In the first part we saw the basic structure of Indian philosophical systems and how the individual Darshanas compare and contrast with each other. Despite the differences, some points like belief in karma and reincarnation binds all the Darshanas (both the orthodox and non-orthodox) except Charvakism. In this part we shall look at Mimansa and Vedanta which forms the most important component of Indian Darshanas and also discuss the general features of the latter.

Purva-Mimansa and Uttara-Mimansa (Vedanta)

Vedanta, the pinnacle of Indian philosophical thought, literally means the ‘the culmination of the teachings and wisdom of Vedas.’ In terms of historical progression, the earlier schools dealing with rituals (karmakanda) is Purva-Mimansa or simply Mimansa. The later schools with philosophical aspects and speculative thinking (jnanakanda) were Uttara-Mimansa or Vedanta.  Purva-Mimansa lays the basis for the pramanas for valid knowledge which Vedanta strictly follows:

1. Perception
2. Inference
3. Testimony
4. Comparison
5. Postulation
6. Non-cognition.

Initially, Vedanta meant only the Upanishads, but later interpretations saw emergence of the three distinct schools of Vedanta. The three main schools of Vedanta are: Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta (most prominent and popular); Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita Vedanta; and Madhava’s Dvaita Vedanta.

The Vedas are the oldest scriptures in the history of humanity and may even stretch to before 10,000 BCE according to some scholars. Western Indologists tend to date it much later (mostly after 1500 BCE). Each of the four Vedas (Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva) consist of four parts-Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads. There are 108 known Upanishads of which ten are ‘major’ only because of detailed commentaries on them.  It is again a big mistake to describe the later portions as more ‘evolved philosophy’ and the ritualistic early portions as primitive with terms like polytheism, animism, nature worship, or the faulty ‘henotheism’ of Max Mueller.

The Rig Veda conceptualises clearly all existence as a manifestation of a single ultimate reality – indescribable, indeterminate, and absolute; beyond thought and words; and beyond names and forms. The philosophy was well in place right from the beginning; the later Upanishads crystallised and articulated these thoughts. The various interpretations gave rise to many schools over time but with some basic unity in the foundations.

All Upanishads distinguish between a higher knowledge (paravidya) and lower knowledge (aparavidya). The lower knowledge is that of Vedas, phonetics, ceremonials, grammar, etymology, meter, astronomy, and in fact everything in realm of the senses, brain, and intellect. The higher knowledge is non-perceptual, non-conceptual, and intuitive– transcending all three categories of empirical experience; the knower, knowledge, and the known. Moksa, or freedom from ignorance is attainable here and now, where one attains the immortality of no further births. Such an immortality is the state of sat-chit-ananda (pure being, pure consciousness, pure bliss).

Advaita declares Brahman as the sole reality, immanent and transcendent to all creation, as the untiring message of all Upanishads. It is unborn, eternal, and uncreated. The innermost self of every being is Atman; and this is also unborn, uncreated, and eternal. This Atman is separate from the ‘empirical ego’- the idea of the ‘I’ we normally identify ourselves with. The greatest insight of the Advaita is that Atman and Brahman are the same. The Upanishadic wisdom reaches the pinnacle in the mahavakyas or the great statements:  tat tvam asi (That thou art), aham brahmasmi (I am Brahman), ayam atma brahma (This Self is Brahman), Prajnanam Brahma (Pure Consciousness is Brahman).

For Advaita, the entire material world is only a superimposition arising out of ignorance (avidya or maya). Maya is the creative power of reality through which the world of variety and multiplicity comes into existence. The phenomenal world is an illusion no doubt, says Shankara, but it is not non-existent nor unreal. The example of the rope and the snake illustrates Shankara’s idea of superimposition. In the darkness of ignorance, the rope is a snake by mistake of the mind; when light flashes, ignorance goes and the rope is immediately recognized in a flash and the snake disappears. Liberating knowledge reveals the true nature of the world as only Brahman (just as light reveals the true nature of the rope).

