English
The fact of remembrance unmistakably presupposes the direct experience or perception of such a repose by the self during dreamless sleep ; for memory can be only of a past perception. In a case like this which is uni<|ue of its kind, and the exemplar of itself, inference is prima facie impossible ; for, all inference is possible only on the basis of observed facts or percepts, and thus we can infer nothing the like of which was never presented in our experience. But, then, it might again be argued that the absence of all deter¬ minate knowledge during deep sleep being after all !a negative concept cannot be presented but is to be inferred. To this Satnkara replies that you cannot irifer the ‘ absence ’ in question unless you can con¬ ceive it, and to be able to conceive you must have a prior perception thereof. Thus the absence of knowledge cannot bq-referred to or even mentioned 224 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA excepting so far as there is a direct perception of it during such absence. There is, during deep sleep, a mental state of the form of the Indefinite, and it is the impression (tfsn?:) or rather the revival of that mental state of ajUanam (surviving in the form of satfiskarab or ‘ disposition ’) that makes possible the remembrance of peaceful repose during sleep. The Indefinite or Nescience perceived in consciousness, it is further to be noted, is more fundamental and general than the mere absence of knowledge (). It is this latter that is inferred from the former. This Indefinite Nescience ( Ajfldnam ) is, again, a matter of inference. It is from such everyday experiences of ours as ‘ I did not know it before, but know it now,’ that we infer the presence of AjMnam as a veiling agency which retires before the incipient knowledge of an object. Further, the fact of its existence is inferred from the impeded manifestation of the illimitable bliss of Brahman as Anandam If there were no Ajmnam to hinder its manifestation, it would have shone forth in its full- orbed glory. Moreover, the existence of this Nescience as a positive content follows from its being the substance of illusion, all and sundry. There are, strictly speaking, only two categories in Samkara- Vedanta : the category of the Real, the Self-manifest Brahman, and the category of the Indefinite, the Nescience or Ajfidnam that veils the nature of Brahman as well as projects an appearance of the world as manifold. Brahman cannot conceivably figure as the substance of illusion, it being BRAHMAN AND MAYA 225 eternally unchangeable ; it is, therefore,' the other category of the Indefinite or Nescience' which answers to this need. This Nescience, how¬ ever, is manifested by the witnessing intelligence or consciousness ), not by the pure, un¬ differentiated , the sdkshicaitanyam being nothing but iuddhacaitanyam reflected in the states of Avidya. Thus the Sdkshicaitanyam can compre¬ hend both ajhdnam and jilanam or knowledge of things, and' there is no contradiction (feTOcePf) in a category which is ex hypothesi indefinable. Now, following up the constructive, converging lines of reflection in Samkara's dialectic which is mainly negative in character, we reach the founda¬ tion for further metaphysical construction in the ‘ truth ’ of the causal relation, pervading the empiri¬ cal world—the non-difference between the world of becoming and its infinite ground. While maintaining with a Spinozistic emphasis the ulti¬ mate identity of natura naturans and natura natxirata , Samkara has gone to the very root of the matter and made his position secure for all time by showing the logical untenability of the category of Relation itself. Thus the standing problem of philo¬ sophy—the relation of the finite to the Infinite—does not arise for Samkara at all. The situation is further reinforced by a resolute carrying out of the Dialectic of Causation, which unequivocally denies the metaphysical reality and independence of the effect as distinct from the cause. This does not, however, amount to a denial of the empirical reality of the finite world of things as an appearance of 29 226 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA Reality. It is, in other words, Maya (*rpn)- Here it is, as critics of Samkara will probably urge, that the dialectic is strained to its breaking-point, and the situation saved only by an appeal to. the doctrine of Maya which is but a surrender to a cheap, agnostic scepticism of the ignoramus et ignorabimus type. A criticism of this sort has, we admit, spme amount of plausibility; but we should do well to remember, as William James remarked in another reference, that ‘ the native absolutism of our intellect deserves to be snubbed and kept in check * in its effort to encompass the mystery of existence. A confession of ‘ ultimate doubts ’ is not always the unmistak¬ able symptom of intellectual indolence on the part of a philosophical inquirer or index of a premature compromise with the forces of ignorance he was commissioned to conquer. On the contrary it be¬ speaks intellectual honesty—a candid confession that philosophy cannot justify its own apotheosis. Agnosticism may be bad, or a pitfall for philosophy, but a cheap and overweening gnosticism that pre¬ sumes to chase away all mystery from the universe is worse still, and foredoomed to failure in the task to which it stands pledged. If Saipkara has erred at all here, he has done so in good company; for, Bradley (whose name is assuredly one to reckon with in Contemporary British Philosophy) with due regard ‘ for , the exercise of doubt and wonder ’ offers his apologia thus : “ We admit the healthy scepticism for which all knowledge in a sense is vanity, which feels in its heart that science is a poor thing if measured by the wealth of the real universe. We justify the natural wonder which delights to stray iYi 229 BBAHMAN AND kAYA t “ Brahma has beyond our daylight world, and to follithe ground that lead into half-known half-unknowable reg^ (t.e., the conclusion, in brief, has explained and ha,^; but he has the irresistible impression that all is beyoiof the multi- Indeed, what Samkara means in this reg an ^ entire- seeks to convey by the term ‘ Maya ’—wHic!T p 4 erence been unfortunately found in practice to be more >TU " frequently criticised than understood—can be best realised in the light of the Bradleyan doctrine of ‘ the ideality of the finite ’ and the suggestive term ‘ Ap¬ pearance ’ to which he has given a peculiar promi¬ nence and currency. In his rendering of “ the two¬ fold meaning of the word ‘ appearance ’ ” “ that sense of the term in which something appears to some one ” “ is secondary,” while “ what is funda¬ mental is the presence in everything finite of that which takes it beyond itself. ”f Samkara starts, as we have already seen, not from the 4 One above,’ but from the fact of the ap¬ pearance of Brahman as the world, from the con¬ crete W elt-anschauung , from the world as manifold ( )• The question as to how or why the One or Brahman becomes many or the world is an illegitimate one (*rf?nr?r:), according to Samkara. The hypothesis of 4 Maya ’ is invoked just to indicate the ultimate and therefore inexplicable nature of this Fact. The mere inability to explain the 4 how’ or the 4 why ’ of it is no argument against its ad¬ mission in philosophy. The word 4 Maya ’ registers * Appearance and Reality, 2nd Ed., p. 549. f Essays on Truth and Reality, p. 272. .dATIC STUDY OF THE VllDINTA 226 A SY8TF . icy and limitation of all system of ex- ., . causal or otherwise. Samkara would, th^diTlec^ lcar *ily fcn ^ orse Bradley's proposition that , ie< 5solutc really appears, but the conditions of of Af5? U ^ araUCC arc n °* ^ nown ‘' ’* cryptic utter- wCs ‘ I am ’ and ‘ I am that I am ’ express, with as much accuracy as force, just this standing riddle, the inexplicable enigma and baffling mystery of the world-appearance which Samkara has in view. Now, admitting this to be a fact, what Samkara, in strict fidelity to his monistic persuasions, is concerned to maintain is the falsity of such appearance—to main¬ tain the integrity and identity of Being by the nega¬ tion of such appearance. The alleged fact is thus found to fall short of the truth. Nevertheless this fact of appearance is neither ignored nor left un¬ accounted for. Of the two possible modes of expla- ; nation, Samkara stoutly refused with a Kantian emphasis to make an extravagant, and therefore, ille¬ gitimate use of the concept of ‘ evolution ’ or ‘ deve¬ lopment’ (q ftm roqi^;),as has so often been employed to set forth the relation between the world as a whole and its transcendent ground, and what he accepted . instead as the only plausible hypothesis was that of illusory appearance or perversion ( ) of Brahman as the world of multiplicity, of names and forms Thus, the entire conditioned world (4iT$nPTCn) is an evolute or transformation ( iifi<nw: ) of Maya, but a distortion or vivartah (fan?:) with reference to Brahman. We hesitate to ascribe, * Ibid, p. 124. feltAfiMAN AND MAYl therefore, to Samkara the view that “ Brahma has created and evolved the world ”* on the ground' that “ the Sutra-kara adopts the (i.e., the principle of unity) as of supreme value; but he has also retained (i.e., the fact of the multi¬ plicity of changes) as of subordinate value and entire¬ ly dependent on the former. ”f Now, the reference in the footnote to the extract from Samkara’s com¬ mentary on the Vedanta sutra II. i. 19 (which is evidently a misprint for II. i. 14) is extremely mis¬ leading as it stands mutilated in the form in which the author of this view has presented it.