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Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s43: XIV Creation

Indian Philosophy v2.c26.s43

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XIV Creation

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According to Rāmānuja, every effect involves a material cause, and the effect of the world implies free existing souls and unevolved matter. Though souls and matter are the modes (prakāras) of God, they have enjoyed the kind of individual existence which is theirs from all eternity, and cannot be entirely resolved into Brahman. They have a sort of secondary subsistence, which is enough to enable them to develop on their own lines. They exist in two different conditions which periodically alternate, the first being a subtle state when they do not possess the qualities by which they are ordinarily known, when there is no distinction of individual name and form, when matter is unevolved (avyakta) and intelligence is contracted (saṃkucita). It is the state of pralaya when Brahman is said to be in a causal condition (kāraṇāvasthā). When creation takes place on account of the will of the Lord, subtle matter becomes gross and souls enter into connection with material bodies corresponding to the degree of merit or demerit acquired by them in previous forms of existence, and their intelligence undergoes a certain amount of expansion (vikāsa). Brahman, with souls and matter thus manifested, is said to be in the effect condition (kāryāvasthā). Creation and destruction are only relative and signify different states of the same causal substance, namely Brahman.¹ Souls and matter have a twofold existence, a causal existence and an effect existence. In their causal existence the souls are unmaterialised and nature is in equipoise; but when the time for creation comes, the souls, under the influence of their karma, disturb the equilibrium of the three guṇas, and prakṛti works out the fruits of their karma under divine providence. It is to enable the souls to undergo the experiences for which their deeds have entitled them that creation is brought about. God creates the world to suit the karma of the souls. In this sense God's creative act is not independent or absolute.²

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¹ See R.B.G., xiii. 2 ; ix. 7.

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² ii. 1. 34-35.

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According to the Pañcarātra account, a distinction is made between pure creation (śuddhasṛṣṭi) and gross creation. The former is not so much a creation as the everlasting expression of the inwardness of God's being, wherein the qualities of God, omniscience (jñāna), lordship centred in unimpeded activity (aiśvarya), power to originate the cosmos (śakti), strength to support all (bala), changelessness (virya) and the divine self-sufficiency and splendour (tejas) manifest themselves. These qualities form the body of Vāsudeva and Lakṣmī, or of Vāsudeva associated with Lakṣmī. The Vyūhas and the Vibhavas also belong to the pure creation. Vaikuṇṭha, which has for its material cause śuddhasattva belongs to the pure creation.¹ The gross creation takes place in the order already mentioned by means of prakṛti, composed of the three guṇas.² For God, the creation of the world is said to be mere līlā or sport.³ The metaphor of līlā brings out the disinterestedness, freedom and joy underlying the act of creation. It enables Rāmānuja to insist on the absolute freedom and independence of God. Nature and souls are instruments of God's play, and cannot at any time offer any resistance to his will. The whole drama is undertaken by the Lord at his own sweet will.⁴

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¹ The Bengal School of Vaiṣṇavism accepts this scheme, but substitutes for Viṣṇu and Lakṣmī, Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā.

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² The Pañcarātra Saṃhitās admit an intermediate creation also.

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³ Cp. Krīḍā harer idam sarvam; again, hare viharasi krīḍā kantukairiva jantubhiḥ; and also the Sūtra, lokavat tu līlā kaivalyam.

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⁴ Svasaṃkalpakṛtam (R.B.G., i. 25). Cp.

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Śaṃkara's difficulty, that from Brahman, which is absolute perfection, the world of imperfection cannot be said to take its rise, at any rate that it is impossible for the finite mind to account for the rise of the finite from out of the infinite, does not trouble Rāmānuja, since he is willing to accept on the authority of the śruti that the finite springs from the infinite. What the śruti says must be capable of being logically determined. Does it or does it not depend on the will of God that there be unevolved matter and immaterial souls? It is quite true that these given elements, on which the divine will is dependent in creation, are not given from outside, as Madhva believes, but inhere in God as his modes. At any rate, the will of God is dependent on their pre-existence. It is theoretically possible to imagine that with a different kind of material the world could have been shaped better. God could not choose the best of all possible worlds, but was obliged to make the best of the given one. Brahman has absolutely non-conditioned existence,⁵ which is not the case with non-intelligent matter, which is the abode of change and the souls implicated in matter. But it is difficult to conceive how Brahman could be supposed to be unchangeable in view of the changing conditions of his attributes, souls and matter.

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⁵ Nirupādhikasattā, i. 1. 2. Cp. Śrutaprakāśikā: Kenāpi pariṇāmaviśeṣeṇa tattadavasthasya sattā sopādhikasattā, ato nirupādhikasattā nirvikāratvam.

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“God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways.” (Browning: Paracelsus.)

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These modes (prakāras) change from a subtle to a gross condition and vice versa, and Rāmānuja is obliged to concede that Īśvara is also subject to change.¹ Rāmānuja makes the finite the attribute of the infinite. From this view it should follow that the infinite cannot exist without its attribute, and so the attribute is necessary to the infinite. Yet Rāmānuja is unable to concede it in view of the many opposed scriptural texts. Commenting on the passage, "These beings are not in me,"² Rāmānuja says: "By my will I am the supporter of all beings, and yet there is no help to me from any of these beings." "No kind of help whatever is contributed by these towards my existence."³ The existence of the world is completely immaterial to the divine being. Such a view is hardly consistent with Rāmānuja's general position, that the world has its basis in the nature of God. Commenting on the passage of the Gītā that "I enjoy whatever is offered with devotion, be it a leaf or a flower," Rāmānuja observes: "Even though I remain in the enjoyment of my own natural, unbounded and inestimable bliss, I enjoy these as if I obtained a beloved object which lies far beyond the path of my desire."⁴

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¹ Ubhayaprakāraviśiṣṭe niyantraṁśe tadavasthātadubhayaviśiṣṭatārūpavikāro bhavati (R.B., ii. 3. 18).