Brahman and the Atman are the unchanging realities underlying the changing external world and internal appearances respectively. Where all distinctions between the external and internal vanish, the distinction between the Self and the non-Self vanishes and there is an experience of Pure Consciousness. One who does not realise this goes through repeated cycles of births and deaths till the point of realisation. Hence, crucially the illusory world is at the same time real and non-real. Advaita never can degenerate into the false narrative of denying the reality of the world in its entirety and thus stop doing any activity.

God exists in two forms: God with qualities (Saguna-Brahman or Ishwara) and God without qualities (Nirguna Brahman). The former is a personal God while the latter is beyond form and names and is Pure Being, Pure Consciousness, and Pure Bliss. Saguna Brahman is a stepping stone to reach Nirguna Brahman.

Vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism) holds three categorical distinctions:

1. The support (adhara) and the supported (adheya)
2. The controller (niyamaka) and the controlled (niyamya)
3. The Lord (shesin) and the servant (sesa).

 

The first refers to Brahman; the second refers to world. Hence, there are multiple selves in the form of sesas. Reality is like a person; the various selves and material objects are the body, and Brahman its soul. Individual selves and material objects are related to Brahman as parts to a whole. The selves and objects are thus real as parts of an ultimate reality but cannot exist independently of it. The world of phenomena, in contrast to Advaita, is as real as Brahman. God is the Saguna Brahman of Advaita. There are other subtle differences in the schools, but it becomes clear that the individual self of Ramanuja’s Vedanta is not the atman but the empirical ‘I’ of the ego. Liberation, according to Ramanuja, implies an eternal union of a jiva (who has eradicated ignorance) with Brahman to enjoy the highest bliss and infinite glory. The individual identity and consciousness stay intact in this communion, unlike the idea in Advaita.

Dvaita Vedanta, the third school of Madhava, is ‘unqualified dualism.’ Both Brahman and the world are equally and irreducibly different. In Vishishtadvaita Vedanta, selves and material objects are distinctions within Brahman; in contrast, Dvaita Advaita claims the distinction of individual selves and material objects as different from Brahman.

For Shankara,

1. Maya manifests Brahman as the world
2. It is responsible for the illusory nature of the world
3. It is the cause of ignorance in the jiva about his true nature.

Ramanuja treats the world as real but agrees with the first and last positions. Madhava categorically rejects Maya in Dvaita Vedanta. Nirguna Brahman is an absurd idea for both Ramanuja and Madhava. Only the Saguna Brahman, a perfect personality with positive attributes, is the final reality with the power to create, sustain, and destroy the world. Jnana or knowledge is a means to achieve liberation and reach the Brahman state for Shankara; both Ramanuja and Madhava however place bhakti or devotion with total surrender to the divine as the sole means of liberation and uniting with Brahman.

In Advaita, there is loss of individuality in the final state of Moksha. Both Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita disagree by saying that individual consciousness as an independent jiva remains while enjoying the eternal bliss of Brahman. Madhava, in the entire Indian tradition, teaches that God condemns some selves to eternal damnation; and some see similarities with Christian ideas in the propagation of his doctrines.

Vedanta thus has three main schools, but it is generally Advaita Vedanta that is most popular. The philosophy of Shankara has stood the test of time and many Indian savants and saints like Sri Ramana Maharishi, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Sri Chandrasekhar Saraswati, and Swami Vivekananda generally conform to Advaitic ideas. The three schools are descriptions of the routes of enlightenment and perspectives on the nature of the individual (jiva) with respect to Brahman. There are no differences amongst these three ideas neither on the goal of human life nor in the final state of enlightenment.  All flourished with strong individual proponents without any violent frictions.

The gurus stressed that individuals have different temperaments, and hence, the need and evolution of different methods. The goal of Self-realization stays the same. David Frawley says that the simplest definition of Sanatana Dharma is the science and art of Self-Realization. Dvaita philosophies with a personal god as a representation of Brahman and efforts to unite with that god have their echoes in the Abrahamic religions. Hence, generally, Indic traditional systems never had problems with accepting the Christian and Muslim thought. It just added to the diversity.

