Saktism and the Tantras which teach it are generally condemned by

Hindus of other sects.[709] It is arguable that this condemnation is

unjust, for like other forms of Hinduism the Tantras make the

liberation of the soul their object and prescribe a life of religious

observances including asceticism and meditation, after which the adept

becomes released even in this life. But however much new tantric

literature may be made accessible in future, I doubt if impartial

criticism will come to any opinion except that Saktism and Tantrism

collect and emphasize what is superficial, trivial and even bad in

Indian religion, omitting or neglecting its higher sides. If for

instance the Mahanirvana Tantra which is a good specimen of these

works be compared with Sankara's commentary on the Vedanta Sutras, or

the poems of Tulsi Das, it will be seen that it is woefully deficient

in the excellences of either. But many tantric treatises are chiefly

concerned with charms, spells, amulets and other magical methods of

obtaining wealth, causing or averting disease and destroying enemies,

processes which even if efficacious have nothing to do with the better

side of religion.[710]

The religious life prescribed in the Tantras[711] commences with

initiation and requires the supervision of the Guru. The object of it

is _Siddhi_ or success, the highest form of which is spiritual

perfection. _Siddhi_ is produced by _Sadhana_, or that method of

training the physical and psychic faculties which realizes their

potentialities. Tantric training assumes a certain constitution of the

universe and the repetition in miniature of this constitution in the

human body which contains various nervous centres and subtle channels

for the passage of energy unknown to vulgar anatomy. Thus the Sakti

who pervades the universe is also present in the body as Kundalini,

a serpentine coil of energy, and it is part of Sadhana to arouse this

energy and make it mount from the lower to the higher centres.

Kundalini is also present in sounds and in letters. Hence if

different parts of the body are touched to the accompaniment of

appropriate mantras (which rite is called nyasa) the various Saktis

are made to dwell in the human frame in suitable positions.

The Tantras recognize that human beings are not equal and that codes

and rituals must vary according to temperament and capacity. Three

conditions of men, called the animal, heroic and divine,[712] are

often mentioned and are said to characterize three periods of

life--youth, manhood and age, or three classes of mankind,

non-tantrists, ordinary tantrists, and adepts. These three conditions

clearly correspond to the three Gunas. Also men, or rather Hindus,

belong to one of seven groups, or stages, according to the religious

practices which it is best for them to follow. Saktists apparently

demur[713] to the statement commonly made by Indians as well as by

Europeans that they are divided into two sects the Dakshinacarins, or

right-hand worshippers, whose ritual is public and decent, and the

Vamacarins who meet to engage in secret but admittedly immoral orgies.

But for practical purposes the division is just, although it must not

be supposed that Dakshinacarins necessarily condemn the secret

worship. They may consider it as good for others but not for

themselves. Saktists apparently would prefer to state the matter thus.

There are seven stages of religion. First come Vedic, Vishnuite and

Sivaite worship, all three inferior, and then Dakshinacara,

interpreted as meaning favourable worship, that is favourable to the

accomplishment of higher purposes, because the worshipper now begins

to understand the nature of Devi, the great goddess. These four kinds

of worship are all said to belong to _pravritti_ or active life. The

other three, considered to be higher, require a special initiation and

belong to _nivritti_, the path of return in which passion and activity

are suppressed.[714] And here is propounded the doctrine that passion

can be destroyed and exhausted by passion,[715] that is to say that

the impulses of eating, drinking and sexual intercourse are best

subjugated by indulging them. The fifth stage, in which this method is

first adopted, is called Vamacara.[716] In the sixth, or

Siddhantacara,[717] the adept becomes more and more free from passion

and prejudice and is finally able to enter Kaulacara, the highest

stage of all. A Kaula is one who has passed beyond all sects and

belongs to none, since he has the knowledge of Brahman. "Possessing

merely the form of man, he moves about this earth for the salvation of

the world and the instruction of men."[718]

These are aspirations common to all Indian religion. The peculiarity

of the Tantras is to suppose that a ritual which is shocking to most

Hindus is an indispensable preliminary to their attainment.[719] Its

essential feature is known as _pancatattva_, the five elements, or

_pancamakara_ the five m's, because they all begin with that letter,

namely, _madya_, _mamsa_, _matsya_, _mudra_, and _maithuna_, wine, meat,

fish, parched grain and copulation. The celebration of this ritual

takes place at midnight, and is called _cakra_ or circle. The

proceedings begin by the devotees seating themselves in a circle and

are said to terminate in an indiscriminate orgy. It is only fair to

say that some Tantras inveigh against drunkenness and authorize only

moderate drinking.[720] In all cases it is essential that the wine,

flesh, etc., should be formally dedicated to the goddess: without this

preliminary indulgence in these pleasures is sinful. Indeed it may be

said that apart from the ceremonial which they inculcate, the general

principles of the Tantras breathe a liberal and intelligent spirit.

Caste restrictions are minimized: travelling is permitted. Women are

honoured: they can act as teachers: the burning of widows is

forbidden:[721] girl widows may remarry[722] and the murder of a woman

is peculiarly heinous. Prostitution is denounced. Whereas Christianity

is sometimes accused of restricting its higher code to Church and

Sundays, the opposite may be said of Tantrism. Outside the temple its

morality is excellent.

A work like the Mahanirvana Tantra presents a refined form of Saktism

modified, so far as may be, in conformity with ordinary Hindu

usage.[723] But other features indubitably connect it with aboriginal

cults. For instance there is a legend which relates how the body of

the Sakti was cut into pieces and scattered over Assam and Bengal.

This story has an uncouth and barbarous air and seems out of place

even in Puranic mythology. It recalls the tales told of Osiris,

Orpheus and Halfdan the Black[724] and may be ultimately traceable to

the idea that the dismemberment of a deity or a human representative

ensures fertility. Until recently the Khonds of Bengal used to hack

human victims in pieces as a sacrifice to the Earth Goddess and throw

the shreds of flesh on the fields to secure a good harvest.[725] In

Sanskrit literature I have not found any authority for the

dismemberment of Sati earlier than the Tantras or Upapuranas (_e.g._

Kalika), but this late appearance does not mean that the legend is

late in itself but merely that it was not countenanced by Sanskrit

writers until medieval times. Various reasons for the dismemberment

are given and the incident is rather awkwardly tacked on to other

stories. One common version relates that when Sati (one of the many

forms of Sakti) died of vexation because her husband Siva was insulted

by her father Daksha, Siva took up her corpse and wandered

distractedly carrying it on his shoulder.[726] In order to stop this

penance Vishnu followed him and cut off pieces from the corpse with

his quoit until the whole had fallen to earth in fifty-one pieces. The

spots where these pieces touched the ground are held sacred and called

piths. At most of them are shown a rock supposed to represent some

portion of the goddess's body and some object called a bhairabi, left

by Siva as a guardian to protect her and often taking the form of a

lingam. The most important of these piths are Kamakhya near Gauhati,

Faljur in the Jaintia Parganas, and Kalighat in Calcutta.[727]

Though the Sakti of Siva is theoretically one, yet since she assumes

many forms she becomes in practice many deities or rather she is many

deities combined in one or sometimes a sovereign attended by a retinue

of similar female spirits. Among such forms we find the ten

Mahavidyas, or personifications of her supernatural knowledge; the

Mahamatris, Matrikas or the Great Mothers, allied to the aboriginal

goddesses already mentioned; the Nayakas or mistresses; the Yoginis or

sorceresses, and fiends called Dakinis. But the most popular of her

manifestations are Durga and Kali. The sects which revere these

goddesses are the most important religious bodies in Bengal, where

they number thirty-five million adherents. The Durgapuja is the

greatest festival of the year in north-eastern India[728] and in the

temple of Kalighat at Calcutta may be seen the singular spectacle of

educated Hindus decapitating goats before the image of Kali. It is a

black female figure with gaping mouth and protruded tongue dancing on

a prostrate body,[729] and adorned with skulls and horrid emblems of

destruction. Of her four hands two carry a sword and a severed head

but the other two are extended to give blessing and protection to her

worshippers. So great is the crowd of enthusiastic suppliants that it

is often hard to approach the shrine and the nationalist party in

Bengal who clamour for parliamentary institutions are among the

goddess's devotees.

It is easy to criticize and condemn this worship. Its outward signs

are repulsive to Europeans and its inner meaning strange, for even

those who pray to the Madonna are startled by the idea that the divine

nature is essentially feminine.[730] Yet this idea has deep roots in

the heart of Bengal and with it another idea: the terrors of death,

plague and storm are half but only half revelations of the

goddess-mother who can be smiling and tender as well. Whatever may be

the origin of Kali and of the strange images which represent her, she

is now no she-devil who needs to be propitiated, but a reminder that

birth and death are twins, that the horrors of the world come from the

same source as its grace and beauty and that cheerful acceptance of

the deity's terrible manifestations is an essential part of the higher

spiritual life.[731] These ideas are best expressed in the songs of

Rama Prasada Sen (1718-1775) which "still reign supreme in the

villages" of Bengal and show that this strange worship has really a

hold on millions of Indian rustics.[732] The directness and childlike

simplicity of his poems have caused an Indian critic to compare him to

Blake. "Though the mother beat the child," he sings, "the child cries

mother, mother, and clings still tighter to her garment. True, I

cannot see thee, yet I am not a lost child. I still cry mother,

mother."

"All the miseries that I have suffered and am suffering, I know, O

mother, to be your mercy alone."

I must confess that I cannot fully sympathize with this worship, even

when it is sung in the hymns of Rama Prasada, but it is clear that he

makes it tolerable just because he throws aside all the magic and

ritual of the Tantras and deals straight with what are for him

elemental and emotional facts. He makes even sceptics feel that he has

really seen God in this strange guise.

The chief sanctuary of Saktism is at Kamakhya (or Kamaksha) on a hill

which stands on the banks of the Brahmaputra, about two miles below

Gauhati. It is mentioned in the Padma Purana. The temples have been

rebuilt several times, and in the eighteenth century were munificently

endowed by an Ahom king, and placed under the management of a Brahman

from Nadia in Bengal, with reversion to his descendants who bear the

title of Parbatiya Gosains. Considerable estates are still assigned to

their upkeep. There are ten[733] shrines on the hill dedicated to

various forms of the Sakti. The situation is magnificent, commanding

an extensive prospect over the Brahmaputra and the plains on either

bank, but none of the buildings are of much architectural merit. The

largest and best is the temple dedicated to Kamakhya herself, the

goddess of sexual desire. It is of the style usual in northern India,

an unlighted shrine surmounted by a dome, and approached by a rather

ample vestibule, which is also imperfectly lighted. An inscription has

been preserved recording the restoration of the temple about 1550 but

only the present basement dates from that time, most of the

super-structure being recent. Europeans may not enter but an image of

the goddess can be seen from a side door. In the depths of the shrine

is said to be a cleft in the rock, adored as the Yoni of Sakti. In

front of the temple are two posts to which a goat is tied, and

decapitated daily at noon. Below the principal shrine is the temple of

Bhairavi. Human sacrifices were offered here in comparatively recent

times, and it is not denied that they would be offered now if the law

allowed. Also it is not denied that the rites of the "five m's"

already mentioned are frequently performed in these temples, and that

Aghoris may be found in them. The spot attracts a considerable number

of pilgrims from Bengal, and a wealthy devotee has built a villa on

the hill and pays visits to it for the purpose of taking part in the

rites. I was informed that the most esteemed scriptures of the sect

are the Yogini Tantra, the Mahanirvana Tantra, and the Kalika

Purana. This last work contains a section or chapter on blood,[734]

which gives rules for the performance of human sacrifices. It states

however that they should not be performed by the first three castes,

which is perhaps a way of saying that though they may be performed by

non-Aryans under Brahmanic auspices they form no part of the Aryan

religion. But they are recommended to princes and ministers and should

not be performed without the consent of princes. The ritual bears

little resemblance to the Vedic sacrifices and the essence of the

ceremony is the presentation to the goddess of the victim's severed

head in a vessel of gold, silver, copper, brass or wood but not of

iron. The axe with which the decapitation is to be performed is

solemnly consecrated to Kali and the victim is worshipped before

immolation. The sacrificer first thinks of Brahma and the other gods

as being present in the victim's body, and then prays to him directly

as being all the gods in one. "When this has been done" says Siva, who

is represented as himself revealing these rules, "the victim is even

as myself." This identification of the human victim with the god has

many analogies elsewhere, particularly among the Khonds.[735]

It is remarkable that this barbarous and immoral worship, though

looked at askance except in its own holy places, is by no means

confined to the lower castes. A series of apologies composed in

excellent English (but sometimes anonymous) attest the sympathy of the

educated. So far as theology and metaphysics are concerned, these

defences are plausible. The Sakti is identified with Prakriti or with

the Maya of the Advaita philosophy and defined as the energy,

coexistent with Brahman, which creates the world. But attempts to

palliate the ceremonial, such as the argument that it is a

consecration and limitation of the appetites because they may be

gratified only in the service of the goddess, are not convincing. Nor

do the Saktas, when able to profess their faith openly, deny the

nature of their rites or the importance attached to them. An

oft-quoted tantric verse represents Siva as saying _Maithunena

mahayogi mama tulyo na samsayah_. And for practical purposes that is

the gist of Saktist teaching.

