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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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7. Meditation - pariṇāma - saguṇabrahman

Large portions of Śaṅkara's commentary on the Brahmasūtras interpret texts dealing with sacrifices as giving injunctions to meditate on sacrifices or portions thereof (e.g., the third pāda of the third adhyāya). Everyone who reads the bhāṣya must pay attention to these portions, including those who are only looking for the so-called purely philosophical portions. The latter often maker the mistake of having a preconceived idea of what philosophy is (an idea which is generally formed on modern lines, even in the case of those who try to follow the tradition, the sanātana dharma) -and imposing that upon the text. But the text does not indicate which are the so-called philosophical portions and which are not. Thus a discrimination and evaluation of the text is forced upon us, which is as difficult to justify as Śaṅkara's own evaluation of different Upaniṣadic passages, for instance their being of different value when dealing with saprapañca and niṣprapañca expositions.200 Declaring some portions, for instance, those dealing with the interpretation of texts or with sacrifices, less important from a ‘philosophical’ point of view, disregards that the bhāṣya includes those portions (though it may assign them their proper place) and is as such different from Western ways of thinking. Such anachronistic attitude underrates the supreme importance attached to śabdapramāṇa.

The exposition attempted here does not present Advaita as a system of philosophy with a modern structure, resting upon an epistemological basis, etc. This does not mean that we criticise Śaṅkara's Advaita as being not ‘up to the standard of modern philosophy’ - which would be a somewhat ridiculous presumption. It means, on the contrary, that we are able and willing to abstain not only from modern philosophical ideas, but also from their high evaluation. Though an epistemological approach would be quite in accordance with some later works on Advaita, this approach itself belongs to a phase of thought which seems to be superseded in the West.201. Shortly, to present Advaita as a modern system of thought is not paying it a compliment, but betrays the presence of an implicit high evaluation of some modern systems of thought.

 

It is of little value to attempt to show that Advaita is rationalistic, when this attempt is based upon an implicit faith in reason, as may occur in some later philosophies which the investigator happens to prefer. But it can be valuable to show without any implicit or explicit evaluation whether Advaita is rationalistic or not, and to compare it with other doctrines, rationalistic or not, ultimately investigating in this way the attitude towards rationality which is implicit in contemporary philosophy.202

 

These remarks formulate only some of the principles of scholarly research. But it is not superfluous to formulate them when dealing with Advaita, where so much of the literature (implicitly or explicitly) praises or blames or tries to establish the superiority or inferiority of the system. Just like the sage according to the Gītā, every philosopher and scholar has to strive for the attainment of sarvakarmaphalatyāga - the abandonment of the fruit of all works.

 

We should attempt to find in Śaṅkara's works some data concerning the relationship between meditation on a sacrificial act on the one hand and sacrifice itself on the other hand. It is stated that meditations, such as the Udgītha, are based upon the sacri-

fices along with which they are prescribed, but are not dependent on them and are therefore valid separately.203 Thus meditations are more general than sacrifices. Accordingly, meditations are not restricted to particular śākhās (branches, schools) of the Veda, but belong to all śākhās: ‘the vidyās mentioned refer to the udgītha and so on belonging to all śākhās because the text speaks only of the udgītha and so on in general.‘204

 

Some scriptural passages with which the bhāṣyahāra deals enjoin ritual actions and others meditations, for instance the meditation on Brahman. There is no conflict when different texts prescribe different sections. According to Śaṅkara the karmakāṇḍa of the Veda enjoins a ‘plurality of works’ (karmabahutva). But he asks205 whether there can also be a plurality in Brahman (brahmabahutva). In this case we are not dealing with an injunction to perform an act, but with an injunction to meditate which is similar to an instruction. In the passage concerned, Śaṅkara refers back to his commentary on one of the beginning sūtras (tattusamanvayāt),206 which states that ‘the knowledge of Brahman (brahmavijñāna) is produced by passages which treat of Brahman as an existing accomplished thing and thus do not aim at enjoining anything’.207 Here what probably was originally an injunction to meditate has become a teaching-but a kind of teaching which seems to be as ‘magically’ loaded as sacrifice and meditation themselves. The sūtra referred to might be profitably consulted before this discussion is continued.

