English
If know¬ ledge, as the Vedanta has it, is revelation, the advancement of knowledge must be viewed as pro¬ gressive initiation into truth, which is ultimately in perfect harmony with reality. All revelation, in point of fact, is ad modum recipientis, that is to say, proportionate to the receptive power of the person to whom something is revealed. This epistemological truth is implicit in the celebrated doctrine of adhikati-bhedah ( q fq qrrfc ifei ) or the law of accommodation which, however, steers clear of the inherent subjectivism of the Protagorean Homo Mensura. It rather leans towards the Bradleyan doctrine of ‘ Degrees of Truth,’ believ¬ ing, as it does, that the absolute distinction of truth and error, when measured by value, gives way to one of degree. But Samkara hastens to add that the conception of ‘ degrees ’ has meaning only for finite beings apprehending things. It is better, therefore, to speak of the degrees of adequacy with which Realitv is apprehended, and such apprehensions are 21 |g2 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA i, endlessly various. It is this fact that is rather in¬ elegantly expressed by the phrase * degrees of truth,’ for degrees are applicable rather to correctness than to truth, to beliefs or apprehensions (irfanffT.) as Sainkara would call them, than to judgments. There are, therefore, only degrees of completeness in our apprehension of objects, and degrees cf correctness in our beliefs about them. Indeed, the assumption of the reality of Degrees, ■whether honorary or otherwise, looks more like an academic prejudice than a matter of universal recognition. Such was dearly Samkara’s position when he affirmed that * the scripture, wishing to educate people about the primary or real self adapts itself to the popular understanding in so far as it refers to the body which, though other than the self, is by the dullards identified therewith; it then proceeds from the body to another self, and then another and so on, each successive representation having the same form as the preceding one, just as the statue possesses ■ the same form of the mould into which the molten brass had been poured; then, again to another one, always representing the not-self as the Self for the purpose of easier apprehension; and it winds up its teaching by inculcating that the inner¬ most self which consists of pure bliss is the real Self.’* vWM yw s wqsiwmmqMlqgffifr fwnc^ i—Com, on V.S., I.‘ 1. lii, ANALYSIS OB' EXPERIENCE 163 . We cannot afford to ignore here the divergent estimates that have been made of the Vedantie text of' d TE Wfif . Some have been staggered at' the acceptance of the identity ‘ with a literalness that is appalling.’* Some,t again, have detected in it nothing but ‘ subjective idealism upon which the whole doctrine finally depends.’ Without poaching into the domain of theology and metaphysics, we may say that the Vedantie Tattvamasi () is more of the nature of a precept than a doctrine, and as such it is a cryptic utterance, comprehending nevertheless in an implicit form, the whole develop¬ ment of the religious consciousness. It ushers it¬ self as a precept and ends by being a concrete intui¬ tion or experience. Is it not in the same vein that Jesus of Nazareth preached—‘ ‘ Be ye, therefore, perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,” for-he realised in the fullness of his experience and de¬ clared, “ I and my Father are one? ” There are undoubtedly persons who will throw up their hands in holy horror at the profanity of this blasphemous comparison, and point out with bated breath that ‘ I and my Father are one ’ can only be uttered by the Son of God. But what the Saqakara-Vedinta will urge by way of retort is this : “ Why not extend the same privilege to all men who are admittedly the sons of God that they may equally say, with that ideal Man: ‘ I am one with the Supreme Being ’ (tftaufa). ” That is why Saipkara criticising the * e.g., Prof. Howison in the ' Conception of Qod.’ t Boyce, The World and the Individual, V61. IJ p.-166. 104 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA PaUcardtra theory of four-fold emanation or incar¬ nation of Lord Vasudeva observes : “ Nor are the incarnations of the Lord to be restricted to the number four, on account of the whole of this uni¬ verse, beginning with the Absolute or Brahman and ending with a blade of grass, being regarded as the incarnation of the Lord.”* Thus, orthodox Christianity sticks to a uni-personal, while the Vedanta accepts an omni-personal incarnation of God. Whether that interpretation of incarnation is true or defensible, we do not presume to affirm. All that we can do is to content ourselves with the impartial testimony of a Christian thinker of the eminence of Prof. Pringle-Pattison who is decidedly of the opinion that “ we are far too apt to limit and mechanize the great doctrine of Incarnation which forms the centre of the Christian faith. ”f It is the Christian mystic, Coventry Patmore, that seems to have risen to the height of this great doctrine of Incarnation so far as he holds that ‘ the one secret, the greatest of all, is the doctrine of Incarnation, regarded not as an historical event which occurred two thousand years ago, but is an event which is renewed in the body of every man who is in the way to the fulfilment of his original destiny.’