English
So doing our author incurs not only the fault of omission, but, the much more grievous one, of fathering upon Samkara an unhistoric or even romantic doctrine to which the historic Samkara would scarcely lend countenance. All the greatest thinkers of the world, from Socrates down to Bradley in our own day, have thus run the risk of misrepresentation at the hands of their well-meaning apologists and disciples. One need not wonder if the shades of a Samkara, or a Spinoza, or a Bradley were to exclaim under the pressure of this kind of embarrassing charity: “ Defend me from my friends : I can defend myself from my enemies!” Such a risk of misrepresenta¬ tion—originating either from a misplaced emphasis or mutilated context—is perhaps a penalty of great¬ ness ; but an interpreter with the least pretension to historic sense and scholarship cannot, with im¬ punity, afford to pick and choose in order to foist his * Pandit Kokileswar Sastri, Advaita Philosophy, p. 122. t Ibid, p. 272. 230 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANtri own pet thesis on a great thinker. By challenging all foregoing interpretations, he incurs a tremendous responsibility of facing all the issues fair and square, and of grasping aright the course of dialectic or thought-development on the part of the great thinker in question. An initial bias or preconceived opinion is thus a serious handicap on the part of an inter¬ preter. Now the passage, from which the above extract, with unacknowledged elisions, has been taken, reads as follows : “ The Sutrakdra also asserts the non¬ difference of cause and effect only with regard to the state of Reality; while he had, in the preceding Sutra, where he looked to the phenomenal world, compared Brahman to the ocean, etq., that compari¬ son resting 1 on the assumption of the world of effects not yet having been refuted (i.e., seen to be unreal)— the view of Brahman as undergoing modifications will moreover, be of use in the devout meditations on the qualified (saguna) Brahman.” (Thibaut S. B. E., Vol. 34, p. 330.)* This and other typical passages that have been cited by the author in sup¬ port of his contention cannot obviously bear the burden that is sought to be imposed on them. From contextual considerations, and the drift of Samkara’s thought as a whole, it readily appears that the affirm¬ ation of the world of names and forms serves only as a phase or ‘ moment ’ destined to be negated w if Un ftfe a v wfl gwH' U mt mra: awfn asarorSv Mftanwfira i w rafa qqaftrefry qwt tfa— Com. on V.S. It. i. 14 . BRAHMAN AND MAYA 231 eventually in a fuller development of the dialectic. As it has been already urged (in the foregoing chapter), logically speaking, ‘ vivarta ’ presupposes ' parinama.' To be negated eventually, the world of plurality must at least appear or exist conceptual¬ ly, or to adopt the language of modern logic, ' ‘ sub¬ sist.” “ Falsity or error,” as Bosanquet rightly observes, “ are relations that imply existences, which having reality of one kind, claim in addition to this another kind of reality which they have not. In fact all things that are called false, are called so because they claim a place or property which they do not possess. They must exist, in order to be false.”* Thus it is clear that passages importing * creation,’ ‘ evolution ’ or even ‘creative evolution ’ cannot possibly be construed absolutely, and handled in a centrifugal manner without reference to the central metaphysical thought of the Samkara- Vedanta. To persist in doing so would be to fly in the face of such express canon of interpretation as the following one so tersely put by the Vedantapari- bhasha, : “all the texts importing ‘ creation ’ do not really refer to creation, but to Brahman who is one without a second.”+ Hence it is Maya that evolves a world of names and forms which, in their totality, constitute what we call the universe or jagat (sRiq). But this evolved world does, as a matter of fact. ‘ half reveal, half conceal ’ the nature of Brahman, the ultimate Reality. Accordingly, Maya is credited with the twofold function of concealing the nature * Essentials of Logic, p. 87. 232 A systematic study of the vedanta of the real , and of projecting an unreal appearance of world (fqqjT Wfa ;). It is not therefore a privative conception merely but connotes beyond the mere absence of knowledge positive error or falsification of the nature of Reality. In view of this delusive character of Maya, the term avidya ( ) or ‘ nescience ’ has been used in the Vedantic literature as more or less synonymous there¬ with. We have it on the authority of Vidyaranya, the author of a celebrated treatise on the Vedantic theory of knowledge called Vivaranaprameyasam- grahah :—“We use the term ‘ maya ’ with reference to its power of producing extraordinary effects or with reference to its subserviency to the will (of the agent); it is mdyd in respect of its producing a multi¬ ple appearance of one and the same object while it is avidija in respect of its obscuration (of know¬ ledge).’’