 

This sūtra: tat tu samanvayāt, ‘but that because it is connected’ is one of the important sources of the entire Vedānta and will occupy us below. In the commentary Śaṅkara discusses the question whether scriptural texts enjoin action or simply convey information or knowledge. The Pūrva Mīmāṁsā view, to which he refers is clear and seems plausible. Śabara says, commenting upon the first sūtra of Jaimini: ‘the object of the Vedas is evident: it is to give information with regard to action (karmāvabodhana)’.

The scriptural texts prompt action (pravṛtti) or prevent action (nivṛtti). This means that a text is not purely informative in a general, impersonal and as it were scholarly way. The pūruapakṣhij, Śaṅkara combats,208 is explicit about this: ‘If the Vedānta texts were considered to have no reference to injunctions of actions,209 but to contain statements about mere (accomplished) things, just as if one were saying. ‘the earth comprises seven islands’,210 ‘that king is marching on’, they would be purportless, because then they could not possibly be connected with something to be shunned or endeavoured after’.211 Here all purely indicative sentences are rejected. According to the pūrvapakṣin, Vedānta texts are injunctions to meditate and this is a highly purposeful act: ‘From the devout meditation (upāsanā) on this Brahman there results as its fruit (phalam) final release (mokṣa) which although not to be discerned (aḍṛṣṭa) in the ordinary way, is discerned (ḍṛṣṭa) by means of the śāstra’.212

Plausible as all this may seem, Śaṅkara disagrees entirely with it (‘to all this, we, the Vedāntins, make the following reply’). He establishes the siddhānta view, that brahmavijyñāna is not fruit of any action, not even of (the act of) meditation. Texts dealing with Brahman do not enjoin but inform and convey knowledge.213

 

Regarding brahmabahutva Śaṅkara says: ‘as Brahman is one and of uniform nature, it certainly cannot be maintained that the Vedānta-texts, aim at establishing a plurality in Brahman comparable to the plurality of works’.214 ‘If it should be assumed that the different Vedānta-texts aim at teaching different cognitions of Brahman, it would follow that only one cognition could be the

right one while all others were mistaken, and this would lead to a general distrust of all Vedānta’.215

 

At this point an important distinction is introduced. Scripture teaches that some meditations on Brahman have, like acts, various results: ‘some of them have visible results, others unseen results, and others again-as conducive to the springing up of perfect knowledge-have for their result release by successive steps’.216 Therefore it is impossible to hold the opinion that all the texts teach only one cognition of Brahman. This difficulty is solved by a discrimination which is rightly famous and characteristic of Advaita:217 that between the saguṇabrahman and the nirguṇabrahman (the qualified and the unqualified Brahman).218 Śaṅkara's final view is therefore that ‘devout meditations on the qualified Brahman may, like acts, be either identical or different’;219 whereas knowledge of the nirguṇabrahman can only be one, for the reasons stated above.

 

Thus we have arrived at the view, that in the scriptures different acts are prescribed; different meditations may be prescribed on the saguṇabrahman; but only one cognition exists of the nirguṇabrahman. There is a certain progress when one proceeds from action to meditation and from meditation to knowledge, while considering respectively the sacrifice, the saguṇabrahman, and the nirguṇabrahman. This constitutes a series of entities of increasing value, culminating in the highest value; and accordingly graded conceptions of the ultimate being.

