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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s41: XI God

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s41

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XI God

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GOD

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From Rāmānuja's theory of knowledge, it follows that the real cannot be a bare identity. It is a determinate whole, which maintains its identity in and through the differences. While Rāmānuja is clear that there exists an absolute self, he is equally clear that every finite reality is an expression of this self. To make reciprocal interaction among a plurality of existents possible, the constituent elements of the world-whole must have a common bond of unity and interdependence, which must be a spiritual principle. Not only logic, but religious experience, demands a conservation of the finite and an admission of the infinite as a personal being. The sense of personal communion with God involves a real fellowship with an "other," divine personality. The nirguṇa Brahman, which stares at us with frozen eyes regardless of our selfless devotion and silent suffering, is not the god of religious insight. Śaṃkara’s method, according to Rāmānuja, leads him to a void, which he tries to conceal by a futile play of concepts. His nirguṇa Brahman is a blank, suggesting to us the famous mare of Orlando, which had every perfection except the one small defect of being dead. Such a Brahman cannot be known by any means, perception, inference, or scripture.¹ If the sources of knowledge are all relative, they cannot tell us of something which transcends experience; if the scriptures are unreal, even so is the Brahman of which they relate.

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In the ultimate reality called God we have determination, limitation, difference, other-being which is at the same time dissolved, contained and gathered together in the one. Finitude is in the infinite itself. Brahman has internal difference (svagatabheda) and is a synthetic whole, with souls and matter as his moments (cidacidviśiṣṭa).² The qualities of being (sat), consciousness (cit), and bliss (ānanda) give to Brahman a character and a personality. Brahman’s knowledge is immediate, and is not dependent on the organs of sense.³ He is all-knowing and has direct intuition of all. Brahman is the supreme personality, while the individuals are personal in an imperfect way. Personality implies the power to plan and realise one’s purposes. God is perfect personality, since he contains all experience within himself and is dependent on nothing external to him. The differences necessary for personality are contained within himself. The most prominent qualities of God are knowledge, power and love (karuṇa). Out of his love God has created the world, established laws, and helps constantly all who seek to attain perfection.⁴ While each quality by itself is different from the others, they all belong to one identity and do not divide its integrity of being. The Lord’s connection with them is natural (svābhāvika) and eternal (sanātana).⁵ These attributes are said to be abstract, as distinct from matter and souls, which are also called the attributes of God.

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Īśvara is the support (ādhāra) of his own essential qualities, as well as those of the objects dependent on him.¹ The Supreme has " a divine form peculiar to itself, not of the stuff of prakṛti and not due to karma."² A body is not a mere combination of the elements or something which is sustained by prāṇa or life-breath. It is not the seat of the senses or the cause of pleasure-pain. It is, according to Rāmānuja, " any substance which a conscious soul is capable of completely controlling and supporting for its own purposes, and which stands to the soul in an entirely subordinate relation."³ Though embodied, God does not suffer, seeing that karma, and not embodiedness, is the cause of suffering.⁴ He is the Lord of karma, for the latter by itself cannot give rise to the consequences. Action, which is non-intelligent and transitory, is incapable of bringing about a result connected with a future time.⁵ It is the supreme Lord that bestows the different forms of enjoyment in this and the heavenly world. We may say also that Brahman is devoid of form,⁶ though connected with various forms, for " the individual soul is connected with the shape of the body in which it dwells, since it participates in the pleasures and pains to which the body gives rise ; but, since Brahman does not share these pleasures and pains, it has no form."⁷ Brahman is not touched by the suffering of souls or the mutations of matter.

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All evil is the result of past wrong, the product of the soul's life in saṃsāra. God is in no way responsible for it. Above the endless succession of existences, he dwells in light, where no shadow can dim his glory.⁸ Such a life is possible for the liberated spirits also ; much more therefore for God.⁹

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¹ i. 1. 2.

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² i. 1. 2; S.D.S., iv.

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³ i. 2. 19.

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⁴ Rahasyatrayasāra, xxiii.

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⁵ R.B., ii. 1. 15.

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¹ *Rahasyatrayasāra*, iii.

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² i. 2. 1.

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³ ii. 1. 9.

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⁴ i. 1. 21.

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⁵ iii. 2. 37.

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⁶ *Brahmarūparahitatulyam eva*.

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⁷ iii. 2. 14.

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⁸ i. 1. 21.

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⁹ iii. 3. 27.

