ters II and III of the Sūtras, Bādarāyana examines the Upanisadic truths relating to the moral ideals of self-purifi- cation and self-renunciation. The central idea of Bhāskara's ethics is contained in the suggestive term jñāna-karma- samuccaya or co-ordination of knowledge and duty.' The

1 III. iv. 26. atra hi jñāna-karma samuccayāt mokşaprāptih sūtrakārasya abhipreta. [I. i. 1. p. 2.]

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science of karma or duty does not satisfy the spiritual craving for God. The philosophic life of meditation often lapses into excessive asceticism and abstractionism. The Mīmāmsaka insists on karma or duty and explains away the value of jñāna or knowledge as mere arthavāda. The Advaitin goes to the other extreme and abandons karma ultimately on the ground that the monistic intuition of identity is opposed to ethical dualism. Rāmānuja subordinates karma to the needs of jñāna and bhakti. But the Bhedābhedavādin is entirely opposed to all one-sided theories and is interested in the philosophy of the meeting of the extremes. Karma is neither subordinated to jñāna nor sublated by it. Karma and jñāna are the two wings of spiritual aspiration and attainment, and the theories of con- tradiction and subordination should therefore be rejected and replaced by the theory of co-ordination or jñāna-karma- samuccaya. Before considering this main question, Bhāskara points out the imperative need for the desire for release or mumuk- sutva and renunciation or vairgya. Owing to the confusions of avidyā and the relentless rigour of the law of karma, the jīva is caught up in the meshes of samsara and the endless series of births and deaths. Death dissolves the physical body and the good soul which follows the path of duty ascends with its psychic apparatus to the world of the devas and slavishly ministers to their pleasures,' and, when its good deeds are spent, it is hurled down once again into the world of activity. The next birth is determined by the moral tendencies for good or evil (sīla, ācāra) of the jīva, stored up in the psychic apparatus. The souls that are not fit for the two mārgas, viz., the arcirādimārga or pathway to perfection and dhūmādimārga or way of the manes, are 1 yathã pas'ur evam sa devănām. (Br. Up., I. iv. 10.]

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born here as birds, insects, and creeping things without going to any other world.' The process of ascent and descent (āroha and avaroha) is an endless cycle of avidyā and karma and, when a man reflects on the woes of samsara and the waste of soul-life, he realises the impermanence of empirical experience and longs for emancipation. The mumuksu then renounces the changing values of sensibility in svarga as well as in this life and longs to go back to his home in the absolute.2 Evil physically implies suffering, morally the violation of the Vedic ' ought' and metaphysically the sense of individuation which the infinite has but ought not to have. The Māyāvādin, relying on the method of mere knowledge without action (kevalādevajñānān-muktih karma nirapek- satvāt), contends that mumuksutva or longing for release is a mere negative method and that mukti is nothing but the direct intuition of the absolute. Karma is, in his view, opposed to jñāna and sublated by it, and the immediate apprehension of Brahman (Brahmajñāna) entirely excludes the idea of aspiration and attainment. Vedic injunctions can never apply to the Vedantic eternal which is ever existent. Karma or activity has four principal objects, namely, origination, modifi- cation, purification and achievement (utpādya, vikārya, sams- karya and prapya) and none of these can apply to Brahman. The idea of origination cannot be predicated of Brahman as it is eternal, and the ideas of mutation, modification and be- coming are incompatible with the immutability of Brahman; nor can the perfection of Brahman admit of purification (samskāra) or achievement. Morality is an endless process and therefore betrays an inner discrepancy. Good and evil are relative and the absolute transcends these distinctions

' Ch. Up., V. x. 4-8 and Br. Up., VI. ii. 16. ' Mupd., Up., I. ii. 10-12.

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and is amoral. In reply to this argument, Bhāskara points out that, though Brahman cannot be an object of origination, modification or purification, there is nothing against its being an object of achievement. If Brahman is really the indeterminate absolute that is ever self-realised (nitya prāpta), then reality is bare being identical with itself. Brahman is and māyā is not and there is no need for moral progress and spiritual release and realisation. If the self is eternally true and free, the striving for salvation becomes a mere make-believe and myth. Mukti is being and becoming Brahman. Becoming is not a contradiction or negation of being. The return to Brahman is therefore a real historic process including moral aspiration as well as spiritual attainment. The freedom of the moral self is the essential condition of mumuksutva or longing for release. If freedom is denied, the Vedic and Vedāntic imperatives of duty like yajeta (sacrifice) and upāsīta (meditate) would lose all their meaning and value. Personal effort (purusa prayatna) involves the self-directive activity of the jiva and consists in the attainment of sovereignty over the sensitive self. Prayatna is known in various ways as dharma, vidhi, apūrva, codanā and bhāvanā. But it is not to be identified with the niyoga of the Mimamsakas. They no doubt insist on the absolute value of Vedic duties; but their theory of apūrva, as an unseen moral agency, makes morality a mere mechanical process. The doctrine of niyoga has no scriptural or rational foundation. It does not conduce to the reign of justice and the apportionment of merit according to desert. It entirely ignores the moral and spiritual order of the universe. Bādarāyana therefore reconstructs the theory by substituting the idea of niyantrtva or lordship of Brahman for the niyoga of karma. The moral order is rooted in Is'vara and not in

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karma. Is'vara alone constitutes and controls the moral law. The theory of the Mayavadin that the will of Iswvara involves relatedness and contradiction and makes him a victim of the illusory process provides no scope or hope for spiritual realisation. S'ruti is not aware of the divine perfections like omniscience and omnipotence being perverted by māyā. They do not conceal the nature of Brahman as the all-self but reveal His glory and goodness. But the crux of the moral situation is in the relation between divine determinism and individual freedom. The Kauşītaki Upanișad tells us that Iswvara elevates some beings, urges them to good deeds and makes them happy, but prompts others to resort to evil and then punishes them with hellish pains. This would apparently predicate caprice and cruelty to the divine nature. But the Sūtras dispel this notion by the idea of the freedom of God functioning through the moral mechanism of karma. Is'vara is absolutely free from all imperfections like partiality (vaișamya) or cruelty (nair- ghrnya).1 The former arises from desire (raga), hatred (dvesa) and confusion (moha), and the latter results from anger and violence (krūrabāhva and candatā) ; but Brahman is eternally pure and perfect. The divine will works through the will of the finite self (prānikarma sāpeksa) and is conditioned by moral necessity. Divine law consists in the apportionment of rewards and punishments according to individual merit and qualification (adhikāri bheda). The rain that causes different seeds to sprout and grow is one and the same, but the varieties of plants and their variations in growth are entirely due to their own individual nature. The former is the remote cause, and the latter the immediate cause. In the same way the divine law of righteousness 1 II. i. 33.

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and love pervades the whole moral realm and its operation is conditioned by individual freedom. Righteousness is really the redemptive power of intellectual love and the freedom of the self consists in responding to this love and receiving the summons of the infinite. The imperfections of the finite self or amsa do not touch the infinite, the amsin. Paramātmā is eternally pure and free and is, like the water in the lotus, untainted by samsāra, though he is associated with it. The amsin who is unconditioned and pure, legislates for the amsa and transfigures it. The reflection of the sun in water is conditioned by the medium and is therefore curved and confused. But the light is really unaffected and pure. The fire is one; but it consumes the sacrificial fuel as well as filth. The purity of the Ganges is not affected by any pollution or impurities. In the same way Brahman is pure and perfect. The moral distinctions of good and evil, pleasure and pain, arise only from the upādhis and do not infect its nature. The supreme end of man consists in the apprehension and attainment of Brahman by abandoning the transitory values of finitude. Brahman is metaphysically the source and centre of the finite self. The aim of moral and spiritual endeavour lies in knowing Brahman, who is the supreme ground of all existence and the goal of all experience. The finite self overcomes and transcends this limitation of finitude and expands into the infinite. In other words it is the reversal of the finitising process of the infinite and involves spiritual activity (karma) as well as knowledge (jñāna). Vidyā or jñāna is knowledge of the undivided self in which the finite "I" becomes the absolute " I " and karma is a process of purification by which the self abandons the fleeting pleasures of sensibility and transcends the planes of thought.

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The Mimamsaka lays stress on the performance of duty. The Māyāvādin insists on the immediate knowledge of Brahman here and now, in which the dualism between the jīva and Brahman is dissolved. Whatever is made or modified is false and fictitious and therefore mukti is an intuition and not a consummation. Bhäskara criticises both these extreme views of ritualism and rationalism and adopts the theory of the golden mean. The Mīmamsaka regards the Karma Kānda as the goal of life and explains away the Jñāna Kānda as a subsidiary and indirect discipline. He holds that the knowledge of ātman reveals the true nature of duty and is therefore only a means to it (anga). While ātmajñāna is intended for the weak who cannot stand the stress and strenuousness of active life (daur- balya), the Vedic imperative or karmānușthāna is a universal and necessary law which applies to all normal beings. The Veda insists on the performance of duty as the only end of life; whatever refers to action is the purport of the Veda and whatever does not refer to action is purportless. Life is essentially an activity rooted in will; all consciousness is conational; even the meditation of nirguna Brahman is an ideo-motor activity. But the most important element in work is endeavour and not the attainment of end. All Vedic judg- ments like ' Do the sacrifice ' (yajeta) are imperatives of duty which can never be abandoned. The categorical statements like 'He who attains Brahman attains the highest' are only arthavādas whose object is to produce a moral effect by an exaggerated appeal to emotions. As a matter of fact, even categorical statements are only imperatives in a disguised form and are subservient to them. When we say " Caitra goes there," we really mean an imperative like " See Caitra going there." The proposition "This is a rope and not a

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snake " means ' Do not be afraid as this is only a rope." It is for this reason that the Bhagavad Gītā refers to Janaka, the Karmayogin, as the moral exemplar. The Mīmāmsaka maintains that Vedic texts refer to karma or activity generat- ing an unseen agency known as apūrva or niyoga and thus explains the moral process by which men reap the benefits of their activity. Therefore the Vedantic idea of deity should give place to the Vedic ideal of duty, and the enquiry into Brahman is only a means to the enquiry into karma. But the Vedäntin sets aside the whole contention of the Mīmāmsaka and reverses the values of karma and jñāna. The S'āstra consists of Karma Kānda and Jñāna Kānda and the two are organically united into a single whole. Nowhere does it insist upon the distinction between activity and the affirmation of truth and create a gap between the two (kārya- paravākya and siddhaparavākya). Every judgment, whether it is imperative or assertive, has a certain relevancy or end in view (prayojana) and both the Karma Kānda and the Jñāna Kānda have a definite purpose. While the former regards the end of conduct as the attainment of svarga, the latter refers to the attainment of apavarga or moksa as the supreme end of life. The moral 'ought' is based on the spiritual ' is.' Even in ordinary language, imperative sentences ultimately affirm reality. In the given example ' This is a rope and not a snake' the idea of the rope refers to reality (tatvāvabodha) and it is this affirmation that removes the fear and not the mere injunction, expressed or implied. The Mīmāmsaka's argument, that categorical statement like " This is a rope and not a snake" are not complete till the implied action is understood, would apply equally in the case of imperatives, as the command " come here " is similarly incomplete till its special relevancy is understood. The arguments employed

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in the Mīmāmsa Bhāsya have a categorical basis and their value depends on conviction based on sound reasoning and not on mere commands or imperatives. Besides, even the imperative sentence "Bring the cow," has an implied connec- tion with reality and relevance. The Mimamsaka contention that only sentences as significant syntactic wholes have meaning is therefore baseless. The Dhyananiyogavādin accepts the principles of the Mīmāmsaka that imperatives are direct and absolute, while assertive statements have only an indirect and lower value and that the practice of Vedic injunctions produces an unseen agency known as niyoga, but seeks to justify the Vedāntic position by turning the tables on the Mīmāmsaka and holding that kurma subserves the value of jñana and is subordinate to it. According to him too, the Karma Kānda is binding on all, but while the karma prescribed therein has a direct (ānvayika) effect on the ordinary man, it has only an indirect effect (prāsangika) on the uttamādhikārin by removing his evil tendencies (vāsanā) and developing his virtuous disposi- tion. The Upanişadic injunctions ātmā drastavyah, srotavyah, mantavyah, nididhyāsītavyah referring to reflecting and medi- tating on the self and realizing it mark the stages of progres- sive self-realization for the uttamādhikārin; the immediate is thus mediated. These actions, like the actions prescribed in the Karma Kānda in the case of the worldly man, produce a niyoga. Thus the Upanisadic texts have full meaning as they also enjoin an action or meditation. Indeed they alone are the really valuable part of the Veda, and the whole of the Karma Kānda merely prescribes a subsidiary discipline for attaining the position of the uttamadhikarin. When the Karma Kända is used for attaining worldly ends, it is really a misuse of it like the performance of syena and other acts

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intended to kill others, which, though prescribed in the scriptures, are intended only for the sinner who is prone to transgress the injunction " Thou shalt not kill." Bhäskara sets aside the whole of this argument as having no basis in revelation. The sruti nowhere makes any distinc- tion between the uttamādhikārin and others. Karma is either nitya (obligatory) like sandhyopāsanā, naimittika (occasional) or kāmya (optional) like jyotistoma. To posit a separate category of fitness (yogyatva) in a matter inaccessible to reason violates the rules of Revelation. The analogy of direct and indirect results drawn from sense-perception should not be applied to super-sensuous and spiritual truths.' Simi- larly there is no warrant for the theory of a niyoga either in the Mīmāmsā Bhāsya or in the S'ārīraka Sūtras.' Besides if the Upanișads are to be interpreted as injunctions (kārya- para) only, i.e., as prescribing nididhyāsanā of the self, all other passages being understood to be merely explanatory or glorificatory (arthavāda), the texts about the apprehension of Brahman would have no value. On the other hand, if these texts are given full value, the rule about imperatives alone having direct meaning should be given up. If, by the act of meditation, niyoga is produced, Brahman is a mere arthavāda. If Brahman is real, niyoga stands condemned. The whole theory therefore lands us in agnosticism on the one side and ritualism on the other. The correct position there- fore is to give equal value to all the texts. The Karma Kānda and the Jñana Kānda are equally valid. But the former, being self-contained, is independent of the latter. The latter being based on the former requires its aid. Bhāskara cites in 1 na ca laukikena drstāntena vaidikorthah nirūpayitum s'akyate. [I. i. 4. p. 16] 2 na ca niyogasya vākyarthatve mimāmsāyām bhāsyākșaram s'ārīrake vā sūtrākșaram sūcakam asti. [I. i. 4. p. 15.]

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support of this position the Mīmāmsaka principle of a vikrti sacrifice requiring knowledge of the prakrti sacrifice for being properly performed, but not vice versa. The Māyāvādin applies as usual the world-destroying weapon of contradiction against the doctrine of Mīmāmsa and maintains an extreme ascetic view of morals in which in- tellectualism ousts out the claims of voluntarism and karma is sublated by jñāna. Jñana is the method of inwardness and introversion by which the intuition of the absolute is affirmed by the elimination of the relative. But the method of karma presupposes the distinction between the will of God and the freedom of man. It does not overcome the discrepancy between the ideal and the actual nor does it furnish any ground for the ultimate triumph of goodness and godliness. Karma is rooted in the false view that the world of nāmarūpa is real and that the absolute which is beyond finite thought is false. Consequently the activity of avidya is to be overcome and sublated by the knowledge of aikya or the self-identity of the absolute. To a rationalistic mind that is given to the analysis of thought and the apprehension of the inner self or sākșin, a life of ritualism and duty is bound to be repugnant. The spirit of inwardness and asceticism has a despotic sway over the spirit of activity and service, and ultimately crushes it altogether. The former is an inner urge to repose or sānti by the control of the out-going activities and the vanishing of vāsanās. But the latter delights in devotion and service to an external law or extra-cosmic ruler. The Māyāvādin there- fore rejects the claims of karma and abandons it altogether (sarvakarmatyāgā). True freedom is therefore attained by the relinquishment of all āsramas (ativarnāsramin) and the duties pertaining to them. The vidvān who attains the wisdom of the absolute is therefore beyond good and evil as all the

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seed of samsara and karma in him is entirely burnt up and destroyed by the fire of jñāna. The Sānkhya also insists on the abandonment of work and the attainment of inner peace and aloneness. Bhäskara criticizes the above argument as a lapse into Buddhistic asceticism, inertness and irresponsibility. The S'astra does not favour the ideal of santi without service. Meditation on Brabman does not require the abandonment of all activity. The quest for inner quiet should not end in quietism. The Upanisads that extol renunciation do not deny the importance of karma. True renunciation does not consist in the abandonment of activity, but in doing duty for the sake of duty without caring for the consequences (niskāma karma). Ordinary Vedic duties are designed to lead one to svarga or to apavarga. The aspirant after apavarga per- forms the same work as the svarga-seeker and in the same way, but in a spirit of Brahmārpana1; the activity remains but the attitude is changed. Karma thus done is superior to actions based on inclination and utility (kāmyā karma) and has the same value as jñāna in attaining muāti. The theory of abandoning all works is absolutely false. The Taittirīya text referring to nyāsa as the highest discipline2 refers to the attainment of Brahman and not to the abandonment of karma (karmatyāga) as the word nyāsa in the context is explained as Brahman.3 The text 4 that requires self-renouncement and the sacrifice of the empirical pleasures like progeny, pelf and power is interested only in the education of the motive and not in the elimination of activity. Like the passage in the 1 Brahmārpaņa nyāyena kriyamāņam bhavati. [III. iv. 20.] 2 tasmānnyāsam eşām tapasām atiriktam āhu. [Taitt. Up , Nārā. 79.] 3 nyasa iti Brahma ; nyāsa ityāhur manișiņo Brahmāņam [Nārā. 78 and 79.]

IV, iv. 22.] 4 putraișaņāyās'ca vittaișaņāyas'ca lokaișapayās'ca vyutthāya. [Br. Up.,

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Jābālā Up.1, this also indicates the need for the evolution of the self from one āsrama to another till sannyāsa, the highest fulfilment of all asramas, is reached. The term atyāsramin in S'v. Up., VI. ,21, means "a member of the highest asrama" and does not refer to quietism or to the Buddhistic and the Jaina ideal of abandoning all duties. The evolution of asrama is the evolution of purity and discipline and the highest āsrama connotes a life of absolute purity and discipline. The sannyāsin or the uttamāsramin is bound to observe the rules of his order as laid down by Manu and other moral law-givers. The opponent may perhaps point out that Sutra III. iv. 25 insists on the observance of duty by the householder alone and not by thé sannyāsin who has sublimated or spiritualised sex (ūrdhvaretas). But this Sutra has to be interpreted in connection with the next Sūtra III. iv. 26 which defines each ās'rama and its duties. Even a parivrājaka who abandons the world absolutely has to sustain his life and do the duties that are allotted to him '. Bhāskara's warfare with the Māyāvādin sometimes over- steps the ethics of controversy especially when he combats the view that the absolute transcends morality. A vidvān who tries to abandon all actions has at least to do the duties that are necessary to sustain his life. If the jīvanmukta has realised Brahmabhāva, then he has attained absolute freedom and the S'ruti says that he has no hunger, delusion, disease or death. Since, in the apprehension of the absolute, there can be no degrees, it logically follows that, the moment a man attains freedom, there is a dissolution of his body. But the

1 brahmacaryam parisamapya grhibhavet: grhibhūtva vanibhavet: vanibhūtvā pravrajet. Yadivā itarathā, brahmacaryād eva pravrajet grhād vanād va [Jābāla Up., IV.] 2 parivrājakasyāpi s'aucamānasnānabhikşāțanādi karma kāyikam vācikam mānasam tacca aparihāryam dhriyamāņa s'arirasya. [III. iv. 20, p. 206.]

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jīvanmukta has to sustain his life (sarīradhāraņa) by satisfy- ing organic needs like hunger and thirst and has to endure the effects of prärabdha even if he does not take to a life of activity. Hence it is impossible to attain in this life freedom from, the sufferings of samsara by the mere knowledge of the meaning of the S'āstra (vākyārthajñāna).' As long as the embodied state continues, the mind and the sense organs will function. The smoke lasts as long as there is contact of fire with wet wood (ardrendhana samyoga). Owing to the impetus given by prārabdhu, embodiment and the experience of differ- ence go together. The moment this residual activity spends itself, the finite self ascends to the absolute and is absorbed in it. Mukti being freedom from embodiment can in no case be freedom in embodiment. Therefore, so long as one lives and is conscious of one's body and its needs, one has no moksa, and is bound by the rules of jñāna and karma with a view to attaining it.2 It should be noted in this connection that jñāna, according to Bhāskara, includes upāsana or meditation. Bhedābhedavāda recognises the values of karma and jñāna and co-ordinates them into a synthetic method. Karma Kānda is a code of divine commandments whose primary object is the satisfaction of empirical desires. It elaborates the science of sacrificial and other duties by a system of rewards and punishments and seeks to establish harmonious relations between human beings and the cosmic deities. But the pleasures of sensibility are particular perishing states. Karma is a mere mechanical routine and is only a profit and loss account with the devas. Ceremonialism does not satisfy 1 vākyārthajñāna mātrānna sāmsārika nivrttibhāvovagamyate. [III. iv. 26.] ' yavat idam me s'ariram iti karma nibandhanāvrttih anuvartate tāvat ās'ramakarmānuvrttiras'akyá nivårayitum. [III. iv. 26.] 7

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the spiritual craving for God. The Vedānta turns our attention from the particular to the universal and from the external to the essential and is thus a natural transition from the performance of duty (karmavicāra) to the realisation of the deity (Brahmavicara). The method of the two Mīmāmsas is the same, but the goal is different. A true understanding of Pūrva Mīmāmsa and Uttara Mīmāmsa involves the temporal idea of sequence and the logical idea of consequence and thus leads to a synthetic study. When karma is transfigured into a spiritual endeavour, then its hostility to jñāna is removed and it becomes an essential element in ātmajñāna, and even Jaimini who insists so much on its primary importance admits this truth when he says that the end of karma is the attain- ment of svarga as well as of mukti or apavarga. Karma is the science of the ideal in conduct dealing with the summum bonum of life. It is righteousness touched with rationality and the end of conduct is self-realization.' In the comprehensive scheme of jñāna-karma-samuccaya, the S'ästra in its infinite tenderness recognises our psychologi- cal limitations and satisfies our moral and spiritual aspirations. Karma and jñāna are vitally related and glued together into a single method whose elements can only be distinguished but not divided. The barriers to freedom are both intellectual and moral and wisdom consists in utilising every means by which these barriers can be broken. Morality is the dynamic element of the divine life and jñāna furnishes the compre- hensive insight into the wholeness of things. The Māyāvādin rejects the values of karma as contradictory to the knowledge of the absolute and his whole scheme of the four-fold path or sadhana-catustaya is based on the law of contradiction and

' In recognising the value of karma, Bhåskara was perhaps influenced by Upavarșa, the commentator on the Mimamsa Sūtras,

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sublation. Mumuksutva or the longing for mukti arises, according to him, from discrimination, dissociation and dis- cipline. It is a process of eliminating the unreal and affirming the real by withdrawing the self from the non-self and abandoning all kinds of activity. Rāmānuja rejects this as mere intellectual abstractionism and regards karma as the inherent conative character of the jiva but subordinates it to the discipline of jñana and bhakti. Karma, according to Rāmānuja, is a valuable element in jñāna, and finally it is transfigured into kainkarya, a life of consecration. Work is worship of God and godly men. But Bhäskara's theory of co-ordination does full justice to the claims of both, viz., to the acts of will and the facts of thought. Philosophy is more interested in the values of life than in its origin and true mumuksutva does not consist in suppressing or subordinating desires. Desire or räga is by itself neither good nor bad and its value depends on its direction and use. Rāga is either vișaya rāga or paramātma rāga. In the former case, it is directed to the ends of sensibility and svarga ; and as this lands us in the hazards and hardships of samsāra, we have to retrace our steps and follow the spiritual path, paramatma rāga or instinct for the infinite. Desire is neither starved nor sup- pressed but is spiritualized and transfigured into an infinite longing for the infinite.1 When one's sexual feeling is idealised and attuned to the needs of the eternal partner and alter ego as described in the Kāma S'āstra, it becomes the heart of virtue; but, when it is blind, bestial, clamant and chaotic, it blows where it listeth and becomes the deadliest of all sins. Likewise, if a man seeks God, he attains immortal bliss; but, if he seeks the joys of sense and is allured by them,

1 rāgo hi paramātma vişayo yah sa muktihetu vişaya vișayo yah sa bandhahetuh [I. iv. 21.]

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he enters a bottomless abyss. Kama is the creative urge of life ; either it may give rise to bodies and their bonds, or it may release an uplifting, divine energy. In the latter case, Kāma really becomes akāma or nișkāma or ātmakāma and loses all its sting of sensibility and power for evil. In the same way, kevala karma or kāmya karma has its roots in sensibility and the divided life; but, when, as the Gītā points out, it is emptied of all its empirical content consisting of animal inclinations and ideas of utility and is done as mere duty, its value in spiritual life becomes all important. Kevala karma, as defined by the Mīmāmsaka, no doubt presupposes a knowledge of the ätman as different from the body; but it does not insist on the acquiring of this knowledge of atman, as its main purpose is the justification of the Vedic injunctions. Karma is both for the avidvan and the vidvan. The former seeks the pleasures of sex, wealth and progeny and forgets his self, but the latter longs to know the supreme self and has no incli- nation for these empirical and ephemeral pleasures. He is interested in the science of the sacrifice of the self or Brah- mārpanam, as the Gitā calls it, in which the particular and private self is offered to the universal, and the paramātmā is seen as the pervading self of all things. When the vision is thus transfigured, karma ceases to be kāmya, becomes nișkāma or jnana and is thus rationalised. The vital relation between karma and jñāna as expounded in the philosophy of jñana- karma-samuccaya is contained in the text, "When a man meditates on the self only as his true state, his actions perish not."' That the terms jñāna or vedanā meaning knowledge are generally used in the Upanisads in the sense of upāsanā or meditation is evident from the numerous passages, in all

I. iv. 15.] 1 sa ya ātmānam eva lokamupāste na ha asya karma kșiyate. [Bț. Up.,

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of which the word knowledge begins an enquiry or question and the word meditation ends the enquiry or occurs in the answer, and vice versa.' The importance of karma is also indicated in the Mundaka text, "The man of action, whose sport is the self and whose pleasure is the self, this is the highest among the knowers of Brahman."' The Isopanisad3 also emphasises the need of karma by using the adverb eva after karmāni kurvan (doing action) ; so also the Taittirīya text in the Nārāyanīya Anuvāka speaks of discarding evil by the performance of duty.' Bhāskara bases his whole exposition of jñāna-karma- samuccaya or upāsana-karma-samuccaya on the classical analogy of the the Sutra, namely as'vavat.s The horse is fit to be used, not as a plodding animal for ploughing the field, but, for riding. It is not a mere beast of burden, but is the symbol of the glory of motion. Likewise karma, rationalized by jñna, becomes the dynamic energy that is used in the glorious ascent to the absolute. There is no antagonism between the mechanism of duty and the freedom of detach- ment. They are the external and internal aspects of the same method and are mutually corrective. Karma disciplines thought and purifies it and jnana gives a meaning to activity. The former deals with the actual and the latter with the ideal and the ideal is realised in the actual. Jñana is the aspect of apprehending the unity of the absolute and karma is the

' sarvatra hi vidınā upakramya upāsinā upasamharati; upāsinā ca upakramya vidinā upasamharati s'rutih; atab yatra anyatara upādānam tadā ekārthataiva pratyetavyā. [I. iii. 1.]

Up., III. i. 4.] 2 ātmakridah ātmaratiņ krıyāvān eşa brahmavidam varistah. [Muņd.

3 kurvanu eva hı karmāņi jıjīvişet. [Is'a Up., 2.] 4 dharmeņa pāpam apanudatı. " Nimbarka does not accept this view. Just as the horse is used for going to a place, karma is to be treated as an indirect way to jnāna.

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spiritual attempt to bring it about. Consequently the Māyā- vādin, who rejects the value of karma in his zeal for jñāna and gives up all asramas, abandons all moral distinctions. The duty relating to one's station in life should on no account be renounced, whether it is in the interests of attaining svarga or mukti.' The āsramas form a progression in attain- ing true knowledge and freedom, and every āsrama is a fulfilment of the lower, and there should be no backsliding at all. He who, through circumstances beyond his control, is not included in any of the four recognised āsramas, is not thereby prevented from aspiring for Brahmajñāna; but he who lapses from his āsrama, e.g., a naișthika Brahmacārin or sannyāsin who fails in his vows, cannot claim the same indulgence and is unfit for it even after penance. The seeker after salvation should remain in the world and at the same time be out of it like the water on the lotus leaf. While he devotes himself to duty, he practises inner detachment. Karma is the inner spiritual endeavour for mukti of which sama (equanimity), dama (self-control), uparati (relinquish- ment), titikșā (patient endurance) and samādhānu (concen- tration) are the outer expressions. Food is not for the palate ; it not merely sustains life but also sustains the spirit and purifies it, and it is only in the extreme case of starvation and sure death that prohibited food may be taken. The practice of truth and ahimsā is absolutely essential to the expansive life of the spirit. Self-control (indriya nigraha), self-knowledge (tmajñāna) and straightforwardness (ārjava) are the sovereign remedies for the ills of samsāra; they make the asramas and not vice versa. Even the vidvān, who has once for all arrested the empirical process and has attained the knowledge of the absolute, should follow the rules of ' Sūtra, III. iv. 32.

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asrama till the dissolution of his body. Therefore the Upani- sadic injunction about the performance of sacrifice and other duties' applies to all the āsramas, as established in Sūtra III. iv. 26, and, as these stand to jñāna in the organic relation of anga and angin, they should be observed throughout life. In the co-ordination of karma and jñāna, there is no roorn for getting knowledge by forgetting the rules of karma. The idea of jñāna-karma-samuccaya naturally follows from the philoso- phy of Bhedäbheda. The absolute conditions itself as the finite subjects and objects of experience (bhoktā and bhogya). In the empirical state, the jīva suffers from logical errors, moral evil and spiritual imperfections (avidyā, karma and kāma) and forgets its true home in the Brahman that is beyond. The mumuksu or seeker after salvation who longs to return to the eternal home, accepts the reality of distinctions between the subject and the object and analyses the nature of desire as defined by Pūrva Mīmāmsa and Uttara Mīmāmsa as a sign- post that points to different directions. He sticks to the path of duty but shifts the motive from the desires of sensibility to the security of salvation. As long as there is the contact of fire with fuel there is smoke; and, in the same way, the idea of duty and discipline clings to us as long as the upādhis and the body made by them continue. The avidvan or the ignorant man whose vision is obscured by avidy regards this empirical consciousness as an essential condition of reality, but the vidvan knows the truth that finiteness or fragmenta- riness is a passing state which vanishes for ever as soon as he becomes one with Parames'vara, the absolute with all its perfections.' The idea of agency (kartrtva) and enjoyment 1 tam evam vedānuvacanena brāhmaņā vividișanti yajñena dānena tapasā anas'akena [Br., Up., IV. iv. 22.] ' aupādhikam kartrtvam manyate vıdvān; itarastu svābhāvikam iti. [III. iv. 26, p. 210.]

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(bhokrtva) arises from the dualistic and dividing consciousness of the upādhis and generates desires for the external objects of sense (vişaya rāga). But when these are directed to Brahman, that is within and beyond, the limiting process is arrested, and the jiva, impelled and induced by its infinite nature, breaks off the barriers and begins to expand into the absolute. This is the final consummation of the synthetic method of jñāna-karma-samuccaya. If avidyā and kāma finitise the self and divide it into centres, jñāna and nișkāma set free the opposite tendency and the finite begins to grow into the infinite. The theory of jñana-karma-samuccaya avoids the perils of the ideas of contradiction and subordina- tion. While it preserves the values of life, it provides for the monistic ideal of realising the sat without a second. Reality and value coincide and the stability and security of mukti consist in the mutual necessitation of philosophical insight and moral outlook. Jñana is the awakening of absolute consciousness by the removal of avidya and the cloud of un- knowing and niskāma is the dynamic side of mukti which, by a kind of divine alchemy, enables the finite to infinitise itself. The unitive life of ekibhava is thus a vision and way and it is owing to this dual character of knowledge and activity that mukti is defined as an awakening and an attainment.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RELIGION OF BHĀSKARA

THE supreme end of life is the realisation of our oneness with Brahman by the renunciation of the upadhis or the limiting adjuncts. The meaning of this realisation was already explained as an apprehension as well as an attainment. Avidyā can never be removed by mere argumentation, and there can be no attainment of the fulness and freedom of the infinite without its immediate vision. In the positive sense, the process of mukti or liberation therefore connotes both the elements of philosophic insight and moral outlook, and, in the negative sense, it is freedom from avidya and karma which together form the twin shackles of sensibility. According to Bhäskara, mukti consists in retracing the steps and returning to the absolute. In the cosmological enquiry, we traced the stages by which the infinite seeks a finite setting ; and showed how, guided by the impulse of concrete monism, Bhäskara avoids the perils of Māyāvada on the one hand and naive theism on the other, and posits the idea of the upādhis as the only view that reconciles both. But all these views frankly recognize the ultimate indefinability of avidyā-karma and the philosophy of religion is, pragmatically speaking, more interested in seeking release and redemption from the world- process than in accounting for its origin.

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In the religious aspect, the Bhedābhedavādin ceases to think of distinctions and strives for spiritual union. The upadhis divide the one and distort it into the many. They are the finitising complex which somehow resides at the heart of reality and conditions the unconditioned. They make for distinctions and duality and entangle the finite self in embodi- ment and the sorrows of samsāra. Owing to the sense of finiteness and separateness, we are tossed between birth and death, heaven and hell. When we realise the agony of this mistake and misadventure, our infinite nature asserts itself and the angle of vision is entirely changed. The empirical "I" now longs for union with the absolute " I." The divided self seeks to merge itself in the expansive consciousness of the absolute. Philosophic thinking and moral endeavour get merged in the mystic yearning for the fulness and freedom of this divine oneness, in which the sense of separateness is dissolved in the bliss of infinite expanse. Mere philosophy delights in analysis and abstractions and gives us only world views and not God-visions. Synthetic unity never quenches the thirst for spiritual union ; and even the moral ideas of duty and virtue give us no promise of fruition and fulfilment. Being the products of upādhis, they give us only fragmentary views. But when the monistic or the abheda element becomes predominant, the divine urge is slowly felt, and we give up the ephemeral values of the divided life for the enduring bliss of ekibhava or oneness with the absolute. The self emerges from the realms of sense and thought and expands into the ocean of divine life. Since the abheda element is stronger than the bheda, the S'āstra assures us of the ultimate triumph of the self over its upadhis. The very idea of mukti contains the possibility of transcending the limitations of empirical life, and becoming one with the

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absolute. The only difference in the three monistic schools of S'ankara, Rāmānuja and Bhāskara is that S'ankara emphasizes the metaphysical knowledge of Brahman in terms of non-dualism, while Ramânuja insists on a moral monism in which the jiva's egoity is effaced in service and self-gift ; but Bhaskara is inclined to mystic monism and longs for absorption in the absolute. The finite is dissolved in the infinite and soaked in its bliss. Thus if the word ' religion ' refers to a theistic faith in a Personal God having intimate personal relations with the self with a view to saving it from its sinfulness by responding to its bhakti, Bhāskara's view is not religious. But if religion includes the quest of the mystic for absorption or union with God or Godhead, his view is a form of mystic religion. The third chapter of the Sutras discusses the important question of the relation between endeavour and enlighten- ment. Is the intuition of Brahman onc single immediate apprehension or a progressive realisation ? The Māyāvādin contends that intuition is opposed to relational thought and moral endeavour. Thought is always mediate and never immediate, and moral effort involves the eternal distinction between the actual and the ideal. In the same way, devotion to a personal God lands us in externality and duality. Con- sequently reflection and righteousness can never bring about the immediate knowledge of God. But Bhäskara thinks that this line of argument is entirely untenable and inadmissible. If there is no finality in duty and devotion, much less is it in Māyāvāda argumentation and assertion. There is no cessation of avidyā (avidyānivrtti) till the last trace of prārabdha karma that has concretised itself into the body and its changes, is effaced. But if it be said that the experience of pleasure and pain belongs only to the ksetrajña or the

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embodied self and is therefore false (mithya) and the true freedom of self-realisation (svānubhava) is to be identified with the absolute, then the meaning of this self-realisation or svānubhava has to be clearly defined. Whose svānubhava is it? Is it of the jiva or of the Paramatman? It cannot be of the former, as individual experience involves the uniqueness of the freed self and its numerical distinctness from other selves which are yet obscured by avidya, nor can it be the experience of the Paramātman who is not a samsārin but is eternally self-realised and free (satyasankalpa). If svānu- bhava be the self-intuition of the absolute, then jiva is a bare negation (avastu) and there is no meaning in negating a negation. To say that the true ever is and the false never exists is formal logic devoid of content. If it be a significant negation, then a distinction between the self and the not-self has to be predicated as real moments of the absolute. If svānubhava is the negation of the negation, then, since avidyā is an all-enveloping gloom, its removal would bring about im- mediate universal illumination (yugapat sarva mukti prasanga), but the cosmic confusion continues in spite of the svānu- bhava of the jivanmukta. Even in the case of the jīvanmukta, freedom is only a progressive realisation and not an immediate intuition in which the world-fiction vanishes. The jivan- mukta is found engaged in sustaining his life, in beneficent work and in the practice of ceaseless samādhi ; and all these are activities involving desire, deliberation and decision, whereas, as the ātman is eternal (nitya) and immaterial (suddha) without embodiment (s'arira sambandha), embodied- ness and emancipation cannot co-exist ; self-extinction would be the only logical conclusion of mukti here-now. It may perhaps be argued that mukti means a gradual vanishing of the world-fiction involving the knowledge of the real by

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sravana or instruction, the inferential knowledge known as manana, the dawn of advaitic intuition and the disappearance of duality (dvaita jñāna) and embodiment. Bnt this would contradict the advaitic theory of contradiction. If avidyā is opposed to jñāna as darkness is opposed to light, then it cannot be a gradually vanishing process, as there can be no stages in sublation and self-identity. A consistent Māyāvādin cannot say that the illusion remains but illusoriness vanishes. The embodied state of the ivanmukta cannot be accounted for as having its origin in residual (prārabdha) karma, as that would involve the acceptance of the reality of moral and spiritual effort. The view that jñāna is not only obscured by karma but is also obstructed and overpowered by it in the empirical state is not consistent with Māyāvāda. There can be no degrees in the immediate intuition of the absolute and the negation of non-Brahman or Māyā. Besides, the idea of jīvanmukti cannot apply to the cases of Vyāsa and other cosmic helpers who are said to live eternally in the world with a view to turning the mind of the ignorant to the high- ways of heaven. The true meaning of avidyā is the sense of separateness that arises from the mistaken identity of the ätman with con- ditionateness and the ignorance of its infinite nature.' The roots of avidyā are deeply embedded in finiteness, as mūlā- vidyā which persists as a potentiality even in the state of pralaya, and can be removed only by perfect discipline and an infinite striving for the infinite. Mukti can never be got for the mere asking, and the mumuksu has to develop an irresistible spiritual craving for eternity to counteract the

[IV. i. 1]. 1 dehādişu viparitapratipattiḥ Brahmasvarūpā pratipattis'ca avidyā.

sā samyagjñânotpattau nivartate. tacca samyagjñānam utpannam iti yāvajjīvam abhyasyamānam paripakvam apavarga-kșamam bhavati.

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influence of age-long ignorance and its endless sorrows. The will to win the unity of the life that is beyond, has its response in the infinite invading the finite and transfiguring its nature. Spiritual life is thus not an endless becoming or progress, but an ascent to the heights of the eternal and essential self and attaining its immortal bliss. This is the ideal in which all ideals are realised. The Upanisad points to the parting of the ways between the sphere of samsara and the sphere of salvation, and indicates and illumines the pathway to reality. It insists on the meditation of the supreme self without a second as the only method of transcending the hardships of samsāra. Medi- tation or dhyāna is the result of spiritual instruction and is midway between reflection and realisation. It is the ceaseless effort of the mind to give up its diffuseness and distraction, and enter into the silent sanctuary of the spirit and become one with it. The mauni selects an atmosphere of solitude and serenity and, sitting motionless like a statue, focusses his whole self on the blissful nature of Brahman and continues this practice till the dissolution of his body (āprayānāt), vide Sütra IV. i. 12 and the Agnirahasya text referred to therein. The Vedānta recognises the psychological differences of temperament and inclination and furnishes a scheme of thirty-two meditations for individual selection and practice. Though they differ in nature (vidyā), form (rūpa) and means (codana), the ultimate goal of all is the realisation of Brahman. In the monistic meditation, the duality of thought is dissolved into a non-dualistic experience. The distinctions of empirical life are merely the accidents of avidya and the contingent factors of karma. Just as the impurities of gold are cleansed by contact with fire, the knowledge of the essential and the enduring self removes the barriers of bheda and deifies the

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self. The Upanisad pours out the entrancing ecstasy of this single-soul life in such immortal sayings as 'I am thou, O, blessed God, and thou indeed art I' of the Jābāla S'ruti. When the mind is habitually focussed on this abheda or nirākára aspect, the finite and the infinite are glued together and the bonds of bheda are gradually broken off.1 Every meditation implies the metaphysical distinction of the subject-object consciousness. Determination is not sub- lated and transcended by the indeterminate. The Advaitic distinction between the indeterminate (nirguna) and the determinate (saguna) finds no warrant in the S'ruti. The Sutras devote one whole section in the third chapter known as the Ubhayalinga Pāda to combat this view of nirguna Brahman as the root error of Māyāvāda metaphysics and when Yājñavalkya employs in Br. Up., IV. iv. 22, the method of negation in determining the nature of Brahman, he does not affirm the absolute by denying the empirical, but recommends the meditation on Brahman as the ultimate ground of all beings (kāraņātmā) who is essentially formless and eternal as distinct from his cosmic form of conditionateness, kārya-rūpa or natura naturata. The finite expresses the infinite but does not exhaust it. Waves and ripples rise from the vast expanse of the ocean, but they do not constitute it and the infinity of selves are but crests of cosmic consciousness. The cosmic system is but a spark of the supreme self; and its infinity can never be exhausted by the finite and the fragmentary. Conse- quently the seeker after mukti should meditate on the nirākāra Brahman2 which is beyond the cosmic nāma-rūpa. Brahman both is and has infinite consciousness and bliss (caitanya and

1 upādhi krta bhedastu abheda bhāvanayā apanīyate [IV. i. 3.]. Nimbārka interprets the Sruti in terms of bheda-bheda. 2 nirākāram eva upāsyam suddham kāraņa rūpam. [III ii. 11.]