Concrete examples follow in further sūtras.220 Commenting upon ‘Bliss and other (qualities) as belonging to the subject of the qualities (have to be attributed to Brahman everywhere)’221 Śaṅkara establishes the view that qualities like ānanda, ‘bliss, delight’, and the other qualities which belong to the subject (pradhāna) are all to be understood in each place (sarvatra), because the subject referred to is Brahman and is one and non-different. These are evidently qualities (dharmāḥ) which do not literally qualify and have to be ‘attributed to’ (in as far as we can speak of attribution) the nirguṇabrahman-a term which Śaṅkara, however, does not mention in this text because of the somewhat embarassing connection of the unqualified with qualities. The next sūtra, however, ‘(Such qualities as) joy being its head and so on have no force (for other passages); for increase and decrease belong to plurality (only)’222 is interpreted as referring to qualities, in which lower and higher degrees can be distinguished223 and which therefore refer to the saguṇabrahman and have no universal application. They have no validity for other meditations on Brahman and do not belong to the unqualified highest Brahman (nirguṇa parabrahman). But the following sūtra: ‘But other (attributes are valid for all passages relative to Brahman), the purport being the same’224 refers again to attributes such as bliss and so on and belong again to the nirguṇabrahman which is one. But Śaṅkara adds: ‘those attributes are mentioned with a view to knowledge only, not to meditation’.225 In the next sūtra qualities are again supposed to refer to the saguṇabrahman ‘for the purpose of pious meditation (dhyāna)’.

 

Let us for the moment leave aside the purely metaphysical question-a question which has occupied religious thinkers both of the East and of the West-of how far we can deal with a nirguṇa entity (to which even according to Śaṅkara himself still the qualities such as ‘bliss and so on’ refer). We observe that meditation (dhyāna) may lead to saguṇabrahman but not to nirguṇabrahman

which belongs to the domain of pure knowledge. Though the philosophical development kas proceeded from the sacrifice to meditation with knowledge as its fruit, Śaṅkara's thesis is that there is a knowledge which is independent of previous action or meditation and which arises spontaneously (svābhāvika). We will examine the difference between meditation and knowledge and their relationship.

 

The most important distinction is that knowledge (jñāna) is not subordinate to action (kratvartha), as meditation is. Mere knowledge (kevala vidyā) effects the purpose of man (puruṣārtha, i.e. mokṣa) and is independent (svatantra).226 This knowledge does not lead to mokṣa, but constitutes mokṣa itself, mainly because it is knowledge in which there is no difference between subject and object, as we shall see below. There is no establishment of a link and no identification, and this knowledge can therefore no longer be called magical: it is not effective but constitutes its own purpose. The texts ‘establish the fact that the so-called release doffers from all the fruits of action (karmaphalavilakṣaṇa).’227 That this knowledge is release itself points back to the sacrificial background; but that it springs from itself and is not a fruit of action or meditation shows that it is a new concept.

 

That mokṣa is entirely independent from action is brought out clearly by Padmapāda in his Pañcapādikā, in the gloss on the commentary on the sūtra: tattusamanvayāt.228 It is summarised by Venkataramiah in his ‘conspectus’ as follows:229 ‘Any karma to be purposeful must originate something (utpatti), secure something (āpti), bring about some changes (vikāra), or effect purification (saṁskāra). Now since karma is incapable of effecting mokṣa in any of these ways there is no scope for it, i.e., there is not even the remotest connection of mokṣa with action’.

 

Śaṅkara's view underscores that meditation also is an act and therefore unfit to be the basis of knowledge. This is stated in

several passages in the same context, for example: ‘The meditation, for instance, on man and woman as fire, which is founded on CU 5.7.1; 8.1; .... is on account of its being a Vedic statement merely an action and dependent on man; that conception of fire, on the other hand, which refers to the well known (real) fire, is neither dependent on Vedic statements nor on man, but only on a real thing which is an object of perception; it is therefore knowledge and not an action’230 (note here the rejection of magical identification); or: ‘The meditations on the other hand are themselves acts, and as such capable of a special injunction; hence there is no reason why a special result should not be enjoined for those meditations which are based on sacrificial acts’.231 The term jñāanakriyā is used for ‘aact of meditation’ (not ‘act of knowledge’).232

 