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² B.G., ix. 4.

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³ Matsthitau tair na kaścid upakāraḥ (R.B.G., ix. 4).

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⁴ R.B.G., ix. 26.

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God is ready to acquire some happiness through the willing devotion of his devotees, though he is not equally ready to be touched by the pain and the suffering of others. If the souls are parts of the Lord, then the latter must be afflicted by the pain caused to the soul in its experiences, even as the individual suffers from the pain affecting his hand or foot. So the supreme Lord would suffer more pain than the soul.⁵ But Rāmānuja contends that the suffering of the souls does not pollute the nature of God. If the acts of creation, maintenance and destruction give God delight, are we to think that God's delight is capable of modifications, and is increased by these operations? God's nature as transcendent spirit is one of delight, and the modifications of his attributes also add to his joy. As the relation between soul and body is not logically determined, the relation between the transcendent delight which is perfect and incapable of variation and that derived from the changes of his body is not intelligibly stated.

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⁵ S.B., ii. 3. 45.

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Rāmānuja protests vigorously against the doctrine of māyā and the phenomenality of the world. If the distinctions of the world are due to the imperfections of man's mind, then, for God, there should be no such distinctions; but scripture tells us that God creates the world, allots to different souls their rewards, thus indicating that God reckons with the world of distinction. It cannot be said that the multiplicity is unreal, even as a mirage is; for the latter is unreal because our activity prompted by it is unsuccessful; but not so the activity based on the perception of the world. Nor is it logical to urge that the reality of the world, testified by perception, is sublated by the testimony of the scripture; for the spheres of perception and scripture are quite different, and so they cannot contradict each other.¹ All knowledge reveals objects.² To say that objects do not exist, simply because they do not persist, is rather strange. The argument involves a confusion between opposites and distincts. Distinction is not denial. Where two cognitions are mutually contradictory, then both cannot be real. "But jars, pieces of cloth and the like do not contradict one another, since they are separate in place and time. If the non-existence of a thing is cognised at the same time and the same place where and when its existence is cognised, we have a mutual contradiction of two cognitions. But when of a thing that is perceived in connection with some place and time, the non-existence is perceived in connection with some other place and time, there arises no contradiction."³ In the example of mistaking the rope for a snake, the cognition of non-existence arises in connection with the given place and time. So there is contradiction. But if an object perceived now does not exist at another time and place, we cannot rush to the conclusion that the thing is unreal. Both Śaṃkara and Rāmānuja lay stress on the logic of identity¹; only Rāmānuja believes that a true identity implies distinction and determination, though not contradiction and denial.

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¹ Ākāśavāyvādibhūta . . . padārthagrāhi pratyakṣaṃ; śāstraṃ tu pratyakṣādyaparicchedya sarvāntarātmatvasātyatvādyanantaviśeṣaṇaviśiṣṭa brahmasvarūpa . . . viṣayam, iti śāstrapratyakṣayor na virodhaḥ (Vedārthasaṃgraha, p. 87).

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² Arthaprakāśa.

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³ Deśāntarakālāntarasaṃbandhitayānubhūtasyānyadeśakālayor abhāvapratipattau na virodhaḥ (i. I. I).

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¹ S.B., ii. 2. 33; R.B., ii. 2. 31.

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Rāmānuja urges several objections against the Advaita doctrine of avidyā. What is the seat (āśraya) of avidyā? It cannot be Brahman, who is full of perfections. It cannot be the individual, who is the product of avidyā. Avidyā cannot conceal Brahman, whose nature is self-luminosity. If self-luminous consciousness, which is without object and without substrate, becomes through the influence of an imperfection residing within itself conscious of itself as connected with numberless objects, is that imperfection real or unreal? It is not real, according to Advaita; it cannot be unreal, according to Rāmānuja, since it is something permitted by God himself. In human knowledge, where something unmanifested becomes manifested, we may assume the existence of some entity which hindered the manifestation. But there is no need to attribute to Brahman any such defect. Again, if avidyā involves Brahman also in its meshes, then universal falsehood will alone be the reality, and we cannot escape from it. The nature (svarūpa) of avidyā cannot be logically determined. It is neither real nor unreal. To say that a thing is indefinable (anirvacanīya) is illogical. No means of knowledge (pramāṇa) testifies to the existence of avidyā. Neither perception nor inference nor revelation establishes it. In the scriptures māyā is used to indicate the wonderful power possessed by God, who has nothing to do with an eternal unreal avidyā. On the Advaita view, even the scriptures are a part of the world-error, and the whole foundation of knowledge is destroyed. If cessation (nivartana) of avidyā takes place by means of the knowledge of Brahman devoid of attributes and qualities, then it cannot take place, since such knowledge is impossible. The abolition (nivṛtti) of avidyā, which is a concrete reality, cannot be brought about by abstract knowledge. The world, forsooth, is too great and meaningful to be lightly dismissed as a mere product of avidyā. The real avidyā to which we are the victims is that power of illusion which makes us believe that we ourselves and the world are independent of Brahman.

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ETHICAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE

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The jīvas in saṃsāra, with their souls shrouded in bodies, are like islanders who live unconscious of the sea. They believe that they are not so much modes of God as products of nature. On account of its past deeds, the soul finds itself confined in a material body, its inner light obscured by the outer darkness. It mistakes the garment of nature for its true self, attributes to itself the qualities of the body, loves the fleeting pleasures of human existence as true bliss, and turns its face away from God. The downfall of the soul is due to karma and avidyā, which bring about its embodiment. The connection of soul, which is pure spirit, with matter is the degradation of the soul. Its sin is not merely a check to its own upward progress, but is also an offence against God. Avidyā has to be displaced by vidyā, or the intuition that God is the fundamental self of all.