The temples of Kamakhya leave a disagreeable impression--an impression

of dark evil haunts of lust and bloodshed, akin to madness and

unrelieved by any grace or vigour of art. For there is no attempt in

them to represent the terrible or voluptuous aspects of Hinduism, such

as find expression in sculpture elsewhere. All the buildings, and

especially the modern temple of Kali, which was in process of

construction when I saw the place, testify to the atrophy and

paralysis produced by erotic forms of religion in the artistic and

intellectual spheres, a phenomenon which finds another sad

illustration in quite different theological surroundings among the

Vallabhacarya sect at Gokul near Muttra.

It would be a poor service to India to palliate the evils and

extravagances of Saktism, but still it must be made clear that it is

not a mere survival of barbaric practices. The writers of the Tantras

are good Hindus and declare that their object is to teach liberation

and union with the Supreme Spirit. The ecstasies induced by tantric

rites produce this here in a preliminary form to be made perfect in

the liberated soul. This is not the craze of a few hysterical

devotees, but the faith of millions among whom many are well educated.

In some aspects Saktism is similar to the erotic Vishnuite sects, but

there is little real analogy in their ways of thinking. For the

essence of Vishnuism is passionate devotion and self-surrender to a

deity and this idea is not prominent in the Tantras. The strange

inconsistencies of Saktism are of the kind which are characteristic of

Hinduism as a whole, but the contrasts are more violent and the

monstrosities more conspicuous than elsewhere; wild legends and

metaphysics are mixed together, and the peace that passes all

understanding is to be obtained by orgies and offerings of blood.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 680: See also chap. XXIV. as to Saktism and Tantrism in

Buddhism. Copious materials for the study of Saktism and Tantrism are

being made available in the series of tantric texts edited in Sanskrit

and Tibetan, and in some cases translated by the author who uses the

pseudonym A. Avalon.]

[Footnote 681: See _Annales du Musee Guimet_, Tome VIII.

Si-Do-In-Dzon. Gestes de l'officiant dans les ceremonies mystiques des

sectes Tendai et Singon, 1899.]

[Footnote 682: See Underhill, _Mysticism_, chaps. VI. and VII.]

[Footnote 683: See Dhalla, _Zoroastrian Theology_, p. 116.]

[Footnote 684: Specially Ath. Veda, XII. 1.]

[Footnote 685: Village deities in south India at the present day are

usually female. See Whitehead, _Village Gods_, p. 21.]

[Footnote 686: Thus Candi is considered as identical with the wood

goddess Basuli, worshipped in the jungles of Bengal and Orissa. See

_J.A._ 1873, p. 187.]

[Footnote 687: Vaj. Sanh. 3. 57 and Taittir. Br. I. 6. 10. 4.]

[Footnote 688: Crooke, _Popular Religion of Northern India_, I. 63.

Monier Williams, _Brahm. and Hinduism_, p. 57 gives an interesting

account of the shrine of Kali at Vindhyacal said to have been formerly

frequented by Thugs.]

[Footnote 689: This idea that deities have different aspects in which

they practically become different persons is very prevalent in Tibetan

mythology which is borrowed from medieval Bengal.]

[Footnote 690: Though there are great temples erected to goddesses in

S. India, there are also some signs of hostility to Saktism. See the

curious legends about an attendant of Siva called Bhringi who would

not worship Parvati. Hultzsch, _South Indian Inscriptions_, II. ii. p.

190.]

[Footnote 691: There is a curious tendency in India to regard the male

principle as quiescent, the female as active and stimulating. The

Chinese, who are equally fond of using these two principles in their

cosmological speculations, adopt the opposite view. The _Yang_ (male)

is positive and active. The _Yin_ (female) is negative and passive.]

[Footnote 692: The Mahanirvana Tantra seems to have been composed in

Bengal since it recommends for sacrificial purposes (VI. 7) three

kinds of fish said to be characteristic of that region. On the other

hand Buddhist works called Tantras are said to have been composed in

north-western India. Udyana had an old reputation for magic and even

in modern times Saktism exists in western Tibet and Leh. It is highly

probable that in all these districts the practice of magic and the

worship of mountain goddesses were prevalent, but I find little

evidence that a definite Sakta sect arose elsewhere than in Bengal and

Assam or that the Saktist corruption of Buddhism prevailed elsewhere

than in Magadha and Bengal.]

[Footnote 693: But the Brahmans of isolated localities, like Satara in

the Bombay Presidency, are said to be Saktas and the Kanculiyas of S.

India are described as a Saktist sect.]

[Footnote 694: The law-giver Baudhayana seems to have regarded Anga

and Vanga with suspicion, I. 1.13, 14.]

[Footnote 695: See especially the story of Manasa Devi in Dinesh

Chandra Sen (_Beng. Lang. and Lit_. 257), who says the earliest

literary version dates from the twelfth century. But doubtless the

story is much older.]

[Footnote 696: Viratap. chap. VI. (not in all MSS.). Bhishmap. chap.

XXIII. Also in the Harivamsa, _vv._ 3236 ff. Pargiter considers that

the Devi-Mahatmya was probably composed in the fifth or sixth century.

Chap. XXI. of the Lotus Sutra contains a spell invoking a goddess

under many names. Though this chapter is an addition to the original

work, it was translated into Chinese between 265 and 316.]

[Footnote 697: But he does mention the worship of the Divine Mothers.

Harshacar. VII. 250 and Kadamb. 134.]

[Footnote 698: Hymns to the Devi are also attributed to him but I do

not know what evidence there is for his authorship.]

[Footnote 699: As pointed out elsewhere, though this word is most

commonly used of the Sakta scriptures it is not restricted to them and

we hear of both Buddhist and Vaishnava Tantras.]

[Footnote 700: The Adhyatma Ramayana is an instance of Saktist ideas

in another theological setting. It is a Vishnuite work but Sita is

made to say that she is _Prakriti_ who does all the deeds related in

the poem, whereas Rama is _Purusha_, inactive and a witness of her

deeds.]

[Footnote 701: XI. iii. 47-8; XI. V. 28 and 31. Probably Vishnuite not

Saktist Tantras are meant but the Purana distinguishes between Vedic

revelation meant for previous ages and tantric revelation meant for

the present day. So too Kulluka Bhatta the commentator on Manu who

was a Bengali and probably lived in the fifteenth century says (on

Manu II. i.) that Sruti is twofold, Vedic and tantric. _Srutisca

dvividha vaidiki tantrikica._]

[Footnote 702: II. 15.]

[Footnote 703: See for full list Avalon, _Principles of Tantra_, pp.

lxv-lxvii. A collection of thirty-seven Tantras has been published at

Calcutta by Babu Rasik Mohun Chatterjee and a few have been published

separately.]

[Footnote 704: Translated by Avalon, 1913, also by Manmatha Nath Dutt,

1900.]

[Footnote 705: Analysed in _J.A.O.S._ XXIII. i. 1902.]

[Footnote 706: Edited by Taranatha Vidyaratna, with introduction by A.

Avalon, 1917.]

[Footnote 707: See Avalon, _Principles of Tantra_, p. lxi. But these

are probably special meanings attached to the words by tantric

schools. _Nigama_ is found pretty frequently, _e.g._ Manu, IV. 19 and

Lalita-vistara, XII. But it is not likely that it is used there in

this special sense.]

[Footnote 708: Edited by Avalon, 1914.]

[Footnote 709: Satirical descriptions of Saktism are fairly ancient,

_e.g._ Karpura Manjari, Harvard edition, pp. 25 and 233.]

[Footnote 710: Tantrism has some analogy to the Feng-shui or geomancy

of the Chinese. Both take ancient superstitions which seem

incompatible with science and systematize them into pseudo-sciences,

remaining blind to the fact that the subject-matter is wholly

imaginary.]

[Footnote 711: For what follows as for much else in this chapter, I am

indebted to Avalon's translation of the Mahanirvana Tantra and

introduction.]

[Footnote 712: Pasu-, vira-, divya-bhava.]

[Footnote 713: Avalon, Mahan. Tan. pp. lxxix, lxxx.]

[Footnote 714: "The eternal rhythm of Divine Breath is outwards from

spirit to matter and inwards from matter to spirit. Devi as Maya

evolves the world. As Mahamaya she recalls it to herself.... Each of

these movements is divine. Enjoyment and liberation are each her

gifts." Avalon, Mahan. Tan. p. cxl.]

[Footnote 715: Yair eva patanam dravyaih siddhis tair eva

codita--Kularnava Tantra, V. 48. There is probably something similar

in Taoism. See Wieger, _Histoire des Croyances religieuses en Chine_,

p. 409. The Indian Tantrists were aware of the dangers of their system

and said it was as difficult as walking on the edge of a sword or

holding a tiger.]

[Footnote 716: Vamacara is said not to mean left-hand worship but

woman (vama) worship. This interpretation of Dakshina and Vamacara is

probably fanciful.]

[Footnote 717: Sometimes two extra stages Aghora and Yogacara are

inserted here.]

[Footnote 718: Mahan. Tan. X. 108. A Kaula may pretend to be a

Vaishnava or a Saiva.]

[Footnote 719: Although the Tantras occasionally say that mere ritual

is not sufficient for the highest religions, yet _indispensable

preliminary_ is often understood as meaning _sure means_. Thus the

Mahanirvana Tantra (X. 202, Avalon's transl.) says "Those who worship

the Kaulas with _panca tattva_ and with heart uplifted, cause the

salvation of their ancestors and themselves attain the highest end."]

[Footnote 720: But on the other hand some Tantras or tantric treatises

recommend crazy abominations.]

[Footnote 721: Mahanir. Tant. X. 79. Bhartra saha kulesani na dahet

kulakaminim.]

[Footnote 722: _Ib._ XI. 67.]

