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A History of Indian Philosophy v2: Volume 2

A History of Indian Philosophy v2

Language
English

Contents

Volume 2

Front matter

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OF

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INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

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OF INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

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BY SURENDRANATH DASGUPTA, M.A., Ph.D. PRINCIPAL, SANSKRIT COLLEGE, CALCUTTA

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VOLUME II

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CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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PUBLISHED BY THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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London Office: Bentley House, N.W. 1 American Branch: New York

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Agents for Canada, India, and Pakistan: Macmillan

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*First printed* 1932 *Reprinted* 1952

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*First printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge* *Reprinted by offset-litho by Percy Lund Humphries & Co. Ltd*

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NINE years have passed away since the first volume of this work was published, and the present volume has been in the press for more than two years. During the last seven years bad health has been responsible for many interruptions. In the first volume manuscripts were sparingly used, but in the present work numerous unpublished and almost unknown manuscripts have been referred to. These could not be collected easily, and it took time to read them; many of them were old and moth-eaten and it was not often easy to decipher the handwriting. It has not always been possible, however, to give an elaborate account of the content of all these manuscripts, for in many cases they contained no new matter and had therefore only been mentioned by name, a fact which could be ascertained only after long and patient study, since records of them were previously unknown. A considerable delay was also caused in the writing of this volume by the fact that large portions of what will appear in the third volume had to be compiled before the manuscripts had left the author’s hands. In any event, the author offers his sincere apologies for the delay.

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The manuscript of the third volume has made good progress and, barring illness and other accidents, will soon be sent to press. This volume will contain a fairly elaborate account of the principal dualistic and pluralistic systems, such as the philosophy of the *Pañca-rātra*, Bhāskara, Yāmuna, Rāmānuja and his followers, Madhva and his followers, the *Bhāgavata-purāṇa* and the Gauḍīya school of Vaiṣṇavism. The fourth and the fifth volumes will deal with the philosophy of Vallabha and some other lesser known schools of Vaiṣṇavism, the philosophy of the Purāṇas, Tantras, the different schools of Śaivas, Śāktas, Indian Aesthetics, the philosophy of right and law and the religious systems that have found their expression in some of the leading vernaculars of India.

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A new impression of the first volume is now in the press. The present volume contains four chapters on Śaṅkara Vedānta, the Medical Speculations of the Ancient Hindus, and the Philosophy of the *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha* and the *Bhagavad-gītā*. A good deal of the Śaṅkara Vedānta, especially in regard to its controversy with Bhāskara, Rāmānuja, Madhva and their followers, still remains to be treated in the third volume.

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A word of explanation may be needed with regard to the inclusion in a work on Indian philosophy of the speculations of the Indian medical schools. Biology has recently played a great part in liberating philosophy from its old-world ideas. In ancient India, Biology had not grown into a separate science; whatever biological ideas were current in India were mixed up with medical, osteological and physiological speculations, the only branches of study in ancient India which may be regarded as constituting an experimental science. It was therefore thought that a comprehensive work on the history of Indian philosophy would be sadly defective without a chapter on these speculations, which introduce also some distinctly new ethical and eschatological concepts and a view of life which is wholly original. The biological notions of growth, development and heredity of these schools are no less interesting, and their relations to the logical categories of Nyāya are very instructive.

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No attempt has been made to draw any comparisons or contrasts with Western philosophy, since in a work of this type it would most likely have been misleading and would have obscured the real philosophical issues. The study here presented is strictly faithful to the original Sanskrit texts within the limits of the present writer's capacities. Often the ground covered has been wholly new and the materials have been obtained by a direct and first-hand study of all available texts and manuscripts. Nevertheless some sources, containing, possibly, valuable materials, inevitably remain unconsulted, for many new manuscripts will be discovered in future, and our knowledge of Indian philosophy must advance but slowly. In spite of the greatest care, errors of interpretation, exposition and expression may have crept in and for these the author craves the indulgence of sympathetic readers.

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Since the publication of the first volume of the present work, many treatises on Indian philosophy have appeared in India and elsewhere. But it has not been possible to refer to many of these. The present attempt is mainly intended to give an exposition of Indian thought strictly on the basis of the original texts and commentaries, and not to eradicate false views by indulging in controversy; and, since the author takes upon himself the responsibility of all the interpretations of the texts that he has used, and since he has drawn his materials mostly from them, it has seldom been possible to refer to the efforts of his fellow-workers in the field. Occasionally, however, he has had to discuss and sometimes to borrow the views of other writers in the assessment of chronological facts, and he also expresses his indebtedness to such other writers who have worked upon some of the special problems of Indian thought. It has been suggested to him that it would have been better if the views of other writers had been fully criticized, but however that may be, such criticism has been considered as beyond the scope of this work, which, as at present planned, will cover some 3000 pages when completed.

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The chronological views regarding the antiquity of the *Gītā* may appear heretical, but it is hoped that they may be deemed excusable, for this is an age of toleration, and they are not more heretical than the views of many distinguished writers on Indian chronology. In the chapter on the *Gītā*, some repetition of the same views in different contexts was inevitable on account of the looseness of the structure of the *Gītā*, which is an ethico-religious treatise and not a system of philosophy. This, however, has been studiously avoided in the other chapters. Neither the *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha* nor the *Gītā* are systematic works on philosophy, and yet no treatment of Indian philosophy can legitimately ignore their claims. For in a country where philosophy and religion have been inseparably associated, the value of such writings as breathe the spirit of philosophy cannot be over-estimated, and no history of Indian philosophy worth the name can do without them.

