Advaita and Neoplatonism

A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy

6. Reaction against the sacrifice

The Vedic sacrifice was a mile-stone, symbolising and indicating one of the impressive achievements of human being in its development as being and towards being. The conviction that sacrifice was the basis of the entire universe, including even the Gods, shows that it was itself the basis of the entire Vedic civilisation and the main inspiration of the vast Vedic literature. But as soon as the reality, which was accessible to it, was discovered and the sacrificial act had lost its creative efficacy, the central place accorded to the sacrifice led to over-emphasis and codification, which became increasingly rigid. This led to several new developments which are clearly interconnected: (1) the ritual acts were maintained, but interpreted symbolically (as for instance in the Āraṇyakas and in the opening sections of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka, where the horse-sacrifice (aśvamedha) is interpreted allegorically);¹⁶³ (2) the ritual acts were ‘interiorised’¹⁶⁴ or spiritualised (leading to another act of equal importance: meditation, and hence to the Advaitic jñāna or vidyā); (3) the ritual acts were regarded as ineffective in the purely spiritual realm (leading to one of the main theses of Advaita: the inferiority of karma): and (4) the ritual acts were abolished altogether (leading to the rejection of the authority of the Vedas and thus to avaidika and nāstika doctrines, of which the most important ones are the Bauddha doctrines.)¹⁶⁵ Only Mīmāṁsā maintained the Vedic tradition of sacri-

163 T.M.P. Mahadevan, The Upanishads in: History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western (Government of India), London 1953, 57.

164 See, however, below 71 sq.

165 The close relation between these developments shows clearly that Buddhism was but a natural, though revolutionary, development, a possibility of which the realisation could be expected, and thus closely connected with the vaidika and āstika developments in the Hindu tradition. This view need not conflict with the view of Murti that there are two traditions in Indian philosophy: ātmavāda and anātmavāda, or the substance view of reality and the modal view of reality (following a Jaina discrimination dravyārthika and paryāyārthika naya: see Murti's book, quoted above 48, n. 80, especially 10 sq.). But it changes the content thereof and makes the distinction somewhat more existential than logical: if our view that the sacrifice was the central act and entity is right, the idea of a continuous, self-identical human soul is only a consequence thereof; this is the significance of the statement that the sacrifice when preformed creates the being of human being (or: that the human being becomes human being or realises himself through the sacrificial act). If the idea of sacrifice lies much deeper than the idea of the soul, the abolition of the sacrifice led first to the nairātmya doctrine and next to the ‘Modal view of Reality’. It may be also possible to see the modal view of reality as the direct outcome of the above mentioned discriminations, which come into being with the origination of being.

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fice and karma, though even here further developments took place. We have to consider the second and third developments in greater detail, as they lead to the heart of Advaita.

It is sometimes suggested that a development from the ‘outer’ to the ‘inner’ sacrifice took place.¹⁶⁶ This is not exactly correct, because the discrimination between inner and outer did not exist in the earlier portions of the Vedas: when the inner is opposed to the outer, a developed form of self-consciousness has already come into being, and the supremacy of the sacrifice means exactly that this is not yet so and that the dualities of the opposites (the later dvandvas) are yet unseparated.¹⁶⁷ In the oldest Vedic sacrifice, the sacrificial act is a total act of what we have afterwards discriminatingly called body and mind. Separation of the two constitutes degeneration: the sacrifice became an external act, after which it was only natural that the possibility of an internal act, which only came then into existence, should be realized. Thus it is merely a convenient modern representation when we speak about a degeneration of the Vedic sacrifice into a purely external activity and subsequently, as a reaction, into interiorisation. In reality it is different: the degeneration itself, caused by the loss by sacrifice of its creative and discovering function has two aspects: exteriorisation and interiorisation. ‘Inner’ sacrifice is required

166 e.g., Ranade, o.c. 6-8.