[Footnote 723: _E.g._ It does not prescribe human sacrifices and

counsels moderation in the use of wine and _maithuna._]

[Footnote 724: See Frazer's _Adonis, Attis and Osiris_, pp. 269-273

for these and other stories of dismemberment.]

[Footnote 725: See Frazer, _Golden Bough: Spirits of the Corn_, vol.

I. 245 and authorities quoted.]

[Footnote 726: Images representing this are common in Assam.]

[Footnote 727: Hsuean Chuang (Walters, vol. I. chap. VII) mentions

several sacred places in N.W. India where the Buddha in a previous

birth was dismembered or gave his flesh to feed mankind. Can these

places have been similar to the piths of Assam and were the original

heroes of the legend deities who were dismembered like Sati and

subsequently accommodated to Buddhist theology as Bodhisattvas?]

[Footnote 728: It is an autumnal festival. A special image of the

goddess is made which is worshipped for nine days and then thrown into

the river. For an account of the festival which makes its tantric

character very clear see Durga Puja by Pratapachandra Ghosha,

Calcutta, 1871.]

[Footnote 729: One explanation given is that she was so elated with

her victories over giants that she began to dance which shook the

Universe. Siva in order to save the world placed himself beneath her

feet and when she saw she was trampling on her husband, she stopped.

But there are other explanations.

Another of the strangely barbaric legends which cluster round the

Sakti is illustrated by the figure called Chinnamastaka. It

represents the goddess as carrying her own head which she has just cut

off, while from the neck spout fountains of blood which are drunk by

her attendants and by the severed head itself.]

[Footnote 730: Yet the English mystic Julian, the anchoress of Norwich

(c. 1400), insists on the motherhood as well as the fatherhood of God.

"God is our mother, brother and Saviour." "As verily God is our

father, so verily God is our mother."

So too in an inscription found at Capua (C.I.N. 3580) Isis is

addressed as _una quae es omnia_.

The Power addressed in Swinburne's poems _Mater Triumphalis, Hertha,

The Pilgrims_ and _Dolores_ is really a conception very similar to

Sakti.]

[Footnote 731: These ideas find frequent expression in the works of

Bunkim Chandra Chatterjee, Dinesh Chandra Sen and Sister Nivedita.]

[Footnote 732: See Dinesh Chandra Sen, _Hist. Beng. Lang, and Lit_.

pp. 712-721. Even the iconoclast Devendranath Tagore speaks of the

Universal Mother. See _Autobiog._ p. 240.]

[Footnote 733: So I was told, but I saw only six, when I visited the

place in 1910.]

[Footnote 734: Rudhiradhyaya. Translated in _As. Researches_, V. 1798,

pp. 371-391.]

[Footnote 735: See Frazer, _op. cit._ p. 246.]

CHAPTER XXXIII

HINDU PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is more closely connected with religion in India than in

Europe. It is not a dispassionate scientific investigation but a

practical religious quest. Even the Nyaya school, which is concerned

chiefly with formal logic, promises that by the removal of false

knowledge it can emancipate the soul and give the bliss of salvation.

Nor are the expressions system or school of philosophy, commonly used

to render _darsana_, altogether happy. The word is derived from the

root _dris_, to see, and means a way of looking at things. As such a

way of looking is supposed to be both comprehensive and orderly, it is

more or less what we call philosophical, but the points of view are so

special and so various that the result is not always what we call a

philosophical system. Madhava's[736] list of Darsanas includes

Buddhism and Jainism, which are commonly regarded as separate

religions, as well as the Pasupata and Saiva, which are sects of

Hinduism. The Darsana of Jaimini is merely a discussion of general

questions relating to sacrifices: the Nyaya Darsana examines logic and

rhetoric: the Paniniya Darsana treats of grammar and the nature of

language, but claims that it ought to be studied "as the means for

attaining the chief end of man."[737]

Six of the Darsanas have received special prominence and are often

called the six Orthodox Schools. They are the Nyaya and Vaiseshika,

Sankhya and Yoga, Purva and Uttara Mimamsa, or Vedanta. The rest are

either comparatively unimportant or are more conveniently treated of

as religious sects. The six placed on the select list are sufficiently

miscellaneous and one wonders what principle of classification can

have brought them together. The first two have little connection with

religion, though they put forward the emancipation of the soul as

their object, and I have no space to discuss them. They are however

important as showing that realism has a place in Indian thought in

spite of its marked tendency to idealism.[738] They are concerned

chiefly with an examination of human faculties and the objects of

knowledge, and are related to one another. The special doctrine of the

Vaiseshika is the theory of atoms ascribed to Kanada. It teaches that

matter consists of atoms (anu) which are eternal in themselves though

all combinations of them are liable to decompose. The Sankhya and

Yoga are also related and represent two aspects of the same system

which is of great antiquity and allied to Buddhism and Jainism. The

two Mimamsas are consecutive expositions of the teaching scattered

throughout the Vedic texts respecting ceremonial and the knowledge of

God respectively. The second Mimamsa, commonly called the Vedanta, is

by far the more interesting and important.

The common feature in these six systems which constitutes their

orthodoxy is that they all admit the authority of the Veda. This

implies more than our phrases revelation or inspiration of the Bible.

Most of the Darsanas attach importance to the _pramanas_, sources or

standards of knowledge. They are variously enumerated, but one of the

oldest definitions makes them three: perception (pratyaksha),

inference (anumana) and scripture (sabda). The Veda is thus formally

acknowledged to have the same authority as the evidence of the senses.

With this is generally coupled the doctrine that it is eternal. It was

not composed by human authors, but is a body of sound existing from

eternity as part of Brahman and breathed out by him when he causes the

whole creation to evolve at the beginning of a world period. The

reputed authors are simply those who have, in Indian language, seen

portions of this self-existent teaching. This doctrine sounds more

reasonable if restated in the form that words are the expression of

thought, and that if thought is the eternal essence of both Brahman

and the soul, a similar eternity may attach to words. Some such idea

is the origin of the Christian doctrine of the Logos, and in many

religions we find such notions as that words have a creative

efficacy,[739] or that he who knows the name of a thing has power over

it. Among Mohammedans the Koran is supposed to be not merely an

inspired composition but a pre-existing book, revealed to Mohammed

piecemeal.

It is curious that both the sacred texts--the Veda and the Koran--to

which this supernatural position is ascribed should be collections of

obviously human, incongruous, and often insignificant documents

connected with particular occasions, and in no way suggesting or

claiming that they are anterior to the ordinary life of man on earth.

It is still more extraordinary that systems of philosophy should

profess to base themselves on such works. But in reality Hindu

metaphysicians are not more bound by the past than their colleagues in

other lands. They do not take scripture and ask what it means, but

evolve their own systems and state that they are in accordance with

it. Sometimes scripture is ignored in the details of argument. More

often the metaphysician writes a commentary on it and boldly proves

that it supports his views, though its apparent meaning may be

hostile. It is clear that many philosophic commentaries have been

written not because the authors really drew their inspiration from the

Upanishads or Bhagavad-gita but because they dared not neglect such

important texts. All the Vedantist schools labour to prove that they

are in harmony not only with the Upanishads but with the

Brahma-sutras. The philosophers of the Sankhya are more detached from

literature but though they ignore the existence of the deity, they

acknowledge the Veda as a source of knowledge. Their recognition,

however, has the air of a concession to Brahmanic sentiment. Isolated

theories of the Sankhya can be supported by isolated passages of the

Upanishads, but no impartial critic can maintain that the general

doctrines of the two are compatible. That the Brahmans should have

been willing to admit the Sankhya as a possible form of orthodoxy is

a testimony both to its importance and to their liberality.

It is remarkable that the test of orthodoxy should have been the

acceptance of the authority of the Veda and not a confession of some

sort of theism. But on this the Brahmans did not insist. The Vedanta

is truly and intensely pantheistic or theistic, but in the other

philosophies the Supreme Being is either eliminated or plays a small

part. Thus while works which seem to be merely scientific treatises

(like the Nyaya) set before themselves a religious object, other

treatises, seemingly religious in scope, ignore the deity. There is a

strong and ancient line of thought in India which, basing itself on

the doctrine of Karma, or the inevitable consequences of the deed once

done, lays stress on the efficacy of ceremonies or of asceticism or of

knowledge without reference to a Supreme Being because, if he exists,

he does not interfere with the workings of Karma, or with the power of

knowledge to release from them.

Even the Vedanta, although in a way the quintessence of Indian

orthodoxy, is not a scholastic philosophy designed to support

recognized dogma and ritual. It is rather the orthodox method of

soaring above these things. It contemplates from a higher level the

life of religious observances (which is the subject of the Purva

Mimamsa) and recognizes its value as a preliminary, but yet rejects

it as inadequate. The Sannyasi or adept follows no caste observances,

performs no sacrifices, reads no scriptures. His religion is to

realize in meditation the true nature, and it may be the identity, of

the soul and God. Good works are of no more importance for him than

rites, though he does well to employ his time in teaching. But Karma

has ceased to exist for him: "the acts of a Yogi are neither black nor

white," they have no moral quality nor consequences. This is dangerous

language and the doctrine has sometimes been abused. But the point of

the teaching is not that a Sannyasi may do what he likes but that he

is perfectly emancipated from material bondage. Most men are bound by

their deeds; every new act brings consequences which attach the doer

to the world of transmigration and create for him new existences. But

the deeds of the man who is really free have no such trammelling

effects, for they are not prompted by desire nor directed to an

object. But since to become free he must have suppressed all desire,

it is hardly conceivable that he should do anything which could be

called a sin. But this conviction that the task of the sage is not to

perfect any form of good conduct but to rise above both good and evil,

imparts to the Darsanas and even to the Upanishads a singularly

non-ethical and detached tone. The Yogi does no harm but he has less

benevolence and active sympathy than the Buddhist monk. It was a

feeling that such an attitude has its dangers and is only for the few

who have fought their way to the heights where it can safely be

adopted, that led the Brahmans in all ages to lay stress on the

householder's life as the proper preparation for a philosophic old

age. Despite utterances to the contrary, they never as a body approved

the ideal of a life entirely devoted to asceticism and not occupied

with social duties during one period. The extraordinary ease with

which the higher phases of Indian thought shake off all formalities,

social, religious and ethical, was counterbalanced by the

multitudinous regulations devised to keep the majority in a

law-abiding life.

None of the six Darsanas concern themselves with ethics. The more

important deal with the transcendental progress of sages who have

avowedly abandoned the life of works, and even those which treat of

that lower life are occupied with ritual and logic rather than with

anything which can be termed moral science. We must not infer that

Indian literature is altogether unmoral. The doctrine of Karma is

intensely ethical and ethical discussions are more prominent in the

Epics than in Homer, besides being the subject of much gnomic and

didactic poetry. But there is no mistaking the fact that the Hindu

seeks for salvation by knowledge. He feels the power of deeds, but it

is only the lower happiness which lies in doing good works and

enjoying their fruits. The higher bliss consists in being entirely

free from the bondage of deeds and Karma.

All the Darsanas have as a common principle this idea of Karma with

the attendant doctrines that rebirth is a consequence of action and

that salvation is an escape from rebirth. They all treat more or less

of the sources and standards of knowledge, and all recognize the Veda

as one of them. There is not much more that can be said of them all in

common, for the Vedanta ignores matter and the Sankhya ignores God,

but they all share a conviction which presents difficulties to

Europeans. It is that the state in which the mind ceases to think

discursively and is concentrated on itself is not only desirable but

the _summum bonum_. The European is inclined to say that such a

state is distinguished from non-existence only by not being permanent.

