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Advaita and Neoplatonism (1961)

Advaita and Neoplatonism

(1961)–Frits Staal–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy


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Part II
The Metaphysics of Advaita

Introduction

Much has been written about the Advaita Vedānta of Śrī Saṅkarācārya. When in the following pages another attempt is made to describe the main features of his metaphysics little that is new can be achieved. Especially in this field of Indian philosophy, the widespread quest for originality has to give way to the more modest recognition of work previously done by noteworthy scholars. Still controversies remain concerning the significance, if not the interpretations of several points of the Ācārya's doctrine. In the following description and analysis the search for a more existential characteristic in the sense laid down in the first part has led to special attention being paid to three concepts which denote entities rooted in human being: sacrifice, meditation and knowledge. All three are closely related to the Vedic scriptures which every Hindu (who is vaidika, āstika) accepts: sacrifice is the act prescribed in the Veda; meditation takes place according to the supposed injunctions in the Veda; knowledge comprises what is taught in the Veda. These are the central ‘existential’ acts or attitudes from which the various concepts of Advaita came into being. A short investigation into the meaning of śruti and smṛti will therefore precede the main description. Here stress will be laid upon the sacred texts as they occur in Śaṅkara's works and especially in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, as the investigation is not historical but searches for the significance śruti and smṛti had for Śaṅkara. Likewise, the following remarks (under 1.) are not intended as a short description of the historical development from the Veda to the Vedānta, but intend to point out the influence of the older tradition on Śafiṅkara's works.

 

Concerning historical factors it must again be borne in mind that the question of methodological approach is related to the background of the investigator, and that it is not often on objective grounds that scholars utilize to a greater or lesser degree the historical approach. This is evident from the fact that most Western

scholars pay much attention to the historical order of texts, manifesting thereby the stress laid in European philosophy on time and history; whereas most Indian scholars disregard historical problems in favour of the philosophical questions concerned, thereby showing the low evaluation of the temporal in Indian thought. A phenomenological investigation into the desirability and justifiability of either approach has to proceed on the basis of the material studied. As long as this is not explicitly questioned it will be advisable to follow a more or less ‘middle path’. We shall not hesitate to elucidate points which are not fully clear or which are insufficiently developed in Śaṅkara, in the light of earlier as well as later texts. But on the other hand we will not attribute these later developments to Śaṅkara himself nor claim that they were ‘potentially’ contained in his works. For by this practice we would have implicitly voted for satkāryavāda, a metaphysical doctrine which itself constitutes a problem.1

 

Over a considerable length of time it has been fashionable to approach philosophical problems from an epistemological point of view and to claim this as the only sound and reliable method. This has been an increasing tendency in Western philosophy from the beginning of the modern period, after the middle ages, until Kant, and it has also been an important element in later Advaita, e.g., in the Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya2 or in the Vedāntaparibhāṣā.3 Accordingly it is often said that Śaṅkara recognised three valid means of knowledge (pramāṅas): perception (pratyakṣa), inference (anumāna) and scriptural testimony (śabda).4 But no explicit discussion of these pramāṇas occurs in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya where especially the śabdapramāṇa is stressed. Though in later Advaita six pramāṇas are recognized,5 it seems more true to the spirit of Śaṅkara's Advaita not to apply this epistemological

monism, and accordingly not to make an attempt to build his Vedānta upon an epistemological basis. Nearer to the Eastern as well as Western (Greek and medieval) traditional outlook are the later developments of Western philosophy, where it is realised that all epistemology is rooted in human being or is at any rate dependent upon the general structure of being, so that it is an ontological mistake to make a discussion of the validity of knowledge the starting point of metaphysics.6 For those who have much regard for the epistemological approach - it is not our task to refute such a view, as has been done in post-Kantian philosophy7 - the following investigation may be considered an inquiry into the nature and background of ṇabdapramāṇa.