The examination of the development from sacrifice to the act of meditation and from meditation to knowledge and in particular to that knowledge which is no longer dependent on it, leads to three conclusions: (I) Actions are generally performed on the ground of Vedic injunction, while knowledge of Brahman is independent of actions. The highest knowledge (paramavidyā) is independent of the Vedic injunctions: ‘knowledge which has the existant Brahman as its object is not dependent on Vedic injunction’.232a Scripture may lead to the knowledge of Brahman, but this knowledge does not depend on it. Thereby Advaita does not become a doctrine which might be called avaidika, as it accepts the authority of the Veda and Īśvara is the source of scripture.233 This doctrine safeguards the purity, independence and transcendence of the cognition of Brahman and therefore of Brahman itself.234

(II) Whereas a causal series of karmic processes can reach most goals, including the felicity of heaven, svarga (the highest goal in the Pūrva Mīmāṁsā); there is a highest goal which is

entirely transcendent and which can never be the result of activities as it is beyond all causes and effects. This is mokṣa. Whereas all causal activity proceeds step by step and is a process of transformation (pariṇāma), this highest release is a sudden realization which manifests itself spontaneously. It does not change our mode of being, but it shows the existence of a more authentic235 mode of being. Since Advaita rejects the reality of transformation and change, mokṣa is eternal (nitya). It is not the result of an act or the effect of a cause which is bound to appear at a certain moment in time: mokṣa is absolutely real (pāramārthika), fixed (kūṭastha),236 eternal (nitya), omnipresent (sarvavyāpin) like the atmosphere, free from all modifications (sarvavikriyārahita), eternally self-sufficient (nityatṛpta), not composed of parts (niravayava) and of self-luminous nature (svayam-jyotiḥsvabhāva). That bodiless state (aśarīratva), to which merit and demerit (dharmādharma) with their consequences (saha kāryeṇa) and threefold time (kālatraya) do not apply, is called mokṣa. This definition agrees with scriptural passages such as the following:237 ‘different from merit and demerit (dharmād-anyatraadharmād-anyatra), different from effect and cause (kṛtakṛtāt), different from past and future (bhūtācca bhavyācca)’.238 Sureśvara says that action is not eternal (anitya) but knowledge is eternally attained (nityaprāpta).239

 

As the state of mokṣa is beyond all actions and their fruit beyond all causal relation and beyond time, nothing ‘happens’ when somebody ‘attains’ release. Hence,

‘there is none in bondage, none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation (mumukṣu) and none liberated (mukta)’

as Gauḍapāda has already said.240 That a like verse occurs in

Nāgārjuna241 need not imply that Gauḍapāda has taken it from him (a historical possibility of relative philosophical importance)242 but reminds us of a wider context: in a less revolutionary but perhaps more subtle way than the Buddhists, Śaṅkara goes beyond the sacrifice without abolishing it. This is itself a manifestion of the predilection for the continuous as the ‘substance of tradition’ in Hinduism. For sacrifice is connected with the doctrines of karma, cause and temporal action. Śaṅkara overcomes the sacrificial mentality by means of a knowledge which is no longer a temporal act (as meditation is) and which transcends the realm of karma and causation. In this way we arrive at Brahman as the new concept of being, realised by mokṣa as the new intuition of being. Śaṅkara however does not reject karma and causality but accepts them in subordinate position.

 

(III) The third conclusion enables us to introduce in an existentially and phenomenologically justifiable way the Absolute, Brahman. In the Veda this term may have denoted a kind of power connected with the sacrifice and manifesting itself as sacred or magical word.243 Its manifestation results from the ritual act and appears magically loaded. As a result of the ritual act, which creates and discovers being, Brahman is being itself. In Śaṅkara Brahman is likewise not an abstract concept but the goal itself, i.e., mokṣa. The above exposition can be called existential and phenomenological in the sense that it starts with the mode of our being which is sacrifice and proceeds to the mode of our being which is knowledge or mokṣa, without referring to external, i.e., phenomenologically unaccessible entities. The text dealing with mokṣa quoted above, proceeds as follows: ‘It (i.e. mokṣa) is therefore the same as Brahman,244 in the enquiry (jijñāsā) into which we are at present engaged’ (Cf. the first sūtra: athāto brahmajijñāsā). Therefore Brahman is beyond all karma,245 beyond all causality and beyond time. This means that it is not the result of an act, not even of the act of meditation; that it is

neither an effect, nor a cause e.g. of the universe (as we will see below);246 and that it is the ever unchanging timeless.

