[Footnote 735: See Frazer, _op. cit._ p. 246.]
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
HINDU PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy is more closely connected with religion in India than in Europe. It is not a dispa.s.sionate scientific investigation but a practical religious quest. Even the Nyaya school, which is concerned chiefly with formal logic, promises that by the removal of false knowledge it can emanc.i.p.ate the soul and give the bliss of salvation.
Nor are the expressions system or school of philosophy, commonly used to render _darsana_, altogether happy. The word is derived from the root _dr?is_, to see, and means a way of looking at things. As such a way of looking is supposed to be both comprehensive and orderly, it is more or less what we call philosophical, but the points of view are so special and so various that the result is not always what we call a philosophical system. Madhava"s[736] list of Darsanas includes Buddhism and Jainism, which are commonly regarded as separate religions, as well as the Pasupata and Saiva, which are sects of Hinduism. The Darsana of Jaimini is merely a discussion of general questions relating to sacrifices: the Nyaya Darsana examines logic and rhetoric: the Pan?iniya Darsana treats of grammar and the nature of language, but claims that it ought to be studied "as the means for attaining the chief end of man."[737]
Six of the Darsanas have received special prominence and are often called the six Orthodox Schools. They are the Nyaya and Vaiseshika, San?khya and Yoga, Purva and Uttara Mimam?sa, or Vedanta. The rest are either comparatively unimportant or are more conveniently treated of as religious sects. The six placed on the select list are sufficiently miscellaneous and one wonders what principle of cla.s.sification can have brought them together. The first two have little connection with religion, though they put forward the emanc.i.p.ation of the soul as their object, and I have no s.p.a.ce to discuss them. They are however important as showing that realism has a place in Indian thought in spite of its marked tendency to idealism.[738] They are concerned chiefly with an examination of human faculties and the objects of knowledge, and are related to one another. The special doctrine of the Vaiseshika is the theory of atoms ascribed to Kan?ada. It teaches that matter consists of atoms (an?u) which are eternal in themselves though all combinations of them are liable to decompose. The San?khya and Yoga are also related and represent two aspects of the same system which is of great antiquity and allied to Buddhism and Jainism. The two Mimam?sas are consecutive expositions of the teaching scattered throughout the Vedic texts respecting ceremonial and the knowledge of G.o.d respectively. The second Mimam?sa, commonly called the Vedanta, is by far the more interesting and important.
The common feature in these six systems which const.i.tutes their orthodoxy is that they all admit the authority of the Veda. This implies more than our phrases revelation or inspiration of the Bible.
Most of the Darsanas attach importance to the _praman?as_, sources or standards of knowledge. They are variously enumerated, but one of the oldest definitions makes them three: perception (pratyaksha), inference (anumana) and scripture (sabda). The Veda is thus formally acknowledged to have the same authority as the evidence of the senses.
With this is generally coupled the doctrine that it is eternal. It was not composed by human authors, but is a body of sound existing from eternity as part of Brahman and breathed out by him when he causes the whole creation to evolve at the beginning of a world period. The reputed authors are simply those who have, in Indian language, seen portions of this self-existent teaching. This doctrine sounds more reasonable if restated in the form that words are the expression of thought, and that if thought is the eternal essence of both Brahman and the soul, a similar eternity may attach to words. Some such idea is the origin of the Christian doctrine of the Logos, and in many religions we find such notions as that words have a creative efficacy,[739] or that he who knows the name of a thing has power over it. Among Mohammedans the Koran is supposed to be not merely an inspired composition but a pre-existing book, revealed to Mohammed piecemeal.
It is curious that both the sacred texts--the Veda and the Koran--to which this supernatural position is ascribed should be collections of obviously human, incongruous, and often insignificant doc.u.ments connected with particular occasions, and in no way suggesting or claiming that they are anterior to the ordinary life of man on earth.
It is still more extraordinary that systems of philosophy should profess to base themselves on such works. But in reality Hindu metaphysicians are not more bound by the past than their colleagues in other lands. They do not take scripture and ask what it means, but evolve their own systems and state that they are in accordance with it. Sometimes scripture is ignored in the details of argument. More often the metaphysician writes a commentary on it and boldly proves that it supports his views, though its apparent meaning may be hostile. It is clear that many philosophic commentaries have been written not because the authors really drew their inspiration from the Upanishads or Bhagavad-gita but because they dared not neglect such important texts. All the Vedantist schools labour to prove that they are in harmony not only with the Upanishads but with the Brahma-sutras. The philosophers of the San?khya are more detached from literature but though they ignore the existence of the deity, they acknowledge the Veda as a source of knowledge. Their recognition, however, has the air of a concession to Brahmanic sentiment. Isolated theories of the San?khya can be supported by isolated pa.s.sages of the Upanishads, but no impartial critic can maintain that the general doctrines of the two are compatible. That the Brahmans should have been willing to admit the San?khya as a possible form of orthodoxy is a testimony both to its importance and to their liberality.
