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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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11. Adhyāsa - avidyā - māyā

What is avidyā? In the beginning of the great commentary this concept is introduced and defined as adhyāsa, adhyāropa, ‘superimposition’.371 This idea is often discussed and defined by the important Advaitic thinkers. We will analyse its significance by considering a passage in the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya where the term is used in an ordinary sense, not referring to the metaphysical adhyāsa which is identical with avidyā. This passage establishes a

connection with the sūtra just analysed372 and deals with the above mentioned pratīkopāsanās.

 

In the commentary upon the sūtra ‘Not in the symbol (is the Self to be contemplated); for he (the meditating person) (may) not (view symbols as being the Self).’373 Śaṅkara argues, that when Brahman is meditated upon in a symbol, pratīka (e.g. Āditya), the pratīka should not be understood as the Self. This follows from previous considerations. When scripture speaks about a meditation on a symbol, this cannot be understood as the Self, which is never the object of meditation. The question arises as to which mental act is enjoined by: ‘Āditya is Brahman’ and which relation obtains in such a case between Brahman and its pratīka, āditya. The answer is that the act and the relation, which it establishes, are adhyāsa ‘superimposition’.

 

The commentary upon the next sūtra deals with the question whether the vision (dṛṣṭi) of Āditya is to be superimposed upon Brahman (brahmaṇyadhyasitavya), or the vision of Brahman upon Āditya. This doubt arises because scriptural texts present both members in the same case and in apposition (āditya brahma, prāṇo brahma). An objection is that these texts inform us perhaps about a causal relation between Brahman and Āditya, etc. Against this it is argued, that it would be entirely purposeless to mention any particular effect of Brahman. However, if the text does not embody knowledge, it must be an injunction to meditate. In that case, as two members are given, their relation must be superimposition.

 

To the question, which is to be superimposed upon which, the sūtra answers: the Brahman-vision upon Āditya, ‘on account of exaltation’ (utkarṣāt). ‘For thus Āditya and so on are viewed in an exalted way (utkarṣeṇa), the vision of something higher than they being superimposed upon them.’ We might think of some pratīka as an actual object and superimpose that object upon Brahman, i.e., view Brahman as this limited object. But it is ‘exalting’ to take the pratīka only as the starting point for a meditation, in which Brahman is superimposed upon it: for the

pratīka is exalted and Brahman is not degraded. This is even true, Śaṅkara adds, according to a worldly (laukika) rule, ‘viz., the one enjoining that the idea of something higher is to be superimposed upon something lower, as when we view-and speak of- the king's character as a king. This rule must be observed in worldly matters, because to act contrary to it would be disadvantageous; for should we view a king as a charioteer, we should thereby lower him, and that would be in no way beneficial’.

 

The usage of the term adhyāsa becomes perfectly clear, especially from the example: viewing something lower as if it were something higher or seeing the higher entity in the lower is ‘superimposing’ the higher on the lower. ‘Superimposition’ denotes as well the relation from the higher to the lower, as also, from the point of view of the agent, the activity which establishes this relation. We may go one step further and say that adhyāsa evidently does not rest upon an identity which is objectively real, but is an identification. It can be realized through the identifying act of meditation and depends on subjective activity. Other examples, equally instructive, are mentioned by Śaṅkara, for instance: the idea of the God Viṣṇu is superimposed upon a statue of Viṣṇu, etc.374

 

In the context of the last example a kind of definition is also given, which is interesting as here again we are concerned with ordinary adhyāsa and not with the metaphysical concept which is identical with avidyā. Śaṅkara says:375 ‘Adhyāsa takes place when the idea of one of two things not being dismissed from the mind, the idea of the second thing is superimposed upon the first thing; so that together with the superimposed idea the former idea remains attached. to the thing on which the second idea is superimposed. When e.g., the idea of (the entity) Brahman superimposes itself upon the idea of the name (i.e., Om), the latter idea continues in the mind and is not driven out by the former’. This needs almost no clarification, but may be restated utilising the previous terminology and including the concepts ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ as follows: Adhyāsa, ‘superimposition’, is a mental act of identification of a higher entity A and lower entity B, in such

a way that the lower B is looked upon as A or that A is seen through or in B, i.e., while the entity B also continues in the mind (which would otherwise not identify two, but move from the one to the other). It is said, then, that A is ‘superimposed’ upon B. Thus it is clear that superimposition is a kind of identification which can be realized by a meditation and which has a subjective and unintelligible-magical character. This meaning arises even before we turn to metaphysics.

