Obscure Religious Cults as Background of Bengali Literature c8.2

c8.2

The general philosophical standpoint of the Caryā-padas, as that of Tāntric Buddhist literature in general, represents unsystematised notions of Mahāyāna philosophy including the negativistic tendency of the Mādhyamikas and the positivistic tendency of Aśvaghoṣa and of the Vijñānavāda school led by Maitreya, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. The influence of monistic thought is not also negligible.¹ In many places the Buddhist Tantras, Dohās and songs have frankly accepted the monistic standpoint of the Upaniṣads and the highest reality, either in the form of the Vajra-sattva or the Bodhi-citta or the Mahā-sukha or the Sahaja, has been conceived exactly in the line of the Upaniṣadic Brahman. It may be observed in this connection that scholars have often discovered something behind the nothingness (śūnyatā) even of Nāgārjuna, who has described the reality as neither existent, nor non-existent, nor a combination of both, nor the absence of both; it is but what transcends the four logical categories (catuṣkoṭi). Again, it may be pointed out that the Abhūta-parikalpa (the increate) or the Vijñapti-mātratā (pure consciousness) of the Vijñāna-vādin Buddhists approximates the Vedāntic conception of the Brahman in a striking manner. Of course, subtle points of difference there are, but they can very easily be, and have often actually been, missed by the untrained mind of ordinary thinkers. It is for this reason that the Mahāyānic ideas have frequently been confused or blended with the Vedāntic ideas; and we shall see that there is practically no difference between the Vedāntic idea of the reality and the idea of the Sahaja as conceived by the Sahajiyās. Kāṇha-pāda says in a song that it will be a gross mistake to think that everything ends with the decay of this body. "My Citta," says the poet, "is perfect in vacuity; don't be sorry at the disappearance of the *skandhas* or the five elements. Say, how it can be that Kāṇha is no more,—for he is throbbing for ever pervading the whole universe. Only foolish people are sad at the sight of the decay of the perceivable; —can the flow of waves dry up the whole sea? Foolish people do not see people who are existent (in their subtle Sahaja form), as they do not find the cream that remains pervading the milk. Here, in this world, entities neither come nor go, yogin Kāṇha revels in these thoughts."'