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Souls and matter are comprehended within the unity of the Lord's essence and are related to the Supreme as attributes to a substance, as parts to a whole, or as body to the soul¹⁰ which animates it. They are also called prakāras or modes, śeṣas or accessories, niyāmya¹¹ or the controlled, while God is the supporter (prakārī), controller (niyantā) and the principal (śeṣī).¹ They are real and permanent, though subject to the control of the one Brahman in all their modifications and evolutions. The relation of body to soul is said to bring out roughly the nature of the dependence of the world on God. Since the body (śarīra) decays when the soul departs, it has only derivative being; the movements of the body are subject to the will of the soul.² The world stands in the same relation to God, deriving its being from him and subject to his will.³ Īśvara exists, with the jīva as his inner and the world as his outer body. If souls and matter are attributes of God, it does not mean that they are not in themselves substances possessing attributes, with their own distinct modes, energies and activities. The illustration of the soul and body points out that the body has its own qualities, though it qualifies the soul. This hypothesis enables Rāmānuja to account for the harmony of the universe and the interaction of the reals, so as to form one world. The world is one on account of the supreme mind which gives organic connection to the multiplicity of spiritual reals and a place and a function to each of them. Souls (bhoktā), matter (bhogya), and God (preritā)⁴ are three, on account of their natural differences (svarūpabheda), but one on account of the identity (aikyam) of the modes and substance (prakāra and prakārī).⁵ Identity means only inseparable existence (apṛthaksiddhi).

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¹⁰ Cp. *Jagat sarvaṃ śarīram te*. *Rāmāyaṇa Yuddhakāṇḍa*, i. 20. 26; *Tiruvāymoyi*, i. 1. 8; Bṛh. Up., v. 7.

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¹¹ Niyāmyatvam is defined by Vedānta Deśika as " tatsaṃkalpādhina. sattāsthitipravṛttikatvam."

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¹ iii; R.B., ii. 4. 14.

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² Svarūpāśritam. Saṃkalpādhīnam.

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³ Īśvarasya rūpāśritam and icchādhīnam.

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⁴ Śvet. Up., i.

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⁵ Brahman is prakāraviśiṣṭaprakārī.

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Rāmānuja’s conception of God is not that of a merely last term in an ascending series of real reflective self-conscious individuals, nor that of a merely transcendental Absolute existing above and beyond the finite universe. While the conscious and the unconscious objects of the universe coexist with God, they yet derive their existence from him and are sustained through him. The pluralistic universe is real in precisely the same sense as God is real. The universe, however, depends on God as its ground, its ratio essendi, but not as its cause. God is not to be regarded as simply the immanent ground, for then God will have to be conceived as wholly differentiated into the “many,” or the “many” will have to be conceived as wholly absorbed into the undifferentiated oneness of God. To Rāmānuja, God is both the transcendent and the immanent ground of the world. God is a person, and not a mere totality of other persons, and so he cannot be confused with the thinking individuals and the objects of their thought.

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God, from within the cosmic order, sustains it as its ultimate ground and support, and receives it back on its dissolution.¹ Creation and dissolution are not to be taken as events in time, but are to be interpreted as signifying logical dependence on the one Supreme. Brahman alone is uncaused, while all the rest is caused.² Though he is responsible for the world, which is imperfect, he is not touched by its imperfections. The supreme spirit is identified with Viṣṇu by Rāmānuja, and the highest attributes are ascribed to him. Brahmā and Śiva are also Viṣṇu.³

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¹ i. 1. Cp. Tiruvāymoyi, x. 5. 3. Rāmānuja's philosophy is called Viśiṣṭādvaitam for the reason, among others, that it insists on the non-duality of two different objects, viśiṣṭayor advaitam.

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² ii. 3. 9.

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³ Cp. Tiruvāymoyi, x. 10. 1.

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The divine spirit can be envisaged in several ways. "Brahman" may denote the central unity when souls and matter are regarded as its attributes, or the combined whole when the real is said to be Brahman and Brahman alone. Brahman is the supreme reality, of which the world is the body or the attribute (viśeṣaṇa). This world may be manifest, as in creation, or unmanifest, as in pralaya. Even in the latter condition the attributes of souls and matter exist, though subtly. The condition of absolute liberation for all is the consummation of the world. It is the ideal aimed at by the process of the universe. When it is realised, the souls regain their innocence and exist in heaven facing God. Even nature displays its sattva form. This ideal world is inherent in God. It is a state already individualised. This condition cannot be identified with the state of souls and matter in pralaya. Apart from the world-body, Īśvara has an ideal materiality, a sort of plastic stuff, through which he displays his boundless power of appearing diverse and multiple, though he is inwardly one and the same. Yet his essence is to be distinguished from this nityavibhūti also.

