Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s13: XXII Intuition (Anubhava), Intellect (Tarka), and Scripture (Śruti)
Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s13
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XXII Intuition (Anubhava), Intellect (Tarka), and Scripture (Śruti)
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While intuitional experience carries with it the highest degree of certitude, it has only a low degree of conceptual clearness. This is why interpretation is necessary, and these interpretations are fallible and so require endless revision. Śruti attempts to say things which are not fully to be said. Men of vidyā, or vision, say what language and logic were not invented to say. Those who have had no direct insight into reality are obliged to take on trust the Vedic views which record the highest experiences of some of the greatest minds who have wrestled with this problem of apprehending reality. For the ordinary man the central truth of the ultimate consciousness is essentially revealed, and not ascertained by any human evidence like that of perception or inference. These latter give us strong suggestions of the beyond, but not positive proofs. Śaṃkara admits that truth has to be investigated,¹ and himself adopts the principle of non-contradiction in criticising rival systems. His objection to the other philosophical conceptions, notably those of Buddhism, is not so much that they are open to criticism, but that they have not realised the inadequacy of the dialectical method. He holds that the Vedic testimony is superior to the evidence of the senses or the conclusions of reason, though, of course, it is useless in the regions open to perception and inference. A hundred texts cannot make fire cold.¹ It is the aim of the Scriptures to impart such knowledge as cannot be reached through the ordinary means.²
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¹ Satyaṃ vijiññāsitavyam (S.B., i. 2. 8).
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¹ Jñānaṁ tu pramāṇajanyaṁ yathābhūtaviṣayaṁ ca. Na tanniyogaśatenāpi kārayituṁ śakyate, na ca pratiṣedhaśatenāpi vārayituṁ śakyate (S.B., iii. 2. 21; S.B.G., xviii. 66).
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² Pratyakṣādipramāṇānupalabdhe hy viṣaye śrutiḥ prāmānyaṁ na pratyakṣādiviṣaye (S.B., xviii. 66). Ajñātajñāpanaṁ hy śāstram.
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It is the purpose of the Vedas to teach the oneness of the Ātman.³ Śaṁkara says that this investigation of the Vedānta is not the cause of our freedom from avidyā, for all investigation as well as all knowledge, involving as it does the duality of subject and object, is a hindrance to the recognition of Brahman. It helps us to unmask folly rather than achieve wisdom.⁴ To remove avidyā is to realise the truth even as the realisation of the rope means the removal of the misconception of the snake.⁵ No additional instrument or fresh act of knowledge is necessary to realise the truth.⁶ "Knowledge does not wait even for the moment immediately next the annihilation of duality, for if it did there would be an infinite regress, and duality will never be annihilated. The two are simultaneous."⁷ We reach the real when the wrong view is cleared up.⁸ If the question is asked as to how we are helped out of avidyā to vidyā—an illegitimate question, since, when error is destroyed, truth, which is self-sufficient, is revealed—no better answer than assigning it to the grace of God is possible.⁹ The pure soul is like a blind man whose lost sight is restored as by the grace of God.
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³ Ātmaikatvavidyāpratipattaye sarve vedāntā ārabhyante (S.B., Introduction).
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⁴ Avidyākalpitabhedanivṛtti (S.B., i. 1. 4). See S.B.G., ii. 18. Cp. Plotinus: "God is neither to be expressed in speech nor in written discourse; but we speak and write in order to direct the soul to him and to stimulate it to rise from thought to vision, like one who points the upward road which they who would behold have to traverse. Our teaching reaches so far only as to indicate the way in which they should go, but the vision itself must be their own achievement" (Enneads, vi. 9. 4; Caird: Greek Theology, vol. ii, p. 237).
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⁵ S.B. on Māṇḍ. Up., ii. 7.
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⁶ Ibid.
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⁷ Ibid.
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⁸ Ātmaiva ajñāhanāḥ.
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⁹ S.B., ii. 3. 41. See Kaṭha Up., ii. 22. Deussen has this in view when he charges Śaṁkara with theological bias. See D.S.V., pp. 86-87.
