English
It is no doubt true that all defects are due to false knowledge and are removed by right knowledge; yet it would be wrong to count the defects as being of only one kind of false knowledge (mithya@-jnana); for the three defects are psychologically felt to have three distinctive characteristics. Jayanta, while admitting that the feelings of attachment or antipathy are due to ignorance, considers them to be psychologically so important as to be re- garded as independent springs of action. Thus, while he was in nominal agreement with Vatsyayana in regarding attachment and antipathy as being due to moha, he felt their independent : 1 Tesam dosanam trayo rasayo bhavanti rago dveso moha iti. Nydya-mafjari, Pp 500. 414 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. psychological importance and counted them as parallel defects prompting our efforts. Patajfijali divides all our actions into two classes, vicious (Alista) and virtuous (aklista). The virtuous actions are prompted by our natural propensity towards emancipation, while the vicious ones are prompted by ignorance (avidya), egoism (asmita), attachment (raga), antipathy (dvesa) and the will to live (abhinivesa). The latter four, though of the nature of feeling, are yet regarded as being only manifestations of the growth and development of ignorance (avidya). It is a characteristic peculiarity of the Samkhya philosophy that thoughts and feelings are not regarded there as being intrinsically different; for the gunas form the materials of both thoughts and feelings. What is thought in one aspect is feeling in another. It was on this account that false knowledge could be considered to have developed into the feelings of egoism, attachment and antipathy, and could be regarded as being of the same stuff as false knowledge. In the Nyaya psychology, thought and feelings being considered intrinsically different, a difficulty was felt in reconciling the fact that, while ignorance could be regarded as being the cause of the feelings of attachment and anti- pathy, the latter could not be regarded as being identical with ignorance (moha). Jayanta, therefore, while he traced raga and dvesa to moha, ontologically considered them as parallel factors determining our actions psychologically. In the Samkhya-Yoga metaphysics this difficulty could be obviated ; for that school did not consider feelings to be different from thoughts, since the thoughts are themselves made up of feeling-stuff; hence even false know- ledge (avidya) need not be regarded as being wholly an intellectual element, since it is itself the product of the feeling-stuff—the gunas. It is needless to refer in detail to the theories of the springs of action in other systems of Indian thought. From what has already been said it would appear that most systems of Indian Philosophy consider false knowledge to be at the root of all our worldly activities through the mediation of feelings of attachment, antipathy and self-love. There is an inherent pessimism in most systems of Indian thought, which consider that normally we are all under the evil influence of false knowledge and are all gliding on the downward path of sins and afflictions. They also consider that all attachments lead to bondage and slavery to passions, and thereby lead us away from the path of liberation. Actions are XIII] Springs of action in the Caraka-samhita 415 judged as good or bad according as they lead to liberation or bondage; their efficacy is in securing the transcendental realization of the highest truth and the cessation of rebirth, or obscuration of the nature of reality and exposure to the miseries of rebirth. But Caraka gives us a scheme of life in which he traces the Springs of all our actions to the three fundamental motives or bio- logical instincts of life-preservation, worldly desire of acquiring riches for enjoyment, and other worldly aspirations of self-realiza- tion. According to him these three fundamental desires sum up all springs of action. On this view will appears to be more funda- mental than feeling or knowledge. Caraka does not seem to begin from the old and stereotyped idea that false knowledge is the starting-point of the world. His is a scheme of a well-balanced life which is guided by the harmonious play of these three funda- mental desires and directed by perfect wisdom and unerring judg- ment. Evil and mischief creep in through errors of judgment, by which the harmony of these desires is broken. All kinds of mis- deeds are traced, not to feelings of attachment or antipathy, but to errors of judgment or foolishness (prajfiaparadha). 