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I have no words sufficient to express my gratitude to my esteemed friend, Dr F. W. Thomas, Boden Professor of Sanskrit, Oxford, who went through the proofs in two of their stages and thus co-operated with me in the trouble of correcting them. I fear that in spite of our joint efforts many errors have escaped our eyes, but had it not been for his kind help the imperfections of the book would have been greater. I must similarly thank my friend, Mr Douglas Ainslie, for help with the proofs. My thanks are also due to my pupils, Dr M. Eleade (Bucharest), Mr Janakiballabh Bhattacharyya, M.A., and my other friends, Messrs Satkari Mookerjee, M.A., Durgacharan Chatterjee, M.A., Srish Chandra Das Gupta, M.A., and my daughter, Miss Maitreyi Devi, for the assistance they rendered me in getting the manuscript ready for the press, inserting diacritical marks, comparing the references and the like, and also in arranging the index cards. But as none of them had the whole charge of any of these tasks, and as their help was only of an occasional nature, the responsibility for imperfections belongs to the author and not to them.

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*Calcutta, 1931*

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CHAPTER XI

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THE ŚAṄKARA SCHOOL OF VEDĀNTA (*continued*)

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| | | PAGE |
| 1 | The World-Appearance . . . . . . . | 1 |
| 2 | Thought and its Object in Buddhism and in Vedānta . . . | 13 |
| 3 | Śaṅkara's Defence of Vedānta; Philosophy of Bādarāyaṇa and Bhartṛprapañca . . . . . . . | 36 |
| 4 | Teachers and Pupils in Vedānta . . . . . . | 46 |
| 5 | Vedānta Doctrine of Soul and the Buddhist Doctrine of Soullessness | 58 |
| 6 | Vedāntic Cosmology . . . . . . . | 73 |
| 7 | Śaṅkara and his School . . . . . . . | 77 |
| 8 | Maṇḍana, Sureśvara and Viśvarūpa . . . . . | 82 |
| 9 | Maṇḍana (A.D. 800) . . . . . . . | 87 |
| 10 | Sureśvara (A.D. 800) . . . . . . . | 98 |
| 11 | Padmapāda (A.D. 820) . . . . . . . | 102 |
| 12 | Vācaspati Miśra (A.D. 840) . . . . . . | 106 |
| 13 | Sarvajñātma Muni (A.D. 900) . . . . . . | 111 |
| 14 | Ānandabodha Yati (eleventh or twelfth century A.D.) . . . | 116 |
| 15 | *Mahā-vidyā* and the Development of Logical Formalism . . | 118 |
| 16 | Vedānta Dialectic of Śrīharṣa (A.D. 1150) . . . . | 125 |
| 17 | Application of the Dialectic to the Different Categories and Concepts | 133 |
| 18 | Citsukha's Interpretations of the Concepts of Śaṅkara Vedānta (A.D. 1220) . . . . . . . . | 147 |
| 19 | The Dialectic of Nāgārjuna and the Vedānta Dialectic . . | 163 |
| 20 | Dialectical Criticisms of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla (A.D. 760) as forerunners of Vedānta Dialectics . . . . . | 171 |
| | (*a*) Criticisms of Sāṃkhya *Pariṇāma* Doctrine . . . | 171 |
| | (*b*) Criticism of Īśvara . . . . . . | 176 |
| | (*c*) Refutation of the Soul Theory . . . . | 178 |
| | (*d*) Refutation of the Mīmāṃsā Theory of the Self . . | 179 |
| | (*e*) Refutation of the Sāṃkhya View of the Self . . | 181 |
| | (*f*) Refutation of the Upaniṣad View of the Self . . | 181 |
| | (*g*) Refutation of the Theory of the Persistence of Existing Entities . | 182 |
| | (*h*) Refutation of Criticisms of the Non-permanency of Entities . | 185 |
| | (*i*) Refutation of the Nyāya Vaiśeṣika Categories . . | 187 |
| 21 | Dialectic of Śaṅkara and Ānandajñāna . . . . | 189 |
| 22 | Philosophy of the *Prakaṭārtha-vivaraṇa* (A.D. 1200) . . . | 196 |
| 23 | Vimuktātman (A.D. 1200) . . . . . . | 198 |
| 24 | Rāmādvaya (A.D. 1300) . . . . . . | 204 |
| 25 | Vidyāraṇya (A.D. 1350) . . . . . . | 214 |
| 26 | Nṛsiṃhāśrama Muni (A.D. 1500) . . . . . | 216 |
| 27 | Appaya Dīkṣita (A.D. 1550) . . . . . . | 218 |
| 28 | Prakāśānanda (A.D. 1550—1600) . . . . . | 220 |
| 29 | Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (A.D. 1500) . . . . | 225 |

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CHAPTER XII

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE *YOGA-VĀSIṢṬHA

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| | | PAGE |
| 1 | *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha* | 228 |
| 2 | The Ultimate Entity | 232 |
| 3 | Origination | 235 |
| 4 | *Karma*, *Manas* and the Categories | 237 |
| 5 | The World-Appearance | 240 |
| 6 | Nature of Agency *Kartṛtva*) and the Illusion of World Creation | 242 |
| 7 | The Stage of the Saint (*Jīvan-mukta*) | 245 |
| 8 | Energy of Free-will (*Pauruṣa*) | 252 |
| 9 | *Prāṇa* and its Control | 256 |
| 10 | Stages of Progress | 264 |
| 11 | Methods of Right Conduct | 267 |
| 12 | *Yoga-vāsiṣṭha*, Śaṅkara Vedānta and Buddhist Vijñānavāda | 268 |

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CHAPTER XIII

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SPECULATIONS IN THE MEDICAL SCHOOLS

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| 1 | Āyur-veda and the *Atharva-Veda* | 273 |
| 2 | Bones in the *Atharva-Veda* and Āyur-veda | 284 |
| 3 | Organs in the *Atharva-Veda* and Āyur-veda | 288 |
| 4 | Practice of Medicine in the *Atharva-Veda* | 293 |
| 5 | The Foetus and the Subtle Body | 302 |
| 6 | Foetal Development | 312 |
| 7 | Growth and Disease | 319 |
| 8 | *Vāyu*, *Pitta* and *Kapha* | 325 |
| 9 | Head and Heart | 340 |
| 10 | The Circulatory and the Nervous System | 344 |
| 11 | The Nervous System of the Tantras | 352 |
| 12 | The Theory of *Rasas* and their Chemistry | 357 |
| 13 | The Psychological Views and other Ontological Categories | 366 |
| 14 | Logical Speculations and Terms relating to Academic Dispute | 373 |
| 15 | Did Logic Originate in the Discussions of Āyur-veda Physicians? | 392 |
| 16 | Āyur-veda Ethics | 402 |
| 17 | Springs of Action in the *Caraka-saṃhitā* | 411 |
| 18 | Good Life in Caraka | 418 |
| 19 | Āyur-veda Literature | 423 |

