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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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14. Īśvara

The saguṇabrahman belongs to the vyāvahārika level. It was first introduced as the object of dhyāna or upāsanā, in contradistinction to nirguṇabrahman which is the same as its knowledge or mokṣa. Also Īśvara, ‘God’, is the object of dhyāna and upāsanā.474 It seems that Īśvara and saguṇabrahman are more or less the same. In later Advaita the saguṇabrahman is often conceived as Īśvara and the world together. A detailed analysis of the denotations of both terms in the bhāṣya led Hacker to the conclusion that in Śaṅkara Īśvara is a concept that ‘in a strange way resides somewhere between para- and aparabrahman’.475 In later Advaita Īśvara, saguna- or aparabrahman are further specified existentially (1) and metaphysically (2). (1) Brahmavidyā is knowledge from which all temporality is excluded, which manifests itself suddenly and which arises on account of its own nature (svābhāvika).

It can therefore be called intuition, samādhi.476 As this status is not an exceptional phenomenon but the eternal reality only under special circumstances accessible to us, samādhi is called sahaja-samādhi, ‘natural intuition’. Later Advaitins sometimes adopted the Yoga discrimination of two kinds of samādhi: savikalpa-samādhi ‘determinate intuition’, and nirvikalpasamādhi, ‘indeterminate intuition’. The former term denotes477 that a level is reached where the illusoriness of everything other than the Absolute is realized and where this stage is thereby overcome. The latter term means that even the consciousness of the illusoriness of everything other than the Absolute has disappeared. The first section corresponds to Īśvara, who is conscious of the illusoriness of the world in which he operates. The second corresponds to Brahman which is only self-conscious in self-luminosity. Therefore (2) the later Advaitins (e.g. Vidyāraṇya) define Īśvara as the Absolute qualified by māya.478 This specifies guṇa in saguṇabrahman. In the Vedāmtasāra, Īśvara is described as the conditioned Brahman which ‘experiences joy through subtle modification of ajñäna’.479 This denotes the close connection between the situation of Īśvara and svarga, the goal reached through the accumulation of good karma.

 

This is in accordance with the Brahmasūtrabhāṣya, where all works are conceived as dependent on Īśvara: the fruits of action do not spring from the actions themselves but come from Īśvara.480 In any kind of pariṇāmavāda actions cannot produce their own effects. This would lead to the assumption of the apūrva of Mīmāmsā, which Śaṅkara rejects (in the same context).481 In

the vyāvahārika realm there is no reason to reject apūrva. Therefore Śaṅkara says: ‘The final conclusion then is that the fruits come from the Lord with a view to the deeds done by the souls, or, if it be so preferred, with a view to the apūrva springing from the deeds’.482 There is hardly any reason to reject in the vyāvahārika realm apūrva on account of its magical character, since it is replaced by Īśvara, who is himself affected by the inexplicable avidyā and who is himself often called a yogin or magician.483

 

How can the fruits of action spring from Īśvara? This is specified in the commentary upon two other sūtras,484 where Īśvara is called hetukartṛ, ‘the counsel agent in all activity’. He ‘makes the soul act, having regard to the efforts made by it, whether meritorious or non-meritorious’. ‘Having regard to the inequality of the virtuous and vicious actions of the souls, the Lord, acting as a mere occasional cause (nimittatva-mātreṇa), allots to them corresponding unequal results’. Thus God does not act himself but arranges the whole field of action for the soul: ‘The Lord indeed causes it to act, but it acts itself’.485 From a comparison of the causal activity of Īśvara with that of the rain, ‘an occasional cause’, we see that ‘the Lord arranges favourable or unfavourable circumstances for the souls with a view to their former efrorts’. This means that Īśvara acts as a sufficient cause, not as a necessary cause. Hence there is scope for free activity on the part of the souls themselves. Assuming for the moment that Īśvara also possesses free activity, the question arises as to whether he will ever use his power to create ‘favourable or unfavourable circumstances’ according to his own free will. It appears that this is not so as can be concluded from the following interesting passage: ‘Moreover, the Lord in causing it to act now has regard to its former efforts previous to that existence; a regressus against which, considering the eternity of the saṁsāra, no objections can be raised’. Evidently Īśvara always needs the meritorious or non-meritorious karma-substance of a previous birth, with a view to which he will arrange the circumstances. This is always possible