 

Now let us turn to definitions of the metaphysical adhyāsa, which is avidyā. The significance of this concept is stressed by the fact that the great commentary's introduction (upodghāta) opens with its definition and discussion. In this introduction Śaṅkara is not bound by any text and can freely explain the meaning of perhaps the most original of his ideas-partly coined, it is true, in order to maintain the unity of the scriptural texts, but itself not easily justifiable with the help of scriptural support. The upodghāta of the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya gives the best picture of the thought of Śaṅkara, as it constitutes the ‘free’ introduction to the work which is (apart from the Upadeśasāhasrī, which is genuine as it is quoted by Sureśvara) least bound by the text it comments upon (because of the unintelligibility of the Brahmasūtras themselves). It is therefore always and rightly taken as the basis for the study of his system.376

 

In the upodghāta Śaṅkara defines adhyāsa as follows: ‘the apparent presentation (avabhāsa) (to consciousness) of something previously observed (pūrvadṛṣṭa) in some other thing (paratra), in the form of remembrance (smṛtirūpah)’.377 Here adhyāsa is again presented as a mental activity, through which the higher is not seen in the lower (as in the above definition), but the previously observed in the actually observed. Thus we have previously observed silver while observing mother-of-pearl at present. But only if we see mother-of-pearl as silver or see silver in mother-

of-pearl, we superimpose silver upon mother-of-pearl. This identification is only called superimposition, in the newly defined sense, if it is erroneous and subjective: for instance, if we perceive at present a silver ornament and see in it the silver which we perceived before, this is not called superimposition. As here silver is also perceived at present, this is actual perception and not of the nature of remembrance, as the definition requires (smṛtirūpah). In this way the additional clause is explained in the Bhāmatī.378 The addition is very important, as it stresses the fact that adhyāsa is subjective and ‘magically-creative’ in the sense in which identifying meditation is. Comparing this definition with the above mentioned definition of ‘meditation-adhyāsa’, it can be said that it analyses further in one respect whereas it differs in another respect. (1) It analyses more deeply because it observes that, from the point of view of the agent, an entity A cannot be superimposed upon an actually perceived entity B, if A were not previously observed. This stresses the temporal character of adhyāsa, which is an activity (and not a situation or a timeless vision or knowledge). It also shows that Śaṅkara does not operate with a priori concepts, which are in a certain way also superimposed upon the objects.379 (2) The definition of the metaphysical adhyāsa differs from that of the meditation-adhyāsa because the condition, that only the higher should be superimposed upon the lower, has disappeared.

 

This also follows from the context in which the definition is given. It is preceded by examples, where the lower is superimposed upon the higher, such as the superimposition of the body upon the I (in expressions like ‘I am the body’, or ‘I am this’, ahamidam) and it leads to the conclusion that it is not absurd to superimpose the non-Self upon the Self.