It is remarkable that the test of orthodoxy should have been the acceptance of the authority of the Veda and not a confession of some sort of theism. But on this the Brahmans did not insist. The Vedanta is truly and intensely pantheistic or theistic, but in the other philosophies the Supreme Being is either eliminated or plays a small part. Thus while works which seem to be merely scientific treatises (like the Nyaya) set before themselves a religious object, other treatises, seemingly religious in scope, ignore the deity. There is a strong and ancient line of thought in India which, basing itself on the doctrine of Karma, or the inevitable consequences of the deed once done, lays stress on the efficacy of ceremonies or of asceticism or of knowledge without reference to a Supreme Being because, if he exists, he does not interfere with the workings of Karma, or with the power of knowledge to release from them.
Even the Vedanta, although in a way the quintessence of Indian orthodoxy, is not a scholastic philosophy designed to support recognized dogma and ritual. It is rather the orthodox method of soaring above these things. It contemplates from a higher level the life of religious observances (which is the subject of the Purva Mimam?sa) and recognizes its value as a preliminary, but yet rejects it as inadequate. The Sannyasi or adept follows no caste observances, performs no sacrifices, reads no scriptures. His religion is to realize in meditation the true nature, and it may be the ident.i.ty, of the soul and G.o.d. Good works are of no more importance for him than rites, though he does well to employ his time in teaching. But Karma has ceased to exist for him: "the acts of a Yogi are neither black nor white," they have no moral quality nor consequences. This is dangerous language and the doctrine has sometimes been abused. But the point of the teaching is not that a Sannyasi may do what he likes but that he is perfectly emanc.i.p.ated from material bondage. Most men are bound by their deeds; every new act brings consequences which attach the doer to the world of transmigration and create for him new existences. But the deeds of the man who is really free have no such trammelling effects, for they are not prompted by desire nor directed to an object. But since to become free he must have suppressed all desire, it is hardly conceivable that he should do anything which could be called a sin. But this conviction that the task of the sage is not to perfect any form of good conduct but to rise above both good and evil, imparts to the Darsanas and even to the Upanishads a singularly non-ethical and detached tone. The Yogi does no harm but he has less benevolence and active sympathy than the Buddhist monk. It was a feeling that such an att.i.tude has its dangers and is only for the few who have fought their way to the heights where it can safely be adopted, that led the Brahmans in all ages to lay stress on the householder"s life as the proper preparation for a philosophic old age. Despite utterances to the contrary, they never as a body approved the ideal of a life entirely devoted to asceticism and not occupied with social duties during one period. The extraordinary ease with which the higher phases of Indian thought shake off all formalities, social, religious and ethical, was counterbalanced by the mult.i.tudinous regulations devised to keep the majority in a law-abiding life.
None of the six Darsanas concern themselves with ethics. The more important deal with the transcendental progress of sages who have avowedly abandoned the life of works, and even those which treat of that lower life are occupied with ritual and logic rather than with anything which can be termed moral science. We must not infer that Indian literature is altogether unmoral. The doctrine of Karma is intensely ethical and ethical discussions are more prominent in the Epics than in Homer, besides being the subject of much gnomic and didactic poetry. But there is no mistaking the fact that the Hindu seeks for salvation by knowledge. He feels the power of deeds, but it is only the lower happiness which lies in doing good works and enjoying their fruits. The higher bliss consists in being entirely free from the bondage of deeds and Karma.
All the Darsanas have as a common principle this idea of Karma with the attendant doctrines that rebirth is a consequence of action and that salvation is an escape from rebirth. They all treat more or less of the sources and standards of knowledge, and all recognize the Veda as one of them. There is not much more that can be said of them all in common, for the Vedanta ignores matter and the San?khya ignores G.o.d, but they all share a conviction which presents difficulties to Europeans. It is that the state in which the mind ceases to think discursively and is concentrated on itself is not only desirable but the _summum bonum_. The European is inclined to say that such a state is distinguished from non-existence only by not being permanent.