because of the beginningless nature of saṁsāra. Similarly Īśvara creates in each creation the Veda as it existed in the previous creation.486 That means that the ancient karma theory is not discarded. It remains true that every soul is born in a situation which depends on its karma of a previous life. It can act freely during its actual life within the limits of its actual situation and thus create a new amount of karma, meritorious or non-meritorious, leading to the situation in which it will be reborn in its next life, etc. Thus Īśvara is only an explicatory link in the karma theory. Whereas the original karma doctrine does not explain the mechanism of causation, Mīmāṁsā gave a partial explanation with the help of the apūrva concept. Mīmāṁsākas of the school of Prabhākara were very definite in stating that there can be no connection between ‘dharma-adharma’ and a possible God. God cannot control these subtle entities, cannot supervise them and cannot even know them.487 Śaṅkara saw the insufficiency of the apūrva concept as an explanatory factor and introduced Īśvara as a conscious agent, who judges the karma sum of previous life and creates the birth situation accordingly. Śaṅkara felt that it was impossible to judge (the traditional karma theory also implies some judgment of karma which remained however unclarified) without affecting the laws of karma. In this sense Īśvara is justice,488 but a justice which strictly adds and substracts according to the eternal laws of karmic arithmetic. In this theory, there seems to be no room for anything like grace, i.e., the allotment by Īśvara of a birth situation, regarding previous merit but disregarding (a part of) previous demerit.

 

However the main thesis of Advaita is that we can be released from saṁsāra by the unpredictable manifestation of brahmavidyā, which is not the effect of previous karma, but which is svābhāvika and svayaṁprakāśa. This is exactly the significance which may be given to the term grace, which cannot be primarily characterized (as in the monotheistic religions) as an act of the inscrutable will of God, but which should be characterized as an exception

to the rule that there is no effect without a cause in which the effect was not pre-existent, i.e., as an effect not pre-existent in any cause. This would involve an effect without a cause, i.e., a svābhāvika phenomenon. Viewed from the karmic transmigration in the vyāvahārika level mokṣa can only arise if the intelligent agent, who creates circumstances on account of previous karma, disregards this karmic substance and allows mokṣa to take place-i.e., through the mercy of Īśvara. This is perfectly consistent.

 

To these conclusions we are led not so much by expositions of traditional Vedānta as by ‘problematic constructions on Vedantic lines’.489 In the Sūtrabhāṣya we find confirmation of the above: ‘we must .... assume that final release also is effected through knowledge caused by the grace (anugraha) of the Lord’.490 Moreover a remainder of karma does not prevent the occurrence of mokṣa.491 The concept of grace (which according to several critics is alien to Advaita Vedānta) can in Advaita only be explained in the way sketched above. Grace means in this context the occurrence of a causeless phenomenon: the vyāvahārika anugraha of Īśvara corresponds to the pāramārthika svabhāvikatva of mokṣa. In the monotheistic religions grace could be described as the occurrence of a phenomenon, not caused by the actions of the creature, but by the will of the Creator. It follows also that Īśvara is free because of mokṣa (as he allows the occurrence of mokṣa by freely disregarding the laws of karma).

 

Another important characteristic of Īśvara is his function as a creator. In Mīmāṁsā the existence of a creator is denied.492 In Advaita we have seen that nirguṇabrahman is according to the taṭastha definition ‘the cause of the origin, subsistence and dissolution of the world’, i.e., itself not causally connected with the world, whereas the saguṇabrahman can be called its material cause. In later Advaita Īśvara is called the material as well as the

efficient cause of the world.493 Moreover, we may expect a certain kind of creativity in connection with Īśvara since avidyā and adhyāsa are themselves creative activities, whereas Īśvara is Brahman as qualified by them. Creativity is on the other hand excluded by the perpetual nature of saṁsāra: every moment tnat Īśvara could possibly create, he faces the pre-existence of merit and demerit caused by souls in innumerable former lives. Moreover the souls are explicitly described as uncreated and eternal.494 On the other hand, the world is a manifestation of what exists in Īśvara in a subtle form (as is illustrated in a Purāṇic myth). But this also is different from creativity.

 

Theoretically there is the following possibility. If all souls attain mokṣa and if there is universal release (sarvamukti) this Universe disappears because it is ‘universally’ realized that it was eternally non-existant (provided there is no good karma left in the universe, because in that case svarga still subsists). This leads to mahāpralaya, ‘universal dissolution’, and ‘afterwards’ (though also time will have disappeared in the non-dual Brahman) Īśvara can create a new universe in no way connected with the previous one. Because of the perpetual nature of saṁsāra we must assume an infinite number of creations and dissolutions. This is often envisaged in Indian speculations (cf. the kalpas and manvantaras) and signifies perhaps that we have to conceive of creation against a background of the timeless (which we cannot do in our vyāvahārika consciousness).