 

The upodghāta starts with the observation that to superimpose upon the subject (which is the sphere or realm of the notion ‘I’), with all its attributes, the object (which is the sphere of the

notion ‘Thou’), with its attributes-and the reverse likewise has to be considered erroneous. This is continuously done in everyday life. Because of this error adhyāsa is the same as avidyā. Next the full significance of the metaphysical adhyāsa becomes manifest: it is superimposition of the non-Self upon the inner Self (pratyagātman). It may be understood more definitely from the following examples: ‘Extra-personal attributes are superimposed upon the Self if a man considers himself sound and entire, as long as his wife, children, and so on are sound and entire. Attributes of the body are superimposed upon the Self if a man thinks of himself (his Self) as stout, lean, fair, as standing, walking or jumping. Attributes of the sense-organs, if he thinks ‘I am mute, or deaf, or one-eyed, or blind’. Attributes of the internal organ (antaḥkaraṇa) if he considers himself (his Self) subject to desire, intention, doubt, determination, and so on. Having superimposed the producer of the notion of the ego (ahampratyayin, i.e. the antaḥkaraṇa) upon the inner Self .... one superimposes again the inner Self upon the inner organ, etc. Thus is the nature of the original adhyāsa, beginningless and endless (anādirananta), having the form of an erroneous notion (mithyāpratyayarūpa),380 cause of the fact that the individual souls are agents and enjoyers (kartṛtva-bhoktṛtva-pravartaka), observed by everyone (sarvalokapratyakṣa)’. All this is presupposed in the level of daily practical activity (vyavahāra). But, concludes the introduction, the abolition of this wrong notion which is the cause of all evil is the purport of all Vedānta texts; thus will be established ‘the knowledge of the absolute unity of the Self (ātmaikatva)’.

 

There is a parallelism here which provides us with a deeper philosophical explanation of doctrinal differences: just as Śaṅkara has combated, in the name of jñāna, the Mīmāṁsakas with their magical karmavāda and the karma-background of Indian thought in general, he shows how a deeper lying magical activity, superimposition, causes the situation where all who are in the level of vyavahāra, will be exempt from brahmavidyā in their wrong identification of the non-Self and the Self. The most subtle of all

karmas is the superimposing activity, adhyāsa,381 which Śaṅkara combats in the name of jñāna. He need not fight this concept in specific groups of human beings, e.g. the Mīmāṁsakas, but finds it everywhere in human nature itself, since superimposition is at the root of human existence. We do not only fail to reach the goal when we engage upon the activities of sacrificing and meditating (these being additional, secondary superimpositions), but we even fail when we do not cancel the deepest activity, i.e., the superimposition of the non-Self which is presupposed in all other forms of action.

 

The addition smṛtirūpaḥ ‘in the form of remembrance’, underscores the subjective character of adhyāsa. But adhyāsa necessarily has an objective character too. In order to know how far the latter is related to its subjective character, we may contrast adhyāsa which is smṛtirūpaḥ with smṛti ‘remembrance’ itself.382 In remembrance we are conscious of the fact that we are concerned with a mental image of the past. In superimposition we do not possess that consciousness (we are deluded in avidyā) and we take the mental image as referring to an extra-mental fact. But what is the status of the mental image, say, the silver of the stock-example? In the situation of superimposing it upon mother-of-pearl, it is neither real, nor unreal. It is not real, because it is sublated; but it is not unreal, because it appears. It is sublated, because it does not really occur in mother-of-pearl; it appears, because it is based upon the past perception of real silver. It is therefore called anirvacanīya, ‘inexplicable’. If this holds for the mental image, adhyāsa and avidyā must necessarily be anirvacanīya too.383 They neither belong to the category of being, nor to that of non-being. If avidyā would be unreal it would not trouble us and we would not be caught in it; if it would be real the Absolute would not be the only reality and we would lose the non-dualistic position. Therefore, it neither is, nor is not; it

is of a different category, about which we cannot speak; it is anirvacanīya.