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Rāmānuja grants to the individual souls freedom to act according to their own will. So far as responsibility is concerned, each individual is an other to God, a different person. When the soul fails to recognise its dependence on God, God helps it to realise the truth by the machinery of karma, which inflicts punishments on the soul, thus reminding it of its sinful efforts. Through the operation of the indwelling God, the soul recognises its sinfulness and entreats God for help. In Rāmānuja’s philosophy great emphasis is placed on the conviction of sin and man’s responsibility for it. Yāmunācārya describes himself as “the vessel of a thousand sins” and implores the grace of God. The Vaiṣṇava faith does not encourage tapas or austerities.

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As theist, Rāmānuja believes that salvation is possible, not through jñāna and karma, but through bhakti and prasāda (grace). Jñāna, in the scriptures, stands for dhyāna, or meditation, and nididhyāsana or concentrated contemplation.¹ Bhakti is gained through concentration on the truth that God is our innermost self and that we are but modes of his substance. But such jñāna cannot be had unless the bad karma is destroyed. Work undertaken in a disinterested spirit helps to remove the past accumulations. So long as karma enjoined in the scriptures is undertaken with a selfish motive, the end cannot be gained.¹ The results of ceremonial observances are transitory, while the result of the knowledge of God is indestructible (akṣaya); but if we perform work in the spirit of dedication to God it helps us in our effort after salvation.¹ Work performed in such a spirit develops the sattva nature and helps the soul to see the truth of things. The two, jñāna and karma, are means to bhakti, or the power which tears up our selfishness by the roots, gives new strength to the will, new eyes to the understanding and new peace to the soul.

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¹ iii. 4. 26.

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¹ Tadarpitākhilācāratā (Nārada : Bhakti Sūtra, p, 19). ² Cp. " All my thoughts, seeking happiness, extol Indra, longing for him; they embrace him as wives embrace a fair young bridegroom, him the divine giver of gifts, that he may help me. My mind is directed to thee, Indra, and does not turn from thee; on thee I rest my desire, O much invoked one " (R.V., x. 43. 1.) ³ Śaṃkara's interpretation that we should not be attached to the things of sense is better. ⁴ Five kinds are distinguished, which are study, worship of God, duties to forefathers, human society and animal creation. ⁵ S.D.S., iv. ⁶ Svapneśvara, commenting on the word " anurakti " used by Śāṇḍilya, says that anu means after, and rakti attachment, and so anurakti is attachment which comes after the knowledge of God. Blind attachment is not bhakti.

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Bhakti or devotion is a vague term extending from the lowest form of worship to the highest life of realisation. It has had a continuous history in India from the time of the Ṛg-Veda ² to the present day. Bhakti, in Rāmānuja, is man's reaching out towards a fuller knowledge of God quietly and meditatively. He insists on an elaborate preparation for bhakti, which includes viveka, or discrimination of food ³; vimoka, or freedom from all else and longing for God; abhyāsa, or continuous thinking of God; kriyā, or doing good to others ⁴; kalyāṇa, or wishing well to all; satyam, or truthfulness; ārjavam, or integrity; dayā, or compassion; ahiṃsā, or non-violence; dāna, or charity; and anavasāda, or cheerfulness and hope.⁵ Thus bhakti is not mere emotionalism,⁶ but includes the training of the will as well as the intellect.¹ It is knowledge of God as well as obedience to his will.² Bhakti is loving God with all our mind and with all our heart. It finds its culmination in an intuitive realisation of God.³

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¹ Jñānakarmānugṛhītam bhaktiyogam (R.B.G., Introduction). Dhīprītirūpā bhaktiḥ (Tattvamuktākalāpa).

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² In Vedārthasaṃgraha, Rāmānuja distinguishes between sādhana-bhakti and parā-bhakti. The former includes control of body, mind and speech, performance of one's duties, study, non-attachment, etc.

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³ i. I. I.

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Bhakti and mokṣa are organically related, so that at every stage of bhakti we are perfecting ourselves. Bhakti is salvation in becoming, and is regarded as superior to the other methods, since it is its own reward (phalarūpatvāt).⁴ The soul becomes through bhakti more and more vividly conscious of its relation to God, until at last it surrenders itself to God, who is the soul of its soul. Then there is no longer self-love or self-seeking, since God has taken the place of self and the whole life is transfigured. Nammāḻvār says: "In return for thy great and good gift—the mingling of my spirit with thine—I have entirely yielded up my spirit to thee."⁵ Every drop of one's blood, every beat of one's heart, and every thought of one's brain are surrendered to God. It is a case of "I yet not I." Bhakti is distinguished into formal (vaidhī) and supreme (mukhyā). The formal is the lower phase, where we indulge in prayers, ceremonies and image-worship. All these help the soul onward, but cannot by themselves save the soul. We must worship the supreme; for nothing else, in the last analysis, can serve as the object of meditation.⁶

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⁴ Nārada : Bhakti Sūtra, p. 26.

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⁵ Tiruvāymoyi, ii. 3. 4.

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⁶ Rāmānuja quotes a teacher to the effect: "From Brahmā to a tuft of grass all things that live in the world are subject to saṃsāra due to karma, therefore they cannot be helpful as objects of meditation, since they are all in ignorance and subject to saṃsāra."