'This prajna- paradha may be compared to the moha or avidya of the Nyaya and Yoga. But, while the Nyaya and Yoga seem to refer to this moha or avidya as a fundamental defect inherent in our mental constitution and determining its activities as a formative element, Caraka’s prajnaparadha is not made to occupy any metaphysical status, but expresses itself only in the individual lapses of judgment. Caraka, however, did not dare to come into conflict with the prevailing ethical and philosophical opinions of his time, and we find that in Sarira, 1 he largely accepts the traditional views. He says there that it is the phenomenal self (bhatatman or samyoga- purusa) that feels pleasure and pain, and in connection with the duty of a physician to remove all physical sufferings produced by diseases he says that the ultimate healing of all pain consists in the permanent naisthiki (removal) of pain by the removal of grasping (upadha)'. He says there that grasping (upadhd) is itself sorrowful and the cause of all sorrows. All sorrows can be re- moved by the removal of all grasping tendencies. Just as a silk- worm draws out its cocoon thread to its own destruction, so does 1 Cakrapani interprets upadhda as desire (trsnd); but it seems to me that it would have been more correct to interpret it as the Buddhist updddna, or grasping. Cakrapani on Caraka, Iv. 1. 93. 416 Speculations in the Medical Schools [cH. the miserable man of ignorance draw desires and longings from the objects of sense. He is wise indeed who considers all objects as fire and withdraws. himself from them. With the cessation of all actions (anarambha) and dissociation from sense-objects there is no more fear of being afflicted with sorrows. Sorrows, again, are said to proceed from four causes, namely, the wrong notion of non- eternal things (e.g. sense-objects) as eternal (buddhi-vibhramsa), the want of the power of controlling the mind from undesirable courses (dhrti-vibhramsa), forgetfulness of the nature of right knowledge (smyti-vibhramsa) and the adoption of unhygienic courses (asatmya- arthagama). Prajnaparadha is defined here as a wrong action that is done through the confusion of intelligence and want of self- control and right knowledge (dhi-dhrti-smrti-vibhrasta), and this is supposed to rouse up all maladies and defects (sarva-dosa- prakopana). Some of the offences that may be counted under prajhaparadha are as follows: to set things in motion, to try to stop moving objects, to let the proper time for doing things pass by, to begin an action in the wrong manner, not to behave in the accustomed manner, not to behave modestly and politely, to insult respected persons, to go about in wrong places or at wrong times, to take objects which are known to be harmful, not to abide by the proper course of conduct described in the Caraka-samhita, I. 1. 6; the passions of jealousy, vanity, fear, anger, greed, ignorance, egoism, errors, all actions prompted by these and whatever else that is prompted by ignorance (moha) and self-ostentation (rajas). Prajnaparadha is further defined as error of judgment (visama- vynana) and as wrong enterprise (visama-pravartana), proceeding out of wrong knowledge or erroneous judgment. It will thus appear that it is wise to take prajnaparadha in the wider sense of error of judgment or misapplied intelligence, regarding it as the cause of all kinds of moral depravity, unhealthy and unhygienic habits and accidental injuries of all kinds. As Caraka admitted the existence of the self and of rebirth and regarded moral merit (dharma) and demerit (adharma) as the causes of all human enjoyment and sufferings, and of the productivity or unproductivity of the ground, and the hygienic or unhygienic conditions of water, air and the seasons, he had to include within prajfaparadha the causes that led to vices and sins. The causes of all sorrows are, firstly, wrong consideration of the non-eternal as eternal and of the injurious as good; secondly, want of self-control; and, thirdly, the defect of XIII] Springs of action in the Caraka-samhita 417 memory (smrti-bhramsa), through which the right knowledge and right experience of the past cannot be brought into effect. Thus, though in a sense Caraka compromises with the traditional schools of philosophy in including philosophical ignorance or miscon- ception within prajfiaparadha, and though he thinks that philo- sophical ignorance produces sins, yet he takes prajfaparadha in the very wide sense of error of judgment, leading to all kinds of transgression of laws of health and laws of society and custom, risky adventures, and all other indiscreet and improper actions. Prajnaparadha, therefore, though it includes the philosophical moha of the traditional school of philosophy, is yet something very much more, and is to be taken in the wider sense of error of judgment. Caraka, no doubt, admits jealousy, vanity, anger, greed, ignorance (moha), etc., as producing improper action, but he admits many other causes as well. But the one supreme cause of all these subsidiary causes is prajnaparadha, or error of judgment, taken in its wide sense.