English
” One way of escape from this impasse is a straight-forward denial of creation in the strict sense of the term, accompanied with the demonstra¬ tion that the supreme reality is, as in Erigena and Bruno, at once natura naturans and natura naturata. But no less marked is the tendency in the Bgveda to stave off the incidence of this pantheistic denial, and to envisage fully the problem of creation in a theistic regard. It is the far-famed Nasadiya Sukta* that affords a striking evidence of the ‘ hitter earnest ’ with which the problem of creation has been approached, and presented with a telling effect through an imagery that is commensurate with the grandeur of the theme. Here we have the un¬ ambiguous assertion of ‘ * That One ’ ’ with its central importance in a creative reference, who ‘ breathed by itself without breath, other than it, there was nothing.’! Although there is in the opening rk of this sUhta a problematic admission of a primeval deep abyss,—and elsewhere! a clear * Bgveda, X. 129. t *ii*M<hh at* i wi fwi Ibid., X. 129.'ii. | Ibid., X. 72. vi; X. 121 vii. THE VEDANTA IN THE MAKING 66 - enunciation of an all-encompassing water as a co¬ operating condition co-eval with the creator—the NSsadiya hymn may be taken as the very text of un¬ compromising monotheism, rounding itself off in a characteristic speculative monism of the agnostic or mystic type, with its inevitable ignoramus in the end. This is surely better than the story of creation told by a world-architect a Demiurgus (&r)iuovpyo<;) as the fashioner or manipulator of a pre-existent v\r) or unformed matter. In respect of its philosophic implications, the hymn compares more favourably with the cryptic utterance in the Book of Genesis where ‘ the spirit of God ’ ‘ moving on the face of the waters •’ is said to have imparted a quickening impulse to the creation of all that was to be. This original brooding or inward concentration of the creative impulse is suggested by the term ‘ tapas ’ (ma;) which is, at least in the Upanishads* identified with the creative principle or its modus operandi. The primary manifestation of this spiritual fervour of inwardisation is the impact of Desire ( Kdma ) as ‘ the primal seed of mind ’ which, as the fourth rk clearly lays down, serves to explain *(<*' wwt Vtafr mr qfl w n fa at w ft i unit *w: —Munijaka Up., I. i. 9. ( b ) * i wrawn n i —Taittirlya tip., II. 5, () lift ntft— Ibid. 9 66 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA ‘ the root of Being in Non-Being.’ Although this original seed of mind (jpnSt t?T.) clearly involves self-consciousness as its logical prius, the question of historical priority of the one or the other is irrele¬ vant in a philosophical reference. The query— which precedes which—is as futile as tEe squirrel’s chasing its own tail within the enclosure of its cage. As it has been well remarked, there is no first, but always, a second moment of consciousness. Ac¬ cordingly this original desire, which is confessedly the outstanding feature of a self-conscious Purusa (*at s *r rcnm> points unmistakably in the direction of an I-ness ( Ichheit ), as Fichte would say, which com¬ prehends as well as transcends the opposition of the ego and the non-ego, the subject and the object—a pure Ego, which is not so much a fact as an act, of which strictly speaking, nothing can be predicated except the bare fact of its being. Thus, the note on which the hymn closes is one of ultimate doubts and uncertainty; for, here we perceive that we have come to the end of our tether. The essential mystery of the creative act is clearly the burden of the last rk of the hymn in which we are told that He from whom this creation proceeded, whether he made it or dfd not, the highest seer in the highest of heavens. He forsooth knows it, or He might as well not know it!* Again, it is held,f as the concluding reflec¬ tion of the Rgvedic seer, that people do not and * As against the common agnostic strain in which the rk is interpreted by European scholars, Sayana, however, ihterprets it as “ He alone knows it.” t l^gveda, X, 82. 