167 Cf. Renou-Filliozat, o.c. 339: ‘on no distingue pas...entre substance et qualité, substrat et force, animé et inanimé’. The dvandvas are later again felt as a burden, when the philosopher wants to return to the original, primordial, unified, plenary situation, comparable with the Vedic situation (cf. the previous section). See e.g. Vedāntasāra 1.22, where one of the preliminary requirements for the qualified pupil, titikṣā, is defined as ‘the ability to bear the pairs of opposites like heat and cold’ (śītoṣṇādidvandvasahiṣṇutā) (see the translation of Hiriyanna, Poona 1929, and Nikhilananda, Mayavati 1949, 13 and cf. Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 55).

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only in the case of prevailing ‘outer’ sacrifice, which occurs only at a later stage. It is therefore incorrect to say that the older texts lack the ‘inner’ and purely spiritual sacrifice. It is an anachronistic projection to blame the early Vedic sacrifice for externalism. Originally, there was nothing external and therefore no need for anything internal.

When discrimination begins there is no conflict yet and unity is still experienced (or perhaps desired for as an escape from beginning conflict). This is expressed in a passage of a Brāhmaṇa of the Sāmaveda,¹⁶⁸ where the creator ‘thinks silently in his mind: what is in his mind becomes the sāman Bṛhat.’ For thinking the root dhyā- is used, connected with dhyāna about which we shall speak below. Thinking is still conceived quite materially, as is manifest from the next sentence: ‘he speaks, his speech gives birth to the sāman Rathaṁtara, which is, located in him as an embryo’. But it is important to bear in mind - though often forgotten by scholars dealing with ancient civilisations, as well as cultural anthropologists - that in such cases not only the spiritual is conceived rather materially, but the material rather spiritually as well - the two being in fact unseparated.

A transition to the inner sacrifice (from the earlier situation in which the concept of inner and outer is not yet meaningful) is constituted by the prāṇa sacrifice. The occasions at which this may have been utilized and the reasons for this are dealt with in a passage of the Taittirīya Saṁhitā. This shows how a more spiritualized sacrifice was called for, whenever technicalities of the sacrifice led to a conflict of highly formal character (announcing Pūrva Mīmāṁsā and Dharmaśāstra) and the living force of the ancient sacrifice seemed to have been lost. The difficulty is expressed as follows: ‘The theologians say: “Should an offering, be made in the house of one who is consecrated, or should an offering not be made?” The man who is consecrated is the oblation, and if he were to sacrifice he would offer a part of the sacrificer; if he were not to sacrifice, then he would omit a joint of the sacrifice’.¹⁶⁹ Keith says. that the solution of this paradoxical difficulty consisted in the performance of the sacrifices concerned, i.e., the new and

168 Pañcaviṁśa Brāhmaṇa 7.6.1 ap. Oldenberg, 91, 173.

169 Taittirīya Saṁhitā VI. 1.4.5 transl. Keith II, 490.

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full moon sacrifices (darśapūrṇamāsa), not in the ordinary way, but ‘In the breath’ (prāṇa) - ‘an idea not rare.’¹⁷⁰

A prāṇāgnihotra,¹⁷¹ which was also used by the Vaiṣṇava Vaikhānasa,¹⁷² occurs in the Chāndogyopaniṣad.¹⁷³ The last portion of the fifth prapāṭhaka of the Chāndogya deals with the Vaiśvānara, ‘common to all men, universal,’ an epithet of ātman and earlier an epithet of Agni.¹⁷⁴ Six sages (the sixth being the famous Uddālaka Āruṇi) expound their views to king Aśvapati Kaikeya, but he characterizes all views as partial views of reality; the Ātman Vaiśvānara is all that and much more. Śaṅkara quotes in the commentary the well known parable of the blind men, touching different parts of an elephant; and proceeds to give more meanings for Vaiśvānara. The next verse¹⁷⁵ contains several identifications which Śaṅkara explains in the following terms: ‘The text proceeds to show how in the case of the knower of the Vaiśvānara-Self, the act of eating constitutes the agnihotra offering.’¹⁷⁶ Hence the identifications: the chest of the Vaisvānara-Self is the altar, the hairs are the grass (which is strewn on the altar), the mouth is the Āhāvanīya fire, etc. The agnihotra (thus being identified with the Vaiśvānara-Self, the performance of the agnihotra is replaced by a meditation on these identifications and connections. Śaṅkara expresses this as: ‘the whole of this may be taken as an injunction of meditation (vidhi) - the sense being that one should meditate in this manner.’¹⁷⁷

