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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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4. Identifications. Plenitude

In a verse of the Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad, preceding the verse quoted in the previous section,99 Brahman, the Self, is identified consecutively ‘with the intellect, the manas and the vital force, with the eyes and ears, with earth, water, air and ether, with fire and what is other than fire, with desire and the absence of desire, with anger and the absence of anger, with righteousness and unrighteousness, with everything -’ in short, ‘identified with this and with that,’ i.e., according to Śaṅkara in the commentary, with what is perceived and with what is inferred.

 

One might suppose that such lists of identifications are especially applied to Brahman as it is the Absolute and the supporter of everything, and is probably contained in some way or

another in everything. But this is not so. The identifications of all kinds of entities with each other, already beginning in the Vedas, occur very frequently in the Brāhmaṇas, of which they can be said to be characteristic. Examples are abundant. We may quote, with Oldenberg:100 ‘Viṣṇu is the sacrifice’, ‘Prajāpati is the year’, ‘the cow is breath’, ‘there are three kinds of water: the frog, the water plant avakā and the bamboo stem’, etc.

 

Oldenberg has shown that the significance is not merely symbolic. Here are realities and real identifications, as can be seen from the fact that identities are utilised to influence reality. When for instance a certain reality is to be influenced, it is considered equally effective if the same influence is exerted on another entity, which is considered ‘identical’ with the former. Before attention is paid to the magical element which is undoubtedly contained herein, texts of the Brāhmaṇas themselves may be considered. They offer two further suggestions. Firstly a term is used which characterises the relation between two identified entities: nidāna (from the root dā-, ‘to bind’). It denotes in the Ṛgveda a band, a rope or a halter, referring for instance to the bondage of cows before they are released by Indra. In the Brāhmaṇas it comes to denote the reason and foundation of identifications, e.g., ‘verily, the sacrificing priest is the animal by virtue of the nidāna’,101 etc.102 A magical rope or band binds the two phenomena which are considered identical.

 

The second suggestion consists of explanations, e.g., ‘the animal is breath; because as long as it breathes it is an animal’103 or ‘the ṛks (of the Ṛgveda) are the earth, because they are recited on the earth’;104 and various etymological explanations like: ‘Indra is the central breath; because the central breath kindles the other breaths and is accordingly called indha, “kindling”’ etc.

 

These explanations are valid in so far as they explain why certain entities are connected with others (whether they are

sometimes so-called ‘secondary’ explanations does not concern us here); but they do not explain why this special mode or connection, i.e., identity, is supposed to exist; this is presupposed. Likewise, it remains unclarified why the nidānas do not only bind, but establish identity between two sides.

 

When such forms of thought are characterised as ‘magical’,105 a term is used which denotes that at least the following two elements are present here: the conviction that knowledge is power; and the conviction that power over an entity can be obtained by gaining power over another entity which is considered identical with the former. When a power B is known, power over another entity A is secured by gaining knowledge of the effective identity of A and B: ‘the main procedure in achieving that knowledge’, says Gonda,106 ‘consisted in identifying these powers, because, in their opinion, a potency A would doubtless be known and controlled, if only its identity with a potency B which was already known, could be established.’

 

That identifications are magically effective and not arbitrary or a play with concepts and words can also be seen from the fact that certain identifications are rejected. Oldenberg has given examples such as: ‘goats, sheep and wild animals are not all animals; but cattle constitutes all animals’.107 The wrong identifications are as dangerous as the right ones are beneficial. This is seen especially when the ideas of identity receive concrete shape in the central ritual act, the sacrifice, as we shall see below.

Prāyaścitta, ‘atonement, expiation’108 became necessary in connection with wrong identifications, i.e., errors in performance of the ritual. Whether the ritual act is disturbed by an error made by the priest (wrong recitation of a mantra, reversed order of certain actions, effects of forgetfulness, changes, etc.) or by factors which lie outside him (extinction of the fire, breaking of a ritual object, theft of the soma, appearance of a raven on the sacred beverage, etc.) - the result of the sacrifice is annihilated and dangerous consequences may result.109 In such cases prāyaścitta has to take place, consisting in general in a sacrifice addressed to Varuṇa.