UNDERSTANDING INDIAN PHILOSOPHIES

Advaita and Buddhism- The Creation of a Clash by The Best European Minds

Koenraad Elst shows that Buddha was every inch a Hindu and his so-called clash with Hinduism is later intellectuals’ fevered imagination.  SN Balagangadhara (The Heathen in His Blindness) shows that the supposed clash between Hinduism and Buddhism was a European colonial project simply failing to understand the nature of Indian traditions. Unjustly transposing European ideas to the Indian soil, Buddha became a Martin Luther and Buddhism a Protestant-like attack on Hinduism. Writers after writers successfully made a ‘religion’ of Buddhism rebelling against the tyrannies of ‘Hinduism.’ There were deep flaws in their conceptualisation. As an example, Buddha tried to define the ideal ‘Brahmin’ in his discourses. While rejecting something, one does not try to define the ideal of the rejected. Buddhism had clearer texts and in a rapid time of seventy years in the 19^th century, crystallised into a proper religion in Western libraries and institutes. A West, that alone knew what Buddhism was, started judging Buddhism that existed ‘out there.’ Shankara driving out Buddhism with his debates is ignorance on the part of believers of both.

Ignorance for Advaitins is thinking that our senses, intellect, and the phenomenal world is the ultimate reality; for Buddha, ignorance is absent knowledge about the impermanence of everything.  Both believe that Karma is a state of bondage due to ignorance, generated by one’s own thoughts, words, and deeds leading to repeated births. Moksha or Nirvana is freedom from ignorance and bondage which one must strive to attain here and now. Most importantly, both agree that Knowledge and Truth are of two kinds – the higher and the lower. The lower is the product of our senses and the intellect applicable to the phenomenal world; and the higher is transcendental; non-conceptual, non-relative, and intuitive. The higher knowledge is soteriological – capable of intense transformation.

With so many common ideas, it is an ignorant notion that Advaita and Buddhism were in opposition.  Buddhism spread to other countries due to many factors – royal patronage and the missionary zeal of its monks to name a few.  It just receded in the country of origin as people might have continued with their regular traditions. The destruction of Buddhist libraries by invading Muslims helped its demise to some extent too. After the demise of Buddha, Buddhism was divided into many schools and teachings. Regarding some nuanced differences, Advaita claims Brahman to be the unchanging reality. Buddhism however believes there are no eternal entities. The final state of enlightenment is merging in the Brahman for Advaita, whereas Buddhism speaks of Sunyata – silence and nothingness. Hardly a reason for violent or unpleasant encounters with the background of Indian traditions.  Finally, it was another tradition that grew in our country with the characteristic of indifference to differences.

Atheism, Time, and Historicity in Indian Philosophies

In Indian traditions, one’s enlightenment is the result of one’s own effort. The discovery that all there is to life is one life or body does not rob an Indian of anything, as Dr. Balagangadhara says. In Indian traditions, ‘atheism’ can also be a way of reaching enlightenment. There is no shock at the claim that ‘God is dead.’ Materialism and atheism were known in Indian traditions since ancient times as Charvakism or Lokayata. Kautilya’s Arthashastra makes a clear mention of this. Western atheism makes no sense to many Indian traditions. Jains, Buddhists, and even some orthodox traditions either reject God or do not demand a belief in God for enlightenment. Most of the Indian traditions are not even ‘theistic’ the way Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are. Indian asuras are not like the devil or his minions in the Bible. Not only do they seek ‘enlightenment’, but some of them are also the biggest bhaktas of our devatas, like a Ravana or a Bali. Indian ‘atheisms,’ ‘asuras,’ or the ‘immorality’ of the devas do not rob Indians of their traditions the way atheism robs a believer in the West. Consequently, without rejecting any piece of knowledge ever learnt, Indians can access the traditions and experiences in a profound way without a belief in God.