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CHAPTER XIV

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THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE *BHAGAVAD-GĪTĀ

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| | | | | | | | | | | PAGE |
| 1 | The *Gītā* Literature | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 437 |
| 2 | *Gītā* and Yoga | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 443 |
| 3 | Sāṃkhya and Yoga in the *Gītā* | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 455 |
| 4 | Sāṃkhya Philosophy in the *Gītā* | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 461 |
| 5 | Avyakta and Brahman | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 470 |
| 6 | Conception of Sacrificial Duties in the *Gītā* | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 479 |
| 7 | Sense-control in the *Gītā* | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 488 |
| 8 | The Ethics of the *Gītā* and the Buddhist Ethics | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 493 |
| 9 | Analysis of Action | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 515 |
| 10 | Eschatology | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 517 |
| 11 | God and Man | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 523 |
| 12 | Viṣṇu, Vāsudeva and Kṛṣṇa | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 535 |
| 13 | Bhāgavata and the *Bhagavad-gītā* | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 545 |
| | INDEX | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | 553 |

Chapter XI. The Śaṅkara School of Vedānta (continued)

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THE treatment of the school of Śaṅkara Vedānta in the preceding chapter may be considered fairly sufficient for all ordinary purposes. But the reputation of this school of thought stands so high, and so many people are interested in it, that it was pointed out to me that it would be desirable to go into a little more detailed study of it. An additional justification for such a suggestion is to be found in the regrettable fact that, though numerous elementary and half-informed treatises have been published both in this country and in Europe, I do not know of any systematic study of the system in any of the modern languages of Europe or Asia which has been based on a first-hand study of the works of the great thinkers of this school who followed Śaṅkara and developed his system in a remarkably recondite manner. The comparatively small compass of this chapter in a History of Indian Philosophy cannot be expected to fulfil adequately such a demand; but still it may be expected that an attempt to bring out some of these materials by some amount of detailed study will be excusable, though it may seem slightly to disturb the general plan of this work.

The World-Appearance

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The Upaniṣads, called also the Vedānta, contain passages which indicate very different lines of thought, theistic, pantheistic, of self as the only ultimate reality, creationism, etc. The works of those commentators who wrote commentaries on the Upaniṣads before Śaṅkara and tried to interpret them on the supposition that there was one uniform, systematic, dogmatic philosophy in them are now practically all lost, and all that we can know of them is contained in the meagre references that are found in Śaṅkara's commentaries or the works of other, later, commentators. As an example I may refer to Bhartṛprapañca, who tried to give a realistic interpretation of the *Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad* by treating the world and souls as real emanations from God or Brahman¹.

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¹ Fragments of Bhartṛprapañca from the writings of Śaṅkara and his commentator Ānandajñāna and from Sureśvara's *Vārttika* have been collected by Prof. Hiriyanna, Mysore, in a short paper read at the Third Oriental Conference in Madras in 1924, published in Madras in 1925.

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Śaṅkara inherited from his predecessors the opinion that the Upaniṣads teach us one consistent systematic philosophy, but, being under the influence of Gauḍapāda, differed from them on the nature of this philosophy, which he propounded so elaborately in all his commentaries on the Upaniṣads and the *Brahma-sūtras*.

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The main thesis of Śaṅkara, as has already been pointed out in the preceding chapter, consists of the view that Brahman alone is the ultimate reality, while everything else is false. He was interested in proving that this philosophy was preached in the Upaniṣads; but in the Upaniṣads there are many passages which are clearly of a theistic and dualistic purport, and no amount of linguistic trickery could convincingly show that these could yield a meaning which would support Śaṅkara’s thesis. Śaṅkara therefore introduces the distinction of a common-sense view (*vyāvahārika*) and a philosophic view (*pāramārthika*), and explains the Upaniṣads on the supposition that, while there are some passages in them which describe things from a purely philosophic point of view, there are many others which speak of things only from a common-sense dualistic view of a real world, real souls and a real God as creator. Śaṅkara has applied this method of interpretation not only in his commentary on the Upaniṣads, but also in his commentary on the *Brahma-sūtra*. Judging by the *sūtras* alone, it does not seem to me that the *Brahma-sūtra* supports the philosophical doctrine of Śaṅkara, and there are some *sūtras* which Śaṅkara himself interpreted in a dualistic manner. He was never afraid of indulging in realistic interpretations; for he could easily get out of the difficulty by asserting that all the realistic conceptions found in the *sūtras* or in the Upaniṣad passages were merely an estimate of things from the common-sense point of view. Though on the basis of Śaṅkara’s own statements, as well as those of his later commentators and other adherents of his school, there is hardly any room for doubt regarding the meaning and force of Śaṅkara’s philosophy, yet at least one Indian scholar has sought to prove that Śaṅkara’s philosophy was realistic¹. That there was some amount of realism in Śaṅkara is proved by his own confession, when he criticizes the uncompromising Buddhistic idealists (*vijñāna-vādins*) or the so-called Buddhistic nihilists (*śūnya-vādins*).

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¹ *Advaita Philosophy* by K. Vidyāratna, published by the Calcutta University Press, 1924.

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I have already discussed in a general way in what sense according to the Vedānta, from the point of view of the Śaṅkara school of Vedānta as interpreted by his later adherents, the world is an illusion. But in the present section I propose to discuss Śaṅkara’s own statements, as well as the statements of some of his important followers, on the subject of the nature of world-illusion. This is one of the most important points of the Śaṅkara school of philosophy and needs a discussion in some detail.

