After presenting the activist tradition of the Mimamsa, which built up its philosophy on the earliest philosophical ideas about life contained in the Vedas, the heterodox traditions of the Carvakas, Jainism and Buddhism, which rose as reactions, though in different forms, against the excesses and extravagances of the Mimamsa philosophy and the religion, or the way of life it represented, were given; because they represent the counterparts of the Mimamsa in active opposition. Following the general practice the Nyaya, Vaisesika, Sankhya, and Yoga traditions, which, though independent, claimed allegiance to the Vedas, were next given. The Vedanta did not rise in conscious, active opposition to the Mimamsa. As the philosophy based upon the Upanisads, which were the last part of the Veda, the Vedanta originally considered itself to be a completion of the Mimamsa, and the Vedantic philosophy of life a completion and perfection of the Mimamsa philosophy of life. The life of the renouncer of the world (sannydsin, ascetic, monk) belonged to the last of the four stages, and was regarded as the culmination of the life of every man. But when the two philosophies of life developed their metaphysical systems, they found themselves to be at opposite poles to each other. The propagation of monastic life by Jainism and Buddhism, and the popularity and respect it obtained made the Vedanta incline more towards the ideal of renunciation than towards that of active life. The gap between the Mimamsa and the Vedanta widened. Several attempts were made to reconcile them. The Mimamsa in its latest form, accepted the Vedanta, saying that renunciation was only surrender of all our actions to God, but not giving up active life. The Bhagavadgltd also made an earnest attempt by asking Arjuna to adopt egoless action. Some of the Vedantins also made such attempts, as we shall see. But the truth remains that the metaphysics of the Mimamsa and that of the Vedanta could not be reconciled.
The basic text on which the Vedanta philosophers built up their systems are the Upanisads, the Brahmasutras (Aphorisms of the Brahman), and the Bhagavadglta. It is interesting to note that Badarayana, the author of the Brahmasutras was a regular householder, but not a monk. The Bhagavadglta1 is a part of the epic Mahabharata, the authorship of which is attributed to one called Vyasa and identified with Badarayana, because Badarayana also had the title Vyasa (the arranger of a compiled material). But scholars think that the two Vyasas were different persons, belonging to different ages.
The central doctrines of the Upanisads have already been discussed. The Upanisads contain four important statements (mahavakyas, the great sentences) : 'I am the Brahman' (aham bhahmasmi) ; 'This atman is the Brahman' (ayam atma brahma); 'That thou art' (tattvamasi); and 'All this is the Brahman' (sarvam khalu idam brahma). When these ideas are added to the main Upanisadic doctrines, the result ought to be a kind of monism. This philosophy should not be interpreted as pantheism, according to which the Supreme Spirit is equated to the world, but as panentheism, according to which the world is only part of the Supreme Spirit and the Supreme Spirit is far greater than the world. The Bhagavadgita explains that the world is only one part (amsa) of God.
Now, the same Upanisads teach how to worship God, how to meditate on Him, and so on. But man cannot meditate on something, unless that something is other than he. Again, the Brahman is spoken of as the origin of myself and the world, as the creator, and as the cause. Then how can the cause of myself be myself? There were a number of religious philosophies, based originally upon Vedic ideas, but assimilating material from local religions and having traditions of their own. The most important of them are Saivism and Vaisnavism. And they also had to fit the four Great Sentences to their own philosophies. All of them commented on the three basic texts, for expounding their own philosophies. Thus although Vedanta originally meant the Upanisads, it came to mean later all the systems of philosophy developed by interpreting the three basic texts. We have at least ten schools of the Vedanta, out of which only four - those of Sankara, Ramanuja, Nimbarka, and Madhva - will be discussed here. In the interpretations, the commentators had to use all their logical, grammatical, etymological, and philological skill in order to extract the meaning they wanted out of the texts. Here we shall deal only with the structures of their philosophies, but not their textual explanations.