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Pra patti is complete resignation to God,⁷ and is, according

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⁷ See R.B.G., Introduction to ch. vii and vii. 14. Six factors are distinguished in prapatti, which are: (1) acquisition of qualities which would make one a fit offering to God (ānukūlyasya saṃpattiḥ); (2) avoidance of conduct not acceptable to God (prātikūlyasya varjanam); (3) faith that

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Ābrahmastambaparyantā jagadantarvyavasthitāḥ
Prāṇinaḥ karmajanitasaṃsāravaśavartinaḥ.
Yatas tato na te dhyāne dhyāninām upakārakāḥ
Avidyāntargatās sarve te hi saṃsāragocarāḥ.

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to the Bhāgavatas, the most effective means for gaining salvation. It is open to all, the learned as well as the ignorant, the high as well as the low, while the path of bhakti, involving as it does jñāna and karma, is confined to the three upper classes. But anyone, after taking instruction from a preceptor, may fling himself on the bosom of God and take refuge in him. According to the Southern school (Tengalais), which follows more closely the tradition of the Āḷvārs, prapatti is the only way to salvation, and no more effort on the part of the devotee is necessary. God saves the soul who has utterly surrendered himself to him. The Northern school (Vaḍagalais) holds that prapatti is one way of reaching the goal, and not the only way. For them human effort is an essential factor in salvation. The individual who has qualified himself by karma, jñāna, bhakti and prapatti wins the favour of the Lord. This school upholds the markaṭanyāya, or the monkey theory, since the young monkey is to exert and stick to the mother; while the Southern holds the mārjāra-nyāya or the cat theory, since the kitten is taken up by the cat with its mouth. This school holds that nothing depends on man's effort, for the grace of God selects the individuals to be freed. It also believes that the soul is seized by God in one supreme act, which need not be repeated, while the Northern section insists on the continuous offering of the soul to God.

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In the Bhāgavata Purāṇa bhakti is less restrained in its character than in Rāmānuja. A certain tendency to extravagant enthusiasm marks the opening of the religious sense in men. The individual undergoing the conversion of the soul has the shudder of awe and delight. In the Bhāgavata bhakti is a surging emotion which thrills the whole frame, chokes speech, and leads to trance. The Bhāgavata is indifferent to sacrificial observances and declares that we must love God for his own sake and not for any reward. It admits that union with God is open to any individual, if he cares for it. He can obtain it through bhakti, but the soul who remains

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God would protect him (rakṣiṣyatīti viśvāsaḥ); (4) appeal for protection (goptṛtvavaraṇam); (5) a feeling of one's own littleness (kārpaṇyam); and (6) absolute surrender (ātmasamarpaṇam). The last is one with prapatti though the others are means to it.

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ever distinct from God he worships is happier than one who becomes absorbed in God.¹ We find in the God of the Bhāgavata an intimately human feeling. He is not free (asvatantra), as he is subject to the will of his devotees (bhaktaparādhīna).² Without the church of his saints, God does not think much of himself.³ A striking feature of the Bhāgavata is the idealisation of the story of Kṛṣṇa and the gopis. The legend is transformed into the ideal of bhakti and, as we shall see, the later sects of Vaiṣṇavism are influenced by it.

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¹ Bhāgavata, iii. 25. 33.

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² ix. 4. 67.

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³ Nāham ātmānam āśāste madbhaktair sādhubhir vinā (ix. 4. 6). Cp. Bhaktaprāṇo hi kṛṣṇaś ca kṛṣṇaprāṇā hi vaiṣṇavāḥ (Nāradapañcarātra, ii. 36).

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Vaiṣṇava devotion has used the most intimate human relations as symbols of the relation of man and God. God is viewed as the teacher, the friend, the father, the mother, the child, and even as the beloved. The last is stressed by the Ālvārs, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and the Bengal school of Vaiṣṇavism. In the best love, as in bhakti, to live in the presence of the beloved is the highest happiness and creative productivity; to live without him or her is pain and despair and barrenness. We think that the use of the symbolism of love is wrong because we assume that sensual attraction is all in all in love; but in true love there is little of sensual attraction. Many women, as well as some men, who in love are above the level of beasts, will protest that love is not a mere search after new sensations. In true love, the two souls trust each other more than all others they have met or known before. The lover is ready to fight the world, endure all privations and feel happy in poverty, exile and persecution, for the sake of the beloved. Even if he or she is sundered from the other through many difficulties, so that reunion seems remote, nay impossible, yet he or she cannot afford to lose the other and, at the risk of losing everything else, keeps alive the eternal link created by mutual love which cannot be broken even by death. The stories of Sītā and Sāvitrī, Damayantī and Śakuntalā have burnt this lesson into the heart of India. No wonder the Indian Vaiṣṇava looks upon God as his beloved,⁴ and tries to redirect to God the passions, longings and transports of human love. The bhaktas feel helpless and restless when they lose the presence of God, for nothing else can satisfy them. In many of their hymns we find the cry of the heart for God, the sense of devastating desolation in his absence, the anticipated joy in his fellowship and a sense, real though undefined, of the preciousness of his love. In the rapt utterances of the Vaiṣṇava saints, we feel the ecstatic joy of the mystic desirous of union with God in a spiritual sense. "Thou splendid light of heaven," cries Nammāḷvār, "thou art in my heart melting and consuming my spirit. When shall I become one with thee?"¹ Deep attachment to God results in an indifference to all else.²

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⁴ Cp. Sa eva vāsudevo 'sau sākṣāt puruṣa ucyate Strīprāyam itarat sarvaṁ jagad brahmapurassaram. The supreme Lord is the only man; all others, from Brahmā downwards, are women, i.e. depend on him and long to be united with him. Cp. also Svāmitvātmatvaśeṣitvapumstvādyas svāmino guṇāḥ Svebhyo dāsatvadehatvaśeṣatvastritvadāyinaḥ.

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¹ Tiruvāymoyi, v. 10. 1.