Similarly, Indic traditions place time and history as of secondary importance in the realm of the phenomenal world. The higher Truth and reality are beyond time and history and hence, this knowledge becomes timeless and eternal. It is thus futile to try and gain liberating knowledge through history which belongs to the phenomenal world. Thus Mahabharata, Ramayana, Vedas, Upanishads, and all our scriptures are messages permeating across time and generations. The truth about the existence of Rama or Krishna is irrelevant; a major point of divergence from other history-centric religions. Mahabharata and Ramayana may be just imaginations of a talented poet (or many poets as the Indologists would like to believe), but they are real for Indians which is incomprehensible to western culture. The problems arise when the West, rooted in a linear progression of history – from darkness to light, from primitiveness to advancement tries to understand Indian scriptures. History was important in documenting our kings, but it never played a role in dealing with the past; either for intellectuals or the public.  From the Indic perspective, for both a theist believing history to be real, and an atheist believing only history to be God; reality will remain elusive.

The Clash Between ‘Science’ and ‘Religion’

The two exclusive features of Hindu traditions and thought are their acceptance of a higher knowledge and a lower knowledge; and that there are no falsehoods. The only purpose of life is the higher knowledge of Reality. The lower knowledge, that of the phenomenal world, in turn, is composed of the body, mind, intellect, space, time, matter, energy, cause, and effect – everything that science deals with. The clear-cut acceptance of the ‘higher’ (para vidya) and ‘lower’ (apara vidya) knowledge never allowed antagonism to science or arts; the latter hence progressed without any fear of persecution. In Indian culture, in one extended spectrum of arts, sciences, spiritual thought, tradition, and philosophy, nothing denied any other; and each was an expression of the others.

In medieval Europe, science was in constant clash with religion; and many times, the scientists compromised to avoid a clash. The clash subtly continues in the western world with an uncomfortable compromise; nowhere more prominent than in evolutionary science. Even today, despite being an educational heavyweight, the US has trouble with the teaching of evolution. Disturbing voices still want alternatives to Darwinism taught in schools – Intelligent design or its older form, God. As late as 1996, the Pope issued a statement in support of evolution, and scientists celebrated this as finally religion seeing reason.

On the other hand, in the last decade of the 19^th century when Darwinism was peaking in controversy, Swami Vivekananda simply wondered what the fuss was all about. Evolution is in fact a necessity of matter, he said. There is hardly a western scientist-writer who has spoken about Sri Aurobindo’s deep thoughts on evolution. Indian traditions, temples, and the Brahmanical ‘priests’ never stood in the way of science, astronomy, or even depiction of the most elaborate expressions of sexuality.

Many scientists and physicists in the Western world turn to atheism to do their science. Of course, there were great priest-scientists like Gregor Mendel, but the overall picture is that of antagonism. There were never such issues in India in the so-called ‘secular fields’ of science, technology, medicine, engineering, and others. The divine Goddess could inspire the deepest poetry of Kalidas or the most profound mathematics of Ramanujam. There is also no dichotomy when the chairperson of ISRO breaks a coconut at Tirupati before the launch of high-technology rockets.

INDIAN DARSHANAS: DIVERSE, RICH, AND YET IGNORED

Karl Potter (Presuppositions of India’s philosophies) says: ‘To understand the philosophy of a culture we must come to some understanding of its ultimate values.’ Greek and European philosophers affirm the view that morality, the highest value, lies in the exercise of reason and the subjugation of passions. In contrast, the ultimate value in Indian Darshanas is not morality but freedom and control. It is not rational self-control in the community’s interest, but complete control over one’s environment. Freedom consists of complete liberation from the karmic chains of cause and effect with the achievement of complete peace; and in this life. This freedom is possible for every human being and there is a route for every human, not necessarily the same route. The supreme practical value is renunciation as Krishna tells Arjuna; giving up the fruits of the acts that one is capable of performing successfully.