The Vedantic schools name themselves after the relation they acknowledge between the atman and the Brahman. The Brahmasutras say that those who have realized the Brahman (Supreme Spirit) have realized it as their own atman (Spirit).2 Now, my spirit is within me, and I am essentially my spirit. Is the Supreme Spirit the same as my spirit, or is it some hing residing in my spirit? What then is their relation? Sankara held the view that there is no difference between the two spirits, they are not two. He is called a non-dualist (Advaitin).
The others held that they are two, but maintained different views about the relation between them. They are called dualists (dvaitins), dualist-cum-non-dualists (dvaitadvaitins) and so on. If the world is one with the Brahman, in what sense is it one with the Brahman? How has the Brahman created the world? The Brahman, it is said by the Upanisads, created the world through the inexplicable energy, called Maya. Then what is the nature of this Maya and how is it related to the Brahman and the world? In answering these questions also the Vedantins differed from one another.
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THE VEDANTA OF SANKARA
Sankara is called a non-dualist (Advaitin), because he did not accept the ultimate difference between the atman and the Brahman. Dvaita means dualism, and Advaita means non-dualism. Sankara does not mean that I, the finite being as such, is identical with the Brahman, but that the atman in man is the same as the Brahman. Already even before the time of Sankara, Buddhism developed two ideas: that the ultimate reality is pure consciousness, and that the nature of the world is the four-cornered negation, which is the structure of Maya. Sankara's grand teacher, Gaudapada (about the sixth century AD), took over both the doctrines and wove them up into a philosophy of the Mandukya Upanisad. Sankara developed it further in his own way. He belonged to the eighth century AD, lived only for thirty years but, as a philosophical genius, wrote commentaries on the Upanisads the Srakmasutras, and the Bhagavadgltd, and composed a large number of other works and hymns.
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THE VEDANTA OF RAMANUJA
Ramanuja is a theist. While Sankara's philosophy is called non-dualism (advaita), Ramanuja's is called the non-dualism of the qualified Brahman, or simply qualified, or modified non-dualism (visistadvaita). Sankara maintained the doctrine of the non-dualism of the indeterminate Brahman (nirguna or nirvisesa Brahman); but Ramanuja upheld the doctrine of the non-dualism of the qualified or determinate Brahman (saguna or savisesa Brahman). The Brahman is not devoid of determinations or characteristics. It is qualified by the atmans and
the material world, which together constitute the body (sarira) of the Brahman. The non-duality meant by the Upanisads is that of the one-ness of God, the atmans, and the world, like the one-ness of man who is a unity of body and atman. Ramanuja belonged to the eleventh century AD, and was a follower of the Vaisnava religion and its Pancaratra Agamas. And he interpreted the three basic texts according to those Agamas.
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THE VEDANTA OF MADHVA
(Note: The section on the Vedanta of Madhva was provided by Jay Nelamangala. For more information on Madhva's life and philosophy, you can contact Jay at: jay@r-c-i.com)
AchArya Madhva’s philosophy is his enquiry into Brahman. Brahma-mImAmsA is popularly called ‘dvaita’. Madhva was born in 1238 AD near Udupi. He is called Madhva because he expounds the philosophy that gives Ananda, pure happiness. For the same reason, he is also called Ananda-tIrtha. For the reason he knows Brahman, PurNa, he is called pUrNa-prajnya and Sarvajnya. He says in his works that he is Mukhya-vAyu, the Vedic deity of vital breath and he has made thorough study of all subjects for and against Brahma-mImAmsA.
As he says, the circumstances that led him to expound Brahma-mImAmsA are the following:
The highest good of creatures is happiness untainted by misery. It is realized by the grace of Brahman, the complete Reality that underlies all. The way to the knowledge of Brahman is the knowledge of Brahman culminating in unconditioned devotion to it. Veda is the only source of the knowledge of Brahman, because the sources of knowledge are limited to the finite world. Veda is therefore authorless. Hence it is free from the defects of authors. Its validity is therefore self-established. Without it Brahman can never be understood. Veda is a vast literature dealing with problems that transcend normal experience. Its solutions are complex and comprehensive. To fix the meaning of a Vedic word needed an expert mind. To achieve this end BAdarAyaNa composed Brahma-sootras.