It is clear that there lies a problem here.384 In fact, any slightest negation of the unreality of avidyā attributes being to it and thus destroys non-dualism.385 In order to safeguard the advaitic character of Advaita, avidyā is sometimes called tucchā, ‘non-being’;386 but this holds only for the possessor of brahmavidyā. The Pañcadaśī clarifies the position as follows. According to the ultimate point of view, for the person who has attained realization, māyā is tucchā, ‘non-being’; for the metaphysician or dialectician it is neither real nor unreal (anirvacanīya); and for the man in the street it is real (vāstavī).387 One of the main objections of Rāmānuja against Advaita is the ‘neither-being-nor-non-being’ character of avidyā, which violates according to Rāmānuja the law of the excluded third.388 Also modern critics of Advaita often look upon anirvacanīya as the weakest point of the system. But we ought rather to admire Śaṅkara for the firmness of mind, with which he has accepted the conclusion, that multiplicity becomes inexplicable if Brahman is posited as the only reality. He readily admits that there are important points which his system fails to explain, but this is due to a principal inexplicability based upon the structure of reality. In other philosophies we often discover flaws where their explanation fails. In Advaita these failures are part of the system.

 

No term expresses better the magical and erroneous character of the primary identification than anirvacanīya. Śaṅkara, having

criticized the magical character of karmic activity as manifest e.g. in the apūrva of Mīmāṁsā, and safeguarding the intelligibility of brahnavidyā and of brahmajñāna, has descended from the pure realm of the non-dual Absolute and recognised the inscrutable character of the activity which causes the multiplicity of this world.

 

The characterization of the metaphysical adhyāsa as superimposition of the non-Self upon the Self answers more questions than we have yet asked. Thus it is often asked in later Advaita what the āśraya, ‘locus’, of avidyā is. Where does avidyā exist?389 The jīva cannot be its locus (although this was the opinion of Vācaspati Miśra and his followers), as it itself a product of avidyā. It is clear that the only entity which is independent from avidyā is Brahman, and that therefore, if avidyā. has a locus at all (which must be the case), it must be Brahman. But this means that superimposition is of the non-Self upon the Self. That avidyā has its locus in Brahman also means that it is the function of avidyā to cover and to conceal the real nature of Brahman, just as a cloud hides the sun.

 

The magical activity of the mind which wrongly identifies the object with the Absolute constitutes the superimposition of non-Self upon the Self. Thus interpreted, human existence as we know it is superimposition. This existence arose by superimposition and it continues by superimposition. In Heidegger's terminology, superimposition would be the first ‘Existential’ of ‘Dasein’. The Vedic sacrifice, which corresponds to our notion of being in as far as it makes being accessible and determines being as being, including the human being of the sacrificer, led to the interiorised activity of meditation. Here the newly discovered being wants to reassure itself of its unity and continuity and accept differentiations. Hence it meditates and identifies the discontinuous. In a next step, the discriminations are accepted-but as unreal or inexplicable; the illusory character of identification is underlined; hence the distrust of upāsanā and of adhyāsa. Lastly we have arrived at the doctrine of a universal erroneous identification, termed adhyāsa, which is a closer characterization of human being itself. In its most authentic mode of being, the rest appears again as illusory if the ultimate knowledge of being arises.

The ancient interconnectedness of things expressed in archaic continuity and in the symbolic pūrṇam requires that all being as we know it and as it presents itself to us (i.e. being in the sense of Seiendes, ón, not as ultimate being, the sat of saccidānanda) is likewise superimposition. This is the ultimate significance of the expression, that the non-Self is superimposed - and not only that ‘we superimpose’, which may reveal our nature. Thus adhyāsa, avidyā or ajñāna has an objective or ontic aspect, apart from its being the complement of the gnoseological aspect of reality exhibited in jñāna or vidyā. For this objective aspect Śaṅkara has used the term māyā. Just as jñāna in the ultimate analysis is the same as Brahman, àjñāna is also the same as māyā. If in jñāna there is unity of knowledge, knower and known, and therefore non-difference from the object, Brahman - avidyā must necessarily also be the same as its objective counterpart, māyā.