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caitanyavat). This relation of dharma and dharmin is an indissoluble subject-object unity like fire and heat, and the determining qualities define Brahman and do not deny this nature. The formlessness of Brahman is not to be identified with characterlessness. S'vetaketu is therefore asked to meditate on divine causality as the sat without a second. Causality is not the logical category involving spatial and temporal ideas, but connotes the supreme centre and source of all reality, and therefore Uddālaka employs nine analogies like the sprouting of the seed, the gathering of honey, and salt dissolved in water, to bring out the nature of Brahman as the supreme sat, which is the ground and goal of all beings and their immanent unity by knowing which everything else is known; and in no context does he think of the rope-snake riddle. Brahman is defined as satyasya satya and Paramātman, and there is not the slightest reference in these terms to sublation and indeterminateness. The terms like bund, quantity and relation do not distinguish between two kinds of Brahman. The bund analogy employed in the text emphasises the idea of Brahman as the support and sustenance of the world. The category of quantity is utilised in the interest of meditation, and the term sambandha or relation emphasizes spiritual unity and denies externality. The word avyakta or unknowability applies only to the empirical jīva imprisoned in embodiment, but, when the jīva is purified, it transcends itself and realises its infinity. Brahman is both the eternal seer and the empirical object; meditation on the former aspect removes the relativity of thought and arouses the spirit of expansion, till, at last, the divided self becomes one with the unity of Brahman. In the immortal words of the Upanisad, the jīva knows Brahman and becomes one with it.' 1 Brahma eva bhavati .- Muņd. Up., III, ii. 9.

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The Dhyāna-niyogavādin comes forward with his scheme of attaining advaitajñāna by a process of meditation and progressive realization. He states that the cessation of illusoriness and embodiedness is not effected by a mere cogni- tion of reality and consequently scripture gives certain injunctions by which the mind is purified and illumined by the knowledge of identity. But injunctions and imperatives only refer to endeavour and not to the affirmation of reality. There is difference between the apprehension of Brahman and the endeavour to bring it about. Knowledge is given and not made; it is ultimate, self-originated and immediate and not mediate and mandatory. Therefore there is no need for the mediacy of niyoga. Dhyāna is a direct intuition of Brahman and niyoga is only an external agency for which there is no warrant in Vedānta. The whole doctrine is therefore a mere fabrication without any S'astraic foundation. The Nisprapañcīkarananiyogavādin with his idea of the realisation of the self by the act (niyoga) of cosmic dissolution suggests an alternative scheme. Whatever is originated is ipso facto ephemeral. The world as the objectified form of Brahman is a fleeting flux, and true knowledge consists in effacing the effect and attaining the eternal. This view is also absurd. How can cosmic destruction produce self-realisation when the cosmos and the self are entirely different ? Besides, the destruction of objective reality is impossible and has no S'ästraic sanction. The texts that refer to laya or dissolution connote only absorption and not destruction. Sleep is not the abolition of consciousness and, in the same way, in pralaya, the world process is not destroyed but persists as a real possibility. Also, the dissolution of the cosmos cannot be a self-destructive process. It requires another to destroy it and that again should be destroyed by another and so on 8

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ad infinitum. Again this dissolution must be either objective (sādhāraņa) or subjective (visista). It cannot be the former, as that would result in the salvation of all when one is saved and this is not a fact and the world process persists in spite of S'uka having attained mukti. But if by dissolution is meant freedom from the subjective conditions of avidyā, kāma and karma which are the cause of bondage, then this is virtually the acceptance of Bhaskara's own position. It is only the sense of plurality that is removed and not plurality itself. The term niyoga presupposes the instrument of action, the mode of action and also the agent. If prapanca is an effect, then it cannot destroy itself. If it is the sādhana (means) different from sādhya (accomplishment), then since the sādhana is real, there is no way of destroying it. Achievement presupposes aspiration and the two are vitally related. If the idea of dissolution is an immediate cognition, then there is no need for attaining what is already intuited. Besides, what is the nature of the knowledge by which the prescribed dissolution of the world of experience is to be accomplished ? It cannot be mere knowledge resulting from the study of scripture, as such knowledge is not a voluntary act to be prescribed. Nor can it be meditation, as the latter, so far from destroying the world of differences, creates a further world of the subjects and objects of meditation (dhyātā and dhyeya), etc. The idea of niyoga as an agency has already been refuted. Rāmānuja's criticism of the same subject in Sūtra I. i. 4 is almost similar, though it is more profound and penetrating. The immediate consequence of the practice of abheda as outlined in the Vedānta is the destruction of the seeds of samsāra. Empirical life is conditioned by the complex of avidyā, kāma and karma and is an endless regress of cause and effect. Like the seed and the tree (bījānkura nyāya),

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these limiting conditions involve one another and therefore defy all analysis and explanation. The result is an age-long upādhi that is stored up in the finite content. Avidyā generates the desire for sense objects, and desire causes avidyā, and the mechanism of karma mediates between both and produces the psycho-physical apparatus consisting of manas, sense organs and the body. Death is only the dissolution of the physical body (sthūla sarīra) and not of the mental complex. In this way, the finite self is cribbed and cabined by the upadhis which pursue it like phantoms wherever it goes. The upādhis make the self and the self makes the upādhis and the result is endless becoming and bondage. But the whole process is completely arrested by the continued meditation of Brahman and gradually destroyed by it. Karma is destroyed by jñāna, like seeds burnt by fire. The Vedänta guarantees the triumph of the self over its upādhis in the classical statement " The effect of karma is dissolved when one intuits the supreme self." 1 The vidvan, who has an immediate vision of Brahman (samyak darsana), has not the slightest taint of evil but is unsullied and detached like the water on the lotus leaf. He is not elated by success nor depressed by disappointment. Rāga and dveșa, good and evil, pleasure and pain being relative and mutually dependent, the vidvān dissociates himself from these pairs of opposites and practises the expansive consciousness. The seed of births stored up in sañcita is destroyed for ever. But prārabdha karma, which has already begun to materialise, continues as long as the body lasts.' Ch. Up.3 accordingly affirms that jñāna-sakti

1 Muņd. Up., II. ii. 8. 2 IV. i. 14-15. 3 VI. xiv. 2.

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destroys only a portion of karma (sañcita) and not the whole, just as lightning strikes down the things of the world without affecting the cloud-land. The theory of the Mayavadin, however, is inconsistent with this view. He has to posit the principle of jīvanmukti or freedom in embodiment, as, according to him, the know- ledge of advaita should immediately destroy avidyā, the cause of the experience of difference, and there can be no degrees in dispelling avidyā. How then does the jīvanmukta, who does not perceive any difference, live and move and have his being in this world of difference ? To explain this discre- pancy, the Māyāvādin gives various analogies proving the persistence of the effect even after the removal of the cause. The potter's wheel, for example, continues to rotate for some time by the force of inertia, even after the removal of the cause. This analogy is unsound, as it presupposes the real samskāra of rotation on a real vastu or āsraya, the potter's wheel. But, according to the Māyāvādin, the whole of empirical experience is due to avidyā which is really a veil and not a wheel, and when it is destroyed, there is nothing further in the nature of āsraya or samskāra by which phenomenal reality persists. Neither is the analogy of the man who sees two moons through the eye-disease called timira helpful to him. The Māyāvādin argues that, as soon as the man discovers that the illusion of the double moon is due to his own defective vision, illusoriness vanishes though the illusion remains; the sensation continues without any significance. Similarly, though avidyā, the cause of the sense of duality, is destroyed by Advaitic intuition, still the body, the effected state of avidyā, functions for a while as reflex activity. This simile is unsound as the continuance of the illusion is due to the continuance of the real defect known

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as timira, which is not destroyed by true knowledge, whereas, to the Advaitin, when avidyā is destroyed by true knowledge, nothing real remains except the undifferentiated Brahman. The defect is not an illusion (māyopādhi) but a real defect (satyopādhi). But the principles of bhedābheda and jñāna- krma-samuccaya satisfactorily explain the co-existence of Brahmā-jñāna and the persistence of the body feeling. The vidvān has only a glimpse of the immortal sea that lies beyond and has to practise the idea of abheda and perform the duties of his asrama. It is only when the body is dissolved that the residual effect is exhausted and the sense of separateness vanishes and the vidvan earns his freedom for ever.

UTKRĀNTI: ASCENT TO THE ABSOLUTE

Death is not to be regarded as the dissolution of the psychic make-up. It is the psychic mechanism (linga s'arīra) that maintains physical life, migrates endlessly from sphere to sphere and has the capacity to contract and expand (sankoca-vikāsa). The jīva perseveres in its own being for ever and the modifications of the mental complex do not affect the spiritual self.' When the body is dissolved, the emancipated ego withdraws itself from the obstruction of body-mind and bas an intimation of eternity. The senses are merged in manas or inner sense. Manas is absorbed in the prana or life and life in the jiva. When the illumined self sheds its body for ever and ascends gloriously to its abode in the absolute, a sudden flash of light reveals the godward path known as the devayāna. The nerve known as the suşumnā nādi marks the divergence of the path of eternal release from that leading to endless hazards. The ignorant 1 na hi tasya svatassańkocavikāsau, nityatvāt. [IV. ii. 11.]

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follow the dreary path of the pitrs or suffer from the sorrows of sin, but the vidvūn, equipped with the insight and strength that comes from the ceaseless meditation on his divine destiny (gati cintan), enters the straight and shining way of the gods (devayāna). Uplifted by the inner self, the liberated ego passes gloriously through the luminous regions to its pre- established centre. This spiritual progress is facilitated by the help rendered by the celestial beings known as ātivāhika purusas who are really the ambassadors of the absolute.1 The expanding soul moves higher still to the regions of fire, water, air, sun and moon and is greeted by the cosmic deities who are called Varuņa, Indra and Brahm. These are not sign- posts (mārgacihna) nor spheres of enjoyment (bhogasthāna) but spiritual powers with specific functions, of which the most important is the greeting and glorifying of the rare and radiant self in its triumphant progress to extra cosmic con- sciousness. When it reaches the essential self which is the eternal centre and source of all goodness, beauty and truth, it expands into infinity and is for ever lost en rapport with it. Who can describe the expanse of spirit in the spaceless effulgence of the svayam jyotis in which the light of a million suns and stars fades into that of mere sparks? Who can express the entrancing ecstasy of the sundered self with its deathless and divine longing for its Other losing itself irresistibly in absolute bliss compared to which the sum total of all sensual and celestial joys dwindles into nothingness ? The Sūtrakāra next raises the interesting eschatological question whether this theory of arcirādi gati involving progress and attainment applies to the realisation of the supreme (para) Brahman or the effected (kārya) Brahman, Hiranyagarbha, and takes as his text the passage in 1 ātivāhikāh purușāh nirdiștah: te ca mānavāh. [IV. ii. 4].

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Ch. Up., V. x. 1-2, promising to the pañcāgnividyānistha and also to the upasakas in the forest the godward (devayāna) path described above and ending with the words " He takes them to Brahman. This is the godward path."' Bādari, the monistic or Advaitic philosopher, takes the text to refer to kārya Brahman only as gati or movement applies only to the spatialized and phenomenalized Brahman and not to the absolute. There is an insuperable objection to this inter- pretation, as the neuter form Brahma in the accusative connotes the absolute only and the correct form for designating the effected Brahman would be the masculine " Brahmānam." Bādari seeks to get over this difficulty by holding that the word standing for kārana is here used in a secondary sense (laksaņayā) signifying the kārya, as the latter, i.e., Hiranyagarbha is very near the supreme Brahman. Owing to proximity, the first-born of the absolute is referred to as the absolute itself. The predication of final release in the corresponding Chāndogya passage in IV. xv. 6º and of immortality in Kath. Up. text, II. vi. 16 to the seekers after kārya Brahman3 involves no con- tradiction at all, as the S'ruti and Smrti also guarantee eventual release to the worshippers of kārya Brahman along with the latter himself when his world is dissolved in mahapralaya (cosmic dissolution). Besides, in the corres- ponding passage in Br. Up., VI. ii. 15, " He leads them to the worlds of Brahman. They live in these worlds of Brahman. for ever and ever," the plural " worlds " clearly indicates

1 sa enān brahma gamayati, eșa devayanah panthāh. [Ch. Up., V. x. 2.] 2 sa enān brahma gamayati, eșa devapatho brahmapathah ; etena pratipad- yamānaļ imam mānavam āvartam nāvartante nāvartante. (Ch. Up., IV. xv. 6.) 3 tayordhvam āyan amrtatvam eti [Kațh. Up., II. vi. 16.] 4 brahma lokan gamayati; tesu brahmalokesu para paravatsvasanti teşam na punaravrthih [Br. Up., VI. ii. 15.]

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that the reference is to kärya Brahman and the pluralistic universe and not to the absolute. Similarly, the text in Ch. Up., VIII. xiv, "I come to the hall of Prajapati to the house "1 can refer only to karya Brahman. Badari's view, as stated above, is first given by the Sūtrakāra in the Adhi- karana as a prima facie (pūrvapakșa) view to be rebutted later by stating Jaimini's opinion and finally his own sid- dhänta. But the Advaitins maintain by a method of inter- pretation described by Thibaut as "altogether inadmissible" that this is the siddhānta of the Sūtrakāra. An arbitrary distinction is drawn by them between saguna Brahman and para Brahman by identifying Bādari's kārya Brahman with the former and the latter with nirguna. The first is stated to be metaphorical and the second metaphysical. This con- clusion is justified by the arguments advanced by the philo- sopher against the anthropomorphic views of Brahman held by the empirically-minded. The notion of a paradise or Brahmaloka in which the freed soul ' rests in golden groves and basks in eternal summer' is opposed to the philosophic experience of the absolute. But the devotees of a personal God are interested in clothing their spiritual experience in terms of historical progress and geographical position. The ideas of ascent (gati) and attainment (prapti), according to the Advaitin, are only categories of phenomenal reality and are opposed to the idea of the all-pervading unity. In mukti there is no going or goal or any such somnambulistic specu- lation. It is the metaphysical apprehension of the absolute as an eternally self-realised fact and not a spiritual attainment or super-addition. It is only the awakening from avidyā and not the accomplishment of a far-off event. It is essentially

1 prajāpateh sabhām ves'ma prapadye yas'oham bhavāmi brāhmaņānām yas'o rājñām yas'o vis'ām. [Ch. Up., VIII. xiv. 1.]

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the experience of eternal consciousness that transcends the distinctions of time and space and is not to be identified with the spatial ideas of ascent and the historical ideas of progress. The distinctions of here and yonder, now and hereafter hold good only in the case of attaining the world of saguna Brahman, but the identity consciousness of nirguna Brahman is here-now or absolute. Following the interpretation of Jaimini and Bādarāyaņa, Bhäskara exposes the fallacies of this theory by appealing to reason and revelation and thus establishes the reality of gati in realising that supreme Brahman. True wisdom is not the virtual knowledge of self-identity but is won by spiritual effort, and it becomes a progressive attainment. Bādari's argument that the term 'Brahman' in the neuter has only a secondary meaning and refers to Hiranyagarbha is against all the accepted rules of interpretation. Every term has a fixed meaning or mukhyārtha and this should not be lightly rejected in favour of a secondary meaning. There is no inherent inappro- priateness in ascribing gati to the seeker of supreme Brahman, as progress pertains to the linga sarira and connotes self- determination and not self-sophistication. As a matter of fact, even when the jiva goes from one body to another in the world of samsāra, it is the associated linga sarira that undergoes the locomotion and not the svarūpa of the jīva.1 Besides, any inappropriateness in a gati towards an omni- present para Brahman would equally, and perhaps with greater force, apply to the Advaitin's saguna Brahman.' If saguna Brahman is not possessed of omnipresence and other qualities like purity (apahatapāpma), it ceases to be 1 samsāriņopi svarūpato gatih nopapadyate; tasyāpi linga s'arirādeva gamanam. [IV. iii. 13]. 3 yadi nirguņā yām papattih. [IV. iii. 13]. gatiranupapannā, saguņāsvapi vidyāsu samānēnu-

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Brahman and becomes abrahman. As regards the plural expression, "the worlds of Brahman," in Br. Up., V. ii. 15, the 'of' is clearly appositional and involves no self-contra- diction. This is evident from the corresponding expression in Ch. Up., V. x. 2 and IV. xv. 6, which is simply ' Brahman' in the neuter. Thus, the term ' worlds of Brahman,' really con- notes Brahman and the use of the plural for the singular in this case is similar to the case of " aditih pāsān pramumoktu" where the plural pāsān (cords) denotes also a single cord. The locative "in the worlds " also connotes the ultimate spiritual purpose, i.e., for the full enjoyment of Brahman.1 The reference to Prajäpati in the Ch. text VIII. xiv also is not to kārya Brahman as the expressions there about the sustainer of names and "I am the glorious among Brah- mans clearly " indicate. But, says the Pūrvapakșin, the text " of him, the prānas do not depart " in Br Up., IV. iv. 6, clearly states that the linga sarira does not leave the body of one who realises the self. This interpretation is controverted by the Sūtrakāra himself in Sutra IV. ii. 12, where he points out that the Mädhyandina reading of the same text is "From him, the prānas do not depart", i.e., the linga sārīra does not leave the vidvān immediately at death, but accompanies him throughout the ascent to the absolute, till he crosses the whole samsāric world and passes beyond the world of Hiranyagarbha, when it is dissolved in the supreme Brahman.' The genitive in the former reading denotes a general relation (sambandha- sāmānya) which, in the light of the other reading, is fixed as the ablative, i.e., from. Even without the other reading, the 1 saptami nimitta mātra vivakşayā avakalpate Brahma sarvabhoga nimittam sarvaprapañca nimittam iti nimitta saptamyeva ityadoșah. [IV. iii. 14.] 2 prāgeva lingasya praļayo nāsti; samsāramandalam hiranyagarbha paryantam atikramya praļayo bhavati. [IV. ii. 12.]

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context shows that there is no question whether the prānas, i.e., the linga s'arira, leave the physical (sthūla) body. The only doubt is whether, in the case of the vidvān, the linga s'arira, which is the result of upādhi, is destroyed immediately at death as seems prima facie probable. The S'ruti states that, by virtue of his jñana and karma, the vidvan continues to have the linga sarira till he completes the ascent and attains the absolute. Consequently the term 'him' has its natural significance, i.e., the jiva, the saririn or the soaring self as the Sutra says and not the sarira. The same meaning has also to be applied in interpreting Ārtabhāga's question and Yājnavalkya's reply:1 "When this man dies, do the prānas depart from him?" "Not so, not so," replied Yajnavalkya; "here only they continue in conjunction; that perspires and swells and swollen lies dead." But if the departure of the prānas from the body be denied, the latter half of the answer about the body lying swollen and dead would be inappropriate and the answer would also be opposed to our normal experience. This meaning is confirmed also by the succeeding passage in the text which speaks of the ascent of the Brahmavit and the Pañcagnividyanistha. The Advaitin's attempt to strain the Sūtra, IV. ii. 12, in his favour by splitting it up into two, and interpreting the word ekesām as referring to Artabhāgaprasna instead of to the correspond- ing Mädhyandina reading and ignoring the force of the particle hi is, according to Bhäskara (and we may add, according to Thibaut also) " altogether impossible."2 The Sutra describes the ultimate absorption of the linga sarira in the absolute'

1 Br. Up., III. ii. 11.

Bhāşya. ' vide p. Ixxxix of the Introduction to his translation of the Sankara

3 yatah prādurbhūtāh tatraiva svakārane praliyante. [IV. ii. 14].

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and the ideas of gati and gamana or spiritual pathway of Reality are deduced from the scripture alone. Every one, who has an insight into the Vedantic tradition (sampradāya), is aware of Brahman as the Paramātman that is immanent in all things and is absolutely perfect, and that it alone has the power to free the jiva from the evils of samsāra. Like fire and its light, experience always involves an experiencing subject and object. Consciousness implies a self-conscious personality, and this distinction does not introduce the notion of an antagonism between the self and the non-self, light and darkness, or' saguna Brahman and nirguna Brahman. Even granting the distinction between the relational and the absolute, the idea of Is'vara undergoing contraction and expansion is entirely unknown to the Upani- sads. Is'vara is defined as the all-self or the absolute and the idea that gantavya and prāpya imply a spatial and temporal distinction is absolutely inconsistent with the eternal purity and perfection of Iswvara. Determination does not sublate the absolute but is inherent in its very nature. Self- consciousness and other qualities are as pervasive as consci- ousness itself like the all-pervading ākāsa. The negative. definitions of Brahman like asthūla do not contradict determi- nation but only deny the pantheistic view that Brahman is the universe. Predication is thus not a perversion of reality but is its revelation; reality can be realized and the attempt to account for it as a mere arthavāda (a statement not to be taken in earnest) commits us to the notion of a bare Brahman which is absolutely blank. If Brahmānanda is an illusion and not the essence of spiritual life, arthavāda and not asādhārana guna, then the desire for apavarga or mukti itself becomes an arthavāda.' Then all the texts dealing 1 yadi s'rutam nādriyate apavargopi arthavādah kim na bhavati. [IV. iii. 13.]

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with spiritual destiny and attainment should be rejected as valueless.1 If the theory of gati has only an empirical value and applies to the fiction-ridden finite self (caitanya ābhāsa), then it may be asked "Is this reflection or ūbhāsa real (vastu) " or unreal (avastu) ? If it is non-existent, then there is no seeker after salvation, and the whole Vedntic enquiry becomes futile or idle. But if it has substantiality, then Māyāvāda falls to the ground. The Upanisad repeatedly declares the attainment of Brahman as the goal and glory of spiritual life. The Chandogya text, IV. xv. 6, the Mundaka text, I. ii. 11,' and Prasna Up. text, I. 103 promise eternal life (apunarāvrtti) to the wise man who seeks the solar path and avoids the lunar path. The Kath. Up. text, II. vi. 16,' and the Aitareya Upanisad5 speak of ascent and immortality in connection with paravidya or meditation on the Supreme Brahman only. The Gītā likewise distinguishes in several places between the empirical path and the path leading to eternal life. Similarly the Purānas speak of the path leading to immortal- ity. So also, the Vājasaneyaka text, " there is no return here for them." The term " here " does not mean this kalpa or the chance of return in the next. As a matter of fact the term iha is not found in the Kanva reading. Thus Bhaskara concludes that the theory of bhedābheda and upādhis alone recognises the reality of the distinction between aspiration and attainment, prāpaka and prāpya, and satisfactorily explains the attainment of Brahman as a progressive ascent 1 tatra gatis'rutayaḥ kūpe praves'ayitavyāh. [IV. ini. 13.] 2 sūrya dvāreņa te virajāh prayānti yatrāmrtah sa purușo hyavyayātmā

3 etasmān na punar āvantarte. [Pr. Up., 1. 10.] [Muņd. Up., I. ii. 11.]

See p. 119. 5 sa evam vidvān asmāt s'arirabhedād ūrdhva utkrāmişyan svarge loke sarvān kamān aptva amrtah samabhavat samabhavat [Ait. Up., II. iv. 6.]

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to the absolute. The wise man knows the distinction between bheda and abheda and with the insight and strength acquired by the practice of jñana-karma abandons the former (bheda) and finally becomes one with Brahman. It is true that, at first sight, there appear to be conflicting statements in the S'ruti regarding the nature of this attainment. But the Sūtras reconcile these apparent differences by adopting a principle well-known in Vedānta as tatkratu nyāya. The Ch. Upani- sad says: "According to what a man meditates on in this world, that he attains in the next."1 There is a close relation between the nature of desire and its realisation. The upāsaka may meditate on the kārya Brahman or on para Brahman; and corresponding to these two types of seekers there are two types of mukti known as kramamukti and sadyo- mukti. One type of seeker aspires for the world of Hiranyagarbha or kārya Brahman and by the practice of purity and self-discipline he attains the kingdom of Brahmā and eventually realises the absolute along with Brahmā. Pañcāgnividyā also leads first to the world of kārya Brahman. But the seeker after para Brahman or Supreme Reality becomes Brahman at once. Thus there are two vidyas and paths. One gradually leads the aspirant to the summit of this samsara mandala and promises release and transcendence in due course. But the other is a straight path to the supreme self. The pluralistic temper delights in endeavour and progressive attainment and the monistic type longs for eternity and immediate ascent to the absolute. But in either case, the absolute is the ultimate home and is reached through the arcirādigati as the linga sarira persists till it is dissolved in the absolute.3 1 yathā kratur asmin loke puruşo bhavati tathā itah pretya bhavati. [Ch. Up., III. xiv. 1.] ? arcirādinā gatvā paramātmani linga praļayah, na prāk." [IV. iii. 13.]

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It now remains for us to analyse the content of mukti and determine its exact meaning by a critical examination of the antagonistic theories formulated by the Advaitins and naive theists. We may develop the theme by discussing the exact meaning of the Chandogya Up., which says that the freed soul attains the supreme light and realises its essential nature.' The term svena indicates that no adventitious celestial or aprakrta form is newly assumed by the self and it connotes its essential, eternal, spiritual nature. The ex- pression param jyotir upasampadya refers to the realisation of the supreme self (suddha paramātma rupa) by renounc- ing the empirical adjunct. This jyotis is not the physical light of suns and stars, but the transcendental light (jyotisām jyotis) 'that never was on sea or land'. The Upanisad thus expresses the nature of mukti as self-realisation by self- transcendence. The separate psychic self now becomes the supreme shining self and thus attains eternal freedom. The essence of mukti is the attainment of absolute life or avibhāga with the absolute. Now arises the interesting question whether self-realisa- tion involves the persistence of the finite self or its absorption in the absolute. Is avibhāga absorption or indistinguishable- ness? Is it the loss of personality or the loss in personality or is it the self-identity of the absolute? The monist employs the terms absorption, coalescence, dissolution, dis- sipation, expansion, and identity in a loose sense without defining their exact distinctions. The Visistādvaita of Rāmā- nuja is in favour of individual survival and the conservation of the values of finite personality. Avibhāga is, according to him, a union with the supreme self expressed in the form of

VIII. iii. 4.] 1 param jyotir upasampadya svena rūpeņa abhinișpadyate. [Ch. Up.,

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self-effacement or self-gift. There is a coalescence of content between the finite and the infinite in spite of their separate existence. The divine will pours itself into the finite and becomes one with it in a single personality. It is the ecstasy of communion in which love realises itself by the effacement of the self. But S'ankara sees the self-contradiction in two different centres of experience, having their own individuality, and yet getting merged in a single self-centred personality, and there- fore explains avibhāga as the identity with the absolute by eliminating the empirical ideas of self-gift and sovereignty. Mukti, according to S'ankara, is only a cessation of avidyā and bondage, and not the accession of something new. Bhāskara is not in favour of identity or inseparability but is inclined to interpet mukti as self-expansion and ekībhāva or oneness with the absolute. Ekībhāva is not absolute identity between jiva and Is'vara as in Advaita as it refers only to unitive consciousness. The monistic texts like "Thou art That," "I am Brahman " refer to the finite centre as a divided self becoming one with the infinite. This truth is brought out by the simile of the ether in the jar becoming one with the all-pervading ether when the jar is broken. In the same way, owing to the upädhi, the absolute divides itself into the finite, and, when it is dissolved, it becomes one with it again.1 The Ch. text VI. 13 expresses the truth that the self is dissolved in the immanent unity of the self like the solution of salt in water. The Mundaka text* illustrates the same truth by the simile of the river losing or merging itself in the ocean. Bhāskara is opposed to eternal distinction (svarūpa bheda) on the one hand and the intuition of the indeterminate

1 jiva parayosca svābhāvikah abhedah aupādhikastu bhedaḥ; sa tannivrttau nivartate. [IV. iv. 4.] ' ĮII. ii. 18.

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(aikya) on the other. No analogy drawn from human experience adequately expresses the ineffable bliss of the expansive life. In the mystic experience, ' thought expires in enjoyment,' and therefore it defies all attempt at definition and communicableness. The Sutras, however, indicate the nature of this experi- ence by the various modes in which it expresses itself. They are briefly summed up in terms of cognition, conation and feeling and we shall consider each of these aspects in some detail. The first question is: "Does svarūpa or essential self involve the highest expression of consciousness or does it involve absolute consciousness? " Is consciousness deter- minate (sasambodha) or indeterminate (nissambodha) ? Jaimini favours the view that freedom consists in the highest expression of consciousness known as gunāstaka āvirbhāva or presence of attributes like purity, truthfulness, omni- science and omnipotence (apahatapāpma, satyukāma, satya- sankalpa, etc.) in their absolute perfection. But Audulomi goes to the other extreme and speaks of absolute conscious- ness devoid of all content (nissambodha or caitanyamātra). To him pure consciousness is like dreamless sleep without the obscuring element of avidya or the sense of manifoldness. Very nearly the same view is held by the S'änkhyas and the Vaiseşikas. To the Sānkhyas, mukti is the eternal isolation of purusa from prakrti, devoid of activity, consciousness, bliss and other attributes. To the Vaisesikas also, mukti is the freedom obtained by the annihilation of attributes and the cessation of sorrow. Their argument is apparently convincing. Rāga or desire is rooted in sense and sensibility (s'arīra, indriya and manas) and leads man to the endless sufferings of samsāra. Therefore the only way to mend it is to end it and abolish all consciousness that disturbs the " clod " and makes it restless.

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But Bādarāyana finds Vedantic sanction for both the views. To a Vedāntin, who accepts the bhedābheda theory, there is no incompatibility between the absolute and the relative. Like the sun and its rays, the supreme radiates itself in various forms, and there is no inconsistency between guna and gunin. But the Advaitin, with his distinction between the intuition of the indeterminate or nirguna and the logical thought of saguna, thinks that Jaimini is at the stage of Iswara with the eight-fold qualities of Isvara, but without the spiritual intuition of absolute consciousness. To him the Sutra gives a logical account of Is'vara and is there- fore only a mere arthavāda. But Bhāskara has repeatedly drawn attention to the logical fallacy of this distinction and rejected nirguna Brahman as no Brahman at all. Con- sciousness without any content commits us to mere subject- ivism and abstractionism. Indeterminate intuition involves the dissolution of the cosmos and lapses into the ' uncon- scious.' But the Advaitin evades this logical conclusion and explains away the difficulty by various analogies and other devices. One ingenious solution is that illusoriness vanishes, but that the illusion remains. It is only the finitude that is shaken off and not the finite. This is a tacit admission of the truth of bhedabheda and the abandonment of Māyavāda. To the Advaitin, there can be no universal consciousness or all-self, as the universe of space-time is an illusion that vanishes in the absolute. The Sänkhya theory of the do- nothing, know-nothing purusa does not provide for the spirit of expansion of the self and the enhancement of its value. Release leads to passivity and inertness, as the eternal seer has nothing to see. Consciousness without an object is likely to lapse into unconsciousness. Extremes very often meet and the moksa of the Naiyäyika is very much allied to that of

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the Māyāvadin and the Sankhya. When consciousness is abolished and reduced to the condition of sleep or laya, the self is not still like a stone, but itself becomes the stone. But Bhāskara holds the view that when avidya or nescience is removed, omniscience is regained. If ānanda is the mere absence of suffering, why does the Upanisad describe the content of bliss with such a wealth of concrete detail? There can be no calculus of pleasure, if pleasure is the mere absence of pain.1 All these theories are vitiated by a false asceticism which reduces life to a void and a waste. As we already pointed out, there is nothing essentially good or bad in rāga. Its value depends upon its direction and end. When it is directed to sense objects, it leads to bondage; but when it is spiritualised it leads to the immortal bliss of Brahman.2 In the metaphysics of ānanda, the value of joy is transfigured and not eliminated. All these three theories are therefore false readings of the absolute entirely opposed to Vedic authority. Mukti involves the freedom of the cosmic will. Brahman is an eternal thinker who is absolutely good and free (satya- kāma and satyasankalpa) and the finite self which has become one with Brahman also acquires the same character. Freedom is self-determination and determination becomes conditioned only when there is a higher will that directs and dominates it. But the freed self is not conditioned by any higher will. In divine freedom every conation is immediately satisfied and there is no interval between endeavour and the attainment of the end. This freedom is realised in the

I na vå ānanda s'abdo duhkhābhāvavacanah; s'atagunottarottarakra- meņa utkarşāpakarşapratipādanāt. na ca abhāvasya nirupākhyasya utkarşāpa- karşau stah. [1V. iv. 7.] " rāgo hi paramātmavişayo yassa mukti hetuh; vişayavişayo yassa bandhahetuh. [I. iv 21. 82]

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mechanism of nature. The eternity of God is not opposed to the temporal process. The eternal realizes itself in the temporal. The whole series of events is included in one single span of experience. In the vision of the unity of things the distinction between endeavour and achievement entirely disappears. The end is immediately realised in the process. The universe is not a mere fact but an eternal act, in which the end is immediately divined. Time, therefore, does not vanish in the absolute, but enters into it and gets transfigured. The freed self does not become a mere static absolute, but realises whatever it wills in the world of relativity. The Sutras next raise the question whether this self- directive activity requires the instrumentality of the body and the senses. Bädari, the idealist, realizes the discrepancy between embodiedness and freedom and maintains the view that the absolute spiritual life is without any content, physi- cal or psychic. But Jaimini is equally emphatic in his theistic idea of the thinker having the tools of thought. Bādarāyana accepts the validity of both the views and justi- fies his conclusion by the Mīmāmsaka rule relating to dvā- dasaha.' The self has a will of its own but needs no external apparatus or agency. The Brahmanized self is beyond the conditions of finiteness and may, by its infinite immanent activity, realize its cosmic will and glory with or without the body.ª The latter experience resembles dream consciousness and the former the volitional activity of the waking state. But the Māyavadin regards the volitional activity of Isvara as a contradiction of pure consciousness (nissambodha) and

1 The twelve days' sacrifice may be a case either of a man desiring prosperity resorting to it or of a man offering it for the sake of progeny .- İV. iv. 12. 2 muktasya sarvas'aktitvāt ais'varyayogāt s'ariropādānam anupādānañca svecchayā upapadyate. [1V. iv. 12.]

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explains away the experience recorded in the Sūtras IV. iv 11 to 15 as mere arthavāda intended to glorify a certain truth, as a mere metaphor and not a metaphysical truth. The analogy of sleep which he often adduces only brings out the elements of solipsism and subjectivism that are inherent in that theory and its affinities with the Vaisesika theory of mukti. Contentless consciousness is as empty and futile as the abolition of consciousness and there is no way of distin- guishing between the state of a statue and the sleep of sama- dhi. But the Bhedabhedavādin reconciles monism and pluralism by his insistence on the absolute as saguna Brah- man who is the self without a second, the eternal thinker and mover in whom all things have their being. The absolute alone èxists but its experiences are varied and a contentless cognition in any level of life is unthinkable. Though the self becomes one with the absolute, the world-process con- tinues for ever, and the Brahmanized self may be lost in self- intuition, or it may realize its divine nature in cosmic func- tioning. There is no inconsistency in the mukta having multiple bodies at the same time, as the self pervades all things and, like a lamp, illumines them. Mukti is not only the consciousness of the all-self and its glory but also the realization of eternal bliss. The Tait- tirīya Upanișad attempts a quantitative estimate of this bliss and ultimately abandons all ideas of measurement and logical definition." In the entrancing rapture of the mystic reali- zation, the self is not merely merged or lost in the Other; there is neither the confluence of separate selves nor the coalescence of their content, but a self-identification of the absolute. To the theist, bliss is always a double fruition in divine communion. The pantheist is anxious to be merged in divine bliss and to lose his separate being. In bliss, the

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self-feeling alone is effaced but not the self. The monist does not like beatitude or blending but wants to be bliss itself. But Bhäskara delights in the consciousness of the infinite expanse of bliss in which sensation and self melt away and get dissolved in the all-self. The Br. Up. texts1 that the freed self enjoys eternal sleep without samjñā (consciousness) refer only to the abolition of the specific empirical con- sciousness that arises from the association with the body and the sense organs (sarīrendriya visaya nibandhanam viseșa vijñānam), and not to the annihilation of consciousness (sāmānya jñāna) itself. The absolute is not the unconscious, but the highest expression of universal consciousness and the experience of bliss connotes this supreme self-consciousness and glory (niravadhika ais'varya). The self sees and obtains everything everywhere2 because it sees it under the form of eternity. But this idea of absolute oneness is repugnant to the theistic.mind and the five Sūtras of IV. iv preceding the very last one are therefore devoted to the description of the theistic ideal of mukti. The absolute is the unconditioned will of Is'vara who creates the universe and becomes its inner ruler. The Sadvidya ascribes the creation of the universe to Para- mes'vara, the Supreme Lord and Ruler of all. Even the cosmic deities like Brahmā and Indra have no independent will of their own (svatantriya), but, as the instruments of the divine purpose (Is'varāyatta), they utilise their apparent autonomy and glory in the interests of the world-progress (lokasangraha- vyāpāra). Though His will is eternal (nityasiddha) and self- realised, He realises his redemptive power in the making of

1 na pretya samjña asti-Br. Up., II. iv. 12 and IV. v. 13.

xxvi. 2.] 2 sarvam ha pas'yah pas'yati sarvam āpnoti sarvas'ah. [Ch. Up., VII

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the universe and the saving of souls. The finite self is sus- tained and controlled by its inner self and it secures its freedom by seeking His mercy and by surrender to His will. Mukti is therefore the security of this absolute dependence on the absolute will of God and not the attainment of the absolute itself. It is sāvadhīka and not niravadhi- kais'varya. Mukti is the external and eternal relation of dependence on God (Iswarāyatta) and not the freedom of self- dependence. Experiencing the blessedness and the other per- fections of God, the freed self acquires the flavour and freedom of Divinity itself. It is Brahmanized through and through and soaked in bliss, but there is difference in this undifferenced Advaitic experience. The rulership of the universe belongs only to the supreme self and freedom means the self-dependence of God and the absolute dependence of the self and the participation of the self in Divine glory and goodness. The Advaitin with his ready-made distinction between saguna and nirguna Brahman finds no difficulty in explaining this experience. The released self is one with Isvara except in the matter of cosmic rule, and, its lordship being conditioned by. that of Iswvara, its freedom is not absolute. The path of the moon is the way of mundane life and endless migration. But the seeker after saguna Brahman ascends the luminous path of the gods, and entering the city of God, he enjoys its refreshing waters and its immortal bliss, and eventually attains the absolute. The jīvanmukta, however, immediately experiences the stirless state of nirvāna in which the darkness that arises from duality entirely vanishes and there is no more return to the world of samsāra as, in the absolute, there is neither the world of samsāra nor the world of saguna Brahman.

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Bhāskara rejects both the interpretations and follows a middle path. We are now familiar with his utter repudiation of the theory of nirguna Brahman and jīvanmukti. Māyāvāda is a philosophy of negations and the goal of nirvāna as con- sciousness without any content is allied to sleep and a lapse into the abyss of nothingness. The Advaitin sometimes identifies Is'vara with the absolute and, at other times, concedes his relative existence as a response to the needs of empiricism and bhakti and finally assigns to him the status of Hiranyagarbha. Such a view is neither consistent nor con- soling. Bhäskara therefore insists on the acceptance and appreciation of saguna Brahman as the absolute reality. But he does not favour the theistic teaching of eternal difference between the supreme self and the finite self. Seized with the monistic impulse or the sense of the infinite, the finite self transcends the sphere of samsāra and attains oneness (ekībhāva) with the absolute for ever. The finite is fused for ever with the infinite. Thus the Vedanta teaches non- difference as the essential condition of mukti. The Taittirīya statement, " He reaches all desires together with Brahman"' really refers to the attainment of Brahman with all desires, and the penultimate five Sutras which apparently give a pluralistic account of mukti should be interpreted in the light of the bhedābheda experience. But the last Sutra provides for the theistic as well as the monistic ideal. Bhāskara recognises two kinds of freedom, namely, krama mukti and sadyo mukti. To those who meditate on karya Brahman or effected Brahman (Hiranyagarbha) freedom becomes a progressive realisation and they attain Brahman along with Hiranyagarbha. But those who yearn for unity attain immediate freedom and the Sutra guarantees the stability and security of salvation to 1 sos'nute sarvān kāmān saha Brahmaņa vipas'cita. [Taitt. Up., II. i.]

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both. In this way, the monistic and the theistic ideals are reconciled in the light of Tatkratunyāya which says that man's destiny is determined by his desire.1 Before dealing with the other schools of Bhedābhedavāda, we may summarise the whole teaching of Bhaskara. In his theory of knowledge he posits the principle of identity and difference in the relation between Brahman and the jīva, in which the element of diversity is dissolved in the unity of the absolute. Bhäskara establishes the truth of saguna Brahman as the absolute self with an infinity of perfections like goodness, truth, purity and bliss. Influenced by upādhis or the principle of individuation, Brahman becomes, with His parināma sakti, the finite centres of experience and the mani- fold of things, like the rays of the sun, the waves of the sea, the ether in the jar and the sparks of fire. The best means of securing freedom consists in transforming desire into a longing for the undivided self by harmonizing jñāna and karma or jñāna-karma-samuccaya. Religion is the realisation of the fulness and freedom of Brahman by the dissolution of dis- tinctions, and is consequently both the apprehension and the attainment of Brahman. In the unity with the infinite, the solid singleness of the self melts away and it becomes one with the divine in a single super-personality. Mukti is not the aboli- tion of consciousness nor its aloneness; it is not communion with a personal god nor the absolute identity with the in- determinate. But it is oneness with Brahman (ekībhāva) which results from the abolition of the idea of duality (bhinnatva). Western mysticism in its pantheistic and monistic expression offers a striking parallel to the mysticism of 1 dvidhā muktih sadya eva muktiḥ kramamuktis'ceti; ye sākşāt brahma eva upāsate sadya eva mucyeran, itare tu hiranyagarbham prāpya .... tena saha mucyeran. [IV. iii. 14].

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Bhāskara. The mystic is an explorer of eternity and, in his hunger for the absolute, he is more interested in spiritual realisation than in speculating on reality. The mystic way is not a diagram of dialectics, but an ascent to the absolute. The real alone can know reality, and the finite self as an eternal spark of God, has a transcendental sense which links it with God and arouses the longing for its true home. The transcendental knower is immanent in the world of becoming and is the centre and source of all existence. The world of becoming rests on the bosom of being and spiritual life consists in going from the stormy sea of sense to the pacific ocean of divine expansive consciousness. Oppressed by the sense of separateness and sin, the mystic tries to reach out to the absolute and expand into cosmic consciousness; and the whole process is known as the mystic way. The absolute is not a place or a state but is personal. The mystic way is an upward and outward ascent to God by a process of inward alchemy. The seed of the spirit is extracted from self- seeking and transmuted, to divine unrest. It is the flight of the alone to the alone. This process consists of the three well-marked stages known as the purgative, the illuminative and the intuitive stages and is clearly elucidated by writers on mysticism like Miss Underhill. The journey to God is also a journey in God and is a very arduous adventure which. defies description. The mystic therefore delights in suggestive symbolism and spatial imagery. In the pilgrimage from the many to the one, the first stage of purgation or self-stripping marks the turning point. It consists in the elimination of the sense of finiteness and fragmentariness by a process of spiritual induction. The fleshly feeling drags us down and stains the white light of eternity. By the cleansing of the senses, the self is unselfed and transmuted. The second

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stage of illumination includes both intellectual vision and moral discipline. The vision is the result of introversion in which the self is gathered up and the mind is withdrawn from the cinematographic shows of sense and focussed on the eternal self, cf. Kath. Up., II. iv. 1. Activity now gives place to the action of the self. In this way, the burden is cast off and the spiritual eye awakens to the consciousness of the absolute and the soul flies on the wings of virtue and com- templative insight to the highest level of God. The unitive stage marks the summit of spiritual ascent. The fetters of sense and the barriers of personality are now broken and the expansive feeling begins to emerge and this is answered by the inrush and invasion of the environing consciousness. There is a surging of the whole self towards the fulness of the infinite and the soul is soaked for ever in the ineffable and immortal bliss of the absolute. The sundered and focalized self is fused into the indivisible unitive conscious- ness and the insulations of individuality disappear in this integral experience. When the soul is thus swallowed up in the absolute, there is no annihilation of its essence. It is transfigured, deified and lost in the ocean pacific of God and the highest values of truth, goodness and beauty are con- served in the life of allness.