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² Anurāgād virāgaḥ. The way of bhakti has in it four movements: (1) The desire of the soul when it turns towards God and the straining of the emotions towards him; (2) the pain of love unrealised; (3) the delight of love possessed and the play of that delight; and (4) the eternal enjoyment of the divine lover which is the heart of divine bliss.

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The Hindu devotee does not seek to destroy desire, but attempts to lift it from earth to heaven, seeks to withdraw it from creation that he may centre it on the Creator. Maṇavāḷa says: "The pleasure which arises for the ignorant from sense-objects, the same is called bhakti when directed to God; in the case of Nammāḷvār, this bhakti has become love for the beautiful Lord, hence for Āḷvārs there arises the 'love' type of devotion."³ While many of those who employ the symbolism of bridegroom and bride are free from all traces of eroticism and morally impeccable, it cannot be denied that there were abuses of it.⁴ But such abuses were deviations from the normal path.

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³ Yā prītir asti viṣayeṣv avivekabhājām Saivācyute bhavati bhaktipādabhidheyā. Bhaktis tu kāma iha tatkamanīyarūpe Tasmān muner ajani kāmukavākyabhaṅgī. (Dramiḍopaniṣadsaṃgati.)

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⁴ I.P., pp. 495-496.

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The distinctions of caste do not touch the nature of the soul. At best they belong to the bodies and determine the duties which the different individuals owe to society. But caste has nothing to do with the qualities of souls. Some of the Āḷvārs worshipped by the Brahmins were Śūdras. Rāmānuja allows that no distinctions should be made among the lovers of God.⁵ He admits that those outside the āśramas are eligible for the knowledge of Brahman.⁶ Strictly speaking, the religion of bhakti or devotion, and prapatti or submission, requires no priest, for the offering of love does not need the sanction of the scripture, and the grace of God is not in the keeping of any man. For one who is deep in devotion there is neither scripture nor rule.¹ Rāmānuja preaches equality in worship and proclaims that bhakti transcends all caste distinctions. He admitted the pariahs to the temple at Melkoṭe. But it is by no means clear that he was prepared for a wholesale defiance of the accepted order. Out of deference to tradition he concedes that freedom is open only to the three upper classes, and others will have to work their way up and wait for the next birth. We cannot, therefore, say that he was in full sympathy with the logical implications of his teaching. A later Vaiṣṇava teacher, Rāmānanda (thirteenth century), protested against caste distinctions. “Let no man,” he says, “ask a man’s caste or sect. Whoever adores God is God’s own.” His apostolate of about twelve included a Brahmin, a barber, a leather-worker, a Rajput and a woman. Caitanya preached the religion of devotion and love to all men irrespective of caste or class. In South India, on the other hand, Vedānta Deśika emphasised ritualistic religion.² Again and again, throughout the history of Indian civilisation, protests were made against the rigidity of caste; but all these protestant movements have not been able to check, in any considerable degree, its sway on the national mind.

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⁵ Cp. Nāsti teṣu jātividyārūpakuladhanakriyādibhedaḥ (Nārada : Bhakti Sūtra, p. 72. Cp. also Śvapaco 'pi mahīpāla viṣṇubhakto dvijādhikaḥ Viṣṇubhaktivihīnas tu yatiś ca śvapacādhamah. (Bhāgavata.)

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⁶ iii. 4. 36; i. 3. 32-39.

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¹ Atyantabhaktiyuktānāṁ naiva śāstram na ca kramaḥ.

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² Śrutismrtir mamaivājñā yas tām ullaṅghya vartate Ājñācchedī mama drohī madbhakto 'pi na vaiṣṇavaḥ. See the chapter on Śāstraniyamanādhikāra in Rahasyatrayasāra.

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MOKṢA

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Salvation, according to Rāmānuja, is not the disappearance of the self, but its release from the limiting barriers. For disappearance of the self will be the destruction of the real self (satyātmanāśa).³ One substance cannot pass over into another substance.⁴ However high a man may rise, there will always be an almighty power, an eternal love for him to reverence, worship and adore. Rāmānuja, who ranks religious experience as the highest open to us, contends that it implies an "other." The released soul attains the nature of God, though not identity with him.¹ It becomes omniscient and is ever having the intuition of God.² It desires nothing else, and so has no chance of returning to saṃsāra.³ It is egoity that is opposed to salvation, and not individuality. The essential nature, though something eternally accomplished, is, in the state of saṃsāra, obscured by avidyā and karma. The state of release means the unimpeded manifestation of the natural qualities of intelligence and bliss. The released soul is said to be svarāṭ in the sense that he is not subject to the law of karma.⁴ For Rāmānuja there is no jīvanmukti. One attains to fellowship with God after exhausting all karma and throwing off the physical body. In the state of release the souls are all of the same type. There are no distinctions there of gods, men, animals and plants. In the world of saṃsāra these distinctions have a meaning. It is the connection with matter that gives uniqueness to the soul. But the souls can get rid of this connection, which is not a natural one.⁵ It follows that the individuality determined by bodily connections is not eternal. When it is shattered the soul is said to attain the nature of Brahman and manifest its own true nature. It does not develop any new character.⁶

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³ i. I. I.

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⁴ Viṣṇu Purāṇa, ii. 14. 27.

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¹ Brahmaṇo bhāvaḥ na tu svarūpaikyam (i. 1. 1).

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² Paripūrṇaparabrahmānubhavam. Cp. "Sarvadeśa sarvakāla sarvāvasthaigalilum, sarveśvaranai, anantamgaḷāna, vigraha guṇa vibhūti ceṣṭitamgaḷil oṇrum kurayāmal, niratiśayabhogya māka, viṣayikarittukoṇḍirukkum" (Rahasyatrayasāra, xxii).