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To accept śruti is to accept the witness of the saints and sages. To ignore śruti is to ignore the most vital part of the experience of the human race. In matters of physical science we accept what the greatest investigators in those departments declare for truth; in music we attend to what the accredited great composers have written, and endeavour thereby to improve our natural appreciation of musical beauty. In matters of religious truth we should listen with respect to what the great religious geniuses, who strove by faith and devotion to attain their spiritual eminence, have given out. There is no use of pitting against the last the opinion of the first. "Mere reflection must not be quoted against a matter which is to be known by sacred tradition; for reflections which, without basis in traditions, rest only on the speculation (utprekṣā) of men are untenable, since such speculation is unbridled."' If we depend on thought, we have to doubt the world, doubt our being, doubt the future, and end our life in doubt. But since we must either react on our environment or be destroyed by it, the force of the life within drives us irresistibly to faith. There are spiritual impulses which refuse to be set aside at the bidding of logic. No one can live on negation. Śaṃkara's philosophical undertaking is intended to disillusion us with systematic philosophy and make out that logic by itself leads to scepticism. We assume that the world is a rational one and a righteous one. We believe in the wholeness of the world without any acquaintance with its significant details. We call it an assumption, since we cannot hope to discover the eternal order undelying the apparent disorder. By accepting the reality of a divine mind, Īśvara, our lives gain in richness and security.² Besides, truth³ must be identical,⁴ uncontradictable,⁵ and universally accepted; but the results of reflection are not so accepted. But "the Veda as a source of knowledge is eternal, its subject stands fast, the full knowledge of it formed therefrom cannot be turned aside by all the speculations of the past, present and future." Mere reasoning is a formal process. The conclusions at which it arrives depend on the premises with which it starts, and Śaṁkara insists that the religious experience as recorded in the scriptures ought to be the basis for reason in the matter of the philosophy of religion. By tarka, Śaṁkara means reason that has not been restrained by the lessons of history. Such individualistic reasoning cannot lead to the establishment of truth on account of the endless diversity in the power of apprehension.¹ The śruti embodies the truths of spirit which have satisfied the spiritual instincts of a large portion of humanity. It contains the traditional convictions of the race which embody not so much thought as the life of spirit, and for those of us who do not share the life these recorded experiences are of great value.²
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¹ S.B., ii. i. 11. That is why opinions of even such recognised thinkers like Kapila and Kaṇāda often contradict each other. Cp. Kumārila: "A thing inferred with ever so great a care by logicians, however expert, is quite otherwise explained by other and greater experts."
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² "Neither by direct knowledge nor by inference can men have any idea as to their relation with another birth or as to the existence of the self after death. Hence the need for the revelation of the scriptures" (S.B. on Bṛh. Up., Introduction).
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³ Samyagjñāna.
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⁴ Ekarūpam.
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⁵ Puruṣāṇāṃ vipratipattir anupapannā.
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¹ Kasyacit kvacit pakṣapāte sati puruṣamativairūpyeṇa tattvāvyavasthānaprasaṅgāt (S.B., ii. I. I).
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² S.B., ii. I. II; ii. 3. I; i. I. 2.
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Śaṁkara recognises the need of reason for testing scriptural views. Wherever he has an opportunity, he tries to confirm scriptural statements by rational argument.³ Reasoning (tarka), which works as an auxiliary of intuition (anubhava), is commended by him.⁴ Reason with him is a critical weapon against untested assumptions and a creative principle which selects and emphasises the facts of truth.⁵ "Even those destitute of the power of judgment do not attach themselves to particular traditions without any reason."⁶
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³ See S.B. on Gauḍapāda’s Kārikā, iii. 27. In commenting on iii. I of Gauḍapāda’s Kārikā, Śaṁkara says: "It is asked whether the Advaita is to be taken as proved only on the evidence of śruti and whether reason cannot possibly demonstrate it, and this chapter shows how the Advaita can be demonstrated by reason." For a fuller discussion of the relation of reason to revelation in Śaṁkara’s philosophy, see two articles by Mr. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar in Sanskrit Research for July 1915, and Indian Philosophical Review for April 1918, and Mr. S. Suryanarayanan’s paper on "Critical Idealism and the Advaita Vedānta" in the Mysore University Magazine for November 1919.
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⁴ S.B., ii. I. 6; ii. I. II.
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⁵ S.B., ii. I. 4, 37; ii. 2. 41; ii. 4. 12.
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⁶ S.B., ii. I. I.
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Anubhava is the vital spiritual experience which can be communicated only through the language of imagination, and śruti is the written code embodying it. Without the background of the experience the statement of the śruti is mere sound without sense.¹ Texts which contain censure or praise (arthavāda) and which have not any independent import help to strengthen injunctions (vidhivākyas), and they are not superior to perception. The texts which describe the nature of reality are authoritative.² Śruti, of course, has to conform to experience and cannot override it. Vācaspati says: "A thousand scriptures cannot make a jar into a cloth."³ So also in religious discussions scriptural statements have to conform to the intuited facts. The highest evidence is perception, whether it is spiritual or sensuous, and is capable of being experienced by us on compliance with certain conditions. The authoritativeness of the śruti is derived from the fact that it is but the expression of experience, and since experience is of a self-certifying character, the Vedas are said to be their own proof, requiring no support from elsewhere.⁴ The Vedas, therefore, contain truths which man could by the exercise of his own faculties discover, though it is to our advantage that they are revealed, seeing that not all men have the courage, time and equipment to face such an enterprise.
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¹ Mere śruti is not superior to the evidence of perception, but śruti which has a definite import. Tātparyavatī śrutir pratyakṣād balavati, na śrutimātram (Bhāmatī).
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² The author of Vivaraṇa disputes this view of Bhāmatī on the ground that the existence of independent import is not a safe criterion, and śruti as such is superior to the testimony of other means of knowledge on account of its infallibility (nirdoṣatvāt) and its nature as the final court of appeal for the ascertainment of truth (paratvāc ca).
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³ Na hy āgamāḥ sahasram api ghaṭam paṭayitum īṣate (Bhāmatī, Introduction).
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⁴ Prāmāṇyam nirapekṣam.
Cites (1)
- Kaṭhopaniṣad — Sanskrit