 

That the Brahmasūtras themselves entitle us to stress above all the importance of śabda is evident right from the beginning: ‘Then therefore the enquiry into Brahman’ (athāto brahmajijṇāsā) says the first sūtra, and the third: ‘(The omniscience of Brahman follows) from its being the source of scripture’ (śāstrayonitvāt). The object of Uttara Mīmāṋsā is the enquiry (jijñāsā) into Brahman and Brahman is the source (yoni) of the scripture. Śaṅkara also refers to another interpretation where śruti, taken as a means of valid knowledge, leads to Brahman. The commentary itself leaves no doubt about the importance of śabda, scriptural testimony or revelation, as has been shown previously by Deussen8 and recently by Lacombe.9 The latter has analysed a passage,10 which states that our chains of inference starting from perception cannot reach Brahman; they are important only on the basis of revelation. Not only does the idea of the Absolute depend on śabda (Lacombe speaks in this connection somewhat misleadingly of ‘theology’, a monotheistic term, as perhaps ‘revelation’ is too), but the whole of metaphysics depends on it, as for instance vivartavāda: for pratyakṣa and anumāna can only lead to pariṇāmavāda.11 In short the suprasensible realm is exclusively the

sphere of śabda. Śaṇkara says: ‘It is impossible to reach suprasensible objects without the śāstras’.12 Some portions of the text analysed by Lacombe and referred to above run as follows: ‘In matters to be known from Scripture mere reasoning is not to be relied on for the following reason also. As the thoughts of men are altogether unfettered, reasoning which disregards the holy texts and rests on individual opinion only has no proper foundation. We see how arguments, which some clever men had excogitated with great pains, are shown, by people still more ingenious, to be fallacious, and how the arguments of the latter again are refuted in their turn by other men; so that, on account of the diversity of men's opinions, it is impossible to accept mere reasoning as having a sure foundation. Nor can we get over this difficulty by accepting as well-founded the reasoning of some person of recognised mental eminence, may he now be Kapila or anybody else; since we observe that even men of the most undoubted mental eminence, such as Kapila, Kaṇāda, and other founders of philosophical schools, have contradicted one another...13 It is clear that in the case of a perfect knowledge (samyagjñāna) a mutual conflict of men's opinions is impossible. But that cognitions founded on reasoning do conflict is generally known; for we continually observe that what one logician endeavours to establish as perfect knowledge is demolished by another, who, in his turn, is treated alike by a third. How, therefore, can knowledge, which is founded on reasoning, and whose object is not something permanently uniform, be perfect knowledge?... The Veda, which is eternal and the source of knowledge, may be allowed to have for its object firmly established things, and hence the perfection of that knowledge which is founded on the Veda cannot be denied by any of the logicians of the past, present or future... Our final position therefore is, that on the ground of scripture and of reasoning subordinate to scripture14 the intelligent Brahman is to be considered the cause and substance of the world.’15

Thus the relation between the two pramāṇas, śabda and pratyakṣa is as follows: pratyakṣa informs us about the sensible realm, śabda (and only śabda) about the suprasensible. For instance: ‘The Lord, about whom ordinary experience tells us nothing, is to be considered as the special topic of all scriptural passages’, whereas it is on the other hand said with reference to the jīva: ‘It is not the primary purport of scripture to make statements regarding the individual soul’.16

 

The metaphysical ground for the belief in authority and for traditionalism is the conviction that time passes from higher to lower, that the ideal was in the beginning and that development is degeneration. Then it becomes desirable to attempt to restore the original situation, to try to live up to it and hence to accept its scriptures as infallible authority. This conviction exists in the idea of the four yugas, the purest, Satya yuga, in the beginning, the basest, Kali yuga, at the end. Combined with the idea of perpetual saṁsāra17 the belief of ever recurrent world cycles (manvantaras) arises, as it is found in the Purāṇas and existed for Śaṅkara. In the Vedas, the belief in a gradual deterioration of time does not occur and neither does a looking up at an ideal original situation, nor traditionalism and belief in authority prevail. Later, the belief in evolution came to be expressed in the idea of sarvamukti.18

 

Notwithstanding the relative stress on śabda in a discussion of the value of the pramāṇas, it cannot be said that Advaita is ultimately based upon śruti in the same way as Mīmāṁsā. For ultimately the śabdapramāṇa is unreal, as we will see below. Ultimately for Advaita one's own plenary experience anubhava counts and produces the conviction that the Advaitic doctrines are true.19 This had already been the thesis of Gauḍapāda,20 who also stressed

the independent value of reasoning.21 In this spirit Ānandagiri says in his gloss on Gauḍapāda's Kārikā with an unambiguous reference to Mīmāṁsā, about a person who possesses anubhava: ‘Such an enlightened person does not become a bondslave of the Veda. The meaning that he gives of the Veda, that alone becomes the meaning of the Veda’.22


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