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But before I take it up, I am naturally reminded of the views of Buddhist idealism and the so-called Buddhistic nihilism, and it seems desirable that Śaṅkara’s doctrine of illusion should be treated in connection with the doctrines of illusion in those systems of Buddhistic thought which preceded Śaṅkara. Taking the *Śūnya-vāda* theory of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti, we see that they also introduced the distinction between limited truth and absolute truth. Thus Nāgārjuna says in his *Mādhyamika-sūtras* that the Buddhas preach their philosophy on the basis of two kinds of truth, truth as veiled by ignorance and depending on common-sense presuppositions and judgments (*saṃvṛti-satya*) and truth as unqualified and ultimate (*paramārtha-satya*)¹. The word *saṃvṛti* literally means “closed.” Candrakīrti explains *saṃvṛti* as meaning “closing on all sides” and says that it is ignorance (*ajñāna*) which is denoted by the term *saṃvṛti* here, because it covers the truth of all things². In this sense the whole of the world of our experience of causes and effects, which we perceive and of which we speak, presents an appearance which is hidden by ignorance. This world is not contradicted in our world-experience; but, as each and every entity of this world is produced by other things or entities, and they again by others, and as we cannot specify the nature of each one of them without referring to others which produced them or from which they originated, and tracing those again to other causes and

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² *Ajñānaṃ hi samantāt sarva-padārtha-tattvāvacchādanāt saṃvṛtir ity ucyate.* *Ibid.* Candrakīrti however gives two other meanings of the word *saṃvṛti*, which do not seem to be so closely connected with the etymology. In the first of the two meanings *saṃvṛti* means interdependent origination or *pratītya-samutpāda*, and in the second it means the conventional world of common-sense, which can be expressed or indicated by speech and language and which we are supposed to know and refer to in all our experiences involving the knower and the known—*saṃvṛtiḥ saṃketo loka-vyavahāraḥ, sa ca abhidhānābhidheya-jñāna-jñeyādilakṣaṇaḥ*.

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*dve satye samupāśritya buddhānāṃ dharma-deśanā*
*loka-saṃvṛti-satyaṃ ca satyaṃ ca paramārthataḥ.*
*Mādhyamika-sūtra*, xxiv. 8, p. 492, B.B. edition.

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so on, it is not possible to assert anything as to the nature or characteristic (*svabhāva*) of anything as it is. Things are known to us only as being the result of the combination of many entities or as product complexes. Nothing is produced of itself, and so the products are never by themselves self-existent, but exist only through the coming together of different entities. That which has any nature of its own cannot owe its origination to other complexes, and so there is nothing in our world-experience which has a nature of its own. The apparent reality of the world has therefore the mysterious veil of ignorance over it, and it is this veil of ignorance which is referred to by the term *loka-saṁvṛta*. This is spoken of also as *tathya-saṁvṛti* (real ignorance), as distinguished from *mithyā-saṁvṛti* (false ignorance), properly used of the ordinary illusions and hallucinations of magic, mirage reflections, etc.¹ Those appearances which are due to sense-defects or other causes and are therefore contradicted in experience are called *mithyā-saṁvṛta*, because their falsehood is discovered in experience. The falsehood of the world-appearances, however, can be realized only when their real nature (*paramārtha-rūpa*) as a succession of essenceless products of causal complexes is properly understood. The world holds good and remains uncontradicted and has all the appearance of reality in all our practical experiences, and it is only when it is understood that these phenomena have no nature of their own that they are considered false. All teachings in philosophy take for granted the world-appearances, subjective and objective, and try to give a rational analysis and estimate of them; and it is only through an experience of these world-phenomena and a rational understanding of them that one realizes their truth as being a mere flow of causes and effects devoid of essence. The appearance of the world as reality is therefore true only in a limited manner during the period when the veil of ignorance is not removed from our eyes; and this is signified by designating the truth (*satya*) of the world as only *loka-saṁvṛta*. This world-appearance is however relatively true when compared with the ordinary illusions of perception (when, e.g., a piece of rope is perceived as a snake, or when one sees a mirage in a desert).

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¹ *Bodhi-caryāvatāra-pañjikā*, p. 353, Bibliotheca Indica Series, 1902.

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But a question arises—if the world-appearance has no essence of its own, how is it that it appears to have one, or how is it that the world-phenomena appear at all? To such a question Nāgārjuna's answer is that the appearance of the world is like the appearance of mirages or dreams, which have no reality of their own, but still present an objective appearance of reality¹. The world is not a mere nothing, like a lotus of the sky or the hare's horn, which are simply non-existent (*avidyamāna*). Thus there is not only the ultimate truth (*paramārtha*); there is also the relative truth of the phenomenal world (*loka-saṃvṛti-satya*); there are, further, the sense-illusions, hallucinations and the like which are contradicted in ordinary experience (*aloka-saṃvṛta* or *mithyā-saṃvṛta*), and also that which is merely non-existent, like the hare's horn. The error (*viparyāsa*) of world-appearance is considered as being of four kinds, viz. the consideration of the momentary as eternal, the consideration of the painful as being pleasurable, the consideration of the unholy as holy, and of that which has no soul as having a soul². And this error is due to ignorance (*avidyā*). Candrakīrti quotes a passage from the *Ārya-dṛḍhāśaya-paripṛcchā*, in which it is said that, just as a man may see in a dream that he is spending the night with the wife of the king, and, suddenly realizing that he is discovered, tries to fly for fear of his life (thus perceiving the presence of a woman, where there is none), so we are always falling into the error of asserting that we have perceived the manifold world-appearance where there is none³.

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¹ *Mādhyamika-sūtra*, XXIII. 8.

