English
Bertrand Bussell following an altogether different approach to philosophy, substantially agrees with Samkara on this point, and places ‘ desire ’ under a ban as being ‘ the last prison-house of the intel¬ lect.’ The third discipline in the list is made up of six minor ones which are of a more practical character and thus fittingly to be called sadhana- sampat (qnHWtiq). They are respectively :--- ‘ tranquillity ’ or ‘ control of mind ’ (sjn:), T restraint of the external organs ’ (?n;), * renunciation’ or ‘ detachment ’ ‘ patience ’ (faf?W), ‘ peaceful repose of the mind ’ and faith ’ teiT) • These disciplines are expected to bring about a complete change of heart—a Platonic ‘ turning round of the eye of the soul.’ The fourth and the last is the desire or longing for liberation * Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Abbot’s edition), p. 206 . 104 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA from bondage ( ), which is the tacit pre¬ supposition of the three other disciplines and the immediate pre-condition of the philosophic impulse. The question of faith or belief (ssrtt) as a meta¬ physical discipline recoils upon the central theme of this lecture. It stands apparently in a hostile relation to reason which is accepted as the only organ of philosophic thinking. Like the ‘ old feud between poetry and philosophy, ’ faith versus reason has proved to be the family quarrel of a divided house as old as the Mediaeval philosophy. We are not concerned here with an historic orientation of this ancient strife. If all knowledge, according to Advaita-Vedanta is revelation, that is to say, a manifestation and not an absolute production, of that Atman which as of the very stuff of intelligence or knowledge (fSraPTO is eternally accomplished (fararfafam:) then the function cf philosophy is to interpret and rationalise Revelation. This is not, however, an attempt to square the circle, for all opposition between the two is initially dis¬ armed. But in order that the philosophical inquiry may be set on foot, some kind of provisional belief (W> is necessary. Such a belief is induced by Sdbda or Agama (*n*W:) as the Word or Xo'yos —functioning not as an extra-philosophical authority but as the collective spiritual experience of the race. Every judgment or proposition fcratj) to which the Vedantic judgments form no exception, is the embodiment of a meaning, and all meanings are objective in embodiment of a meaning, and all PROM AUTHORITY TO FREEDOM 105 meanings are objective in the sense that they have no special reference to any individual consciousness. Belief is, undoubtedly, the acceptance of a judgment as true by some individual consciousness. Now, belief, whatever else it might be, is not knowledge. That being so, to start with belief in the Sruti texts betrays an uncritical, and for the matter of that, an unphilosophical frame of mind. But such belief, although not knowledge itself, is at least continuous with it. It is thus anticipatory knowledge or reve¬ lation, and has its sole justification in what it leads to. It is only a cheap gnosticism or hypercritical scepticism that presumes to do without such a basis of philosophy. “Philosophy,” says Bradley, “ demands and in the end it rests on what may fairly be termed faith. It has, we may say, in a sense to presuppose its conclusion in order to prove it. It tacitly assumes something in general to be true in order to carry this general truth out in detail.”* Without running counter to sound epistemology, Samkara, it is to be noted carefully, accepts the priority of faith to reason ‘ as a purifier of the heart, as subduing human passion, as illuminating the intellect and thus disposing man to make a prudent and reverent use of his reason. in contact with the revealed , mysteries of faith.’t The Vi^igtadvaita school of Ramanuja un¬ reservedly accepts the authority of the scriptures * Essays on Truth and Reality, Chap. I, p. 10. t P. Oofley, Epistemology, Vol. n. li A SYSTEMATIC STtJDY OF THE VEDANTA (WWWWWII0 The knowledge of a supreme Reality is to be had, according to Ramanuja, only through the testras —a position which follows from a literal carrying out of the sutra Mstrayonitvdt Tq). Although reason is brought into requisition for a justification of the scriptures, it is the latter that are hailed as the sole repository of knowledge regarding the realm beyond the senses. On a judicious estimate of the respective positions of Samkara and Ramanuja on this point it appears that Ramanuja is more of a Revelationist than Samkara. Whether in the conferring of authorita¬ tiveness (i|j(44!tl7N'gP{) on smrtis and the epics, on mere aitihya or tradition, or in crown¬ ing the apparatus of knowledge with continuous meditation partaking of the character of devotion this tendency is clearly noticeable. To sum up, therefore, philosophy may