English
Karma, according to the Yoga-vasistha,is nothing but thought- activity manifesting itself as subject-object knowledge. Abandon- ment of karma therefore means nothing short of abandonment of thought-activity or the process of knowledge”. Cessation of karma thus means the annihilation of knowledge. The stirring of karma or activity of thought is without any cause; but it is due to this activity that the ego and all other objects of thought come into being; the goal of all our endeavours should be the destruction of all knowledge, the unconscious, stone-like knowledgeless state*. As there are seven progressive stages, so there are also seven kinds of beings according to the weakness or strength of their vasanas. ‘There are svapna-jagara, sankalpa-jagara, kevala- jagrat-sthita, ciraj-jagrat-sthita, ghana-jagrat-sthita, jagrat-svapna and ksina-jagaraka. Svapna-jagara (dream-awake) persons are those who in some past state of existence realized in dream experience all our present states of being and worked as dream persons (svapna- nara). The commentator in trying to explain this says that it is not impossible ; for everything is present everywhere in the spirit, so it is possible that we, as dream persons of their dream experience, should be present in their minds in their vasana forms (tad-antah-karane vasanatmana sthitah)*. As both past and present have no existence except in thought, time is in thought reversible, so that our exist- ence at a time future to theirs does not necessarily prevent their having an experience of us in dreams. For the limitations of time and space do not hold for thought, and as elements in thought everything exists everywhere (sarvam sarvatra vidyate)>. By dreams these persons may experience changes of life and even attain to final emancipation. The second class, the sankalpa-jagaras, are those who without sleeping can by mere imagination continue to con- ceive all sorts of activities and existences, and may ultimately attain emancipation. The third class, the kevala-jagaras, are those who are born in this life for the first time. When such beings pass 1 This turiydtita stage should not be confused with the sixth stage of susupti, which 1 is often described as a stage of pure bliss. sarvesam karmanadm evam vedanam bijam uttamam svariipam cetayitvantas tatah spandah pravartate. Yoga-vasistha, vi. 11. 2. 26. 3 Tbid. 111. 15. 16. 4 Ibid. vi. 2. 50.9. Tadtparya-prakdsa. 5 Ibid. xT] Methods of Right Conduct 267 through more than one life, they are called cira-jagaras. Such beings, on account of their sins, may be born as trees, etc., in which case they are called ghana-jagaras. Those of such beings suffering rebirth who by study and good association attain right knowledge are called jagrat-svapna-sthita; and finally, those that have reached the turya state of deliverance are called ksina-jagaraka. Bondage (bandha), according to the Yoga-vasistha, remains so long as our knowledge has an object associated with it, and de- liverance (moksa) is realized when knowledge is absolutely and ultimately dissociated from all objects and remains in its tran- scendent purity, having neither an object nor a subject!. Methods of Right Conduct. The Yoga-vasistha does not enjoin severe asceticism or the ordinary kinds of religious gifts, ablutions or the like for the realiza- tion of our highest ends, which can only be achieved by the control of attachment (raga), antipathy (dvesa), ignorance (tamah), anger (Rrodha), pride (mada), and jealousy (matsarya), followed by the right apprehension of the nature of reality”. So long as the mind is not chastened by the clearing out of all evil passions, the per- formance of religious observances leads only to pride and vanity and does not produce any good. The essential duty of an enquirer consists in energetic exertion for the achievement of the highest end, for which he must read the right sort of scriptures (sac-chdastra) and associate with good men’. He should somehow continue his living and abandon even the slightest desire of enjoyment (bhoga- gandham parityajet), and should continue critical thinking (vicara). On the question whether knowledge or work, jaana or karma, is to be accepted for the achievement of the highest end, the Yoga- vasistha does not, like Sankara, think that the two cannot jointly be taken up, but on the contrary emphatically says that, just as a jnanasya jneyatapattir bandha ity abhidhiyate tasyaiva jneyata-santir moksa ity abhidhiyate. Yoga-vasistha, V1. 11. 190. 1. a sva-paurusa-prayatnena vivekena vikasina sa devo jfiayate rama na tapah-sndna-karmabhih. Ibid. 111. 6. 9. 3 Good men are defined in the Yoga-vasistha as follows: dese yam sujana-praya lokah sadhum pracaksate sa visistah sa sddhuh syat tam prayatnena samsrayet. Ibid. 111. 6. 20. 