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³ R.B., iv. 4. 22.

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⁴ Śrutaprakāśikā, i. 1. 1.

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⁵ Karmarūpajñānamūlaḥ, na svarūpakṛtaḥ (i. 1. 1).

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⁶ iv. 4. 1.

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In the released condition the souls have all the perfections of the Supreme except in two points. They are atomic in size, while the supreme spirit is all-pervading. Though of atomic size, the soul can enter into several bodies and experience different worlds created by the Lord⁷; but it has no power over the creative movements of the world, which belong exclusively to Brahman.⁸

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⁷ iv. 4. 13-15.

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⁸ iv. 4. 17.

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The city of God consists of a number of souls who do not simply repeat one another. The forms which they assume are due to the pure matter (viśuddhasattva). Through its aid the liberated souls give shape to their thoughts and wishes. At the end of the play—if such a thing can be conceived—each individual soul will have become perfect and yet be regarded as an adjective of the Absolute. The Absolute, which is one self, by virtue of its immanent principle, becomes an interrelated unity of selves without being the less one self. It has a social character about it. Each one of the society of selves aims at no selfish interest, but at the universal being.

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The Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy distinguishes two classes of the released: those who are intent on service to God on earth and so do it in heaven, and those (kevalins) who are altogether isolated from the rest, since they achieved their end by constant meditation on the real nature of their own soul.

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The picture of the heaven where the redeemed souls dwell, is not much different from the usual description.¹ It only differs in details of dress, custom and landscape from the paradise of the popular imagination. There are streams of living waters, trees laden with delicious fruits, gentle breezes and golden sunshine to cheer them. Amid these delights they sing and feast, listen to the music of the heavenly choirs, and enjoy at times philosophic converse with one another. But such a vision of paradise does not satisfy the mystic soul, who cries out against the loneliness of being imprisoned in a particular nature. He yearns to burst through the barriers of personality and merge himself in the life and essence of the universe. In his theory of mokṣa, Rāmānuja does not do justice to the mystics, who thus hunger for becoming one with the supreme reality. For them a heaven painted in terms of earthly experience, however idealised it be, is not essentially different from that experience itself. Though the soul sees God and God only, and is flooded with his presence, she retains her individuality and is still herself and not the object of her vision. A tendency to escape from oneself into God has been the central motive of some seers of the Upaniṣads, the Orphic brotherhood in ancient Greece, and some Christian and Sufi mystics. They try to slough off not only their bodies but their personalities, and melt their souls in God. But there is no evidence that any mystic achieved such a goal. In the nature of things, Rāmānuja contends, evidence of such absorption into God is impossible. He who has become God cannot return to tell us of his experience; he who narrates his story has not become God.

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¹ Nāradapañcarātra, vi.

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GENERAL ESTIMATE

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While the philosophy of Śaṃkara may have some attraction for those superior minds which shy at sentimental solutions of difficulties and seek their internal satisfaction in the discipline of the will, which will enable them to bear with a Stoic calm the worst that circumstances will inflict on them, even Śaṃkara allows that the millions of humanity crave for a God who has some heart about him. Rāmānuja’s view is the highest expression of the truth, though Śaṃkara would add that the real is something larger and better than our thinking has room for. We need not assume, Rāmānuja contends, that what comes through religion is not the highest reality.¹ Theism of the type advocated by Rāmānuja is what even Śaṃkara allows in life and religion. It is the faith of Hinduism, whether in its Vaiṣṇava, Smārta, Śaiva or Śākta form. It is strange that Western thinkers and critics should overlook this striking fact and persist in foisting on Hinduism as a whole the theory of abstract monism.² While Rāmānuja’s statement is not in any way inferior to other forms of theism, it is not free from the difficulties incident to the theistic outlook.

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¹ Cp. Bradley: "The man who demands a reality more solid than that of the religious consciousness knows not what he seeks."

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² Hegel writes: "In the Eastern religions, the first condition is that only the one substance shall, as such, be the true, and that the individual neither can have within himself, nor can he attain to any true value in as far as he maintains himself as against the being in and for itself. He can have true value only through an identification with its substance in which he ceases to exist as subject and disappears into unconsciousness."

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By the theory of the relation of viśeṣya and viśeṣaṇa, or substance and attribute, Rāmānuja attempts to bring out the reality of one and one existence only¹ and assimilate the others to it. Taking up the relation of Brahman to the qualities of sat, cit and ānanda, Rāmānuja argues that the unity of these attributes is not an absolute unity but one of inherence, *i.e.* relation, wherein distinction subsists between the substance and the attributes as well as between the attributes themselves. God is the underlying substratum in which infinite attributes inhere. Rāmānuja cannot escape from this conclusion so long as he accepts logical judgment as providing the clue to the nature of ultimate reality. All judgment is a synthesis of subject and predicate or substance and attribute. But all affirmations deal with finite objects, whose unity does not exceed the relation of inherence; in finite experience we do not find the absolute unity. We are impelled to transcend the world of change and finitude in order to reach a reality where the subject and the predicate are absolute. The assumption of such a reality is the basis of all logical procedure. In judgment we try our best to bring out the full nature of reality by a series of predications. But a string of abstractions cannot do justice to the wealth of reality unless we assume that the ultimate reality is thought as such. It is this absolute judgment that is implicit in our mind from the first, that being and thought are one.

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¹ Nyāyasiddhāñjana, p. 96.

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Beyond the fact that the Absolute characterised by sat, cit and ānanda is a concrete one possessing these distinctive attributes, Rāmānuja does not tell us how exactly these attributes are found organically related in the Absolute itself.

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Between substance and attributes,² Brahman and the world, the relation is one of non-difference and not coinherence. For the latter denotes an inherent separateness.