But the Hindu will have none of this. He holds that mind and thought

are material though composed of the subtlest matter, and that when

thought ceases, the immaterial soul (purusha or atman) far from being

practically non-existent is more truly existent than before and enjoys

untroubled its own existence and its own nature.

Of the three most important systems, the Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta,

the first and last are on most points opposed: both are ancient, but

perhaps the products of different intellectual centres. In one sense

the Yoga may be described as a theistic modification of the Sankhya:

from another and perhaps juster point of view it appears rather as a

very ancient science of asceticism and contemplation, susceptible of

combination with various metaphysical theories.

2

We may consider first of all the Sankhya.[740] Tradition ascribes its

invention to Kapila, but he is a mere name unconnected with any date

or other circumstance. It is probable that the principal ideas of the

Sankhya germinated several centuries before our era but we have no

evidence whatever as to when they were first formulated in Sutras. The

name was current as the designation of a philosophical system fairly

early[741] but the accepted text-books are all late. The most

respected is the Sankhya-pravacana,[742] attributed to Kapila but

generally assigned by European critics to the fourteenth century A.D.

Considerably more ancient, but still clearly a metrical epitome of a

system already existing, is the Sankhya-Karika, a poem of seventy

verses which was translated into Chinese about 560 A.D. and may be a

few centuries older. Max Mueller regarded the Tattva-samasa, a short

tract consisting chiefly of an enumeration of topics, as the most

ancient Sankhya formulary, but the opinion of scholars as to its age

is not unanimous. The name Sankhya is best interpreted as signifying

enumeration in allusion to the predilection of the school for numbered

lists, a predilection equally noticeable in early Buddhism.

The object of the system set forth in these works is strictly

practical. In the first words of the Sankhya-pravacana, the complete

cessation of suffering is the end of man, and the Sankhya is devised

to enable him to attain it. Another formula divides the contents of

the Sankhya into four topics--(_a_) that from which man must liberate

himself, or suffering, (_b_) liberation, or the cessation of

suffering, (_c_) the cause of suffering, or the failure to

discriminate between the soul and matter, (_d_) the means of

liberation, or discriminating knowledge. This division obviously

resembles the four Truths of Buddhism. The object proposed is the same

and the method analogous, though not identical, for Buddhism speaks as

a religion and lays greater stress on conduct.

The theory of the Sankhya, briefly stated, is this. There exist,

uncreated and from all eternity, on the one side matter and on the

other individual souls. The world, as we know it, is due entirely to

the evolution of matter. Suffering is the result of souls being in

bondage to matter, but this bondage does not affect the nature of the

soul and in one sense is not real, for when souls acquire

discriminating knowledge and see that they are not matter, then the

bondage ceases and they attain to eternal peace.

The system is thus founded on dualism, the eternal antithesis between

matter and soul. Many of its details are comprised in the simple

enumeration of the twenty-five Tattvas or principles[743] as given in

the Tattva-samasa and other works. Of these, one is Purusha, the soul

or self, which is neither produced nor productive, and the other

twenty-four are all modifications of Prakriti or matter, which is

unproduced but productive. Prakriti means the original ground form of

external existence (as distinguished from Vikriti, modified form). It

is uncreated and indestructible, but it has a tendency to variation or

evolution. The Sankhya holds in the strictest sense that _ex nihilo

nihil fit_. Substance can only be produced from substance and properly

speaking there is no such thing as origination but only manifestation.

Causality is regarded solely from the point of view of material

causes, that is to say the cause of a pot is clay and not the action

of the potter. Thus the effect or product is nothing else than the

cause in another shape: production is only manifestation and

destruction is the resolution of a product into its cause. Instead of

holding like the Buddhists that there is no such thing as existence

but only becoming, the Sankhya rather affirms that there is nothing

but successive manifestations of real existence. If clay is made into

a pot and the pot is then broken and ground into clay again, the

essential fact is not that a pot has come into existence and

disappeared but that the clay continuously existing has undergone

certain changes.

The tendency to evolution inherent in matter is due to the three

_gunas_. They are _sattva_, explained as goodness and happiness;

_rajas_, as passion and movement; and _tamas_, as darkness, heaviness

and ignorance. The word Guna is not easy to translate, for it seems

to mean more than quality or mode and to signify the constituents of

matter. Hence one cannot help feeling that the whole theory is an

attempt to explain the unity and diversity of matter by a phrase, but

all Hinduism is permeated by this phrase and theory. When the three

gunas are in equilibrium then matter--Prakriti--is quiescent,

undifferentiated and unmanifested. But as soon as the equilibrium is

disturbed and one of the gunas becomes preponderant, then the process

of differentiation and manifestation begins. The disturbance of

equilibrium is due to the action of the individual Purushas or souls

on Prakriti, but this action is mechanical and due to proximity not

to the volition of the souls and may be compared to the attraction of

a magnet for iron.[744] Thus at the beginning of the evolutionary

process we have quiescent matter in equilibrium: over against this are

souls innumerable, equally quiescent but exerting on matter a

mechanical force. This upsets the equilibrium and creates a movement

which takes at first the form of development and later of decay and

collapse. Then matter returns to its quiescent state to be again

excited by the Purushas and commence its world-making evolution anew.

The doctrine that evolution, dissolution and quiescence succeed one

another periodically is an integral part of the Sankhya.[745]

The unmodified Prakriti stands first on the list of twenty-five

principles. When evolution begins it produces first Buddhi or

intellect, secondly Ahamkara, which is perhaps best rendered by

individuality, and next the five Tanmatras or subtle elements.

Buddhi, though meaning intellect, is used rather in the sense of

ascertaining or perception. It is the faculty by which we distinguish

objects and perceive what they are. It differs also from our

conception of intellect in being, like Ahamkara and all the

subsequent developments of Prakriti, material, and must not be

confused with the immaterial Purusha or soul. It is in fact the organ

of thought, not in the sense of the brain or anything tangible, but a

subtle substratum of all mental processes. But in what sense is it

possible to say that this Buddhi exists apart from individuals, who

have not come into being at this stage of cosmic evolution? This

difficulty is not met by talking, as some commentators do, of cosmic

as well as individual Buddhi, for even if all Prakriti is illuminated

by Buddhi at this stage it is difficult to see what result can occur.

To make the process of development coherent we must think of it not as

a series of chronologically successive stages but rather as a

logically connected series and an analysis of completely evolved

beings, just as we might say that bones are covered with flesh and

flesh with skin, without affirming that the bones have a separate and

prior existence. Ahamkara, which is, like Buddhi, strictly speaking a

physical organ, means Ego-maker and denotes the sense of personality

and individuality, almost the will. In the language of Indian

philosophy it is the delusion or misconception which makes the soul

imagine itself a personal agent and think, _I_ see, _I_ hear, _I_

slay, _I_ am slain, whereas the soul is really incapable of action and

the acts are those of Prakriti.

The five subtle elements are the essences of sound, touch, colour,

savour and odour conceived as physical principles, imperceptible to

ordinary beings, though gods and Yogis can perceive them. The name

Tanmatra which signifies _that only_ indicates that they are concerned

exclusively with one sense. Thus whereas the gross elements, such as

earth, appeal to more than one sense and can be seen, felt and smelt,

the subtle element of sound is restricted to the sense of hearing. It

exists in all things audible but has nothing to do with their

tangibility or visibility. There remain sixteen further modifications

to make up the full list of twenty-four. They are the five organs of

sense,[746] the five organs of action,[747] Manas or mind, regarded as

a sixth and central sense, and also as the seat of will, and the five

gross elements--earth, water, light, air and ether. The Sankhya

distinguishes between the gross and the subtle body. The latter,

called lingasarira, is defined in more than one way, but it is

expressly stated in the Karikas[748] that it is composed of "Buddhi

and the rest, down to the subtle elements." It practically corresponds

to what we call the soul, though totally distinct from Purusha or soul

in the Sankhya sense. It constitutes the character and essential

being of a person. It is the part which transmigrates from one gross

body to another, and is responsible for the acts committed in each

existence. Its union with a gross body constitutes birth, its

departure death. Except in the case of those who attain emancipation,

its existence and transmigration last for a whole world-period at the

end of which come quiescence and equilibrium. In it are imprinted the

Samskaras,[749] the predispositions which pass on from one existence

to another and are latent in the new-born mind like seeds in a field.

By following the evolution of matter we have now accounted for

intellect, individuality, the senses, the moral character, will, and a

principle which survives death and transmigrates. It might therefore

be supposed that we have exhaustively analysed the constitution of a

human being. But that is not the view of the Sankhya. The evolution

of Buddhi, Ahamkara, the subtle body and the gross body is a physical

process and the result is also physical, though parts of it are of so

fine a substance that ordinary senses cannot perceive them. This

physical organism becomes a living being (which term includes gods and

animals) when it is connected with a soul (purusha) and consciousness

depends on this connection, for neither is matter when isolated

conscious, nor is the soul, at least not in our sense of the word.

Though the soul is neither the life which ends at death (for that is

the gross body) nor yet the life which passes from existence to

existence (for that is the subtle body) yet it is the vitalizing

element which renders life possible.

The Sankhya like Jainism regards souls as innumerable and distinct

from one another. The word Purusha must have originally referred to

the manikin supposed to inhabit the body, and there is some reason to

think that the earliest teachers of the Sankhya held that it was

infinitely small. But in the existing text-books it is described as

infinitely large. It is immaterial and without beginning, end, parts,

dimensions, or qualities, incapable of change, motion, or action.

These definitions may be partly due to the influence of the Vedanta

and, though we know little about the historical development of the

Sankhya, there are traces of a compromise between the old teaching of

a soul held in bondage and struggling for release and later

conceptions of a soul which, being infinite and passionless, hardly

seems capable of submitting to bondage. Though the soul cannot be said

to transmigrate, to act, or to suffer, still through consciousness it

makes the suffering of the world felt and though in its essence it

remains eternally unchanged and unaffected, yet it experiences the

reflection of the suffering which goes on. Just as a crystal (to use

the Indian simile) allows a red flower to be seen through it and

remains unchanged, although it seems to become red, so does the soul

remain unchanged by sorrow or joy, although the illusion that it

suffers or rejoices may be present in the consciousness.

The task of the soul is to free itself from illusion, and thus from

bondage. For strictly speaking the bondage does not exist: it is

caused by want of discrimination. Like the Vedanta, the Sankhya

regards all this troubled life as being, so far as the soul is

concerned, mere illusion. But while the Vedanta bids the soul know its

identity with Brahman, the Sankhya bids it isolate itself and know

that the acts and feelings which seem to be its own have really

nothing to do with it. They are for the soul nothing but a spectacle

or play originating in its connection with Prakriti, and it is

actually said,[750] "Wherefore no soul is bound, or is liberated or

transmigrates. It is Prakriti, which has many bodily forms, which is

bound, liberated and transmigrates." It is in Buddhi or intellect,

which is a manifestation of Prakriti, that the knowledge of the

difference between the soul and Prakriti must arise. Thus though the

Sankhya reposes on a fundamental dualism, it is not the dualism of

good and evil. Soul and matter differ not because the first is good

and the second bad, but because the first is unchangeable and the

second constantly changing. Matter is often personified as a woman.

Her motives are unselfish and she works for the liberation of the

soul. "As a dancer after showing herself on the stage ceases to dance,

so does Prakriti cease when she has made herself manifest to the

soul." That is to say, when a soul once understands that it is

distinct from the material world, that world ceases to exist for that

particular soul, though of course the play continues for others.