170 Ibid. n. 2; ‘Cf. Aitareya Āraṇyaka III. 2.6; Śatapatha Āraṇyaka VIII. 11’.

171 The agnihotra is the most important and one of the most simple sacrifices, to be performed in the morning and in the evening by every brāhmaṇa or vaiśya householder.

172 See Renou-Filliozat, o.c. 346.

173 CU. 5.18-24 (trans. Sénart) and Śaṅkara's bhāṣya (text: Ānandāśrama Series XIV, 309-318; transl. G.N. Jha, Poona 1942, 283-290).

174 See Ṛgveda 3.2 (236) and 3.3 (237). The universal character of the Ātman Vaiśvānara is foreshadowed by the universal character of Agni Vaiśvānara: see e.g. 3.2.10, 11: Agni places in all beings his fiery germ (Geldner: ‘In diese Wesen legt or seinen Keim’). The individual's wish to participate in the splendour of the Agni Vaiśvānara, which foreshadows the equation of Ātman and Brahman, occurs in 3.3.10; ‘Vaiśvānara! your properties I wish for me.....’ (Geldner: ‘Vaiśvānara! Deine Eigenschaften wünsche ich mir’).

175 5.18.2.

176 bhojane 'gnihotraṁ sampipādayisannāha.

177 athavā vidhyarthametadvacanamevamupāsya iti.

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Thus a sacrificial act is replaced by an act of meditation. Even if one objects on the ground that this is only Śaṅkara's interpretation, and not necessarily the meaning of the somewhat obscure Upaniṣad (a view which would merely change the chronology of this philosophical development), it must be admitted that the agnihotra sacrifice is not performed, but replaced by other acts, i.e., offering to the different manifestations of prāṇa.¹⁷⁸ In the following verses symbolic offerings are prescribed, taking place in the mouth of the sacrificer, which is regarded (according to previous identifications) as the fire Āhavanīya. These are offerings to the different manifestations of prāṅa, because they have to be performed while uttering: ‘svāhā to prāṇa’, ‘svāhā to vyāna’, etc. Every time the magical efficacy of the symbolic sacrifice is described in analogous terms, for instance (in the first case) as follows: ‘Prāṇa being satisfied (tṛpyati), the Eye becomes satisfied; the Eye being satisfied, Heaven becomes satisfied; Heaven being satisfied whatever is under the Heaven and under the Sun becomes satisfied; and through the satisfaction thereof, he himself becomes satisfied; also with offspring, cattle, food, brightness (boldness) and Brahmic glory’.¹⁷⁹

Lastly some general and very instructive reflections follow. The agnihotra seems to be deprecated in another verse¹⁸⁰ where a person who performs it without knowing the philosophy of Vaiśvānara, is compared to someone who commits grave mistakes in the performance. This implies that the philosophy of Vaiśvānara (in Śaṅkara's words: Vaiśvānaradarśana) is evaluated more highly than the sacrifice. Śaṅkara himself does not go so far and understands the text as an eulogy: ‘By deprecating the well-known agnihotra, the text means to eulogise the agnihotra-offering made by one who knows the Vaiśvānara’. Knowledge, however, increases the efficacy, because the Upaniṣad says: ‘But if one knowing this offers the agnihotra, his libation falls upon all regions, all beings and all selves.’¹⁸¹

178 Mahadevan, o.c.

179 19.2.