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Rāmānuja supports his conception of reality from the scriptures. The Vedas declare that Brahman is full of auspicious qualities. "Truth, knowledge and infinite is Brahman," says the Upaniṣad. These several terms refer to the one supreme reality and declare that the absolute Brahman is unchangeable perfection, and possesses intelligence which is ever uncontracted, while the intelligence of released souls was for some time in a contracted condition. It is infinite (anantam), since its nature is free from all limitations of place, time and substance, and different in kind from all other things. Infinity characterises the qualities as well as the nature of Brahman, which is not the case with regard to the souls called eternal (nitya).¹ It is first without a second, since there is no other God than God. Rāmānuja admits that there are texts which deny all predicates to Brahman, but contends that they only deny finite and false attributes, and not all attributes whatsoever. When it is said that we cannot comprehend the nature of Brahman, it only means that the glory of Brahman is so vast that it eludes the grasp of the finite mind. The texts which deny plurality are explained as intended to deny the real existence of things apart from the supreme spirit which is identical with all things. The supreme spirit subsists in all forms as the soul of all (sarvasyātmatayā).

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In the highest intuition the Upaniṣads declare that "one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, and knows nothing else" than Brahman. Rāmānuja explains that "when the meditating devotee realises the intuition (anubhava) of Brahman, which consists of absolute bliss, he does not see anything apart from it, since the whole aggregate of things is contained within the essence (svarūpa) and outward manifestation (vibhūti) of Brahman.² Rāmānuja interprets the famous text, "Tat tvam asi," in accordance with his view of knowledge. Śaṁkara is of opinion that the passage, "That art thou," is intended to bring out the metaphysical identity between Brahman and the individual soul, when their special characteristics are ignored. In the judgment, "This is that Devadatta," the idea conveyed is of Devadatta and him alone. To understand the identity between S and P we must eliminate thisness and thatness. Until we do so, S and P are never identical, and the sentence would be affirming a contradiction. So the text, " That art thou," means the absolute oneness of Brahman and the individual soul, which we should realise when we drop the imagined distinctions produced by avidyā. Rāmānuja argues against this contention and holds that every judgment is a synthesis of distincts. When Brahman and the individual soul are placed in the relation of subject and predicate (sāmānādhikaraṇya),¹ it follows that there is a difference between the two.

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Subject and predicate are distinct meanings referred to the same substance. If the two meanings cannot coinhere in the same substance, the judgment fails. We distinguish subject and predicate in their meaning or intension, but unite them in their application or extension. So the text, " That art thou," brings out the complex nature of the ultimate reality, which has individual souls inhering in it.² Brahman and the jīva are related as substance and attribute (viśeṣa and viśeṣaṇa), or soul and body.³ If there were not a difference between the two, we could not say that the one is the other. There are statements recorded in the scripture where the mystic soul identifies himself with the supreme and calls on others to worship him. Indra's statement, " Meditate on me," and Vāmadeva's declaration, " I am Manu, I am Sūrya," are interpreted by Rāmānuja as affirming the view that Brahman is the inner self of all (sarvāntarātmatvam).⁴ Since the infinite one dwells in all, he may be said to dwell in any individual, and so one can say with Prahlāda that as Brahman " constitutes my 'I' also, all is from me, I am all, within me is all."⁵ All words, directly or indirectly, refer to Brahman.⁶

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¹ Deśakālavastuparicchedarahitam . . . sakaletaravastuvijātīyam (i. 1. 2).

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² i. 3. 7.

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¹ Samānam = ekam, adhikaraṇam = viśeṣaṇānām ādhārabhūtam viśeṣyam. ² See also ii. i. 23. ³ Jīvaparamātmanoḥ śarīrātmabhāvena tādātmyam na viruddham. See Vedārthasaṃgraha, pp. 32, 35, 44 and 110. ⁴ i. i. 31. ⁵ Viṣṇu P., i. 19. 85, quoted in R.B., i. i.

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³¹ Sarvagatvād anantasya sa evāham avasthitaḥ Mattas sarvam aham sarvam mayi sarvam sanātane. ⁶ Vedārthasaṃgraha, p. 30.