* It is unprofitable for our enquiry to pursue in detail the varied interpretations these twin principles of Maya and Avidya have received from Samkara’s philosophic successors. Suffice it to note that for Samkara, at least, they have been more or less synonymous. As early as in the Upanishads, promi¬ nently in the TSa, the term avidya figures as the generic name for Ignorance or false knowledge anta¬ gonistic to Vidya or apprehension of truth. In his famous preface to the commentary on the Vedanta- SAtras, Samkara gives a more restricted and techni¬ cal signification to avidya which, as functioning * *tw ifir BRAHMAN AND MAYA 233 through what is known as the process of adhyasah (TOVTO) or ‘ super-imposition,’ is identical there¬ with—at least in its psychological aspect.* Thus, it appears that the term avidya ’ is primarily cons¬ trued in a subjective or psychological reference al¬ though Samkara personally uses the terms ‘ Maya * and ‘ avidya ’ indiscriminately in a subjective as well as a trans-subjective or objective signification. For example, in the same context in which he illus¬ trates the essential nature of avidya, as being identi¬ cal with the process of adhyasa, Samkara proceeds to assign to it a cosmic or objective status so far as he holds it to be the sole source of all traditional dis¬ tinctions, theoretical as well as practical, between the instruments and objects of cognition, and of the whole catalogue of scriptures bearing on injunctions and prohibitions and even of final beatitude, t Taking into consideration, however, the consensus of the passages bearing on avidya, it may safely be laid down that in Samkara the emphasis is decisively on the innate relational way of thinking with its peculiar logical machinery which goes to make up the finitude of the human mind. At the same time, it appears from Samkara* s transcendental analysis of causality (e.g., in his commentary on the Vedanta- Sutras II. i. 14 & 18) that he was really formulating Maya as the principle of individuation, indescribable in itself and inherent in Brahman, with a nisus of sftfw ww: jranfii ftfiffl fafrwN q q fc * i 30 234 A systematic study of the vedanta development into the entire cosmic panorama.* This is a typical passage in Samkara, illustrative of the indiscriminate use of Maya and Avidyd. In later Vedantic literature, however, we notice an increasing differentiation, and specification of the essential character of each. It has been generally held that Maya is the principle of individuation— of Brahman appearing as Many, while Avidyd is the principle of obscuration, veiling the true nature of things from view. The one has acquired more or less a creative, or ontological significance, while the other a markedly epistemological one. The later ex¬ ponents of the Vedantic philosophy, in their zeal for dialectical finesse and refinement, sought to im¬ prove upon what they took to be an uncritical and indiscriminate use of the two by Samkara with their institution of a rigid differentiation between the two. So doing they thought they could help Samkara out of a hopeless impasse to which he had been driven by the indiscriminate use of Maya and Avidyd. In their opinion this equation led, and can only lead, to endless logical sec-saw, or what is technically known */ i OS varepov vrpoTtpov or, more properly, dirculus in demonstrando. Avidyd or Maya as the realm of appearances must presuppose, it has been contended, finite conscious subjects or Jivas (sftan) and these subjects themselves presuppose avidyd as their origi¬ native condition—a vicious circle of logical inter¬ dependence ! Accordingly, Vacaspati Mi^ra recom- BRAHMAN AND MAYA 235 mends an epistemological construction and delimi¬ tation of avidya as the only way out of the predica¬ ment involved in this way of thinking. An appear¬ ance or a presentation—and that is what avidyn as logically construed amounts to—, as Vacaspati Misha argued logically enough, must be, whether true or false, an appearance of something to some¬ one. Briefly speaking, it must pre-suppose a subject and have an object, or, to use his own phraseology, avidya must be regarded as having diva or a finite centre of experience as its locus and Brahman as its object ( srafcw ). The difficulty is thus sought to be obviated by the postulation of a plurality of finite centres of experience co-extensive with the multiformity of avidya. Each finite subject is, therefore, shut up within the world of its own specific avidya, and it is only through inter-subjective inter¬ course that we get to the idea of the trans-subjectivc or objective order.