English
34-73 LECTURE III FROM AUTHORITY TO FREEDOM : FROM 3RUTI TO ANUBIIUTI The problem of Authority, Revelation or Sruti versus Freedom, Reasoning or Tarka in the Vedanta—Solvent in Samkara’s dictum as the Eastern replica of the Scholastic phrase philosophia ancilla theologice —Revelatibn construed in a philo* sophical sense—Vedantic approach to Reality CONTENTS through the psychology of dreams—Importance of dream and dreamless sleep in a metaphysical con¬ struction—The status of Self as Illumination, and Bliss—Views of Kant, Hegel and Samkara on the point compared—Continuity and gradation of our conscious life—Vedantie insistence on the fourfold ethical discipline as propaedeutic to the study of metaphysics—Age-long conflict between Faith and Reason solved in the recognition that the whole course of metaphysical discipline for the Vedantist is a personalisation of the revealed mysteries of faith LECTURE IV AN APPROACH THROUGH EPISTEMOLOGY The Vedanta ushering itself into existence by way of a Faith that enquires—Importance of jijfldsd in this regardr-True nature of the Atman as the desideratum of the philosophic inquiry— Vedantie Brahman or the Absolute as satyasya &atyam or as the Self of all selves—Final charac¬ terisation of Brahman as Anandam , and its impli¬ cation—Objectivity of Brahman as the standard of values—Samkara-Vedanta a's an Eastern type of anti-pragmatism or realism—Vedantie theory of Truth LECTURE V ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE xyii Page 74-107 108-89 No absolute beginning of Truth, pursuit of truth being only a matter of progressive initiation, CONTENTS KViti not progress from ignorance to knowledge but knowledge in progress —Prasiddhi or experientia vaga as the startingrpoint in the search after truth —Epistemological analysis of the original datum of experience—Theories of Determinate and In¬ determinate knowledge, Eastern and Western, compared and contrasted —Adhyasa as the under¬ lying principle of every judgment according to Sarnkara-Vedanta—Theories of illusion sponsored by different schools of Indian philosophy—The Import of Propositions according to Advaita- Ved&nta—Its bearing on the Vedantic * Tattvam- asi ’ which is an analytico-synthetic proposition —Truth ultimately consisting in Revelation ad modum recipients—Brahman or Reality as the terminus ad quern of all criteria of truth and as verum index sui LECTURE VI THE DIALECTIC OF THE VEDANTA The ipoving spring of the Vedanta dialectic— (i) Dialectic of Experience—Identity of Being and Consciousness, the concept of bheda being logically untenable—Sarpkara versus Ramanuja on the analysis of consciousness as foreshadowing their respective metaphysics—No incompatibility in the end between the admission of empirical reality of the manifold with that of its unreality from the standpoint of the Absolute— (it) Dialectic of Relation—Relation, a self-contradictory concept, involving a regressus ad infinitum —Resulting con¬ cept of abh&ddfy or ananyatvam which is usually mistaken for Identity Paoe 140-08 169-205 CONTENTS LECTURE VII BRAHMAN AND MAYA : THE* METAPHYSICS OP THE VEDANTA Maya a descriptive and not an explanatory term—Approach through the Vedantic analysis of causation—Samkara’s examination of the rival theories of causation—Dialectic of causation lead¬ ing to that of ajflanam —Concentration upon the meaning and function of Maya —Different versions of Maya and Avidya in Advaita-Vedanta school LECTURE VIII ISVARA AND BRAHMAN : GOD AND THE ABSOLUTE lsvara as ‘ Brahman cast through the moulds of logic ’—Status of I&vara or Saguna Brahman in Advaita-Vedanta metaphysics—Different theories of the relation between Brahman and Maya , I&vara and Jiva in the Advaita-Vedanta school—Compari¬ son of these with kindred theories in the West— No Uvara or creator from the side of the Absolute according to Saipkara—Samkara’s criticism of the Pasupata theism ... f LECTURE IX ISVARA AS CREATOR AND CREATION AS LILA : THE THEISM OF THE VEDANTA Lila as an explanatory principle of creation— The constitutive elements of its meaning, positive as well as negative— Lila as a golden mean between the Agnostic and the Anthropomorphic, between XIX Page 206-38 239-69 CONTENTS XX. the Deterministic and the Indeterministic, between the Mechanistic and the Teleological account of creation—The element of determination in the creative act which is admittedly undetermined— Ultimate value of Lila as an explanatory theory of creation—Increasing importance of the concept of Lila in post-Saipkarite Vedanta ... LECTURE X JfVA 4ND JAGAT : INDIVIDUAL AND THE WORLD Individuation as the central fact of creation— Every finite individual as the embodiment of the Supreme Being conceived as Anandah or Ra&ah — Chitta as the principium indivuluationis constitu¬ ting a graded hierarchy of souls—Distinction be¬ tween the swarupa and the sambandhirupa of a finite individual in Samkara along with a clear-cut emphasis on the former—The substantive or the adjectival nature of Individuality—Different theories bearing on the point in the schools of Vedantic thought—The first-born in creation— The creative evolution envisaged by Advaita- Vedanta LECTURE XI THE ETHICS OF THE VEDANTA Individuality or Jivatvam as exemplifying the immanence of the Divine in the human is an ethical category—Episodic character of individual¬ ity as well as of moral distinctions recognised by Advaita-Vedanta in the Unitive life of the ideal sage—Course of moral life originating with a rigid Page 270-302 80387 CONTENTS antithesis between the heteronomy of nature and the autonomy of the Spirit, and a code of injunc¬ tions and prohibitions culminating in Moksha or liberation—Realisation of the oneness of Self, the high-water mark of Perfection, as the moving spring of Advaita-Vedanta—Problem of free will, and Samkara’s solution of it, through the distinc¬ tion between prakrtih and swabhdvah in the self- determination of man as a spiritual being—Ques¬ tion of Mok&ha as the Life Eternal and the dis¬ ciplines incidental thereto—The validity of the Ethics of the Vedanta bound up with the meta¬ physical question of the reality of self—Illustration of the point from the controversy of Personal Idealism versus Absolute Idealism in the West ... LECTURE XII THE CCLTUKAL VALUE OF THE VEDANTA: A RETROSPECT Place of the Vedanta as a factor in World- Culture—Subordination, rather than deification, of the intellectual ideals to one Supreme Good the main tendency of Indian philosophy, and of the Vedanta in particular—Review of the main find¬ ings in the foregoing lectures—Deussen’s compari¬ son of the New Testament with the Upanishads examined—Vedantism as the cult of 4 no-cult 4 or, of 4 Justice in the name of the Whole to each aspect of the world *—Vedantism as attuned to the vision of a Church Invisible is destined to succeed, where others have failed, in the making of the International or cosmopolitan mind ... XXI Page 338-71 372-404 INDEX 405 LECTURE I Introduction If philosophy is but life brought to the focus of self-consciousness, then, assuredly, Vedanta, as Max Muller puts it, “ is clearly the native philoso¬ phy of India.”* Such a testimony, veridical as it is, is not to be accepted, however, without im¬ portant reservations. His concluding reflection, “ that, with the Hindus, the fundamental ideas of the Vedanta have pervaded the whole of their litera¬ ture, have leavened the whole of their language, and form to the present day the common property of the people at large,” may not unfairly be taken as an excursus on the initial statement. That Vedanta has, through the ages, gone on embodying the inmost stirrings of the soul of India is a pronouncement that bespeaks the depth of insight and imaginative sympathy which the Professor brings to the execu¬ tion of his task—a task which, be it remembered, like the drawing of the bow of Ulysses by any lesser hand is attended with grave peril. It is to such a nature alone that is given the key to unlock the mysteries of the heart of India; for it is deep that * The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy, p. 1611. 2 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDINTA calleth unto deep. Truly, here as elsewhere, many are called but few are chosen and to him (hat is chosen is vouchsafed the bliss of realisation.* And thus will burst upon us, with a flash of inner mean¬ ing, the full import of the much misunderstood saying—‘ to him that hath shall be given.’ It is idle to deny that many a sojourner in this realm, with all their ardour to make a pilgrimage into the heart of Arydvarta, have stopped at the mere outh posts, admiring, like Mammon, the ‘ trodden gold ’ more than the ‘vision beatific.’ Critics, again, there have been whose interest in the Vedanta extends so far as it serves as the target of the charges improvised ad hoc to meet the exigencies of the situation—the charges, namely, of nihilism, acos- mism illusionism, solipsism or even pantheism. Verily, they have their rewards, all and sundry! But, ‘ ‘ de profundis ’ ’ is the unanimous verdict of all such critics, whatever they may otherwise choose to think about its merits as a philosophical system. As already premised, Max Muller’s statement is to be punctuated with forward reference to what it may, not improperly, imply. The phrase ‘ native philosophy ' may, for aught we know, easily be paraphrased into the much too complacent assurance that we are all ‘ born Ved&ntists.’ If it means no more than that ideas of the Vedanta permeate and enliven the cultural atmosphere in a way in which those of other indigenous systems of thought do not, then the interpretation is clearly beyond challenge.