be said, from the standpoint of Advaita-Vedanta, to have its beginning and end in Revelation. It is impersonal to begin with, and is personal in the end. It begins with and ends in AnubfmU foaftgfin ), thereby making the spiritual heritage of mankind a personal possession. Viewed thus, the attitude of faith or Araddhd fanrr) bespeaks a frame of mind far from .unphilosophical. It is rather the recog¬ nition of the all-important consideration that truth w ni^KUT Will VW WWW .' .. .... r-Snbhagya, I, 1. i. FROM AUTHORITY TO FREEDOM cannot be created but only recognised, and such recognition of truth is only made possible by the 3ruti. If, as we believe, it is spirit that bears witness to spirit, it is 3ruti as the living embodi¬ ment of intuitions of seers, handing on the torch of illumination from age to age, that alone can be the teacher in matters pertaining to the spirit. It is to this pressure of the Universal upon the indivi¬ dual that philosophy owes its individuality as well as vitality. Philosophy is but such corporate experience brought to a luminous personal focus. LECTURE IV An Approach through Epistemology If, as we are concerned to maintain, philoso¬ phy depends in the end upon faith, it is neverthe¬ less a faith that enquires. The priority or primacy of faith in this regard does in no way compromise the position of reason or dispense with the necessity of reasoning altogether. Reason or tarka is employed to act as an intermediary or principal agency in translating the impersonal historical cer¬ titude of Sruti into the certitude of personal experi¬ ence. The entire process may thus be viewed as a personalisation of faith. It has been rightly re¬ marked, therefore, that ‘ the human mind is so constituted that only intrinsic evidence necessarily compels assent. No matter how great the autho¬ rity of the witness, assent is impossible unless the truth in question is luminous to us, is felt as such by us.’* This explains the justified emphasis on an epistemological approach to the metaphysics of the Vedanta. It is here that we have a foretaste of the Vedantic method, which studiously avoids, alike, the aberrations of Dogmatism and Criticism. Thinking always proceeds by questioning experi¬ ence, and unless there be in evidence this question- * Coffey, EpitUmology, Vol, : II. AH APPROACH THROUGH EPISTEMOLOGY 109 ing spirit or jijMsd ( ftnjTOT ) the pursuit of truth becomes an impossibility. JijMsd (fannHT) has, therefore, not only an abiding value for pedagogics, but a plain epistemological meaning. Accordingly, the very first s&tra of Badarayana—‘ then, there¬ fore, an enquiry into Brahman ’ AS lfsn nHT) —may in all fairness be taken as being symptomatic of a philosophic frame of mind. The term jijMsd ( fsrc il W ) can hardly be rendered by its supposed English equivalent ‘enquiry : ‘ it is far more radical in its significance than what is implied in the bare act of enquiry, comprehending, as it does, within its scope ‘ the whole process from its mental incep¬ tion of the act in desire to the accomplishment of the intended result in knowledge.’* It is thus only that the integrity and philosophical importance of jijMsd can be sustained. What does this jijMsd, then, signify? By jijMsd, the author of the sutra suggests, as the Bhamati declares, a ‘ doubt ’ and a ‘ value ’ that is an object of our quest (fsnTTHHT ’ ^Wrfir). Thus, the enquiry (fgnsn^T ) is the ratio cognoscendi of doubt, while doubt is the ratio essendi of enquiry.! And it is this very doubt that gives the impulse to philosophic enquiry ( tfsrro iraturafa). “ The doubt here,” as Bradley truly observes, “ is not smothered or expelled but itself is assimilated and used up. It * swuftm d rt ttpt uywrcT Com. on V.S. I.x.i. t ftwrai f qww* qjnfir— Bh&matl on Com. on V.S. 1. 1 , i s llO A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA becomes an element in the living process of that which is above doubt, and hence its own develop¬ ment is the end of itself in its original character.”* Wonder, said Plato, is the parent of all philosophy while doubt, according to Descartes, is the begin¬ ning of philosophical thinking. Both refer, al¬ though by means of different designations, to the same inquisitive attitude of the mind in which we have the psychological genesis of philosophy. The Cartesian doubt, it is instructive to note, is simply a methodological discipline, a precept rather than a doctrine, a solvent brought to bear on the prob¬ lem of philosophic certitude. In point of fact, the Cartesian doubt is only a make-believe. If, how¬ ever, it be regarded as genuine, and not something fictitious, it cannot be universalised, as was done by Descartes. Universal doubt leads nowhere, and without a violation of reasoning it can never lead to certitude. If doubt be universal, why stop, we might pertinently ask, at the cogito ergo sum ?