BOOK II

PART I

OTHER SCHOOLS OF BHEDĀBHEDA

CHAPTER I

THE PHILOSOPHY OF YĀDAVAPRAKĀS'A

THE bhedābheda of Yādavaprakāsa is so closely allied to that of Bhäskara that the one is often confounded with the other, and this confusion is further increased by the identification of bhedābheda with the Visistādvaita of Rāmānuja. Very little is known of Yadava and his system of Vedānta; and his com- mentary on the Vedānta Sūtras is not, at present, available. According to tradition there was one Yādavaprakāsa who lived at Kanchi in the eleventh century A.D. and taught Rāmānuja for some time; the latter could not accept his teaching and so he formulated his Visistādvaitic tradition which was a clear break-away from the interpretation of Yādava. There is, however, no clear evidence to establish the identity of this Yadava with the exponent of bhedābheda- vāda. The philosophy of Yādava is, like other Vedānta systems, based on the authority of immemorial tradition and may be ultimately traced to the Upanisads. Sudarsana Bhatta, in his gloss on the S'rī Bhāsya of Rāmānuja known as S'rutaprakāsikā, identifies the view of Asmarathya, summed up in the Vedānta Sūtra, I. iv. 20, with the philosophy of Yadava; and Thibaut translates the comment of Bhāmati on the same Sutra and states that the doctrine represented by smarathya is known as bhedabheda. The systematic account of Yädava's teaching that is here attempted is mainly based

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on the critical references to it that are contained in the works of Rāmanuja and Vedanta Desika. The latter devotes a brief chapter in his Paramatabhanga to the critical examina- tion of the tenets of Bhāskara and Yādava. The exposition of Yādava's Vedānta may be prefaced by a brief analysis of the essentials of the twin-schools of bhedābheda. Both Bhāskara and Yādava repudiate the theory of nirguna Brahman and pan-illusoriness. For Bhāskara, the absolute is Brahman and the upādhis, and the upādhi is a psycho-physical complex of buddhindriya-deha or mind-body. It is a real limiting adjunct of the absolute and not a fictitious semblance (satyopādhi and not mithyopādhi) ; and it is owing to this adjunct that the unconditioned exists as the finite selves, like the one infinite space enclosed in pots and pitchers. This theory of limitation creates a dualism between Brahman and the upadhi; and Yadava tries to overcome the discrepancy by the concept of Brahma-parinama or the theory of transfor- mation, by which the absolute which is the sat without a second by its own immanent sakti or potential energy be- comes God and the universe of cit and acit like the waves and ripples of the ocean. The infinite and the finite express the eternal necessity of the absolute. Both the Vedāntins affirm the pantheistic truth of identity in difference in their philosophy of nature. The infinite enters into and becomes the pluralistic universe and yet it is identical with itself and is not affected by its contingency and other imperfections. In their philosophy of spirit, both reject the solicitations of sense and lay stress on the dual discipline of jñāna-karma- samuccaya as indispensable to the attainment of mukti; but Bhaskara insists on the primacy of the abheda texts of S'āstra and the real possibility of returning to the unitive conscious- ness or ekībhāva by breaking the barriers of the upādhis and

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their accidental associations. Yadava also traces the evils of samsāła to the erroneous perception of difference, but defines mukti as the realisation of the bhedabheda consciousness. While for Bhaskara unity alone is the ultimate truth and difference is adventitious, for Yadava difference is as real as unity. Bhaskara is of opinion that the thinking things and material things are parallel expressions of the absolute, but Yadava denies the qualitative distinction between cit and acit and gives a spiritual interpretation of reality. Acit is the object which can develop into the subject and consciousness sleeps in matter and wakes up in the sentient being. From the Bhaskarīya point of view, Brahman exists in the three aspects of the causal Brahman, the effected world and the jiva; the acit follows necessarily from Brahman, but the cit is now distinct from, though in mukti it is one with Brahman (ananya) ; but Yadava views both acit and cit as eternal modal expressions of the absolute consciousness, and thus attempts to overcome the dualism that is inherent in Bhaskara's philosophy of Brahman and the upādhis.

EPISTEMOLOGY

The epistemology of Yadava closely resembles that of Bhāskara and is deduced from the monistic principle of identity pervading difference. According to the Vedārtha Sangraha of S'rī Rāmānuja, the Bhedābhedavādins adduce four reasons in support of this principle. In the judgment, "Man is an animal," there is co-ordination or sāmānādhi- karanya between the subject and the predicate; and this co- ordination is a related movement of thought. In addition to the apparent difference between the genus and the species, 10

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there is an identity of content between the two. In the judg- ment of causality, cause refers to the aspect of identity and effect to that of difference, and the two are correlated and not contradictory. Owing to the identity exhibited in the difference, it is impossible to think of the species apart from the genus. Besides, it is evident that the term connoting the genus also connotes the species included therein. Even the undifferentiated judgment (prathama pinda grahanam) reveals this relation of bhedābheda. Difference enters into the very notion of identity and makes it significant. Identity is not prior to or alien to difference; but it is its very presupposition and inmost character. The universal is not a formal unity of generalisation got by the abstraction of the particular, but is a concrete universal that realises itself in the plurality of the particulars as their immanent reason. While absolute monism strives after unity by the elimiration of difference and theism establishes difference by explaining away unity and insisting on the externality and self-existence of the finite, the theory of bhedābheda avoids the one-sided- ness of both and does justice to both the aspects. Absolute unity and absolute difference are mere abstractions without any content or meaning. In the content of true knowledge, both are harmonised into a single unity. It is a concrete whole which is both self-differentiating and self-integrating and not a mere neutral unity. Necessary relation does not mean mere relativity but presupposes the absolute as the foundation' of relational thought.

ONTOLOGY

Reality, in the ontology of Yādava, is bhinnābhinna; it is the one that pervades the many and accounts for the

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manifold. It is a one-in-many and a many-in-one. The infinite finitises itself and underlies the contingency of things and yet retains its infinite possibilities. Being or sanmatra is the essential nature of Brahmatva and it is immanent in all the particulars of experience as their life and reason. As John Caird puts it, God, the finite self and the world are not distinct entities, but are elements or moments of a single unity. Just as clay is transformed into pots, pitchers and platters, and as the sea contains foam, waves and bubbles, Brahman, the absolute, differentiates itself into Isvara, cit and acit, each having its own form and function; it is the content of the constituent parts. From the generic point of view the triad is really one, it is a unity in trinity ; but the specific modifications are many. All beings are but broken lights of the one shining sat and beyond the crests of consci- ousness is the infinite Pacific. As Dr. Rashdall says, the absolute is not God alone, but God and the finite centres. The infinite and the finite are related elements. Dr. Bosanquet thinks that the God of religion is an appearance of the absolute and not the whole of it. But the idea of God is not ephemeral and illusory. The finite is an appearance only in the sense that it is a partial expression of the infinite and not an illusion inherent in or superimposed on it. Individuality is not mere formal distinctness; and its content cannot be separated from its distinctness. While one part of the clay-stuff may be transformed into certain con- figurations, the other parts remain the same. Is'vara, though an element of the absolute, retains His perfections of self- consciousness (svaprakāsa), omnipotence (sarva sakti) and bliss (ānanda) and the finite centres are fragmentary. The finite and the infinite are thus seen to be correlative and not contradictory. They have no self-contained or

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isolated individuality; but each involves the other and is involved in it. As moments of reality, they exist together in the bhedābheda relation. The absolute contains an infinity of inter-woven selves and yet it transcends the self-feeling of the finite. As Royce says, the absolute in its wholeness includes an infinity of inter-woven and inter-communicating selves each of which represents the totality of the absolute in its own way. The finite is neither fictitious nor formal, but is its real and rational expression. Both cit and acit are real features or factors of reality and thus reveal its infinity. Brahmatva is the causal unity of the universe constituted by the distinctions of Isvara, the cosmic ruler, cit, the experi- encing subject, and acit, the object of experience; the one sat appears as the many. In pralaya these distinctions persist in a potential state and creation is only the self-manifestation of this triune unity. Brahman is both static and dynamic and by His parināmasakti or energising principle, He emanates Himself into the manifold. Brahman is life, mind and speech (prānamaya manomaya and vānmaya). In the first aspect, He is the vital energy immanent in cit and acit; in the second aspect, He is the creator of creators (antarbhūta kārayitā); and in the third aspect, He emanates into the universe. Pariņāmasakti is the creative urge at the heart of reality and is therefore a vitalising function and not a vanishing illusion. This theory of cosmology is therefore known as the Brahmaparināmavāda. Creation is the self-expression of Brahman and is a process of successive emanation. In the praļaya state, mūla- prakrti or primordial stuff of matter is indistinguishable from Iswvara, though the two are co-eternal. This state of non-differentiation is known as tamas or saktyavasth or the free possibility of the absolute. Its emanation is called

THE PHILOSOPHY OF YĀDAVAPRAKĀS'A 149

ādyavasthā or paramākāsa and it is called Iswvaraprabhā. This is self-determined spatially (desaikarūpa) and does not require any external determination. It is of three kinds, jñānaprabhā, ānandaprabhā and kriyāprabhā in their uni- versal and particular aspects. Of these, the second emanates into the sense-pleasures of individuality or purusa; kriyā- prabhā functions as life or prāna. From jñānaprabhā arises sattva, from kriyāprabhā, rajas. Rajas evolves out of sattva and tamas out of rajas. Manomaya is the substratum (adhişthātā) of sattva, vānmaya of tamas and prāņamaya of rajas. Manas, vāk and prāna are thus the evolutes of sattva, tamas and rajas respectively. These categories function as the manas, speech and prana of the embodied self, but are helpful to the freed soul and Isvara in the cosmic functioning. Iswvara in his threefold differentiation as prāņamaya, manomaya and vānmaya functions in all finite beings as their immanent kartā, kārayitā and pariņamayitā. The finite is an integral element of the absolute and has an infinite content; but it identifies itself with the body, seeks the goods of earthly life and thus submits itself to the endless sins and sorrows of samsara. This bondage is threefold. It is (1) prakrtibandha or desire for the eight-fold products of prakrti which includes the appetitive or animal life; (2) vaikārikabandha or the desires of sensibility which are fugitive and fragmentary; and (3) daksinabandha due to the moral causality of karma. According to Caird, the con- sciousness of defect in our knowledge is a consciousness of union with and at the same time separation from, a perfect intelligence. Owing to the influence of karma, the wheel of life goes on whirling and the self, dissatisfied with its isolation, longs to escape from the prison-house of the flesh by the inner law of its being. Spirit-life is breaking away from the

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threefold bondage of life, viz., of nature, sensuality and self- consciousness, which divides us from our divine unity. Man, being both finite and infinite, is not satisfied with his finite life. The seeker after the infinite contemplates on Brahman as the very essence of his inner life and then his consciousness is suffused by the infinite and acquires the fulness and freedom of his essential nature. By transcending the limitations of finitude, the finite enters into union and communion with the absolute. In that state, the freed self wills the true and the good and thus attains the seven-fold perfections mentioned in the Dahara Vidya.1 The jivas are of three kinds: the bound (baddha), the freed (mukta) and the perfect (siddha). The siddhas are ajānasiddhas and yogasiddhas. The first are the allies of Is'vara and help Him in the evolution of His cosmic purpose. As members of spiritual society, they are the instruments of His absolute will. But the second acquire the eight yogic perfections. The freed souls pass out of the realm of restlessness and enjoy eternal bliss (svabhoga) and absoulte self-determination (svātantrya). Yādava, like Bhās- kara, denies jīvanmukti and refers to the transcendental at-homeness of the self in the spiritual world of Brahma. Freedom or mukti is the relation of the unity of the finite and the infinite. Mukti is not the extinction of the finite, but is its highest fulfilment as the essential and eternal moment or member of the infinite. A self-identical infinite in which the finite is annulled can neither be realised nor reached and has no meaning or value in mukti. In transcend- ing individuality, the finitude of the private self is alone removed. But the finite remains and is identified with the universal life. In the self-feeling of the divided life,

1 apahatapāpmå vijarah. vimrtyuh, vis'okahh, vijighatsah, apipāsah, satyakāmah, satyasańkalpah. [Ch. Up., VIII. i, 5.]

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there is privateness and exclusiveness, and this leads to indi- vidualistic selfism. But when the spirit of the totality of bhedäbheda which lives in the finite inspires it, the atomic self abandons its fragmentariness and friction, becomes the absolute and attains the stability of salvation. In the return of the finite to the infinite, it loses its self and finds itself as an integral member of the infinite pulsating with the spirit of bhedābheda.

CHAPTER II

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHARTRPRAPAÑCA

PROF. HIRIYANNA, in an illuminating pamphlet on Bhartr- prapañca, says that he was an old Vedāntin anterior even to S'ankara and he reconstructs his monistic interpretation of the Upanișads and the Sūtras in terms of pramāna samuccaya and bhedābhedavada.1 The following analysis, which is based on the work of that eminent scholar, brings out the similarity between the philosophy of Yadava and that of Bhartr- prapañca. Reality, according to Bhartrprapañca, is bhedā- bheda or an identity in difference and both sense-perception and S'ästra exhibit the truth of this principle. While the dualists explain away Advaita as mere gauna and the Advaitins, on the other hand, treat Dvaita as anuvāda, Bhartrprapañca makes the extremes meet in his principle of Dvaitādvaita. According to him, the Sutras bring out this truth by means of the classical analogy of the snake and its coils and the sun and its radiance. The cause is, logically speaking, immanent in the effect. The whole pervades the parts and the universal is realised in and through the particulars. But the most adequate category of reality is the relation of substance and modes (avasthavat and avasthah) in which there is a pervading identity that transfigures the parts. The same waveless ocean 1 A reference is made to his system by S'ankara in his commentary on the Brhadåranyaka Upanişad.

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manifests itself as waves and ripples and yet maintains its self-identity. In the co-ordination of empirical and scriptural knowledge or pramāna-samuccaya, the claims of monism and dualism are well-balanced and harmonised in the concept of Dvaitādvaita. Reality or Brahman is para and apara or higher and lower. On this view, duality is not disparateness involving inner contradiction, but is a bhedabheda or one-many relation. It is the relation between cause and effect, or the universal and the particular; or more accurately, like the waves arising from the waveless sea, the one undifferentiated substance or Brahman differentiates itself into the modal multiplicity of the cosmos. Brahman or the absolute is the Supreme Lord, the jivas and material things in the mūrtāmūrta aspects. The infinite evolves into the finite and yet is identical with itself. The cosmology of Bhartrprapañca may be traced to the theory of parinama as opposed to the vivartavāda of S'ankara. Brahman is the one without a second and at the same time, it differentiates itself into the trinity of Isvara, jiva and material things. Iswvara is the inner ruler of all. But He is less than the absolute, and the jīvas or the sāksins are the next modal manifestations of Brahman of which the most im- portant is Hiranyagarbha or the logos. In the evolution of the material world, there are six successive modes known as avyākrta or the cosmos in its causal state, sūtra, the adjunct of the logos, virāj or the visible universe, devatā or sense-organ, jāti or the type and pinda or the particular bodies. In this way the one supreme substance of the absolute transforms itself by its own creative urge into the eight multitudinous forms of matter and soul. Reality exists as the rāsis of Iswvara, cit and acit and they form a unity in trinity.

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The jiva is a real rasi or mode of Brahman and not an illusory creation thereof. Avidya or the principle of limitation belongs to the jiva and not to Brahman. Owing to the influence of beginningless avidyā and karma, the infinite partially finitises and transforms itself into the avasthā or condition of the jiva functioning as a knower and enjoyer. The sāksin is like the ekajīva of Advaita, a single self but without the defect of subjectivism. Bhartrprapañca, like Bhāskara, insists on jñāna-karma- samuccaya or the co-ordination of jñana and karma as the only adequate means of obtaining moksa and this corresponds to the theory of pramāna-samuccaya. Influenced by avidyā, the attachment to the pleasures of sense and sensibility, the jīva forgets its unity with Brahman and wanders in the world of smsära and the method of release implies both ap- prehension and attainment or jñāna and karma. The former is bhävana based on the mediate knowledge of the unity with Brahman as revealed in the monistic texts like " Tattvamasi" and "Aham Brahmasmi" and the latter is the kriya or the practice of nitya karma without attachment and the realisation that Brahman alone is the doer as well as the deed. Before this consummation is reached, the seeker after mukti should first meditate with bhakti on Hiranyagarbha or the logos, become one with Him, escape from samsara and then finally transcend even this limitation and attain mukti.

CHAPTER III

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIMBĀRKA

IN a comprehensive edition by Roma Bose of the Philosophy of Nimbārka called Svābhāvika Bhedābhedavāda including translation of his commentary on the Brahma Sutras and an exposition of his system by comparing it with other schools of Vedānta, the author has made a valuable contribution to the study of Nimbārka in particular and Vedānta in general. Mr. S'rīdhar Majumdar, in his notable work on the Vedanta Philosophy, concludes that Nimbarka is the most unbiassed of the commentators on the Brahma Sūtras and that his comprehensive system of thought reconciles the transcendentalism of S'ankara with the immanent philosophy of Rāmānuja. According to Mr. Kokiles'vara Sāstri, the system of Nimbārka is probably based on the tradition of Audulomi formulated by Bhaskara. Mr. V. S. Ghate, in his comparative study of the Vedanta, likewise thinks that the bhedābheda of Nimbārka mediating between pluralism and monism is the only system that best fits in with the Sūtras, if they at all admit of any such definite formulation. Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, in his book on Vaisnavism, thinks that Nimbārka was a Trilinga Brahmin born in a village in Andhradesa 1, and lived sometime after Rāmānuja. In addition

' According to another tradition he was born in Brindavan.

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to his commentary on the Sūtras, known as Vedānta Pārijāta Saurabha, which is very concise and non-controversial, he composed a small treatise called Dasasloki containing the essentials of his system known as Sanatkumāra Sampradāya, based largely on the teaching of Ramanuja and following a commentary or Vrtti written by Audulomi. These essentials relate to the five topics, viz., the nature of God, the finite self, bhakti, obstacles to it and mukti.1 Nimbarka holds that there are three ultimate categories or reals which are co- eternal, namely, Brahman or cosmic ruler, cit, the subject of experience, and acit, the object of experience, which are non-different and different. In his translation of S'ankara's commentary on the Vedānta Sūtra, I. iv. 21, Thibaut refers to the theory advocated by Audulomi as satya-bhedavāda. The finite self is absolutely different from Brahman; but in mukti it passes out of the body and becomes one with Brahman. Audulomi, Nimbārka and Bhāskara seem to represent three different traditions. Audulomi differs from Bhāskarācārya because he emphasises the absolute difference between the finite and the infinite in the state of samsāra, and from Nimbärka, owing to his insistence on the non- difference between the two in the state of mukti. The philosophy of Nimbarka seems to be midway between that of Yādava and of Rāmānuja. According to Nimbärka, the nature of reality or Brah- man, both within prapañca and outside it, is both bheda and abheda.2 It is an identity that persists in difference and sustains it.3 Absolute identity is as unthinkable as absolute difference

1 Vide " Brahma Vadin," Vol. XII, p. €29.

[I.i. 4.] 9 sarva-bhinna-abhinno Bhagavān Vāsudevo vis'vātmaivajijñāsā vişayah,

3 Brahma-abhinnopi kşetrajfah sva-svarūpato bhinna eva. [II. i. 22.]

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIMBĀRKA 157

and both are opposed to the Upanisadic spirit which predi- cates the equal reality of difference and non-difference. Reality is the absolute per se, which exists in itself as the self- complete and the self-determined. Though out of relation to the world, it still enters into relation with it; but it is not a relative absolute. The absolute constitutes the relative and is its logical prius. Being is the one in the many, like fire and its sparks or like water and its ripples; the relation between unity and plurality is one of co-existence and not of contradiction.1 The Advaitic theory of pan-illusoriness ex- plains away the manyness of reality. Bhäskara's theory of upādhis predicates imperfections to the absolute and the Dvaita theory posits eternal distinctions and presupposes their externality. The philosophy of Nimbārka is a kind of mono-dualism, which avoids the perils of radical monism and pluralism and preserves the integral experience of bhedābheda. The universal or the whole is immanent in the particular and yet remains beyond, without losing its wholeness. The distinctions between nirguna and saguna Brahman do not arise in the system of Nimbärka, as he regards the absolute as the universal self which is both transcendental and immanent. Negation only denies absolute difference or bare otherness, but does not deny difference altogether. Brahman has an infinity of auspicious qualities and is entirely free from imperfections. Brahman is both static and dynamic. In relation to the world, it is active and dynamic, and when out of relation to it, it is static and serene. Like the spider weaving its own web, the supreme self emanates into the manifold and yet exceeds it. Reality is a unity in trinity consisting of the jīva or bhokta or the subject of experience, bhogya, the object of

1 avibhāgepi samudra-tarangayoriva sūrya-tatprabhayoriva tayor vibhā- gas syat. [II. i. 13.]

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experience, and Iswvara, their indwelling spirit and controller. In its abheda aspect, it implies the self-subsistence or self- relation (svatantra-sadbhāva) and the bhedābheda aspect connotes distinction as well as dependence (paratantra- sadbhāva) or niyāmyatva. Brahman is both the material cause (upādānakāraņa) and the efficient cause (nimittakāraņa) of the universe. The cosmic order is not an illusory projec- tion of maya, but the self-actualisation of the creative potencies (sakti).1 Causality implies transcendence and immanence and neither dominates over nor destroys the other. Creation is the unfolding of that which is enfolded. Brahman, the sakta, is the very stuff and substance of the universe of mind and matter known as its sakti in a bhedā- bheda relation. There is the creative urge or sakti at the heart of reality which is potential in pralaya and evolves into the whole cosmic process or saktiviksepa. The potency and activity of the universe are only the self-differentiations of the Brahman.' Cosmic dissolution and evolution are like the closing and disclosing of a part of the snake's body. Brahman, the absolute of metaphysics, is the God of religion and He has a dual spiritual form of His own, made of beauty and bliss called Rādhā-Krsna. Krsna removes sins3 and draws the world to Himself by His beauty. Brahman transforms itself into space-time and yet transcends its limitation.4 While Râmanuja attributes srsti to the flux of prakrti and the karma of the jīva, Nimbārka traces it to the immanent sakti of Brahman; but both insist on treating the

[II. i. 23, 29.] ' kārya-ākāreņa Brahman pariņamate, sva-asādhāraņa s'aktimatvāt.

? sarvajñam sarvas'akti Brahma svas'akti vikşepeņa jagadākāram, svātmānam pariņamayya avyākrtena svarūpeņa s'aktimatā krtimata pariņatam eva bhavati. [I. iv. 26.] 3 pāpam karşayati nirmūlayati iti Krsna. 4 sarva-antar-vartinah parasya sthānatopi doșo na. [III. ii. 11.]

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIMBĀRKA 159

absolute as a personal God. It is also worthy of note that Nimbārka interprets what is known as the Pāñcarātra Adhikarana as having no reference to the Pāñcarātra system but as refuting the S'äkta school of thought, which refers to blind energy and not to Brahman as the supreme cosmic ground.1 The finite itself is essentially one with the infinite and yet it has a distinct nature of its own. It is an element of moment of the absolute though its attributive consciousness is all-pervasive. It persists in its own atomic or monadic nature both in the empirical and in the emancipated state. The jiva is and has consciousness and, like the sun and its luminosity, both the dharma and the dharmin are identical and different; there is identity of content between conscious- ness and its subject. It has cognition (jñātrtva), conation (kartrtva) and feeling (bhoktrtva) as its essential qualities in all states.' The term amsatva adequately expresses the bhedabheda relation between the finite and the infinite. Brahman itself has the amsa or sakti to evolve into the forms of cit and acit, and the Upanisad says that Brahman is the fishermen, the serfs and the knaves. The text really means that the jiva depends on God for its life and freedom.3 But this is not the spurious pantheism which says that God is equally in all things and is ' as full and whole in a hair as in the heart.' No school of Vedantic thought identifies God and the world. The finite self is a fact or factor of reality and not a phantom of imagination. Bhedābheda does not

' puruşam antareņa s'aktes-sakāşāt jagad-utpattiasambhavāt na tat- karaņa-vādopi sadhuh." [II. ii. 42.] Vide Majumdar's " Vedānta Philosophy," pp. 281-284. ' The self is a knower, an active agent and enjoyer and is an eternal entity different from acit and its twenty-three evolutes or effects. 3 It is atomic though its quality is all-pervasive and yet it is pervaded and controlled by the Lord.

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sacrifice individual responsibility absolutely; nor does it accept the individualistic ethics of the isolated self.1 The jiva thus becomes a phase or fragment of the in- dwelling spirit without, in any way, affecting its infinity. The unmanifested becomes the manifest and the universal self abides in and as the particular, without being tainted by the sins and sufferings of the world of samsāra. The sun shines with its own splendour, though its reflections are affected by the agitations of the medium. The sound that arises in ākāsa does not affect the akasa itself; likewise, when the infinite finitises itself, it is not infected by the imper- fections of the finite. The inner controller that breathes life into every soul is not contaminated by its karma. Acit is different from cit and it consists of prakrti with its twenty-three categories or effects, aprākrta or immaterial matter and kāla or time. It is co-eternal with Brahman and the relation between the two is bheda and abheda like the causal relation and like the coil of the snake. The effect is derived from the cause and it depends on it. The snake and its coil are one and yet different. Likewise the world of nature comes from Brahman and depends on him. The relation is natural (svābhāvika) and not aupādhika as in Bhaskara, nor illusory as in S'ankara. Prakrti is the place, means and object of enjoyment for the bound self and aprākrta serves as the place, means and object of enjoymen? for the free self in Paramapada. Mundane life is isolated, inadequate and transitory. Finitude divides the self from God and thus distorts its form; but the finite has the freedom of self-transcendence and this freedom is a fact of spiritual life and not a dualistic delusion. Owing to its contact with

1 The state of the jiva being atomic, self-conscious and free is essential to it (svābhāvika) and not adventitious (aupadhika) as in Bhāskara.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIMBĀRKA 161

the body, the jiva, which is essentially sinless, suffers from the hazards of the divided consciousness and wanders in the wilderness of samsāra. But the infinite in it creates a divine discontent and presses it towards unity. The chief method of attaining freedom is then realised as the ceaseless reflection on Brahman as the ätman of the jiva,1 not in the sense of absolute identity or the inner self or saririn, but in the sense of identity in difference. The monistic text "Thou art That " brings out the identity or the self-relation of the Iswara and the jiva. Though the upāsaka, who thus con- templates on Brahman, is different from the upāsya or object of contemplation, yet the subject and the object of contemplation are identical and the devotee grows into the unity of the Deity. The finite should be infinitised and not vice versa. The particular self (as a prapanna) should recognize the all-self as the only saviour without a second and realise his own unworthiness and helplessness, and surrender absolutely to His grace. Of the various sādhanas to mukti, prapatti is open to all and it consists of six parts of which the most important is self-surrender to the grace of God or Lord Krsna and to the guru. Devotion to Rādhā- Krsna melts the heart and deepens into flaming love. Then the Lord of Love reveals his blissful nature to him and frees him from the sorrows of samsara. According to Nimbārka, the Advaitic distinction between the absolute and the spatialised saguna Brahman, the higher vidvan and the lower vidvān, and kramamukti and jīvan- mukti is unknown to the S'rutis and the Sutras. The ideas of gati and gantavya connote the reality of spiritual aspiration and attainment and presuppose the existence of the world of Brahman as the direct goal of life, as different from that of 1 mumukşuņā parama-puruşaļ svasya ātmatvena dhyeyah. [IV. i. 3]. 11

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Brahma or the Logos or the first evolute of the infinite. Mukti is the infinitising of the finite in which the finite remains without the sense of finitude. Avibhāga is neither absorption (laya) nor conjunction (samyoga). It is not svarū- paikya or self-identity, nor visistaikya or organic insepara- bility, nor ekibhava or oneness with the absolute. It is attaining brahmabhāva or sāyujya in which the mukta grows into the likeness of God. It enjoys the bliss of Brahman and is one with Him and at the same time as an atomic entity it is different from Him; but it involves identity in difference.1 It is the realisation of Brahman as one in essence and different in existence. When we refer to the fullness of the deliciousness of the mango fruit (rasaghanatva) only we do not deny its other sensations and the reference to ekarasa or a single flavour does not exclude differentiation ; it is the identity that pervades the particulars and trans- figures them. Release is a state of self-transcendence in which the particular self remains without its particularity. When the wheel of karma runs out its course, the freed self emerges effulgently from the body and the susumnānādi, which is the pathway to the perfect, and is illumined by the grace of the indwelling infinite ; it then soars through the shining path and attains the infinite bliss of Brahman. Its aspiration is now changed into attainment. The nature of the destiny of the finite self is determined by the nature of the meditation.2 The worshippers of symbols attain the spatialized infinite; but the seeker of the infinite in Dvaita-Advaita relation immediately attains the infinite and His bliss. Brahman is blissful and makes the jīva blissful. Like Rāmānuja,

1 vibhāga-avirodhinā vibbāgena anubhavati. [IV. iv. 4]. " tat-kratus tathaiva prāpnoti. [IV. iii. 14.]

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIMBĀRKA 163

Nimbārka recognizes three kinds of jīvas, viz., the free, the freed, and those that are not yet free, and three kinds of acit known as kāla or time, prakrti and suddha sattva or acit without its mutations. The Nimbārka school of bhedābheda thus appears to have greater affinities to the system of Rāmānuja than to the schools of Bhāskāra and Yādavapra- kāsa. While Bhaskara insists on the essential unity of the jiva and Brahman and Yadava treats Is'vara and jīva as the two essential aspects of the absolute, Nimbärka refers to the jīva as a distinct entity that derives its being from Brahman and depends on it; and his exposition, therefore, seems to be nearer Visiștādvaita than the bhedābheda of Bhāskara and Yādava and the theism of S'rī Caitanya. Among the other schools of Vedanta which adopted bhedäbheda and its language may be mentioned the exposi- tion of Kesava and the Acintya Bhedābheda variety of Vaisnavite thought. In a learned article on Kesava, Mr. T. R. Chintamani points out that he lived later than Bhāskara and commented on the Sūtras and that, in his philosophic position, he was a follower of Bhāskara.

CHAPTER IV

ACINTYA BHEDĀBHEDA OF S'RI KRSŅA CAITANYA

THE philosophy of S'ri Krsna Caitanya born in Navadvīpa in Bengal was elaborated by Bala Deva, one of his followers who lived in the nineteenth century, in his commentary on the Brahma Sūtras, and is known as Acintya Bhedābheda. It consists of four parts known as visaya or subject matter, sambanda or relation between Brahman and jīva, abīdheya or means of realising Brahman and prayojana or supreme end of life. S'ästra is the only source of kuowing Brahman and it includes in addition to the Upanișads, the Gītā and the Sutras, the authority of the Bhāgavata. It accepts the reality of Brahman, cit and acit and identifies Brahman with Bhagavān or Rādhā-Krsņa, as Nimbārka does. S'rī Krșņa is niravayava, without any body made of prakrti, nirguna, free from the three gunas of prakrti, namely, sattra, rajas and tamas and is advaya-jñāna-tatva or saguna Brahman, the one supreme self with a bewitching spiritual form of unsurpassed Beauty. He has an infinity of auspicious qualities and saktis of which the chief are para-sakti or svarūpa-sakti or aparā-sakti or jīva sakti and māyā-sakti. His aparā-sakti and maya-sakti constitute the world. of cit and acit and with his svarupa-sakti consisting of sandhini, samvit and

ACINTYA BHEDĀBHEDA OF S'RĪ KRSNA CAITANYA 165

ḥlādini, he is and has satyam, jñānam and ānandam or existence, intelligence and bliss. The powers and attributes and form and love of Krsna are identical with Krsna and are co-eternal with Him owing to the identity of substance and attributes. The sun is its luminosity and yet it has luminosity as its quality ; the serpent is its coils and the substance of the quality. Existence and essence are identical and yet they are different and likewise deha and dehī or the self and its body are one. These analogies illustrate the truth that S'ri Krsna is himself his saktis, qualities and form and yet different from them. S'ri Krsna with his para-sakti is transcendentally perfect and as jīva-sakti' and māya-sakti or the immanent cause becomes the plurality of jivas and the pluralistic world. As the effects of His sakti, they are one with Him or abheda and as creatures which are finite and imperfect they are different from Him. He is nirvis'esa in the potential or causal state and savisesa in the effected or actualised state and the two are bhedābheda. Krsņa and Rādhā are dual and distinct as the Lover and the Beloved and yet are non-dual in their essence. Love cannot exist by itself as a secondless one and it necessarily presupposes duality and otherness and at the same time it cannot bear separate- ness; it fulfils itself in unitive experience. Love is blissful in separation and bliss itself in union. Krsna cannot exist without Radha and yet he is Rādha as Rādha-Krsna. Moon- light is delightful and the delight is not the moon itself as nirguna nor is the light a prabha itself as mere guna without the gunī but it is moon-light as guni-guna. Likewise Krsņa is bliss and blissful and realises Himself in His eternal

Mallick. ' For details vide " The Philosophy of Vaispavite Religion ' by Mr. G. N.

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'other.' The world is Krsna-lila or the sport of love and it is born in and sustained by bliss. It is a strange dialectic of love in which love goes out of itself and thus realises itself. It is the metaphysical problem of the one and the many re- stated in terms of aesthetics, it identifies Brahman the absolute of metaphysics with Krsna the Lord of Beauty and bliss, sporting eternally with His creation. The relation or sam- bandha between Krsna and His qualities, potencies and vigraha between Himself and Radha and finally between Himself and the finite selves is bhedbheda. That they co-exist is a fact but how they co-exist is a holy mystery. The philosophy of Bhedäbheda is thus an explanation of the in- explicable; it is a concept of the inconceivable or acintya premabhakti or intense love as the chief means of attaining the bliss of Krsna. It varies in intensity from sānti rati or the joy of spiritual peace, dasya rati or the joy of serving the Lord, sakhya rati, the delight of fellowship with the Lord, vātsalya rati or the delight of overflowing affection to madana rati or the bliss of Divine Communion experienced by Rādhā in Rāsalīlā. It is called mahābhāva or the supreme mode of anurāga or irrepressible longing for the Lord and is the con- summation of the other bhavas. Bhakti develops from meditation, reverence and fellowship to the intimacy of communion. Krsna abandons his omnipotence and longs for union with the beloved whom He regards as His self. By His hlādini sakti or bliss he imparts His bliss to the bhakta and the lover and the beloved are immersed in immortal bliss. The potency of bliss is transmuted into the bliss itself in which power expires in enjoyment. This exalted state of religion or mysticism is the prayojana or supreme end of life and it is the true meaning of mukti or salvation. The jiva becomes one with the Lord and in the state of God

ACINTYA BHEDĀBHEDA OF S'RĪ KRSŅA CAITANYA 167

intoxication, he may feel ' I am He,' and even omit his karmas. But love is a dual-non-dual relation and in mystic rapture the two remain as two beings but in bliss the sense of two-ness is dissolved and it is amoral and alogical.

CHAPTER V

S'ĀKTAISM

SIR JOHN WOODROFFE, in his masterly edition of " Maha- nirvanatantra" and other critical expositions of S'ākta philosophy, has done a signal service to this much-neglected aspect of Indian thought. Pramathanath Mukhopadhyaya deals with the fundamentals of S'äktaism in his terse work, " Introduction to Vedanta Philosophy." The following summary of its essential features suggests its affinities to the realistic idealism of bhedābheda, mainly from the point of view of Yādava. Though the Vedanta is the only source of spiritual truths on account of its freedom from mistake, error and deceit, the non-dualistic sādhanas of tantra or agama based on the saving grace of the guru alone can remedy the maladies wrought by the confusions and corrup- tions of Kali. In seeking the unity-consciousness, the relation with the guru cannot be explained away as a mere illusory 'other.' The theory of S'iva-s'akti as the indivisible aspect of reality claims to harmonise the demands of both monism and dualism. As there can be no ' unity without the universe,' the dualistic world is but a dynamic expression of pure consciousness. The starting point of S'äktaism is the recognition of the fact of integral intuition, of which thought and things are segments or aspects and its method is therefore both realistic

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and idealistic. The integral experience of reality is alogical and every concept is not intuition itself. The alogical whole becomes the logical whole or the one in the many. From the standpoint of the whole, experience is being and the whole in its wholeness is alogical; but it includes and exceeds the experience of the centres or sections. The many is in the one and comes out of the one. Brabman, māyā, the self and the world are the main categories of Vedantic thought. Brahman is the alogical fact. Logically it is the continuum- point or Paramātmā. Māyā is not the counterfeit Brahman, but the measuring stress which makes the infinite finite and constitutes the manifold of centres. The whole of intuition evolves into a logical order and there is a counter-activity to regain the original state alogically. All things, when strained, react and exhibit a stress to remove the strain and expand into the infinite. According to S'āktaism, māyāvāda wrongly derives its theory of knowledge from its ontology of pure consciousness and pan-illusoriness. The whole of intuition is undefined and unmeasured and māyā or sakti is the measuring or nnitising principle inherent and immanent in the fact. Experience is and changes. Being-experience as cause and being-experience as effect, in their universal and particular aspects, are known as kāraņa Brahman and kārya Brahman. It is Being that becomes. The stress or sakti is the dynamic aspect of Brahman as distinguished from S'iva, the static aspect. Brahman, by its own immanent power or as power, evolves the universe of name and form. The impersonal or nirguna personalises itself in the interests of the sādhaka or the seeker-after and saguna Brahman is therefore not an illusory projection of the absolute. Like milk and its white- ness, the snake and its zigzag movement, the absolute is

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both impersonal and personal or the one and the many. The whole is both being-stress and becoming-stress and the whole or pūrna never loses its wholeness in the process of its becoming. Change and no change (ksara and aksara) are the two poles or aspects of Brahman. The alogical fact becomes the logical continuum-point. The absolute posits itself as the continuum-point; it is both natura naturans and natura naturata. From one aspect or pole it is bhūman or the infinite; from another it is alpa or the infinitesimal. The continuum posits itself as the point without ceasing to be the continuum. The whole is the part and yet the whole. The continuum condenses or involves into the point and the point evolves or swells into the all. The 'all' form becomes the 'each' form and the 'each' form becomes the 'all' form. The continuum-point 1 is the pre-condition of māyā and its contracting principles of time-space and is therefore its master. It is the antaryamin or inner ruler and each centre is of the essence of the whole and the whole cosmic cycle of the continuum-point is the spontaneous joy-sport or the līlā of Is'vara or Prajāpati. S'āktavāda thus does not favour vivarta, but asserts the reality of the finitising power of the infinite. What is here is also yonder and it is illogical to say that the cosmos is a mere kalpana or mental creation. The one differentiates itself into the many and becomes the manifold. The finitising principle or power is in the infinite and of the infinite; it determines what is undetermined. The logical order lives, moves and has its being in the alogical or the intuition. The measuring stress constitutes the manifold of centres whose varied appaiatus is developed by 1 The mathematical way of explaining metaphysics is suggestive but not spiritually satisfying. The terms 'anda' and pinda', nada and bindu are more familiar than " continuum and point," or plus-sign and minus-sign.

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karma. The seamless undivided continuum of being evolves by its own stress into the universe of veiling and moving centres and yet remains veilless and strainless. Each centre is in and of the experience-whole and not a figment thereof and this view avoids solipsism. It is a sea broken into a complexity of waves and foam. I, as a particular centre, make a cross-section of the universe and there is no disparity between myself and the all-self. Brahman is bindu or point. The continuum is the point and the point is the con- tinuum. There are four factors in experience: (i) the whole or pūrna, (ii) the æther of pure consciousness, (iii) the stress evolving the fact, and (iv) the world of concrete particulars. Every centre, whether it is a crystal, cell or self, is the continuum-point, at a certain phase of stressing and straining. In the measuring principle of māyā there is an ascending series starting with the dew drop and ending with the highest divinity in which nothing is veiled, but all is revealed. The great æther of the continuum and the little æther of the point are one, the all-self and self are one. In the unity and continuity of life, there is no gap anywhere and even the so-called inert matter is animated. S'akti sleeps in matter, dreams in the animal and wakes up in man. Whether it is dormant, dim or distinct, consciousness is the same in all beings; what is comatose in tāmasic matter becomes cosmic in samādhi. From the post to Purusottama, there is the same unity and continuity of consciousness. As the phenomenal self, each centre is a phase of the continuum-point partially determined and is partly a minus sign. The Brahman with the plus sign is the continuum and that with the minus sign is the point and upāsanā or worship is the change of the minus sign into the plus sign or the part into the whole. Yoga is the realisation of the

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whole of what is pragmatically a part. The point is the continuum as it is big with S'iva-sakti and even a block of stone is a little Brahman. There is infinite power, the serpent power coiled up even in the grain of dust; and a centre can be en rapport with the continuum-point and intuition, the escape from the net of cosmic determination, is the return back of logicality into alogicality. The dust can become deity. The logical whole is immanent in the intuitive whole. Brahman is really the unmeasured ocean of being- power in which all polarities meet. But logically the con- tinuum-point is the highest being-concept which is perfectly true, good and beautiful and this power is only defined but not divided. Brahman is both the seamless whole and the point-whole. The "Mahanirvana" says that the end and aim of life is the realisation of S'iva-sakti enshrined in the Upanisad, " All this is Brahman." According to Sir John Woodroffe, the identity consciousness got by the elimination of difference is bare negation which annoys the vital western mind. Instead of repeating the formula that the world is fictitious and samsāra hideous, the sādhaka should seek Brahman in all things and regard samsāra as the stairway to salvation. The Vedantin realises the unity of Brahman and sees the self in all things and loves all nature. Māyāvāda emphasises the continuum and regards the centre as a seam- less expanse without any form or feature but it sacrifices the all-whole. It is the all which is nothing at all. Rāmānuja regards the indeterminate as a hypostatised abstraction and lays stress on the point as a separate personality; but pure consciousness is a real experience. These categories of the one and the many only define the indefinable and alogical Brahman. The alogical exceeds the logical categories but does not exclude them and the polarities of dust and deity

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are essentially Brahman. This is the main axis of aupanisadic thought and it is more satisfying than the pan-illusoriness of the māyāvādin and the pan-realism of the theists and has affinities with bhedabheda. The alogical and the logical, the continuum and the points, the all-form and the each-form and the impersonal and the personal are aspects of the-same reality which is bhedābheda. S'iva-sakti is one reality ; as S'iva, it is abheda and as sakti, it is bheda.