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The Vaiṣṇava theology is based on the Vedas and the Āgamas, the Purāṇas and the Prabandham. The Vedas speak of the Absolute in itself and the inner ruler. The Pañcarātra Āgamas accept the theory of Vyūhas or manifestations. The Purāṇas inculcate the worship of the avatārs, such as Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. The Drāviḍa Prabandham is full of devotional utterances addressed to the images in the shrines of South India. So it is said that the one Absolute identified with Viṣṇu exists in five different modes, images and the like (arcā), incarnations (vibhava), manifestations (vyūha) like Saṃkarṣaṇa, Vāsudeva, Pradyumna and Aniruddha, the subtle (sūkṣma) form of Vāsudeva or the supreme spirit and the inner ruler of all (antaryāmin). Sometimes the highest mode (para) is said to be Nārāyaṇa or Brahman living in Vaikuṇṭha,¹ where God is said to exist in a body made of pure sattva. God in his infinite fulness transcends his own manifestations. The perfect personality of God is not exhausted in its cosmical aspects. God has his own independent life, rendering possible personal relations with him. In Vaikuṇṭha, the Lord is seated on the serpent Śeṣa, supported by his consort Lakṣmī. Lakṣmī, the imaginative symbol of the creative energy of God, becomes in later Vaiṣṇavism the divine mother of the universe, who sometimes intercedes with God on behalf of weak and erring humanity. She is the power united eternally with the Lord. While Īśvara symbolises justice, Lakṣmī stands for mercy, and the two qualities are united in the godhead. Lakṣmī, the śakti of Viṣṇu, has the two forms of kriyā or the principle of regulation and control, and bhūti or the principle of becoming. These, answering to force and matter, enable Viṣṇu to become the efficient and the material causes of the universe. The Supreme has the six perfections of knowledge, energy, strength, lordship, vigour and brilliance.² While the highest spirit Vāsudeva possesses all the six perfections, the three other vyūhas possess only two of these. The vyūhas, according to Rāmānuja, are the forms which the highest Brahman assumes out of tenderness for his devotees. They are respectively the rulers of individual souls (Saṃkarṣaṇa), minds (Pradyumna) and egoity (Aniruddha).³ The Vibhavarūpas are the incarnations of Viṣṇu. In his Introduction to the Gītābhāṣya, Rāmānuja says that God in his infinite mercy "assumed various forms without putting away his own essential godlike nature, and time after time incarnated himself . . . descending not only with the purpose of relieving the burden of the earth, but also to be accessible to men, even such as we are, so revealing himself to the world as to be visible to the sight of all, and doing such other marvellous deeds as to be ravish the hearts and eyes of all beings, high and low." Rāmānuja’s God is not an impassive absolute who looks down upon us from the height of heaven, but joins us in the experiences of our life, shares our ends and works for the upbuilding of the world. The avatārs are literally the descents from the supernatural (aprākṛta) to the natural (prākṛta) order. They are principal (mukhya) or subordinate (gauṇa). When Viṣṇu himself interferes with the natural order, we have a case of the former; the inspired souls¹ are the subordinate incarnations. The avatārs are worshipped by the seeker for freedom, while the latter are resorted to by those who desire wealth, power and influence. God dwells in duly consecrated images (pratimā or vigraha). Arthapañcaka speaks of the suffering which the Lord out of his love for men undergoes in permitting himself to be embodied in an idol.² God, as the antaryāmin, dwells in all beings and accompanies the soul in all its wanderings through heaven and hell. The God in man is like a flash of lightning in the heart of a blue cloud.³ God, as antaryāmin, is said to be the highest of all.⁴

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¹ Parabrahmaparavāsudevādivācyo nārāyaṇaḥ (Yatīndramatadīpikā).

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² See also Viṣṇu P., vi. 5. 79.

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³ R.B., ii. 2. 40.

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¹ Āveśāvatāras.

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² "Though omniscient, he appears as ignorant, though spirit as non-spirit, though his own master as one who is in the power of men, though omnipotent as powerless, though entirely free from needs as having needs, though all-protecting as helpless, though lord like servant, though invisible as visible, though unseizable as seizable."

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³ Nilatoyadamadhyasthā vidyullekheva bhāsvara (Vedārthasaṃgraha).

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⁴ Cp. Pañcarātrarahasya. Pūrvapūrvoditopāsti viśeṣakṣiṇakalmaṣaḥ. Uttarottaramūrtinām upāstyadhikṛto bhavet. See S.D.S., iv.

Cites (8)