As Karl Potter notes, the broad classification of non-orthodox and the six orthodox schools is a simplistic division of the huge and rich traditions of India. There were many great philosophers and many individual schools, equally important, with many debates, expositions, commentaries, and criticisms of mainstream schools. Across different philosophies, there were common and differing ideas. Indian philosophical systems have sought answers to most of the existential questions much before western philosophy took its roots in the age of Enlightenment during the 16^th to 18^th centuries. Even by the time of the Greek philosophers, the basic framework of philosophical thought of India was in place and has remained without many modifications. The narrative of a linear progression of religion followed by its ‘reformation’ and then a rejection of religion itself by science and enlightenment values profoundly fails to make sense in the Indian context. Yet, the phenomenon of ‘colonial consciousness’ has allowed Indians to continue believing that developments particular to European culture could faithfully transpose to Indian soil and explain a completely different culture.

The pre-Socratic philosophers, Socrates, and the later Greeks (like Plato and Aristotle) showed many similar thoughts like Indian philosophers giving credence to the thought that there might have been an interaction. Western philosophy considers itself an inheritor of Greek philosophy but it might have just distorted the views to conform to scientific developments.  Indian schools were never antithetical to science, logic, arts, literature, and metaphors when applied to the phenomenal world. The conflict between ‘priests or temples’ and intellectual thoughts is prominently and particularly missing in Indian culture.

Karma and reincarnation are an extremely integral part of Indian thought. The lower and higher truths are important in understanding Indian culture with its rich variety of customs, rituals, gods, and traditions. The greatest strength of Indian culture are the rituals. It was the great genius of our rishis and sages of the past who created a ritual-based society that fulfilled the need for a harmonious society. The entire corpus of Indian thought strives to tell human beings that freedom is possible for everyone; freedom comes by many routes; freedom does not involve stopping any ‘secular’ activity; and freedom never involves a pressure to convert any ‘other’.

Traditional cultures differ from the religious cultures of the west. As Balagangadhara Rao explains in detail (The Heathen In His Blindness), the former roots in ‘rituals’ that bring people together, and where the focus is on performative learning. A huge number of ideas grow in such a culture whose fundamental method of dealing with a differing opinion is indifference. Religious cultures rooted in ‘doctrines’ generally divide people. The focus is on theoretical learning in such cultures and the birth and growth of both atheism and science are on stronger footing here. In such a religious culture, the best it can do to deal with pluralism are ‘acceptances’ and ‘mutual respects.’  But, as Balagangadhara Rao insists, this is not to say one is superior or inferior but the West and the East have different ideas and they stand facing each other as equals. Each has the potential to learn from the other. It is not a one-way street.

Karl Potter says, ‘Very few practising philosophers in India nowadays know the details of the classical systems, and when they do, they know them by rote and not in such a way as to make them relevant to living problems. Yet this is strange, for the aims of classical Indian thought are such as to guarantee the relevance of philosophy to a human predicament and longing which does not change through the ages.’ Any human being with an unfinished purpose of total freedom points to the important fact of Indian traditions that philosophy can never ‘be dead.’

Unfortunately, our schools do not teach us about the rich Indian systems in a perverted application of secularism perhaps; an old European idea that everything related to philosophy in India is religious. Today, these systems have become an area of specialist knowledge for the few interested mostly by accident. Praising it is perceived as an unnecessary glorification of a dead past. As Potter says, it is time that Western professional philosophers – and Indians too, stopped ignoring the contributions of classical Indian thinkers to their pet problems.

APAURUSHEYATVA OF THE VEDAS: A NOTE

Vedic traditions, which have Veda as its central scripture are not based on the revelation of a single Prophet but on the Eternal Word seen by multiple sages – ‘rishis.’ The greatest hindrance we face in grasping the unauthored-ness of the Vedas (apaurusheyatva) is the inability of the mind to form such a conception.  Chittaranjan Naik, in a meticulous essay (Apaurusheyatva of the Vedas), discusses the misconception that the Vedas are ‘unauthored’ because there is a failure to know the author. However, tradition says that the Vedas are known to have no human author. The former indicates a failure to know the author, whereas the latter asserts knowledge about its unauthored-ness.