CHAPTER VI

A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE SŪTRAS

THE varieties of Vedantic thought may be examined with a view to determining whether bhedābheda is a faithful systema- tisation of the S'ruti and the Sutras. The founder of every siddhānta claims the authority of immemorial tradition and shows his genius for argumentation and philosophic insight. Each acarya appeals to the same S'ruti and the Sūtras as the source and authority of his line of reasoning and the divergence of opinion especially on the problem of the nature of the absolute and its relation to the finite self is so marked that it is difficult for a layman, who has not intuited the soul of each system, to decide as to who is the most reliable expositor of the Upanisads. S'ankara's system of Advaita is the earliest and the most popular exposition of the Sūtras and is often identified with the Vedanta philosophy itself. The Bhasya of Bhaskara, and not the S'ri Bhāsya as Thibaut says, appears to be the oldest commentary extant, next to S'ankara's, and it was certainly written long before the time of Rāmānuja. The Sūtras themselves discuss the opinions of the ancient leaders of Vedantic thought like Āsmarathya, Audulomi, Kāsakrtsna, Jaimini and Bādari (vide I. iv. 20, 22; IV. iii. 6-14; IV. iv. 5-7). S'ankara seems to accept the tradition of Bādari. Yādava follows Āsmarathya; and Thibaut remarks that S'ankara is not particularly anxious to

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strengthen his own case by appeals to ancient authorities (vide introduction, p. 20, Vedānta Sūtras). Rāmānuja claims to represent the teaching of Bodhāyana, Tanka, Dramida and other ancient teachers who had already commented on the Sūtras. The commentary of Yādavaprakāsa is not extant or available, but there are references to his views in the S'rī Bhāsya and the Vedārtha Sangraha of Rāmānuja and the works of Vedanta Desika. It is of profound interest to enquire into the systems of S'ankara, Rāmānuja and the Bhedābhedavādins and determine their relative values. Thibaut has already attempted this method of critical investigation in his introduction to the translation of S'ankara Bhāsya though he refers only to Sankara and Rāmānuja. The main teaching of S'ankara, the best known expositor of the Vedntic doctrine, is summed up in the four key- concepts of Advaita, nirguņa Brahman, vivartavāda, jñāna yoga and jivanmukti. Brahman is the sat without a second, the absolute without any determination. Brahman may be defined as sat, cit and ananda in a negative way. The absolute is affirmed by the denial of the relative; but it is really indefinable. The world is a riddle of contradictions and is a projection of māya or the principle of illusion. The finite self or the jīva is a reflection of Brahman in māyā in its individuated form of avidya. But from the empirical point of view, the reality of saguna Brahman and the world is recognized and when the mind is purified by karma and bhakti, the mumuksu is initiated into the identity of jīva and Is'vara and then he has an intuition of the absolute, here and now, and attains jīvanmukti. S'ankara's exposition is claimed by his followers to prove the orthodox view of the Upanisads beyond any doubt and dispute and shown on speculative grounds to be the only doctrine agreeing with tradition.

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But Rāmānuja repudiates all the four theories and upholds the truths of saguņa Brahman, satkāryavāda, bhakti and videhamukti. The Sūtras, in Rāmānuja's opinion, do not set forth the distinction of two Brahmans, they do not hold the doctrine of māyā, and they do not proclaim the identity of jiva and Isvara. Brahman is the single and supreme personality with an infinity of perfections and, by His redemptive will, He differentiates Himself into the manifold of cit and acit. The manifold is eternal but not external to God. The jīva is an attribute or prakāra of the absolute or the Supreme Self which sustains and controls the finite self and is its ultimate ground as well as its goal. By ceaseless devotion to God and absolute surrender to His will, the jiva offers itself to the grace of God, loses its sense of separateness and is overwhelmed with the immortal bliss of divine communion. There is thus an unbridgeable gulf be- tween the monistic systems of S'ankara and Rāmānuja. In Rāmānuja's system of Visiștādvaita, the absolute is identified with the personal God. The finite self is not a fiction but a persistent personality; and release is secured, not by an immediate intuition of the absolute, here and now, but a gradual attainment of the positive bliss of the world of Brahman, by absolute self-gift and devotion. But Bhäskara's monism comes midway between the two, both in point of time and value. Bhāskara is at one with Rāmānuja in his criticism of nirguņa Brahman, māyāvāda and jīvanmukti. But there is an essential difference between the two in their constructive philosophy. Bhaskara's principle of bhedābheda is quite different from the aprthak- siddha theory of the absolute as expounded by Rāmānuja. According to the former, saguna Brahman is the supreme self with metaphysical and moral perfections but without

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any spiritual or aprākrta form. But Rāmānuja defines saguna Brahman as the Supreme Lord with an infinity of perfections and with a radiant transcendent form and a world of His own. Rāmanuja denies the divine emanation of the world process and attributes the evils and imperfections of life to the karma-ridden jīva. He is as emphatic as Bhāskara in the insistence on duty and detachment. Though karma yoga is, on the whole, subordinated to bhakti yoga, there is no contradiction between the two. Bhāskara is perhaps more vehement than Rāmānuja in the denunciation of jīvanmukti. But his distinction between sadyomukti and kramamukti shows his monistic leanings. The other Bhedābhedavādins posit the principle of identity and difference and insist on treating them as equal movements of reality.' Before arriving at a final estimate of bhedābheda, we may examine a few leading and typical topics of the Sūtras which reveal the essential difference among these Vedantins and yet lend support to the view that the Sūtrakāra himself was a Bhedābhedavādin. The Adhikaranas or the topics in the Sūtras take up a certain Upanisadic text and discuss its meaning and purpose; and S'ankara, the Bhedābhedavādins and Rāmānuja invariably select the same texts though their expositions are entirely divergent. In commenting on the first four Sūtras and com- bating the conclusions of Mīmamsa, each philosopher furnishes the key-note of his own system. S'ankara thinks that the Vedānta teaches the knowledge of absolute identity by the sublation of the finite. According to Rāmānuja, the Vedānta teaches that the highest end of man is the attainment of Brahman with boundless bliss and other perfections. But Bhaskara and others are equally certain that the Vedānta

1 Vide pp. 144-145 for the comparison of the systems of Bhāskara and Yådava. 12

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teaches the doctrine of bhedbheda. The whole of the first chapter is devoted to the definition of Brahman as the supreme ground of the world-process. The second Sūtra, which deals with this question, refers, according to S'ankara, to saguna Brahman. But Rāmānuja and the Bhedābheda- vādins deny the distinction between saguna Brahman and nirguna Brahman and point out that it is a direct reference to the absolute as the personal God. Mr. V. S. Ghate agrees with Thibaut in his opinion that the definition of Brahman given at the very outset of the Sutras refutes the doctrine of S'ankara. To S'ankara, the sat without a second is the absolute that is devoid of all determination. But the other two interpret it as saguna Brahman or the determinate. The Ānandamayādhikarana (I. i. 12-19), according to S'ankara, raises the problem whether Brahman is really saguna or nirguna. S'ankara, with his metaphysical formula that determination is negation, concludes that the absolute is the indeterminate and the alogical and that nandamaya is only the appearance of the absolute. The Sütras convey the idea of savisesa Brahman as opposed to nirvisesa Brahman. Therefore, the other Vedāntins deny this distinction between the logieal and the alogical and up- hold the adjectival theory that Brahman is both bliss and the blissful (ānanda and ānandamaya). Deussen thinks that the term anandamaya indicates the fulness of the bliss of Brahman and not its inmost shell or kosa, that S'ankara first gives Bādarāyana's interpretation that the ānandamaya is Brahman and then rejects it and that the latter view may be an interpolation. Thibaut is of opinion that S'ankara's view is a very forced explanation and rebuts Deussen's theory of interpolation. The relation be- tween the finite and the infinite is discussed and determined

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in I. iv. 20-22. The Sūtrakāra considers the view of Āsmarathya, Audulomi and Kāsakrtsna and regards the theory of Kāsakrtsna, namely, avasthiteh as the siddhānta or conclusion. S'ankara interprets the term as absolute identity, and, according to Thibaut, identifies the opinions of Āsmarathya and Audulomi with Bhedābhedavāda and Satya- bhedavada respectively; but this identity is questioned by others. Deussen thinks that Asmarathya and Audulomi represent the exoteric understanding while Kāsakrtsna states the esoteric view of S'ankara. Rāmānuja reads it as the relation of soul and body (sarīra-sarīri sambandha), Bhāskara as essential unity and Yādavaprakāsa and Nimbārka in terms of bhedābheda. Sūtra II. i. 14 states the Vedāntic view of cosmology and the causal relation in terms of non-difference (ananyatva). To S'ankara, cause connotes the self-identity of the absolute and the effect is its illusory projection due to avidyā. Rāmānuja interprets causality in terms of immanent unity, organic inseparability and personal identity. Brabman with cit and acit as its prakāras or modes in the subtle causal state is the same as Brahman with the same modes in the effected state and there is personal identity in the two condi- tions and contexts. Bhäskara thinks that Brahman influenced by the upādhis, differentiates by his pariņāmasakti into the finite selves and the world of nature. Nimbärka says that the effect is both different and non-different from the cause. The world of cit and acit is a real transformation or parināma of Brahman and his potency. Bhāskara, Yādava and Nimbārka regard the term parināma as an adequate explanation of bhedābheda. All these Vedāntins agree in repudiating the distinction made by S'ankara between vivartavāda and pariņāmavāda and adopt pariņāmavāda as the only con- sistent conclusion of Vedāntic cosmology. Creation is a case of

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parinama or vikāra and not vivarta. The analogy of clay and its products, of thread and cloth, fully brings out the truth of the unity of the creational or the self-manifesting power of God. Section II. ii. 42-45 refers to the doctrine of the pāñcarātra of the Bhāgavatas. S'ankara refutes the account of the finite self given therein as a form of emanationism which denies the eternity of the self. Bhāskara has generally no objection to it except to its theory of creationism. Rāmā- nuja defends it in terms of the doctrine of Divine incarnation. Nimbarka treats the whole as a criticism of the S'ākta doctrine, in which creation is traced to sakti, external to Is'vara. Baladeva accepts the S'äkta view, if it refers to the spiritual body of the Lord. But mere energy has no self- directive power of its own. II. iii refers to the nature of the finite self and its exact relation to the infinite. S'ankara regards the finite as a reflection or appearance of the absolute and traces its atomic character (anutva) and cognition- activity to buddhi or the false limiting adjunct of avidyā. But the other commentators insist on the distinctness and distinctions relating to finite experience (cf. I. ii. 8) and assert that the roots of our being are in the infinite. The term amsa is explained away by S'ankara as amsa iva. The self seems to be a part of Brahman and is not really so. Ramanuja rejects the theory of 'as-if' and explains the term in the light of his doctrine of aprthak- siddhavisesana according to which the finite is an essential attribute or prakāra of Isvara. To Bhāskara individua- tion is formal distinctness and it is due not to avidyā but to upādhis or real limiting adjuncts. But Yādava and Nimbārka combine diversity with unity and regard the self as essentially different from, and, at the same time, identical with the infinite.

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In III. ii. 3 occurs the baffling word māyāmātram. S'ankara explains it in the light of the theory of pan-illusori- ness and degrees of reality. Bhāskara attributes the dream world to the upadhi-ridden jiva and the objective world to Is'vara. To Rāmānuja the dream state is a real world though it is not the world which is common to all of us, and the dream experience is conditioned morally by the karma of each individual and reveals the wonderful powers of God who dispenses justice according to each man's karma. Yādava and Nimbärka also reject the theory of illusion and sublation and give a realistic interpretation of the phenomenon very much like that of Ramanuja. The famous Ubhayalinga Adhikarana, III. ii. 11 to 31, discusses the nature of Brahman as the object of meditation. S'ankara seeks in this section his authority for the distinction between the personal God or saguņa Brahman of the vyāvahārika state and the nirguna Brahman or the absolute of the paramarthika state. The negative judgment (neti neti) denies the relative and affirms the transcendental. The absolute is beyond predication and it is the intuitional highest and the alogical. But Rāmānuja gives a moral meaning to the negative judgment and repudiates the distinction between the metaphysical highest and the meditational highest. It would be idle to affirm the qualities of Brahman with a view to denying them. Brahman has an infinity of perfections without the slightest trace of error, evil or imperfection. To Bhäskara, Brahman is with- out form, but not without attributes. Nimbärka employs his theory of bhedābheda and ascribes a two-fold nature to Brahman, namely, the static aspect of transcendence and the dynamic aspect of immanence. III. ii. 27-30 is said to define the nature of the relation between Brahman and acit or the world of nature. To S'ankara nature is rooted in contradiction,

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and is therefore a perversion of reality. To Rāmānuja, with his theory of sarira-sariri sambandha, it is a living garment of God. To the Bhedābheda Vedantins, the analogies employed by the Sūtrakara in the context, namely, the relation of the snake and its coils, and of light and its luminosity, adequately express the eternal and essential relation of difference and non-difference between Brahman and acit and at the same time bring out the transcendental perfection of Brahman. III. iii, dealing with the sādhana or the means of attainment of Brahman, examines in detail the various kinds of meditations on Brahman and concludes that their goal is the same. Mr. Ghate thinks that the whole question dealt with so exhaustively is out of place from S'ankara's ultimate point of view. S'ankara distinguishes between aparavidyā and paravidyā, kramamukti and jīvan- mukti and concludes that the highest freedom is the appre- hension of the self-identical absolute, here and now. But the other Vedantins deny this distinction between two kinds of vidyā and vidvān and repudiate the theory of jīvanmukti. The meditation on Brahman as the self is explained by each in the light of his own siddhanta. Interpreting the well-known term avibhāga used by the Sūtrakāra to define the content of mukti, S'ankara says it is svarūpaikya or the absolute identity of jīva and Isvara; Rāmānuja, visistaikya or organic inseparability; Bhāskara, ekībhāva or the unity of the absolute, and the other Bhedābhedavādins define it as both identity and difference, natural (svābhāvika) or inconceivable (acintya). This idea of unity in difference is fatal to both monistic self-identity and pluralistic externality. The Sūtra- kāra then discusses the question whether mukti is immediate or mediate. Is it the metaphysical knowledge of the self- identical absolute by the negation of the phenomenal and the

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fictitious, or is it a progressive realisation of the absolute beyond the samsāramandala or the world of space-time- causality ? S'ankara, following Bādarī, thinks that the terms gati and gantavya apply only to kārya Brahman or the spatialised infinite in a pluralistic scheme and not to the in- finite which transcends all categories. Mukti is immediate and not a far-off divine event. Even the true infinite is only a finite, and therefore the absolute cannot be identified with the world of Brahman. Eternity is really timelessness and not a future perfection involving historic progress. The idea of fruition is the figment of false knowledge and is opposed to the self-identity of Brahman. But the other Vedantins treat Bādarī's view as the earlier or the prima facie doctrine and insist on the subject-object distinction between Brahman and the jīva as the upāsya and upāsaka or the prāpya and prpaka, spiritual realisation as both an apprehension and attainment and mukti as freedom from embodiment and not freedom in embodiment. To Rāmānuja, the absolute exists in an aprākrta world where space-time is under the form of eternity. But he does not accept Bhäskara's idea that the four Sutras preceding the last one define the theistic view and his distinction between sadyomukti or immediate attain- ment of the infinite and kramamukti through the world of kārya Brahman. The term ekībhāva used by Bhāskara connotes the ascent to the absolute and the apprehension of unity beyond the sphere of samsāra. The finite self is not a single individuality unrelated to other selves, but is an integral element of the cosmic whole, which is the common theatre of its transmigrat- ing life, and it is only when the sphere of samsāra is fully transcended by the attainment of the boundless bliss of Brahman that mukti becomes the highest consummation

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of the spiritual life. Yādava and Nimbārka also conclude that mukti is the upward striving of the self to the absolute and the realisation of its essential and eternal unity as well as distinctness. But S'ankara treats the last Sūtra ' from whence there is no return' as referring to the lower vidvan who is only on the path to perfection or Brahma and not to the eternally existent Brahman. True mukti is nirvāna, which is nirguna Brahman eternally self-realised and not something to be attained. Mr. V. S. Ghate, in his comparative study of the varie- ties of Vedantic thought, thinks that the doctrine of S'ankara, as deduced from the Sutras, is out of court, whatever be its value as a philosophic system and that the theory of the Sütras likewise does not support the principle of aprthak- siddha viseşaņa and of pāñcarātra as held by Rāmānuja. He concludes that the Sutras are not aware of the dogmas of the later Vedantic schools and that the system of the Sūtras, if they have any system at all, can only be of the bhedābheda type which affirms the equal reality of bheda and abheda. The vague terms employed by the Sūtrakāra in all crucial questions like avasthiteh, ananyatva, amsa, ubhayalinga, avibhāga and avirodha appropriately bring out the truths of the bhedäbheda theory alone and the simile of the serpent and its coils used in expounding the relation between the infinite and the finite exactly fits in with this doctrine. The Bhedā- bhedavādins come to the same conclusion but on different grounds. They reject the modern historic view that the Sutras mark a transition from the want of system in the S'ruti to the systematization of the later schools and, following the tradition that the S'ruti is the word of God and that the Sütras only make explicit what is implicit in S'ruti, conclude that their theory hits the intention of the Sūtrakāra.

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The comparative study of the different schools of Bhedā- bheda before Rāmānuja and after him enables us to think that these agree in their criticism of S'ankara but differ in their doctrinal details. The Bhedābheda schools after Rāmānuja belong to Vaisnavism and being closely allied to Visistādvaitic religion they are worthy of comparative and critical study. The Svābhāvika Bhedābhedavāda of Nimbārka has close affinities with the Acintya Bhedābhedavāda of Caitanya. Both affirm the reality of bheda and abheda as the essential and eternal relation between Brahman, on the one hand, and cit and acit, on the other. But, while Nimbārka defines the relation as natural and intelligible, Caitanya believes it is acintya or inexplicable and attributes it to the inscrutable will of the Lord. To, both, Brahman is Rādhākrsņa, but Caitanya, unlike Nimbärka, thinks that the Lord is identical with His attributes, powers and spiritual body. Both insist on prema bhakti or intimate love to God as the means to salvation and the need for God's grace. Unlike Bhäskara and Yādava they regard karma as a means to mukti and not as a sādhana equal to jñāna. Caitanya is more mystical than Nimbārka as his mathurabhava leads to God-intoxication and the bliss of divine communion.) Visistādvaita as a philosophy of Vaișnavism wasformulat- ed and not founded by Rāmanuja and he lived earlier than Nimbarka and Caitanya. Its theory of the relation between Brahman and cit and acit in terms of sarīrin and sarīra is mainly based on the Upanisadic teaching of Brahman as the antaryamin of cit and acit or their Inner Ruler Immortal. The Brahma Sutras are therefore known as the S'ārīraka S'āstra and its solution of the conflicts between monism and pluralism in terms of the Visistadvaitic theory of sarīrin and sarīra is different from the Bhedābhedavāda of Nimbārka and Caitanya

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with which it has more affinities than the earlier schools of Bhāskara and Yadava. It holds that Brahman is Nārāyaņa and S'ri existing in five forms for the redemption of all jivas and by means of bhakti, the mumuksu can attain the world of Brahman and enjoy the bliss of Divine communion. The finite self is not a mere attribute or mode of Brahman nor a manifestation of Divine sakti but is an eternal entity but it is not external to the Lord, its inner self. The bhakta thirsts for God, his very self, and God thirsts for the bhakta, His very self, and in mukti they are reunited. Though dual in their existence, they become one in blissful experience.1

1 Roma Bose in her admirable work on Nimbårka has to some extent missed the central teaching of Visistadvaita which is often wrongly rendered in English as qualified or adjectival monism. Cit and acit are not mere attributes or adjectives of Brahman but are both modes and monads. It is not true to say that Ramanuja has referred to Visnu and not to Krsna as his commentary on the Gitd is a dedication to Him. It is equally unfair to him to state that he meant by bhakti upasana as a distant relation of reverence, while Nimbarka and Caitanya identified it with intense love or prema. The View that Visistadvaita is bhedabheda in a round about way is not so plausible as the opposite view that bhedābheda is to be reinterpreted as Visistadvaita .- Vol. III, 113, 250.

CHAPTER VII

MODERN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE VEDĀNTA

THOUGH the Vedantic systems have a well-marked individ- uality of their own, we find a blending of the boundary lines in their presentations by modern writers and it is of profound interest to a student of bhedābheda to trace its unconscious influence in their works. We may select Prof. Deussen, Thibaut and Dr. Radhakrishnan as the representatives of the types of modern Vedāntic interpreters, who base their methods on logical clearness, critical study and the canons of philo- sophical exposition, without being bound by literalism and scholastic presuppositions. Deussen detects two parallel but necessarily contradictory forms, namely, the exoteric and the esoteric, in the various provinces of the Vedānta or Advaita like theology, cosmology and the doctrine of mukti. Exoteric Vedānta refers to the aparavidyā or the theology of saguna Brahman, empirical reality (vyavahāra satya) and krama- mukti. But esoteric Vedānta is the supreme knowledge (paravidyā) or the philosophy of the absolute or nirguna Brahman, transcendental reality (pāramārthika satya) and jīvanmukti. The exoteric gives an empirical dress and colouring to the metaphysics of Vedānta and is a concession to the popular consciousness affected by aviayā or its innate realism.

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As S'ankara did not, owing to his theological training and faith in the letter of the Veda, attain the clearness of this distinction, Deussen, in the interests of the inner necessity of logical, philosophical and historic criticism, feels justified in making explicit what is implicit in the teaching of S'ankara with a view to indicating whether their originator lags behind the full scope of his thoughts. The Vedantin has a highly developed taste for dialectic disputation finding a pro and contra for every question, but totally lacks a feeling for æsthetic form and drifts without a true insight into the systematic connection of his ideas. The Vedāntic absolute is the self-existent consciousness without any empirical or finite content, and liberation or mukti is a return into being or Brahman as the inmost essence of the soul. But Deussen does not agree with the view that the absolute as the basis of being is the seer of seeing or the subject of experience beyond the subject-object relation. The interpretation of anandamaya as the inmost shell of Brahman is, according to Deussen, a later interpolation opposed, to the text of the Upanisad and the teachings of Badarayana. This reminds us of the similar criticism by Bhäskara that the treatment of Brahman as ananda and not anandin is a mutilation of the S'ruti and the Sütras. The Ubhuyalinga Adhikarana brings out the anti- thesis between the absolute of metaphysics and the personal god of popular theology. The jñanī or the metaphysician seeks the one by sublating the many, but the upāsaka, who is on the empirical or lower level, personifies and phenomenal- ises the absolute, and worships the presentational forms. Deussen holds that S'ankara does not draw these sharp distinctions and that he confuses the contraries. In explaining Vedantic cosmology, Deussen thinks that the upādhis caused by avidya are the apparent individualising

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determinations of Brahman, consisting of the objects of the outer world, the body, the indriyas, the pranas and the manas. Avidya is the innate obscuration of knowledge, and is subjective and negative like hallucinations and dreams. But it is a positive factor in life which accounts for the empirical existence of the world and the individual. It is owing to avidya, the hybrid being-non-being, that we ascribe to Brahman the ideas of God, the world and the soul. Deussen gathers this fundamental idea of Advaita, nowhere treated connectedly by S'ankara, by his own analytic study and distinguishes three meanings of the term upādhi : (i) It is the upadhis that make the absolute of metaphysics the god of upāsanā; (ii) the world of nāma-rūpa is due to the upādhis of Brahman; (iii) but the most frequent meaning is the idea of Brahman becoming the finite self and the best explanation of this relationship is the comparison of the complex of the upadhis with jars which limit cosmic space locally. They are constituted by the physical and psychic apparatus of the body, the indriyas, prāna and manas, and the moral determi- nations of the migrating soul. But, in the indeterminate idea of the indestructible powers of Brahman, the creative power of Brahman, the seed-force of things, and the individual souls are all confused together. In discussing the positive nature of Brahman-existence and intelligence (sattā and bodha)-as one, Deussen points out that in the end both ideas are resolvable into that of force. It is force that manifests itself as existence and the activity of thought. The spiritual (caitanyam) is a potency which lies at the root of all change in nature and which reveals itself as motion in matter and spirit in man. Empirically viewed, it is the one existent that expands into the world of the subject of experience and nature, which is the object of experience. The Sūtras

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employ the similes of the serpent and its coils, and the sun and its light to bring out the identity between Brahman and its phenomenal forms. But Deussen says that the division of subject and object exists here also. In the emphasis on the third meaning of the upādhis and the use of the word 'potency,' Deussen practically adopts the language of Bhäskara and the other bhedabheda writers. The exoteric view of the jiva as an emanation of Brahman wearing the veil of time, space and causality is closely related to that of Bhäskara and both employ the similes of sparks from the glowing fire, local divisions of the cosmic space and the spider ejecting and retracting the threads. In discussing the nature of the ultimate relation of the finite self and Brahman, Deussen rejects the rationalism of As'marathya who spatialises Brahman, and that of Audulomi who sets up a temporal relation, and accepts the mystic account of identity given by Kāsakrtsna and S'ankara. But he feels that the fundamental want of the Vedanta system is that it lacks morality and should therefore be supplemented by the Christian idea of moral transformation which is foreign to Indian thought. Both combined give the philosophic truth. Being is not merely thought but also will, and while Christianity has the merit of emphasizing the will and its objective worth and transforming egoism into self-denial, Vedantic thought affirms the divine reality of man and assigns metaphysical reasons for it. The third requirement in the sādhana catustaya, as elaborated by S'ankara, dealing with the need for the withdrawal of the senses from their objects and inner concentration, does not fit the picture of a true philosopher with a profound interest in life. In all this criticism, Deussen betrays a profound ignorance not only of the other schools of Vedanta which are as vital as Advaita

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but also of the true import of the ethics of Vedanta. In the synthesis of what he calls Vedantic metaphysics and Christian ethics, he brings to our mind the bhedābheda theory of jñāna- karma-samuccaya, which does full justice to both thought and will and reveals the self-completeness of Vedāntic theory and practice. The Vedantic theory of mukti, according to Deussen, insists on the distinction between kramamukti or progressive release and jivanmukti, here and now. The soul is the absolute that transcends space-time and the idea of process and progress is only empirical. The vidvan, who stills his desires, realises Brahman immediately and his vital spirits do not depart. The universe is entirely his because he is the universe. The esoteric system of Vedānta does not explain the nature of the saving knowledge that comes out of the grace of God because it says that what depends on means or sādhana is not eternal and mukti is beyond the sphere of causality. But there is nothing in the esoteric system to correspond to this grace of God and it is a deviation from the logical structure of the whole system. As regards the startling fact that the body continues to exist in the state of jīvanmukti (a term which we do not meet with in S'ankara), S'ankara resorts to the two analogies of the potter's wheel revolving even after the completion of the pot, and the perception of two moons in spite of the true cognition; both the explanations are questionable. Anyhow, when the seed of works is destroyed by jñana and the psychic apparatus is dissolved, there is the ' unio mystico' which is best expressed by the idea of indivisibility and illustrated by the simile of the rivers losing their name and form in the ocean. Strictly speaking, there is no union because that only can become one which was one already. /As Schopenhauer points out,

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release is indestructibility without continued existence. The man, who perceives the manifold, migrates from body to body, but the vidvan realises his oneness with the absolute and is released for ever. This idea of mystic union and its analogies largely corresponds to Bhāskara's theory of ekībhāva. Thus, in spite of his passion for absolute monism, in which he sets up a contradiction between the philosophic and the empirical view and eliminates the empirical, Deussen drifts into practical reason and unconsciously yields to the logical, ethical and mystic demands of bhedābheda. In his masterly introduction to the Vedānta Sūtras, Thibaut gives a conspectus of the contents of the Sūtras as interpreted by S'ankara and Rāmānuja and reviews their teachings in the light of modern critical investigation with a view to determining their exact philosophical position. In both S'ankara and Rāmānuja, there is a desire to read their own siddhänta into the Sūtras and there is not much of coherence and strictness of reasoning in their commentaries. Though the impartial critic has to depend on the scholiasts for the meaning of the details of scriptural texts, he is quite able to judge by himself so far as the general drift and spirit of the texts are concerned. In summing up the teaching of the Sutras, Thibaut gives it as his opinion that they do not set forth the distinction that S'ankara makes between the two kinds of knowledge, two kinds of Brahman, two kinds of causality and two kinds of mukti, and that the system of Bādarāyaņa has greater affinities to that of Rāmānuja than that of S'ankara. The Upunisads do not constitute a syste- matic whole which is coherent in all its parts without any contradictions. But (if you admit the possibility) S'ankara's system is most probably the best that can be devised and is nearer to the Upanisads than the Sutras, at least in one

MODERN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE VEDANTA 193'

important point, namely, that the self, whatever its original re- lation to Brahman may be, is in the end completely merged and is indistinguishably lost in the universal self. As regards the | original relation of the soul to the highest self, if the emission of the elements described in the Chāndogya Upanisad is a real process, then the finite self is a true part or emanation of Brahman itself. The soul springs from Brahman and springs back into it. The personal god of Rāmānuja does not adequately represent the Brahman of the Upanisads. Freedom consists in abolishing all elements of plurality and seeing everything in Brahman and Brahman in everything, and thus becoming one with it, like the flowing rivers dis- appearing in the sea. If, as Thibaut says, these are the fundamental features of the Vedānta, they seem to fit in more with the teaching of Bhedabheda than with that of S'ankara or Rāmānuja. Thibaut asks the all-important question as to who systematises the teaching of the Upanisads most adequately, whether it is S'ankara or Rāmānuja or some other commentator. The systematic expounder from Thibaut's point of view is probably the Bhedābhedavadin, the ' other commentator' of whom he was not aware. If the S'ruti and the Sutras present one system, and if S'ankara's inter- pretation of the Sūtras and Rāmānuja's interpretation of the S'ruti are not adequate, then it follows that Bhedābheda alone brings out the full force of the system of the S'ruti and the Sutras. This view is strengthened by a detailed examination of Bhäskara's Bhāsyu in the light of Thibaut's criticism of the Bhāsyas of S'ańkara and Rāmānuja.1 Sir S. Radhakrishnan, in his brilliant exposition of the Upanisads in the light of the higher ideals of philosophy and in his interpretation of S'ankara, dismisses Deussen's view 1 See Appendix I. 13

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that the illusion-theory is the fundamental doctrine of the Upanisads. " He seems to interpret Kant in the light of the Upanisads and the Upanisads in the light of Kant with the result that he has practically misconstrued both." The false imitators of the Upanisad ideal dogmatically declare with an extreme of arrogant audacity that Brahman is absolutely homogeneous. It is possible to develop a new coherent account of the Upanisadic wisdom by a constructive criti- cism of the illusion-theory of S'ankara's metaphysics and the personal theism of Ramanuja. The philosophy of the Upani- sads is more an Advaitism than an abstract idealism or monism, and even S'ankara says that the real is non-dual. Brahman is the basis of the world and the world of experi- ence, with all its opposites, becomes transfigured and reinter- preted in the intuition of Brahman and not negated or sublated as the Identity philosophers say. The world is unreal but not illusory or non-existent. Brahman is the identity that underlies all things or elements from the personal god to the telegraph post, from Deity to dust. If the world were illusory, then there would be no meaning in morality and religion. S'ankara's interpretation of the Sadvidyā enforces the truth that the world is substantially Brahman and depends upon it. Nowhere does he say that our life is a dream and our knowledge a phantasm. There is no absolute antagonism between Brahman and the world. God is the absolute from the cosmic point of view and, as the synthesis of being and non-being, He is the logical highest. God is over against the finite self and is therefore its 'other" as creator and saviour. But the absolute is the pre-cosmic nature of God and is the intuitional highest. The infinite dwells in the finite and is its inmost essence, implied in all experience and the operation of the infinite in the finite is the source of all

MODERN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE VEDANTA 195

philosophic and moral activity. Brahman is the thread that binds all plurality into a single unity. It is in and not as the world. It is not in time, though time is in it. It is the spiritual spring that differentiates itself into the numberless finite centres. S'ankara steers clear of mentalism as well as materialism. A phenomenon is not a phantasm and the root of avidyā is logical and psychological and not metaphysical. The central fact of creation is the individualisation of the one, and things and persons are ultimately only modes of the existence of God, who is the supreme cause and substratum of the world. The jiva is the particular and the psychologi- cal 'me' subject to the accidents of experience and not the metaphysical subject beyond the limits of relational thought, and its agency abides in the upādhi or limitation of avidyā, kāma, and karma. Avidyā causes the sense of individuality of the empirical self. Avidya is the conceit that the ' I' consists in the bodily nature. The relative reality of the empirical ego arises from its false identification with the body and the senses and other upādhis, and spiritual life involves both jñāna and karma or metaphysical perfection and moral insight. The self, according to this view, derives its being and sustenance from God and should therefore cease to subsist for itself. It has to overcome the contradiction of the finite- infinite and identify itself with the whole. Freedom is not sinking into a state of inertia by the abolition of desire and the sublation of the will. Mukti is the cessation from the separateness of näma-rūpa in which the intellect fulfils itself in intuition, and moral freedom is work for the welfare of the world in a disinterested way without moralistic individualism and exclusiveness. S'ankara was not a dreaming idealist, but a practical philosopher. Morality is a stepping stone and not a stopping place. Freedom is not the abolition of self, but

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the realisation of infinity, absoluteness and bliss. It is not the abolition of plurality, but the removal of the sense of plurality. It is not the dissolution of the world, but the dis- appearance of a false outlook. Non-difference does not affirm identity but only denies difference. The highest includes the rest while transcending them. When the angle of vision is thus changed, the reality of the world is seen to be Brah- man itself. The jiva, the psychological self, becomes the ultimate self of Brahman and becomes immortal. Freedom is a state of oneness with Brahman, the universal spirit. The freed soul sees itself in all. In this integral oneness of intui- tion, there is no vanishing into nothingness; only the limiting adjuncts are destroyed in moksa and not the ātman itself. The Upanisads are pantheistic in the sense that the universe is in God, but the universe is not God and the finite seeks self- transcendence and tries to get rid of its finiteness. Pantheism, in this sense, is the central feature of every true religion. The Doctor's account of Vedanta based on the criticism of illusionism and theism seems to have closer kinship with Bhedabheda than with the system of S'ankara or Pure Advaita .! The theory that Brahman is the identity that underlies all things, the distinction between the pre-cosmic absolute or the intuitional highest and the cosmic god or the logical highest, the co-ordination of jñana and karma and the idea of freedom as the disappearance of a false outlook and not the dissolution of the world fits in with the exposition of Bhäskara and Yādava. While the theory of mukti as the intuition of integral oneness is allied to that of Bhäskara, the idea of Iswvara as the real for thought which is less than the absolute is analogous to that of Yadava. The Doctor and

Advaita. 1 The meaning of Pure Advaita is developed in my work Aspects of

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others like Pandit Sitānāth Tattvabhūșan and Dr. Mahendra- nāth Sircar think that Ramanuja's view, that reality is the absolute-relative or a synthetic unity, which is the logical highest, is like the absolute of Hegel. But Hegel's view is more like Bhedābheda than the prakāra-prakārī theory of Rāmānuja. Paņdit Sitānāth Tattvabhūșan adopts the critical method of exposition ' awakened,' as he says, by Western thought and develops a variety of Vedantism called philosophical Brahma- ism or theistic idealism, whicl is distinct from the schools of S'ankara and Rāmānuja. Absolute monism confuses relativity with illusoriness and denies the reality of the finite. Dualism worships an external, and, therefore, limited god and thus ignores the internal relation between the infinite and the finite self. Relation is neither illusory nor external, but a real factor of reality. The absolute is the unity-in-difference of Hegel anticipated by tbe Gitā and the philosophy of Rāmā- nuja but without the clearness and distinctness of the dialectic method. The samuccayavāda of jñāna cum karma, as expounded by the Isopanisad and the Gita, brings out the inner meaning of Vedāntic ethics and refutes the extremes of the asceticism of the Sānkhyas and the Māyāvadins and the activism of the karmakāndins. The influence of Bhedābheda of the Yadava type is clearly discernible in this account of Vedäntism insisting on the inner unity of the infinite and the finite. As Rabīndranāth Tagore so beautifully puts it, truth is in the harmony of the infinite and the finite and the endless many reveals the One like the multitude of notes revealing the inner music. Creation is the truth of the boundless through the reality of the bounds and mukti consists in free- dom from the isolation of the self. This view is not a philosophy of passivity as it reconciles the ideal of perfection and the process of its revealment

BOOK II

PART II

CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

CHAPTER VIII

ADVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDĀBHEDA

IN the attempt to strike a middle path between Advaita and Visistādvaita, Bhedābheda has antagonised both the systems and it is essential to consider their criticism of it before esti- mating its value in the history of Indian philosophy. The Bhamati, a gloss by Vacaspati Misra on S'ankara's-eom- mentary on the Vedānta Sūtras, exposes the defects of Bhedā- bheda and the following summary of this criticism is based on the excellent translation of the Bhāmati by Mr. S. S. Sūrya- nārāyaņa S'āstri. The philosophy of Bhedābheda is founded on the principle of the causal relation as an identity-in- difference. In the judgment, "This ear-ring is made of gold," there is non-difference in the causal aspect and difference in the effect aspect and therefore it is an appositional cognition in which both the aspects co-exist without any contradiction. The Bhamati controverts this interpretation as follows (I. i. 4): " What is this which is called difference, which should exist along with non-difference in one place ? If it be said to be reciprocal non-existence, does this exist or not between effect and cause, bracelet and gold ? If not, there is oneness alone, not difference. If it does exist, there is difference alone, not non-difference. Nor is there no opposition between existence and non-existence, as their co-existence is impossible. Or, if it were possible, there would result non-difference in

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truth between the bracelet and the vardhamāna, difference not being opposed to non-difference. Further, the bracelet being non-different from gold, just as, in the gold aspect, bracelets, crowns, ear-rings, etc., are not different, so even in the bracelet aspect they should not differ, because of the non- difference of the bracelet from gold. And thus, gold alone is real, not the bracelet, etc., since of the difference there is no manifestation. Now (it may be said) only as gold is there non- difference, not as bracelet ; as that (bracelet), however, there is but difference from ear-ring, etc. (We ask in reply) If the bracelet is non-different from gold, how is it that this (former) does not recur in an ear-ring, etc. ? And if it does not recur, how is the bracelet non-different from gold ? For, those which are variable when something is recurrent, are certainly different from that, as the different flowers from the string. And though goldness is recurrent, ear-ring, etc., are not recurrent; hence, they too are certainly different from gold. If, because of the recurrence of existentiality, all things were non-different, there would be no distinctions like ' this is here, not that,' 'this is from this, not that,' ' this is now, not that,' 'this is so, not that,' etc., because of the non-existence of any ground for discrimination of anything in any place, at any time, in any manner. Further, when, from a distance, it is understood to be gold, they would not be desired to be known in their particularities, as ear-ring, etc., because of their non-difference from gold, and because of the latter being known. Since there is difference too of ear-ring, etc., from gold, even when gold is known, they are unknown. " Now, since there is non-difference too, are they not known ? On the contrary, knowledge alone is appropriate in their case; for, the absence of the effect (knowledge) in the absence of the cause (non-difference) is the general rule; and

ADVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDĀBHEDA 203

that is set aside (here) by the existence of the cause. And, since in non-difference there is the existence of the cause, when gold is known, ear-ring, etc., are certainly known; hence the desire to know them and the cognitions of them would be futile. Therefore, that which on the apprehension of another is not (itself) apprehended is different from that (other) ; for example, when the camel is apprehended, the ass which is not apprehended (differs) from the camel. And when gold is"apprehended at a distance, its particularities, ear-ring, etc., are not apprehended; there they are different from gold. 'How, then, is there the apposition ear-ring (is) gold ?' If this be asked, it has been said that there is no apposition where there is a relationship of supporter and supported or having the same locus. Then, how (to explain) the distinction of recurrence and"variability, and the desire to know ear-ring, etc., even when gold is known ? It has been said that these two, verily, are not intelligible, if there be non-difference, absolute or non-absolute (i.e.,'cum difference). Therefore, one of the two, difference and non-difference having to be abandoned, it is on the basis of non-difference that there is the positing of difference; it does not stand to reason that non-difference is posited on a basis of difference. For, difference is dependent on what is differentiated; those which are differentiated are each one; if they were not one, there would be no difference because, there would be no locus; and of unity there is no dependence on difference; the apprehension of difference in the form 'not this, (but) this' has 'need of the apprehension of the counter-correlate, while the apprehension of unity has no need of anything else." Following other Advaitic texts like the Istasiddhi, Pro- fessor Hiriyanna further brings out the self-discrepancy of the concept of identity-in-difference. If m and n be two

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entities between which the relation exists, neither of them can, as such, be both identical with, and different from, the other. It would mean that m is both n and not-n and that n is both m and not-m which is a palpable self-contradiction. To say that the principle of identity-in-difference is given in our experience puts us under no constraint to accept them always as logical verities. If m and n do not constitute an identity-in-difference directly, it may be thought they do so mediately through features in them of which some are identi- cal and others different. But this explanation merely shifts the difficulty to another set of things and the enquiry will only lead to an infinite process. The Advaita, therefore, views the relation in question as unique (anirvacanīya). Unity and diversity are relative to each other and it is impossible to affirm the one while denying the other. Both of them are alike appearances and the absolute is beyond appearances. The Advaitic absolute is non-duality and not unity and Vācaspati merely denies distinction, but does not aver identity. Dr. Mahendranath Sircar, in his scholarly elucidation of the philosophy of Bhäskara1 from the epistemological, onto- logical and religious points of view thinks that Bhāskara does not work out the metaphysical implications of his idea of the indeterminate intuition. In the theory of knowledge, deduced from the idea of mukti, Bhāskara posits difference in identity as the basic principle and tries to reconcile the irreconcil- able difference between realism and idealism. Knowledge refers beyond its mental self and has an objective reference even in the intuitive consciousness of mukti and is a dialectic process involving the three stages of indeterminate intuition, self-intuition and self-experience. In the first, the objective 1 Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. III, No. 2 (July 1927). l

ADVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDĀBHEDA 205

reference of the subject-object relation is nascent or implicit, but in the second and the third it is explicit. In the third stage, when the realistic tendency is fully evolved, the ab- solute limits itself by sense-activity and becomes a particular centre of experience with the duality of the 'I' and the 'not-I'. In mukti the realistic tendency is changed into the idealistic and the self, freed from sense-activity, becomes the expansive consciousness. Then knowledge becomes self- knowledge and is its own evidence. From the ontological point of view, Bhāskara may be regarded as a concrete monist maintaining the synthetic unity of the absolute with its inherent duality of the subject-object consciousness. Corresponding to the three stages of intuition in the theory of knowledge, there are three stages of being, namely, the absolute, the infinite and the finite. The ab- solute is the indeterminate which implicitly contains within it the determinate and becomes the concrete infinite or cosmic consciousness with its dialectic expressions of the selves and nature as its moments. In the first stage of this self-limitation the absolute becomes the infinite and in the second the infinite finitizes itself and becomes the subjects and the objects of experience. When the infinite is viewed outwardly, it becomes nature, and when it is viewed inwardly, it becomes the self. The infinite becomes concrete in the finite and the two together form the absolute reality, thus comprising in it both the finite and the infinite. Vedāntism, as a philosophy of religion, does not separate the truth of metaphysics from the value of spiritual life or mukti. Bhās- kara and S'ankara seem to think that the theistic association of value with activity and personality is a sign of divided life and cannot compare with the value of transcendent intui- tion. In the philosophy of life, as expounded by Bhāskara,

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the highest value of life consists in the self breaking the limitations of the realistic or separatist consciousness and becoming assimilated with the infinite as its integral fact in one undivided impersonal unity. In mukti there is the subject-consciousness without the barriers of sense-activity ; the finite self has no separate thinghood or reality. Reality is the one though not oneness. It is the identity of in- discernibles in which the finite is assimilated with the infinite and not annulled. In estimating the value of the whole system as thus expounded, Dr. Sircär brings out the affinities between the monisms of S'ankara and Bhaskara and also their divergencies. But for Bhāskara's refutation of avidya, which is the basic idea of S'ankara, the difference between the two would be more apparent than real. In defining the theory of the indeterminate as the primal reality beyond the infinite and the finite, Bhaskara seems to have been unconsciously influenced by the identity theory of S'ankara. But actuated by the realistic instinct, he does not fully work it out. Thus his system retains, side by side, the ideas of the absolute and the infinite, though, in his exposition, the infinite, as an all- inclusive self or person, is more prominent than the absolute. Bhäskara fails to synthesize the concept of the impersonality of the absolute with the personality of the infinite. Such a theory is self-contradictory. We must sacrifice the one for the other and the Advaitin sacrifices the duality of Isvara for the sake of the self-identity of the absolute. Thus, in the opinion of Dr. Sircār, Bhāskara has an Advaitic tendency but is not Advaitic enough. But Bhäskara nowhere seems to admit the Advaitin's distinction between the absolute of intuition and the infinite of self-intuition and, in his polemic against S'ankara's theory

ADVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDABHEDA 207

of māyā and avidyā and the ideality of all experience, he protests against the doctrine of two Brahmans and asserts the ultimate reality of saguna Brahman as the self-conscious and self-directive personality. Knowledge becomes impossible without self-consciousness and the author himself affirms that "in fact the infinite is the conception which Bhāskara reaches as the ultimate being and not the absolute." Dr. Sircār, in his criticism of Bhäskara's theory of the finite selves and nature, brings out its Spinozistic affinity and concludes that the infinite of Bhäskara is a unitary being which is more real than its modes, viz., the finite selves and nature, and the distinctions of the souls and nature are not eternal. Identity and difference are contradictory and it is absurd to admit difference in the samsāra state and identity in mukti. If the absolute is one, how can there be a multiplicity of selves having their own individuality ? Besides, if each self attains Is'vara-hood, differentiation is accentuated and there will be many Is'varas or infinite beings, which is absurd. But a Bhāskarīya may say that his theory of mukti, deduced from the S'ruti, is a mystic monism affirming the unity of the absolute in which the finite, freed from its finiteness caused by the upadhis, expands into infinity. Whatever the accurate relation between the finite self and the infinite may be, Bhaskara clearly recognizes the reality and eternity of the bhedabheda relation between Brahman and nature and regards the world as the self-expression of the parināma sakti of Brahman and this principle seems to be different from the triple dialectic movement of thought. The view held by Roma Bose 1 that Brahman according to Bhäskara is an 'abstract unity' in the causal state and a 'concrete unity' in the effected state is untenable as there is 1 Roma Bose, Nimbārka, Vol. III, pp. 185, 195, 200, 110.