But the Hindu will have none of this. He holds that mind and thought are material though composed of the subtlest matter, and that when thought ceases, the immaterial soul (purusha or atman) far from being practically non-existent is more truly existent than before and enjoys untroubled its own existence and its own nature.
Of the three most important systems, the San?khya, Yoga and Vedanta, the first and last are on most points opposed: both are ancient, but perhaps the products of different intellectual centres. In one sense the Yoga may be described as a theistic modification of the San?khya: from another and perhaps juster point of view it appears rather as a very ancient science of asceticism and contemplation, susceptible of combination with various metaphysical theories.
2
We may consider first of all the San?khya.[740] Tradition ascribes its invention to Kapila, but he is a mere name unconnected with any date or other circ.u.mstance. It is probable that the princ.i.p.al ideas of the San?khya germinated several centuries before our era but we have no evidence whatever as to when they were first formulated in Sutras. The name was current as the designation of a philosophical system fairly early[741] but the accepted text-books are all late. The most respected is the San?khya-pravacana,[742] attributed to Kapila but generally a.s.signed by European critics to the fourteenth century A.D.
Considerably more ancient, but still clearly a metrical epitome of a system already existing, is the San?khya-Karika, a poem of seventy verses which was translated into Chinese about 560 A.D. and may be a few centuries older. Max Muller regarded the Tattva-samasa, a short tract consisting chiefly of an enumeration of topics, as the most ancient San?khya formulary, but the opinion of scholars as to its age is not unanimous. The name San?khya is best interpreted as signifying enumeration in allusion to the predilection of the school for numbered lists, a predilection equally noticeable in early Buddhism.
The object of the system set forth in these works is strictly practical. In the first words of the San?khya-pravacana, the complete cessation of suffering is the end of man, and the San?khya is devised to enable him to attain it. Another formula divides the contents of the San?khya into four topics--(_a_) that from which man must liberate himself, or suffering, (_b_) liberation, or the cessation of suffering, (_c_) the cause of suffering, or the failure to discriminate between the soul and matter, (_d_) the means of liberation, or discriminating knowledge. This division obviously resembles the four Truths of Buddhism. The object proposed is the same and the method a.n.a.logous, though not identical, for Buddhism speaks as a religion and lays greater stress on conduct.
The theory of the San?khya, briefly stated, is this. There exist, uncreated and from all eternity, on the one side matter and on the other individual souls. The world, as we know it, is due entirely to the evolution of matter. Suffering is the result of souls being in bondage to matter, but this bondage does not affect the nature of the soul and in one sense is not real, for when souls acquire discriminating knowledge and see that they are not matter, then the bondage ceases and they attain to eternal peace.
The system is thus founded on dualism, the eternal ant.i.thesis between matter and soul. Many of its details are comprised in the simple enumeration of the twenty-five Tattvas or principles[743] as given in the Tattva-samasa and other works. Of these, one is Purusha, the soul or self, which is neither produced nor productive, and the other twenty-four are all modifications of Prakr?iti or matter, which is unproduced but productive. Prakr?iti means the original ground form of external existence (as distinguished from Vikr?iti, modified form). It is uncreated and indestructible, but it has a tendency to variation or evolution. The San?khya holds in the strictest sense that _ex nihilo nihil fit_. Substance can only be produced from substance and properly speaking there is no such thing as origination but only manifestation.
Causality is regarded solely from the point of view of material causes, that is to say the cause of a pot is clay and not the action of the potter. Thus the effect or product is nothing else than the cause in another shape: production is only manifestation and destruction is the resolution of a product into its cause. Instead of holding like the Buddhists that there is no such thing as existence but only becoming, the San?khya rather affirms that there is nothing but successive manifestations of real existence. If clay is made into a pot and the pot is then broken and ground into clay again, the essential fact is not that a pot has come into existence and disappeared but that the clay continuously existing has undergone certain changes.
The tendency to evolution inherent in matter is due to the three _gun?as_. They are _sattva_, explained as goodness and happiness; _rajas_, as pa.s.sion and movement; and _tamas_, as darkness, heaviness and ignorance. The word Gun?a is not easy to translate, for it seems to mean more than quality or mode and to signify the const.i.tuents of matter. Hence one cannot help feeling that the whole theory is an attempt to explain the unity and diversity of matter by a phrase, but all Hinduism is permeated by this phrase and theory. When the three gun?as are in equilibrium then matter--Prakr?iti--is quiescent, undifferentiated and unmanifested. But as soon as the equilibrium is disturbed and one of the gun?as becomes preponderant, then the process of differentiation and manifestation begins. The disturbance of equilibrium is due to the action of the individual Purushas or souls on Prakr?iti, but this action is mechanical and due to proximity not to the volition of the souls and may be compared to the attraction of a magnet for iron.[744] Thus at the beginning of the evolutionary process we have quiescent matter in equilibrium: over against this are souls innumerable, equally quiescent but exerting on matter a mechanical force. This upsets the equilibrium and creates a movement which takes at first the form of development and later of decay and collapse. Then matter returns to its quiescent state to be again excited by the Purushas and commence its world-making evolution anew.