To understand the brahma-sootras also needed expertness. Several attempts were made to understand them. But they were vitiated by the one or other kind of pre-possession. The teaching of sootras remained unknown. This circumstance led AchArya Madhva to interpret brahma-sootra consistently with the intention of the author of sootras.
Madhva’s works
Madhva wrote 38 works in all. Of them, Brahma-sootra-bhAshya, anu-vyAkhyAna, nyAya-vivaraNa, and aNu-bhAshya expounded the thought of the brahma-sootras. The position expounded by these four works governs the rest of his works. In illustration of this fact, he wrote ten Upanishad-bhAshyas, ten prakaraNas, rg-bhAshya, geetA-bhAshya, geetA-tAtparya-nirNaya, mahAbhArata-tAtparya-nirNaya and bhAgavata-tAtparya. The rest of his works deal with the practical side of his teaching.
In the light of this teaching his philosophy, epistemology and ontology may be briefly indicated.
Madhva’s theory of knowledge ( epistemology)
Theory of knowledge is the only passage to the theory of being. To understand theory of knowledge, Madhva insists on fittedness, adhikAra consisting in being completely free from all predispositions and in being completely devoted to the understanding of Truth. To understand truth presupposes the formulation of the source of understanding. To fix this source, Madhva examines the whole field of knowledge. Subject-object relation essentially characterizes knowledge. Subject-less knowledge and knowledge-less object are meaningless.
Validity (prAmANya) of Knowledge: Knowledge is valid by its own merit. It cannot be made valid. Knowledge which is neither valid nor invalid is inconceivable. There is nothing higher than knowledge and nothing independent of it. For, if there were any, then it must be understood in terms of knowledge. Valid knowledge is that knowledge by which the object is grasped as it is. This means that the object is as its knowledge is.
Invalidity of knowledge is caused by defective environment of knowledge. It is illusion. Taking for example the shell-silver illusion, the defective eye is its cause. It grasps a shell as something shining. At this stage the impression of silver works on the mind. There results the illusion ‘This is silver.’ Of shell and silver, shell is real and silver is unreal. In illusion, the real shell is mistaken for the unreal silver. To mistake therefore the real for the unreal, or the unreal for the real constitutes illusion. This theory of illusion is called abhinava-anyathAkhyAti. The lesson from this analysis is that things are either real or unreal. There is no midway between the two, as something that is both real and unreal or that is neither real nor unreal and so on.
A genuine circumstance of knowledge is itself enough to cause valid knowledge. Similarly a genuine circumstance that apprehends knowledge is enough to apprehend it as valid. Validity of knowledge both in its origin and in its recognition is thus unconditioned. It is “Svatah.”
The case with invalidity of knowledge is different. To produce invalid knowledge, defect in the circumstance is necessary. To apprehend it, there is need for external agencies such as sublation, and unsuccessful activity. Hence invalidity is paratah. Invalid knowledge negates itself and valid knowledge establishes itself.
The source of knowledge is its proximate cause. Its validity is explained by the validity of knowledge. AchArya Madhva calls knowledge kEvala-pramANa and its proximate cause as anu-pramANa. There are three cases of the proximate cause of knowledge sense-organ, inference (or proof) and verbal testimony. The different sources of knowledge enumerated by different thinkers are brought under the one or the other of these three.
Every case of knowledge is determinate, savikalpaka, because its object is qualified. To make distinctions in knowledge as substance, attribute is unwarranted. Each is implied in the other. An object is an identity. Identity is such that it enables usages of distinction as substance and so on. Thus, identity, abheda is itself savishEsha. This means that the so called indeterminate Nirvikalpaka knowledge, is unreal. The idea of indeterminate, property-less, or NirvishEsha is therefore unwarranted.