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an eternal bhinnā-bhinna relation between saguna Brahman and acit. There can be no unity or abhinna without the universe, actual or possible; no non-difference without dif- ference. Even as regards the jīva, it does not, in mukti, become 'absolutely identical' with Brahman as in Advaita. As Bhäskara does not accept the theory of nirguna Brahman and jīvanmukti, he is nearer Rāmānuja and Nimbārka than S'ankara whom he 'so severely criticises.' The doctrines of Advaita and Bhāskara are not identical as the author seems to think.

CHAPTER IX

VIS'ISTĀDVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDĀBHEDA

WHILE the Advaitins regret that Bhaskara does not develop the Advaitic implication of his theory of ekībhava, the Visistādvaitins think that he does not work out the ethical tendencies of the theory of Brahman as the eternally perfect. Rāmānuja and his followers subject the theories of bhedā- bheda to a severe and elaborate criticism with a view to proving their utter futility as a Vedāntic exposition. Rāmā- nuja, in his S'rī Bhāsya and Vedārtha Sangraha, examines the systems in detail and exposes their fallacies. S'rī Vedānta Desika, in his Sankalpa Sūryodaya and Paramata Bhunga, styles the Bhedābhedavādins as (Jainagandhi) Vedāntins who belong to the Jaina type, and employ their logic of sapta bhangi. There is a chapter devoted in the Paramata Bhanga to a criticism of Bhaskara and Yādava, wherein the author says that the theory seems fascinating and seductive, but its honeyed gloss cannot deceive the seeker after the S'astraic truth. Ramanuja starts with the common sense objection that bheda and abheda are contradictions and that no one, in his senses, would maintain the co-existence of contradictories. He then takes up the metaphysical, moral and religious aspects of the theory and brings out their fatal defects. The epistemology of bhedābheda is mainly based on the causal and generic relation of identity-in-difference and not 14

210 CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

on the formal law of contradiction. According to the bhedā- bheda school, reality, as a concrete experience, is neither bheda nor abheda but is both, and while a thing, viewed as cause and genus, reveals the aspect of abheda, the same thing viewed as effect or individual brings out the aspect of bheda. But this view is open to serious objections, some of which were already formulated in the Advaitic criticism of the theory. Either bheda belongs to one aspect of a thing and abheda to the other, or bheda and abheda belong to the same thing with two aspects. The first alternative is not tenable for two reasons. If the genus connotes abheda and the species bheda, then these two are different and cannot, there- fore, have a double aspect. But if the genus and individual connote one thing only, there is no difference of aspect at all. The second alternative is equally unconvincing. If the two aspects differ in kind and if there is an unknown thing which is the substrate of these aspects, then there are different things and this proves bheda and not abheda. But it may be argued that the very idea of the substrate implies the exist- ence of aspects. But even then the objection holds good. The aspects of a thing which is their substrate are different from the thing and therefore it is impossible to think of a thing having the contradictory qualities of bheda and abheda. Besides, if the aspects differ from one another and from the substance which is their substratum, then there would be three entities and they should belong to a substratum and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, Rāmānuja concludes that identity and difference are contradictories and cannot go together. The genus is the mode of the individual'and therefore different from it. The attribute differs from the subject of which it is predicated.' The bhedābheda relation of all things is refuted ' Sri Bhasya. Thibaut's translation

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in the Vedärtha Sangraha also of which there is a very scholarly translation in Tamil by Mr. S. Vāsudevāchāriar.' Reality cannot be bhinna-abhinna. Bheda and abheda being contradictories, cannot co-exist. A cloth and a pot may exist side by side in peace as different, but the same thing cannot at the same time and in the same place have being (sadbhava) and non-being (asadbhāva). But the Bhedābheda- vädin resorts to the theory of aspects and says that in the relation between genus and species, there is non-difference from the generic point of view and difference from the specific point of view. This theory can be interpreted in three ways, genus and species may be non-different (abhinna) or different (bhinna) or both different and non-different (bhinna and abhinna). (1) If there be non-distinction between the genus and the species, then in the judgment 'the ox is broken- horned or hornless,' the genus gotva being the same, the species are also the same. Then the broken-horned ox is also a hornless ox, which is absurd. (2) If there be distinction between the two, then on account of the bhinnābhinna relation between the genus aspect and the species aspect, the broken-horned ox is at the same time identical with and different from the hornless variety, which again is absurd. (3) If the relation is both difference and non-difference, then, owing to bheda, the element of gotva is absent in the broken- horned species, and owing to abheda, gotva element is present in it. The Bhedābhedavādins adduce four reasons in favour of their theory of the bhinnabhinna relation between the infinite and the finite. In the causal and generic relations, the truth of bhinna and abhinna or identity-in-difference is most clearly

' Vasudevachariar's Tamil Translation, pp. 178-9, and English Translation in the Brahmavadin series.

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and distinctly brought out. (1) In the judgment, 'man is an animal,' there is difference between the genus and the species ; but yet there is an identity of content between the two, and this unity is known as sāmānādhikaraņya. 2) It is im- possible to think of the species apart from the genus. (3) The term that connotes the genus also connotes all the species included in the genus; the distinction between genus and species is not apprehended. (4) Besides, in the simple apprehension or the first perception of things, no differentiat- ing quality is perceived and therefore there is identity. But this reasoning is fallacious. (1) Sāmānādhikaranya is aprthak- siddhavisesana or the inseparable relation between a thing and its attributes and not identity. (2) If the genus and species go together, it does not mean that the two are one. The idea of togetherness brings out the essential differences between the relata and not their identity. (3) It is said that the term that connotes the genus also connotes its species. This is not because the two are identical, but because the dharmi or the subject is the same for both. The last argument is equally futile. The so-called un- differentiated judgment is always of the form, 'This is such and such' and it signifies the difference between the thing and its attributes. Consequently the principle of bhedābheda is a contradiction in terms and the relation between the finite and the infinite is that of prakāra and prakārin and not bhinna and abhinna.'

THE ABSOLUTE AND GOD

The theory of Yādavaprakāsa that Is'vara is less than pure being or the absolute is wild and vicious. If being in Vedartha Sangraha : Vāsudevāchāriar's translation

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general is the self of all and Isvara only a part or fragment of being, then the authority of the Upanisad that the Lord is the supreme ground and goal of all beings is stultified. It may be argued that sat or being is fully present in all its parts, and therefore in Isvara as well, that the whole is the particular, and that, from this point of view, Is'vara may be regarded as the self of all. But if this gross pantheistic view werc true, we might infer with equal validity that, since being is fully present in a pot, the pot is the self of all and Is'vara is a partial manifestation of the pot ! Dust and divinity would then become identical. Besides, being in judgments like ' the cloth is,' and ' the pot is ' forms the predicate and not the subject and therefore it cannot be a canse or a substance. If Brahmatva or being inheres in Is'vara, cit and acit, as asvatva or the generic nature of horses inheres in the particular horse and light in luminous bodies, Brahman becomes a mere abstract universal devoid of content. The absolute is therefore Isvara, the cosmic Lord, with the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, etc., which are essential and eternal and not adventitious, nor occasioned by the contact of God with sakti. If there is the sat beyond its eternal self-differentiations of the infinite Isvara and the finite cit and acit and their varying crests of consciousness, then they originate and perish and have no eternity and Iswvara, being a fraction of the absolute (Brahmamsa), is as limited as the finite and ceases to be Is'vara and mukti as saving grace becomes impossible. If, as Bhāskara maintains the finite self is really one with the absolute, though in samsāra it is limited by the upādhis, there is no consistency in saying that the: difference between Brahman and the jiva is aupādhika or adventitious, while that between Brahman and acit is svābhāvika or eternal, especially when the relation

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of sāmānādhikaranya or bhinnābhinnatva holds good in both cases. Since prakrti is an eternal element of the self-conscious Brahman, it cannot be called acetana at all. Since cit and acit differ in kind, acit cannot be explained or explained away mechanically as the sleeping self or Brahman benumbed.

THE THEORY OF Upadhis

The Bhedbhedavādin, as a monist, asserts the reality of Brahman and its upadhis or limiting adjuncts and denies the distinct existence of the finite self. But if the jiva is Brahman conditioned by the upādhis, the imperfections of the upädhis should then be predicated of Brahman itself. The absolute spirit cannot be spatialised and divided into parts, and it is absurd to say that the imperfections inhere only in the finite part or aspect of the infinite. On no ground can the theory of the upadhis infecting the infinite be maintained. It cannot be said that the atomic self is a fragment of the absolute cut off by the limiting adjunct. The absolute cannot be sundered and the finite self, being eternal, cannot have had a beginning. If it is argued that the finite is an inherent part of Brahman connected with some atomic upādhi, then, since the part is infected, the whole would also be infected. Brahman would then suffer from the imperfections of the upadhis. Brahman is at the mercy of the upadhis partially or wholly. If it is the former, then every moment there would be release and bondage; if it is the latter, Brahman, as a whole, would be upādhi-ridden. Besides, if all the upādhis affected Brahman as a whole, then the jivas, as mere parts of Brahman, would lose their self-identity and become non-distinct. If the upādhis 'limit the whole of Brahman, then Brahman becomes the jiva

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and there is no unconditioned absolute at all. To say that the sakti of Brahman alone changes and not Brahman is equally futile as Brahman and sakti are one. If Brahman itself is the upädhi, then we have to accept the view of the Carvaka that the self is nothing but a secretion of matter. Lastly, if the upadhis belong to the finite self and not to the infinite, then the imperfections of life can be traced only to the jiva and Brahman is eternally free and perfect and Visiștadvaita is justified. Bhedābheda is thus condemned or corrected and reinterpreted. As Vedānta Desika points out the spatialising of the infinite by the upādhis would stultify its unity and integrity and afford no guarantee for mukti. Brahman would be eternally employed in seeking imprison- ment and emancipation at the same time. The theory of upādhis creates an irreconcilable dualism between Brahman and the upadhis and exposes it to all the fatal objections raised by the Bhedābhedavādins against māyāvāda. There- fore the whole theory should be reinterpreted in terms of the prakārin and the prakāra. Time and space are modes of primordial prakrti; while matter is a fleeting flux and mind conditioned by karma contracts and expands (sankoca vikāsa), Isvara is unconditioned by either and is ever free and perfect.

Jīva

It is false to say that the jiva is a part of Brahman determined by beginningless upādhis or the pariņāmasakti of Brahman. This view is in conflict with the texts which insist on the eternal distinction between the absolute will and the finite will in terms of the creator and the creature con- sciousness. One and the same Devadatta cannot be a ruler on the one hand and the ruled subject on the other, because

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he is determined by the house in which he lives. In criticising Audulomi's theory of the self becoming one with Brahman, Rāmānuja, following Kāsakrtsna, raises the follow- ing objections against bhedabheda. Before attaining its unity with Brahman the jiva is said to be different from Brahman. Is this difference essential or adventitious ? If it is essential, then it perists even in mukti and so there is no unity with Brahman. If the distinction comes to an end, the soul also vanishes and there is no unity or mukti. But if the difference is due to real limiting conditions, then the jiva is already Brahman and so it need not become Brahman. The difference is only in the adjuncts of the absolute and not in the absolute itself which is without parts.

BHEDĀBHEDA ETHICS

It is the ethics of bhedābheda that betrays its most vulnerable spot. The immanence theory has the merit of .recognizing the divineness of reality ; but it does not preserve the moral eminence of God. When the absolute finitises itself, it becomes ultimately responsible for the errors, evils and other imperfections of life. The unconditioned is the conditioned and all the evils of conditionateness enter into the very heart of reality and taint it for ever. Brahman is the supreme God as well as the source of all sins. He is the deity and the dust, the saint and the sinner ; and both good and evil, pleasure and pain, mukti and bondage follow necessarily from the divine nature and God has to suffer from the eternal sins and sorrows of samsara in His own infinite way. From the same supreme light there blazes forth a Borgia as well as a Buddha. Yadava says that, like the sage Saubhari, who, by his yogic sakti, assumed fifty

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bodies for the sake of his fifty wives, the same Brahman be- comes gods, men and animals in the bhinnābhinnatva relation and experiences their pleasures and pains. This is like saying that one and the same Devadatta with one hand scented with perfumes and adorned with jewels enjoys all the pleasures of life and with the other suffers from mallet strokes and other pains. The Upanisads emphatically and unequivocally affirm the absolute perfections of God in terms of truth, beauty, goodness and bliss without the slightest trace or taint of evil, error, ugliness or other imperfections. In the Vedārtha- sangraha, Rāmānuja exposes the ethical imperfections of Bhaskara's theory of Brahman determined by the upādhis like the internal organs, the body and the senses. The evils inhering in the upadhis inhere in Brahman as well and infect its nature. (1) The Bhāskarīyas justify their position by resorting to the analogical argument that the ākāsa is one and all-pervasive, but when it is enclosed in pots and pitchers, the indivisible (mahākāsa) becomes divided (ghațākās'a). Likewise is Brahman perfect, though, owing to limiting adjuncts, it takes the form of the jiva and suffers from con- ditionateness. But the analogy is unsound, as both ether and Brahman are indivisible and therefore cannot be bhinnā- bhinna, subject to the evils of the upadhis. If the measureless becomes the measured and the movable, then at one moment the upādhis move one part of Brahman and make it the jīva and at the next another part is conditioned. Thus every moment Brahman subjects itself to bondage and moksa. (2) The Bhäskarīya may amend his position by modifying the analogy as follows: Just as the all-pervading ether con- stitutes the organ of hearing but does not affect the other sense-organs, the absolute becomes the conditioned without losing its absoluteness. But Brahman is never affected by the

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upādhis and if one part or amsa is conditioned, the whole or the amsin is also conditioned. Besides, it is wrong to say that ether is the essence of the organ of hearing and that it evolves from bhūtādi. The S'āstra says that ahankāra is a category like prakrti and mahat and that it is of three kinds, sātvika, rājasa and tāmasa. The first is known as vaikārika, the second as taijasa and the third as bhūtadi. The five elements, earth, water, fire, air and ether, originate from bhūtādi and the eleven sense-organs, viz., the five cognitive and the five conative organs and manas originate from vaikārika and therefore the view of Bhäskara that the five elements constitute the indriyas is untenable. The indriyas are different from bhutadi and are not the evolutes therefrom. (3) The position is not improved if it is held that Brahman is perfect and that the modifications are emanations of its sakti. Brahman is sakti or evolves into sakti and in either case the evils predicated oi s'akti are likewise the evils of Brahman. If Brahman is perfect and without avidya, how can the upadhis of the jiva be accounted for? How, again, can the imperfect jīva be an emanation from the perfect Brahman?" Every school of Bhedbheda exposes itself to the charge of predicating imperfections to Brahman in so far as it traces creation to Brahma-parināma whether it is called upādhis or sakti. According to Visiștādvaita, Brahman is ever pure and perfect as Paramātmā, the all-self or over soul; acit undergoes an essential change of nature or parinama and there are contraction and expansion only in the attributive intelligence of the self and not in the self. Visistādvaita solves the problem of evil by attributing it to the moral freedom of the self and by freeing the over-soul from even a shadow of im- perfection1. Besides it restates the logical view that the jiva ' Vide, Sri Bhasya, II, iir, 18, Thibaut's translation.

VISISTIDVAITIC CRITICISM OF BHEDABHEDA 219

is an attribute or mode of Brahman as the ethical view that it is monad or eternal entity.

Mukti ...

According to Rāmānuja, the Vedānta Sūtras interpret the idea of tattvamasi in terms of the inseparability of the prakāra and the prakārin and not absolute identity or ekībhāva or bhinnābhinnatva. Vedanta Desika says that the Rāmāyana statement about the aikya of Rāma and Sugrīva refers not to identity but to equality and fellowship. When a text extols a man who offers a sacrifice as being Vinu, the identity is merely a figure and not a fact. The similes of oneness of ether (akasa) and pot, and of the merging of rivers in the ocean, point only to sāmya and not to aikya. The purpose of the ākāsa simile is to bring out the sense of separateness caused by embodiment and of the inner unity between the jiva and Is'vara by the dissolution of the obstructing material. In the same way the merging of rivers in the ocean illustrates the purified and enhanced mystic consciousness that results from the dissolution of the pluralistic ideas of name and form caused by karma. The Vișnupurāņa defines mukti as the Brahmanizing of the finite self. Nammāļvār also refers to the divine alchemy by which the finite is infinitized without losing its distinctive existence. The Bhedābhedavādins rightly predicate moral and spiritual perfections (gunástaka) to the freed self. They, however, deny the essential dependence of the self on the supreme will of God and consequently reduce the eight qualities of freedom to seven by omitting the attri- bute of right volition. But on the principle of the unity of meaning and attributes employed by them, the seven might be reduced to one. The Yogasiddhas of Yädava have attained

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only some psychic powers and are not therefore eligible for mukti. The idea of expansive consciousness possessed by the freed self really belongs to its attributive consciousness. In conclusion, Vedānta Desika points out that if bhedābheda is accepted as true, Iswara as a fraction of the absolute should be considered as having the omniscience to know the sins and sorrows of all the beings in the universe and, owing tc His true relation with them, as suffering from them in infinite ways. Ramanuja characterises the whole as a wild and vicious theory which is an outrage on the moral and religious consciousness. Bhedābheda is between the horns of a dilemma If the abheda aspect is emphasised as in the Bhāskarīya theory of ekibhava, then Advaita is the only logical conclu. sion of bhedabheda. But if the bheda aspect is stressed as is done by Yādava and Nimbārka, then Visiștādvaita alone i: the inevitable conclusion.

PARALLELS IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

THE critical study of Bhedabheda and its varieties compels comparison with parallel lines of thought in Western Philo- sophy. While in Western speculation, there is an inter- weaving of theistic, pantheistic and monistic motives leading more often to confusion of thought than to clarification, the Eastern systems have a well-defined individuality of their own due largely to their method of formulating a theory by the criticism of rival theories. There is a definiteness in the Vedāntic schools of Dvaita, Visistādvaita, Bhedābhāda and Advaita, which is not clearly discernible in the corresponding Western theories of theism, pantheism and monism. Mono- theism is classified by Josiah Royce under three heads, viz., the ethical or voluntaristic form of Israel insisting on the quality of the righteousness of God, the intellectualistic variety of Greece emphasising rational unity, and Indic monotheism affirming, like Neo-Platonism and Spinozism, the reality of God and the unreality of the world. The last variety evidently connotes Advaita. But, as monotheism is generally defined as the belief in divine personality entering into personal relations with' man with a view to redeem him from his career of sin and thus establish a spiritual order in the world, by no stretch of imagination can Advaita be identified with mono- theism. Monotheism has no real affinity with monism. Many

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Western thinkers explain the Hindu view of life as a kind of acosmic pantheism that encourages universal quietism and not moral strenuousness. This view betrays a lack of insight nto the essentials of Indian thought which lays as much stress on the ethical and aesthetic values of life as on the intellectual. Ignorance lapses into prejudice when the Western thinker happens to be a theologian. In a classifi/ cation of monotheism made by Mr. John Oman in his book, " The Natural and the Supernatural," into the primitive, the deistic, the nomistic and the prophetic, in which the lowest place is assigned to Hinduism and the highest to Christianity, the principle of division adopted is not fundamental. Jewish writers extol their faith as the only monotheism worth consi- dering and criticise Christian trinitarianism as a variety of polytheism. Islam also makes a claim that it is the only monotheism in the world in the literal and logical sense of the word. Modern theism is more and more influenced by the pantheistic idea of divine immanence, and, as Sir Frederick Pollock shows, theism overlaps pantheism in Mr. Fiske's theory of cosmic theism which excludes the popular idea of a personal god. The term pantheism is equally vague as it applies, as the same author says, to philosephie-speculations and theories of conduct which are diametrically opposite. It is employed as a synonym for such divergent views as Neo- Platonic emanationism, Spinozistic acosmism and naturalism. If it affirms the reality of the infinite and the unreality of the finite, it is known as acosmism. The view of Spinoza that extension is an attribute of substance is often identified with a naturalistic interpretation of reality. The Hegelian variety is regarded as pan-logism. Hindu pantheism is defined by Sir Frederick as a theory which holds that all finite existence is an illusion and life a blunder and vexation as contrasted

PARALLELS IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY 223

with Stoic pantheism which says that the world is the pro- duct of reason and is good. Both Hindu and Stoic pantheism, he holds, are opposed to the view of Spinoza. Sir Frederick, however, while recognising the practical value of Spinoza's philosophy, fights shy of defining it, as he considers that nomenclature is useless in such matters. Every Vedāntic school asserts not only the divineness of reality and the immanence of God in the universe, but also insists, in the interests of the moral and spiritual necessity of mukti, on His transcendence. God exists in the world but is not exhausted by it and it is therefore untenable to define the Vedānta as a pantheism that equates God with the world. The exact meaning of monistic idealism is likewise difficult to define. Idealism explains reality in terms of consciousness and its contents, and consciousness contains in itself the meaning of all things. Consistent idealism presses towards monism which is affirmed to be the fundamental need of thought as the general drift of Indian Philosophy. The extreme monism of Advaita is said to have its echo in Plato, Plotinus, Spinoza and Bradley. But if the dominant tendency of monistic idealism is its subjective interest which starts with the thinking self as contrasted with the objects of thought, the trend of Vedānta is not subjectivistic, as it is interested in the ' That ' or Is'vara as well as in the 'thou' or the jiva. Owing to the over- lapping of monism and pantheism, it is difficult to fix thełr boundary lines. Besides, the Advaitic theory of the identity between jiva and Iswvara, whatever may be the relation between Brahman and the world, has no parallel in the absolutistic systems of the West. Western absolutisms deal mainly with the relation between the absolute and the uni- verse, but Vedānta is a spiritual enquiry into the relation between Brahman and jiva. The Vedantic view of the

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correlation of the pramanas based on its unique synthetic insight, its theory of manas as an internal sense-organ, its insistence on the eternity of the self, and its clear-cut exposi- tions of Brahman and mukti are not accurately represented in any articulate system of the West-owing, probably, to the antagonism between its science, philosophy and theology. But no system of thought stands by itself, and philosophy seeks resemblances without breaking down the barrier of individual- ity. Many historians trace Neo-Platonism and Spinozism to oriental influence and these are probably more the echoes of bhedābheda than of Advaita or Visistādvaita.

NEO-PLATONISM

Neo-Platonism, the source of all later Western mysticism, is traced to oriental influence. Mr. Oman says that most writers on Indian and Greek religions assume an Indian origin of Neo-Platonism and quotes with approval the views of Mr. Edward Caird that it could hardly be derived from Plato as it refers to the absolute unity, in which all distinction is lost and to a state of ecstasy in which thought is annihilated. Dean Inge refers to the desire of Plotinus to consult the Brahmans in their own homes but is of opinion that Plato's thought is more oriental than that of Plotinus who had Aristotle and the Stoics to keep him a good European. What- ever the origin, there is no doubt, as the Dean says, that Plotinus is the classical representative for all time of the metaphysics of Western mysticism. If we follow the interpretation of Dr. Caird, Neo- Platonism is based on acosmistic pantheism, more or less similar to that propounded by S'ankara. God is the indeter- minate absolute to which no predicates can be attached and

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it is by negation that we can define the indefinable and say that it is the self-identical infinite depleted of all finite content. The absolute is the one as the formless residuum arrived at by abstraction. Plotinus, however, tries to connect the infinite and the finite by the expedients of emanation and ecstasy. The absolute streams forth in a series of emanations till its decreasing irradiation reaches the realm of darkness and negation. The process is reversed in the ascending stages by which the finite returns to the absolute and is lost in its ineffable ecstasy. In that state of self-identity, the absolute transcends the duality of subject-object consciousness and even the self-consciousness of 'I am.' The absolute really neither descends nor ascends and the emanational series are phantasmal projections, unreal like the reflections in a mirror. Dr. Caird concludes that there is a contradiction in Neo- Platonism owing to its explanation of the One as at once the source of the many and the negation of the many, and that it is only in Hegelianism that thought proceeds from the abstract to the concrete and bridges the gulf between the One and the many. Dean Inge lays more stress on the indwelling of God and the testimony of spiritual experience than on the historic and miraculous aspects of religion and, in his appreciative exposition of the mysticism of Plotinus, remarks that Dr. Caird misinterprets the doctrine and distorts it grievously, that he stretches Plotinus on his Hegelian bed of Procrustes and fails to notice the value of the world of spirituality and its creative activity and transcendence. The Dean enters into the mystic motive of Plotinus and his interpretation, sum- marised below, reveals the strand of Bhedābheda with a Visistādvaitic tendency. The philosophy of Plotinus is an idealistic ontology deal- ing with the absolute and its eternal values of truth, goodness 15

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and beauty, and bears family resemblance to the theory of saguna Brahman, and, while it refutes materialism, it does not affirm the unreality of the phenomenal. The intellectual, moral and aesthetic values, as the essence of reality, are supra- temporal and supra-spatial and therefore the determinations of the absolute and not the absolute itself. The absolute as the One is the first cause and as the good or the perfect is the final cause. The soul has its home yonder in the absolute; it descends into matter and finally returns to the One which is its source and centre and thus transcends itself, and the spatial and temporal ideas are metaphorical and not metaphysical. The chief idea in the Neo-Platonic philosophy of religion is that reality is realisable. It is single and spiritual and the three divine principles are the One, Spirit and Soul, and form the triune reality as in Bhedābheda. The absolute is the unconditioned One which is the source of unity and plurality and it transcends separability. As the super-conscious, it is beyond the relational form and existence and is therefore ineffable. The Spirit is the unity in duality and the spiritual transcends separability but not plurality, and both the knower and the known coalesce in the content of the absolute without being annulled. Identity and contradiction appear opposed, but they are reconciled in the absolute. The whole is in every part and each part of the whole is infinite; and there is no dividing line between one world and another. The universe is a harmonious series of ascending and descending spiritual existences and values. The spiritual world is the world of the One-many. In the spirit and the spiritual world the One and the many are reconciled in a multiple unity. The two are a unity in duality. All is each and each is all. Being and becoming are complementary and not contradictory, and there- fore both staticism and evolutionism are equally true.

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In the world-view of Plotinus allied to the parināmavāda of Bhedäbheda, the One overflows in a stream of creative activity and there is another current of ascent to the same One. Creation is the overflow of the One and with its power it penetrates all things like the efflux of light from the sun. Things stream forth from the original power in eternal necessity. The spiritual becomes the world of sense in the mirror of matter. All things aspire to God. Every being tends to produce an image of itself and the spiritual world becomes an actuality. When spirit overflows and irradiates matter, it becomes its broken lights in this world and finally loses itself in darkness. Spiritual power slumbers in the stone, dreams in the plant and awakes in the soul and thus spiritualises the universe. Space, as the form of externality, is a spurious substantiality, which makes the soul fugitive and obscures its sight. But it is not negation or evil posited in the absolute and perverting its nature. Matter has the promise of God, as it emanates from the powers of the One. Space accounts for our individuality. Time is willed change or the form of the will and causation involves teleology. In God, will and necessity are one. Divine creativeness is transitive activity and the outgoing life of the soul. Though God is beyond the phenomenal series of space and time, a part of His activity is transitive and the world of sense is created on the spiritual pattern though it is only a distorted picture thereof. The soul comes down and enters into bodies, but a part of it remains above and God suffers no loss in creation. Creation is not creation out of nothing at a particular point of time but is necessary for the manifestation and perfection of God and there is a cyclic process with an eternal cosmic systole and diastole. This is opposed to the Hegelian theory that God would be imperfect without the

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world process and that He comes to Himself in history. God does not need the world but the world needs God. This real-idealism or the dynamic pantheism of Plotinus is opposed to gnostic dualism and the view of the Indian contemplative. The former ignores the value of the world of sense and the latter treats it as vacuous existence in living death steeped in torpor. Plotinus does not fully accept the Western tendency to endless irrational activity interested in bettering the world. An infinite purpose is a manifest contradiction and the world orders come and go. The cyclic theory is therefore more adequate than the theories of the apocalyptists. The world of sense with its ceaseless flux has less reality and value than the spiritual world and the dualistic view of two worlds, in which form is opposed to matter, has therefore to be rejected. Every grade of being is the matter of the grade above it and soul is really the matter of spirit and spirit the matter of the absolute. The world of sense is half-real, a true lie and our knowledge of it is only opinion or half- knowledge. When the soul awakes, matter vanishes, but it is yet a fact as divine matter. The One overflows and becomes nature like the luminary that pours forth its light without losing its substance. In the eternal, identity and difference are reconciled in a higher unity. The soul like the jīva of Bhedābheda is an energy thrown off by spirit; it is its effluence. Like the moon it shines with the borrowed light of the spirit and is a divine spark. It is the body that causes the illusory distinction between soul and soul and creates so much pain in life. Each soul is really universal thought. All things are endowed with soul and there is a continuity from the infra-conscious to the supra-conscious. The world-soul, the soul of the all as creator, is not in the world, though the world is in it. The

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soul is all in every part and, even when divided, it is indi- visible. Each soul is distinct but not separate and each particular is universal. There is an inner diversity that accounts for manyness. The soul is not in the body though the body is an image of it. Pleasure and pain belong to the soul and the body is a garment of the soul and therefore separable. The soul has a divine-human nature, related to the Here and the Yonder. What truly is never perishes and while the empirical aspect perishes, the immortal aspect is eternal. The energy of the one extends as far as matter and ensouls even things and the soul wanders from the supra- essential One to the infra-essential matter. All things are endowed with soul and the pluralism that refers to spirits in a non-spiritual environment is false. Nothing that is true comes into being nor perishes. Souls have real being but this being is derived from the One like the light of the moon; yet it is created by God. In the ethics of Plotinus, the good or what ought to be is not used in the mere moralistic sense but refers to self- transcendence and unity. The soul strives upward to its home in the absolute and seeks deliverance from the world of sense, and the first stage in the ladder of ascent is the process of purification. The soul is to strip off the super- fluous and the spurious elements that belong to the world of sense. Goodness should be sought as an end in itself. Disinterestedness is the only rule of life and its motive is to grow into God. The practice of virtue thus prepares for contemplation and longing for union with the infinite and there is no dualism between the moral life and dialectic and disciplined thinking. Contemplation is reasoned action and this view harmonises serenity and strenuousness, the ideals of the cloister and activistic morality, and reminds us of

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jñāna-karma-samuccaya. The finite self has the finite-infinite nature and therefore seeks self-transcendence in a super-histori- cal state. Evil is ascribed to the false opinion arising from the spurious self of matter. Sin is a case of self-will and the separate self is only a figment. The present life is a falling away from the One. Earthly loves change and pass, but the love of God is eternal. Isolation or separation is felt to be a defect or disease of individuality, and unity is the highest condition of existence and the soul 'yonder' is undivided. The process of self-simplification is not, like the peeling of the onion, a process of abstraction and an inner repose in which time fades in eternity; nor is it the theistic idea of the eternal entering into history and working towards a spiritual community. In the self-naughting process morality is tran- scended in the absolute. The self loses its content and is depersonalised, but not destroyed. The soul abandons the way of the manifold here and soars upwards from sensuous being to its home in the supra- essential absolute. It forsakes the external, fixes its gaze on the One within and longs for the vision eternal. As the One is alone, it is the flight of the alone to the alone. In the ecstatic experience of the beatific vision, the soul becomes the spirit and its soul-feeling and memory are swept out of itself. When it mounts higher it intuits the One and resurrection is from and not with the body. Thus there is ascent from the world of soul which is one-and-many to the spirit which is one-many and then to the One. The soul- consciousness is a limiting focus implying externality and in super-consciousness these limitations are transcended. Then the spirit thinks itself and thinks the others. In this intuition which transcends discursive thinking, the seer and the seen become one. It is not attaining stability, but is stability itself.

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The absolute is beauty itself and not the beautiful. This mystic state is not to be identified with God-intoxication, or self-hypnotisation, but it is a living realisation of shining serenity. It is the timeless all which is not non-existent but super-existent ; it is a state and not a person and the soul is immersed in the shoreless ocean of immortal bliss. In this ecstasy, the finite is taken up into or sinks into the infinite or All-One. The sense of finitude and separateness alone is abolished and not the self itself. It is not self-consciousness as the self implies a contrast with the not-self. Soul-consci- ousness is a limiting focus or fulcrum. But in cosmic consci- ousness as an achieved end, the foci are fused into the one undivided unity but not abolished. Spiritual existence is a state of formless immortality in which the infinite values of life are eternally preserved. Disincarnate souls may help the universal soul to govern the world. Time yonder is under the form of eternity and not endless duration or time- lessness in the unity of the spirit. The disincarnate soul is absorbed in the universal; though externality disap- pears, duality remains; distinction is transcended but not destroyed. If Dean Inge's exposition of Plotinus is accepted, it seems to suggest similar lines of thought in Rāmānuja, but it has really more points of contact with the teaching of Bhedābheda than that of Ramanuja owing to its neglect of the inner worth of the individual and the world of nature. The theory of the redemptive purpose of incarnation which Augustine could not find in Plotinus is not found by Rāmānuja in Bhedābheda. The Dean, in contrasting the staticism of the Eastern con- templative with the dynamic sprit of the West shows, like other Westerners, his ignorance of the distinction between seeking the quiet and lapsing into quietism and of the systems

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of Vedäntic thought which emphasise voluntarism, and simply dogmatizes when he says that Christianity is the only religion or philosophy which has drawn the sting of the world's evil by its insistence on social solidarity and suffering for others. The realistic idealism of Plotinus with its theories of emanation and ecstasy closely resembles the Bhedābheda doctrines of parinama sakti and mukti as spiritual unity and absorption. The view that ecstasy is an escape from the natural and evanescent order and absorption in the eternal One resembles the Bhāskarīya idea of ekībhāva. Plotinus, like Yadava, treats the distinction between spirit and matter as relative, and views inanimate things as endowed with souls. Frank Thilly considers Neo-Platonism as the most thorough-going attempt to reconcile pantheism and theism and his exposition of Plotinus also exhibits a strain of Bhedābheda. Reality is the One or the absolute from which comes the Nous or the divine mind as a unity in difference like the genus in the species; from the Nous emanates the world-soul or the logos who fashions the world. Like the radiance of light, which loses nothing by communicating itself, the world emanates from the fulness of the transcendent being. Evil is traced to human freedom and cannot be attributed to God. Mr. Paul Shorely in his analysis of Neo-Platonism in the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics points out that it exhibits three tendencies of the human mind. The first is a thaumaturgy, a low species of mysticism; the second a higher kind of mysticism clothed in symbolism which compares the emanational process to the radiance of light from the sun and the third is an ontological exposition of the absolute One of which even the idea of oneness cannot be predicated. While

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the interpretation of Caird emphasises the absolute of ontology in the manner of S'ankara, that given by Dean Inge and Thilly approximates to the mysticism of Bhedābheda with a leaning towards Visistādvaita.