7. TUB VEDANTA IN THE MAKING 67 cannot comprehend Him who has created this , universe; inherently mystified they indulge in speculations of various kinds, while they go about catering to their brute necessities and uttering hymns or invocations ad libitum. The sentiment that inspired this reflection naturally looms large across the perspective of ages and commends itself to our acceptance when we find a notable philosopher of the present age confirming substantially the very same outlook. “We admit,” says Bradley in summing up his ‘ ultimate doubts,’ “ the healthy scepticism for which all knowledge in a sense is vanity, which feels in its heart that science is a, poor thing if measured by the wealth of the real universe. We justify the natural wonder which delights to stray beyond our daylight world, and to follow paths that lead into half-known, half-unknow¬ able regions. Our conclusion in brief, has explain-; ed and has confirmed the irresistible impression that, all is beyond us ”*—the ‘ impression ’ entertained, ‘ upon instinct ’ that ‘ to love unsatisfied the world is mystery, a mystery which love satisfied seems to comprehend/f It is, then, the logic of speculative thought that bids us march past the last outpost of monotheism with its basic concept of one Supreme Being or Purusa. As soon as this one God or God-creator emerges into limelight, He loses himself in light, or at best, is resurrected and recognised as the One * Appearance and Reality (2nd Ed.), p. 549. t Ibid., Preface; 68 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA of philosophic formulation or speculative monism. Thus is ushered into existence the last or final phase of Rgvedic thought, following the lead of a logical order of development. The Nasadlya Hymn may, therefore, be said to stand at the crossways, point¬ ing on the one hand to religion and, on the other, to philosophy, and marking, in effect, the transition from religion to philosophy. It is only superficial analysis that assimilates this hymn to that of Clean- thes to Zeus. The ‘ that One ’ (a^awOof Nasadlya Sukta has much more doctrinal affinity with the ' One Existent ’ of the famous Rgvedic text: * ‘ This one Being the wise call by various names Agni, Yama or M&tariifva ”* than with Zeus, ‘ nature’s Great King ’ * God, most glorious, called by many a name.’ This is, however, not a solitary instance of the speculative monism of the Rgveda, but there are to be found scattered in its texts definitely incul¬ cating a rigorous philosophical monism. Take for example, the refrain that occurs at the last line of each of the twenty-two rks or hymns of Sukta 55 of Mandala 3 : “ the great divinity of the gods is one ’ ’ • Then, again, it is maintained that this One became all these, f or that the sages represent in various ways this One Being4 Now, the generic feature common to all these texts is a pronounced unity faqrgfq) coupled with omni- ftgveda, I. 164. xliv, t <nf ^ top V3H. §& ii. t WlfoW vM ffwr wmvfa—Ibid., X.114. ▼. tfHB VEDANTA in the making 69 formity (fqn^qif), that is to say, a unity in variety, which is at the farthest remove from a barren uni¬ formity. There is no denying the fact that the unifying tendency of Rgvedic thought, as of Indian thought in general, has not infrequently come under the spell of the mystic’s Qne along with the false glamour encircling it. With ‘ a cloud of unknow¬ ing ’ on its face, the mystic’s ‘ One ’ or * Absolute ’ is too apt to lose itself in the clouds, or through sheer excess of light to suffer itself to be enveloped in a ‘Divine darkness.’ The effect, however, is the same in both the cases; and fhe mystic’s desire to exalt the One, however laudable within limits, illustrates the fate of ‘ Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other.’ Neverthe¬ less, it must not be forgotten that the mystic con¬ tention that ‘ a comprehended God is no God ’ has a saving grace as against a cheap gnosticism. “What discredits religion,’’ as it has been well said, “ is not the unknowableness of God, but the knowableness of Mumbo-Jumbo.’’* The culminating point, however, in this last phase of speculative monism is reached in the subs¬ tantiation of the Self or Ego, as the supreme creative principle, which may be said to mark the beginning of ego-centric worship (^n M t qwm) . In the first instance what i^ called the Vamadevlya Suktat * L. P. Jacks, Realities and Shams, p. 19. t to ’ urrw* qftrort ** g formt toPwiPi PlTOT TO?t TOTJFC TOWfl TWW TOTUt STOUT PllHd— Rgoeda, IV. Sttk&ft 26 apd 27* 70 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA inculcates the truth in its own figurative way thus : ‘ ‘ I have been Manu, I have been Suryya, I am the wise Rsi Kakslvan. While even in the womb I came to learn in due course about the nativity of these gods. Encased previously in a hundred bodies of iron, I have now emerged with the velocity of a hawk.” All that the last passage implies, as Sayana clearly brings out, is that Vamadeva emerged from the womb only when he realised that the soul- substance is distinct from the body and the rest of the material world. Stripped of all metaphor and myth, what this anecdote hints at is the truth that the inherent materialism of lumping together the body and the self, spells the bondage of the latter, and the knowledge that the self is essentially free can alone release it from the bondage in question. That is what later came in for recognition as scrip¬ tural wisdom or spiritual outlook (mmgfg :).