 

From this magical efficiency of the right identification and the calamity resulting from wrong identification, or from the corresponding effects of rightly and wrongly performed ritual acts, it is but a step to the ideas expressed in the terms vidyā and avidyā, translated by Sénart as ‘magical efficiency of knowledge and inefficiency of its contrary.’110 This translation is justified from the beginning of the Chāndogya, which deals with the sacred syllable Om.111 First certain identifications are given: ‘Ṛk is speech; Sāma is life; the udgītha is the syllable Om...’. Then it is stated that knowledge of those identities is magically effective: ‘He verily becomes the gratifier of desires, who, knowing (vidvān) this, realises that the syllable Om is the udgītha... From this syllable the threefold knowledge (trayī vidyā, i.e., the three Vedas) comes forth: Om precedes the incantations (of the Yajurveda). Om precedes the recitations (of the Ṛgveda). Om precedes the chants (of the Sāmaveda)... Through this syllable sacrifices are performed by those who know this and by those who do not. Knowledge (vidyā) and ignorance (avidyā), how-

ever, are different. Only what is performed with knowledge (vidyā), with faith (śraddhā), with upaniṣad112 is effective (vīryavattaraz)’.

 

Thus knowledge of identifications gives power, and this power is gained primarily by the central act which effectuates and realises identifications: the sacrifice. It can be approximately seen what the universe (in which man is supposed to be included) must have been, at least in one of its aspects, for the human beings who expressed themselves in the BrāhmaǤas and the Upaniṣads: an originally unknown and uncontrolled whole, unified through recurrent identifications which increase man's power over it and which make man realize the whole to be a whole of interdependent entities where ‘everything is in everything’113 (the inter-connections between inside and outside are still so close and numerous that it is impossible to discriminate here between realism and idealism). This remains the background of Advaita: its influence can be perceived throughout the system. It can be symbolically expressed in the central idea of pūrṇam, plenum, plenitude, fullness, which occurs in a famous Brāhmaṇa of the Bṛhadāraṇyankopaniṣad, known as the peace chant:114

 
‘That is plenitude, this is plenitude,
 
Plenitude proceeds from plenitude
 
Taking plenitude from plenitude,
 
It remains as plenitude’.

Its survival in Advaita can be seen from the identification of pūrṇan with release itself, for instance by Sureśvara.115 Śaākara interprets in his commentary116 ‘that’ (adaḥ) as Brahman and ‘this’ (idam) as the universe. PūrǤam, he says, is infinite and all-pervading. This differentiated Brahman (the universe) pro-

ceeds from the infinite supreme Brahman as the effect proceeds from its cause. But ‘although it emanates as an effect, it does not give up its nature, infinitude, the state of the supreme Self; it emanates as infinite’. If our ignorance is removed, the original identity between the two, which has in reality never disappeared, is realized and ‘it remains as the unconditioned infinite Brahman alone’. The Ācārya quotes other scriptural passages which have the same meaning, e.g., ‘This was indeed Brahman in the begining. It knew only itself. Therefore it became all (sarvam)’.117 Elsewhere he quotes a passage which is a typical example of the magical concept of the universe: ‘Whatever is here is there and whatever is there is here’.118

 

Sarvam has almost always to be understood in this sense, which refers to certain magical connections and relations which keep the whole together and unify the All. In this manner the significance of the epithet ananta ‘infinite, endless’ must be understood. It occurs at an important and central place in the Taittirīya as a proper definition (svarūpalakṣaṇa)119 of Brahman: ‘Brahman is reality, knowledge, infinity’120 and in his commentary upon this passage Śaṇkara calls the infinitude a characteristic mark of Brahman.121

 

The same remark occurs in the commentary on the Brahmasūtras, when Śaṅkara interprets ether (ākāśa) in the sütra: ‘the ether on account of characteristic marks’122 - as meaning Brahman. One of the arguments for this equation is based upon two identifications, where both entities have the infinite as their common characteristic. One infinite is identified with the udgītha,

of which the Chāndogya says: ‘the udgītha is superior to everything; it is infinite (ananta)’123 after which the bhāṣyakāra remarks: ‘Now this endlessness (infinity) is a characteristic mark of Brahman.’124

 