The doctrine that evolution, dissolution and quiescence succeed one another periodically is an integral part of the San?khya.[745]
The unmodified Prakr?iti stands first on the list of twenty-five principles. When evolution begins it produces first Buddhi or intellect, secondly Aham?kara, which is perhaps best rendered by individuality, and next the five Tanmatras or subtle elements.
Buddhi, though meaning intellect, is used rather in the sense of ascertaining or perception. It is the faculty by which we distinguish objects and perceive what they are. It differs also from our conception of intellect in being, like Aham?kara and all the subsequent developments of Prakr?iti, material, and must not be confused with the immaterial Purusha or soul. It is in fact the organ of thought, not in the sense of the brain or anything tangible, but a subtle substratum of all mental processes. But in what sense is it possible to say that this Buddhi exists apart from individuals, who have not come into being at this stage of cosmic evolution? This difficulty is not met by talking, as some commentators do, of cosmic as well as individual Buddhi, for even if all Prakr?iti is illuminated by Buddhi at this stage it is difficult to see what result can occur.
To make the process of development coherent we must think of it not as a series of chronologically successive stages but rather as a logically connected series and an a.n.a.lysis of completely evolved beings, just as we might say that bones are covered with flesh and flesh with skin, without affirming that the bones have a separate and prior existence. Aham?kara, which is, like Buddhi, strictly speaking a physical organ, means Ego-maker and denotes the sense of personality and individuality, almost the will. In the language of Indian philosophy it is the delusion or misconception which makes the soul imagine itself a personal agent and think, _I_ see, _I_ hear, _I_ slay, _I_ am slain, whereas the soul is really incapable of action and the acts are those of Prakr?iti.
The five subtle elements are the essences of sound, touch, colour, savour and odour conceived as physical principles, imperceptible to ordinary beings, though G.o.ds and Yogis can perceive them. The name Tanmatra which signifies _that only_ indicates that they are concerned exclusively with one sense. Thus whereas the gross elements, such as earth, appeal to more than one sense and can be seen, felt and smelt, the subtle element of sound is restricted to the sense of hearing. It exists in all things audible but has nothing to do with their tangibility or visibility. There remain sixteen further modifications to make up the full list of twenty-four. They are the five organs of sense,[746] the five organs of action,[747] Manas or mind, regarded as a sixth and central sense, and also as the seat of will, and the five gross elements--earth, water, light, air and ether. The San?khya distinguishes between the gross and the subtle body. The latter, called lingasarira, is defined in more than one way, but it is expressly stated in the Karikas[748] that it is composed of "Buddhi and the rest, down to the subtle elements." It practically corresponds to what we call the soul, though totally distinct from Purusha or soul in the San?khya sense. It const.i.tutes the character and essential being of a person. It is the part which transmigrates from one gross body to another, and is responsible for the acts committed in each existence. Its union with a gross body const.i.tutes birth, its departure death. Except in the case of those who attain emanc.i.p.ation, its existence and transmigration last for a whole world-period at the end of which come quiescence and equilibrium. In it are imprinted the Sam?skaras,[749] the predispositions which pa.s.s on from one existence to another and are latent in the new-born mind like seeds in a field.
By following the evolution of matter we have now accounted for intellect, individuality, the senses, the moral character, will, and a principle which survives death and transmigrates. It might therefore be supposed that we have exhaustively a.n.a.lysed the const.i.tution of a human being. But that is not the view of the San?khya. The evolution of Buddhi, Aham?kara, the subtle body and the gross body is a physical process and the result is also physical, though parts of it are of so fine a substance that ordinary senses cannot perceive them. This physical organism becomes a living being (which term includes G.o.ds and animals) when it is connected with a soul (purusha) and consciousness depends on this connection, for neither is matter when isolated conscious, nor is the soul, at least not in our sense of the word.
Though the soul is neither the life which ends at death (for that is the gross body) nor yet the life which pa.s.ses from existence to existence (for that is the subtle body) yet it is the vitalizing element which renders life possible.
