English
This is, as we shall presently see, a very hard nut to crack for the Advaitist of the Samkarite School, and he is at considerable pains to bring this feature of our experience into line with the tenet of ‘ unqualified substance ’ (fstfsiSlispTg)— the central concept in the Advaita dialectic. Now, the question recurs : what is it that is actually given in experience? It is, according to Samkara, pure undifferenced Being (g*IT or that is the Real, everything that is additional or adventi¬ tious thereto is non-real. There is admittedly diversity in our experience in the shape of ftwwn i —Ibid. t Saipkara’s Introduction to the Brahma-tHtroi. THE DIALECTIC OF THE VEDANTA 175 CRETTI’T^ ’ and so forth, and in the absence of any apprehension of difference all cognition and, for the matter of that, all judgments would melt into one. Samkara rises equal to the occasion, and replies that there persists in all items of knowledge, howsoever varied otherwise, pure Being in indissoluble union with Consciousness an d it is from the fact of its persistence (^jsprfUTTsiSTfl) that it can claim to be termed the Real or Reality. It is to be carefully noted, however, that the term rhdnam ( TTr***l) cannot figure in this context as a synonym of bodhah or caitanyam. The author of the com¬ mentary on Hastamalakam is quite outspoken on the point: By bodhah is meant caitanyam not however, is jhanam (ww0 to be taken as caitanyam (^7F?m) for, as being known it itself is unconscious like jars, etc. (sjtnt fa sin? 3?RT- T rf STSSTT^ ). To the critic who challenges this much too facile identification of Being and Consciousness, Samkara has nothing to offer by way of arguments except an appeal to the authority of the 3ruti, as in the follow¬ ing typical passage :* “ Nor can it be said that Brahman already characterised as Real (Being) cannot be characterised as Consciousness, for that (characterisation) would render nugatory such scrip- * * ^ sw *r toj^ i from* vSwfs m *r viraufafa nw tow, i’ wrffc- i *r ftrwronrt f i—Com. on V.S., m. 2. xxi. 17*6 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA tural texts as * the Supreme Being is of the very essence of knowledge.’ How, again, can such a Brahman, devoid of consciousness, be spoken of as title inmost Being or Self of a self-conscious indivi¬ dual? Nor, again, can it be affirmed that Brahman already characterised as Consciousness cannot be characterised as Being (Real), for that (characteri¬ sation) would have the effect of nullifying such scrip¬ tural texts as ‘ The Supreme Being is to be apprehended as existing.’ How, again, can a non-existent Consciousness be admitted? ” Indeed it is characteristic of Samkara to make a sparing use of dialectic so far as the con¬ structive aspect of his philosophy is concern¬ ed ,* that is, however, very much in evidence in his classic refutation of rival systems of philosophic thought. This he did on principle, for it was his honest conviction that a dialectic basis of a philoso¬ phical superstructure was, after all, an uncertain and precarious one, as being liable to demolition by another rival (rafarnfTreTOTtl). Mere dialectic and reasoning unauthenticated by Sruti or Revelation cannot, as he rightly foresaw, lead to the establish¬ ment of any philosophical position, worth the name. Hence (as already observed in an earlier section) Sarakara as a constructive philosophical thinker could not but leave to the long apostolic succession of his disciples—the faithful inheritors of the Advaita tradition—the task of providing a dialectical found¬ ation for his system. With a remarkable fidelity, surpassing even that of Plato for his master Socrates, did these trustees carry out the mission entrusted to THE DIALECTIC OF THE VEDANTA 177 them. So we can unhesitatingly select any one at random from the solid block of successors, and make him the mouthpiece of Samkara. It redounds to the credit of the Hindu tradition of intellectual honesty and fair-mindedness, that we must turn to Ramanuja, his formidable rival and compeer, for one of the best logical and succinct ex¬ positions of garokara’s system. It stands to this day as the lasting monument to the genius of Samkara from the hands of one of those who ‘ ‘ builded better than they knew ’ ’ and probably meant to. As to the justification of the identity of Being and Consciousness in the Samkarite sense, the argument that has been pre¬ sented (by Ramanuja and that can be fathered upon Samkara with no loss of meaning or consistency) is one by reductio ad absurdum. If Being and Consciousness were not identical, Being would be the object’ (fiftw:) of Consciousness, for Consciousness cannot prima facie be an object, it being eternally the Subject par excellence (farnrt or and self-manifest —self-evidencing and self- evidenced and so far independent absolutely. [As to the of consciousness, we need not labour here, as it has been thoroughly dealt with in an earlier reference.] The only alternative that is, therefore, possible is that Being should be the ‘ object ’ of Consciousness, and as such different (fir*rY from Consciousness. But difference (ifoj:) is a notion which is susceptible neither of perceptual verification nor of logical definition. Hence, Being and Consciousness are not different (i.e., non¬ identical), that is, are identical. 