Indian Philosophy v2.c25.s7: XVI Mokṣa
Indian Philosophy v2.c25.s7
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XVI Mokṣa
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Jaimini and Śabara did not face the problem of ultimate release. They pointed the way to a life in heaven, but not to freedom from saṃsāra. But the later writers could not avoid the problem, since it occupied the attention of the thinkers of the other schools. According to Prabhākara, liberation consists in the total disappearance of dharma and adharma, whose operation is the cause of rebirth. It is defined as "the absolute cessation of the body, caused by the disappearance of all dharma and adharma."³ The individual, finding that in saṃsāra pleasures are mixed up with pain, turns his attention to liberation. He tries to avoid the forbidden acts as well as the prescribed ones which lead to some sort of happiness here or hereafter. He undergoes the necessary expiations for exhausting the previously accumulated karma, and gradually, by a true knowledge of the soul aided by contentment and self-control, gets rid of his bodily existence.¹ Mere knowledge cannot give us freedom from bondage, which can be attained only by the exhaustion of action. Knowledge prevents further accumulation of merit and demerit.² Evidently the followers of Prabhākara do not regard karma by itself as sufficient for effecting release. Karma, in expectation of reward, leads to further birth. Our likes and dislikes determine our future existences. We must break through the circle if we want to attain release. Liberation is the cessation of pleasure as well as of pain. It is not a state of bliss, since the attributeless soul cannot have even bliss. Mokṣa is simply the natural form of the soul.³
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³ Ātyantikas tu dehocchedo niśśeṣadharmādharmaparikṣayanibandhano mokṣa iti siddham. Dharmādharmavaśīkṛto jīvas tāsu tāsu yoniṣu saṃsarati (Prakaraṇapañcikā, Tattvāloka, p. 156).
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¹ Śamadamabrahmacaryādikāṅgopabṛṃhitenā’tmajñānena, p. 157.
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² For a different view, see Bhaṭṭacintāmaṇi, Benares ed., p. 57.
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³ Svātmasphuraṇarūpaḥ.
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According to Kumārila, mokṣa is the state of ātman in itself, free from all pain.⁴ Some regard mokṣa as experience of the bliss of ātman.⁵ This, however, is against the view of Kumārila, who asserts that liberation cannot be eternal unless it is of a negative character.⁶ Pārthasārathi also holds that the state of release is one of freedom from pain, and not enjoyment of bliss. The self is the potency of knowledge (jñānaśakti). Cognitions of objects are due to the activities of the manas and the senses. Since these have no existence in mokṣa, the self exists in its pure essence without any kind of manifestation. It is a state devoid of characteristic qualities like pleasure, pain and the like. It may be regarded as a state of consciousness devoid of objective cognition or feeling of any sort. Kumārila, however, regards mokṣa as a positive state, the realisation of the ātman, and this comes very near to the Advaita view. He thinks that knowledge is not enough for liberation. He believes that release can be attained through karma combined with jñāna.
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⁴ Paramātmaprāptyavasthāmātram.
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⁵ Cittena svātmasaukhyānubhūti.
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⁶ S.V., Sambandhākṣepaparihāra, p, 107.
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GOD
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The Pūrva Mīmāṃsā posits a number of deities in order that prescribed offerings may be made to them. It does not go beyond these gods, since the observance of Vedic dharma does not require the postulation of any supreme power. Jaimini does not so much deny God as ignore him. No detail of the Vedic religion requires the assistance of God. The dharma is laid down by an eternal self-existent Veda, and we have already seen how attempts to regard the Veda as the work of God are rejected. The rewards of sacrifices are not due to any beneficent God. Even when the results do not appear at once, the supersensuous principle of apūrva is produced, and in time it helps the sacrificer to his reward. There is no reliable evidence to prove the existence of an omniscient being. Perception, inference and scripture are all unavailing. The passages of the scripture, which declare "he knows all," "he knows the world," extol the merits of the sacrificer. The succession of works and the consequent effects go on from eternity to eternity like seed and plant. The Mīmāṃsā declines to accept the belief in the periodic creation and dissolution of all things. The process of becoming and passing away is constant. It is idle to assume that the supreme Lord brings to a stand at one time the potencies of all the souls and then awakens them all when a new creation starts. While Prabhākara admits that the universe has constituent parts which have a beginning and an end, he holds that the universe as a whole has neither beginning nor end. We do not see the interference of any divine being in the production of the bodies of men and animals, which owe their existence to their parents. We cannot say that the atoms act under the will of God, since in our experience each soul acts on the body which belongs to it. But atoms are not the body of God. Even if we grant a bodily organism to God, the activity of the latter must be due to the effort of God. If the effort is eternal, the atoms would be incessantly active. Nor can we say that there is a divine superviser of dharma and adharma, since they belong to intelligent individuals. One being, however great, cannot know the dharma and the adharma of another. God cannot perceive the imperceptible dharma of others through his senses or by his mind, since it is outside his body. It is difficult to understand the nature of God’s control over dharma and adharma. The control is not a case of conjunction (saṃyoga), since dharma and adharma are qualities and conjunction is possible only for substances. It is not a case of samavāya, since dharma and adharma inhere in other souls and cannot inhere in God.
