English
Hence the analysis of Recog¬ nition is to be reckoned as a typical or crucial instance, symptomatic of the metaphysics under¬ lying such analysis. Here, therefore, we'stand at a parting of ways. The Ramanuja-Vedanta would have knowledge as a judgment, as a de facto identity- in-difference expressible in the form : * * while the Samkara-Ved&nta would construe know¬ ledge as cognition, as knowledge of bare identity expressible in die form: A is A, which is, after all, a judgment in form only, but THE DIALECTIC 01 THE VEDANTA 187 never in reality—for a judgment always makes it determinate. Indeed, Sarnkara’s view of caitanyam as a bare analytic unity devoid of all difference seems to be a transcendental version of the psychological atomism of VijMnavada —Self as one, eternal, changeless, self-manifest principle being nothing but the self-luminous, self-ineradicable, and unique unitary VijMnam, divested of its momen¬ tariness and raised to infinity. It is one of those indelible finger-posts that indicate the still lingering influences of Buddhism upon Saipkara’s thought. Now, the question that arises at this stage is that of consistency of this concept of Nirviteshavastu with the admission of manifoldness of the world and its eventual un¬ reality (uqufamTc^fafw.). The fact of the world as manifold is pressed against the Subjective Idealism of the Yogacara school of Buddhists, and Samkara vehemently protests against the VijMnavadin's method of tracing it up to the manifoldness of cona¬ tive dispositions [constituting the instinctive basis of the psychic continuum ()] • The real solution of the alleged inconsistency is to be bad on the lines adopted in the Advaitasiddhi, the famous treatise bearing on Samkara-Vedanta : “ Here is the solution of the conflict of the notion of cosmic unreality with scriptural texts such as ‘ the world as manifold is real,’ ete., which, however, are to be construed in a negative reference and treated as a proposition having negation fear its object, by way of stultification of its primary meaning and restora¬ tion of the thing negated.Although, Being and 188 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA Non-Being are co-ordinate in respect of their mutual exclusiveness, affirmation, being self-sufficient, does not presuppose negation. Negation, however, being relative to its counter-entity, presupposes affirmation. Hence such (negative) Sruti texts as ‘ not this ’ ‘ not this ’ do depend on positive texts, but there is no such dependence on the part of positive ones on the negative.”* Thus the reality ascribed inSamkara- Vedanta to the world as manifold is an empirical one, and this empirical reality does in no way conflict with its transcendental unreality This reality is, after all, mind-de¬ pendent, and this manifoldness appears to be on in¬ contestable fact grounded in the very nature of Being, as an evolute thereof (ufatm:) from our limited point of view. But we forget that this is a distinc¬ tion within Caitanyam, and from the standpoint of the whole where this duality between the knower and the known has been transcended, this so-called * evolution ’ ceases to have a meaning and the alleged evolved series in its entirety appears to be an unreal superimposition, known technically as vivartah ( fo*:) on a Being which is eternally one, un¬ differentiated and changeless. In short, ‘ evolution’ ( qfalW ) is evidently a temporal category, strictly * wvrfavma wmvt uMi wfiralfimuT nmwWi vtfr ‘SHu’ •Hfit’ tovt TOt*rrwr*i: i. ‘Pwi ^ THE DIALECTIC OP THE VEDANTA Igg limited to the finite and, as such, meaningless in a wider reference, as applied to the whole. Hence the admission of the empirical reality of manifoldness, far from being irreconcilable, finds, according to Samkara-Vedanta, ultimate explanation in the notion of its unreality from the standpoint of the whole. Propositions purporting to affirm the reality of the manifold are but veiled negations of its reality. Hence they are not to be interpreted in an absolute sense, as they are sometimes done; and on the strength of such undue, one-sided emphasis, the world as manifold is viewed as a real transformation ( qfan*: ) of Brahman. It is through sheer loss of perspective and an unsteady grip on the negative ‘ moment ’ of the dialectic of Vedanta, that such a view originates and masquerades as the authentic representation of Samkara- .Vedanta. It cannot be condoned as a question of emphasis merely, but is a fundamental misrepresentation of the drift of Samkara-Vedanta. A propos of this faulty perspec¬ tive, the warning given by Sarvajnatmamuni in the Samkshepa -Sarirakam is useful in the matter of a correct reading of the whole situation in Samkara- Vedanta. He says (Chap. H, verse 61) that the concept of Vivarta logically presupposes that of Parinama, but it is in the notion of Vivarta that the position of