A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c7.9

c7.9

7. The Mīmānsā school of thought, by the very nature of its ritualistic problems, has not much in common with Upanishadic philosophy, whose business it is to consider the nature of the Ultimate. But there is one very important philosophical doctrine of the Mīmānsakas which has been advocated by the Īśāvāsyopanishad. This Upanishad tells us that "those who walk on the path of ignorance, namely, that of works, go to pitchy darkness; while those who walk on the path of knowledge go to greater darkness still. Ignorance leads to the one result, while knowledge leads to the other. This is what we have heard from the Sages, who have told us about the nature of ignorance and knowledge. But he, who knows both the path of ignorance and the path of knowledge together, by his knowledge of the one is able to cross the bund of death, and by his knowledge of the other to attain to immortality" (S.11). This very important quotation from the Īśāvāsyopanishad tells us the way of synthesis out of the conflicting claims of works and knowledge. On the one hand, mere works are insufficient, on the other, mere knowledge is insufficient. The Pūrva Mīmānsā which advocates the one and the Uttara Mīmānsā which advocates the other may both be said to take partial views. As against both these the Īśāvāsyopanishad tells us that he who knows how to reconcile the claims of both works and knowledge is able to extricate himself from the evils inherent in either and to enjoy the advantages of both by going beyond both of them. We know how in later times there was a very great conflict between the schools of Prabhākara, Kumārilabhaṭṭa and Śaṅkara, the first maintaining that absolution could be attained only by means of works,—and knowledge itself he regarded as work,—the second maintaining that absolution could be attained only by a combination of knowledge and works, and the third maintaining that absolution must be attained only by knowledge. The Īśāvāsyopanishad puts forth an idea which supports neither the doctrine of Prabhākara on the one hand, nor the doctrine of Śaṅkara on the other, but only the doctrine of Kumārilabhaṭṭa that absolution is to be obtained by a combination of knowledge and works, while it even goes beyond Kumārilabhaṭṭa in asserting that both knowledge and works are to be negated in the higher synthesis of realisation. As Kumārilabhaṭṭa said a bird could not fly in the heaven merely by one wing, but only by means of both wings together, similarly, says the Īśāvāsya, man must reconcile the claims of both knowledge and works to be able to soar in the regions of the Infinite, the synthesis of soaring being even superior to the fact of equipoise. We thus see how the Īśāvāsyopanishad puts forth a theory which later became the pivot of the doctrine of the moderate Mīmāṃsakas, supporting as it does neither the doctrine of the ultra-Mīmāṃsakas, nor that of the ultra-Vedāntists.