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² The conception of the relation of substance and attributes is an unsatisfactory one. If the two are identical, the distinction is meaningless; if the two are different, then the relation becomes a purely external one. If the two are related internally by samavāya, this relation itself must be related to the terms, and so on *ad infinitum*.

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Are the souls and the world also one with Brahman? If so, in what sense? The dependence of the viśeṣaṇas or attributes is eternal and is connected with his essential nature.¹ The world is not merely a viseṣaṇa but has to do with the nature of the supreme as well. It is the manifestation of the inner determination of the real. The admission of individual souls as coeternal with Brahman constitutes a limit. The infinitude of Brahman is compromised by the unconditioned infinitude of its constituent factors. If Brahman and the soul exist coeternally, what is the relation between them? An eternal relation between them, whether essential or accidental, will be an inexplicable mystery. The self of Brahman is distinct from its body, and we can call it the unconditioned self.

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¹ Svarūpānubandhitvena niyatatvāt (ii. 4. 14).

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The finite centres of experience seem to be resolved, in Rāmānuja’s scheme, into movements in the life of God. If the Absolute is a perfect personality including all selves and the world, it is difficult to know how the finite selves, with their respective consciousnesses, unique meanings and values, are sustained. One self cannot be a part of another. Rāmānuja’s Brahman is not only a supreme self, but an eternal society of eternal selves. How can God both include and exclude the individual in the same ultimate sense? We may distinguish between God as distinct from the lesser spirits who derive their being from him and the Absolute which comprehends all conceivable existence. God, spirits and matter are the Absolute, and not God alone. Yet Rāmānuja identifies God with the Absolute, beside which and beyond which nothing exists. When he emphasises the monistic character of his system, he makes out that the supreme reality has the unity of self-consciousness, and matter and souls are but moments in the being of that supreme spirit. When he is anxious to preserve the independence of the individual, he argues that the individual souls are all centres of consciousness, knowing subjects possessing self-consciousness, though their selfhood is derived from God.

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Brahman is the material and the efficient cause of the universe of souls and matter. The changes relate to the body of God, while the soul (dehi) remains unchanged (nirvikāra).² “Everything different from that highest self, whether conscious or non-conscious, constitutes its body, while the self alone is the unconditioned embodied self."'¹ The body of God is the material cause and the soul is the efficient cause, and so we can say that God is both the material and the efficient cause of the world. This distinction is to be maintained; for Rāmānuja believes that the changes of the body do not affect the soul of God, even as the changes of the jīva's body do not affect the essence of the jīva. What, then, is the essence of God which remains unchanged? Whether in a subtle condition, as in pralaya, or a gross condition, as in creation, or an individualised though not imperfect condition, as in the state of release, the essence of Īśvara differs from that of the world. It has also to be distinguished from the nityavibhūti of Īśvara. It is difficult to conceive the nature of the Absolute if we set aside the attributes of sat, cit and ānanda, which, after all, are only attributes. Yet if the attributes form the essential nature of God, then the process of change in them must also affect his nature. Does all this mean that God is not absolute actuality, but is himself in the making? The distinction, finally, that the soul of God is the efficient cause and his body the material cause is untenable. We cannot take half a fowl for cooking and leave the other to lay eggs.²

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² Tattvamuktākalāpa, iii. 25.

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¹ Svavyatiriktaṃ cetanācetanavastujātaṃ svaśarīram iti, sa eva nirupādhikaś śarīra ātmā (i. 1. 13).

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² Ānandagiri on B.S., i. 2. 8.

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The crux of all monism is the relation of the finite to the infinite. A system of finite reals cannot itself be infinite. We must have something over and above the finite. Rāmānuja comprehends all aspects of the world under the two categories of thought and matter, and finds that the two are well adapted to each other, and so concludes that there is a God who directs the world process. Logic suggests it, religious consciousness confirms it, and so most of us accept it. But it is not a solution of the problem. It is open to say that all explanation is within the reality and not of it. We can never say why the real is what it is. But even within the real the relations are not logically determined. If the finite is equated with thought and matter, such opposed factors cannot belong to the same reality. Either the unity of the whole or the distinction of the attributes requires to be modified. What Rāmānuja does is to combine the two into one Absolute, which is a concrete organic whole, all of whose parts and elements exist in and through a supreme principle which embodies itself in them. The criticism directed against Śaṁkara is that he elevates the Absolute to such a height that there is no path which leads down to the lowlands of humanity. Rāmānuja intends to give us a more satisfying unity which is neither an identity nor an aggregate of parts, but comprehends all differences and relations. One may well ask whether such an absolute experience is not an arbitrary fancy incapable of verification. We can combine words so as to make a plausible statement, but it is doubtful whether there is a corresponding reality. If the Absolute is supposed to be a transcendent changeless existence, it is a problem how such an Absolute, which has no history, includes the time process and the evolution of the world. Unless Rāmānuja is willing to explain away the immutable perfection of the Absolute, and substitute for it a perpetually changing process, a sort of progressing perfection, he cannot give us any satisfactory explanation of the relation of the soul of the Absolute to its body.

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How, again, are the mechanism of nature and the sphere of souls combined in the unity? It is all very well to attempt to preserve the unity of the world as well as the distinctness of individuals. But if our sorrows and struggles, sins and imperfections are integral parts of the Absolute, and are eternally present to the divine mind as distinct constituents of his unruffled beatific consciousness, are not the souls simply certain permanent elements in God’s mind? On the other hand, if we are separate individuals, God must be separate from us. The mere fact that we share in a common life does not lessen our individuality.¹ Rāmānuja uses the analogy of soul and body to indicate that the body cannot exist apart from the soul embodied in it. When the soul departs the body perishes. Again, body exists only to give pleasure and pain to the soul. The final cause of the body is the soul. But if the analogy is pressed, it will mean that God is all, and the souls and body are merely instrumental to the pleasure of God. The concrete universal of certain Hegelian thinkers is a word which does not solve the problem but restates it. The problem of philosophy is for them the relating in one whole of the eternal perfection of the Absolute and the endless process of the world.