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Kumārila criticises the Nyāya view that establishes the existence of God by reasoning, and declares that the Vedas are composed by God. If the Vedas, considered to be the work of God, say that God is the creator of the world, no value need be attached to such a statement.¹ If the creator created the world, who can testify to it? Again, how does he create the world? If he has no material body, he cannot have any desire towards creation. If he has one, it cannot be due to himself, and so we require another creator of it. If his body be regarded as eternal, of what constituents is it made, since earth and the other elements are yet unproduced? If matter exists prior to his creative activity, there is no reason to deny the existence of other objects. What is the purpose of God in creating a world fraught with misery? The explanation of past karma is not available, since there is no creation prior to it. He cannot create out of pity, since there are no beings to whom compassion can be shown. Besides, on such a view, only happy beings should have been created. We cannot say that no creation is possible without an element of pain, since nothing is impossible for God. But if he is limited by other considerations, then he is not omnipotent. If creation is said to be for the amusement of God, then it contradicts the theory that he is perfectly happy and would involve God in much wearisome toil. Nor would his desire to destroy the world be intelligible. Why should we trust his words? for, though he may not have created the world, he might say so to show off his great power.² differs from others in the amount of his dharma, the latter is possible only through the Vedas, and so they are prior to creation.¹ If it be said that the atoms act under the will of God, how does God's will arise? If it is impelled by a cause like adṛṣṭa, that may as well be the cause of the world.² If God depends on other things, then his independence is compromised. If we introduce the will of God, that is enough to account for the world, and karma will sink into insignificance.
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¹ S.V., Sambandhākṣepaparihāra, p. 114; Codanāsūtra, p. 142.
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² Asṛṣṭvāpi hy asau brūyād ātmaiśvaryaprakāśanāt, 60.
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¹ S.V., Sambandhākṣepaparihāra, pp. 44-72, 114-116.
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² Ibid., pp. 72-73.
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As to the corporeal nature of the deities, Śabara thinks that the Vedas speak of such a nature by way of praise. To say that "we have taken hold of your hand" means that we have come under your protection.³ Both Prabhākara and Kumārila deny the possession of bodies by gods. We do not derive the fruits of our actions through the favour of gods, and so they need not have any physical forms. Though the deities were taken as possessing some sort of reality by the founders of the Mīmāṃsā, the later Mīmāṃsakas, anxious to emphasise the importance of mantras, argue that the sacrificer has nothing to do with the person of the gods, but should confine his attention to the mantras. They are inclined to regard the deities as imaginary, and yet persist in urging that making offerings to them will ensure reward, though they may not have any existence beyond the mantras addressed to them.⁴
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³ See Śabara on ix. 1. 9.
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⁴ See Āpadeva: Devatāsvarūpavicāra.
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In a recent work on the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, an ingenious attempt is made to reconcile the Mīmāṃsā view on this question with that of the Vedānta.⁵ It is argued that while Jaimini repudiates the conception of God as the distributor of rewards, he does not deny the existence of God as the creator of the world. While the other systems hold that God is the creator of the world as well as the apportioner of the fruits, Jaimini contends that God is not the latter. Any object is called a "fruit" when it gives pleasure or pain to a person. So long as it is not related to an individual by way of enjoyment or suffering, it is not to be regarded as a "fruit."⁶ When karma is said to be the cause of the "fruit," it means that it causes the enjoyment of the object and its simple creation. Since Bādarāyaṇa takes up Jaimini's view in the third chapter of his work, he is attacking the view of Jaimini that apūrva and not God is the apportionment of the rewards. If Jaimini had denied the creatorship of God, Bādarāyaṇa would certainly have taken up its refutation in the second chapter, which is devoted to the criticism of the rival hypotheses. Jaimini felt that, if God had the sole responsibility for the inequalities of the world, he could not be freed from the charge of partiality and cruelty, and for this reason traced the varying fortunes of men to their past conduct. The explanation is not convincing, for things should first exist before we can derive happiness or misery from them. If apūrva is the apportioner of our happiness and misery, then it must also be the creator of things. If God is necessary for creation, then apūrva must be simply the principle of karma which God takes into account in the creation of the world. Directly or indirectly, God becomes the creator as well as the apportioner of the fruits.
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⁵ P. Śāstri: Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, p. iii.
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⁶ S.B., iii. 2. 38.