180 24.1.

181 24.2:.... sarveṣu lokeṣu sarveṣu bhūteṣu sarveṣv ātmasu.

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Next it is said that whoever sacrifices while knowing the Vaiśvānara, loses all sin. Śaṅkara stresses in the commentary the value of knowledge of the Self for the removal of previously gathered ‘merit and demerit’. Ritual mistakes like offering the remnants of one's food to a Caṇḍala are unimportant when the Vaiśvānara is known.

This passage, referred to by Mahadevan as well as by Ranade,¹⁸² is rightly famous. Still it is not a completely inner sacrifice which is found here;¹⁸³ there are still many purely ritualistic remnants. But this text constitutes a transition to the pure act of meditation.

Both scholars also refer to a text which is more explicit. It occurs in the Kauṣītaki-Brāhmaṅa Upaniṣad¹⁸⁴ and speaks about an inner agnihotra (antara-agnihotra) in the following terms: ‘As long as a man speaks, so long he cannot breathe, then he offers the breath in speech; as long as a man breathes, so long he cannot speak, then he offers the speech in the breath. These are the two never ending immortal oblations; waking and sleeping, he continually offers them. All other oblations have an end and possess the nature of works. The ancients, knowing this true sacrifice, did not use to offer the agnihotṛ’¹⁸⁵ Here the sacrifice is rejected and replaced by generally unconscious activities which may be performed consciously (as for instance in prāṇāyāma, in the daily sandhyā or in elaborate developments of the Yoga-dar-śana which have preserved characteristics of a ritual act).

182 Mahadevan, I.c.; Ranade o.c. 7-8.

183 It seems that Ranade sees too much of an inner sacrifice in the text; he says: “Even so early as at the time of the Chāndogya, the efficacy of the ‘inner sacrifice’ had come to be definitely recognised” and continues with a translation of the passage which is somewhat free and modernised; ‘our real sacrifice consists in making oblations to the prāṇa within us. One who does not know this inner sacrifice, even if he were to go in for a formal sacrifice, throws oblation merely on ashes. On the other hand, he who knows this inner sacrifice is relieved of his sins as surely as wool is burnt in a flame of fire. Knowing this inner sacrifice, even if a man were to do acts of charity for a Caṇḍāla, he may verily be regarded as having sacrificed to the Universal soul’.

184 2.5.

185 Transl. R.R. Mitra and E.B. Cowell, Adyar, 1932, 298.

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More interesting than the rejection of sacrifice is its preservation and transformation as meditation. Here the efficacy is preserved as in the ritual act. Before discussing this further a passage of the Muṇḍakopaṇiṣad¹⁸⁶ may be mentioned, where the sacrifice is termed inefficient and useless: ‘Perishable (and) transient are verily the eighteen supporters¹⁸⁷ of the sacrifice, on whom, it is said the interior work depends. The fools who consider this (work) as the highest (object of man), undergo again even decay and death.... Fancying oblations and pious gifts (to lead to) the highest (object of man) fools do not know anything (as the cause of the) good. Having enjoyed (the fruit of) their works, on the high place of heaven, which they gained by their act they enter again this world or one that is lower.’¹⁸⁸ Here the inferiority of karma is evident; whoever depends on karma will be reborn.¹⁸⁹ In order to understand this we should know what jñāna, which replaces karma, really signifies.

Śaṅkara in the commentary on the Brahmasūtras does not go far in denouncing sacrifice.¹⁹⁰ His quotations are taken from Agnirahasyam, i.e., the tenth book of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, which speaks about: ‘fire-altars, made of mind (manas), built of mind (manas)’¹⁹¹ or: ‘built of knowledge (vidyā)’.¹⁹² An entire sacrifice is to be performed in the mind only: ‘With mind only (manasaiva) they are established, with mind only they are piled, with mind only the cups were taken, with mind the udgātṛ praised, with mind the hotṛ recited; whatever work is done at the sacrifice, whatever sacrificial work was done as consisting of mind, by mind only, as those fire-altars made of mind, piled by mind’.¹⁹³ Śaṅkara shows that this mental sacrifice is not part of the sacrifice (so that mental acts could be substituted for the actual act) but constitutes itself a subject of meditation (vidyā): ‘For the text expressly asserts that “they are built of knowledge only”......’ and: ‘these agnis are indeed knowledge-piled only.’