23 178 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA Now, the concept of Difference (), is the veritable bite noire of the Advaita "Vedanta of the Sainkarite type, and thus its rejection has central importance for Samkara. Here, as elsewhere, we should do best to begin with the Bamanujist pre¬ sentation of the case. In the first place, as he puts it, perception reveals to us non-differenced substance (fafasflfopsr^j) only. True it is that we do apprehend difference in such judgments as ‘ here is a jar,’ ‘ there is a cloth,’ etc. But we have to pause and enquire as to the way in which in the judgment ‘ here is a jar ’ an assertion is made about Being as well as some special form of Being. These implied judg¬ ments cannot both be founded on perception, for they are the results of acts of cognition taking place at different moments of time, while the perceptual apprehension is one, indivisible, instantaneous act. We must therefore decide whether it is the essential nature fareutf) or its difference from others that is the real object of perception. On closer in¬ spection, however, it is found that we must adopt the first alternative, since the apprehension of difference presupposes the apprehension of the essential nature of the thing plus the remembrance of its counter¬ entities ( nftrcftffrnvi )• Hence we can safely con¬ clude that difference is not apprehended perceptually, i.e., not perceived (irswt V To put the thing more briefly, perception of the difference of A from B presupposes the individually separate perception of the constituent terms A and B—difference being a bom fide relation. Granted that A, i.e., the essential nature of a thing is perceived, it by no means follows that B, i.e., the whole world of its counter-entities is THE DIALECTIC OP THE VEDANTA 179 like-wise perceived—which is prima facie absurd. Mere remembrance of the counter-entities synchro¬ nously with the perception of the essential nature of a thing cannot officiate for perception; for, as the two conditions of and (as the Vedantaparibhashd rightly insists) have not been satisfied here, the alleged knowledge of the counter¬ entities cannot claim a presentative character. And it is a truism to assert that a relation cannot acquire or retain its integral character as perception unless both the terms be separately presented. It might be asked here : “is it inconceivable that there should be in a perception elements partly presentative and partly representative seeing that Perception itself is a presentative-representative process ? Does not the perception of the essential nature of a thing ipso facto import, or amount to the perception of the absence of its counter-entities in that very thing? Is not there, along with the perception of what a thing is, a collateral perception of what it is not? Cannot there be, in other words, a * feeling ’ of difference, the alleged difference, though not consciously opera¬ tive, operating all the same as the function of the associative process of discrimination?” Samkara would have nothing to do with that ‘ radical empiricism ’ of Mill, Spencer, James and even of the VijMnavadins which leads them to answer the question in the affirmative. What Samkara’would urge against them is a studied ignor¬ ance of the real issue in a confusion of words. The mere ' feeling ’ of difference, the mere function of discrimination is not, as the Advaiiist of the 100 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA Samkarite school would assert, the same thing as the consciousness of the relation of difference, the sub¬ stantive consciousness of difference. The recognition of the ‘ difference ’ in question, is a conscious func¬ tion, an intellectual synthesis, not merely an asso¬ ciative synthesis. It may be argued, however, that the substan¬ tive presentation or perception of the essential nature of a thing, though not involving an explicit percep¬ tion of the difference in question can yet involve, as a bye-product along with the percept of its locus, the implicit or subconscious percept of the absence of its counter-entities. Indeed the seemingly harmless, but effectively insidious, phrases ‘ implicit conscious¬ ness, ’ ‘ unconscious reason ’ and the like are delight¬ fully vague terms—terms, as Prof. Perry rightly complains, ‘ with indefinite potentiality ’ and, so charged, they have the pernicious effect of leading men astray from the pursuit of truth.