The San?khya like Jainism regards souls as innumerable and distinct from one another. The word Purusha must have originally referred to the manikin supposed to inhabit the body, and there is some reason to think that the earliest teachers of the San?khya held that it was infinitely small. But in the existing text-books it is described as infinitely large. It is immaterial and without beginning, end, parts, dimensions, or qualities, incapable of change, motion, or action.
These definitions may be partly due to the influence of the Vedanta and, though we know little about the historical development of the San?khya, there are traces of a compromise between the old teaching of a soul held in bondage and struggling for release and later conceptions of a soul which, being infinite and pa.s.sionless, hardly seems capable of submitting to bondage. Though the soul cannot be said to transmigrate, to act, or to suffer, still through consciousness it makes the suffering of the world felt and though in its essence it remains eternally unchanged and unaffected, yet it experiences the reflection of the suffering which goes on. Just as a crystal (to use the Indian simile) allows a red flower to be seen through it and remains unchanged, although it seems to become red, so does the soul remain unchanged by sorrow or joy, although the illusion that it suffers or rejoices may be present in the consciousness.
The task of the soul is to free itself from illusion, and thus from bondage. For strictly speaking the bondage does not exist: it is caused by want of discrimination. Like the Vedanta, the San?khya regards all this troubled life as being, so far as the soul is concerned, mere illusion. But while the Vedanta bids the soul know its ident.i.ty with Brahman, the San?khya bids it isolate itself and know that the acts and feelings which seem to be its own have really nothing to do with it. They are for the soul nothing but a spectacle or play originating in its connection with Prakr?iti, and it is actually said,[750] "Wherefore no soul is bound, or is liberated or transmigrates. It is Prakr?iti, which has many bodily forms, which is bound, liberated and transmigrates." It is in Buddhi or intellect, which is a manifestation of Prakr?iti, that the knowledge of the difference between the soul and Prakr?iti must arise. Thus though the San?khya reposes on a fundamental dualism, it is not the dualism of good and evil. Soul and matter differ not because the first is good and the second bad, but because the first is unchangeable and the second constantly changing. Matter is often personified as a woman.
Her motives are unselfish and she works for the liberation of the soul. "As a dancer after showing herself on the stage ceases to dance, so does Prakr?iti cease when she has made herself manifest to the soul." That is to say, when a soul once understands that it is distinct from the material world, that world ceases to exist for that particular soul, though of course the play continues for others.
"Generous Prakr?iti, endowed with Gun?as, causes by manifold means without benefit to herself, the benefit of the soul, which is devoid of Gun?as and makes no return."[751] The condition of the liberated soul, corresponding to the _mokska_ and _nirvan?a_ of other systems, is described as Kaivalya, that is, complete separation from the material world, but, as among Buddhists and Vedantists, he who has learnt the truth is liberated even before death, and can teach others.
He goes on living, just as the wheel continues to revolve for some time after the potter has ceased to turn it. After death, complete liberation without the possibility of rebirth is attained. The San?khya manuals do not dwell further on the character of this liberation: we only know that the eternal soul is then completely isolated and aloof from all suffering and material things. Liberation is compared to profound sleep, the difference being that in dreamless sleep there is a seed, that is, the possibility of return to ordinary life, whereas when liberation is once attained there is no such return.
Both in its account of the world process and in its scheme of salvation the San?khya ignores theism in the same way as did the Buddha. Indeed the text-books go beyond this and practically deny the existence of a personal supreme deity. We are told[752] that the existence of G.o.d cannot be proved, for whatever exists must be either bound or free and G.o.d can be neither. We cannot think of him as bound and yet he cannot be free like an emanc.i.p.ated soul, for freedom implies the absence of desire and hence of the impulse to create.
Similarly[753] the consequences of good and evil deeds are due to Karma and not to the government of G.o.d. Such a ruler is inconceivable, for if he governs the world according to the action of Karma his existence is superfluous, and if he is affected by selfish motives or desire, then he cannot be free. It is true that these pa.s.sages speak of there being no proof of G.o.d"s existence and hence commentators both Indian and European who shrink from atheism represent the San?khya as suspending judgment. But if a republican const.i.tution duly describes the President and other authorities in whom the powers of government are vested, can we argue that it is not unmonarchical because it does not expressly say there is no king? In the San?khya there is no more place for a deity than for a king in a republican const.i.tution.