"Generous Prakriti, endowed with Gunas, causes by manifold means

without benefit to herself, the benefit of the soul, which is devoid

of Gunas and makes no return."[751] The condition of the liberated

soul, corresponding to the _mokska_ and _nirvana_ of other systems,

is described as Kaivalya, that is, complete separation from the

material world, but, as among Buddhists and Vedantists, he who has

learnt the truth is liberated even before death, and can teach others.

He goes on living, just as the wheel continues to revolve for some

time after the potter has ceased to turn it. After death, complete

liberation without the possibility of rebirth is attained. The

Sankhya manuals do not dwell further on the character of this

liberation: we only know that the eternal soul is then completely

isolated and aloof from all suffering and material things. Liberation

is compared to profound sleep, the difference being that in dreamless

sleep there is a seed, that is, the possibility of return to ordinary

life, whereas when liberation is once attained there is no such

return.

Both in its account of the world process and in its scheme of

salvation the Sankhya ignores theism in the same way as did the

Buddha. Indeed the text-books go beyond this and practically deny the

existence of a personal supreme deity. We are told[752] that the

existence of God cannot be proved, for whatever exists must be either

bound or free and God can be neither. We cannot think of him as bound

and yet he cannot be free like an emancipated soul, for freedom

implies the absence of desire and hence of the impulse to create.

Similarly[753] the consequences of good and evil deeds are due to

Karma and not to the government of God. Such a ruler is inconceivable,

for if he governs the world according to the action of Karma his

existence is superfluous, and if he is affected by selfish motives or

desire, then he cannot be free. It is true that these passages speak

of there being no proof of God's existence and hence commentators both

Indian and European who shrink from atheism represent the Sankhya as

suspending judgment. But if a republican constitution duly describes

the President and other authorities in whom the powers of government

are vested, can we argue that it is not unmonarchical because it does

not expressly say there is no king? In the Sankhya there is no more

place for a deity than for a king in a republican constitution.

Moreover, the Sutras endeavour to prove that the idea of God is

inconceivable and self-contradictory and some commentaries speak

plainly on this subject.[754] Thus the Sankhya-tattva-kaumudi

commenting on Karika 57 argues that the world cannot have been created

by God, whether we suppose him to have been impelled by selfishness or

kindness. For if God is perfect he can have no need to create a world.

And if his motive is kindness, is it reasonable to call into existence

beings who while non-existent had no suffering, simply in order to

show kindness in relieving them from suffering? A benevolent deity

ought to create only happy creatures, not a mixed world like the one

we see.[755]

Arguments like this were not condemned by the Brahmans so strongly as

we should expect, but they did not like them and though they did not

excommunicate the Sankhya in the same way as Buddhism, they greatly

preferred a theistic variety of it called Yoga.

The Yoga and Sankhya are mentioned together in the Svetasvatara

Upanishad,[756] and the Bhagavad-gita[757] says that he sees truly who

sees them as one. The difference lies in treatment rather than in

substance. Whereas the Sankhya is mainly theoretical, the principal

topic of the Yoga is the cultivation of that frame of mind which leads

to emancipation and the methods and exercises proper to this end.

Further, the Yoga recognizes a deity. This distinction may seem of

capital importance but the god of the Yoga (called Isvara or the

Lord) is not its foundation and essence as Brahman is of the

Vedanta.[758] Devotion to God is recognized as one among other methods

for attaining emancipation and if this particular procedure, which is

mentioned in relatively few passages, were omitted, the rest of the

system would be unaffected. It is therefore probable that the theistic

portions of the Yoga are an addition made under Brahmanic influence.

But taking the existing Sutras of the two philosophies, together with

their commentaries, it may be said that the Yoga implies most of the

Sankhya theory and the Sankhya most of the Yoga practice, for though

it does not go into details it prescribes meditation which is to be

perfected by regulating the breathing and by adopting certain

postures. I have already spoken of the methods and discipline

prescribed by the Yoga and need not dwell further on the topic now.

That Buddhism has some connection with the Sankhya and Yoga has often

been noticed.[759] Some of the ideas found in the Sankhya and some of

the practices prescribed by the Yoga are clearly anterior to Gotama

and may have contributed to his mental development, but circumspection

is necessary in the use of words like Yoga, Sankhya and Vedanta. If

we take them to mean the doctrinal systems contained in certain

sutras, they are clearly all later than Buddhism. But if we assume, as

we may safely do, that the doctrine is much older than the manuals in

which we now study it, we must also remember that when we leave the

texts we are not justified in thinking of a system but merely of a

line of thought. In this sense it is clear that many ideas of the

Sankhya appear among the Jains, but the Jains know nothing of the

evolution of matter described by the Sankhya manuals and think of the

relation of the soul to matter in a more materialistic way. The notion

of the separate eternal soul was the object of the Buddha's persistent

polemics and was apparently a popular doctrine when he began

preaching. The ascetic and meditative exercises prescribed by the Yoga

were also known before his time and the Pitakas do not hide the fact

that he received instruction from two Yogis. But though he was

acquainted with the theories and practices which grew into the Yoga

and Sankhya, he did not found his religion on them for he rejected

the idea of a soul which has to be delivered and did not make

salvation dependent on the attainment of trances. If there was in his

time a systematic Sankhya philosophy explaining the nature of

suffering and the way of release, it is strange that the Pitakas

contain no criticism of it, for though to us who see these ancient

sects in perspective the resemblance of Buddhism to the Sankhya is

clear, there can be little doubt that the Buddha would have regarded

it as a most erroneous heresy, because it proposes to attain the same

objects as his own teaching but by different methods.

Sankhya ideas are not found in the oldest Upanishads, but they appear

(though not in a connected form) in those of the second stratum, such

as the Svetasvatara and Katha. It therefore seems probable, though

not proven, that the origin of these ideas is to be sought not in the

early Brahmanic schools but in the intellectual atmosphere

non-theistic, non-sacerdotal, but audaciously speculative which

prevailed in the central and eastern part of northern India in the

sixth century B.C. The Sankhya recognizes no merit in sacrifices or

indeed in good works of any kind, even as a preliminary discipline,

and in many details is un-Brahmanic. Unlike the Vedanta Sutras, it

does not exclude Sudras from higher studies, but states that there are

eight classes of gods and five of animals but only one of men. A

teacher must have himself attained emancipation, but there is no

provision that he must be a Brahman. Perhaps the fables and parables

which form the basis of the fourth book of the Sankhya Sutras point

to some more popular form of instruction similar to the discourses of

the Buddha. We may suppose that this ancient un-Brahmanic school took

shape in several sects, especially Jainism and Buddhism, and used the

Yoga discipline. But the value and efficacy of that discipline were

admitted almost universally and several centuries later it was

formulated in the Sutras which bear the name of Patanjali in a shape

acceptable to Brahmans, not to Buddhists. If, as some scholars think,

the Yoga sutras are not earlier than 450 A.D.[760] it seems probable

that it was Buddhism which stimulated the Brahmans to codify the

principles and practice of Yoga, for the Yogacara school of Buddhism

arose before the fifth century. The Sankhya is perhaps a somewhat

similar brahmanization of the purely speculative ideas which may have

prevailed in Magadha and Kosala.[761] Though these districts were not

strongholds of Brahmanism, yet it is clear from the Pitakas that they

contained a considerable Brahman population who must have been

influenced by the ideas current around them but also must have wished

to keep in touch with other Brahmans. The Sankhya of our manuals

represents such an attempt at conciliation. It is an elaboration in a

different shape of some of the ideas out of which Buddhism sprung but

in its later history it is connected with Brahmanism rather than

Buddhism. When it is set forth in Sutras in a succinct and isolated

form, its divergence from ordinary Brahmanic thought is striking and

in this form it does not seem to have ever been influential and now is

professed by only a few Pandits, but, when combined in a literary and

eclectic spirit with other ideas which may be incompatible with it in

strict logic, it has been a mighty influence in Indian religion,

orthodox as well as unorthodox. Such conceptions as Prakriti and the

Gunas colour most of the post-Vedic religious literature. Their

working may be plainly traced in the Mahabharata, Manu and the

Puranas,[762] and the Tantras identify with Prakriti the goddesses

whose worship they teach. The unethical character of the Sankhya

enabled it to form the strangest alliances with aboriginal beliefs.

Unlike the Sankhya, the Vedanta is seen in its most influential and

perhaps most advantageous aspect when stated in its most abstract

form. We need not enquire into its place of origin for it is clearly

the final intellectual product of the schools which produced the

Upanishads and the literature which preceded them, and though it may

be difficult to say at what point we are justified in applying the

name Vedanta to growing Brahmanic thought, the growth is continuous.

The name means simply End of the Veda. In its ideas the Vedanta shows

great breadth and freedom, yet it respects the prejudices and

proprieties of Brahmanism. It teaches that God is all things, but

interdicts this knowledge to the lower castes: it treats rites as a

merely preliminary discipline, but it does not deny their value for

certain states of life.

The Vedanta is the boldest and the most characteristic form of Indian

thought. For Asia, and perhaps for the world at large, Buddhism is

more important but on Indian soil it has been vanquished by the

Vedanta, especially that form of it known as the Advaita. In all ages

the main idea of this philosophy has been the same and may be summed

up in the formula that the soul is God and that God is everything. If

this formula is not completely accurate[763]--and a sentence which

both translates and epitomizes alien metaphysics can hardly aspire to

complete accuracy--the error lies in the fact to which I have called

attention elsewhere that our words, God and soul, do not cover quite

the same ground as the Indian words which they are used to translate.

Many scholars, both Indian and European, will demur to the high place

here assigned to the Advaita philosophy. I am far from claiming that

the doctrine of Sankara is either primitive or unchallenged. Other

forms of the Vedanta existed before him and became very strong after

him. But so far as a synthesis of opinions which are divergent in

details can be just, he gives a just synthesis and elaboration of the

Upanishads. It is true that his teaching as to the higher and lower

Brahman and as to Maya has affinities to Mahayanist Buddhism, and that

later sects were repelled by the severe and impersonal character of

his philosophy, but the doctrine of which he is the most thorough and

eminent exponent, namely that God or spirit is the only reality and

one with the human soul, asserts itself in almost all Hindu sects,

even though their other doctrines may seem to contradict it.

This line of thought is so persistent and has so many ramifications,

that it is hard to say what is and what is not Vedanta. If we take

literature as our best guide we may distinguish four points of

importance marked by the Upanishads, the Brahma-Sutras, Sankara and

Ramanuja.

I have said something elsewhere of the Upanishads. These works do not

profess to form a systematic whole (though later Hinduism regards

them as such) and when European scholars speak of them collectively,

they generally mean the older members of the collection. These may

justly be regarded as the ancestors of the Vedanta, inasmuch as the

tone of thought prevalent in them is incipient Vedantism. It rejects

dualism and regards the universe as a unity not as plurality, as

something which has issued from Brahman or is pervaded by Brahman and

in any case depends on Brahman for its significance and existence.

Brahman is God in the pantheistic sense, totally disconnected with

mythology and in most passages impersonal. The knowledge of Brahman is

salvation: he who has it, goes to Brahman or becomes Brahman. More

rarely we find statements of absolute identity such as "Being Brahman,

he goes to Brahman."[764] But though the Upanishads say that the soul

goes to or is Brahman, that the world comes from or is Brahman, that

the soul is the whole universe and that a knowledge of these truths is

the one thing of importance, these ideas are not combined into a

system. They are simply the thoughts of the wise, not always agreeing

in detail, and presented as independent utterances, each with its own

value.