CHAPTER XI

SPINOZA

HEGEL is said to have often remarked that if a man has no Spinozism, he has no standing in philosophy. Sir Frederick Pollock in his Life and Philosophy of Spinoza asserts that his theory of the eternity of the mind is one of the most brilliant endeavours of speculative philosophy and that in the theory of immortality and intellectual love of God there is perhaps a reminiscence of Neo-Platonic influence and he traces the pantheistic strain in Wordsworth to Spinoza. Richard McKeon in his Philosophy of Spinoza extols its logical unity and unity of purpose and is of opinion that Spinoza's theory is Aristotelianism touched with Neo-Platonic ecstasy. The religions of the East were known to him only by loose report. Sir F. Pollock observes that no two philosophers have truly understood Spinoza's metaphysical principles of ethics in precisely the same way. Spinoza's view is more a habit of thought with a wealth of vital ideas than a system.) He has not much faith in nomenclature and catchwords, but there is no particular harm in most people calling it pantheism, if it is not identified with Brahmanical illusionism and stoicism. Mr. J. A. Gunn likewise has no faith in labels, but he thinks that Spinoza may be styled a pantheist in the clear view that all things are in God and are His manifestations. Spinoza

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relies more on clear thinking and righteous life than on theological revelation with its faith in miracles and mystery, in an extra-mundane and absentee God and in historic incarnation. According to John Caird there is an inner contradiction in the philosophy of Spinoza owing to the conflict between the abstract method of geometrical metaphysics dealing with truth and the concrete method of ethics dealing with per- fection, employed by him in his conception of substance and modes. Substance, in his ontology, excludes all determi- nations and is an absolutely indeterminate being and the finite beings have an individuality which is a fiction of the mind. The attributes are what the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of the substance. The self-identical absolute is purely affirmative or what is, and the essence of the finite is non-esse or bare negation. Only the infinite can follow from the infinite and the finite from the finite, and the finite is only an illusion or an evanescent mode. Natura naturata exists only for the imagination and has no reality. Moral distinctions are only a human way of describing things and individual freedom is the work of imagination and ignorance. When the illusion of time and the things of sense vanish, eternity is realised, here and now. This interpreta- tion of the world as nothing and the infinite as the attri- buteless absolute reminds us of the teaching of S'ankara that Brahman is real and the world false. John Caird rejects this view of reality as a moveless or barren absolute and attempts a Hegelian account of Spinoza. Spinoza is often greater than his logico-mathematical method and though he starts with substance as abstract unity devoid of content, he passes to the idea of concrete unity or the self-determining infinite. The principle of reality is neither determination nor

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indetermination, but self-determination in which both unity and difference are organically related. Spinoza's theory of infinite modes brings out the truth of the self-development of the infinite. The real motive of Spinoza is to trace the diversity of finite life to the infinity of God. The absolute is the one self-conscious spirit realising itself in and through finite distinctions. By its own inner impulse it goes forth from itself to objects foreign to it and then returns to itself. It is both self-differentiating and self-integrating. Negation is not bare denial but has a positive meaning and the infinite denies and affirms the finite. The negation of the natural many is the affirmation of the spiritual self by a process of self- transcendence and the eternal life negates the temporal and affirms it. The self is not lost in the unity of God but is conscious of that unity. In the exposition of the ethico-spiritual side of Spinoza, Joachim claims to interpret it as a whole in which his mysticism is read as part and parcel of his metaphysics and his view bears striking similarities to Bhedabheda of the Yādava type. The philosophy of religion is the perfect knowledge of the eternal and infinite which is beyond the contingent and the consequent attainment of spiritual freedom and felicity. Substance is self-dependent and it explains itself and also explains the world dependent on it. It is the totality or plenitude of being and the productive source of the finite. But it is not to be identified with quantitative infinitude. Substance is infinite because essence involves existence and it is self-conditioned, self-caused and absolute. It is unique, eternal and is the only invididual because a plurality of infinites is self-contradictory. What is self independent is also inclusive. The more real a thing is, the more it depends upon itself and the more attributes it has,

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and God is, and must be real, because He is self-determined. Since consciousness involves self-consciousness, God is not a characterless abstraction. Reality exists in two forms, namely, substance and modes. The former is self-conditioned and the latter is a conditioned real which deries its reality, from the former and depends on it. /Substance is in se but mode is in alio. God has infinite attributes, each of which expresses an eternal and infinite essence, of which thought and extension are the most essential to us and equally real and co-ordinate. These attributes constitute the nature of reality; they are not illusions or emanations, but are aspects, as Sir F. Pollock says, and each is infinite in its own kind. But thought and extension express and exhaust the whole of reality so far as it is thought and extension. Spinoza thus steers clear of mentalism and materialism in his Energetic Synthesis. Substance is whole in its attributes though it differs in each, and our mind or body is only a mode or fragment of its own attribute. Our mind is a fragment of God's thought and our body, of God's extension. Divine omnipotence is actual in the two lines or fields of force known humanly as thought and extension. God is conceived pantheistically as the one-and-all but is not equated with physical and mental energy. When we say that God is extended, we do not refer to God as a spatial whole because God is more than thought and extension and the anthro- pomorphic ideas of personality, duration and measurement do not apply to the absolute. The will and intellect of God differ from our will and intellect as the word ' dog' connoting the star differs from the animal. As the free cause of all things, God is Natura naturans having infinite and eternal essence. But in the form of modes, He is Natura naturata but not the sum of things, and the former logically fulfils

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itself in the latter. Spinoza rejects the God of theology as the idea of divine design implies imperfection, but he favours the principle of immanent teleology and attributes infinite consciousness to the absolute. The infinite intellect is produced in the attribute of thought and forms the totality of all things and the finite world is the unfolding of the infinite. All things are perfect as they proceed from the divine nature and therefore nothing is false or bad. Mr. G. A. Gunn thinks that, in the pantheis- tic monism of Spinoza, the world is an emanation of the creative being of God which is infinite; it ts expression of the infinite energy of reality. The theory of infinite modes reminds us of the doctrine of the logos and Brahma, the first begotten of Brahman. Substance determines itself to modes and is the immanent cause of all things; it is not a whole of modes but is the modes. Thinking things and extended things express the divine nature in a limited way, and, as Mr. G. A. Gunn says, they are to the substance what the' waves are to the sea. These modes inhere in substance and its affections and share in their infinity and eternity. The human mind is thought particularised and therefore modal and not substantial and is an element of the infinite intellect of God. God is the unconditioned and man is like a foam bubble. The soul-side of man has positive essence and is therefore eternal and the modes of matter are as divine as the modes of the mind. But its contingent side is due to its place in spatial and temporal order. The mode is a condi- tioned real and its essence is therefore derivative and neces- sary. Modal existence is finite; but its essence is eternal. A particular thing in its particularity is finite and perishing in so far as it is particular. But, since the contingent implies the self-conditioned. the mode has its being in God and is a

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variety of the unity of the absolute. As part of the essence of reality it is eternal and infinite. The chief modes are thinking things and objects of thought and man is both spiritual and corporeal and from divine necessity there follows an infinite number of things in infinite ways. Therefore God is: the modes and His oneness reveals itself in the multiplicity of the modes. In the unity of substance there is an infinite variety of parts as its moments. Man is a mode of the infinite intellect of God and his idea is God's idea not in so far as He is infinite but in so far as He is the essence of the mind; but now it is imprisoned in particularity and therefore it seeks freedom from this contingency of finitude. The finite moves restlessly beyond itself for completion and is seized with the impulse of self- expansion. Since every mode is an immanent expression of the divine nature, its freedom is derived from the freedom of God and God is self-determined and exists in his own inner necessity. Spinoza admits degrees of reality and refers to its progressive realization. The more of God there is in man, the more he sees from God's point of view. Though a mouse and an angel depend equally on God, yet a mouse is not an angel. There is more of God in the saint than in storks and stones and He is the only real and the perfect. The free man sees things as they are under the form of eternity, sub specie eternitas. The intellectual and the moral life are ultimately one and the distinctions of truth and falsity and good and evil arise from the distinctions in the adequacy of the idea. There are three ascending scales of knowledge and morality due to the impulse of self-realisation. The first stage in knowledge is imagination in which we perceive things existing in time and space determined externally in an arbitrary and fragmentary form. This knowledge is

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contingent, mutilated and inadequate. The second is ratio or the stage of the scientific knowledge of necessity and univer- sality reached by reason. Reason is rooted in reality and in this stage we know man as such as a mode of God and not as this man or that man. Reason adequately contem- plates things as they are and the accidents of imagination which we feel now become a necessary element of reality which we think. But even scientific knowledge is only abs- tract and external and it does not bring out the essence of things. Therefore in the third stage of scientia intuitiva or supra-rational insight, we go from mere body-feeling and the abstractions of sense to God-consciousness and this is not mediate but immediate and absolutely perfect knowledge of the infinite, its immanence in the finite and also of the modal being of the finite. Then the unity is seen in the differ- ences and the differences are seen as individuations of creative unity. Corresponding to these three stages of intellectual expan- sion, there are three degrees of moral perfection owing to the unity or identity of intelligence and will. The finite self strives to persist in its own being and conation refers to this inherent divine impulse of self-maintenance or self-realization. In the first stage, man is a passive part of nature yoked to passions and lives in isolation. A passion is a confused idea, a passiveness of the soul which makes us mere playthings of the external world and it is the practical aspect of imagi- nation. But ethics is based on metaphysics and evil is used in the Neo-Platonic sense of privation. In the higher life of reason, the passions are subdued by thinking them clearly or by a stronger contrary emotion and the self of individualistic ethics is now extinguished and replaced by the joys of dis- interested love and social solidarity. In this stage, we rise

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from servitude to sovereignty. The passions are subuucu and not swept away. Only the sense of imagination is annulled and not the modal being. But even this stoic life of reason is only a golden link and a half-way house to the supreme Good. In the last stage of the intuition of divine determinism, there is the consummation of all endeavour owing to the absence of compulsion and contingency. The finite sheds its finitude and is taken up into the infinite and is transfigured and the infinite realizes itself through the self- maintaining impulse of the finite. The contemplative life and the life of activity are now reconciled in the intellectual love of God, which is at once the culmination of thought and the consummation of morality. This love is part of the infinite love wherewith God loves Himself. In the realization of oneness with God, God's thought is our thought and He is real in us and as our eternal self. The thing of sense in us passes away and the eternal aspect remains as an element of the divine nature and attains freedom and felicity ; this deliverance from passions is salvation which is here and now and not a future reward. The finite as such ceases to be, but as a mode of God it transcends itself, shares in His substantiality and persists in its eternal actuality. The shift of things is now transcended in a state of shining serenity. In that blessed state there is no personal survival or im- mortality, because personality and memory perish with the body; eternity is not endless duration but is the very essence of God and there is no before and after in it, and we see all things under the form of eternity. According to Sir F. Pollock, the mind as an eternal mode of thought, which is a part of the infinite intellect of God, is in some sense individual. The accidents of sense and time now become the incidents of timeless necessity and its felicity, and the finite mode is 16

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absorbed in the unity of the absolute. The human mind cannot be destroyed with the body for there remains some- thing of the mind that is eternal. The individual point of view is not extinguished but transformed into the intuitive experience of seeing all things in God and God in all things. The essence of Spinoza's thought is, according to Pollock, given in the perfect words of Renan: " Reason leads death in triumph and the work done for Reason is done for eternity." Professor Hallett, in the masterly interpretation of Spinoza, in his book Aeternitas, seeks to avoid the fatal defects of monistic idealism like that of Bosanquet, which refers to the merging of the finite self in the eternal absolute. The human mind as part of the infinite intellect of God constitutes the whole which alone is eternal in its right. What is loss or contradiction for the finite self is the content of the Real which integrates it; and integration is not the loss of individuality, but is the synthetic expression, in form and content, of the infinite, like the notes of the melody. The existence of a being follows from its essence and is eternal. Eternity as essentiål existence is neither duration nor its negation, but it appears in time under the form of conatus. It is only imagination that divides essence and existence and pulverises eternal extension. The Real is not space-time, but extended eternity. To know the eternal is to be the eternal, and in scientia intuitiva God has full intuition. The sectional view of the finite is corrected in the intuition of the articulated whole. This is a state of eternal blessedness which is more than the enduring joy of the drifting mind. Professor A. Wolf, in an appreciative article in " Philosophy," concludes that Spinozism presents a whole- ness unsurpassed by any other system. It alone insists on a

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real uni-verse and, unlike the modern attenuated monisms, it alone refers to a systemic monism in which relation, ration- alism and religion are integrated. In the metaphysics of Spinoza the absolute is the self- existent and self-differentiating substance or God; the thinking things and objects of thought are phases or determinate expressions of the absolute. The manifest is only the unfolding of the immanent one and not a fictitious veiling process. The attributes are lines of force in which divine omnipotence manifests its free causality and makes its potencies actual. God as natura naturans is God as natura naturata. Natura naturans is God as the free dynamic cause and natura naturata is the same God as the self-caused existing as the universe of modes or the consequent of the free causality of God. God is the modes. Modal multiplicity has its ground in the unity of the nature of God. Man can transcend his finite humanity and become one with the absolute by moral and intellectual perfection and there is scope and hope for Spinoza in Spinozism. Bhedabheda resembles Spinoza's view of the unity of the absolute realized in its modal multiplicity. The theory of natura naturans resembles the Bhedābheda conception of Brahman. The idea of the attributes as the lines of force of divine omnipotence is very much like the parināmasakti of Brahman. The unity of moral life and the life of reason can be compared to the theory of jñāna-karma-samuccaya and the theory of human destiny as the oneness of its essential and eternal element with God has its analogy in the conception of mukti according to the Bhedābheda of the Yādava school. Pollock claims to go up into the heart and citadel of Spinozism by beginning with a quotation from S'ankara :

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Know in thyself and the world one self-same soul, Banish the dream that sunders part from the whole. But his exposition fits in more with Bhedābheda than Advaita. Some interpreters of S'ankara, like Mr. Kokiles'vara S'astri, do not accept the 'illusion' theory, but bring out the realistic side of Advaita, and Mr. Modak,' following Mr. S'āstri's exposition, thinks that māya in the sense of the power of Brahman closely resembles the attributes of Spinoza. This world-view is more in line with the parināmavāda of Bhedābheda than the vivartavāda of S'ankara. The following denunciation of Spinozism by Sir Richard Blackmore in his philosophical poem on 'Creation ' reminds us of a similar criticism levelled against Bhedābheda by Vedānta Desika : The Spheres of Ether, which the Worlds enclose, And all th' Apartments, which the whole compose, The lucid Orbs, the Earth, the Air, the Main, With every diff'rent Being they contain, Are one prodigious Aggregated God, Of whom each Sand is past, each Stone and Clod, Supreme Perfections in each Insect shine, Each Shrub is Sacred, and each Weed Divine. As much you pull Religion's altars down, By owning all Things God, as owning none, For should all Beings be alike Divine, Of Worship if an object you assign, God to himself must Veneration shew, Must be the Idol and the Vot'ry too; And their assertions are alike absurd, Who own no God, or none to be ador'd.

1 Vide article on " Spinozistic Substance and Upanișadic Self" in Philo- sophy, October, 1931

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That Reality is alike and equally present in all, is brought out in the well-known lines of Pope : " All are but parts of one stupendous whole, * * * * *

As full, as perfect is a hair as heart. As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns." Bradley directs his polemic against this shallow pantheism in which everything is so worthless on the one hand, so divine on the other, that nothing can be viler nor more sublime than anything else. In defence of Spinozism, it is maintained by Mr. J. A. Picton that though God is the whole, no part by itself can be God. God is not the aggregate of finite objects but a living whole, expressing itself in infinite variety, and all change, pain and evil are only partial. Devotion to God is the same as loyalty of the parts to the whole. The defects of pan-cosmism arise only when God is synonymous with the world. But in philosophic pantheism, God is immanent in nature and yet transcends its imperfections and this view meets the charge of acosmism. While the logic of pantheism demands immanence and the divineness of the universe, its ethical and spiritual side emphasises eminence and the main motive of Spinozism is idealistic and mystic and not naturalistic. Spinoza, in the manner of Indian mystic philosophers, accepts the reality of moral distinctions and insists on perfection as the supreme end of life. But his distinction of natura into its two real aspects, and the idea of the highest end as the worship of the whole do not con- stitute specific spiritual consciousness. The conception of the "Intellectual love of God" tends to lay more stress on rational insight than on religious ecstasy:

CHAPTER XII

HEGEL

THE philosophy of Hegel is closely related to Bhedābheda and not to Visistādvaita as some modern philosophers think. It is variously interpreted as pantheistic, pluralistic, and mentalistic, and therefore "there are many Hegels." Mr. H. Haldar, in his lucid exposition of Hegel and Neo- Hegelianism, claims that Hegelianism is really the meeting of extremes and is a synthesis of the pantheism of Caird and others on the one hand, and the view of McTaggart on the other. The absolute is not a substance or a unitary self, but a self-conscious and self-differentiating super-personality, or a subject of many selves. As Watson insists, reality must have two aspects, it must be absolutely one and absolutely many. If the idea of unity in Hegel is stressed, then it tends towards the pantheism of Spinoza in which differences become unsubstantial like the passing waves of the ocean. But, if, as McTaggart thinks, the absolute is a unity of persons but not itself a person, his view emphasises the element of multiplicity and leans towards pluralism. But the absolute is not a unity of selves, but the self of selves. If the whole is in and as each part and if the part is a self, the whole should also be a self. Pluralism cannot reduce the manifold into a unity just as abstract monism cannot

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extract the many out of the one. Both lead to dualism and involve an endless see-saw and Hegel bridges the gulf between naive realism and monistic idealism by his theory of the unity of opposites. The absolute is a spiritual unity of correlated selves, each of which is the whole and partakes of its per- fections. Unity is particularised and yet remains undivided. Hegelianism is the theory of the absolute as developed in the dialectic, and is characterised as panlogism by Erdmann. To Hegel, philosophy is the only perfect science in which thought thinks thought and becomes a significant and perfect whole. The absolute is spirit and reason is the highest expression of spirit. Notion seizes the whole in its singleness and controls all thought. Reason alone is the life of reality and is not only finite but absolute and the dialectic is the very soul of speculation. Reality is the notion as a self-differentiating principle or a unity of opposites. The whole is the true and is shaped by reason. Hegel distinguishes between abstract understanding and concrete reason ; while the former deals with identity alone or difference alone, the latter removes these abstractions and deals with the concrete unity of opposites or contraries, in which both identity and difference as one-many are equally real and essential factors. The two are opposed and yet allied. The opposites, on Croce's view, are not opposed to unity. Mr. M. R. Cohen thinks that it is not the identity of opposites, but the principle of polarity. Bare identity or universality is as abstract as bare difference or otherness and the dialectic with its triple moments of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, corrects these abstractions and brings out the nature of reality as self-expression or spiritual and temporal becoming. Negation is really the principle of determination and is contrasted with the view of Spinoza which regards determination as negation.

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Owing to the immanence of the universal in the particular, self-identity is enriched by determination or particularisation and not impoverished. Reality is a one-many and not a pure undifferenced being robbed of all content. The many is involved in the one and evolves out of the one. As a self-contained unity, it is one; but as differentiation, it is many, and it is the essence that thus manifests itself. McTaggart says that unity has no meaning but the differentia- tions, and the differentiations have no meaning but the unity and in this harmony neither side is subordinated to the other. ! The absolute, as a self-differentiating unity, goes out of itself to the object and yet remains as one, and, as Caird says, the self-differentiations are selves. The idea of subject implies an object. The subject is objectified and each object is an object to a self or subject and object or non-self to others vand all are thus inter-related. Reality is thus an identity in «difference of the subject and the object. The so-called infinite beyond the finite is restricted by the finite and is therefore really finite. Likewise the infinite as an endless series is the false infinite. But the true infinite is immanent in the finite and is at home in itself with its other and is a positive idea. The finite as finite is contingent and contradictory; but when it is grounded in the infinite, it becomes a real phase1 or element of the infinite. The finite facts exist here and now ; but in the logic of religion they are transcended in the uni- versal which is more than mere existence. When the finitude or limit of the finite is negated, then it becomes the infinite. The particular is both finite and infinite and it is finite from one point of view and infinite from another point of view. Though a specific determination of the whole, it participates in the one and is infinite. The absolute is thus the totality ' Unpublished Lecture Notes on Hegel by Dr. A. G. Hogg.

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of selves which is completely in each constituent self and communicates its nature to them. Man is not passing mode, but is essential to the infinite and sustained by it. As finite, he is external to other objects and excludes them; but, as infinite, he is all-inclusive. Each self is a system of selves; but the absolute is the self of all selves. In the triadic development, the notion passes over into nature, its other, and returns to itself as absolute spirit, which is the consummation of the world-process. It is only in the absolute of philosophy that the notion is fully articulate. The one is a unity of multiplicity. The God of religion is the self-certifying absolute and triune and yet, He goes out of Himself to nature and man and returns to Himself as the absolute spirit. Nature is the other to God and is petrified spirit and man is a link between the two. The world belongs to God and God is necessary to the world. God's will is realised in the freedom of the finite selves and the self should renounce its particularity before it unites with God. Eternal being is in and for itself and yet it posits itself as its own difference. In the triple movement of religion, natural religion, like Indian pantheism, is the first stage, and this pantheism conceives the absolute as being or Brahman, which is an emotion-less, will-less, deed-less abstract unity and vacancy, in which the finite is a vanish- ing accident. Pantheism easily passes into naturalism. Multiplicity is crass without unity and it gives rise to the maddest of polytheisms. The religion of spiritual individuality, like Zoroastrianism, marks the second stage, but its individuality is fragmentary. Christianity, or Revealed Religion, is the last stage in which the absolute spirit returns to itself. What is implicit becomes explicit and the philosophic mind lays hold of the absolute and participates

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in its perfections. Hegel's estimate of Indian religion may be ignored as it is true neither to life nor to logic and the whole classification is dogmatically imposed on reality and not revealed by it. Hegel 'states the problem to suit the answer' and betrays the common prejudice that oriental thinking does not recognise the reality of moral distinction. The logical order is not the same as the chronological order and Hegel's view of the absolute is not the absolute. In some notable modern expositions of Indian thought a kinship is traced between the logical highest of Rāmānuja and of Hegel and this view is contrasted with the intuitional highest of S'ankara. To both Ramánuja and Hegel, reality is a one containing many. The real is the real for thought with an element of negativity in it; but it is not the real in itself. Logic transforms the intuition of the indeterminate into a systematic organic unity. The absolute is triune unity or tripod consisting of God, soul and nature. Is'vara or God cast in the moulds of logic is the synthesis of being and non- being. He is a self-conscious personality with the not-self as an integral element and loses Himself to find Himself. Experience presents the two concepts of identity and difference, and Is'vara is the generalised concept of such ex- perience. Nature is a real self-expression of the absolute and not a distortion of it. The absolute is God, spirit and matter and not God alone. But Hegel's theory of the identity of opposites and the nature of the absolute and its self-differentia- tion bears more affinity to Bhedābheda than to Visistādvaita, and calls for similar criticism. Hegel's panlogism seeks the fusion of the opposites and ends in confusion. He is some- times called ' the Prince of the Confusionists' and the greatest irrationalist in the history of human thought. The theory of the unity of the opposites fails to explain the element of the

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contingent, the irrational and the imperfect, that is in the universal. The facts of physics and biology cannot be deduced a priori from the dialectic of metaphysics. Schopenhauer therefore thinks that the real is irrational. In his ethics, Hegel is inclined towards an amoralistic view of life which tends to justify Napoleon's idea that God is on the side of the heaviest artillery. Mr. Cohen concludes multiplicity and struggle, finitude and evil, contingency and imperfection are as real as anything else, and cannot be rationally deduced from, or wiped out by, any monistic idea.1 Materialism follows as necessarily from the Hegelian premises of the identity of the real and the rational as spiritualism. In mounting to the higher category, the lower is not really transcended. ® l If the existent universe of space-time is the objectifica- tion of being and if the cosmos is a logical process in which God comes to self-consciousness and becomes perfect, then, as Swāmi Vivekānanda observes, the world is greater than salvation. Such a view strikes at the very root of the ethical and religious need for renunciation and therefore it is nipped in the bud in Indian thought. No mumuksu or seeker after God adores an evolving and imperfect Being, and dialectics cannot prove divinity. While some say that the Hegelian absolute is a 'perpetual activity,' others maintain that it is static and the idea of change is an illusion. The logical view of the one-many lands us in vicious intellectualism. The duality of the subject-object consciousness is a dualism which cannot be solved, but can only be dissolved by the intuition of the absolute, and Rāmānuja, like S'ankara, relies more on the intuitions enshrined in revelation than on the primacy of reason. Dr. M. Sircar maintains that Ramanuja's conception ' The Philosophical Review, May 1932.

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of reality is no synthesis of being and non-being but a concrete identity which implies distinction but not negation and that his dialectic is thus an improvement on Hegel's fusion of opposites. His construction of Visistādvaita as an adjectival theory of the absolute fails to bring out the full import of the prakāra-prakārin relation. Hegelian thought dominates diverse systems of later thought, and the expositions of Bradley, Royce and Bosanquet on the lines of Hegelian absolutism suggest certain similarities with Bhedābheda.

BRADLEY

Bradley follows, in his own metaphysical way, the mess- age of Hegel that Reality is spiritual, and that the more spiritual a thing is, the more it is real, and explains it as the supra-relational absolute that embraces all differences in an all-inclusive harmony. Reality is one and its being is in ex- perience and it is experience and not ' an unearthly ballot of bloodless categories.' The real is qualified by plurality while it is itself not plural. A plurality of independent reals only multiplies the metaphysical difficulty. Unlike Hegel, Bradley thinks that the infinite transcends thought. The ideas of identity and difference lead to an infinite process and cannot be ultimate. Every relational thought like time, space, causation, substance and self sunders the 'what' from the 'that' and is therefore an appearance riddled with contradic- tions. We do not know why and how the absolute divides itself into centres or the way in which, so divided, it still remains one. The relating principle of togetherness is external to the relata and involves self-discrepancy., Owing to the self-discrepancy of thought truth is not absolute, but has

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degrees. The relational points to a whole which is beyond relations and every appearance is somehow preserved and merged in the absolute, though in a transmuted form. The absolute is superior to partition and is in some way perfected by it. The mere intellect is puzzled by the problem of the one and the many and its endless process or infinite fission and yet the two are reconciled in the absolute. The absolute is the highest unity of which the one and the many are aspects. Every particular asserts a superior unity and contributes to the whole and the particulars blend with one another and become absorbed in reality. Time is a false appearance of the timeless reality. Goodness is the adjective, something not itself and is superseded. Error and evil correct them- selves and contribute to perfection. Every flame of passion, chaste or carnal, would still burn in the absolute unquenched and unabridged, a note absorbed in the harmony of its higher bliss. Heaven's design can realize itself as effectively in Catiline or Borgia as in the scrupulous or innocent. The absolute is the richer for every discord and diversity which it embraces and transcends. The self is only a content and my 'mine' becomes a feature in the great 'Mine' which in- cludes all 'mines.' There is no reality more solid than that of the religious consciousness. Even the religious conscious- ness in which man is over against God, is a contradiction, and the God of religion is only an appearance of the absolute which is spiritual and super-personal. God is not God, till He has become all in all, and a God who is all in all is not the God of religion. Short of the absolute, God cannot rest, and having reached that goal, He is lost. The absolute is related to nothing and cannot therefore be God. The rela- tional way of thought is thus a mere makeshift and is self- discrepant. In the trans-relational unity of the absloute, all

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contradictions are reconciled and in the final destiny and last truth of all things, there is one all-pervasive transfusion with a reblending of all material. Every discord is over- ruled and transmuted into harmony, and there is a balance of pleasure over pain. The absolute contains histories, but it has no history of its own as nothing perfect can move. Bradley is not clear in expounding the relation between reality and appearance. In his negative dialectic, the appear- ances are stripped of reality and abolished. i The final destiny of all finite things is their absorption in the absolute. /The finite centres as such disappear or lose their distinctive being in the timeless and changeless absolute; they are dissolved and transcended. In the reblending of material, there is a dissipation of nature; yet he says that the appearances are revelations of the absolute and are saved by it and not lost in it. There is no identity in abstraction from diversity. As parts of the whole, they have their individual being and the content of not one of them is obliterated. " That the glory of this world in the end is appearance leaves the world more glorious." Royce in his criticism of Bradley proceeds on the princi- ple that the life of thought belongs to the realm of reality. It is self-evident that identity and diversity are conjoined and not contradictory and it is the inner law of thought to express its own unity in a multiplicity of aspects. The actually infinite is not an endless process involving self- contradiction, but is a concrete expression of Being. To escape scepticism, Bradley takes refuge in the idea that reality is sentient experience; but he does not rely on the intuition of the absolute as different from sentient experience. The absolute is not a kind of self-absorbing sponge which

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endlessly sucks in its own self-hood. The self is affirmed even in denying it. Bradley's absolute really has two aspects, it absorbs the many and it is also aware of this absorption. The absolute is above the relations and it knows that it is above the relations. In seeking to escape from self-hood, it yet remains as self-existence. In other words, the absolute is self-conscious Being possessing the appearances instead of suppressing and transmuting them. Royce is, on the whole, more inclined towards the view of the personality of the absolute than Bradley. Both Bradley and Hegel, according to Mr. Haldar, insist on the ultimate spiritual unity of all experience; but, while Hegel constructs a graded and symmetrical system of cate- gories with the principle of the identity of opposites, Bradley connects the absolute and its appearances in an abrupt and mysterious way. He condemns relational thought and yet somehow makes it cohere with reality. The relational and the supra-relational are discontinuous. In the panlogism of Hegel, God is fully revealed in the world; but the absolutism of Bradley lays stress on the transcendental side of reality and regards the finite as the ragged edges of the absolute. As Dr. S. K. Das observes in his thoughtful work " A Study of the Vedanta", philosophic agnosticism acts as an antidote to Hegelian gnosticism. Bradley distrusts thought and treats the self as a mere connection of content without any unity ; but reality is relational and knowable and the absolute is the consummation of thought. Mr. W. James says relations relate in spite of Mr. Bradley. If reality is ' experience' it is the idea of the self as the unity in difference that is our highest experience. The content of the finite self is a frag- ment of the absolute; but in the form of self-consciousness it is one with it.

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ROYCE

Royce's theory of Being is both monistic and pluralistic ; but it is opposed to realism, pan-psychism and mysticism, and, as Haldar points out, Royce is the only absolute idealist that identifies the absolute with Will. Truth is determi- nateness of idea and experience, and the world of my idea is my will determinately embodied. Reality is a totality or the complete embodiment of the internal meaning of finite ideas and is determinate. It is will in God and man that brings out the idea of individuality and the world is the absolute individual of which the finite selves are only fragments and aspects. When I uniquely will, it is I who just here am God's will and I am active and free so far. My freedom is not the whole of God's, but is a unique fact thereof. Reality as subject-object is one as well as many. As the one, it is the whole or the individual and as the many, it is an infinite multiplicity of individuals expressing it. Reality is thus the individual of the individuals. The absolute is unique, and infinity is at best a character or a universal different from uniqueness or wholeness. The infinite is determinate and not indeterminate or an endless series and the absolute is a self which exhausts an infinity in its presentations. Reality is a self-representative system of which the finite strivings for the ' other ' are mere aspects or expressions. It is the absolute which, in its wholeness, comprises many selves in various inter-relations. Each self represents the totality in its own way and is an integral element of the absolute. God cannot be one except by being many. The one will of God is expressed through the many individual wills and the indi- vidual experience is identically a part of God's experience. The finite self does not repeat the absolute, but contributes

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its share to the intinite rrchness of its personality. Every finite intent taken in its wholeness is the absolute, and the most fleeting act is a part of the world's meaning.

BHEDĀBHEDA AND BOSANQUET!

Bhāskara and Yādava, like other Vedāntins, subordinate reason to revelation and seek to discover the meaning and value of the S'rutis in the light of the theory of Bhedābheda or identity and difference. But Bhāskara posits the principle of identity and difference in the relation between jiva and Is'vara, in which identity is essential and eternal (svābhāvika) and difference is merely adventitious or contingent appearance (aupādhika). But Yādava insists on the equal reality of identity and difference and regards the finite as an element of the infinite. Appearance belongs to reality and is not opposed to it. S'ruti only exhibits the diversity of empirical experience which changes and passes. Bosanquet is not bound by any such S'ruti or revelation. He affirms the ontological thought that the best must be and postulates the principle of identity in difference based on non-contradiction. It is an immanent criticism that whole- ness is the only test of reality in which everything is trans- figured, reconciled and united. Thought is not merely discrepant, as Bradley asserts, but is also synthetic. It presses onward and seeks its stability in the concrete universal. He stakes his whole faith in the' trueness and being of the highest mystic experience' of man in art and religion. We argue from experience to more of the same kind, from the human plane to the divine. It is the whole

1 Adapted from a paper submitted to the Indian Philosophical Congress at Benares. 17

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reality alone that can elicit the whole mind and be the subject of predication. The life of logic is the organic unity of the concrete universal implicit in experience; it is the spirit of totality which reveals itself by transforming all values. The highest experience is the timeless whole or absolute which transforms the alien into the kindred by removing the contradictions inherent in finiteness. Error in this sense is made of the same stuff as truth. It is not an illusion abolished by the absolute, but an incident in reality riddled with contradictions, but ultimately adjusted and absorbed by the whole. The self passes into the non-self with a view to regain itself. Contradictions disappear in the absolute, but not negativity. «Negation is significant and becomes a positive factor of reality and it is logical quietism to treat it as ignorance. To Bhāskara, finiteness is an upādhi in the empirical life of samsara which disappears with the realization of Brahman. Bosanquet employs the dialectic method of Hegel and treats error as a contingency which contributes to the whole. The absolute is not an identity that is robbed of content, but is a concrete whole realized in the relative, and is an identity in difference like the Bhedābheda of Yādava.

METAPHYSICS

Bhäskara denies the existence of nirguna Brahman devoid of determination and also repudiates the theistic idea of Divine Personality. Though Brahman or Is ara is the absolute being beyond the world of samsara and is impersonal and eternal (niravayava and nitya), He has an infinity of perfections like truth, goodness, purity, infinity and bliss as His attributes. (satyam, jñānam, anantam and ānandam and other kalyāņa gunas). Is'vara is neither the effect of cosmic illusion nor a

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concrete universal with a " maximum of being and minimum of non-being."/ Isvara is not a limited expression of the absolute or static Being. The absolute of thought is the God of morality and religion. Brahman is the sat without a second but the manifold of thinking things and material things (cit and acit) arises from the contingency of upādhi, that is inherent in them. Brahman is the cause of the cosmic cycle only per accidens. Influenced by upādhi, the principle of in- dividuation, He evolves into the heterogeneity of names and forms. The jiva is an amsa of Brahman (a fraction or element of the absolute) conditioned by recurring avidyā and karma./The inner Ruler of individuality Himself becomes the finite self. / The absolute infected by upādhi becomes the finite centres of experience. Like the rays of the sun, the waves of the sea and the sparks of the fire, the jīva becomes an emanation or a fulguration of the all-pervading Brahman and is identical with and also different from Him. The limitation is in the absolute, but not of it. The anutva or the monadic nature of the jiva with its contractions and expan- sions is samsārika arising from the contingency of its embodied state and is not therefore essential or svābhāvika. The finite self or jiva has really the oneness and the all: pervasive character of Brahman (abhinnatva and vibhutva). Like the all-pervasive ether which, while in the pot, assumes its form, and like the reflection of the sun on the surface of water, Brahman conditioned by the accident of contingency assumes the form and function of the finite self. Prakrti is the material aspect of Brahman which brings about the cosmic variety of names and forms and its relation with Brahman in the form of identity and difference is, like the snake and its coils, essential as well as eternal. But Yädava, who also adopts the Bhedābheda view rejects the theory of upādhi in

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favour of parinamavāda and thus insists on the reality of the finite self. To Bosanquet, the absolute is the self-maintaining and self-complete individual free from the contradictions inherent in finiteness. It is not a numerical identity determined by spatial and temporal relations which are the incidents of terrestrial life and history. The unconditioned real alone is the whole. The finite self is a fraction or element (ams'a) of the infinite and has a meaning only in it. It is really finite- infinite (bhedābheda) and has a double being. As a finite being, it is conditioned within the whole, riddled with the contradictions between existence and value and is therefore only an appearance of the absolute. It has a formal distinct- ness of its own, an exclusive self-feeling as a bodily being with a name and a terrestrial history (upādhi). It is range of externality which gradually elicits itself from nature. The finite as finite is a self-contradiction as its claim to reality is not fulfilled. But its law is that of the infinite and there- fore, by overcoming contradictions, it strives to transcend itself and seeks its stability in the self-contained absolute. It is a tide within the absolute life, but separate from the flood within which it moves. Bosanquet denies the existence of unrelated reals and the falsity of the finite self and treats the finite as a mere connection of content, a mere predicate of reality. It is a collection of adjectives housed in the absolute. Nature as a system in space and time is not real by itself, but is bound up with the self which elicits its content from it and transforms it into an element of the whole. Time and space are the stuff of finiteness and the absolute which manifests itself through them includes the series, but is not the series. Nature and self are complementary and form the elements of the absolute. /All progress is within the whole, but not of it.

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The self is the living copula between nature and the absolute, and the absolute absorbs nature through the world of finite selves. Both Bhaskara and Bosanquet deny the function of intellectus or finite thought as a pernicious piecemeal view of things and affirm the monistic truth that the absolute is the integral unity with the elements of finiteness distinct from and also related to it and that individuation is a spatial and temporal limitation due to the upādhi of distinctness. Bosanquet, like Yādava, posits finiteness as a difference essential to identity, but Bhäskara regards it as a defect of reality which can be finally eliminated and not self-transcended as Bosanquet thinks.

ETHICS

According to Bhäskara, the moral life of the mumuksu, who seeks freedom from samsāra, consists in a process of purification by which he discards his finitude and seeks to become one with the infinite. «The absolute is the eternally perfect being, who is immanent in the world of contingency, but untainted by its imperfections. The Bhedābhedavādin maintains the principle of jñāna-karma-samuccaya by which he reconciles the conflicting claims of jñāna and karma (intellectus and voluntus). Bhäskara avoids these extremes by co-ordinating the claims of karma and jñāna in the idea of a ceaseless meditation on ekatva or oneness. The desire tor the objects of sense (visayarāga) implicates the self in the wheel of time; but the same desire directed to the attainment of Brahman leads to liberation and eternal bliss. Clogged by karma and avidyā, the self is burdened with a body and subject to the ills of samsra. The true means of securing freedom consists not in the entire eradication of desire but in

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the performance of duty and transfiguring desire into a longing for becoming Brahman. According to Bosanquet, soul-making is the function of the universe .! Being finite-infinite (bhedābheda), it is a victim to the hazards and hardships of its dual nature. There is a hostility between what it is and what it ought to be. The externality of the finite with its formal distinctness and the personal feeling of exclusiveness is in collision with the all- 'inclusiveness and spiritual solidarity of the infinite. The finite self is torn between existence and self-transcendence, aloofness and absorption and falls into dissatisfaction and despair. But the roots of the finite will are in the infinite. The spirit of the whole works in it and transfigures it. Con- tradiction by itself is a defect; but it has a value in relation to the whole. It is a striving towards self-transcendence. Good is the appearance of perfection, but is made of the same stuff as evil. Evil is only good in the wrong place. Suffering is due to finiteness, but is transmuted in the divine life. This finiteness, with its imperfections, is riddled with contradic- tions; but when it is linked with the whole, it becomes its essential element. Finiteness itself is an evil which vanishes by union with the whole which is beyond good and evil. The separate self frees itself from the world of claims and counter- claims based on individual justice and realizes the value of spiritual unity and love. The failure of the finite is only an affirmation of its spiritual membership. As the God of religion wills the good and is hostile to evil and as the human will cannot be both free and related, He is different from the absolute in which alone all extremes meet and get reconciled. Evil, suffering and finiteness are not rejected and abolished ; but they are conserved in the whole and contribute to its whole- ness. They are in the whole but not of it. ) Imperfection is

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an incident of finitude but in the furnace of spiritual life it is re-cast and absorbed in the absolute. Both Bhaskara and Bosanquet deny volition to God from its partial and personal point of view. Brahman is satyakāma and satyasankalpa in the sense of completeness, in which conation and fruition are realized together. While Bosanquet regards imperfection as an element of perfection, Bhāskara and Yādava refer to Brahman as absolutely pure without any taint of imperfection. The former traces the self to natural and social selection; but the latter explains it as an ams'a or portion of Brahman. Rāmānuja may be said to agree in a way with Bhaskara and Bosanquet in their logical view of the finite as a mode of the absolute; but he is entirely opposed to the predication of upādhi and evil to the perfect being, who is absolutely free from dosa and vikāra.

RELIGION

The Vedānta as a religion is a realization of the one without a second by the cessation of the idea of separateness. Release is secured by the immediate apprehension and attain- ment of the absolute and not by the knowledge afforded by the mahāvākya nor by absolute self-surrender. While reject- ing the Advaitic distinction between saguna Brahman and nirguņa Brahman based on the doctrine of māyā, Bhāskara recognises the relative values of meditating on Kārya Brah- man as the cosmic support (prapañca adhāra) and Kāraņa Brahman or the absolute who is satyam, jñānam and anan- tam. The former is a way of gradual release through the region of the cosmic deity known as Brahma; but the latter results in immediate release. Then the soul has not merely sight of the immortal sea, but is immersed in it. Like the

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Ganges flowing and merging into the sea, the wise man or vidvān is freed from the contingency of finiteness and disinct- ness and becomes one with the absolute and the sorrows of samsāra then cease for ever. Bhäskara discards the doctrine of jivanmukti on the one hand and the theistic idea of per- sonality and kainkarya or service on the other, and upholds the notion of devayānamārga or the luminous pathway to Brahman who is beyond the sphere of samsara. The ascent to the absolute is not opposed to the all-pervasiveness of Brahman. In the state of mukti, the self becomes one with Brahman and all distinction of duality entirely disappears. When the pot is broken, the ether in it (ghatākasa) is no longer distinguishable from the all-pervading ether (mahā- kāsa). Likewise, mukti is the dissolution of distinction and the attainment of oneness with Brahman without any physi- cal or psychical limitation (ekībhāva). According to Bosanquet also, religion is the living ex- perience of the whole. The absolute alone is the source and standard of all values and it is only by joining the whole that one can become a whole. Religion is emancipation from the hazards and hardships of the finite-infinite nature and the attainment of stability and security in the absolute. Owing to its individualistic tendency, the self ignores its spiritual unity and at-homeness in the absolute and subjects itself to trials and tribulations. Finiteness is particular and perishing. Limited by externality and exclusion, it is sunk in sin and suffering; but the impulse of the infinite that is inherent in it drives it onward to self-transcendence and self-completion in the absolute. As its current courses through its being, it looks from itself and longs to complete itself in the whole and to be lost in it. Perfect satisfaction arises only from the possession of the absolute and absorption in it. Absorption is

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the denial of the reality of finiteness as such in the affirmation of the whole. In the unity of the finite will with the infinite, its solid singleness melts away, but is not abolished, and all that is valuable in the finite is conserved. Nirvāna is only a negative form of this experience. It no doubt rejects the finite as an illusion, but does not affirm its continuity with the concrete unity. In genuine freedom the divine will is one with the finite in a single personality. The God of religion, as an isolable being, is only an appearance of the absolute, and not the absolute itself. The infinite is continous with, and present in, the finite, and by a process of spiritual induction, the false self of finiteness battling with the infinite is rejected and shaken off and the true self is seen to participate in the infinite riches of the spirit in one single undivided unity. When the self is lost in the absolute, it is only transformed but not annulled. Then the soul-thing persists but it has no personal content. Absorption means being at home in the absolute and sharing in its perfections here and now and not in a remote region as a far off divine event. Eternity endures through time and transcends it and eternity alone gives stability and satisfaction. The highest value of the self lies in the coalescing of its content with the whole and con- tributing to its life " like a perfume exhaled in the very dis- solution of its private being." When selves blend with one another and become confluent, they are no longer at arm's length. Just as the quality of a sketch is discerned in the picture heightening its artistic effect, even so imperfection is an element of the absolute and is transfigured by it." In considering the destiny of the finite self, the Bhedā- bhedavādins and Bosanquet deny its distinctness and affirm its absorption in the absolute and its felicity. In that state,

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there is a heightening and expansion of experience in which the self loses its substantive being and gets merged in the bliss of Brahman or the satisfactoriness of the whole. Bhāskara bas no faith in the cosmic life as it is tainted by avidya and clogged with previous karma or sin. He seeks mukti as the absolute freedom from the ills of karma and samsāra. But Bosanquet believes in the riches of human experience includ- ing its errors, evils and other imperfections, but in a state of self-transcendence. Contingency is to him not an evil to be avoided, but is finally a contribution to the concrete whole. Both are sustained by the monistic faith in the fulness and freedom of the absolute being; but, while Bosanquet, like Yädava, preserves the finite by rescuing it from finiteness, Bhaskara regards mukti as freedom from the finite itself. God is not less than the absolute. He is the absolute. Bhedābheda is opposed to the idea of treating the finite as a mere figment of māyā. Bosanquet's theory of the absolute as a concrete whole and membership in its spiritual solidarity, emphasises the social side of experience and has a theistic tendency. In the same way, Bhskara's view of saguna Brahman and the relative reality of the upādhi anticipates Yādava and Rāmānuja. If we substitute the reality of immanent or potential causality or parināma tor upādhi, we get the Yādava version of Bhedābheda. Rāmānuja replaces it by the idea of karma and moral responsibility and predicates evil, error and other imperfections to the finite self. In discussing the problem whether the finite self has a substantive or adjectival mode of being, Professor Pringle-Pattison con- troverts the adjectival theory of Bradley and Bosanquet and re-interprets their monism in terms of Personal Idealism. Individuation is the essence of the absolute life and the finite, as a focalised unity, is a self or ' member in the Absolute,' as

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Bosanquet himself is inclined to admit, especially when hè refers to the universe as a place of soul-making. The negative dialectic of Bradley compels comparison with the neti method of S'ankara and the metaphysical agnosticism that sets forth the self-contradictions of the ethical and religious consciousness, opens the doorway to mystic intuition. But they seem to differ fundamentally in their positive views of the absolute. While Bradley construes it as a systematic unity, Sankara relies on the intuition of the Advaitic absolute which is different from feeling. There is as much divergence in essential points between S'ankara and Bradley as there is between Hegel and Rāmānuja, and both Bradley and Hegel conform, on the whole, to the Bhedābheda type and thus invite the criticism of the Visistadvaitin that the imperfections of life adhere to the absolute in its synthetic unity.

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The Bhedābheda drift is discernible in the fundamentals of Fichte's philosophy as expounded by E. B. Talbot, Thilly, Caird and others. While Hegel starts with the logical side of the critical philosophy of Kant, Fichte gives prominence to the ethical side and Schelling to the critique of judgment. Fichte assumes the possibility of the metaphysical know- ledge of reality as a unitary principle underlying the duality of our experience. It is not blank identity, but a unity of form and content discovered by the idealistic analysis of experience. All experience is only for a subject. It is essentially an activity ; it is more an act than a fact. The ego posits itself by oppositing the non-ego, its other, and is thus conscious of its own limitations. It posits itself as determined by the non-ego. This is not an opposition to consciousness,

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but is an opposition within consciousness. Both the ego and the non-ego are given indissolubly in every act of conscious- ness. The infinite outgoing activity of the ego receives a check and is driven back on itself. Being is absolute and it has existence as self-existent Being or God. God not only is in Himself, but also exists and manifests Himself. The ond divine Being manifests itself in consciousness as a manifold existence. The one becomes the manifold and the manifold is founded on the one. This speculation reconciles the extremes of realism and idealism. It is, therefore, called realistic idealism and resembles Bhedābheda. The absolute ego, as the true infinite, is not the indeterminate, but the self- active principle that is the source of all the particular mani- festations. Fichte refers to reality in its two aspects of transcendence and immanence. In the former aspect, it is simply the absolute as Being, and every concept of it destroys the absoluteness. In the latter aspect, it is immanent in the subject-object consciousness and is a self-actualising ego. The timeless enters into the temporal process and reveals itself in progress. The absolute and its manifestations are one and therefore becoming implies a changeless being. The absolute limits itself and overcomes its own limitations. Like the light in the prism broken up into a number of coloured rays, the divine life appears broken up into a multiplicity of things. The one life through the contraction of itself becomes the individual, though it is only contingent. It is the universal reason, the one Eternal Original Energy, that thinks and acts in us and expresses itself in nature. Man does not possess knowledge, but knowledge possesses him. Living thought is not a thinking substance. Nature is not my idea or illusion, but a self-externalisation of the absolute. Seth thinks that Fichte describes his system of the absolute ego as an inverted

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Spinozism and yet falls into it when he refers to the absolute as the indeterminate which wipes out self-hood. Man is impelled by his moral and spiritual nature to overcome the non-ego and to aspire towards the eternal spiritual order and lay hold on reality. Will is the essence of reason and we do not act because we know, but we know because we are called upon to act. The practical ego creates the impediment only to conquer it and realise itself. It is arrest- ment that stimulates activity. Fichte, unlike Spinoza, posits freedom as the principle of self-realization and insists on the moral ought which involves resistance to the obstacles of nature and deliverance from the slavery of sensibility. The goal of life is the progressive realization of the divine idea by overcoming finite individuality, but it is never actually realized. The divine work is fulfulling itself in man. In true knowledge, the duality is fused into unity. Science supersedes faith and changes it into sight. When man rises to the religious point of view and abolishes himself, the subject-object opposition disappears and he passes into God. It is the paradox of personality that man loses himself to gain himself and the self dies to an isolated and insular life. In the unity of the pure spirit, sensuous individuality alone is annihilated and not the individual. The true life and its blessedness in the highest flight of thought are in the union with the eternal. Fichte illustrates his position as follows : As the physical eye is a prism in which the pure and colour- less light breaks itself into many hues, so also in the spiritual vision, the absolute is true thought, unchangeable and pure, and yet, in its reflection, it appears broken up into many shapes. By transcending appearance, the self rises to the vision of true thought.1 1 Vide, Popular Works, Volume II, pp. 361-62.

