Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s4: 4. Theology and Mysticism

A History of Sanskrit Literature c33.s4

Language
English

4. Theology and Mysticism

c33.s4.1

Often closely allied with Vedānta ideas, but, like the developments of that system, powerfully affected by the Sāṁkhya and with strong affinities to the conceptions of which the Yoga philosophy is an ordered exposition, there exists a large mass of theological and mystical speculation. A comparatively early specimen not much distinguished from the Vedānta is the *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha*,¹ which is reputed an appendix to the *Rāmāyaṇa* and deals with all manner of topics, including final release; it is moderately old, as it was summarized in the ninth century by the Gauḍa Abhinanda in the *Yogavāsiṣṭhasāra*. An imitation of the *Mahābhārata*, the *Jaimini Bhārata*,² of which Book xiv, the *Āçvamedhikaparvan*, alone has come down to us, is intended rather as a text-book of a Vaiṣṇava sect.

c33.s4.2

¹ Ed. Bombay, 1911; trans. Calcutta, 1909.

c33.s4.3

² Cf. Weber, *Monatsber. BA.* 1869, pp. 10 ff., 369 ff.

c33.s4.4

The sectarian literature of the Pañcarātra school of Vaiṣṇavas, long best known from the late *Nārada Pāñcarātra*³ (perhaps 16th cent.), is better represented by a large number of Saṁhitās which may be of considerable age; the *Ahirbudhnya*,⁴ which has been claimed to belong to the period of the later epic, gives no very favourable impression of the literature which mixes Vedānta and Sāṁkhya ideas in a curious way. The *Īçvara Saṁhitā* is quoted in the tenth century, but others are at least worked over if they are really ancient in substance, the *Bṛhad Brahma Saṁhitā* alluding to doctrines of Rāmānuja. The *Bhaktiçāstra*, ascribed to Nārada, is a late production, and so are the *Bhaktisūtras*,⁵ alleged to be by Çāṇḍilya, who appears as an authority on the Pañcarātra both in Çaṅkara and Rāmānuja. Quite modern is the Hindi *Bhaktamāla*⁶ which is interesting, apart from its technical explanations of the doctrine of faith, for its legends. The effect of Christian influence in it may be readily admitted in view of the prolonged existence in India of a Christian church.⁷

c33.s4.5

³ Ed. *BI.* 1865.

c33.s4.6

⁴ Ed. Madras, 1916. See F. O. Schrader, *Intr. to the Pāñcarātra* (1916); Govindācārya, *JRAS.* 1911, pp. 951 ff.

c33.s4.7

⁵ Ed. *BI.* 1861; trans. *BI.* 1878.

c33.s4.8

⁶ Grierson, *JRAS.* 1910, pp. 87 ff., 269 ff.

c33.s4.9

⁷ Grierson, *JRAS.* 1907, pp. 314 ff.; cf. *ERE.* ii. 548 ff.

c33.s4.10

The doctrine of Rāmānuja gave rise to divergent schools of thought, whose differences turned largely on minor points such as the position of Lakṣmī, wife of Viṣṇu, or the necessity or otherwise of activity by the soul which sought salvation. The literature induced by this split, partly local between north and south, is in part only in Sanskrit and is not of the highest importance for religion or philosophy.

c33.s4.11

On the other hand, in Kashmir, where Çaivism was predominant, there developed two schools with close affinity in many regards to the Vedānta. The first and less important is represented in the ninth century by the *Çiva Sūtra*¹ of Vasugupta, on which in the eleventh century Kṣemarāja, pupil of Abhinavagupta, commented, and by Kallaṭa's *Spandakārikā*. God here appears as creator without material cause or the influence of past action, Karman; he creates by the mere effort of his will. The Pratyabhijñāçāstra owes its fame to Somānanda's *Çivadṛṣṭi* (*c.* 900), the *Īçvarapratyabhijñāsūtra* of Utpaladeva, his pupil, son of Udayākara, and to Abhinavagupta's comment² on that text (*c.* 1000), and his *Paramārthasāra*,³ in 100 Āryā verses, in which he adapts to his peculiar view some popular Kārikās ascribed to Ādi Çeṣa or Patañjali. The special point of this system, which is also briefly summarized in the *Virūpākṣapañcāçikā*⁴ of Virūpākṣanātha, is the insistence on the necessity, in order to enjoy the delight of identity with God, for man to realize that he has within him the perfections of God, just as a maiden can only enjoy her lover if she realizes that he possesses the perfections of which she has been told.

c33.s4.12

¹ Trans. IT. iii and iv.

c33.s4.13

² Ed. *Pandit*, ii and iii.

c33.s4.14

³ Ed. Barnett, JRAS. 1910, pp. 707 ff.; 1912, p. 474; Sovani, pp. 257 ff.; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 446.

c33.s4.15

⁴ Ed. TSS. 9, 1910. A *Tattvaprakāça* by Bhoja is ed. TSS. 68, 1920.

c33.s4.16

Other Çaiva systems existed; Çrīkaṇṭha Çivācārya, who wrote a *Çaivabhāṣya*⁵ on the *Brahma Sūtra*, belonged to the Vīraçaiva or Liṅgāyat school of southern India in which Bhakti towards Çiva is specially inculcated, and Appayya Dīkṣita, the polymath of the sixteenth century, was of the same persuasion.

c33.s4.17

⁵ Ed. *Pandit*, vi and vii. On all the sects, see Bhandarkar, *Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, &c.*; Carpenter, *Theism in Mediaeval India*.

c33.s4.18

Of no philosophical importance, but of great interest to the history of superstition, are the Tantras, the essence of which is to clothe in the garments of mysticism, the union of the soul with God or the absolute, the tenets of eroticism. That the Tantra literature is reasonably old is proved in all probability by the existence of manuscripts from 609 onwards, but the exact dates of the extant texts are hard in each case to determine; they include the *Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantra*, the *Kulārṇava*, *Jñānārṇava*, *Tantrarāja*, *Mahānirvāṇa*, and so on. The Liṅgāyats of the south have a *Vīramaheçvara Tantra*. High claims have been raised for the cultural interest of these works, but there remains the essential fact that, so far as they contain philosophy, that is better given in other texts, and, so far as they are original, in addition to inculcating all sorts of magic practices they teach the doctrine of the eating of meat, the drinking of spirits, and promiscuous sexual intercourse, the deity being supposed to be present in the shape of the female devotee, as a means to the end of union with the highest principle of the system. In form also they lack attraction; the original texts seem to have been composed in rather barbarous Sanskrit, while the later are compilations badly arranged and collected. It is, however, true that the Tantric cult has had, and still possesses, an enormous power over the minds of Indians even in high ranks of society and of superior culture.¹

c33.s4.19

¹ See ‘A. Avalon’, *Principles of Tantra* (1914–16); *Mahānirvāṇa Tantra* (1913), and many other texts. Cf. Das Gupta, *AMSJV.* III. i. 253 ff.

Cites (25)