Parinama, finds its natural completion and ultimate explanation. If the Absolute Reality differs from the world as Manifold and Appearance by the whole diameter of being, and is, characterised mainly through its contrast-effect thereto, the reality of the latter must be affirmed in the interest of the 190 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA reality of the latter. This is, as Boyce also observes, the perennial paradox of Mysticism. (ii) Dialectic of Relation. The result, which our analysis has yielded so far. is the notion of one undifferenced, eternal, self¬ manifest Experience or Consciousness as the Beal. This is the very essence of Self (*nan) and identical therewith. It is not an attribute of the Self as Substance (\wrf); for this relation of Sub¬ stance and Attribute imports difference howsoever refined and sublimated it might be, and ‘ difference ’ as a category has al¬ ready been rejected as illogical. Now, Samkara proposes to show that ‘ Belation ’ itself is a self¬ contradictor j concept. It is in connection with his controversy with the Naiyayikas over the nature of causation, that Samkara challenges the Naiyayika contention that ‘ the cause and the efEect are inseparable because of samavayafy ( qn qra*,) and not identical ’ on the score of unintelligibility of the problem of Inherence or samamyah. As Samkara puts it, “ this even the relation (of inherence) itself being ex hypothesi ab¬ solutely different from the terms related would relate itself to the terms through the mediation of another relation of the type of inherence on account of an absolute difference (of the same kind between the two), and, then, for that relation, another relation is to be premised and thus there would ensue an infinite THE DIALECTIC OP THE VEDANTA 191 regress.”* This has a remarkable affinity with Bradley’s way of dealing with relations. “ In the first place, ’ ’ so argues Bradley, ‘ ‘ a relation without terms seems mere verbiage * and terms appear, there¬ fore, to be something beyond their relation.But how the relation can stand to the qualities is, on the other side, unintelligible. If it is nothing to the qualities, then they are not related at all.But if it is to be something to them, then clearly we now shall require a new connecting relation.And being something itself, if it does not itself bear a relation to the terms, in what intelligible way will it succeed in being anything to them? But here again we are hurried off into the eddy of a hopeless process, since we are forced to go on finding new relations without end.”t Bradley, however, rounds off the discussion, in the manner of Samkara in a similar context, with the concluding remark that the ‘ problem is insoluble ’ and ‘ that a relational way of thought—any one that moves by the machinery of terms and relations—must give appearance, and not truth. ’ It is interesting to follow up the tenour of this dialectic of Relations as it has been brought to bear in the Hastamalakabhashya on the question of the relation of Caitanyam to Atman (tTFX^). wmdta TOWa i—Com. on V.S.," II. 1. xiv. f Appearance and Reality, pp. 32-83. 192 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA The relation in question may be either one of differ¬ ence or identity, or even one of identity-in-difference (i.e., both different and non-different) (?unfa 3T *f?f). It cannot be, for aught we know, the first (i.e., one of difference); for, in that case, no relation of Substance and Attribute is admissible between them, as between the ‘ Self * and the ‘ jar ’ (fa*?? H*$r- q fiftgf T yKTCfc ) • If it be urged that the analogy of the ‘ Self ’ and the ‘ jar ’ is not quite to the point for, as essentially unrelated, there is the prima facie impossibility of the ‘ jar ’ being an attribute of the Self, while Gaitanyam being in more intimate relation with Atman may more fittingly be styled an attribute of Self, Samkara would reply that such a relation itself is inadmissible, for a relation (being granted) must either be a relation of (external) conjunction or combination (wulu:) or a relation of (internal) inherence (wraTH*.) , a tertium quid or any other relation being (in this case) impos¬ sible. Now, it cannot be a relation of conjunction, for it is evidently a property of (corporeal) substances and Gaitanyam is not a substance (wjtaro 7R^#i:)- Nor can it be one of in¬ herence, for it involves regressus ad infinitum. (JTOnWTUTTinO to the following effect: Is the relation of inherence (in question) related or unrelated to the terms in relation? Not surely unrelated, for it will, in that case, be indifferent, like jars, to the terms related; if related, another relation of inherence is to be posited (a relation of conjunction, etc., being out of the question), and this, in dependence on another THE DIALECTIC OF THE VEDANTA 198 again, Will lead to an infinite regress.