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² *Iha catvāro viparyāsā ucyante: tadyathā pratikṣaṇa-vināśini skandha-pañcake yo nityam iti grāhaḥ sa viparyāsaḥ ... duḥkhātmake skandha-pañcake yaḥ sukham iti viparīto grāhaḥ so 'paro viparyāsaḥ, ... śarīram aśuci-svabhāvaṃ tatra yo śucitvena grāhaḥ sa viparyāsaḥ, ... pañca-skandham nirātmakaṃ tasmin ya ātma-grāhaḥ anātmani ātmābhiniveśaḥ sa viparyāsaḥ.* Candrakīrti's commentary on *ibid.* XXIII. 13. Compare it with the *Yoga-sūtra*, II. 5, Ānandāśrama Series.

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³ Candrakīrti's commentary on the *Mādhyamika-sūtra*, XXIII. 13.

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Such analogies of error naturally suggest the supposition that there must be some reality which is mistaken as some other thing; but, as has already been explained, the Buddhists emphasized the fact that, in dreams, the illusory appearances were no doubt objectively known as objective presentations of which we had previously become aware—experiences through which we pass, though there is no reality on which these appearances rest or are imposed. It was here that Śaṅkara differed. Thus, in his introduction to the commentary on the *Brahma-sūtra* he says that the essence of all illusory perception is that one thing is mistaken for another, that the qualities, characteristics or attributes of one thing are taken for the qualities, characteristics or attributes of another. Illusion is defined as the false appearance in some object of something experienced before, resembling a memory image. It is explained by some as being the false affirmation of the characteristics of one thing in regard to another; others explain it as an error due to the non-apprehension of the difference between that which is wrongly apprehended and the misapprehended object which the former is wrongly supposed to be; others think that, when one thing is misapprehended as another, the illusion consists in the fancying of the former entity as being endowed with strange characteristics (*viparīta-dharmatva*); but in all these different ways of analysis illusion fundamentally is nothing but the false appearance of one thing with the characteristics of another. So also it may be that a conch-shell appears as silver or that one moon appears as two moons¹. Śaṅkara then suggests that, since the universal self (*pratyag-ātman*) is felt through our feeling of "I" and since it is immediate in all experience (*aparokṣa*), it is not absolutely unrelated and unindicated (*aviṣaya*) in experience, and consequently it is quite possible that the non-self (*anātman*) and its characteristics may be illusorily imposed upon the universal self. This illusory imposition of the non-self and its characteristics on the universal self is called nescience (*avidyā*).

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¹ Śaṅkara's *Adhyāsa-bhāṣya* on the *Brahma-sūtra*, Nirṇaya-Sāgara Press, Bombay, 1904.

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In his commentary on Gauḍapāda's *Kārikā*, I. 17, Śaṅkara says that, when a piece of rope falsely appears as a snake, this is merely false imposition or appearance, not existence. The illusory appearance of the snake did not really bring into existence a snake, which later on became non-existent when right knowledge supervened. It was a mere illusion, and the rope-snake had no existence at all². Śaṅkara in commenting on Gauḍapāda's *Kārikā* explains with approval Gauḍapāda's view that the world of common experience is as illusory as a dream. Dreams are false; for in a dream a man may have the experience of going to distant places, and yet, when he wakes up, he finds that he has been asleep for a few seconds only, and has not moved a foot from his bed. The dream experiences are therefore false, because they are contradicted by the waking experiences. But the waking experiences, being similar to dream experiences, are equally false. For both sets of experiences involve the duality of subject and object, and are therefore fundamentally more or less the same: so that, if one of them is false, the other also is false. The world-experience is like other well-known instances of illusion—the mirage, for example. Since it had no existence in the beginning, and will not have any existence in the end, neither can it have existence in the intervening period of appearance. The objection that our waking experiences fulfil practical purposes and have thus associated with them the pragmatic test of truth, which is absent in the case of dream experiences, is invalid; for the pragmatic tests of the waking experiences may well be contradicted by dream experiences; a man who goes to sleep after a sumptuous feast may well dream that he has been starving for days together. Both our inner world of mind and its experiences and the outer objective world are thus false creations¹. But Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkara differ from the Śūnyavādin Buddhists in this—that they think that even false creations must have some basis in truth. If a rope appears as a snake, the false creation of the snake has some basis in the truth of the rope: there could not be false creations and false appearances without any firm basis of truth (*āspada*) underlying them². Nāgārjuna, it will be remembered, tried to prove the falsity of all appearances on the ground of their being interdependent and not having anything which could be pointed out as their own nature. The dialectic being applicable to all appearances, there was nothing left which was not relative and interdependent, nothing which was self-evident by nature and which was intelligible by itself without reference to anything else. It is this interdependence and relativity of all appearances that was called “nothingness” or *śūnyatā* by Nāgārjuna. There was nothing which could be affirmed of anything independently by itself without reference to something else; nothing therefore could be conceived as having any essence by itself. All appearances were therefore only interdependent phantom creations; and it was precisely this interdependence that proved the essencelessness of their natures. There was no basis of truth anywhere. There was nothing which had any essence. But neither Śaṅkara nor Gauḍapāda appears to have tried to show why the inner world of thoughts, ideas, emotions, volitions and the outer world of objects should be considered as being illusory appearances.

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² *Rajjvāṃ sarpa iva kalpitatvāt na tu sa vidyate...na hi rajyvāṃ bhrānti-buddhyā kalpitaḥ sarpo vidyamānaḥ san vivekato nivṛttaḥ; tathedaṃ prapañ-cākhyaṃ māyā-mātram. Gauḍapāda's Kārikā*, I. 17, Ānandāśrama Series.

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¹ Śaṅkara’s commentary on Gauḍapāda’s *Kārikā*, II. 1–12.

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² *Na hi nirāspadā rajju-sarpa-mṛgatṛṣṇikādayaḥ kvacit upalabhyante. Ibid.* I. 6.