186 1.2. 7-10; also referred to by Ranade and Mahadevan, 11. o.c.

187 Namely, according to Śaṅkara, sixteen priests, the sacrificer and his wife.

188 Transl. E. Roer, Adyar, 1931, 148-150.

189 See above, II. 3: 50.

190 BSB. 3.3.44-50.

191 Agnīnarkānmanomayānmanaścitaḥ

192 Vidyācita.

193 Ad. BS. 3.3.47 and 49.

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Śaṅkara then does not want to replace the actual sacrifice by meditation, as one could have expected. But this is characteristic. He does not reject, but subordinates. Similarly the Mīmāṁsā view is not rejected, but allotted its proper place. The ritual act may lead to svarga, heaven, the highest goal of Mīmāṁsā and of the greater part of Vedic literature. But the Advaitic goal, mokṣa, which is higher in a way to be specified below, can only be reached through jñāna. According to Advaita, in the empirical level of our everyday experience Mīmāṁsā, and (according to later Advaitins) in particular the Bhāṭṭa-school of Mīmāṁsā, holds:¹⁹⁴ Vyavalvāre Bhāṭṭa-nayaḥ.¹⁹⁵

In the same context reference is made to a mental (mānasa) cup which is offered also meritally: ‘all the rites connected with that cup, viz., taking it up, putting it down in its place, offering the liquid in it, taking up the remaining liquid, the priests inviting one another to drink the reminder, and the drinking, all these rites the text declares to be mental only, i.e., to be done in thought only’.¹⁹⁶ In a note Thibaut refers to other texts where this occurs.¹⁹⁷ Śaṅkara also refers to the above quoted passage of the Kauṣītakī Brāhmaṇa Upaniṣad, where reference is made (in his words) to an ‘imaginary agnihotra consisting of speech and breath’.¹⁹⁸

Throughout the Upaniṣad texts are utilized as prescripts which enjoin meditations. But the substitution of meditation for the ritual act must also have been influenced by the fact that many of the sacrifices required materials which only a wealthy person like a king could afford. Meditation gradually takes the place of the ritual act and comes to share in all its particular powers. Though the inner sacrifice tends to reject the ordinary sacrifice, it preserves in itself all the significant characteristics of the latter. Meditation is magical in its efficacy¹⁹⁹ and constitutes one of the important modes of being.

194 See below II. 13.

195 See Hiriyanna, Outlines of Indian Philosophy, 357, n. 4.-‘Bhaṭṭa’ refers to the school of Kumārila Bhaṭṭa.

196 Transl. Thibaut II. 261.

197 Ibid. n. 2; ‘Cf. Tāṇḍya Brāh. IV. 9; Taitt. Saṁh. VII.3.1.’

198 vākprāṇamayo, gnihotra.

199 See below II. 9.

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For these reasons the act of meditation must be considered in greater detail: it is the gateway to Advaita. We propose to do this in the three following sections: in the first section (7) more examples will be given of meditations on sacrificial acts which will lead to the central meditation on Brahman; it will then be seen in which respect meditation itself is transcended; in the second section (8) certain conclusions regarding sacrifice, meditation and knowledge in Pūrva and Uttara Mīmāṁsā and thought and action in general will be considered; and in the third section (9) an investigation will be made into concepts of meditation and knowledge, occurring in different forms in different texts, while the thesis of their magical efficacy will be questioned. The middle section of these three sections (8) will also consider the relation of Advaita in this respect to some other systems of thought in India.