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The pantheism of Fichte blurs the boundary line between Advaita and Visistādvaita and, therefore, falls into line with Bhedabedha. Fichte is "vaguely aware "1 of the dualism of the subject-object consciousress and "gropes after"' the Advaitic intuition. With the disappearance of the non-ego, the ego also would disappear. When he refers to the goal of life as the abolition of the finite consciousness, his view is "closely analogous " to that of S'ankara. But, still, like Hegel, he posits the self-conscious ego and the fellowship of God and man.

SCHELLING

The view of the absolute ego of Fichte does not escape the relentless logic of subjectivism and its charmed circle, as it tends to make nature an impediment of the ego and not its inspiration. Though Schelling's view of the absolute ego is influenced by the dialectical method of Fichte, in his " Philosophy of Nature " he lays as much stress on the reality of nature as on that of the ego. The spirit and nature are the two opposite poles of knowledge and are alike revelations of the absolute. While Fichte starts with the view that the ego is everything, Schelling makes it more comprehensive and says that everything is the ego. Nature is alive and is visible spirit and spirit is invisible nature. Nature unfolds itself gradually and comes to self-consciousness in man. The creative energy of the world-spirit pulsates in all beings and makes actual what is potential according to the dialectical principle of triplicity, which Hegel, later on, employed in his own masterly way. Like Spinoza, Schelling tries to deduce

1 Prof. Radhakrishnan: Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, p 560. * Studies in Vedanta, by V. G. Karrikar, pp. 72-73.

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nature and mind from the absolute in which both are ulti- mately indistinguishable; but, unlike him, he regards them as its stages, and not its parallel expressions. Like the two poles of the magnet and its indifference-point, the absolute divides itself into subject and object and is yet a' neutruml Hegel criticises this theory by comparing it to the night-time in which all cows are black. In his later interpretation of the absolute, Schelling was inclined towards neo-Platonic mysticism, and described the goal as the absorption of the soul in the absolute. Caird, following Hegel, refutes Schel- ling's philosophy as a form of Spinozism which affirms more the unity of substance than of spirit. As an intellectual intuition of the absotute, in which all distinction is lost, it is opposed to the true philosophy of reflection. But reflection, as the Vedanta insists, is only an aid to direct reali- zation by what the poet calls the " vision and faculty Divine." Schelling's insistence on the unity of all beings reminds us of the Yādava idealism that all is conscious (sarvam api cetanameva) and that consciousness is asleep in acit and alive in cit. Wordsworth's worship of Nature is a poetic rendering of this idea that there is a spirit in the woods, an overflowing soul in nature that speaks to those that have ears to hear. Dr. J. C. Bose gives a scientific exposition of the same truth when he says that there is no barrier between the realms of life and matter. Like the thrills of life, there is the throb of things. Matter has the promise and potency of inner growth, and thus the living and the non-living exhibit an essential unity. The view of Yādava is refuted by many other Vedantins on the ground that the realms of cit and acit are distinct in kind, and that the two are correlative and not continuous.

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Western pantheism, as a philosophy, is opposed to deism, dualism and theism, and it rightly affirms the immanence of God and divineness of the universe. It avoids the egocentric point of view, but ignores the primacy of the moral consci- ousness. By denying the evilness of evil and affirming the immanence of truth in error, it denies the need for salvation or mukti. The panlogism of Hegel, as a rationalist metaphysic, is said to be a later, and therefore, more real dialectic develop- ment than religion. It claims to synthesise the opposition between the one and the many in the absolute idea which is the true content of philosophy. It is thus opposed to the pantheism which is based on the intuition that extols unity by annulling or neutralising difference. But, in the unity got by a criticism of the categories, the last is the first and it moves in its own charmed circle and its high á priori road is a dogmatic assumption. No universe can be constructed out of mere universals and the logical ego is hypostatized as the absolute. No school of Vedānta accepts the finality of logic and the dialectic method. Hegel himself admits that to confute a philosophy is to surpass its limits. The influence of Hegelian thought modelled on Spinozism is said to be definitely hostile to theism. Monism is said to be the fundamental demand of thought and pantheism presses towards monism and claims Spinoza as its best exponent. The theory of Spinoza is expounded in a naturalistic and idealistic way. When reality is identified with the world, God becomes a superfluity. This is known as pancosmism and is allied to the materialistic monism of Haeckel. The Bhedabheda unity of Brahman and the world, as explained by the simile of the snake and its coils, is perilously near this type of pantheism. The ethics of Spinoza has a distinct idealistic drift and is lable to the charge of acosmism, if it

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affirms the infinity of God and the illusoriness of the finite. An ancient type of Vedānta, now extinct, known as the nisprapañcīkaraņaniyogavāda, seems to have maintained a view similar to acosmism. in so far as Spinozism refers to degrees of truth and goodness and points to transcendental and eternal life, it cannot be construed as a pantheism that reduces reality to a numerical unity or abstract identity. When pantheistic monism develops into a mysticism, it substitutes for the worship of the external all-one, the inner joy, which results from the absorption of the finite in the absolute. In that unity the finite loses its substantiality and all distinction is absorbed, if not annulled. When Plotinus traces the world order to a series of external emanations, he may or may not be pantheistic; but, in his quest for ecstasy, he is essentially a pantheistic mystic. In mysticism, the self swoons into the absolute and its 'thought expires in enjoyment.' This experience reminds us of the ekībhāva of Bhaskara. Humanism and personalism have an organic hatred for pantheism in all its forms. The 'All-One' theory is condemned as a 'God-engulfing, soul-destroying monster' which gives man a logical and moral holiday and the absolute is accused of, being elastic enough to accommodate itself to any kind of incongruity and imperfection. It is compared to a lion's den into which all footsteps lead, but from which none is seen to emerge. It is the abyss of a negative infinitude in which there is no trace of finite thought. The speculative intellect as the grammar of thought claims to envisage the absolute by unifying the opposites of abstract thought and seeing things in their wholeness. In the evolution of the triadic rhythm which, however, excludes oriental thought, we are said to think God's thought after Him and Hegelianism is spoken of as the consummation of the absolute idea. 18

274 CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

Logical thinking may be realistic or idealistic, but it cannot claim infallibility and finality. Rationalistic self-sufficiency is fatal to the spiritual craving for truth. The absolutisms of the West aim at systematic unity as contrasted with the sectional views of sensibility and science. But the finite reason has an inherent inability to grasp the absolute which is supra-logical and therefore more than the metaphysical highest. | Indian philosophy as a darsana is not merely a systematic view of reality, but an immediate vision or divine insight. It satisfies the highest demands of logical stability and lethical and spiritual satisfaction. As in- tuition is the fulfilment of reason, it is not dogmatic or uncritical or visionary. In the absolutisms of the West, referring to the 'One' of Plotinus, the 'Substance' of Spinoza, the 'Absolute Idea' of Hegel, the ' Ego' of Fichte or the 'Neutrum' of Schelling, there is no clearness or dis- tinctness in the relation between the finite and the infinite and in the value and destiny of the individual and they are on the whole more allied to Bhedābheda than to Advaita and Visistādvaita. Western absolutism will gain in definiteness by recognising the Vedantic ideas of the moral law of cau- sation by which the self has the freedom to become a butterfly or Brahmã, the eternity of the self as different from its endless embodiments and the view of nature as an environment for Brahmanising the self. Vedānta is often identified with pantheism both by its admirers and accusers. The theory of the Māyāvadin that the finite is an aberration of the absolute in which it is ultimately annulled is criticised as acosmism par excellence. Advaita as a non-relational experience intuited in samādhi is not pantheism as in that state there is neither an "all " nor a "god," Visistādvaita is no pantheism as its theory of

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prakara-prakārin relation is foreign to Western speculation. Bhedabheda which is the nearest approach to pantheism is a Ipresentation of Vedanta, which also thrives in the spiritual atmosphere of India. Every Vedāntic school as a philosophy of religion affirms the immanence of Brahman and its essential transcendence. If whatever is, is right and righteous simply because it is, then there is no need for spiritual striving or salvation. The eternal Brahman is immanent in the finite in order that it may infinitise or Brahmanise it. Deussen is justified in his view that Indian pantheism has its own peculiar origin, but entirely wrong when he traces the evolu- tion of Upanisadic thought and describes pantheism as a concession to empiricism made by Yājñavalkya very much in the manner of Parmenides. "God creates the universe by transforming Himself into the universe. The latter confessed- ly has become God. The terms, 'God' and the 'universe', become synonymous. Besides, the schools of Dvaita, Visis- tădvaita. Bhedābheda and Advaita are more interested in the spiritual enquiry into the relation between Brahman and ātmā than between Brahman and the physical world. The idea of God is only retained in order not to break the tradition "1 The notion of an evolving God or emerging deity depending on the cosmos for the evolution of its purpose is entirely repugnant to Vedäntic thought as it does not inspire the hope of santi or stability which the spiritual consciousness seeks. If Indian pantheism contains too much of God, it is preferable to the virile type of the West which refers more to the universe than to its God. Western absolute idealisms truly insist on the dignity of individual speculation. But in the noise that logical thinking or tarka makes, it misses its own inner but small voice of spirituality.

' The Philosophy of the Upanisads, page 160.

CHAPTER XIII

CONCLUSION

VEDĀNTA as a philosophy of religion is a rational justification of the spiritual intuitions of Brahman and is therefore a speculation on reality which becomes self-complete in spiritual realization as the supreme end of life. Mere philosophy founded on preliminary doubt or ultimate doubts ends in dogma or agnosticism. Reasoning has no finality owing to its ill-foundedness. Mere religion often lapses into a blind faith based on the worship of words and sustained by the distrust of philosophic thinking. But Vedānta as a darsana affirms the ultimate knowability of Brahman that is enshrined in S'ästra and the consequent realization of eternal blessed- ness and bliss. Its theory of pramanas is really ' a faith that enquires' and proceeds on the principle that S'astra is a body of eternal and self-validating truths verified and verifiable by personal experience and thus reconciles the claims of revela- tionism and rationalism. Scriptural omniscience is sui generis and its own raison d'etre and the only source of the knowledge leading to mukti. Revelation has its meaning and value only in spiritual experimentation and experience. The proof of the being of Brahman consists in being in Brahman. But the vali- dity of such intuitive experience is criticised and corrected by its consistency with the objective standard of S'astra. Reason

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thus comes midway between revelation and intuition and makes them intelligible. The view that the realm of Dvaita is the realm of logic and that Ramanuja is at the logical level and does not rise to the intuitional highest of S'ankara creates a gulf between the two and fails to do justice to the logic of S'ankara and the intuition of Rāmānuja. Every school of Vedânta knows the limits of logic and ethics and also the Kantian principle that one should not make a transcendental use of an empirical category. It insists on the integral ex- perience of Brahman which is alogical and amoral and is at the same time the fulfilment of logical thinking and moral endeavour. Likewise, the statement that Buddhistic dialectic brought out the self-contradictions of religion and prepared the way for Advaitic philosophy is an emphasis on the meta- physical side of reality at the expense of its ethical and spiritual aspects. If it is historically true that Buddhism had an Advaitic leaning, it is equally true that it developed into theism. While the Buddha denied the validity of S'āstra and insisted on disciplining buddhi, his followers enthroned the Buddha in the place of buddhi and elevated him into the Personal God of theism. Every philosophy has to formulate and solve the prob- lems of God, Soul and Nature and their relations and thus correlate ontology, psychology and cosmology. Vedāntic cosmology is not mythology or "primitive metaphysics" which satisfies the curiosity and credulity of the primitive mind by dealing with creation-myths and telling fairy tales; nor is it a mere philosophic speculation on the origin and structure of the universe, as the infinite that is hidden in it cannot be discovered by tarka or conceptual reason. The cosmos does not exist by itself, but is derived from Brahman and depends on it. The universe is a beginningless and

278 CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

endless cycle of evolution and involution and the theory of creation ex nihilo is unknown to Vedantic cosmogony. The idea of creation at a certain time is the " root error of all false metaphysics." Plotinus says that the origin of the Nous from the One should be approached with prayer. But the Vedānta goes a step further and says that Brahmā by his tapas intuits the Veda which is with Isvara, and then creates the cosmic order, as it was in previous cycles in the light of that intuition. The problem of Vedāntic cosmology is " How does this sat without a second bring the pluralistic universe into existence? Is it possible to reconcile the facts of con- tingency and the imperfections of life with the perfect unity of the absolute?" Each Vedantic system solves these problems in its own way. The view that God is an extra- cosmic Designer who, by a fiat of His will, fashions the world and sees it go, stresses His transcendent perfections. The theories of upādhi and parināmasakti satisfy the demand for immanent unity. The creative and redemptive spontaneity of the divine nature is adequately expressed by the concept of lilā. The theory of anirvacanyatva is admittedly a con- fession of the failure of thought to explain the contradictions of life as the causal category is itself self-discrepant. Evil and error are beginningless, but they have an end; and the seeker after Brahman is concerned more with getting rid of them than with accounting for their origin. The thought motives of Vedāntic cosmology are therefore more religious and comprehensive than scientific and speculative. Plato observes that the Creator is good and desired that all things should be as like Himself as possible. The Vedānta clearly affirms the truth that the apprehension of Brahman as the sat and the source of the cosmos ends in the attainment or realization of its eternal perfection. Cosmic evolution is

CONCLUSION 279

mainly the unfolding of the souls or the making of tne mumuksu./ The mumuksu is more interested in knowing Brahman, which is closer than breathing, and attaining freedom than in the great Original and Its cosmic glory. ' The following resumé of the S'ri Bhāsya seeks to remove the cosmological difficulties of the one and the many and the problem of evil and ignorance and may be acceptable to practical Advaita or Advaita in its ethico-religious aspect. "What makes the difference between plurality and unity is the presence or absence of differentiation through names and forms, and this truth is distinctly declared in the text, ' Now all this was undifferentiated. It became differentiated by form and name.' Those who hold that the individual soul is due to Nescience and those who hold it to be due to a real limiting adjunct (upadhi); and those who hold that Brahman, whose essential nature is mere Being, assumes by itself the three-fold form of enjoying subjects, objects of enjoyment, and supreme Ruler can all of them explain the unity which Scripture predicates of Brahman in the pralaya state, only on the basis of the absence of differentiation by names and forms. There is, however, difference between these several views. The first-mentioned view implies that Brahman itself is under the illusive influence of beginningless avidyā. According to the second view, the effect of the real and beginningless limiting adjunct is that Brahman itself is in a state of bondage; for there is no other entity but Brahman and the adjunct. According to the third view, Brahman itself assumes different forms and experiences the various unpleasant consequences of deeds. According to our view, on the other hand, Brahman, which has as its prakāra all sentient and non-sentient beings, whether in their subtle or their gross state, is always free from all shadow of

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imperfection, and is a limitless ocean, as it were, of all exalted qualities. All imperfections, and suffering, and all change belong not to Brahman, but only to the sentient and non- sentient beings which are its modes." That the practical Advaita of S'ankara also affirms the reality of the ethico-religious consciousness is evident from the comments of S'ankara on the Sutras. The source of all beings is the highest Lord or Person and not the Pradhāna and the finite self owing to their distinctive attributes and difference. That the external world exists apart from consci- ousness has to be accepted necessarily on the nature of con- sciousness itself. The waking state differs in character from the dream-world, and it cannot be inferred to be false because it is mere consciousness like dreams. Cognitions presuppose a conscious subject as is evidenced by the fact of remem- brance, and personal identity. Fire cannot be proved to be cold on the ground of its having attributes in common with water. The cosmic functioning belongs to the Lord and not to the self even when it attains freedom. To the objection that, if the finite self is an eternal element of the infinite, the infinite will be affected by its samsāra state in infinite ways like Devadatta suffering from the pain affecting his limb, S'ankara following the Sutras replies that the self alone is so affected and not the Lord whose nature is eternal, pure Intelligence. He cannot be reproached with inequality of dispensation and cruelty as He is bound by regards. The merit and the demerit of living creatures are traced to their karma and moral freedom; and the Lord is, like the giver of rain, only the common cause of finite life. Imperfections adhere not to Brahman whose essence is eternal pure cognition and freedom, but to the embodied self which is different from it. The cosmogony of Bhedābheda

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is more monistic than that of Ramanuja and S'ankara as Il traces the world-order to the eternal necessity of Brahman in the form of upādhi or svarūpa pariņāma sakti, and though it affirms the transcendental reality and purity of Brahman, it cannot escape the charge of predicating evils and other imperfections to the divine nature. If the absolute changes, it persists partly and changes partly and thus there is a break or self-contradiction in its nature. The imperfections are therefore traced by the Sutras to the finite self and not to Brahman. The knowledge of the exact relation between the supreme and the finite self or the ' That ' and the ' Thou' occupies a central place in Vedantic thought. The value of Bhedābheda as a philosophic discipline lies mainly in its being a corrective to the subjectivistic tendencies of certain idealistic schools of Advaita and the accretions of practical Visistādvaita and the theistic side of Vedānta due to the anthropomorphizing tendency of the human mind. Advaitic thought is studied from four standpoints, the psychological, the metaphysical, the ethico-religious and the mystical. The first is the method of mere vicāra or rationalistic analysis or introversion which consists in the abolition of the ābhāsa " I " by the affirmation of the absolute " I" or prajñanam. The world of space-time is the objectification of avidya. It is mind-born, mind-made and dissolved in the mind. Ekajīvavāda, which denies the many-soul theory, belongs to this type. An extreme form of the idealism of Advaita is in the formula 'drsti is s'rsti' (esse is percipi). The universe is a here-now and exists only as my idea. Mukti is the arresting of the externalising ten- dency of the avidyā-ridden mind and it may be defined as the cessation of all sankalpa which occurs apparently in sleep and really in samadhi. The method may be the abolition of

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the "me" by analysing it away or by the dissociation of the sāksin from its semblances or by the withdrawal of consci- ousness from its three-fold states. But the logic of mere self-analysis in practice lands us in the egocentric fallacy and lapses into the subjectivism of vijñānavāda, selfism in morals and quietism in spiritual life. The second theory is a meta- physical exposition of the inner contradictions of relational thought and the reality of the indeterminate absolute. The world-order is false like the perception of the snake in the rope. Relations, as Bradley says, separate terms, enter into them and have neither reality nor non-existence. Somehow, falsity is super-imposed on reality and māyā is merely the statement of the contradictions of life and is ultimately in- definable. Māyā exhibits itself in or as avidyā and it is explained in terms of the illusion theory or the limitation theory. Space-time is merely an apparition; jiva is the hypostatisation of avidyā and Isvara is the sum of all sem- blanees. The second view regards the finite as an appearance of reality and in mukti the finite is only transcended but not negated. The theory of māyā and the maya-ridden Isvara very often breeds a mood of intellectualism and agnosticism which is subversive of ethical and spiritual discipline. The third theory emphasises the ethico-religious aspect of life, the degrees of reality and the progressive attainment of the unity- consciousness. In refuting Buddhistic subjective idealism, S'ankara adopts the realistic view of the existence of the extra-mental world and the qualitative difference between the dream and the waking state, from the vyāvahāric point of view. The phenomenal world is not a phantasm, but is rooted in the infinite and māyā arises only when we think of the world as self-existent or divisive. A paraphrasing of abheda as identity in abstraction from diversity is the ' original sin ' in

CONCLUSION 283

S'ankara's interpretation of the causal relation.' Mukti denies two-ness or many-ness, but does not affirm identity, and it is attained by moral and religious discipline. Nișkāmakarma purifies the mind and removes the taint of selfism and upāsanā is the meditation on the Thou, the super-excellent, and by the grace of God and guru, the mediate knowledge of Brahman given in mere metaphysics becomes the immediacy of mukti, The method adopted in this spiritual culture is sublimation and not sublation. Vedanta is thus a non-dualism and should not be interpreted as monism or singularism. The fourth theory of Advaita is no theory at all. It is the mystic experi- ence of the self-identity of the absolute in which sinless, stirless consciousness shines eternally in spaceless akāsa and ineffable bliss. Mayā connotes the non-existence of the world like s'asa vişāna, the horn of the hare, or like the term, round square. But the moment you think the absolute, the eternal "is " becomes entangled in ' isms' and the riddles of thought. To adopt a Kantian distinction, these schools of Advaita may be classed as pure and practical Advaita. The first and the second are deduced philosophically from the side of the absolute and, by their insistence on the Thou aspect they tend towards solipsism and quietism and are subversive of the truths of moral and religious consciousness. But practi- cal Advaita prefers the ethico-religious path and relies more on the staying and saving power of the That aspect than on mere unaided subjective introversion. The criticism of Bhedābheda and of other non-Advaitic schools of Vedānta are mainly directed against the intellectualistic and subjecti- vistic tendencies of Māyāvāda. While pure Advaita starts with the subject and passes into subjectivism, the Vedantic schools associated with the 1 A Systematic Study of the Vedānta by Dr. S. K. Das, p. 146.

284 CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

names of Ramanuja and Madhva lay stress on the That and the absoluteness of God. They refute the distinction between the indeterminate sat and the determinate self, the transcendental " I " and the empirical " me," the eternal and the phenomenal, the logical highest and the intuitional highest and the metaphysical absolute and the God of medi- tation. Determination or relational knowledge is a real integral experience and not an illusion. The self that Yājñavalkya refers to is Brahman, the cosmic ground and not the individual self. The eternal is immanent in the phenomenal without losing its spiritual eminence. Isvara is not the spatialised Brahman made in the moulds of logic as a concession to theistic consciousness, but is the absolute which is the reason and the destiny of all beings. The unity consciousness that is attained in mukti is as much a subjective intuition as a divine revelation. The conflict between philosophy and religion results in the repudiation of metaphysics by religion and the distrust of religion by metaphysics and the fatal disruption of both. God is neither an evolving entity, nor a future emergence, neither a monad among monads, nor one of the eaches, but is the absolute which alone gives reality to the eternal values of life. Every Vedăntic school affirms the truth that Brahman is not a becoming, but is self-realised and perfect and has no degrees and even S'ankara insists on the knowledge that the finite consciousness, as long as it lasts, involves the infinite which is the ground of its being and the home of its values. The metaphysical monism of Advaita defines mukti as the negation of ahankāra as jīva and asserts the identity of the absolute with aham. Visistadvaita, as an ethical monism, insists on the self-noughting or the abolition of the ahankāra of jiva, the non-division of aham from the absolute which is

CONCLUSION 285

its source, sustenance and satisfaction, and the attainment of the being of its being, in which the self exists but its thought expires in infinite enjoyment. Philosophical theism asserts the external and eternal relations between God and the self and defines God as the one and only source and self of all existents entering into personal relations with the finite self and redeeming it from its sinfulness. All non-Advaitic schools of Vedānta refute the theory of nirguna Brahman, but they differ in their exposition of saguna Brahman. In the mystic monism of Bhäskara, Brahman is defined as formless, but not qualityless and mukti as the absorption of the finite in the absolute or ekībhava. In the pluralistic monism of Yādava- prakāsa and the mono-dualism of Nimbārka, there is a transition from the predication of metaphysical attributes of the absolute to that of moral perfections. The transition is completed in Visistādvaita which attributes æsthetic perfec- tion also to the divine nature and according to it Brahman with the eternal will to bewitch all beings and draw them into His living love, assumes a formless form of Beauty and Bliss and becomes a Bhuvana Sundara. But in popular (as different from philosophical) Visistādvaita and in theism as inter- preted by the popular consciousness,' the absoluteness of God and His scriptural attributes are often misinterpreted anthro- pomorphically on the analogy of human personality. The cosmic activity of God as revealed in Veda, Itihāsa, Purāņa and in the spiritual experience of man is really the revelation of the eternal love of God which is immanent in all finite beings and incarnates in their bodies with a view to redeeming them from their sāmsāric career of avidyā and karma. The infinite incarnates in the finite and infinitises its nature. God,

1 A literal understanding of the mysticism of the Kausitaki Upamsad is an instance in point.

286 CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

in the omnipotence of His love, assumes the ways of man to arrest his waywardness, calls forth his love and recovers his self, and mukti is the blissful experience of this divine union and communion. The transcendental cannot be ex- plained by means of empirical categories and Vedānta, there- fore, resorts to analogies and pictorial representations of what is beyond thought and speech. But the anthropomorphic mind distorts the Vedntic view and gives a physical and psychical interpretation of the metaphysical and the meta- psychical. ! It is God that moulds the soul in His own image. But this is misunderstood as man making God in his own image. God is portrayed as possessing a bodily form and invested with human attributes like thought, feeling and will. The tendency to personify objects and project the self into them is clearly discernible in many popular forms of worship. The materialistic consciousness which arises from mistaking the perishing body for the eternal self ascribes human passions and actions to the absolute and imposes its own imperfections on it. The philosophy of Bhäskara is free from this tendency and may, therefore, claim to be a criticism of the popular presentations of God and His Kingdom. Bhedabheda is logically and chronologically midway between the philosophies of S'ankara and Rāmānuja and mediates between the two systems by pointing out the subjectivistic dangers of the one and the anthropomorphic accretions of the other. Both S'ankara and Rāmānuja agree in refuting Bhedābheda as a philosophy of self-contradictions and Ramanuja rightly rejects it on the additional ground that it attributes imperfections to the absolute and not to the confusions of the karma-ridden jiva. Though some of the main features of Bhedābheda are traceable in certain absolu- tisms of the West, it is not now among the living expositions of Vedantic thought.

CONCLUSION 287

The study of comparative Vedānta requires a sympathetic insight into the essentials of each system and the exposition of it from its own highest point of view. Every system claims to be based on the authority of sastra and immemorial tradition, logical stability and spiritual verifiability and pro- ceeds on the principle of the establishment of truth by the elimination of all plausible and possible rival theories. At - the same time, each school affirms the synthetic view that it alone mediates between extremes and reconciles the apparent contradictions of revelation. In a synthetic study of Vedānta combining the logical method of siddhānta, the varieties of Vedäntic thought and experience may be correlated by emphasizing their one underlying reality.1 This end may be attained by discussing the method of approach in six different ways: (i) Is Vedānta to be studied as a deductive development of scriptural authority or as an inductive verifi- cation ? (ii) Are its truths personal intuitions or principles embodied in one uniform institutional creed or sampradāya ? (iii) Does the validity of each system depend upon the his- toric method of justifying cach system as a fulfilment of the needs of the age and the time spirit or by the method of absolutism which turns our thought as mumuksus from the particulars of sense to the universal and eternal truths of spirit ? (iv) How far can the pragmatic method which relies on the workability of truth be applied to reconciling conflict- ing Vedāntic experiences? Is a siddhānta acceptable if it satisfies the tests of truth, goodness and beauty ? (v) What are the advantages of estimating the worth of Vedntic systems by the psychological theory that the Advaita philo- sophy emphasises thought, the Visistadvaita feeling and the

' This theme was fully elaborated in my Madras University Readership Lectures on "The Philosophy of the Upanisads" in 1929 and 1030.

288 CRITICISM AND WESTERN PARALLELS

Dvaita, will ? (vi) Is the application of the evolutionary method like the theory that Advaita is the fulfilment of Dvaita and Visīșțādvaita an adequate test of Vedāntic synthesis ? The seeker after truth examines the various methods of Vedantic criticism as thus formulated in the light of the immanent criterion enshrined in the ancient intuition that the sat is one but that its seers express it in various ways. Every school of Vedanta may accept the following truths as its basic or working principles. The Veda is a body of eternal and objective spiritual truths which are verifiable in personal experience. Brahman as the ground of all existents and the home of all values is, and has satya, jñāna and ānanda and the essential requisite for knowing Brahman is mumuksutva or the 'hunger' for the absolute whether it is generated by karma, jñāna or bhakti. Reality reveals itself to every man according to his aptitude and attainments. Mukti is the realisation of Brahman and its eternal bliss, and the main value of this experience consists in the mahātm seeing all things with the eye of Brahman and working for cosmic solidarity and the salvation of all. Brahman is immanent in all beings and in all faiths as their life, light and love and it is this divine vision that inspires the motive for loka sangraha or universal benevolence including the love of even the sub- human species. Vedanta is the fulfilment of all religious quests. Every school or sect which has this ethical and spiritual content has a divine consummation and the Gītā as the essence of the Upanisads brings out this innate hospital- ity of Hindu thought in the immortal words of the Bhagavan : "Whoever with true devotion worships any deity, in him I deepen that devotion and he ultimately reaches me."

APPENDIX I

DIFFERENCE OF INTERPRETATION OF CERTAIN OF THE VEDĀNTA SŪTRAS BY SAŃKARA, BHĀSKARA AND RĀMĀNUJA1

1. In the following cases, Sankara interprets the Sutras like Ramanuja, but adds at the beginning or at the end and sometimes in the middle, a note to show that the whole view is a mere purvapaksa or that the Sutra has to be understood in a restricted sense or that it applies to the Saguna Vidyās only. (a) I. i. 12 to 19. At the end of the Anandamayādhikarana, Sankara adds that the whole is a purvapaksa view referring to saguna Brahman. Bhäskara severely condemns S'ankara aud takes the Sutras as they are, i.e., as siddhānta. Rāmānuja, Nim- bārka and Baladeva follow Bhāskara. (b) I. ii. 1 to 8. The Sutras dwell on the difference of the individual soul and the Highest Self. So Sankara adds, at the end of Sutra 6, an explanation that the difference is to be understood as not real, but as due to the false limiting adjuncts of the Highest Self. Bhäskara takes the Sutras as they are and takes this oppor- tunity to denounce the Mayavadin who degrades Isvara to the level of a samsarin in his attempt to avoid Bhedabheda, which is the real philosophy of the Sutrakāra. Ramanuja, of course, takes the Sutras as they are. So does Nimbārka. (c) II. i. 13 (II. i. 14 of the S'rī Bhāşya). S'ankara interprets the Sutra in the same way as Bhäskara, but adds at the beginning of the next Sutra that the distinction between enjoyers and objects of enjoyment acknowledged in this Sutra does not really exist. Bhäskara, of course, takes the Sutras as wholly correct, the inter- pretation given being favourable to his Bhedabheda view. So does Nimbārka. Rāmānuja interprets the Sutra in terms of his theory of sartra-sartri sambandha. 1 I owe this largely to my friend, Sri G. K. Rangaswami Aiyangar, M. A. 19

290 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

(d) II. i. 22. The Sutra plainly states, as interpreted by all, that Brahman is additional (i.e., different from the embodied self), and this is clear from the declaration of difference in the Scriptures. As this statement is opposed to Sankara's monism, S'ankara adds that, as shown by the Advaita texts, the difference between the two, maintained in the Sutra, is not real, but is due to the fictitious limiting adjuncts of the soul. Bhaskara reconciles this Sutra with the Advaita texts by his Bhedabheda theory and asks why the co-existence of bheda and abheda should not be accepted when pramānas affirm it. Pramānataḥ cet pratīyate ko virodhoyamucyate Virodhe cāvirodhe ca pramānam kāranam matam. Rāmānuja, like Bhäskara, takes the text as it is and proves that the jiva is different from Brahman. Nimbarka interprets the Sutra in the light of his theory of Bhedabheda. (e) II. i. 27. To explain how Brahman without parts can emit the world without entirely passing over into it, the Sutra relies on S'ruti and rules out other arguments, as all our knowledge of Brahman is based on Scripture alone. S'ankara adds that, as we cannot accept plainly absurd statements such as "quench with fire" even on the authority of Scripture, the real explanation is that the world is unreal. Bhaskara points out that, as there is no worldly analogy for the creation of illusion by one without a body, S'ankara's effort lands us in a greater difficulty and hence it is better to accept the sakti of Brahman as defined by Scripture only. Rāmānuja, Nimbārka and Baladeva merely follow the text of the Sutras. (f) Sutras IV. i. 7 and IV. i. 12 prescribe meditation in a sitting posture and till death respectively. Sankara adds that these Sutras do not apply to meditations which aim at samyagdarsana. Bhāskara, Rāmānuja and Nimbārka make no such addition. (g) Sutra IV. iv. 7, in describing the mukta, accepts both the view of Audulomi that it is pure caitanya and that of Jaimini that it has the lordly qualities of apahatapāpma, satyasankalpa, etc. According to S'ankara, this Sutra describes the truly released soul (para vidyā niștha) and so the possession of lordly qualities creates a difficulty. Hence he adds that these are ascribed to it (vyavahārāpekşaya). Bhāskara, Rāmānuja and Nimbārka find no need for introducing any such distinction between pāramārthika and vyāvahārika. 2. In one case IV. iii. 7 to 16, Sankara follows an unusual procedure. Sutras 7 to 11 give the view of Bādari, 12 to 14 that

APPENDIX I 291

of Jaimini and 15 and 16 that of Bādarāyana. S'ankara divides this into two adhikaranas, the former comprising Sutras 7 to 14 and the other 15 and 16. In the former adhikarana, he treats Bādari's view as siddhanta and Jaimini's as pūrvapaksa. This is quite opposed to the general method of the Sutras according to which an adhikarana always ends with the siddhanta view. Sankara recognises this and explains why in this case it is necessary to take Bādari's views as siddhānta. Bhāskara treats the whole as one adhikarana ending with the siddhanta view in Sūtras 15 and 16. Rāmānuja, Nimbārka and Baladeva also take the same view.

3. Now we shall examine other passages in which there is a difference of interpretation among the three commentators. (a) II. i. 23. Bhaskara closely follows S'ankara. Rāmānuja's and Nimbärka's interpretations are quite different. (b) II. ii. 44 (41 of the S'ri Bhāsya). Bhāskara follows S'ankara in holding that the Pancaratra system has some defects according to this Sutra. Ramanuja interprets it differently as approving of that system wholly. Nimbärka and Baladeva consider that these Sutras refer not to the Pancaratra system at all but to the Sakta system. (c) II. iii. 17 (18 of the Sri Bhasya). Both S'ankara and Bhaskara read the Sutra as na atma asruteh. Rāmānuja reads it as nantma sruteh. Sankara and Bhāskara give their own view of the upadhis and Ramanuja criticises both. Nimbarka follows S'ankara's reading and Baladeva, Ramānuja's. (d) II. iii. 18 Jño ata eva. Rãmānuja naturally interprets atah as sruteh of the previous Sutra. Bhaskara interprets it in terms of his upadhi theory. S'ankara takes the word differently. Jñah according to Sankara means jñana, but Bhaskara recognises the jiva as jnatr-svarūpa. Rāmānuja and Nimbārka explicitly interpret the word as jmatr, or knowing subject. (e) II. iii. 19 to 29, 40, 43 to 53. Bhaskara generally follows S'ankara. Ramanuja strikes a different line in many places. In respect of Sutra 50 (49 of the Sri Bhāsya) abhāsa eva ca accord- ing to S'ankara and Rāmānuja and abhāsa eva va according to Bhäskara, there is a difference. S'ankara interprets this Sutra as supporting Pratibimbavada. He then adds a long note criticising the theory of many omnipresent selves of the Sankhyas. Bhāskara interprets abhasa not as 'reflection' like S'ankara but as " hetva- bhāsa," i.e., fallacious argument, and states that the Sutra

292 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

condemns the Sankhya view of many omnipresent selves. He then criticises S'ankara's Pratibimbavāda as, if the jīva be a mere reflection and therefore avastu like the horn of a hare, there can be no question of bondage or release nor of action to secure mukti. Rāmānuja interprets ābhāsa like Bhāskara and states that the Sutra condemns the "upadhi" schools of S'ankara and Bhaskara. It is to be noticed that, though Bhaskara controverts Sankara's interpretation of the Sutras as involving Pratibimbavāda and gives a different interpretation of the word abhasa, his final inter- pretation of the Sutra is similar to that of S'ankara.

(f) III. ii. 1 to 6. Bhaskara generally follows S'ankara throughout this adhikarana. In commenting on Sutra 3, however, where he takes maya to mean illusion just like S'ankara, he anticipates Thibaut's criticism of S'ankara on page xcvi of his Introduction to the Vedanta Sutras, that, since the Sutrakāra calls dreams māyā because they do not evince the characteristics of reality, the objective world surrounding the waking soul is obviously not māyā. Bhāskara traces māyā to jīva srsti as distinct from Isvara srsti. To Rāmānuja and Nimbārka, mūyā connotes the wonderful creations of God.

(g) IlI. ii. 11. to 21. This important passage is interpreted in quite a different way by each of the three commentators. It is in respect of this passage that Thibaut declares that the explanation of neither S'ankara nor of Ramanuja is satisfactory throughout. S'ankara's procedure of starting a new adhikarana with Sutra 22 and his interpretation of that Sutra are, however, declared by him to be unsatisfactory, and in this also he is anticipated by Bhāskara. It is seen, however, that, in spite of his difference from Sankara in the general interpretation, Bhaskara generally follows the verbal interpretations of Sankara even here.

(h) III. iii. 29-30. In commenting on Sutra 30, Bhåskara states that Sankara's argument about gati being unnecessary for Nirguna Vidyā needs no refutation (phalgutvāt nirākarane na prayujyate).

(i) III. iv. 52 (51 of the Sri Bsasya). The interpretation of each is different. Nimbarka agrees with Rāmānuja.

(j) IV. 1. 14. Rāmānuja construes the Sutra differently from S'ankara. Bhaskara follows Sankara.

(k) IV. ii. 1 to 6. Bhaskara follows S'ankara. makes some difference. Nimbārka agrees with Rāmānuja. Rāmānuja

APPENDIX I 293

(t) IV. ii. 7. Bhåskara interprets the words in the same manner as Sankara, though, of course, he makes no difference between a superior and an inferior vidya. Ramānuja and Nim- bårka interpret differently. (m) IV. ii. 8 to 11. Rāmānuja differs completely from S'ańkara. Bhāskara follows S'ankara and Nimbārka, Rāmānuja. (n) IV ii. 12 to 14. In this important passage relating to gati, where Thibaut considers S'ankara's explanation as altogether impossible, Bhåskara gives up Sankara's lead altogether, and, treating Sutras 12 and 13 as one, anticipates Ramanuja in his interpretation. Nimbarka agrees with Rāmānuja. +. As regards the division of the Sutras into adhikaranas and the assignment of topics to the latter, Dr. Thibaut gives a long list of differences between S'ankara and Rāmānuja. An exami- nation of Bhäskara's Bhäsya with reference to this list shows that except in the case of Sutra IV. ii. 12, the adhikarana IV. iii. 7-16 and also III. iii. 29, 30 and 32 where S'ankara's arrangement and interpretation involve the denial of guti to the meditator on the Highest Self, Bhaskara generally follows S'ankara throughout. Rāmānuja makes several departures from S'ankara's and Bhāskara's procedure, e.g., in I. iii. 22, 23 III. nii. 9 I. iii. 39 III. iii. 14 to 17 I. iii. 40 IV. i. 15 I. iii. 42-43 IV. i. 11 II. iii. 40 IV. iv. 15 and 16. In all these cases Nimbārka agrees with Rāmānuja. This would indicate that in his readings, arrangement and interpretation of the Sutras, Bhäskara generally follows Sankara, Râmanuja representing a different tradition, largely followed by Nimbārka also. It is only when questions like Māyāvāda, jīvan- mukti and the falsehood of Is vara and all bheda relations come up, that Bhaskara joins issue with Sankara. This would account for Bhaskara differing from Sankara in interpreting the following Sūtras : II. nii. 18, where he ascribes to the jiva jnatrsvarupa and not mere jnāna-svarūpa; II. iii. 50, where he combats S'ankara's Pratibimbavāda III. ii. 11 to 22 (particularly I1, 15 and 22), as the acceptance of S'ankara's view would lead to the denial of all qualities to Brahman ;

294 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDÄBHEDA

III. iii. 29 and 30 and IV. ii. 12 where he opposes S'ankara's denial of gati to the meditator on the Highest Self ; and IV. iii. 7 to 16, where Bādari's view is treated as siddhānta.

He also utilises III. ii. 3 to show that māyāvāda is not supported by the Sutrakara I. iv. 26, etc., to maintain pariņāma- vāda and II. i. 22, II. i. 13, etc., to expound his own Bheda- bheda view.

5. It is worthy of remark that in all the points on which Thibaut definitely criticises S'ankara's interpretation, Bhāskara differs from Sankara and particularly in the two instances where Thibaut is unwilling to accept Ramanuja's interpretation also, i.e., III. ii. 11 to 21 and II. iii. 50, Bhāskara's view is as different from Rāmānuja's as it is from Sankara's.

APPENDIX II

GLOSSARY

Abheda : Non-difference. Abhinna : Undifferentiated. Abhivyakta : Manifested. Acetana : Non-sentient. Adesa; (object of) instruction. Adhara: Ground; support. Adhikarana: A set of Sutras dealing with a single topic. Adhikaribheda: Diversity of qualification. Adhyāsa : Super-imposition. Adrsta: Unseen potency. Advaita : Non-duality; name given to Sankara's school of Vedanta. Adyavastha : First state ; a technical term in Yadava's cosmology. Ajñāna: Nescience. Ahankāra: The egoistic principle. Aikya: Oneness, identity. Aisvarya : Lordship. Aja: Unborn. Ākāsa: Ether. Akşara: Imperishable ; primordial matter. Alayavijnāna: Consciousness apparently static. Amrta: Immortality. Amsa: Part or element. Amurta : Formless ; subtle. Anabhivyakta: Potential, not manifest. Anādi: Beginningless. Ananda : Bliss. Ananya; Not different. Anapekşa : Independent. Anavastha : Infinite regress. Anga: Adjunct. Anirmoksaprasanga: Impossibility of release from samsāra, as the absurd result. Anirvacantyatva: Indefinability.

296 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

Anitya: Non-eternal. Annamaya: (The body) composed of food ; material body. Antarbhutakarayita: Immanent cause of creation. Antaryamin : Indwelling Self. Anumana : Inference. Anusmrti: Remembrance. Anuvāda : Mere repetition. Ānvayika : Directly connected. Apahatapāpma : Sinless. Apāramārthika : Unreal. Apara Vidya: Lower knowledge. Aparoksa; Immediate ; direct. Apauruseya : Impersonal. Apavarga: Release from samsara. Aprakrta: Not material. Aprthaksiddhavisesana : Inseparable attribute. Apunaravrtti : Non-return. Apurva: See adrsta. Aragramatra : Point-sized ; atomic. Arcirādimarga: The path to moksa. Arjava : Straight-forwardness. Aroha: Ascent. Arthavāda: Glorificatory or condemnatory passage, not to be taken literally. Asadbhava: Non-being. Asamavayikarana: Non-inherent cause. Asatkaryavada : The theory that the effect is created out of nothing. Asatya: Unreal. Asiddha : Unestablıshed. Asramas : Stages in the life of a twice-born. Asraya: Locus. Asrutakalpana : Extra-textual assumption, to suit one's own ideas. Asthula : Not gross. Ātivāhikapurușa : one who conducts the released soul to the world

Ativarnāsramin: One beyond the rules of varna (caste) and of Brahman.

asrama (stage). Ātmajnāna: Knowledge of the self. Atyantabheda : Absolute difference. Atyantabhinna : Absolutely different. Aupadhika : Due to upādhis or limiting adjuncts. Avāptasamastakāma : One whose desires are all realised. Āvaranasakti : Capacity to conceal. Avaroha : Descent. Avasthābheda : Difference in condition.