Authoredness, by its nature, is perceptible to the senses whereas unauthored-ness is not. Perception is the wrong means of knowledge (pramana) to know about unauthored-ness. There is a separate pramana in Advaita Vedanta called ‘anupalabdi’ for ascertaining the non-existence of an object. The correct articulation of the traditional position is that the unauthored-ness of Vedas is an object of knowledge and not an absence of knowledge of its author. This knowledge arises from the fact that no author is known despite a beginningless tradition in which the memory of an author would have been known had there been an author.

Naik explains the deep Vedantic idea of words in all forms (from the unmanifest to manifest). Words can exist even if there be no human present in the universe because the principle in which words reside and from which they arise as speech is the eternally existent Consciousness.  Just as in a stringed musical instrument where the musical note exists as the ‘unstruck’ note, the ground for the existence of words is the all-pervading and eternal Consciousness.

There are two kinds of proof offered in the Vedic tradition to show that the Vedas are apaurusheya. One is philosophical proof based on Mimamsa. The tradition also offers an alternate proof that does not depend on knowledge of Mimamsa. At first sight, the proof may not appear to be proof at all: it is simply the fact that there happens to be an unbroken tradition that holds the Vedas to be unauthored. But despite its seeming naivety, it is incontrovertible proof. Of course, whether scripture is paurusheya or apaurusheya would make no sense to a person who does not believe in scriptures.

There are three aspects that holds the Vedas to be unauthored.

1. Unbrokenness of the tradition
2. Etymology of the word ‘rishi’ (‘Rishi’ comes from ‘being a seer’: ‘rishi Darshanath’).  So, the very word ‘rishi’ has its origin in the event of ‘seeing,’ of being a drshta (seer) and not a creator of mantra.
3. Existence of multiple rishis for the same mantra. The multiplicity of rishis for the same mantras forms the core immune system that guards the tradition of unauthored-ness against counter-claims.

The idea of apaurusheyatva of the Vedas was the prime factor due to which language itself had two categories: the language of the Vedas (Vaidika) and the language of mortals (laukika). The two primary vidyas related to language – Vyakarana (Grammar) and Nirukta (Etymology) had as their fundamental ground the apaurusheyatva of the Vedas. The idea of apaurusheyatva of the Vedas has pervaded all six traditional Darshanas starting from their original texts themselves. This exists in all other branches of learning, and stretches across a vast geographical stretch of land.

The preservation of Sound (the Vedic hymns) in its phonetic and metrical purity is directly based on the special significance of the Vedas as Sruti – the Eternal Sound. The very idea of safeguarding it as a vehicle that carries the Supreme Knowledge grounds in the idea of Vedas as being uncreated, unauthored, perfect, and faultless. What other reason can make so many people in a society or a civilization undertake such onerous tasks as learning to pronounce the Vedas for 10 years or 15 years to protect its purity? And we are not speaking here of a small segment of society, but of a large section of the population stretching across the length and breadth of Bharatvarsha.

One may object by saying that a single dissonant element can rupture this coherency. The onus of proof of a contrary thesis to explain the perceptible and coherent facts has always been with the one who disagrees with the tradition. And no one, so far, has provided such contrary proof. Thus, the conclusion that the Vedas are eternal, beginningless, and Apaurusheya is from the facts that there exists an extensive tradition of the Vedas being ‘handed down’; the tradition forms a tightly coupled coherent system in which one cannot deny a single element without throwing the onus of proof on to the denier; and any alternate hypothesis needs rejection on the law of parsimony.

In the next section, we shall see how Indian Darshanas explain the process of perception and reality of the world around us. These significantly differ from the western ideas of the description of the world around us. The two systems also differ in dealing with the trickiest problem of consciousness. For Indian philosophy, it is a primary entity with varying relations to the material world. For western philosophies, it is generally a secondary entity arising from the matter.

Continued in Part 3