Moreover, the Sutras endeavour to prove that the idea of G.o.d is inconceivable and self-contradictory and some commentaries speak plainly on this subject.[754] Thus the San?khya-tattva-kaumudi commenting on Karika 57 argues that the world cannot have been created by G.o.d, whether we suppose him to have been impelled by selfishness or kindness. For if G.o.d is perfect he can have no need to create a world.
And if his motive is kindness, is it reasonable to call into existence beings who while non-existent had no suffering, simply in order to show kindness in relieving them from suffering? A benevolent deity ought to create only happy creatures, not a mixed world like the one we see.[755]
Arguments like this were not condemned by the Brahmans so strongly as we should expect, but they did not like them and though they did not excommunicate the San?khya in the same way as Buddhism, they greatly preferred a theistic variety of it called Yoga.
The Yoga and San?khya are mentioned together in the Svetasvatara Upanishad,[756] and the Bhagavad-gita[757] says that he sees truly who sees them as one. The difference lies in treatment rather than in substance. Whereas the San?khya is mainly theoretical, the princ.i.p.al topic of the Yoga is the cultivation of that frame of mind which leads to emanc.i.p.ation and the methods and exercises proper to this end.
Further, the Yoga recognizes a deity. This distinction may seem of capital importance but the G.o.d of the Yoga (called isvara or the Lord) is not its foundation and essence as Brahman is of the Vedanta.[758] Devotion to G.o.d is recognized as one among other methods for attaining emanc.i.p.ation and if this particular procedure, which is mentioned in relatively few pa.s.sages, were omitted, the rest of the system would be unaffected. It is therefore probable that the theistic portions of the Yoga are an addition made under Brahmanic influence.
But taking the existing Sutras of the two philosophies, together with their commentaries, it may be said that the Yoga implies most of the San?khya theory and the San?khya most of the Yoga practice, for though it does not go into details it prescribes meditation which is to be perfected by regulating the breathing and by adopting certain postures. I have already spoken of the methods and discipline prescribed by the Yoga and need not dwell further on the topic now.
That Buddhism has some connection with the San?khya and Yoga has often been noticed.[759] Some of the ideas found in the San?khya and some of the practices prescribed by the Yoga are clearly anterior to Gotama and may have contributed to his mental development, but circ.u.mspection is necessary in the use of words like Yoga, San?khya and Vedanta. If we take them to mean the doctrinal systems contained in certain sutras, they are clearly all later than Buddhism. But if we a.s.sume, as we may safely do, that the doctrine is much older than the manuals in which we now study it, we must also remember that when we leave the texts we are not justified in thinking of a system but merely of a line of thought. In this sense it is clear that many ideas of the San?khya appear among the Jains, but the Jains know nothing of the evolution of matter described by the San?khya manuals and think of the relation of the soul to matter in a more materialistic way. The notion of the separate eternal soul was the object of the Buddha"s persistent polemics and was apparently a popular doctrine when he began preaching. The ascetic and meditative exercises prescribed by the Yoga were also known before his time and the Pit?akas do not hide the fact that he received instruction from two Yogis. But though he was acquainted with the theories and practices which grew into the Yoga and San?khya, he did not found his religion on them for he rejected the idea of a soul which has to be delivered and did not make salvation dependent on the attainment of trances. If there was in his time a systematic San?khya philosophy explaining the nature of suffering and the way of release, it is strange that the Pit?akas contain no criticism of it, for though to us who see these ancient sects in perspective the resemblance of Buddhism to the San?khya is clear, there can be little doubt that the Buddha would have regarded it as a most erroneous heresy, because it proposes to attain the same objects as his own teaching but by different methods.