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Their main point seems to consist in a dogmatic statement that all appearances or experiences are false just as dream experiences are false. The imperfect analogy of waking experiences is made into an argument, and the entire manifold of appearances is declared to be false. But it is urged at the same time that these false creations must have some basis of truth; the changing appearances must have some unchanging basis on which they are imposed—and this basis is the self (*ātman*), or Brahman, which is the only thing that is permanent, unchanging and real. This self is the being of pure intelligence, which is one identical unit, negating all differences and duality (*viśuddha-vijñapti-mātra-sattā-dvaya-rūpeṇa*)¹. Just as the false creation of "snake" appears in the case of the "rope," so all such judgments as "I am happy," "I am unhappy," "I am ignorant," "I am born," "I am old," "I am with a body," "I perceive," etc., are all merely false predications associated with the self; they are all false, changing and illusory predications, and it is only the self which remains permanent through all such judgments. The self is entirely different from all such predications; it is self-luminous and self-manifesting, shining independently by itself.

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¹ Gauḍapāda's *Kārikā*, II. 17.

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By applying the dialectic of mutual interdependence, *pratītyasamutpāda*, Nāgārjuna tried to prove that there was nothing which could be pointed out as the essence of anything as it is; but he did not explain how the appearances which were nothing more than phantom creations came to be what they were. How did the world-appearance of essenceless interdependent phenomena show itself? Śaṅkara did not try to prove with a keen logical dialectic that the world-appearance was false: he simply took it for granted, since the Upaniṣads proclaimed Brahman as the ultimate reality. But how did the world-appearance manifest itself? Śaṅkara does not seem to go deeply into this question and simply passes it over in asserting that this world-appearance is all due to ignorance (*avidyā*); it could not be spoken of as either existing or non-existing; it was merely illusory, like the conch-shell silver. But Padmapāda, who wrote the commentary known as *Pañca-pādikā* on the first four *sūtras* of Śaṅkara's commentary on the *Brahma-sūtras*, says that the precise meaning of the term "false conception" (*mithyā-jñāna*) in Śaṅkara's introduction to his commentary on the *Brahma-sūtras* is that there is a force or power or potency (*śakti*) of nescience which constitutes materiality (*jaḍātmikā avidyā-śaktiḥ*), and that it is this potency which transforms itself into the stuff (*upādāna*) of the world-appearance¹. It is well to remember in this connection that, according to Śaṅkara's philosophy, it is not only the objective world that constitutes the world of appearance, but also the subjective world of all experiences and predicates that may be associated with the self. Thus, when one says "I," this ego-hood is analysed as involving two parts—the one, pure intelligence or pure consciousness; and the other, the concept of subjectivity, which is illuminated, expressed or manifested by the underlying pure intelligence with which it is falsely associated. The concept of subjectivity stands here as materiality, or objectivity, which is made to float up by the power of pure intelligence, thus causing the judgment "I am" or "I am a man²." This *avidyā-śakti*, or power of *avidyā*, subsists in the pure self and, on the one hand, arrests the revelation of its true nature as Brahman, and, on the other hand, transforms itself into the various concepts associated with the psychological self of our ordinary experience³. The illusion consists in the association of the psychological qualities of thinking, feeling, willing, etc. with the transcendent or universal self (*pratyak-citi*). These psychological determinations are all mutually connected with one another. Thus, to be able to enjoy pleasures, one must first act; one can only act when one has attachments, antipathies and desires, and one can have attachments and desires only when one has experienced joys and sorrows—so these psychological determinations in a beginningless cycle are always naturally associated with the transcendent self-luminous self⁴.

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¹ *Pañca-pādikā*, p. 4, the Vizianagram Sanskrit Series, 1891.

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² *asmat-pratyaye yo 'nidam-aṃśaś cid-eka-rasaḥ tasmiṃs tad-bala-nirbhāsitatayā lakṣaṇato yuṣmad-arthasya manuṣyābhimānasya saṃbhedaivāvabhāsaḥ sa eva adhyāsaḥ*. *Ibid.* p. 3.

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³ *ataḥ sā pratyak-citi brahma-svarūpāvabhāsaṃ pratibadhnāti ahaṃkārādy-atad-rūpa-pratibhāsa-nimittaṃ ca bhavati*. *Ibid.* p. 5.

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⁴ Prakāśātman's *Pañca-pādikā-vivaraṇa*, p. 10, the Vizianagram Sanskrit Series, 1892.

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It should be clear from the foregoing discussion that, as Padmapāda or Prakāśātman explains, *ajñāna* or nescience is some kind of indefinable stuff out of the transformations of which subjective psychological experiences and the world of objects have come into being. This *ajñāna* is not the *ajñāna* of the Buddhists, i.e. a wrong notion or misconception, and this *adhyāsa*, or illusion, is not the *viparyaya* of Nāgārjuna; for here it is a positive power or stuff. Thus Prakāśātman argues that all effects have at their back some cause, which forms their stuff or material; the world-appearance, being also an effect, must have some stuff out of which it has evolved or was made up; and *ajñāna*, lying in the transcendent self as a separate power, is such a material cause¹. This *avidyā*-potency in the transcendent self is positive in its nature. This positive *ajñāna* is directly perceived in such immediate perceptions as “I do not know myself or others,” and can also be inferred or comprehended by implication². The fact that *ajñāna* or *avidyā* is spoken of as a power inherent in the transcendent self shows that it is dependent thereon; *avidyā* is not, however, a power, but a substance or entity which has certain powers by which it transforms itself into the cosmic appearances, subjective and objective; yet it is called a power, or *śakti*, because of its dependence (*para-tantratā*) on the transcendent self, and it is in consideration of the entire dependence of *avidyā* and its transformations on the self that the self is regarded as the material cause of all effects—the cosmic appearances of the world and the mind³. The self thus not only holds the *ajñāna* within it as a dependent function, but in spite of its self-luminosity it can be reacted upon by the *ajñāna* with its manifold powers in such a way that it can be veiled by this *ajñāna* and made the underlying basis of all world-appearances of *ajñāna*-transformations⁴.