For one who is after knowing the One principle of all, Veda becomes indispensable. The principle that underlies all cannot be known by other means. In presenting this principle, Veda presents both the subjective and the objective elements of the whole universe as coming this One principle. The recognition of this truth gives the ruling that knowledge of the world is valid in so far as it makes this one principle indispensable. From this it follows that Veda governs not only the different sources of knowledge but also the whole world of thought. The final implication of this is that Veda is the One source of knowledge and other sources are valid only in so far as they operate in harmony with Veda. AchArya Madhva says
“PramANam vEda evaikaha. TatpramANyam cha sAdhitam” (There is one source of knowledge. It is Veda. Its validity is established).
To hold that Veda is valid has in view the determination of the meaning of Veda in the light of the reason presented by Brahma-sootra. The process of this determination is called jignyAsA in Veda. It is a case of enquiry in a specific sense. It is a never ceasing activity of mind promoting an infinite growth at every stage. Three aspects may be distinguished in this continuous process, they are ShravaNa, understanding the meaning of Veda, Manana, removing all discrepancies by means of reflection and nidhidhyAsana, dedication of life to this enquiry. With this dedication there appears devotion to what is thus known with equal sacrifice. This devotion is called Bhakti. It gives a tone to jignyAsA, because its intensity follows that of jignyAsA. This gives rise to shravaNa, of a more comprehensive disposition. Thus the whole process of jignyAsA is ever developing. When once it is commenced, man is absorbed in it and there is no going back. This is Brahma-mImAmsA. This is the teaching of AchArya Madhva.
AchArya Madhva’s teaching thus traces the manifold universe to a single principle to its full expression. For him this very thought is Ananda.
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THE VEDANTA OF NIMBARKA
Nimbarka is assigned to the thirteenth century and was a follower of the Vaisnava tradition. He also preached the way of devotion. His philosophy is important for its new conception of the relation between the Brahman, on the one side, and the atman and the material world, on the other. Sankara and Madhva held opposite positions: Sankara emphasized non-difference (abheda, identity), and Madhva absolute difference (bheda). Nimbarka said that both identity and difference were true. Ramanuja also attempted to reconcile identity and difference, not by unifying identity and difference into a single relationship, but after rejecting both, and accepting a new concrete form, that of body-atman. Nimbarka does not accept the body-atman relationship, because the afflictions of the body affect the atman; and similarly the evils of the world and the atmans will affect the Brahman. So Nimbarka says that the relation is the complex relation of identity-difference (or identity in difference, bhedabheda).
Nimbarka' s main argument is simple. The Brahman is the cause of the world, not merely the efficient cause, but also the material cause. Now, the relation between cause and effect is both identity and difference. The clay, which is the material cause of the pot, is identical with the pot. But if it is merely identical with the pot, then there will be no difference between the lump of clay and pot. Hence there is difference also. Similarly, we can show many similarities and differences between the Brahman and the atmans and between the Brahman and the material world.
In answer to the question, whether the identity and difference between the Brahman and the world are both of nature and being, Nimbarka answered that they are only of nature, but not of being. By nature both the Brahman and the atman are identical and also different. They are identical because the atman is a part (amsa) of the Brahman and is conscious like it. But they are different also because the part and whole are not equal to each other. But with regard to being, the two are only different, not identical. The Brahman is supreme and omnipotent, and is the creator of the world, wheras the atman is only a part, finite, and cannot be the creator. So existentially, ontologically or in being, they are only different. Similarly, the material world also has both identity and difference to the Brahman only by nature but not in being. The two words vabhdvika and svdrupya cannot be exactly translated as 'by being' and 'by form',8 but as 'by nature' and 'in
being.'
Source: Philosophical Traditions of India, P. T. Raju |
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