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¹ If we assume, says Bradley, that “individual men, yourself and myself, are real, each in his own right, to speak of God as having reality in the religious consciousness is nonsense” (*Truth and Reality*, pp. 434-5).

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Rāmānuja is anxious to conserve the permanent and independent reality of the individual souls, and vigorously protests against the view which reduces individuality to a delusive appearance. Within the one reality, which we may call the Absolute, a distinction is made between God, the individual souls and unconscious matter.¹ The Supreme is the soul of the individual jīva, since all things form the body of God.² What Rāmānuja takes for the soul is the empirical ego, which is something finite and has a before and an after. It is not much to the point to urge that all knowledge involves the distinction of subject and object. For this distinction is a relative one. In the case of vision, we distinguish the scene of sight as the object of vision and the eye as the subject. So also in conscious experiencing we distinguish the content of consciousness from its form and call the latter subject and the former object, though, strictly speaking, both these belong to the world of experience. What Rāmānuja calls the subject is not the subject truly conceived as subject, but is a subject which is itself objectified and reduced to one of the many finite objects contained in experience.³

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¹ Cp. with this Rashdall's view (*Theory of Good and Evil*, vol. ii, pp. 238 ff.).

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² Sarvātmatvāt pratyagātmano 'py ātmā paramātmā.

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³ Cp. Gentile: "If then we would know the essence of the mind's transcendental activity, we must not present it as spectator and spectacle, the mind as an object of experience, the subject an outside onlooker. In so far as consciousness is an object of consciousness it is no longer consciousness. Strictly speaking, it is no longer a subject but an object, no longer an ego but a non-ego" (*Theory of Mind as Pure Act*, E.T., p. 6).

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Rāmānuja says that the individual soul is not affected by the changes of its body.⁴ It is naturally pure. The dark shadows of materiality do but hide its glory, but do not destroy it. Materialisation is but an accident which can be shaken off. This materialisation is the product of sin, but the pure soul cannot sin. So sin cannot be without the embodied soul, and there can be no embodied soul without sin. Rāmānuja, like other Hindu thinkers, gets over the difficulty by the conception of a beginningless saṃsāra. But this involves the pure spirituality of the soul. Sin and punishment both belong to the objective series and have nothing to do with the pure subject, which cannot sin; but if the soul can sin, then it means that it is already connected with matter, and it is not the pure soul but the empirical ego. When it is said that the object series is beginningless, we get the pure spirit on the one side and the object on the other, both being absolute existents, since they find no explanation outside themselves. The soul is pure in itself; the body hangs on to it. How does this happen?

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⁴ Svaśarīragatabālatvayuvatvasthaviratvādayo dharmāḥ jīvaṃ na spṛśanti (i. 1. 13).

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What is the relation of the self to knowledge? Are they different or are they one? If they are different, then experience of pleasure or pain at a certain point in the body will belong to knowledge and not to self, and so the self will not be able to feel pleasure or pain. We cannot say that knowledge is a function (vyāpāra) of the self, for then it must be caused. But, in Rāmānuja, knowledge is eternal and independent, and not a product. If the self and knowledge are one, then even the self will be liable to expansion and contraction. But the atomic soul cannot expand and contract. The relation between the self, which is itself made up of consciousness,¹ and knowledge, is not clearly conceived. The self is filled with consciousness, and has also for its quality consciousness.² "Knowledge is distinct from the knowing subject whose quality it is, as smell which is perceived as a quality of earth is distinct from earth."³ But Rāmānuja admits that in deep sleep there is consciousness, though it does not relate itself to objects.⁴ The nature of self is not so much knowledge as pure consciousness, which, now and then, relates itself to objects.

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¹ Vijñānamayo hi jīvo na buddhimātram (i. 1. 13).

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² ii. 3. 29.

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³ iii. 3. 27.

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⁴ Jñānasya viṣayagocaratvaṃ jāgaryādāv upalabhyate (ii. 3. 31).

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The relation of the jīva to Brahman is not free from difficulties. Rāmānuja says: "The highest Brahman resolved to be many. It thereupon sent forth the entire world, consisting of fire, water, etc., introduced in this world so sent forth, the whole mass of individual souls (cetanam jīvavargam) into different bodies, divine, human, etc., corresponding to the desert of each soul, and finally itself entering according to its wish into these souls, so as to constitute their inner self (jīvāntarātmā), evolved in all these aggregates names and forms, i.e. rendered each aggregate something substantial (vastu) and capable of being denoted by a word.”¹ The jīva is thus a reflex of the whole reality. Each jīva has (1) the antaryāmin Brahman, the light which lighteth every existence; (2) the soul, which is the knowing subject; and (3) the unconscious instruments through which the soul works. Each individual seems to be a trinity in unity, even as the supreme Brahman is.² Brahman is the prototype, of which the individual is the ectype; for each individual possesses in finite and material outlines the supreme perfection of God. Again, when the soul casts off the body and enters on the state of release, it seems to become a bare point of mere existence. It is not cut off from God, since the currents of divine life flow through it. Will there not be an overlapping of these souls? If not, what is it that distinguishes these souls from one another? Are they substances in their own right, or mere qualities housed in the Absolute? Rāmānuja believes that each of these souls has a centrality and has experiences which it organises into a unity, but the logic of it all seems to be rather weak.

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