One of the most important of these wise men is Yajnavalkya,[765] the

hero of the Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad and a great name, to whom are

ascribed doctrines of which he probably never heard. The Upanishad

represents him as developing and completing the views of Sandilya

and Uddalaka Aruni. The former taught[766] that the Atman or Self

within the heart, smaller than a grain of mustard seed, is also

greater than all worlds. The brief exposition of his doctrine which we

possess starts from and emphasizes the human self. This self is

Brahman. The doctrine of Uddalaka[767] takes the other side of the

equation: he starts with Brahman and then asserts that Brahman is the

soul. But though he teaches that in the beginning there was one only

without a second, yet he seems to regard the subsequent products of

this Being as external to it and permeated by it. But to Yajnavalkya

is ascribed an important modification of these doctrines, namely, that

the Atman is unknowable and transcendental.[768] It is unknowable

because since it is essentially the knowing subject it can be known

only by itself: it can never become the object of knowledge and

language is inadequate to describe it. All that can be said of it is

_neti_, _neti_, that is no, no: it is not anything which we try to

predicate of it. But he who knows that the individual soul is the

Atman, becomes Atman; being it, he knows it and knows all the world:

he perceives that in all the world there is no plurality. Here the

later doctrine of Maya is adumbrated, though not formulated. Any

system which holds that in reality there is no plurality or, like some

forms of Mahayanist Buddhism, that nothing really exists implies the

operation of this Maya or illusion which makes us see the world as it

appears to us. It may be thought of as mere ignorance, as a failure to

see the universe as it really is: but no doubt the later view of Maya

as a creative energy which fashions the world of phenomena is closely

connected with the half-mythological conceptions found in the

Pancaratra and Saiva philosophy which regard this creative illusion as

a female force--a goddess in fact--inseparably associated with the

deity.

The philosophy of the Upanishads, like all religious thought in India,

is avowedly a quest of happiness and this happiness is found in some

form of union with Brahman. He is perfect bliss, and whatever is

distinct from him is full of suffering.[769] But this sense of the

suffering inherent in existence is less marked in the older Upanishads

and in the Vedanta than in Buddhism and the Sankhya. Those systems

make it their basis and first principle: in the Vedanta the

temperament is the same but the emphasis and direction of the thought

are different. The Sankhya looks at the world and says that salvation

lies in escape into something which has nothing in common with it. But

the Vedantist looks towards Brahman, and his pessimism is merely the

feeling that everything which is not wholly and really Brahman is

unsatisfactory. In the later developments of the system, pessimism

almost disappears, for the existence of suffering is not the first

Truth but an illusion: the soul, did it but know it, is Brahman and

Brahman is bliss. So far as the Vedanta has any definite practical

teaching, it does not wholly despise action. Action is indeed inferior

to knowledge and when knowledge is once obtained works are useless

accessories, but the four stages of a Brahman's career, including

household life, are approved in the Vedanta Sutras, though there is a

disposition to say that he who has the necessary religious aptitudes

can adopt the ascetic life at any time. The occupations of this

ascetic life are meditation and absorption or samadhi, the state in

which the meditating soul becomes so completely blended with God on

whom it meditates, that it has no consciousness of its separate

existence.[770]

As indicated above the so-called books of Sruti or Vedic literature

are not consecutive treatises, but rather _responsa prudentium_,

utterances respecting ritual and theology ascribed to poets,

sacrificers and philosophers who were accepted as authorities. When

these works came to be regarded as an orderly revelation, even

orthodoxy could not shut its eyes to their divergences, and a

comprehensive exegesis became necessary to give a conspectus of the

whole body of truth. This investigation of the meaning of the Veda as

a connected whole is called Mimamsa, and is divided into two

branches, the earlier (purva) and the later (uttara). The first is

represented by the Purva-mimamsa-sutras of Jaimini[771] which are

called earlier (purva) not in the chronological sense but because they

deal with rites which come before knowledge, as a preparatory stage.

It is interesting to find that Jaimini was accused of atheism and

defended by Kumarila Bhatta. The defence is probably just, for

Jaimini does not so much deny God as ignore him. But what is truly

extraordinary, though characteristic of much Indian literature about

ritual, is that a work dealing with the general theory of religious

worship should treat the deity as an irrelevant topic. The

Purva-mimamsa discusses ceremonies prescribed by an eternal

self-existing Veda. The reward of sacrifice is not given by God. When

the result of an act does not appear at once, Jaimini teaches that

there is all the same produced a supersensuous principle called

_apurva_, which bears fruit at a later time, and thus a sacrifice

leads the offerer to heaven. This theory is really tantamount to

placing magic on a philosophic basis.

Badarayana's sutras, which represent the other branch of the

Mimamsa, show a type of thought more advanced and profound than

Jaimini's. They consist of 555 aphorisms--less than a fifth of

Jaimini's voluminous work--and represent the outcome of considerable

discussion posterior to the Upanishads, for they cite the opinions of

seven other teachers and also refer to Badarayana himself by name.

Hence they may be a compendium of his teaching made by his pupils.

Their date is unknown but Sankara evidently regards them as ancient

and there were several commentators before him.[772] Like most sutras

these aphorisms are often obscure and are hardly intended to be more

than a mnemotechnic summary of the doctrine, to be supplemented by

oral instruction or a commentary. Hence it is difficult to define the

teaching of Badarayana as distinguished from that of the Upanishads

on the one hand, and that of his commentators on the other, or to say

exactly what stage he marks in the development of thought, except that

it is the stage of attempted synthesis.[773] He teaches that Brahman

is the origin of the world and that with him should all knowledge,

religion and effort be concerned. By meditation on him, the soul is

released and somehow associated with him. But it is not clear that we

have any warrant for finding in the sutras (as does Sankara) the

distinction between the higher and lower Brahman, or the doctrine of

the unreality of the world (Maya) or the absolute identity of the

individual soul with Brahman. We are told that the state of the

released soul is non-separation (avibhaga) from Brahman, but this is

variously explained by the commentators according to their views.

Though the sutras are the acknowledged text-book of Vedantism, their

utterances are in practice less important than subsequent explanations

of them. As often happens in India, the comment has overgrown and

superseded the text.

The most important of these commentators is Sankaracarya.[774] Had he

been a European philosopher anxious that his ideas should bear his

name, or a reformer like the Buddha with little respect for antiquity,

he would doubtless have taken his place in history as one of the most

original teachers of Asia. But since his whole object was to revive

the traditions of the past and suppress his originality by attempting

to prove that his ideas are those of Badarayana and the Upanishads,

the magnitude of his contribution to Indian thought is often

under-rated. We need not suppose that he was the inventor of all the

ideas in his works of which we find no previous expression. He

doubtless (like the Buddha) summarized and stereotyped an existing

mode of thought but his summary bears the unmistakeable mark of his

own personality.

Sankara's teaching is known as Advaita or absolute monism. Nothing

exists except the one existence called Brahman or Paramatman, the

Highest Self. Brahman is pure being and thought (the two being

regarded as identical), without qualities. Brahman is not intelligent

but is intelligence itself. The human soul (jiva) is identical with

the Highest Self, not merely as a part of it, but as being itself the

whole universal indivisible Brahman. This must not be misunderstood as

a blasphemous assertion that man is equal to God. The soul is

identical with Brahman only in so far as it forgets its separate human

existence, and all that we call self and individuality. A man who has

any pride in himself is _ipso facto_ differentiated from Brahman as

much as is possible. Yet in the world in which we move we see not only

differentiation and multiplicity but also a plurality of individual

souls apparently distinct from one another and from Brahman. This

appearance is due to the principle of Maya which is associated with

Brahman and is the cause of the phenomenal world. If Maya is

translated by illusion it must be remembered that its meaning is not

so much that the world and individual existences are illusory in the

strict sense of the word, as phenomenal. The only true reality is

self-conscious thought without an object. When the mind attains to

that, it ceases to be human and individual: it _is_ Brahman. But

whenever it thinks of particular objects neither the thoughts nor the

objects of the thoughts are real in the same sense. They are

appearances, phenomena. This universe of phenomena includes not only

all our emotions and all our perceptions of the external world, but

also what might be supposed to be the deepest truths of religion, such

as the personality of the Creator and the wanderings of the soul in

the maze of transmigration. In the same sense that we suffer pain and

pleasure, it is true that there is a personal God (Isvara) who emits

and reabsorbs the world at regular intervals, and that the soul is a

limited existence passing from body to body. In this sense the soul,

as in the Sankhya philosophy, is surrounded by the _upadhis_, certain

limiting conditions or disguises, which form a permanent psychical

equipment with which it remains invested in all its innumerable

bodies. But though these doctrines may be true for those who are in

the world, for those souls who are agents, enjoyers and sufferers,

they cease to be true for the soul which takes the path of knowledge

and sees its own identity with Brahman. It is by this means only that

emancipation is attained, for good works bring a reward in kind, and

hence inevitably lead to new embodiments, new creations of Maya. And

even in knowledge we must distinguish between the knowledge of the

lower Brahman or personal Deity (Isvara) and of the higher

indescribable Brahman.[775] For the orthodox Hindu this distinction is

of great importance, for it enables him to reconcile passages in the

scriptures which otherwise are contradictory. Worship and meditation

which make Isvara their object do not lead directly to emancipation.

They lead to the heavenly world of Isvara, in which the soul, though

glorified, is still a separate individual existence. But for him who

meditates on the Highest Brahman and knows that his true self is that

Brahman, Maya and its works cease to exist. When he dies nothing

differentiates him from that Brahman who alone is bliss and no new

individual existence arises.

The crux of this doctrine is in the theory of Maya. If Maya appertains

to Brahman, if it exists by his will, then why is it an evil, why is

release to be desired? Ought not the individual souls to serve

Brahman's purpose, and would not it be better served by living gladly

in the phenomenal world than by passing beyond it? But such an idea

has rarely satisfied Indian thinkers. If, on the other hand, Maya is

an evil or at least an imperfection, if it is like rust on a blade or

dimness in a mirror, if, so to speak, the edges of Brahman are weak

and break into fragments which are prevented by their own feebleness

from realizing the unity of the whole, then the mind wonders uneasily

if, in spite of all assurances to the contrary, this does not imply

that Brahman is subject to some external law, to some even more

mysterious Beyond. But Sankara and the Brahma-sutras will not

tolerate such doubts. According to them, Brahman in making the world

is not actuated by a motive in the ordinary sense, for that would

imply human action and passion, but by a sportive impulse:[776] "We

see in every-day life," says Sankara, "that certain doings of

princes, who have no desires left unfulfilled, have no reference to

any extraneous purpose but proceed from mere sportfulness. We further

see that the process of inhalation and exhalation is going on without

reference to any extraneous purpose, merely following the law of its

own nature. Analogously, the activity of the Lord also may be supposed

to be mere sport, proceeding from his own nature without reference to

any purpose."[777] This is no worse than many other explanations of

the scheme of things and the origin of evil but it is not really an

explanation. It means that the Advaita is so engrossed in ecstatic

contemplation of the omnipresent Brahman that it pays no attention to

a mere by-product like the physical universe. How or why that universe

with all its imperfections comes to exist, it does not explain.

Yet the boldness and ample sweep of Sankara's thought have in them

something greater than logic,[778] something recalling the grandeur of

plains and seas limited only by the horizon, nay rather those abysses

of space wherein on clear nights worlds and suns innumerable are

scattered like sparks by what he would call God's playfulness.

European thought attains to these altitudes but cannot live in them

for long: it demands and fancies for itself just what Sankara will

not grant, the motive of Brahman, the idea that he is working for some

consummation, not that he was, is and will be eternally complete,

unaffected by the drama of the universe and yet identical with souls

that know him.