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The lacuna in the Pūrva Mīmāṁsā was so unsatisfactory that the later writers slowly smuggled in God. The force of the criticism that the unconscious principle of apūrva cannot achieve the harmonious results attributed to it was felt.¹ Slowly the divine principle was introduced. But this superintending Lord need not be regarded as bound by the law of karma, for no one is bound by his own nature. The law of karma expresses the constancy of God. When Kumārila admits that both karma (work) and upāsana (worship) are necessary for effecting liberation, he is positing the existence of God, though, of course, it is argued that upāsana is a kind of karma which of itself produces its proper fruit. Evidently it was felt very early that the Mīmāṁsā system could not satisfy the thoughtful if it did not ally itself with theism. So Āpadeva and Laugākṣi Bhāskara declare that if the sacrifice is performed in honour of the supreme Lord, it will lead to the highest good. The tendency is carried out to its fullest extent in Vedānta Deśika’s Seśvara Mīmāṁsā.
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¹ Bhāmatī, iii. 2. 41.
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In the Pūrva Mīmāṁsā the emphasis is on the ethical side. The ultimate reality of the world is looked upon as the constant principle of karma. God is righteousness, or dharma. The contents of dharma are embodied in the Vedas, and the Vedas simply reveal the mind of God. Kumārila says: “This śāstra called the Veda, which is Brahman in the form of sounds, is established by the one supreme spirit.”²
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² Śabdabrahmeti yac cedaṁ śāstraṁ vedākhyam ucyate Tad apy adhiṣṭhitaṁ sarvam ekena paramātmanā. (Tantravārttika, p. 719).
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Kumārila opens his treatise with a prayer to Śiva: “Reverence to him whose body is made of pure knowledge, whose divine eyes are the three Vedas, who is the cause of the attainment of bliss, and who wears the crescent moon.”¹ The Vedas are the revelation of the mind of God. While the sacrificial works may be the special causes of bliss, God is the general cause. This view is also in consistency with the avowed purpose of Kumārila to reinterpret the Mīmāṃsā doctrine so as to bring it into agreement with the non-naturalistic tendencies of the time.²
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¹ Viśuddhajñānadehāya trivedidivyacakṣuṣe Śreyaḥprāptinimittāya namaḥ somārdhadhāriṇe. (S.V., i. 1.)
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² Prayeṇaiva hi mīmāṃsā loke lokāyatī kṛtā Tam āstikapathe kartuṃ ayaṃ yatnaḥ kṛto mayā. (S.V., i. 10.)
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It is unnecessary to say much about the unsatisfactory character of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā as a system of philosophy. As a philosophical view of the universe it is strikingly incomplete. It did not concern itself with the problems of ultimate reality and its relation to the world of souls and matter. Its ethics was purely mechanical and its religion was unsound. The performance of the sacrifice was regarded as the most essential thing, and the devatās disappeared from the sight of the sacrificers. The later Mīmāṃsakas openly tell us that the deity is that whose name is inflected in the dative case. In the formula “Indrāya svāha,” Indra is the deity. There is little in such a religion to touch the heart and make it glow. No wonder a reaction occurred in favour of a monotheism, Vaiṣṇava, Śaiva, or Tāntrika, which gave man a supreme God on whom he could depend and to whom he could surrender himself in sorrow and suffering.
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Pārthasārathi, in his Nyāyaratnākara, interprets this verse in a different sense, so as not to commit Kumārila to the theistic position. He makes the verse refer to the sacrificial ceremony. Viśuddham mīmāṃsayā saṃśodhitam jñānam eva deho yasya (that whose body is the knowledge purified by the Mīmāṃsā science); trivedy eva divyaṃ cakṣuḥ prakāśakaṃ yasya (that which is manifested by the three Vedas); somasya ardham sthānam grahacamasādi tad dhāriṇe (that which is equipped with the vessels of soma); iti yajñapakṣe’pi saṃgacchate. He allows, however, that Kumārila referred to the personal God “Śiva”: viśveśvaram mahādevam stutipūrvaṃ namasyati. From S.S.S.S. we find that Kumārila believed that Ātman is one as well as many, bhinnābhinnātmakavātmā. This work, as a few others on the Vedānta, tries to make out that Kumārila was a Vedāntin.
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GAṄGĀNĀTH JHĀ : Ślokavārttika. GAṄGĀNĀTH JHĀ : Prabhākara School of Pūrva Mīmāṁsā. KEITH : Karma Mīmāṁsā. P. ŚĀSTRI : Introduction to Pūrva Mīmāṁsā. SIRKAR : The Mīmāṁsā Rules of Interpretation.
Cites (4)
- Tantravārttika — Sanskrit
- Prakaraṇapañcikā — Śālikanātha Miśra, Sanskrit
- Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
- Ślokavārttika — Abhinavagupta, Sanskrit