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¹ *sarvaṃ ca kāryaṃ sopādānaṃ bhāva-kāryatvāt ghaṭādivad ity anumānāt … tasmān mithyārtha-taj-jñānātmakaṃ mithyā-bhūtam adhyāsaṃ upādāna-kāraṇa-sāpekṣam … mithyā-jñānam eva adhyāsopādānam.* *Pañca-pādikā-vivaraṇa*, pp. 11–12.

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² Ibid. p. 13.

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³ *śaktir ity ātma-para-tantratayā ātmanaḥ sarva-kāryopādānasya nirvoḍh-ṛtvam. Ibid. p. 13. Ātma-kāraṇatva-nirvoḍhṛtvād ātma-para-tantratvā ca śakti-matyām api śakti-śabda upacāritaḥ.* Akhaṇḍānanda Muni’s *Tattva-dīpana*, p. 65, Chowkhambā Sanskrit Book Depot, Benares, 1902.

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⁴ *ataḥ svaprakāśe ’pi ātmani vicitra-śakti-bhāva-rūpāvidyā-prayuktam āva-raṇaṃ durapahnavaṃ.* Rāmānanda Sarasvatī’s *Vivaraṇopanyāsa*, p. 16, Chowkhambā Sanskrit Book Depot, Benares, 1901.

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Appaya Dīkṣita, referring in his *Siddhānta-leśa* to the view of the writer of the *Padārtha-tattva*, summarizes the matter thus: Brahman and Māyā form together the material cause (*ubhayam upādānam*), and hence it is that in the world-appearance there are two distinct characteristics, “being” (*sattā*) from Brahman and materiality (*jāḍya*) from Māyā. Brahman is the cause, as the unchanging basis of the Māyā, which is the cause as being the stuff that actually undergoes transformation¹. Vācaspati Miśra also conceives Brahman, jointly with its *avidyā*, to be the material cause of the world (*avidyā-sahita-brahmopādānam*)². In his adoration hymn at the beginning of his *Bhāmatī* he describes Brahman as being in association with its companion, the indefinable *avidyā*, the unchanging cause of the entire objective universe³. Sarvajñātma Muni, however, does not wish to give *māyā* the same degree of co-operation in the production of the world-appearance as Brahman, and considers the latter to be the real material cause of the world through the instrumentality of Māyā; for Brahman, being absolutely changeless, cannot by itself be considered as cause, so that, when Brahman is spoken of as cause, this can only be in a remote and modified sense (*upalakṣaṇa*), through the instrumentality of *māyā*⁴. The author of the *Siddhānta-muktāvalī* is referred to by Appaya Dīkṣita as holding that it is the *māyā* and *māyā* alone that forms the stuff of the world-appearance; and that Brahman is not in any way the material cause of the universe, but that it is only the basis of the subsistence of *māyā* and is only from that point of view spoken of as being the material cause⁵.

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¹ *Siddhānta-leśa*, p. 12, V.S. Series, 1890.

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² *Bhāmatī on Śaṅkara's Bhāṣya*, I. 1. 2, Nirṇaya-Sāgara Press, 1904.

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³ *Anirvācyāvidyā-dvitaya-sacivasya prabhavato vivartā yasyaite viyad-anila-tejob-avanayaḥ*, *ibid.* p. 1.

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⁴ *Saṃkṣepa-śārīraka*, I. 333, 334, Bhāū Śāstrī's edition.

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⁵ *Siddhānta-leśa*, p. 13, V.S. Series, 1890.

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It is clear that the above differences of view regarding the nature of the relation between *māyā* and the self or Brahman in the production of the world-appearance are mere scholastic disputes over words or modes of expression, and have but little philosophical significance. As has already been said, these questions do not seem to have arisen in Śaṅkara’s mind. He did not think it worth while to explain anything definitely regarding the nature of *avidyā* and its relation with Brahman, and the part that it played in supplying the material stuff of the universe. The world was an illusion, and Brahman was the basis of truth on which these illusions appeared; for even illusions required something on which they could appear. He never faced squarely the difficulties that are naturally connected with the theory, and was not therefore concerned to explain the definite relation of *māyā* to Brahman in connection with the production of the phantom show of the universe. The natural objection against such views is that the term *avidyā* (formed by compounding the negative particle *a* and *vidyā* "knowledge") may mean either absence of knowledge (*vidyābhāvaḥ*) or false knowledge (*mithyā-jñānam*); and in neither of these meanings can it be supposed to behave as the material cause or substance-stuff of anything; for a false knowledge cannot be a substance out of which other things are made¹. The answer given by Ānandabodha Bhaṭṭāraka to such an objection is that this *avidyā* is not a psychological ignorance, but a special technical category, which is beginningless and indefinable (*anādy-anirvācyāvidyāśrayaṇāt*). The acceptance of such a category is a hypothesis which one is justified in holding as valid, since it explains the facts. Effects must have some cause behind them, and a mere instrumental cause cannot explain the origination of the substratum of the effect; again, effects which are not true cannot have for their material cause (*upādāna-kāraṇa*) that which is true, nor can they have for their material cause that which is absolutely non-existent. So, since the material cause of the world can neither be true nor be anything which is absolutely non-existent, the hypothesis is naturally forced upon the Vedāntists that the material cause of this false world-appearance is an entity which is neither existent nor non-existent². Ānandabodha in his *Pramāṇa-mālā* quotes approvingly from the *Brahma-tattva-samīkṣā* of Vācaspati to show that *avidyā* is called *avidyā* or nescience because it is a hypothetic category which is neither "is" nor "is not," and is therefore unintelligible; *avidyā* signifies particularly the unintelligibility of this category³. Ānandabodha points out that the acceptance of *avidyā* is merely the logical consequence of indicating some possible cause of the world-appearance—considering the nature of the world-appearance as it is, its cause can only be something which neither is nor is not; but what we understand by such a category, we cannot say; it is plainly unintelligible; the logical requirements of such a category merely indicate that that which is the material cause of this false world-appearance cannot be regarded either as existing or as non-existing; but this does not make this concept either intelligible or consistent¹. The concept of *avidyā* is thus plainly unintelligible and inconsistent.

