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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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3. Karman - Samsāra - Transmigration

We shall now consider a few problems connected with karman and saṁsāra as discussed mainly in Buddhism and in Advaita Vedānta. Such considerations do not concern us only as history, but they investigate the background of self-evidence, which is often the determining factor of purely metaphysical doctrines.

 

The Indian doctrine of karman was accepted in Buddhism as kammagāda72 or kirtavāda.73 Buddhism sought to avoid two extremes: (1) the view that ‘all that a being suffers from or experiences is due to the sum totals of his deeds in the past;’ (2) the view that ‘all that a being experiences in this life is only a matter

of chance.’74 It has succeeded in avoiding these by stressing the possibility of freedom, by making the ancient Hindu doctrine more explicit. It is pointed out for instance in the Mahāniddesa75 ‘that a man need not be afraid of the vast accumulation of karma through a long cycle of births and rebirths. For considered from the point of view of the mind the whole of such accumulation may be completely undone by a momentary action of mind. Mind is in its own place and as such can make and unmake all such accumulations of karma.’

 

Accordingly, karman becomes cetanā, ‘volition’, and Buddhaghosa defines it as ‘volition expressed in action.’76 The result constitutes the substance which is the cause of another existence, but in a very general and impersonal way. The more individual khandhas, which originated in the past as consequences of actions (volitions), have ceased to be. In actual existence other khandhas arise out of the consequences of past deeds, but they are destroyed too. In another existence others will be produced from those in this existence, not a single condition will pass on to the next existence.77

 

The Buddhists do not believe in a theory of transmigration of the individual soul: ‘It goes without saying,’ says Law,78 ‘that the Buddhist thinker repudiates the action of the passing of the ego from an embodiment to an embodiment.’ ‘With the Buddhist, rebirth is to be considered as kammasantati or the continuity of an impulse.’79 This is still more evident from a text of the Śālistamba sūtra.80 ‘There is no element which migrates from this world to the other; but there is recognition (realisation) of the fruition of karma, as there is continuity of causes and conditions. It is not as it were that one, dropping out from this world, is born into another, but there is continuity of causes and conditions.’

This conclusion should not be looked upon as a philosophical addition to the Buddha's teachings, which never deal, as some say, with metaphysics; for the Buddha is sometimes expressed to have ‘rigorously eschewed all theoretical considerations as vain.’ But this is not true.81 The same idea can be found in less philosophical, but perhaps more suggestive language in a parable from the Milindapanha.82

 

Said the king: ‘Bhante Nagasena, does rebirth take place without anything transmigrating?’ - ‘Yes, your majesty, rebirth takes place without anything transmigrating’, - ‘How, Bhante Nagasena, does rebirth take place without anything transmigrating? Give an illustration’. - ‘Suppose, your majesty, a man were to light a light from another light; pray, would the one light have passed over to the other light?’ - ‘Nay, verily, Bhante’. - ‘In exactly the same way, your majesty, does rebirth take place without anything transmigrating.’

 

Thus with Buddhism we are back in the realm of the original Vedic idea of karman as universal causality and continuity.

 

What has Śaṅkara to say to this? He may be expected to uphold the Brahmanical ātmavāda as against the Buddhist anātmavāda. Let us consider his view more closely.

 

There are many passages in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya where views concerning ‘life after death’ are put forward, which seem to leave no doubt about the implicit conviction of Śaṅkara that there is a continuity of the ego after death. This seems to be evident, for instance, from the treatment of the Upaniṣadic pitṛyāṇa and devayāṇa. Especially in the Chāndogya but also in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka83 at least two possible destinies for the individual soul after death are mentioned. Some souls ascend, passing through divisions of time and astral bodies, up to Brahman and attain release (devayāṇa, the path of the gods, or archirmārga, the bright way); others ascend only partially and have to return to the earth (pitṛyāṇa, the path of the fathers, or dhūmamārga, the dark way). Those who follow the pitṛyāṇa do not pass beyond the sphere of

the moon (cf. candramāsaṃ jyotiḥ in the Gītā84) which signifies according to Guénon85 that these souls remain invested with bodies and therefore remain individual; the others transcend the sublunary world and are beyond all form and individuality.

 

The superiority of knowledge to works, which is a characteristic doctrine of Advaita,86 is manifest in the interpretation that pitṛyāṇa is for those who have attained right knowledge. Śaṅkara interprets the verses of the Gītā referring to this as follows: ‘Those who die, having been engaged in the contemplation of Brahman, reach Brahman by this path’ (i.e. devayāṇā);87 whereas by the other path (pitṛyāṇa) ‘the Yogin - the karmin who performs sacrifices (to Gods) and other works - attains to the lunar light, and on the exhaustion thereof, returns again to earth.’88

 

In the commentary on the Brahmasūtras, however, in 4.3.7-14, Śaṅkara holds the view that Brahman which is attained as goal of the devayāṇā is not the highest Brahman, or, let us say (anticipating a future discussion of the doctrine of the ‘two’ Brahmans), is not the real Brahman. Then who is to reach the real Brahman, and how?