 

Mokṣa or Brahman is nitya, ‘eternal’ and this eternity excludes all change and transformation (pariṇāma). It is, as Śaṅkara remarks, not eternal in the less proper sense in which some things are conceived as ‘eternal, although changing’ (pariṇāmānitya), for instance the guṇas in the Sāṁkhya system.247 For the guṇas are in a perpetual process of always uniting, separating and uniting again, and in this sense the Sāṁkhya professes the eternity of the world (pariṇāmanityatva),248 as Advaita professes the perpetuity of saṁsāra. But Brahman is in Advaita eternal without any modifications (sarvavikriyārahita).

 

The doctrine that Brahman is the only reality signifies that mokṣa is not only more authentic than ordinary experience, but also shows the illusoriness of ordinary experience. It is an important but philosophically unsoluble question, whether this doctrine is the outcome of speculation or of the experience (anubhava) of mokṣa itself. Against the second view it might be objected that such an unqualified experience in which subject and object are one is not likely to have the character of a possible cause the outcome of which may be any metaphysical doctrine.249 In support of the view that the basis of Advaita is speculative it can moreover be argued that the doctrine of the sole reality of Brahman follows from the view that the Absolute is unqualified. For the relation of Brahman to any other reality would affect its nirguṇatva. The fact that we can understand Advaita and follow the developments of its thought and arguments may also show that its basis is speculation.

 

But even if the basis is speculation it need not be exclusively speculation. For speculation can lead to a consistent philosophical doctrine but cannot establish truth. If the basis of Advaita were mere speculation nobody could be sincerely convinced of its truth, We may by philosophical means arrive at the conclusion that

Advaita is a consistent system without being convinced of its being true. The experience is decisive. As long as we do not possess it we can neither affirm nor deny its validity.

 

In accordance with this Śaṅkara generally shows in his commentaries the consistency of his doctrines without attempting to prove them by referring to the experience which tradition attributes to him. There may be one passage in the Sūtrabhāṣya where he refers indirectly to his own experience, though we cannot be certain even here. This passage, mentioned by Mahadevan,250 deals with the concept of Jīvan-mukti and expresses with an insistence which seems based upon personal experience that the experience of the Jīvan-mukta cannot be contested: ‘How can one contest the heart-felt condition of another as possessing Brahman-knowledge, even though bearing a body?’251

 

Summarizing we can say that meditation is considered an act like sacrifice while knowledge is not; that acts and meditations can be many while knowledge is one; that acts and meditations may have several purposes and objects, including saguṇabrahman, while nirguṇabrahman can only be the object of knowledge or rather knowledge itself (because in this knowledge subject and object are identical and therefore identical with knowledge itself) which is mokṣa. Such knowledge is given in some Vedic texts, which are not injunctions or prescriptions to act but are of a purely indicative character. This knowledge arises spontaneously, is not the fruit of any action, not even of meditation, is not effect of a cause (or cause of an effect) and is eternal. The same applies to mokṣa and Brahman, which are identical with it and with each other. The reaction against sacrifice has also entailed a certain independence with regard to the Vedic authority, which is accepted as such but which is not the cause of the knowledge which is mokṣa, the śāstra being itself founded in Īśvara.

 

All these topics are closely interwoven and interconnected and this is a sign of the unity of thought reached and achieved in the Advaitic doctrine on the basis of a tradition which does not at all make such a unified impression. It is difficult to indicate at the

same time all meanings and to develop the ideas in all directions. This is as we saw in the first part252 due to the ‘circular procedure’ which is characteristic of philosophy. Some of the topics already dealt with have therefore to be developed somewhat further. The next section (Section 8), will once again deal with karma and jñāna but in a different context; it will also touch upon an instructive and interesting comparison with another ‘revolt against karma’, which has a Western counterpart. The section following (Section 9) will study magical efficacy of meditation and the concept of jñāna by means of a discussion of their terminology and occurrence in several texts.


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