APPENDIX II 297

Avastu : Non-substantial. Avayava: Part. Avībhaga: Inseparability. Avidvan : One who has no Brahma Vidyā. Avidya: Nescience. Bandha : Bondage. Bhakti: Loving devotion to God. Bhasya : Commentary, generally on the basic Sutras. Bhava; Affirmation. Bhāvanā : Thought. Bhedabhedavada : The theory of non-difference in difference. Bhinna : Differentiated. Bhogya : Object of experience. Bhoktā: Enjoyer, i.e., jiva. Bhoktrtva : Feeling ; enjoyment. Bhutapancaka: The five elements. Bijānkura Nyaya: The analogy of seed and tree, each being the cause of the other. Brahmabhäva: State of being Brahman. Brahmajñana: Knowledge of Brahman or the absolute. Brahmārpanam: Dedication to Brahman. Brahma-vicāra: Inquiry into Brahman. Buddhi: Intellect. Caitanya : Intelligence. Cetana : Sentient being. Darsana : A philosophical system. Dharma : Attribute; duty. Dharmabhūtajñāna : Attributive knowledge. Dhyāna : Meditation. Dhyata: Meditator, Dhyeya : Object of meditation. Dhyānaniyogavādin: One who holds that dhyana is a prescribed discipline to attain Brahma-jnāna. Dhūmādimarga : The way to svarga or empirical heaven begin- ning with smoke. Digambara : Unclothed ; free. Drk: Seeing. Drsya: Visible ; object seen. Dvaita: Duality; name given to Madhva's school of Vedanta. Dveşa : Hatred. Eka-jiva-vada: The theory that there is only one jiva or soul. Ekavişaya : Of the same suhject. Ektbhāva: Oneness with the absolute.

298 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

Gati: Path. Gaticintana: Meditation on the path to the world of Brahman. Gauna : Secondary; implied. Ghațākāsa: The ether enclosed in a pot. Guna : Quality. Gunastaka : Eight-fold qualities of the liberated soul, viz., apahatapāpma, vijarah, vīmrtyuh, visokah, vijighatsaḥ, apipāsah, satyakāmah and satyasankalpah. Hetu: Reason or cause. Hetvābhāsa : Logical fallacy.

Indriya-nigraha : Sense-control. Isara: God.

Jiva: Individual self. Jivanmukti : Release in embodiment. Jmana : Knowledge. Jmana-kanda: Parts of the Vedas dealing with the knowledge of Brahman. Jnana-karma-samuccaya: The co-ordination of knowledge and action. Jmatrtva : Being the knower. Jyotişām jyotis : Light of Lights. Kainkarya : Spititual service. Kali : The last of the four Yugas. Kāma: Attachment. Kāmya-karma: Action prompted by desire. Karma-kānda: Parts of the Vedas dealing with rituals. Kartrtva: Being the agent. Karya-Brahman: Effected Brahman; Hiranyagarbha. Kāryaparavakya: A proposition conveying what bas to be done. Krama-mukti : Progressive attainment of release. Kşanika vijñana: Momentary cognition. Kşetra : Field of activity ; body.

Lakşanayā : Secondarily ; by a figure of speech. Laya: Dissolution. Lingasarira: Psychic body of the self. Lokasangraha-vyapāra: Action in the interests of world-welfare.

Madhyamika: The Nihilistic school of Buddhism. Mahāpralaya: Final cosmic dissolution. Mahat: Great; one of the twenty-four S'ankhyan principles con- stituting the world. Manana: Thinking over.

APPENDIX I1 299

Mantavyah: Should be reflected on. Mantradrastarah: Seers of the Vedic hymns intuiting the Vedic truths. Mauni : One who silently meditates on the self. Maya : Cosmic illusion. Mimamsaka: A follower of the Purva Mimamsa school of Jaimini. Mithya: False. Mithyopadhi: False limitation. Moha: Confusion. Moksa: Release from the cycle of births and deaths. Mulavidya: Primordial nescience. Mukti: Vide moksa. Mumuksu: One who longs for moksa. Murta: Having form ; evolved. Naisthika-brahmacarīn : One vowed to celibacy. Namarupa: Name and form. Nānājīva-vāda : Theory of plurality of selves. Nididhyasitavyah : Should be meditated on. Nimittakārana: Instrumental cause. Nirakara: Without form. Nirañjana : Without blemish. Niravadhikais varya: Infinite glory. Niravadya : Faultless. Nirguna-Brahman : Attributeless Absolute or the Indeterminate Being. Nirvāna: Buddhistic idea of release; a state of relationless thought. Nirviseşa: Attributeless. Niscaya-jñana: Determinate knowledge. Nişkala : Without blemish. Nişkāma-karma: Disinterested action. Nişprapañcikarananiyogavādin: One who believes in mukti as cosmic dissolution being enjoined. Nissambodha : Indeterminate consciousness. Nitya : Eternal. Nityakarma: Obligatory duty. Nityaprapta: Eternally realised. Niyanta : Controller, Ruler. Niyoga: See adrsta. Nyāsa : Renunciation. Nyāya: Reasoning. Pancagnividya : The eschatological doctrine of the five fires taught as a form of meditation in the fifth chapter of the Chandogyopanişad.

300 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDÄBHEDA

Pancaratra: A scriptural authority on S'ri Vaisnavism traced to Nārāyaņa. Paramāņu: Irreducible atom. Paramārthika : Transcendental ; as absolutely real. Paramātman : Parames'vara : The Supreme Self. Param-jyotis : Supreme light. Paratantra : Dependent. Paravidya: The higher knowledge. Parinamavāda : The theory that the Absolute transforms itself as the world. Parivrājaka: A sannyasin ; one who has renounced the world. Parokşa: Mediate. Pas'upata : The philosophical theory of a school of Saivism. Phala: Consummation. Pinda : Body. Prācurya : Abundance. Pradhana : Primordial matter. Prakära : The relation of the finite self to the Supreme Self accord- ing to Rāmānuja. Prakarana: Context. Pralaya: Dissolution of the world. Prana : Life, the vital principle. Prapaka: One who attains an end. Prapanca-nasana: Annihilation of the world. Prapanna: A person who has absolutely surrendered himself to divine grace. Prapti : Attainment. Präpya: That which is to be attained. Prārabdha karma: Karma that has begun to bear fruit. Pratijna : A thesis to be proved. Pratyaksa: Sense perception. Prayatna : Effort. Prayojana : End in view. Puccha-Brahma-vadin : One who holds that Brahman is the indeterminate bliss and not the blissful, in the Anandamaya- dhikaraņa. Puruşa : One of the two categories of S'ankhyas; different from

Pūrvapakșa: Prima facie view to be set aside by the establish- prakṛti.

ment of the siddhanta. Rāga: Desire. Rajas: One of the three constituents of prakrti indicating energy and activity, the other two being sattva and tamas. Rāsi : Mode (in Bhartrprapanca's philosophy).

APPENDIX II 301

Sadhana-catuștaya : Four-fold qualifications according to S'an- kara for knowing Brahman. Sadyo-mukti : Immediate release. Sadvidyā : Meditation on Brahman as the Sat without a second as described in the Chandogyopanişad. Saguna-Brahman : Brahman with attributes. Sajātīya : Of the same kind. Sakara : With form. Sākşin; Witness. Sakti : Potency. Sāmānādhikaranya: Syntactic equation of terms denoting the same thing but connoting different attributes. Co-existence. Samavāya : Inherence, a category of the Vaisesikas. Samavāyikarana: Inherent cause, one of the three kinds of cause mentioned by the Vais'esikas. Samudāya-satya: The apparent reality of the aggregate the phenomenalistic theory of the Buddhists. Sāmya : Similarity. Sankhya: One of the six systems of Indian philosophy traced to Kapila; a follower of this school. Samsara : The world of empirical experience. Sandhyopasana : The daily worship of God at sun-rise and sunset prescribed for the dvijas. Sanmātravdin: One who holds the theory of the Absolute as mere Being. Saptabhangi: The Jaina theory ot seven kinds of relative predi. cation. Saptavidhānupapatti : Seven-fold objections raised by Rāmānuja against the Advaitin's theory of avidyā. S'arirendriya : The psycho-physical complex of the jiva. Sarira-sartri-sambandha : The vital relation of body and the indwelling soul between the finite self and the absolute, as expounded by Rāmānuja. Sarvagata : All-pervading. Sarvajña : Omniscient. Sarvakarmatyāga : Renunciation of all actions. Sasambodha : Determinate consciousness. Sattva : One of the three constituents of prakrti, indicating good- ness or harmony. Satya : Real. Satyakama: One who loves the good; the Being with eternal

Satyasankalpah : One who wills the true; One whose will is perfections.

always realised. Satyasya satya : The true of the true, Real Reality,

302 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

Satyopadhi : True limitation as opposed to mithyopādhi or false limiting adjuncts. Sāvadhika : Limited. Siddhanta : The establishment of a theory by dialectic refutation of rival theories. Siddhaparavākya: An assertive proposition, conveying something that is already established. Siva-Sakti: The twin truths of Saktaism affirming the static and dynamic aspects of Reality. Sravana : Hearing the spoken word of S'astra through a guru. Srsti : Creation. Srutahani : Distortion of the text, giving up what is actually stated. Sruti : Divine revelation, i.e., the Vedas; a Vedic text. Srutisapeksa: Dependant on Sruti for authoritativeness. Sthula-sarira : Gross body. Suddhadvaita: Non-duality of pure Brahman: name given to Vallabha's school of Vedanta. Sūkşma-sarīra : Subtle body. Svanubhava : Self-realisation. Svaprakūsa : Self-luminous. Svarga : The celestial region of the devas. Svarupa: Essential nature. Svasiddha : Self-established. Svataḥ nirākāra: Formless in itself. Svayam-jyotis : Self-effulgent. Syena: A kind of Vedic ritual for bringing about a calamity to enemies.

Tamas : One of the three constituents of prakrti which indicates ignorance or inertia. Tantras: Ancient Hindu religious treatises which form the foundation of the various sectarian faiths. Tapaka : That which heats. Tapya: That which is heated. Tatvavabodha : Apprehension of reality or truth. Timira: Darkness; A disease of the eye producing double vision. Triputi : The triadic or subject -- object relation. Upādhi : Limiting adjunct. Upakrama: The beginning of a topic. Upasaka : One who meditates on the Supreme. Upasamhāra: The conclusion of a topic. Upāsana: Meditation. Uttamādhikārin : One who has the highest qualification for vedic knowledge. Uttamāsramin : Sanyāsi, a member of the highest āsrama.

APPENDIX II 303

Vairāgya : Freedom from the desires of sensibility. Vaişamya: Partiality. Vaiseşika: One of the six schools of Indian philosophy. Vāsanā: The tendencies of previous karma retained in the psycho- physical complex of the jiva. Vastu : Substance. Videhamukti: Release after death. Vidhi : A vedic imperative. Vidya: Knowledge; various meditations described in the Upanisads. Vijnanavada: An idealistic school of Buddhism. Vikārā : Modification. Vikşepa sakti: Power of maya by which the manifold of experi- ences is projected. Visistādvaita : Rāmanuja's school of Vedānta. Vişphulinga nyaya: The analogy of fire and its sparks. Vivartavada: The theory that the world is an illusory appearance of the absolute. Vyāvahārika: Pertaining to phenomenal reality.

INDEX

ABSOLUTE, the, in the philosophy of Bosanquet, 260; Bradley, 252-254; Fichte, 268 : Hegel, 247-249; Plotinus, 225-226; Royce, 256-257 ; Schelling, 270-271; Spinoza, 235-237, 243. Absolutism, Western, 274. Advaita, studied from four points of view, 281-283; pure and practical, 283-284. Arciradigati, theory of, criticised by Advaitins, 118-121; upheld by Bhaskara, 121-126. Asatkāryavāda, Bhaskara's criticism of, 19-20. As'marathya, 83, 143, 174, 190. Audulomi, 83, 155, 156, 174, 190. Āvaraņasakti, 55. Avidyā, theory of, 109; criticised by Bhāskara, 55-60.

BĀDARI, 119, 120, 121, 132, 174, 183. Bhamati, criticism of Bhedabheda in the, 201-203. Bhandarkar, R. G., 155. Bhartrprapanca, the Philosophy of, 152-154. Bhedābheda, Upanisadic texts embodying, 14; affirmed by prat. yakşa and anumana, 15-17: kinship with in the Vedantic interpretations of Deussen, Thibaut, Radhäkrishnan and Pandit Sitānath Tattvabhusan, Book II Part I. Ch. VII ; criticism of, in the Bhāmati, 201-203; Istasiddhi, etc., 203-204: by Dr. Mahendranath Sircar, 204-208; by Rāmanuja and Vedānta Des'ika, 209, 220, 231, 286. Bhūmavidya, 38. Blackmore, Sir Richard, 244. Bosanquet, 147, 242, 252; the philosophy of, and its kinship with Bhedabheda, 257-267. Bose, Dr. Sir J. C., 271. Bradley, 67, 223, 252, 266, 267; the philosophy of, 252-255 ; criti- cised by Royce, 254-255. Brahman in Bhäskara's system, 10, 11, 27, 34-39, 40-41, 65, 144, 178-182, 258-259, 263; theory of two Brahmans according to 20

306 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

Advaita, 33, 66-68, 175, 178, 181 ; repudiated by Bhāskara, 34-39, 62-63, 68-69, 121-122, 124-125, 130, 176, 178; by Nim- barka, 157-158, 161-162, 181-182; in the philosophy of Bhartr- prapañca, 153; of Yādava, 146-148; of S'aktaism, 169-173; of Rāmānuja, 176, 177, 279-280. Buddhism, 5; Bhäskara's criticism of the Buddhistic theory of cause, 23-26, 32 ; of cosmology 48-49; of self 76, 77, 80-81.

CAIRD, Edward, 224. Caird, John, 147, 149, 246, 248, 271 ; exposition of Spinoza by, 235-236. Caitanya, S'ri Krsna, Acintya Bhedabheda of, 164-167. Carvāka, theory of self according to, 76, 80, 215. Cause, Asatkāryavāda, 19-20; Brahmapariņāmavāda of Bhās- kara, 17-19, 25-26, 41-43, 49-50, 179; Buddhistic theory 23-25, 48-49; Nimbārka's view 158, 179-180; Pariņāma vāda of Sānkhya 21-22, 46-47; Rāmānuja's view 179; Vais'eşika view 22-23, 47-48; Vivartavāda 20-21, 42, 45, 52-53, 179. Chintamani, T. R., 163. Cohen, M. R., 247, 251. Creation, the problem of, 278; according to Bhāskara, 41-45; according to Bhartrprapafca, 154; Nimbārka, 158; Yādava, 148-149; Rāmānuja, 158-159; S'āktaism 169-170; Plotinus, 227-228. Croce, 247.

Daharavidyā, 39. Das, Dr, S. K., 255. Deussen, 178, 179, 187-192, 193, 275. Dhyananiyogavadin, the theory of karma and jnana according

Dreams, Bhäskara's theory of, 79-80, 181; according to other to, 92-93.

schools, 79-80, 181. Dvivedin, 5.

Ekajīvavāda, 7, 29, 57, 66. Erdmann, 247. Ethics of Bhaskara, 84-104; of Bosanquet, 261-262; of Fichte, 269; of Plotinus, 229-230; of Spinoza, 240, 241, 272.

FICHTE, 70, 267-270. Fiske, 222. Freedom, the problem of, 78-79, 87-89, 265, 269.

INDEX 307

GHATE, V. S., 155, 178, 182. God, in the philosophy of Bosanquet, 265; Bradley, 253; Hegel, 249, 250; Plotinus, 227; Spinoza, 236-237, 243, 244-245; the Vedanta, 283-284 ; See also under Isvara. Gunn, J. A., 234, 238.

HAECKEL, 272. Haldar, H., 246, 255. Hallett, Prof., 242. Hegel, 68, 69, 197, 234, 252, 255, 267, 270, 271, 272 ; the philo- sophy of and its kinship with Bhedabheda, 246-252. Hiriyanna, Prof., 152, 203. Hogg, Dr. A. G., 248.

IMMANENCE, 61. Inge, Dean, 224, 225 ; exposition of Plotinus by, 225-232. Isvara according to Bhedābheda and Māyāvada 27-29 ; inmanent causality of, 30, 31 : Bhāskara's idea of, 64-70, 87-88, 258- 259; in Ramanuja's philosophy, 176; in Yadava's philosophy, 147-148. See also under " God".

JAINISM, theory of soul according to, criticised by Bhaskara, 81. James, William, 42. Jiva, Bhaskara's theory of, 73-83; based on the principle of self- differentiation through upadhi, 74, 76-77, 79, 82-83, 181, 259 ; bhinnabhinna relation, 74; both atomic and monadic 75; eternal and immutable, 76 ; self-conscious and other-conscious, 76; has jnatrtva, kartrtva and bhoktrtva, 77 ; has freedom of will, 78-79: Advaitin's view of, 73, 172, 175, 180, 181 ; Bhartrprapanca's view of, 154; Nimbarka's view of, 160-161, 181 : Rāmānuja's view of, 73, 82, 172, 176, 177, 181 ; accord- ing to Saktaism, 171; Visistadvaitic criticism of Bhedābheda view of, 215-216, Yadava's theory of, 149-150, 181. See also under "soul." Jīvanmukti, 7, 58, 175, 182, 191; experience of difference in : Mayavadin's explanation and Bhaskara's criticism, 108-109, 116-117, 135; denied by Nimbārka, 161; by Yādava, 150. Jmuna, Bk. I. Ch. VII passim. ñāna-karma samuccaya, 8, 10, 85, 94-104, 117, 131, 144, 154, 191, 261. Joachim, 236.

Karma, Advaitin's idea of, 85, 86, 94-95, 98-99; criticism by Bhāskara, 95-98; Bhāskara's idea of, 97; Dhyānaniyoga- vādin's idea of, 92-93; criticised by Bhäskara, 93-94; in

308 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

Sāktaism, 170-171; Mīmāmsaka's idea of, 85, 90-92, 100; Rāmānuja's idea of, 85, 99, and its relation to jnana, 90-94, 101-904 ; and freedom, 87-89. Kās'akrtsna, 83, 174, 179, 190. Kesava, 163. Kokiles'vara Sāstri, 155, 244.

MAJUMDAR, S'rīdhar, 155. Māyāvāda, 5, 9, 20, 51-53; theory of jnana and karma according to 89, 94-95 ; Bhāskara's criticism of, 21, 45, 53-64, 82, 96-97, 283 ; criticised by Saktaism, 169-170. McKeon, Richard, 234. McTaggart, 246, 248. Meditation as means to mukti, 38, 110-115, 126, 244. Mukhopādhyaya, Pramathanath, 168. Mukti, 284-286, 288; according to Bhäskara, 85-86, 105, et seq, 125-129, 131-137, 182-183, 261, 264; criticised by Rāmānuja, 219-220; kinship with Bosanquet's view, 264-266; Māyā- vadin's theory of 86, 90, 107, 120, 135, 182, 183 ; criticised by Bhaskara, 107-109, 127-128, 130, 136 ; according to Bhartr- prapañca, 154 ; according to Nimbārka, 161-163, 184 ; according to Yadava, 145, 150, 184; according to Ramānuja, 176, 177, 182; theistic ideal of, 134-135; criticised by Bhaskara 136; according to Saktaism, 172-173; according to Sankhya and Vaisesika 22-23, 129, 130-131; Dhyānaniyogavāda and Nişprapancikarananiyogavada criticised, 113-114; krama mukti and sadyo mukti, 126, 136, 182, 183; gati in relation to 118-126; meditation as the means for 38, 110-114; Persistence of the finite self in the state of 127-130, 265-266. Mysticism of Bhaskara compared with Western mysticism, 137-139 : of Plotinus, 231, 273.

NAMMĀĻVĀR, 219. Nānājīvavāda 57. Negation, 62, 247, 258. Neo-Platonism, the philosophy of, and its affinity with Bhedā- bheda, 224-233. Nimbarka, the philosophy of, 154-163 ; cosmology, 158; theory of finite self 159-160; mukti 161-163; criticism of Dvaita and Advaita and of Bhaskara's theory of Upadhis, 157. Nirguna Brahman, 7, 33, 69 and passim.

OMAN, John, 222, 224.

Pancarātra, Bhāskara's criticism of, 32.33, 76, 82, 180, 184.

INDEX 309

Pantheism, 222 ; of Spinoza, 237; Western and Indian Compared, 223-224, 272-275. Pariņāma sakti, 10, 31, 65, 70, 81, 148, 179. Pariņāmavāda, 7, 31, 40; Bhāskara's criticism of the Sānkhya theory of, 21-22. Personalism, 65, 273. Picton, J. A. 245. Plato, 223, 278. Plotinus, 223, 273 ; the philosophy of, 223-233. Pollock, Sir Frederick, 222, 223, 234, 237, 241. Prasthānathraya, 3. Pringle-Pattison, Prof., 266.

RADHAKRISHNAN, Dr. Sir S., Exposition of the vedanta according to, and its kinship with Bhedābheda, 193-197. Ramanuja, ethical monism of, 65, 68, 107; nature of finite self, 82; relation of the finite and the infinite, 73; Brahman, 176-177, 279 ; mukti, 128, 176-177, 182. Rashdall, Dr., 147. Revelation, 4, 11-12, 276. Roma Bose, 155. Royce, J., 148, 221, 252, 254, 255, 256-257.

Sad vidya, 27, 30, 41. Saguna Brahman, 7, 29, 33, 38, 39, 67, 68, 69, 120, 124, 135, 136, 157, 161, 176, 266, 285. Saktaism, 159, 168-173. S'ankhya, Bhaskara's criticism of the theory of cause according to, 21-22 ; ontology, 29-30, 38 ; cosmology, 46-47; theory of finite self, 81-82. Saptabhangi nyāya criticised, 25. Schelling Schopenhaeur, 191, 251. Shorley, Paul, on Neo-Platonism, 232. Sircar, Mahendranath, 197, 251; his criticism of Bhedābheda, 204-206. Soul (finite self) in the philosophy of Bosanquet, 260-262, 265-267 ; Bradley, 253-254; Plotinus, 228-231 ; Spinoza, 238-239, 243. Spinoza, 223, 246, 247, 272 ; the philosophy of, and its kinship with Bhedabheda, 234-245. Sruti, nature and validity of, 12-13, 40. Sūryanārāyaņa Sāstri, Prof. S. S., 201.

TAGORE, Dr. Sir Rabindranath, 197. Tattvabhuşan, Paņdit Sitānāth, 197.

310 PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA

Thibaut, 6, 156, 174, 175, 178; his exposition of the Vedānta, 192-193. Thilly, Frank, on Neo-Platonism, 232.

UNDERHILL, Miss, 138. Upādhis, Bhaskara's theory of, 69-72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 89, 103, 106, 115, 137, 144, 259; Deussen's view of, 189; Nim- barka's criticism of, 157; Visistadvaitic criticism of, 214-218, 263. Utkrānti, 117-118 ; and gati, 118-127, 183,

VALLABHA, 5, 65. Vāsudevachariar, S., 211. Vedānta Des'ika, 144, 175, 209, 215, 219, 220, 244. Videha mukti, 7, 8, 10. Vidvān, the condition of, 115, 117, 122, 123. Vikşepa sakti, 43, 55, 60. Vivartavāda, 7, 170, 175, 179. Vivekānanda, Svāmi, 251.

WATSON, 246. Wolf, Prof. A., 242. Woodroffe, Sir John, 168, 172.

YĀDAVAPRAKĀS'A, 5, 74, 143 et seq., 196, 212, 216, 220, 271 ; epistemology, 145-146; ontology, 146-150; mukti, 150-151 ; compared with Bhaskara, 144-145, 259, 263, 266.

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Rs. A. 1910-1. A PRELIMINARY LIST OF THE SAMSKRT AND PRÄKRT MSS. in the Adyar Library. (Samskrt-Devanagari). Boards .. Rs. 1-8. Cloth .. 2 0 1912-2. A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF THE SAMSKRT MSS. in the Adyar Library. By F. O. Schrader, Vol. I, Upanişads. Cloth ... 5 0 3. THE MINOR UPANISADS (Samskrt) critically edited for the Adyar Library. By F. O. Schrader, Vol. I .- Samnyāsa. Cloth .. 10 0 1916-4. AHIRBUDHNYA-SAMHITA OF THE PANCARĀTRA AGAMA (Samskṛt). 2 Vols. Cloth ... 10 0 5 INTRODUCTION (English) TO THE PAÑCARĀTRA AND THE AHIRBUDHNYA SAMHITĀ. By F. O. Schrader. Cloth ... 3 0 1920 -- 6. YOGA UPANISADS 20-with the Commentary of S'ri Upanişad-Brahma-Yogin. Edited by Pandit A. Mahadeva Sastri 5 0 1921-7. SĀMĀNYA VEDĀNTA UPANIȘADS 24-with the Com- mentary of S'ri Upanişad Brahma Yogin. Edited by Pandit A. Mahadeva Sastri ... 5 0 1923-8. VAISNAVA UPANISADS 14-with the Commentary of Sri Upanişad-Brahma-Yogin. Edited by Pandit A, Mahadeva Sastri ... 4 0 1925-9. S'AIVA UPANISADS 15-with the Commentary of S'ri Upanişad Brahma Yogin. Edited by Pandıt A. Mahadeva Sastri (Reprinted 1950) 5 8 10. S'AKTA UPANISADS 8-with the Commentary of S'ri Upanişad Brahma Yogin. Edited by Pandit A. Mahadeva Sastri (Reprinted 1950) ... 8 1926-11. CATALOGUE OF SAMSKRT MSS. in the Adyar Library (Revised). 2 Vols. Each .. 3 12 1929-12. SAMNYĀSA UPANISADS 17-with the Commentary of S'ri Upanişad-Brahma-Yogin. Edited by T. R. Chintamani, and the Pandits of the Adyar Library 4 0 13. RUKMIŅĪKALYĀŅA-MAHĀKĀVYA by Rājacūdāmaņi-Dikșita. Edited by the Pandits of the Adyar Library and T. R. Chintamani 2 0

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Rs. A. 1933-14. UNPUBLISHED MINOR UPANISADS with the Commentary of S'ri Upanişad-Brahma-Yogin. Edited by the Pandits of the Adyar Library. ... 5 0 1936-15. TEN MAJOR UPANISADS with the Commentary of S'ri Upanişad-Brahma-Yogin. Edited by the Pandits of the Adyar Library Īs'a to Aitareya, Vol. I 4 8 Chändogya and Brhadāraņyaka, Vol. II 6 0 Vols. 1 and 2, Boards 9 8 1937-16. MELARĀGAMĀLIKĀ of Mahavaidyanātha S'ivan. Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri 2 0 1938-17. SAMGRAHACŪDĀMAŅI-Edited by Paņdit S. Subrahmanya Sastri 5 0 18. PRATYABHIJÑAHRDAYA (The Secret of Recognition) with English Translation and Notes by K. F. Leidecker 3 0 19. BHAVASANKRĀNTI-SUTRA AND NĀGĀRJUNA'S BIIAVASAM- KRÄNTI S'ASTRA-with the Commentary of Maitreyinatha -with English Translation by Pandit N. Aiyaswami Sastri ... 2 4 20. YOGA UPANISADS. Translated into English by T. R. Srini- vasa Aiyangar and Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri ... 5 0 21. *WHERE THEOSOPHY AND SCIENCE MEET (in four Parts) by a body of experts-Edited by Professor D. D. Kanga : Parts 1 and 2. Nature and Man 08 Part 3. God -- From Humanity to Divinity 2 Part 4. Some Practical Applications 2 8 1939-22. RGVEDAVYĀKHYĀ, MĀDHAVAKRTĀ-Edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. Vol. I ... 6 0 1940-23. THE NUMBER OF RASAS by V. Raghavan, Department of Samskrt, University of Madras 0 1941-24. SĀMĀNYA VEDĀNTA UPANISADS-Translated into English by T. R. Srinivasa Aiyangar and Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri 5 0 25. BHAGAVADGĪTĀRTHAPRAKĀS'IKĀ of S'ri Upanişad-Brahma- yogin (Samskrt). Edited by the Pandits of the Adyar Library 4 0 26. SAMAVEDA-SAMHITA-With the Commentaries of Madhava and Bharatasvamin. Edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja ... 6 0 27. RÃJA DHARMA (Dewan Bahadur K. Krishnaswami Rao Lectures, 1938, University of Madras) by Rao Bahadur K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar ... 3 8

. Published under the auspices of the Adyar Library Association.

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Rs. A. 28. VARIVASYĀRAHASYA of Bhāsurānandanatha (Second Edi- tion-Reprinted, 1948). Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri (with English Translation Etc.) ... 5 0 29. VYAVAHARANIRŅAYA OF VARADARĀJA-Edited by Rao Bahadur K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar and A. N. Krishna Aiyangar atura 15 0 30. SAMGITARATNÄKARA-With the Commentaries of Catura Kallinatha and Simhabhupala. Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri. Vol. I. (Adhyäya 1) 90 1942-31. CATALOGUE OF THE ADYAR LIBRARY, Western Section. Part 1 5 0 32. ALAMBANAPARĪKSA AND VRTTI by Dinnāga. Edited with English translation, Tibetan text etc. by Pandit N. Aiyaswami Sastri 3 8 33. SOME CONCEPTS OF ALAMKĀRA-S'ĀSTRA by V. Raghavan, University of Madras ... 4 0 34. VEDANTAPARIBHASA-with English translation and Notes by Prof. S. S. Suryanarayana Sastri 2 13 35. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE of the Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library by K Madhava Krishna Sarma. Vol. I-Vedic 15 0 36. S'RI PĀÑCARĀTRA-RAKȘĀ of S'ri Vedānta-Des'ika-Edited by Vaidyaratna Pandit M. Duraiswami Aiyangar and Vedānta S'iromaņi T. Venugopalacharya 00 ... 37. CATALOGUE OF THE ADYAR LIBRARY, Western Section, part 2 ... 6 0 38. CATURDAS'ALAKSANI OF GADĀDHARA with three commen- taries-Edited by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar. Vol. I ... 4 8 1943-39. PHILOSOPHY OF VIS'ISTĀDVAITA by Prof. P. N. Srinivas- achari 10 0 40. VĀDĀVALI OF JAYATĪRTHA. Edited with English tran- slation and Notes by P. Nagaraja Rao 4 0 41. SPINOZIAN WISDOM OR NATURAL RELIGION by James Arther 2 12 42. UȘĀŅIRUDDHA of Rāmapăņivāda. Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri and Prof. C. Kunhan Raja ... 3 8 1944-43. SAMGĪTARATNĀKARA-With the Commentaries of Catura Kallinātha and Simhabhūpala. Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri. Vol. II. (Adhyāyas 2-4) ... 9 0 44. AS'VALÃYÃNAGRHYASUTRA-With the Commentaries of Devasvāmin and Nārāyana. Edited by Svami Ravi Tirtha. Vol. I (Adhyāya 1) 6 4

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Rs. A.

45. ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF SANSKRIT MANUSCRIPTS in the Adyar Library ... 10 0 46. CATALOGUE OF THE ADYAR LIBRARY, Western Section. Part 3 ... 70 47. ATMAN IN PRE-UPANISADIC VEDIC LITERATURE by H. G. Narahari ... 8 0

1945-48. RAGAVIBODHA OF SOMANĀTHA with his own commentary Viveka. Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastrı ... 6 0

49. ACYUTARĀYĀBHYUDAYA OF RAJANĀTHA DIŅDIMA-Sargas 7 to 12. Edited by A. N. Krishna Aiyangar 8

50. ANCIENT WISDOM OF WALES by D. Jeffrey Williams 1 4

51. SAMGITARATNĀKARA OF S'ĀRNGADEVA-Vol. I. Chapter 1. English Translation by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. Cloth Rs. 4-8. Boards ... 4 52. VAISNAVA UPANISADS. Translated into English by T. R. Srinivasa Aiyangar and G. Srinivasa Murti 10 0 1946-53. NYĀYAKUSUMĀÑJALI of Udayanacārya-Translated into English by Svami Ravi Tirtha. (Vol. I-Books i and ii) ... 4 0 54. PRĀKRTAPRAKĀSA OF VARARUCI with the Commentary of Rāmapānivāda. Edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja and Pandit K. Ramachandra Sarma 4 4 55. SPHOȚAVĀDA OF NĀGESA-Edited by Pandit V. Krishna- macharya with his own Commentary 3 12 1947-56. THE CRADLE OF INDIAN HISTORY by C. R. Krishna- macharlu 3 8 57. UNMATTARĀGHAVA OF VIROPĀKSA-Edited by Pandit V. Krishnamacharya 1 12 58. ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF THE TAMILS (Sankara-Parvati Lectures, 1940. University of Madras) by V. R. Rama- chandra Dikshitar ... 3 8 59. JIVĀNANDANAM OF ĀNANDARĀYAMAKHIN. Edited by Vaidyaratna Pandit M. Duraiswami Aiyangar with his own Commentary 20 0 60. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE of Sanskrit MSS. in the Adyar Library, by Pandit V. Krishnamacharya, Vol. VI-Grammar, Prosody and Lexicography 25 0 61. RGVEDAVYĀKHYĀ of Mādhava, Vol. II, edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja ... 15 0 62. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF PALI MSS. in the Adyar Library, by Dr. E. W. Adikaram ... 6 0 1948-63. HARICARITA OF PARAMES'VARA-Edited by Pandit V. Krishnamacharya with his own Commentary ... 5 0

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Rs. A. 64. GAUTAMA-DHARMASUTRA-PARIS'ISTA (Second Pras'na)- Edited by A. N. Krishna Aıyangar ... 9 0 65. SAMKALPASÜRYODAYA OF S'RI VEŃKATANĀTHA with the Commentaries Prabhāvilāsa and Prabhavali. Edited by Pandıt V. Krıshnamacharya Part I ... 15 0 Part II ... 15 0 Reprint of No. 28-VARIVASYĀRAHASYA of Bhäsurānanda- nåtha-Edited by Pandıt S. Subrahmanya Sastrı (with English translation, Etc.) ... 5 0 1949-66. INDIAN CAMERALISM (A Survey of some aspects of Artha- Irtha- s'ästra) by K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar 7 0 Second Edition-Revised and Enlarged-of No. 21- WHERE THEOSOPHY AND SCIENCE MEET (Parts 1 and 2, Nature and Man) by a body of Experts, Edited by Prof. D. D. Kanga 9 0 67. TIRUKKURAĻ OF TIRUVAJJUVAR-(In Roman Translıtera- tion) with Englsb Translation by Prof. V. R. Rama- chandra Dıkshıtar ... 3 0 68. TIRUKKURAI, OF TIRUVAI UVAR, with Enghsh Transla- tion by Prof. V. R. Ramachandra Dıkshitar ... 3 0 69. CATALOGUE OF THE ADYAR LIBRARY, Western Section, part 4 (French) 1 12 70. ALAMKĀRASAMGRAHA by Amrtānandayogın. Edited by Pandıt V. Krishnamacharya and Pandıt K. Rama- chandra Sarma 9 0 71. YĀJÑIKYUPANIŞAD VIVARAŅAM BY PURUȘOTHAMĀNANDA TIRTHA-Edited by Papdit V. Krishnamacharya and Pandit K. Ramachandra Sarma 2 8 1950-72. EDICTS OF AS'OKA (Priyadars'in). With Englsh Transla- tion by G. Srinivasa Murti and A. N. Krishna Aiyangar. Boards Rs. 2-0. Cloth . ... 3 0 73. SOME ASPECTS OF EDUCATION IN ANCIENT INDIA (Dewan Bahadur K. Krishnaswami Rao Endowment Lectures, University of Madras, 1949) by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja ... 2 8 Reprint of No. 9. S'AIVA UPANISADS. 15-with the com- mentary of S'ri Upanişad Brahma Yogın-Edited by Pandit A. Mahadeva Sastrı 5 8 Reprint of No. 10. S'ÄKTA UPANISADS. 8-with the com- mentary of S'ri Upanisad Brahma Yogin-Edited by Paņdit A. Mahadeva Sastri 3 8 74. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BHEDĀBHEDA, by P. N. Srinivasa- charı ... 9 0

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PAMPHLETS Rs. A. 1939 VARIANT VERSION OF THE EKĀGNIKĀŅDA. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, October, 1939). Edited by K. Madhava Krishna Sarma ... 0 3 1940 RÃJAMRGÃNKA OF BHOJA. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, October, 1940). Edited by K. Madhava Krishna Sarma 0 4 1942 ȘAȚPAÑCĀS'IKĀ, a S'ilpas'astra manual. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin. February, 1942). Edited by K. Madhava Krishna Sarma 0 5 PRAMĀŅAMAÑJARI OF SARVADEVA. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, May, 1942). Edited by K. Madhava Krısbna Sarma ... 0 6 A LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS. Catalogue of MSS. at the private Library of Trichinopoly Krishna Iyer's House at Negapatam. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, October, 1942) ... 1 0 THE PATH OF GREATNESS. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, December, 1942), by Dr. G. S. Arundale 0 6 1943 VIS'EŞĀMRTA of Tryambaka Mis'ra. (An orthographical lexicon), Edited by H. G. Narahari. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, May, 1943) 0 12 A SANSKRIT LETTER OF MOHAMAD DARA SHUKOH with English Translation and Notes by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, October, 1940, May and October, 1943) 1946 ... 0 12

DHARMACAURYARASĀYANA OF GOPĀLAYOGINDRA-Edited by H. G. Narahari. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, October and December, 1946) ... 1 12 1948 SAMSKRTAGRANTHIVIGHATANA -by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, February 1948) ... 0 8 CANDRAVĀKYAS OF VARARUCI-Edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja with Appendices (Reprint from the Introduction to Adyar Library Series No. 63) ... 2 0 BHĀRATA-RĀSȚRA-SANGHAȚANĀ (Indian Constitution in Sanskrit verses)-a sample-by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XII) ... 1 0 LANGUAGE PROBLEM IN INDIA-(Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XII, Part 4, December, 1948.) ... 1 0

Rs. A. SANSKRIT IN INDIA-by G. Srinivasa Murti. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XII, Part 3, October, 1948) ... 1 0 INFLUENCE OF INDIAN THOUGHT ON FRENCH LITERATURE- by Prof. Louis Renou. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vols. XII and XIII) ... 0 12

1949 THE FUTURE ROLE OF SANSKRIT (Sanskrit Language)-by C. Kunhan Raja. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XIII, Part 1, February, 1949) ... 0 12 THE FUTURE ROLE OF SANSKRIT (Sanskrit Literature, Sanskrit Scholarship and Sanskrit Scholars) by Louis Renou and C. Kunhan Raja (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, May, 1949) ... 1 8 DAS'AKUMĀRAKATHASARA OF APPAYĀMĀTYA-Edited by H. G. Narahari (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Feb. and May, 1949) 1 0 BRAHMASÜTRABHĀŞYA-SIDDHĀNTASAMGRAHA by S'ri Upanişad- brahmayogin-Edited by Pandit V. Krishnamacharya. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XIII, Parts 2 and 3) ... 1 8 INDIA'S CULTURAL ROLE IN THE WORLD by C. Kunhan Raja (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XIII, Part 4) ... 0 12

1950

ODE TO INDIA, Composed by C. Kunhan Raja on the Occasion of the Proclamation of the Indian Republic on Thursday. 26th January 1950. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol. XIV, Part 1). 0 6 PADAVIDHANA OF S'AUNAKA with Bhasya-Edited by H. G. Nara- hari. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vols. XIII and XIV) 1 0 HINDU RELIGION AND HINDU CUSTOMS-by C. Kunhan Raja. (Reprint from the Adyar Library Bulletin, Vol, XIV, Part 1,) ... 0 8 INTRODUCTION TO EDICTS OF As'OKA (Priyadars'in)-by K. V. Rangaswami Aiyangar. (Reprint of the Introduction to Adyar Library Series No. 72) ... 0 8

IN THE PRESS DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF SANSKRIT MSS. in the Adyar Library, by Pandit V. Krishnamacharya. Vol, IX-Mimamsa and Advaita-Vedānta. S'AIVA AND S'AKTA UPANISADS-Translated into English by T. R. Srinivasa Aiyangar and Edited by G. Srinivasa Murti. YOGA UPANISADS-Translated into English by T. R. Srinivasa Aiyangar and Edited by G. Srinivasa Murti. (Second Edition).

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CATURDAS'ALAKSAŅĪ OF GADADHARA with three commentaries. Vol. II by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar. APASTAMBASMRTI-Edited by A. N. Krishna Aiyangar. SAMGITARATNĀKARA-With the Commentaries of Catura Kallinatha and Simhabhūpāla. Edited by Pandit S. Subrahmanya Sastri, Vol III. HORAS'ASTRA-with the commentary Apūrvarthapradars'ikā by A. N. Srini- vasaraghava Aiyangar. SALISTAMBASUTRA-Restored from Tibetan and Chinese Sources-by Pandit N. Aiyaswami Sastri. SAMGITARATNĀKARA, English Translation-Vol. II, by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE of Sanskrit MSS. in the Adyar Library, by H. G. Narahari, Vol. V-Poetry, Drama and Poetics. ARISTOTLE'S KATHARSIS AND BHARATA'S STHAYIBHAVAS by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. LANGUAGE-BARRIER OR BRIDGE by A. Sita Devi. RGVEDABHĀȘYA OF SKANDASVĀMIN-Edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. VEDĀNTAKĀRIKĀVALĪ OF VENKAȚĀCĀRYA-Edited by Pandit V. Krishnama- charya with his own Commentary and Translation.

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.AS'VALAYANAGRHYASUTRA with the Commentaries of Devasvamin and Nārāyaņa. Vol. II. Edited by Svami Ravi Tirtha. NYĀYAKUSUMĀNJALI OF UDAYANA with the Commentary of Varadarāja. Edited by Prof. C. Kunhan Raja. CATURDAS'ALAKŞANI OF GADĀDHARA-with Commentaries-Edited by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar, Vol. III. PAKŞATĀ OF GADĀDHARA-with four commentaries Edited by Pandit N. Santa- nam Aiyar. SIDDHĀNTALAKSANAM OF GADĀDHARA with commentaries. Edited by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar. AVAYAVA OF GADADHARA-with commentaries. Edited by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar. SMNYANIRUKTI OF GADADHARA with commentaries. Edited by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar. VYUTPATTIVĀDA OF GADĀDHARA with commentaries. Edited by Pandit N. Santanam Aiyar. TEN MAJOR UPANISADS-English Translation by T. R. Srinivasa Aiyangar- Edited by G. Srinivasa Murti.

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