The idea of ananta preserves a universe filled with magical connections and identifications. This aspect is in all probability much more fundamental and certainly more difficult to understand for the ‘modern mind’, than the purely quantitative aspect which is also present.125 The quantitative element is traceable in other terms denoting the same infinitude, as for instance (apart from the above mentioned pūrṇam and sarvam) bhūman, ‘greatness, abundance’,126 or bṛhat ‘the great’, signifying in the programmatic title of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka according to Śaṅkara not only that this is the greatest of the Upaniṣads, but also that it is ‘the greatest in respect of its substance and theme’,127 as it deals with the great, bṛhat i.e., Brahman, the Absolute. Apart from this, the quantitative aspect is also expressed by ŚaǤkara in his commentary upon the definition of the Taittirīya, where he says that Brahman is omnipresent, i.e., infinite in space, eternal, i.e., infinite in time and a universal substance, i.e., infinite in substance.128 That is, Brahman is actually infinite.

 

This actuality of infinity in Brahman is the basis of perhaps the most important, and certainly the most striking, of the doctrines of Advaita: i.e., that the Absolute is not only a reality, but the only reality. For in Śaṇkara's interpretation outside actual infinitude nothing can exist. From the thesis that only Brahnan is real the whole system of Advaita can be derived. It is presupposed in all the other Advaitic doctrines.

 

The quantitative aspect of infinity remains secondary: magical identifications remain in the background of the ‘plenum’, as we

shall observe repeatedly. Thus Śaṇkara comments upon pūrṇa in the peace chant of the BṛhadāracǤyaka as: ‘pūrṇa, not limited by anything (infinite), i.e., all-pervading’. This gives not only a literal interpretation (as infinite), but also (unconvincingly connected) a more significant dynamic interpretation, which transcends the quantitative denotation of infinitude and which contains a magical element.

 

In general magic plays an important, though often hidden, part in Śaṅkara's doctrine.129 These heritages of the Brahmāṇical and Upaniṣadic days play a smaller part in later Advaita, where the rational approach becomes increasingly predominant. The magical aspect interests us here not for historical reasons, but because its power undoubtedly pervades much of original Advaita. Advaita interpreted as the rational system, which it becomes in later works (Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya, Vedāntaparibhāṣā etc.) could never have captured the mind as entirely as it has done. It could not have conquered Buddhism, however rationalistic the Buddhistic systems, especially Mādhyamika were at that time, and it could not have unified Hinduism as it did. But as we shall see, Śaṅkara's concept of j÷āna goes beyond magic, whereas there are reasons to accept the tradition that Śaṅkara set limits to some magical practices of Tantric origin.130

 

A seemingly lucid concept like anantatva, ‘infinity’ is pervaded by magical elements. The background and content of this concept is totally different from the background and content of the concept of infinity in the West. The terminological parallelism, here as often, is misleading. This may be seen from three characteristics of the Western concept (or concepts) of infinitude. Later the meaning of the Neoplatonic infinite will be considered in greater detail.

 

(1) In the deeper and possibly unconscious layers of the Western mind, the infinite is associated with the ouroborós, the infinity of the snake which keeps its own tail in its mouth. This is an obscure dragonish being, a terrible and devouring mother, dwelling in a profound and dangerous region.131 (2) In Greece, the limited

is the clear cut and well ordered divine, whereas the unlimited and infinite, ápeiron, is chaotic dark matter (húlē), counterpart of the deity, sometimes conceived as the evil principle (kakón). In the classical age of the Greeks the Gods are never conceived as infinite beings. Infinity as a positive concept appears late and becomes preponderant only in Neoplatonism.132 (3) The Christian God is infinite, but his infinity does not prevent him from being arbitrary in his choices of existence in space and time. He creates for instance once, at a particular time, and not in all eternity (as some later sects interpret it). Likewise he appears once and is not omnipresent (despite the contrary opinion of some later mystics).133 Infinity does not mean that nothing exists outside God: it has on the contrary only meaning in opposition to and in contrast with the finitude of the created being.

 

A comparative study of the infinite or plenum is bound to yield interesting and possibly unexpected results. In connection with contemporary European philosophy we will have to ask what the place of freedom can be in a universe conceived as a plenum.

 

Identifications constitute the background of much of Śaṅkara's Advaita, as will be seen below. The fundamental relation of Advaita, however is identity, and not identification. Adhyāsa on the other hand, perhaps the most original of Śaṅkara's concepts, is an identification. Lacombe has moreover shown how identifications as ‘correspondances ontologiques’ could develop into the theory of lakṣaṇa, ‘indirect expression’.134


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