 

Sarvamukti was a doctrine of some later Advaitins, especially Appayya Dīksiṭa in his Siddhāntaleśasaṁgraha. The above possibilities can therefore be realized in his perspective of thought. It seems that Śaṅkara did not believe in the possibility of sarvamukti495 and that therefore these considerations are not relevant to his system. But he did believe in an infinity of creations and universes.496 That here creation is meant in a relative sense follows from the fact that in the interval between two creations

(‘the night of Brahma’, or ‘the sleep of Viṣṇu’ of the Purāṇas) not only the non-dual Brahman subsists, but also the subtle forms of merit and demerit of the previous creation, i.e., apūrva or Īśvara. This can be seen from a previously quoted497 passage: ‘As therefore each new creation is (nothing but) the result of the religious merit and demerit (of the animated beings of the preceding creation), it is produced with a nature resembling that preceding creation.498 Hence neither creation (sṛṣṭi) nor dissolution (pralaya) are to be conceived in an absolute sense. Mahāpralaya is not the same as sarvamukti and there neither is creation out of nothing nor are the intervals nothing apart from the non-dual Brahman. All this holds in the vyāvahārika level. In the pāramārthika level there is no creation at all since creation is a typical saprapañca idea.

 

The question arises as to what these ‘relative’ creations really signify. Īśvara is spoken of in a creationist sense in texts which deal with the nāmarūpe.499 There we read: ‘That the highest Lord (parameśvara) is he who manifests the names and forms (nāmarūpayorvyākartṛ) is a principle acknowledged by all the Upaniṣads’.500 Hence creation in a ‘relative’ sense merely means manifestation. The creator transforms the avyākṛte nāmarūpe into vyākṛte nāmarūpe; therefore he is called vyākartṛ. Sṛṣṭi is ‘vyākarma’. The unmanifested names and forms are manifested by avidyā or adhyāsa. Hence creation or manifestation is the same as avidyā or adhyāsa, and the activity of Īśvara is nothing but the inexplicable superimposing activity. This means ultimately that the āśraya of adhyāsa is Brahman, for Īśvara is saguṇabrahman. The term māyāvin, ‘magician’, as an epithet of Īśvara, obtains therefore the specific significance of: ‘he who produces māyā‘.

 

In adhyāsa superimposition, the superimposed and the superimposing activity (not the locus of superimposition) are the same, and therefore the creative activity and creation are likewise the same. Īśvara is therefore both material and efficient cause of the universe. That we make such erroneous distinctions is due to the

fact that we have personified au impersonal entity. Summarising, we may say that the vyāvahārika Īśvara corresponds as a creator to adhyāsa.501

 

This implies that creation is not a very important concept in Advaita.502 It is rather a negative concept too. Creation which is considered a positive activity from the world affirming vyāvahārika point of view, is the same as the obscure and negative superimposing activity. This is ultimately an evaluation since the same reality is evaluated differently in the vyāvahārika and in the pāramārthika realm.

 

That in Īśvara the creative activity, the preexistent material and the (subtle form of) creation are one and the same503 can also be observed from the use of the concept śakti ‘power’. This concept is the dynamical principle Bhattacharyya was seeking.504 Among later Advaitins śakti is a power, and at the same time prakṛti from which the universe is created: the śakti attributed to Īśvara is a bījaśakti.505 This power makes the unreal appear as real; it resides in Brahman, but it is māyā (as also māyā resides in Brahman). Bhattacharyya regards it as a dynamic principle, because he says: ‘Brahman existing in the śakti becomes the effect: the effect is thus not non-existent.’ But this is clear, as it has been shown that in the vyāvahārika realm not vivartavāda holds, but pariṇāmavāda. The ‘dynamical’ creation of the vyāvahārika level, which presupposes pariṇāmavāda, corresponds to the doctrine of adhyāsa, which is in terms of causation the same as vivartavāda.