San?khya ideas are not found in the oldest Upanishads, but they appear (though not in a connected form) in those of the second stratum, such as the Svetasvatara and Kat?ha. It therefore seems probable, though not proven, that the origin of these ideas is to be sought not in the early Brahmanic schools but in the intellectual atmosphere non-theistic, non-sacerdotal, but audaciously speculative which prevailed in the central and eastern part of northern India in the sixth century B.C. The San?khya recognizes no merit in sacrifices or indeed in good works of any kind, even as a preliminary discipline, and in many details is un-Brahmanic. Unlike the Vedanta Sutras, it does not exclude Sudras from higher studies, but states that there are eight cla.s.ses of G.o.ds and five of animals but only one of men. A teacher must have himself attained emanc.i.p.ation, but there is no provision that he must be a Brahman. Perhaps the fables and parables which form the basis of the fourth book of the San?khya Sutras point to some more popular form of instruction similar to the discourses of the Buddha. We may suppose that this ancient un-Brahmanic school took shape in several sects, especially Jainism and Buddhism, and used the Yoga discipline. But the value and efficacy of that discipline were admitted almost universally and several centuries later it was formulated in the Sutras which bear the name of Patanjali in a shape acceptable to Brahmans, not to Buddhists. If, as some scholars think, the Yoga sutras are not earlier than 450 A.D.[760] it seems probable that it was Buddhism which stimulated the Brahmans to codify the principles and practice of Yoga, for the Yogacara school of Buddhism arose before the fifth century. The San?khya is perhaps a somewhat similar brahmanization of the purely speculative ideas which may have prevailed in Magadha and Kosala.[761] Though these districts were not strongholds of Brahmanism, yet it is clear from the Pit?akas that they contained a considerable Brahman population who must have been influenced by the ideas current around them but also must have wished to keep in touch with other Brahmans. The San?khya of our manuals represents such an attempt at conciliation. It is an elaboration in a different shape of some of the ideas out of which Buddhism sprung but in its later history it is connected with Brahmanism rather than Buddhism. When it is set forth in Sutras in a succinct and isolated form, its divergence from ordinary Brahmanic thought is striking and in this form it does not seem to have ever been influential and now is professed by only a few Pandits, but, when combined in a literary and eclectic spirit with other ideas which may be incompatible with it in strict logic, it has been a mighty influence in Indian religion, orthodox as well as unorthodox. Such conceptions as Prakr?iti and the Gun?as colour most of the post-Vedic religious literature. Their working may be plainly traced in the Mahabharata, Manu and the Puran?as,[762] and the Tantras identify with Prakr?iti the G.o.ddesses whose worship they teach. The unethical character of the San?khya enabled it to form the strangest alliances with aboriginal beliefs.
Unlike the San?khya, the Vedanta is seen in its most influential and perhaps most advantageous aspect when stated in its most abstract form. We need not enquire into its place of origin for it is clearly the final intellectual product of the schools which produced the Upanishads and the literature which preceded them, and though it may be difficult to say at what point we are justified in applying the name Vedanta to growing Brahmanic thought, the growth is continuous.
The name means simply End of the Veda. In its ideas the Vedanta shows great breadth and freedom, yet it respects the prejudices and proprieties of Brahmanism. It teaches that G.o.d is all things, but interdicts this knowledge to the lower castes: it treats rites as a merely preliminary discipline, but it does not deny their value for certain states of life.
The Vedanta is the boldest and the most characteristic form of Indian thought. For Asia, and perhaps for the world at large, Buddhism is more important but on Indian soil it has been vanquished by the Vedanta, especially that form of it known as the Advaita. In all ages the main idea of this philosophy has been the same and may be summed up in the formula that the soul is G.o.d and that G.o.d is everything. If this formula is not completely accurate[763]--and a sentence which both translates and epitomizes alien metaphysics can hardly aspire to complete accuracy--the error lies in the fact to which I have called attention elsewhere that our words, G.o.d and soul, do not cover quite the same ground as the Indian words which they are used to translate.
Many scholars, both Indian and European, will demur to the high place here a.s.signed to the Advaita philosophy. I am far from claiming that the doctrine of San?kara is either primitive or unchallenged. Other forms of the Vedanta existed before him and became very strong after him. But so far as a synthesis of opinions which are divergent in details can be just, he gives a just synthesis and elaboration of the Upanishads. It is true that his teaching as to the higher and lower Brahman and as to Maya has affinities to Mahayanist Buddhism, and that later sects were repelled by the severe and impersonal character of his philosophy, but the doctrine of which he is the most thorough and eminent exponent, namely that G.o.d or spirit is the only reality and one with the human soul, a.s.serts itself in almost all Hindu sects, even though their other doctrines may seem to contradict it.
This line of thought is so persistent and has so many ramifications, that it is hard to say what is and what is not Vedanta. If we take literature as our best guide we may distinguish four points of importance marked by the Upanishads, the Brahma-Sutras, San?kara and Ramanuja.
I have said something elsewhere of the Upanishads. These works do not profess to form a systematic whole (though later Hinduism regards them as such) and when European scholars speak of them collectively, they generally mean the older members of the collection. These may justly be regarded as the ancestors of the Vedanta, inasmuch as the tone of thought prevalent in them is incipient Vedantism. It rejects dualism and regards the universe as a unity not as plurality, as something which has issued from Brahman or is pervaded by Brahman and in any case depends on Brahman for its significance and existence.