268 The Philosophy of the Yoga-vdsistha [cH. a bird flies with its two wings, so an enquirer can reach his goal through the joint operation of knowledge and work’. The main object of the enquirer being the destruction of citia, all his endeavours should be directed towards the uprooting of instinctive root inclinations (vdsana), which are the very substance and root of the citta. The realization of the truth (tattva-jfana), the destruction of the vasandas and the destruction of the citta all mean the same identical state and are interdependent on one another, so that none of them can be attained without the other. So, aban- doning the desire for enjoyment, one has to try for these three together; and for this one has to control one’s desires on one hand and practise breath-control (prana-nirodhena) on the other; and these two would thus jointly co-operate steadily towards the final goal. Such an advancement is naturally slow, but this progress, provided it is steady, is to be preferred to any violent efforts to hasten (hatha) the result?. Great stress is also laid on the necessity of self-criticism as a means of loosening the bonds of desire and the false illusions of world-appearance and realizing the dissocia- tion from attachment (asazga)*. Yoga-vasistha, Sankara Vedanta and Buddhist Vijnhanavada. To a superficial reader the idealism of the Yoga-vdsistha may appear to be identical with the Vedanta as interpreted by Sankara; and in some of the later Vedanta works of the Sankara school, such as the Fivan-mukti-viveka, etc., so large a number of questions dealt with in the Yoga-vasistha occur that one does not readily imagine that there may be any difference between this idealism and that of Sankara. This point therefore needs some discussion. The main features of Sankara’s idealism consist in the doctrine that the self-manifested subject-objectless intelligence forms the ultimate and unchangeable substance of both the mind (antahka- rana) and the external world. Whatever there is of change and mutation is outside of this Intelligence, which is also the Reality. But, nevertheless, changes are found associated with this reality or Brahman, such as the external forms of objects and the diverse mental states. These are mutable and have therefore a different kind of indescribable existence from Brahman; but still they are 1 Yoga-vasistha, 1. 1.7, 8. 2 Ibid. v. 92. 3 Ibid. v. 93. XII] Buddhist and Vedanta Idealism 269 somehow essentially of a positive nature!, Sankara’s idealism does not allow him to deny the existence of external objects as apart from perceiving minds, and he does not adhere to the doctrine of esse est percipi. Thus he severely criticizes the views of the Buddhist idealists, who refuse to believe in the existence of external objects as apart from the thoughts which seem to represent them. Some of these arguments are of great philosophical interest and remind one of similar arguments put forth by a contemporary British Neo-realist in refutation of Idealism. The Buddhists there are made to argue as follows: When two entities are invariably perceived simultaneously they are identical ; now knowledge and its objects are perceived simultaneously ; therefore the objects are identical with their percepts. Our ideas have nothing in the external world to which they correspond, and their existence during dreams, when the sense-organs are uni- versally agreed to be inoperative, shows that for the appearance of ideas the operation of the sense-organs, indispensable for estab- lishing connection with the so-called external world, is unneces- sary. If it is asked how, if there are no external objects, can the diversity of percepts be explained, the answer is that such diversity may be due to the force of vadsanas or the special capacity of the particular moment associated with the cognition”. If the so-called external objects are said to possess different special capacities which would account for the diversity of percepts, the successive moments of the mental order may also be considered as possessing special distinctive capacities which would account for the diversity of percepts generated by those cognition moments. In dreams it is these diverse cognition moments which produce diversity of percepts. Sankara, in relating the above argument of the Buddhist idealist, says that external objects are directly perceived in all our per- ceptions, and how then can they be denied? In answer to this, if it is held that there is no object for the percepts excepting the sensations, or that the existence of anything consists in its being perceived, that can be refuted by pointing to the fact that the inde- pendent existence of the objects of perception, as apart from their being perceived, can be known from the perception itself, since the 1 See the account of Sankara Vedanta in my A History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 1, Cambridge, 1922, chapter x. ’ 2 Kasyacid eva jnana-ksanasya sa tadrsah simarthyatisayo vasana-parinamah.