Even in India the austere and impersonal character of Sankara's

system provoked dissent: He was accused of being a Buddhist in

disguise and the accusation raises an interesting question[779] in the

history of Indian philosophy to which I have referred in a previous

chapter. The affinity existing between the Madhyamika form of Buddhist

metaphysics and the earlier Vedanta can hardly be disputed and the

only question is which borrowed from the other. Such questions are

exceedingly difficult to decide, for from time to time new ideas arose

in India, permeated the common intellectual atmosphere, and were

worked up by all sects into the forms that suited each best. In the

present instance all that can be said is that certain ideas about the

unreality of the world and about absolute and relative truth appear in

several treatises both Brahmanic and Buddhist, such as the works of

Sankara and Nagarjuna and the Gauda-padakarikas, and of these the

works attributed to Nagarjuna seem to be the oldest. It must also be

remembered that according to Chinese accounts Bodhidharma preached at

Nanking in 520 a doctrine very similar to the _advaita_ of Sankara

though expressed in Buddhist phraseology.

Of other forms of Vedantism, the best known is the system of Ramanuja

generally called Visishtadvaita.[780] It is an evidence of the

position held by the Vedanta philosophy that religious leaders made a

commentary on the Sutras of Badarayana the vehicle of their most

important views. Unlike Sankara, Ramanuja is sectarian and identifies

his supreme deity with Vishnu or Narayana, but this is little more

than a matter of nomenclature. His interpretation is modern in the

sense that it pursues the line of thought which leads up to the modern

sects. But that line of thought has ancient roots. Ramanuja followed a

commentator named Bodhayana who was anterior to Sankara, and in the

opinion of so competent a judge as Thibaut he gives the meaning of

Badarayana in many points more exactly than his great rival. On the

other hand his interpretation often strains the most important

utterances of the Upanishads.

Ramanuja admits no distinction between Brahman and Isvara, but the

distinction is abolished at the expense of abolishing the idea of the

Higher Brahman, for his Brahman is practically the Isvara of Sankara.

Brahman is not without attributes but possessed of all imaginable good

attributes, and though nothing exists apart from him, like the

antithesis of _Purusha_ and _Prakriti_ in the Sankhya, yet the world

is not as in Sankara's system merely Maya. Matter and souls (_cit_

and _acit_) form the body of Brahman who both comprises and pervades

all things, which are merely modes of his existence.[781] He is the

inner ruler (antaryamin) who is in all elements and all human

souls.[782] The texts which speak of Brahman as being one only without

a second are explained as referring to the state of pralaya or

absorption which occurs at the end of each Kalpa. At the conclusion of

the period of pralaya he re-emits the world and individual souls by an

act of volition and the souls begin the round of transmigration.

Salvation or release from this round is obtained not by good works but

by knowledge and meditation on the Lord assisted by his grace. The

released soul is not identified with the Lord but enjoys near him a

personal existence of eternal bliss and peace. This is more like

European theism than the other doctrines which we have been

considering. The difference is that God is not regarded as the creator

of matter and souls. Matter and souls consist of his substance. But

for all that he is a personal deity who can be loved and worshipped

and whereas Sankara was a religious philosopher, Ramanuja was rather

a philosophic theologian and founder of a church. I have already

spoken of his activity in this sphere.

4

The epics and Puranas contain philosophical discussions of

considerable length which make little attempt at consistency. Yet the

line of thought in them all is the same. The chief tenets of the

theistic Sankhya-Yoga are assumed: matter, soul and God are separate

existences: the soul wishes to move towards God and away from matter.

Yet when Indian writers glorify the deity they rarely abstain from

identifying him with the universe. In the Bhagavad-gita and other

philosophical cantos of the Mahabharata the contradiction is

usually left without an attempt at solution. Thus it is stated

categorically[783] that the world consists of the perishable and

imperishable, _i.e._, matter and soul, but that the supreme spirit is

distinct from both. Yet in the same poem we pass from this antithesis

to the monism which declares that the deity is all things and "the

self seated in the heart of man." We have then attained the Vedantist

point of view. Nearly all the modern sects, whether Sivaite or

Vishnuite, admit the same contradiction into their teaching, for they

reject both the atheism of the Sankhya and the immaterialism of the

Advaita (since it is impossible for a practical religion to deny the

existence of either God or the world), while the irresistible tendency

of Indian thought makes them describe their deity in pantheistic

language. All strive to find some metaphysical or theological formula

which will reconcile these discrepant ideas, and nearly all Vishnuites

profess some special variety of the Vedanta called by such names as

Visishtadvaita, Dvaitadvaita, Suddhadvaita and so on. They differ

chiefly in their definition of the relation existing between the soul

and God. Only the Madhvas entirely discard monism and profess duality

(Dvaita) and even Madhva thought it necessary to write a commentary on

the Brahma-sutras to prove that they support his doctrine and the

Sivaites too have a commentator, Nilakantha, who interprets them in

harmony with the Saiva Siddhanta. There is also a modern commentary

by Somanaradittyar which expounds this much twisted text agreeably to

the doctrines of the Lingayat sect.

In most fundamental principles the Sivaite and Saktist schools agree

with the Visishtadvaita but their nomenclature is different and their

scope is theological rather than philosophical. In all of them are

felt the two tendencies, one wishing to distinguish God, soul and

matter and to adjust their relations for the purposes of practical

religion, the other holding more or less that God is all or at least

that all things come from God and return to him. But there is one

difference between the schools of sectarian philosophy and the Advaita

of Sankara which goes to the root of the matter. Sankara holds that

the world and individual existences are due to illusion, ignorance and

misconception: they vanish in the light of true knowledge. Other

schools, while agreeing that in some sense God is all, yet hold that

the universe is not an illusion or false presentment of him but a

process of manifestation or of evolution starting from him.[784] It is

not precisely evolution in the European sense, but rather a rhythmic

movement, of duration and extent inexpressible in figures, in which

the Supreme Spirit alternately emits and reabsorbs the universe. As a

rule the higher religious life aims at some form of union or close

association with the deity, beyond the sphere of this process. In the

evolutionary process the Vaishnavas interpolate between the Supreme

Spirit and the phenomenal world the phases of conditioned spirit known

as Sankarshana, etc.; in the same way the Sivaite schools increase

the twenty-four _tattvas_ of the Sankhya to thirty-six.[785] The first

of these _tattvas_ or principles is Siva, corresponding to the highest

Brahman. The next phase is Sadasiva in which differentiation commences

owing to the movement of Sakti, the active or female principle. Siva

in this phase is thought of as having a body composed of _mantras_.

Sakti, also known as Bindu or Suddhamaya, is sometimes regarded as a

separate _tattva_ but more generally as inseparably united with Siva.

The third _tattva_ is Isvara, or Siva in the form of a lord or

personal deity, and the fourth is Suddhavidya or true knowledge,

explained as the principle of correlation between the experiencer and

that which is experienced. It is only after these that we come to

Maya, meaning not so much illusion as the substratum in which Karma

inheres or the protoplasm from which all things grow. Between Maya and

Purusha come five more _tattvas_, called envelopes. Their effect is to

enclose and limit, thus turning the divine spirit into a human soul.

Saktist accounts of the evolutionary process give greater prominence

to the part played by Sakti and are usually metaphysiological, if the

word may be pardoned, inasmuch as they regard the cosmic process as

the growth of an embryo, an idea which is as old as the Vedas.[786] It

is impossible to describe even in outline these manifold cosmologies

but they generally speak of Sakti, who in one sense is identical with

Siva and merely his active form but in another sense is identified

with Prakriti, coming into contact with the form of Siva called

Prakasa or light and then solidifying into a drop (Bindu) or germ

which divides. At some point in this process arise Nada or sound, and

Sabda-brahman, the sound-Brahman, which manifests itself in various

energies and assumes in the human body the form of the mysterious

coiled force called Kundalini.[787] Some of the older Vishnuite

writings use similar language of Sakti, under the name of Lakshmi, but

in the Visishtadvaita of Ramanuja and subsequent teachers there is

little disposition to dwell on any feminine energy in discussing the

process of evolution.

Of all the Darsanas the most extraordinary is that called Rasesvara

or the mercurial system.[788] According to it quicksilver, if eaten or

otherwise applied, not only preserves the body from decay but delivers

from transmigration the soul which inhabits this glorified body.

Quicksilver is even asserted to be identical with the supreme self.

This curious Darsana is represented as revealed by Siva to Sakti and

it is only an extreme example of the tantric doctrine that spiritual

results can be obtained by physical means. The practice of taking

mercury to secure health and long life must have been prevalent in

medieval India for it is mentioned by both Marco Polo and

Bernier.[789]

5

A people among whom the Vedanta could obtain a large following must

have been prone to think little of the things which we see compared

with the unseen of which they are the manifestation. It is, therefore,

not surprising if materialism met with small sympathy or success among

them. In India the extravagances of asceticism and of mystic

sensualism alike find devotees, but the simple philosophy of Let us

eat and drink for to-morrow we die, does not commend itself.

Nevertheless it is not wholly absent and was known as the doctrine of

Brihaspati. Those who professed it were also called Carvakas and

Lokayatikas.[790] Brihaspati was the preceptor of the gods and his

connection with this sensualistic philosophy goes back to a legend

found in the Upanishads[791] that he taught the demons false knowledge

whose "reward lasts only as long as the pleasure lasts" in order to

compass their destruction. This is similar to the legend found in the

Puranas that Vishnu became incarnate as Buddha in order to lead

astray the Daityas. But though such words as Carvaka and Nastika are

used in later literature as terms of learned abuse, the former seems

to denote a definite school, although we cannot connect its history

with dates, places or personalities. The Carvakas are the first system

examined in the Sarva-darsana-sangraha, which is written from the

Vedantist standpoint, and beginning from the worst systems of

philosophy ascends to those which are relatively correct. This account

contains most of what we know about their doctrines,[792] but is

obviously biassed: it represents them as cynical voluptuaries holding

that the only end of man is sensual enjoyment. We are told that they

admitted only one source of knowledge, namely perception, and four

elements, earth, water, fire and air, and that they held the soul to

be identical with the body. Such a phrase as _my body_ they considered

to be metaphorical, as apart from the body there was no ego who owned

it. The soul was supposed to be a physical product of the four

elements, just as sugar combined with a ferment and other ingredients

produces an intoxicating liquor. Among verses described as "said by

Brihaspati" occur the following remarkable lines:

"There is no heaven, no liberation, nor any soul in another world,

Nor do the acts of the asramas or castes produce any reward.

If the animal slain in the Jyotishtoma sacrifice will go to heaven,

Why does not the sacrificer immolate his own father?

While life remains let a man live happily: let him feed on butter even

if he runs into debt.

When once the body becomes ashes, how can it ever return?"

The author of the Dabistan, who lived in the seventeenth century, also

mentions the Carvakas in somewhat similar terms.[793]

Brahmanical authors often couple the Carvakas and Buddhists. This

lumping together of offensively heretical sects may be merely

theological animus, but still it is possible that there may be a

connection between the Carvakas and the extreme forms of Mahayanist

nihilism. Schrader[794] in analysing a singular work, called the

Svasamvedyopanishad, says it is "inspired by the Mahayanist doctrine

of vacuity (_sunya-vada_) and proclaims a most radical agnosticism by

asserting in four chapters (_a_) that there is no reincarnation

(existence being bubble-like), no God, no world: that all traditional

literature (_Sruti_ and _Smriti_) is the work of conceited fools;

(_b_) that Time the destroyer and Nature the originator are the

rulers of all existence and not good and bad deeds, and that there is

neither hell nor heaven; (_c_) that people deluded by flowery speech

cling to gods, sacred places, teachers, though there is in reality no

difference at all between Vishnu and a dog; (_d_) that though all

words are untrue and all ideas mere illusions, yet liberation is

possible by a thorough realization of _Bhavadvaita_." But for this

rather sudden concession to Hindu sentiment, namely that deliverance

is possible, this doctrine resembles the tenets attributed to the

Carvakas.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 736: In the Sarva-darsana-sangraha, the best known

compendium of Indian philosophy.]