 

The answer cannot be provided at this level of knowledge and thinking, which is capable only of attaining a lower insight according to Śaṅkara. If there is higher a Brahman which can be attained in some way, there must also be a higher knowledge which refers to it. Here we see the origin of the doctrine of parabrahman and aparabrahman to which correspond respectively paravidyā and aparavidyā. Deussen, who speaks in this connection about an exoteric and an esoteric eschatology,89 describes Śaṅkara' system as a combination of both. But the term combina-

tion is much too weak: higher knowledge transcends lower knowledge in its entirety and in fact does away with it. In reality Śaṅkara does not believe in a continuity of the ego after death, despite many texts which make a contrary impression. Ultimately transmigration is not real. The ultimate doctrine is clearly stated as follows: ‘There is in reality no transmigrating soul different from the Lord.’90 This is nothing but the consequence or mere re-statement of the central Advaitic doctrine that the individual soul is not different from the Absolute.

 

Concluding this short investigation, in which anticipations of future analyses had to occur, we may say that it is clear that in Buddhism as well as in Advaita Vedānta the somewhat simple or naive doctrine of the transmigration of souls or of reincarnation in the popular sense does not occur. In both cases general and impersonal forces and supraindividual causal relations replace the view of the simple continuity of the ego after death, and thus we return again to the ancient doctrine of impersonal karman.

 

A historical but philosophically speaking important question is whether originally only the impersonal karman theory occurred in India, or whether there was also the concept of an individual soul which is reborn after an interval separating death and birth. Both possibilities have found ardent and learned advocates. In the opinion of A.A. Macdonell and A.B. Keith91 the theory of transmigration was only introduced with the Upaniṣads and did not exist previously. Against this R.D. Ranade defended the view that the idea of transmigration could be traced back to the Vedas. He quotes especially a hymn of the first maṇḍala of the Ṛgveda,92 of which the last two verses state that ‘the immortal principle, conjoined with the mortal one, moves backwards and forwards by virtue of its natural power; but the wonder of it is, the poet goes on to say that the mortal and immortal elements keep moving ceaselessly in opposite directions, with the result that people are able to see the one but unable to see the other.’93 Ranade fol-

lows here the interpretation of Roth, Böhtlingk and Geldner - against Oldenberg -, i.e., that the idea of transmigration is contained in these verses. It seems, however, not quite necessary to draw this conclusion. It is possible and perhaps even likely that the lines express a more or less contrary view. When we consider the verse more closely, we see first expressed the conviction that there are two principles in men, one immortal and one mortal - the well known theme of ‘due sunt in homine’ (‘there are two in man’), which is universally found (cf. the celebrated Vedic hymn of the two birds on the tree, one eating and one watching; etc.). Next it is stressed that it is the immortal (and not the mortal) principle which moves, which comes thus very near to Śaṅkara's ‘verily, there is no other transmigrant than the Lord.’ If this refers to transmigration at all it is incompatible with the opinion that a mortal principle transmigrated. After this the lines speak of movements of both principles in opposite directions. This may have come into being by noticing how the tendencies in man which aim at temporal aims contrast with those whose aim is everlasting. Lastly it is stressed that the mortal principle is visible while the immortal is not; a necessary statement, as it has to elucidate the fact that there are two in man, whereas we see only one.

 

The last passage which Ranade quotes in support of the view that reincarnation occurs in the Veda speaks about the ‘guardian of the body’ ‘returning frequently (varīvarti)’ inside the mundane regions.94 His argument that this guardian denotes the soul is convincing. But then it must be specified which of the two souls is meant here: and there can be no doubt that it is the immortal principle. It is then likely that we should understand that this divine principle comes again and again into the world, manifesting itself in us, as the immortal principle.

 

If our interpretations are right, there is no reincarnation in the Vedas, whereas it is also rejected or subordinated in different ways in Buddhism as well as in Advaita. The theory of karman may have originated among the Ājīvikas.95 It seems to be beyond doubt that it is an Upaniṣadic doctrine. The locus classicus96 for

reincarnation is perhaps the following passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad:97 ‘Being attached, he, together with the work, attains that result to which his subtle body or mind is attached. Exhausting the results of whatever work he did in this life, he returns from that world to this for (fresh) work. Thus does the man who desires (transmigrate)’. Even this passage has been interpreted by Coomaraswamy98 in an anti-reincarnationist sense; but his arguments are not very convincing.

 

There is no certainty that the theory of transmigration was ever universally accepted; it is quite possible that it was a popular belief, from time to time rejected by the philosophers. This holds for Buddhism and Advaita. In Buddhism, the ego does not transmigrate because there is merely continuity of karman; in Advaita neither the ego nor transmigration is real; the notion of transmigration disappears as soon as the Self is realized as the sole reality.

 

The karmic causality, of which the theory of transmigration is a further development, constitutes a special case of a much more universal trend of thought, tending, as we said, towards identifications of special sets of particulars.


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