| —Com. on V.S., II. 2. xliv. t Idea of Ood, p. 157. J The Road, the Root and the Flower. ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE 165 To sum up, then, what the analysis of experi¬ ence yields is the recognition of the degrees of ade¬ quacy in our apprehension ( u faq ftn ) of objects, and the corresponding degrees of correctness in our beliefs about them. This argues, in ultimate refer¬ ence, to difference in the powers of apprehension conditioned by differences in the psychical equip¬ ments of the knowers. Says Samkara, ‘ although one and the same Self is hidden in all beings, the movable and the immovable, yet owing to gradual rise of excellence of the minds which form the limit¬ ing conditions (of the Self), the scripture declares that the Self, although eternal and immutable, reveals itself in a graduated scale or hierarchy of spiritual beings, and thus appears as characterised by varying degrees of dignity and power.’* These differences, again, lead to the recognition of differ¬ ences between adhikans, i.e., qualified or rightful recipients. Finally, ‘ these differences in respect of adhikans are known to have been determined by (differences in respect of) the capabilities of desiring and reception.’f Thus, while we have in Samkara- Vedanta the recognition of a cosmic unity, it is not at variance with gradations in value, but it exhibits what may be called an ascending scale or hierarchy iWTO*ir. Com. on V.S., I. 1. xi. —-Coin, on V.S., 1,1. iv. 166 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA of values which has its foot on. earth and its cul¬ minating apex in> heaven. That seems to be the metaphysical position in which an epistemological analysis of experience lands Samkara, But he retrieves the force of this suggestion by the un¬ ambiguous assertion that the Absolute or the Perfect in itself can have no degrees, for there can be no more or less in perfection.* It is not to be apprehended, however, that we shall have in. this law of accommodation ( adhikari - bheda) a fresh recrudescence and justification of caste-distinction in this already caste-ridden land— as the veritable last straw on the camel’s back. The doctrine of adhikaribheda, construed epistemo¬ logically, has no such pernicious association in it¬ self. It is only when it loses mobility and stiffens into artificial social stratification that it becomes the prolific source of mischief. Further, the dis¬ tinction between an esoteric and an exoteric philo¬ sophy, which is fathered upon this doctrine seems to have its remote ancestor in Plato who has in the Republic prescribed Mythology ‘ for the Many ’ and Philosophy ‘ for the few.’ The ingrained intel¬ lectual aristocratism of this doctrine will not perhaps be palatable to the democratic temper of our age. But, then, one has to reckon that the Demos is never spiritually creative, and if all philosophies are creations, we must look in the end to the select few, the intellectual aristocrats, the ‘ heroes ’ in the Carlylean sense, for an intellectual construction of • Com. on V.S., I. 1. iy. ANALYSIS OP EXPERIENCE 167 Reality,—in a word, for our enlightenment and edification. But that is another matter. What is worth noting in this doctrine of adhikdribheda is the epistemological basis it provides for an ethical and a metaphysical construction of the Advaita- Vedanta. The criteriology of the Vedanta also points in that direction. The validity or evidentiary value of the valid sources of knowledge f umqpfa ) depends upon the appropriateness of the provinces in which they are employed, and Samkara clearly recognises that ‘ the pramanas have their application or dominion in their own spheres.’* Accordingly, just as there are degrees of correct apprehension, so there are criteria of truth, and no one absolute criterion of truth. Thus we cannot say in an off-hand manner that the scriptural authority () is superior absolutely, to the criterion furnished by the senses or vice versa. As damkara fully acknowledges, ‘ the Gratis are not authorita¬ tive with regard to the objects of other criteria ()• It is not possible to maintain by means of a hundred instances that fire is cold or that the sun does not give light, because Reality will be known by other sources of knowledge. No one source of knowledge is contradicted by another Source of knowledge. Every source of knowledge reveals the truth which is not the province of some other sphere of knowledge.