 

More details could be given if a descent would be attempted from the self-luminous Brahman into the obscure regions of the inexplicable māyā. But as it would at the same time be necessary to go beyond Śaṅkara on to the later Advaitins, a mere reference

may be made to four different directions in which further specification can be sought: (1) ajñāna can be conceived as possessing two powers, āvaraṇa, ‘the obscuring’, and vikṣepa, ‘the diversifying.’ Both are closely connected with the superimposing activity, as can be seen from the Vedāntasāra.506 (2) Either māyā itself, or the above mentioned vikṣepa, can be conceived as threefold when use is made of the Sāṁkhya categories sattva, rajas and tamas. The resulting cosmogony is described by Dasgupta.507 (3) The avyākṛte nāmarūpe and the vyākṛte nāmarūpe in their cosmic aspect can be brought into connection with two other entities of ancient origin, Hiraṇyagarbha and Virāṭ. Their relation to Īśvara is analysed by Mahadevan,508 (4) The concept of śakti can be further developed and two forms of Īśvara can be distinguished. This line of thought is followed by Bhattacharyya.509

 

In this way entities of the vyāvahārika realm, such as Īśvara, conceived as a merciful being or as a creator, can be shown to be actually unreal and can be reduced to the basic concepts of the highest truth, which can in turn be reduced to Brahman and adhyāsa, - the latter mysterious entity mysteriously residing in the former. Attributes of God which play an important part in religion, such as grace and creativity, can be interpreted in Advaita. This yields a more detailed picture of the way in which Śaṅkara accepts and sometimes subordinates the Vedic heritage. Despite this development the concept of a central deity such as Īśvara even if ultimately denied, and in the pāramārthika level devoid of sense, plays a much more important part in Advaita than in the religious feelings of the Vedic period. The reason for this is that the non-dual Brahman becomes Īśvara as soon as we speak or think about the universe or about ourselves as individuals. Īśvara is God of the universe as the qualified manifestation of Brahman. Śaṅkara's non-dualism is therefore nearer to monotheism than to Vedic polytheism and henotheism (despite the monotheistic tendencies in later Vedic texts, themselves connected with the development of ‘proto’-Advaitic ideas).510 Advaita is, however, a metaphysical

doctrine and not a religion. It is an exaggeration which is not far from the truth when Wadia says that ‘Śaṅkara did not attach any importance to religion’.511

 

The gods of Vedic polytheism are not altogether denied and rejected as in Mīmāṁsā, which considers the deities as ‘hypothetical entities postulated as the recipients of the sacrificial offering’ and as ‘grammatical datives.’512 But they are, as is also often the case in the Vedas, considered beings of a somewhat higher order than human beings. This may for instance be inferred from the way in which Śaṅkara discusses the problem whether the gods are entitled to knowledge of Brahman.513 The answer is in the affirmative, whereas the Mīmāṁsakas denied them even this.514

 

Lastly an important problem may be raised in view of the above considerations: is Īśvara a person? The answer is in the negative: even in the vyāvahārika realm he is not a person. Īśvara creates mechanically and both in creation as in supervising karmic results he makes less use of his hypothetical freedom than the souls who perform their karma. But even if he could be termed a relative personalization (in the vyāvahārika realm) of impersonal entities (in the pāramārthika realm), he could not be called a person for the idea of the personal implies and includes that a person is as person more perfect and higher than anything impersonal. Therefore it is impossible to say that the lower God is a person, when the higher Deity is an impersonal Absolute. The notion of the personal itself excludes the supra-personal.515

 

Impersonalism is traditional in India. The idea of karma transcends the human individuality. The highest authority, śruti, is of apauruṣeya origin. The sacrifice is typically impersonal: only the precise and faultless performance of the prescribed ritual act counts and is beneficial, not the intentions of the sacrificer. The

idea of meditation can be aptly characterised as de-personalization: it is a progressive denial of everything outside the one entity concentrated upon, including attributes of the person of the meditating being.516 The object of meditation, saguṇabrahman, is similarly impersonal, just as Īśvara is. This holds especially for the nirguṇabrahman, which is without qualities, formless and nameless (or: which is beyond the world of names and forms) and which accordingly can only be described by neti, neti.

 

It is difficult to establish a chronology of personalism and impersonalism in India. ‘It is not even possible to show that Ṛgvedic texts which present an impersonal first cause or ultimate substratum are older than those in which the method of creation is differently conceived’ says Gonda.517 The same uncertainty prevails with regard to Brahmā, in certain respects a predecessor of the Advaitic Īśvara and Brahman.518

 

Though it seems justified to speak about impersonalism in India,519 it is misleading to hold that Hinduism ‘starts with the idea of an impersonal Absolute, Brahman, and only later advances towards the idea of a personal God.’520


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