If māyā is the same as avidya its nature is not at all fully expressed by the conventional rendering ‘illusion’. Here another line of investigation, followed by several authors, joins our investigation and leads to the same conclusion. If we analyse the common denotation of the term māyā, we do not find anything like ‘illusion’, but rather ‘magically-creative activity’. But we have tried to show exactly that the concept of māyā in Advaita expresses the erroneous identification which creates this world in a magical sense. Hence the term māyā was very appropriate, as can be seen from its meaning before Śaṅkara.390

Not ‘illusion’, but ‘creative activity’ seems to be the principal meaning of māyā in the Vedas: ‘the powerful Aśvins, with māyā endowed, created (heaven and earth).’391 The divine craftsman, who fabricates for instance tumblers for the Gods, is rich in māyā.392 Āditya creates the day and night by his māyā,393 etc. A consideration of the term māyā also shows that in the Veda ‘there is no basis for any conception of the unreality of the world’ (Radhakrishnan). In the Śvetāśvataropaniṣad Maheśvara is mūyin, ‘who operates with or who possesses māyā’; his māyā is pra-

kṛti ‘nature’.394 In the Bhagavad Gītā the term manifests its covering, concealing, hiding character: ‘I am not easily perceivable for everybody, being covered by my yogamāyā.’395

With Gauḍapāda the term comes to possess a more central philosophical significance. The meaning of creative (and perhaps also: deluding) activity remains essential, e.g., ‘all bodies in the phenomenal world are projected in the manner of a dream by the māyā of the Ātman’.396 It is conspicuous how this could develop into Śaṅkara's characterization ‘superimposition of the non-Self upon the Self.’

 

The subjective aspect (avidyā) can be conceived as rooted in the human being and is acceptable from an existential-phenomenological point of view. This does not mean that the objective aspect (māyā) is not likewise acceptable. Phenomenology is not subjectivism. But the phenomenological method has to consider avidyā first and māyā next. That for Śaṅkara both occupy the same level may be true, but it is not phenomenologically given. It is a metaphysical assertion concerning reality, which we can neither deny, nor take as our methodological starting point, unless we are ready to go beyond the phenomenological approach. Analogously, the principle of anirvacanīyatva reveals itself first in the human realm, and subsequently in the total realm of māyā.

 

Considering the objective māyā aspect of avidyā, we have to realize that also this renders an idealistic interpretation of Advaita impossible. As we have seen already from the analysis of the process of perception, Advaita is quite different from any kind of subjective idealism:397 the subject does not create the objective world. It is true that there is no world outside the Self which is real; but the Self is not at all the same as ‘the subject’. The outside world of māyā does neither depend upon my avidyā, nor does

the reverse hold: both are aspects of the same mysterious activity of adhyāsa. The approach of Deussen and his endeavour to show the virtual identity of the Advaita of Śaṅkara with the doctrines of Kant and Schopenhauer398 were erroneous and have led to much misunderstanding of Advaita in the West. This misunderstanding rests upon the confusion of the Self with the subject, as can for instance be seen from Deussen's account of adhyāsa:399 ‘.... the Vedanta declared the empirical concept which represents to us a manifold existing outside the Self, a world of the Object existing independently of the subject, to be glamour (māyā), an innate illusion (bhrama) resting on an illegitimate transference (adhyāsa) in virtue of which we transfer the reality, which alone belongs to the subject, to the world of the object, and, conversely, the characteristics of the objective world, e.g., corporeality, to the subject, the Self, the Soul.’ Deussen also spoke erroneously, in connection with brahmavidyā about an ‘objectless knowing subject’,400 whereas in fact this knowledge transcends both subject and object.

 

The difference from subjective idealism is also manifest in the characterization of avidyā as positive -notwithstanding the clanger of dualism. This positive character explains that avidyā can cover or conceal Brahman. This concealment consists in the fact401 that the jīva is ignorant of its own self-luminosity. This is one of the marks of the jīva, as we saw before, on account of the svayamprakāśatva of jñāna. It seems that the positive character of avidyā is not yet stressed in the Sūtrabhāṣya.402 In general, the later Advaitins seem to have increasingly substantialized avidyā. Nevertheless, in Śaṅkara also the substantial aspect occurs and deserves a closer analysis.


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