Brahman is G.o.d in the pantheistic sense, totally disconnected with mythology and in most pa.s.sages impersonal. The knowledge of Brahman is salvation: he who has it, goes to Brahman or becomes Brahman. More rarely we find statements of absolute ident.i.ty such as "Being Brahman, he goes to Brahman."[764] But though the Upanishads say that the soul goes to or is Brahman, that the world comes from or is Brahman, that the soul is the whole universe and that a knowledge of these truths is the one thing of importance, these ideas are not combined into a system. They are simply the thoughts of the wise, not always agreeing in detail, and presented as independent utterances, each with its own value.
One of the most important of these wise men is Yajn~avalkya,[765] the hero of the Br?ihad aranyaka Upanishad and a great name, to whom are ascribed doctrines of which he probably never heard. The Upanishad represents him as developing and completing the views of San?d?ilya and Uddalaka arun?i. The former taught[766] that the atman or Self within the heart, smaller than a grain of mustard seed, is also greater than all worlds. The brief exposition of his doctrine which we possess starts from and emphasizes the human self. This self is Brahman. The doctrine of Uddalaka[767] takes the other side of the equation: he starts with Brahman and then a.s.serts that Brahman is the soul. But though he teaches that in the beginning there was one only without a second, yet he seems to regard the subsequent products of this Being as external to it and permeated by it. But to Yajnavalkya is ascribed an important modification of these doctrines, namely, that the atman is unknowable and transcendental.[768] It is unknowable because since it is essentially the knowing subject it can be known only by itself: it can never become the object of knowledge and language is inadequate to describe it. All that can be said of it is _neti_, _neti_, that is no, no: it is not anything which we try to predicate of it. But he who knows that the individual soul is the atman, becomes atman; being it, he knows it and knows all the world: he perceives that in all the world there is no plurality. Here the later doctrine of Maya is adumbrated, though not formulated. Any system which holds that in reality there is no plurality or, like some forms of Mahayanist Buddhism, that nothing really exists implies the operation of this Maya or illusion which makes us see the world as it appears to us. It may be thought of as mere ignorance, as a failure to see the universe as it really is: but no doubt the later view of Maya as a creative energy which fashions the world of phenomena is closely connected with the half-mythological conceptions found in the Pancaratra and Saiva philosophy which regard this creative illusion as a female force--a G.o.ddess in fact--inseparably a.s.sociated with the deity.
The philosophy of the Upanishads, like all religious thought in India, is avowedly a quest of happiness and this happiness is found in some form of union with Brahman. He is perfect bliss, and whatever is distinct from him is full of suffering.[769] But this sense of the suffering inherent in existence is less marked in the older Upanishads and in the Vedanta than in Buddhism and the San?khya. Those systems make it their basis and first principle: in the Vedanta the temperament is the same but the emphasis and direction of the thought are different. The San?khya looks at the world and says that salvation lies in escape into something which has nothing in common with it. But the Vedantist looks towards Brahman, and his pessimism is merely the feeling that everything which is not wholly and really Brahman is unsatisfactory. In the later developments of the system, pessimism almost disappears, for the existence of suffering is not the first Truth but an illusion: the soul, did it but know it, is Brahman and Brahman is bliss. So far as the Vedanta has any definite practical teaching, it does not wholly despise action. Action is indeed inferior to knowledge and when knowledge is once obtained works are useless accessories, but the four stages of a Brahman"s career, including household life, are approved in the Vedanta Sutras, though there is a disposition to say that he who has the necessary religious apt.i.tudes can adopt the ascetic life at any time. The occupations of this ascetic life are meditation and absorption or samadhi, the state in which the meditating soul becomes so completely blended with G.o.d on whom it meditates, that it has no consciousness of its separate existence.[770]
As indicated above the so-called books of Sruti or Vedic literature are not consecutive treatises, but rather _responsa prudentium_, utterances respecting ritual and theology ascribed to poets, sacrificers and philosophers who were accepted as authorities. When these works came to be regarded as an orderly revelation, even orthodoxy could not shut its eyes to their divergences, and a comprehensive exegesis became necessary to give a conspectus of the whole body of truth. This investigation of the meaning of the Veda as a connected whole is called Mimam?sa, and is divided into two branches, the earlier (purva) and the later (uttara). The first is represented by the Purva-mimam?sa-sutras of Jaimini[771] which are called earlier (purva) not in the chronological sense but because they deal with rites which come before knowledge, as a preparatory stage.