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¹ *avidyā hi vidyābhāvo mithyā-jñānaṃ vā na cobhayaṃ kasya cit samavāyi-kāraṇam adravyatvāt.* Ānandabodha's *Nyāya-makaranda*, p. 122, Chowkhambā Sanskrit Book Depot, Benares, 1901.

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² *Ibid.* pp. 122–124.

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³ *sad-asad-ubhayānubhayādi-prakāraiḥ anirvacanīyatvam eva hy avidyānām avidyātvam. Brahma-tattva-samīkṣā* as quoted in *Pramāṇa-mālā*, p. 10, Chowkhambā Sanskrit Book Depot, Benares, 1907.

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¹ *Vailakṣaṇya-vāco-yuktir hi pratiyogi-nirūpaṇād yauktikatva-prakaṭana-phalā na tv evaṁ-rūpatāyāḥ sāmañjasya-sampādanāya ity avocāma. Pramāṇa-mālā*, p. 10.

Thought and its Object in Buddhism and in Vedānta

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The Vedānta takes a twofold view of things; the first view refers to ultimate reality and the second to appearance. This ultimate reality is pure intelligence, as identical with pure bliss and pure being. This is called ultimately real in the sense that it is regarded as changeless. By pure intelligence the Vedānta does not mean the ordinary cognitional states; for these have a subjective and an objective content which are extraneous to them. This pure intelligence is pure immediacy, identical with the fact of revelation found in all our conscious states. Our apprehensions of objects are in some sense events involving both a subjective and an objective content; but their special feature in every case is a revelatory inwardness or immediacy which is non-temporal and changeless. The fact that we see, hear, feel, touch, think, remember is equivalent to saying that there are various kinds of cognizings. But what is the nature of this cognizing? Is it an act or a fact? When I see a blue colour, there is a blue object, there is a peculiar revelation of an appearance as blue and a revelation of the “I” as perceiver. The revelation is such that it is both a revelation of a certain character as blue and of a certain thing called the blue object. When a revelation occurs in perception, it is one and it reveals both the object and its appearance in a certain character as blue.

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The revelation is not the product of a certain relation which happens to subsist at any time between the character-appearance and the object; for both the character-appearance as blue and the object are given in revelation. The revelation is self-evident and stands unique by itself. Whether I see, or hear, or feel, or change, the fact remains that there is some sort of an awareness which does not change. Awareness is ever present by itself and does not undergo the changes that its contents undergo. I may remember that I had seen a blue object five minutes previously; but, when I do this, what I perceive is the image of a blue object, with certain temporal and spatial relations, which arises or becomes revealed; but the revelation itself cannot be revealed again. I may be conscious, but I cannot be conscious of consciousness. For consciousness as such, though ever present in its immediacy, cannot become an object of any other consciousness. There cannot be any such thing as the awareness of an awareness or the awareness of the awareness of an awareness, though we may multiply such phrases in language at our pleasure. When I remember that I have been to Trinity College this morning, that only means that I have an image of the way across the commons, through Church Street and Trinity Street; my movements through them are temporally pushed backward, but all this is a revelation as image at the present moment and not a revelation of a past revelation.

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I cannot say that this present image in any way reveals that particular image as the object of the present revelation. But the former revelation could not be held to be distinct from the present one; for distinction is always based on content and not on revelation. Revelation as such is identical and, since this is so, one revelation cannot be the object of another. It is incorrect to say that “*A* is *A*” means that one *A* becomes itself over again. It is owing to the limitations of grammatical terminology that identity is thus described. Identity thus understood is different from what we understand by identity as a relation. Identity understood as a relation presupposes some difference or otherness and thus is not self-contained. And it is because it is not self-contained that it can be called a relation. When it is said that *A* is identical with *A*, it means that on all the various occasions or contents in which *A* appeared it always signified the same thing, or that it had the same shape or that it was the same first letter of the English alphabet. Identity in this sense is a function of thought not existing by itself, but in relation to a sense of opponency or otherness. But revelation has no otherness in it; it is absolutely ubiquitous and homogeneous.

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But the identity of revelation of which we are speaking does not mean that the revelation signifies the same thing amidst a diversity of contents: it is simply the one essence identical in itself and devoid of any numerical or other kinds of difference. It is absolutely free from “now” and “then,” “here” and “there,” “such” or “not such” and “this” or “that.” Consciousness of the self-shining self taken in this way cannot be regarded as the relation of an appearance to an object, but it is the fact of the revelation or the entity of the self. If we conceive of revelation in this way, it is an error to make any distinction in revelation as the revelation of the past or the revelation of the present moment. For moments are revealed as objects are revealed; they do not constitute revelation or form any part of it. This revelation is identical with the self-shining self to which everything else has to be related in order to be known.

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"Is cognizing an act or a fact?" Before this can be answered the point to be made clear is what is meant by cognizing. If we ignore the aspect of revelation and speak of mental states which can be looked at from the point of view of temporal or qualitative change of character, we must speak of them as acts or events. If we look at any mental state as possessing certain characters and relations to its objects, we have to speak of these aspects. But, if we look at cognizing from the point of view of its ultimate truth and reality as revelation, we cannot call it either an act or a fact; for, as revelation, it is unique and unchangeable in itself. All relations and characters are revealed in it, it is self-evident and is at once in and beyond them all. Whether we dream or wake, whether we experience an illusion or a truth, revelation is always there. When we look at our mental states, we find that they are always changing, but this is so only with reference to the contents. Apart from this there is a continuity in our conscious life. By this continuity the Vedānta apprehends not any sort of coherence in our ideas, but the fact of the permanence of revelation. It may be asked what remains of revelation, if the mental states are taken away. This question is not admissible; for the mental states do not form part of revelation; they are rendered conscious by coming into relation with revelation. This category is the ultimate reality.

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