[Footnote 737: J.C. Chatterji's definition of Indian philosophy (in

his _Indian Realism_, p. 1) is interesting. "By Hindu philosophy I

mean that branch of the ancient learning of the Hindus which

demonstrates by reasoning propositions with regard to (_a_) what a man

ought to do in order to gain true happiness ... or (_b_) what he ought

to realize by direct experience in order to be radically and

absolutely freed from suffering and to be absolutely independent, such

propositions being already given and lines of reasoning in their

support being established by duly qualified authorities."]

[Footnote 738: See Chatterji's work above cited.]

[Footnote 739: It is this idea which disposes educated Hindus to

believe in the magical or sacramental power of mystic syllables and

letters, though the use of such spells seems to Europeans incredible

folly.]

[Footnote 740: See especially Garbe, _Die Sankhya Philosophie_, 1894;

and Keith, _The Sankhya System_, 1919, which however reached me too

late for me to make any use of it.]

[Footnote 741: _E.g._ in the Bhagavad-gita and Svetasvatara Upanishads.

According to tradition Kapila taught Asuri and he, Pancasikha, who

made the system celebrated. Garbe thinks Pancasikha may be assigned to

the first century A.D.]

[Footnote 742: This appears to be the real title of the Sutras edited

and translated by Ballantyne as "The Sankhya Aphorisms of Kapila."]

[Footnote 743: Or topics. It is difficult to find any one English word

which covers the twenty-five tattvas, for they include both general

and special ideas, mind and matter on the one hand; special organs on

the other.]

[Footnote 744: Sankh. Pravac. I. 96.]

[Footnote 745: Garbe, _Die Sankhya Philosophie_, p. 222. He considers

that it spread thence to other schools. This involves the assumption

that the Sankhya is prior to Buddhism and Jainism.]

[Footnote 746: Ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose.]

[Footnote 747: Voice, hands, feet, organs of excretion and

generation.]

[Footnote 748: Verse 40.]

[Footnote 749: Cf. the Buddhist Sankharas.]

[Footnote 750: Sankh. Kar. 62.]

[Footnote 751: Sankh. Kar. 59-61.]

[Footnote 752: Sankh. Pravac. I. 92-95.]

[Footnote 753: Sankh. Pravac. V. 2-12.]

[Footnote 754: Thus Sankh. Pravac. V. 46, says Tatkartuh

purushasyabhavat and the commentary explains Isvara-pratishedhad iti

seshah "supply the words, because we deny that there is a supreme

God."]

[Footnote 755: Nevertheless the commentator Vijnana-Bhikshu

(c. 1500) tries to explain away this atheism and to reconcile

the Sankhya with the Vedanta. See Garbe's preface to his edition

of the Sankhya-pravacana-bhashya.]

[Footnote 756: VI. 13.]

[Footnote 757: V. 5.]

[Footnote 758: Isvara is apparently a purusha like others but greater

in glory and untouched by human infirmities. Yoga sutras, I. 24-26.]

[Footnote 759: It is a singular fact that both the

Sankhya-karika-bhashya and a treatise on the Vaiseshika philosophy

are included in the Chinese Tripitaka (Nanjio, Cat. Nos. 1300 and

1295). A warning is however added that they are not "the law of the

Buddha."]

[Footnote 760: See Jacobi, _J.A.O.S._ Dec. 1910, p. 24. But if

Vasubandhu lived about 280-360, as is now generally believed,

allusions to the Yogacara school in the Yoga sutras do not oblige us

to place the sutras much later than 300 A.D. since the Yogacara was

founded by Asanga, the brother of Vasubandhu.]

[Footnote 761: I find it hard to accept Deussen's view (_Philosophy of

the Upanishads_, chap. X) that the Sankhya has grown out of the

Vedanta.]

[Footnote 762: See _e.g._ Vishnu Purana, I. chaps. 2, 4, 5. The

Bhagavad-gita, though almost the New Testament of Vedantists, uses the

words Sankhya and Yoga in several passages as meaning speculative

truth and the religious life and is concerned to show that they are

the same. See II. 39; III. 3; V. 4, 5.]

[Footnote 763: It is perhaps hardly necessary to add that there has

been endless discussion as to the sense and manner in which the soul

is God.]

[Footnote 764: Brihad Aran. IV. 4. 6; _Ib._ I. iv. 10. "I am

Brahman."]

[Footnote 765: See above Book II. chaps. V and VI.]

[Footnote 766: Chand. Up. III. 14.]

[Footnote 767: Chand. Up. VI.]

[Footnote 768: See Deussen, _Philosophy of the Upanishads._]

[Footnote 769: Ato'nyad artam. Brihad Ar. III. several times.]

[Footnote 770: Maitrayana. Brah. Upanishad, VI. 20. "Having seen his

own self as The Self he becomes selfless, and because he is selfless

he is without limit, without cause, absorbed in thought."]

[Footnote 771: There is nothing to fix the date of this work except

that Kumarila in commenting on it in the eighth century treats it as

old and authoritative. It was perhaps composed in the early Gupta

period.]

[Footnote 772: Keith in _J.R.A.S._ 1907, p. 492 says it is becoming

more and more probable that Badarayana cannot be dated after the

Christian era. Jacobi in _J.A.O.S._ 1911, p. 29 concludes that the

Brahma-sutras were composed between 200 and 450 A.D.]

[Footnote 773: Such attempts must have begun early. The Maitrayana

Upanishad (II. 3) talks of Sarvopanishadvidya, the science of all the

Upanishads.]

[Footnote 774: See above, p. 207 ff.]

[Footnote 775: The same distinction occurs in the works of Meister

Eckhart ({~DAGGER~} 1327 A.D.) who in many ways approximates to Indian thought,

both Buddhist and Vedantist. He makes a distinction between the

Godhead and God. The Godhead is the revealer but unrevealed: it is

described as "wordless" (Yajnavalkya's _neti_, _neti_), "the nameless

nothing," "the immoveable rest." But God is the manifestation of the

Godhead, the uttered word. "All that is in the Godhead is one.

Therefore we can say nothing. He is above all names, above all nature.

God works, so doeth not the Godhead. Therein are they distinguished,

in working and in not working. The end of all things is the hidden

darkness of the eternal Godhead, unknown and never to be known."

(Quoted by Rufus Jones, _Studies in Mystical Religion_, p. 225.) It

may be doubted if Sankara's distinction between the Higher and Lower

Brahman is to be found in the Upanishads but it is probably the best

means of harmonizing the discrepancies in those works which Indian

theologians feel bound to explain away.]

[Footnote 776: Vedanta sutras, II. 1. 32-3, and Sankara's commentary,

_S.B.E._ vol. XXXIV. pp. 356-7. Ramanuja holds a similar view and it

is very common in India, _e.g._ Vishnu Pur. I. chap. 2.]

[Footnote 777: See too a remarkable passage in his comment on

Brahma-sutras, II. 1. 23. "As soon as the consciousness of

non-difference arises in us, the transmigratory state of the

individual soul and the creative quality of Brahman vanish at once,

the whole phenomenon of plurality which springs from wrong knowledge

being sublated by perfect knowledge and what becomes then of the

creation and the faults of not doing what is beneficial and the

like?"]

[Footnote 778: Although Sankara's commentary is a piece of severe

ratiocination, especially in its controversial parts, yet he holds

that the knowledge of Brahman depends not on reasoning but on

scripture and intuition. "The presentation before the mind of the

Highest Self is effected by meditation and devotion." Brah. Sut. III.

2. 24. See too his comments on I. 1. 2 and II. 1. 11.]

[Footnote 779: See Sukhtankar, _Teachings of Vedanta according to

Ramanuja_, pp. 17-19. Walleser, _Der aeltere Vedanta_, and De la

Vallee Poussin in _J.R.A.S._ 1910, p. 129.]

[Footnote 780: This term is generally rendered by qualified, that is

not absolute, Monism. But South Indian scholars give a slightly

different explanation and maintain that it is equivalent to

_Visishtayor advaitam_ or the identity of the two qualified

(_visishta_) conditions of Brahman. Brahman is qualified by _cit_ and

_acit_, souls and matter, which stand to him in the relation of

attributes. The two conditions are _Karyavastha_ or period of cosmic

manifestation in which _cit_ and _acit_ are manifest and

_Karanavastha_ or period of cosmic dissolution, when they exist only

in a subtle state within Brahman. These two conditions are not

different (_advaitam_). See Srinivas Iyengar, _J.R.A.S._ 1912, p. 1073

and also _Sri Ramanujacarya: His Philosophy_ by Rajagopalacharyar.]

[Footnote 781: Compare the phrase of Keats in a letter quoted by

Bosanquet, _Gifford Lectures for 1912_, p. 66. "As various as the

lives of men are, so various become their souls and thus does God make

individual beings, souls, identical souls of the sparks of his own

essence."]

[Footnote 782: This tenet is justified by Brihad Aran. Up. III. 3 ff.

which is a great text for Ramanuja's school. "He who dwells in the

earth (water, etc.) and within the earth (or, is different from the

earth) whom the earth knows not, whose body the earth is, who rules

the earth within, he is thyself, the ruler within, the immortal."]

[Footnote 783: Bhag.-gita, XV. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 784: The two doctrines are called _Vivartavada_ and

_Parinamavada._]

[Footnote 785: These are only the more subtle _tattvas_. There are

also 60 gross ones. See for the whole subject Schomerus Der

Caiva-Siddhanta, p. 129.]

[Footnote 786: It also finds expression in myths about the division of

the deity into male and female halves, the cosmic egg, etc., which are

found in all strata of Indian literature.]

[Footnote 787: An account of tantric cosmology can be found in Avalon,

_Mahan. Tantra_, pp xix-xxxi. See also Avalon, _Prapancasara Tantra_,

pp. 5 ff.; Srinivasa Iyengar, _Indian Philosophy_, pp. 143 and 295

ff.; Bhandarkar, _Vaishn. and Saivism_, pp. 145 ff.]

[Footnote 788: Sarva-darsana-sangraha, chap. IX. For this doctrine in

China see Wieger _Histoire des Croyances religieuses en Chine_, p.

411.]

[Footnote 789: See Yule's _Marco Polo_, II. pp. 365, 369.]

[Footnote 790: See Rhys Davids' note in his _Dialogues of the Buddha

on Digha Nikaya_, Sutta V. pp. 166 ff. He seems to show that Lokayata

meant originally natural philosophy as a part of a Brahman's education

and only gradually acquired a bad meaning. The Arthasastra also

recommends the Sankhya, Yoga and Lokayata systems.]

[Footnote 791: Maitr. Up. VII. 8.]

[Footnote 792: See also Suali in _Museon_, 1908, pp. 277 ff. and the

article Materialism (Indian) in _E.R.E._ For another instance of

ancient materialism see the views of Payasi set forth in Dig. Nik.

XXIII. The Brihad Ar. Up. III. 2. 13 implies that the idea of body

and spirit being disintegrated at death was known though perhaps not

relished.]

[Footnote 793: Translation by Shea and Troyer, vol. II. pp. 201-2.]

[Footnote 794: _Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Adyar Library_, 1908, pp.

300-1.]