English
The principle in operation answers exactly to what is now commonly acknowledged to be the only admis¬ sible thesis in the pragmatic contention—not the popular and misleading version of it that we have in the proposition ‘ what works is true,’ but the more reasoned and acceptable formulation of it that we have in its obverse, namely, ‘ what does not work is not true.’ This difference in formulation is not a matter of verbal quibbling merely, but argues a difference in principle as well—a point which hardly needs a fuller thrashing out in this context. INTRODUCTION 9 Accordingly, what the foregoing discussion brings into prominent relief is the utter inaptness of such epithets as ‘ intellectual ’ or ‘ moral ’ in their unqualified application to Indian philosophy. That is the standing vice of viewing Indian philoso¬ phy, as it were, ab extra. Roughly speaking, a man’s philosophy is determined by his vital needs, both intellectual and moral. It is, to adapt a phrase of William James’s in another reference, a ‘ total reaction ’ upon experience. In terms of scientific precision, they are but two complementary aspects of one completed circuit of consciousness. Even a tyro in psychology knows that the moral can hardly ever sit apart from the intellectual and vice versa, the relation between the two being one of perfect re¬ ciprocity. Thus, moral action has moral insight for its inevitable presupposition, while illuminative insight or theoretic vision is but incipient realisa¬ tion of it in practice. In the hierarchy of spiritual values set up by the Vedanta, the intellectual and the moral, while enjoying perfect provincial auto¬ nomy,—a thing more often sinned against than sinning,—do yet retain their proper ranks as in¬ separable partners of a co-operative concern. Opinions may differ as to the position of the Vedanta regarding the status of intellectual ideals in the issue between intrinsic and instrumental values. But there is no gainsaying the point that the Vedanta has, all through, maintained a strict correlativity between the intellectual and the moral, between the theoretical and the practical, without the sugges¬ tion of a primacy or instrumentality on the part of either*. 2 10 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VBDINTA Such are the inevitable shortcomings of advance philosophic labellings with reference to the Yedftnta. What these instructive errors and half- truths force into prominence is the need of a renew¬ ed effort in search after airovtmaof the Vedanta— a sticking-place to which once this effort is screwed up it shall no longer fail. Neglecting differences of expression the one fundamental note that seldom fails to greet the ear of the inquisitive and the alert —'rising far above the babel of scholastic confusion and divided counsels—is that of full-fledged autono¬ my of the Spirit. This is the message that sits enthroned in its majestic simplicity at the heart of the Vedanta, and has at all times its ready appeal for those that have ears to hear. There is hardly any serious student of the Vedanta but has felt the direct impact and edifying influence of the well-known passage of focal importance, where the mighty seer of old, bathed in the full-orbed splendour of the life- giving message, exclaims with an invocation to the sun as the very symbol in the world without of that greatness and sublimity which is the soul's all own. The passage in question is couched in words that bear quotation here in extenso : “0, thou all- sustaining, solitary, all-controlling sun, descended from the Lord of all creatures, do restrain and centralise all thy streaks of light that I may envisage thy blissful countenance;—forsooth, I am the very Being that abides in thee.”* Assuredly, this is a % : * tjhrl m s* nww *t*l ** iwrft vtrprt* u u, n ■ iNTBOBtJOTtolt 11 pregnant utterance of unique historic importance, charged with epoch-making significance for the history of VedSntic thought and culture. But, clearly, more is meant here than meets the ear; and it was reserved for the illustrious Acharya, Satpkara, to rise equal to the height of this great argument and to give the exact bearings of the historic pronouncement. Perfectly in keeping with the underlying spirit of the utterance,, Samkara has voiced in unmistakable accents what was left un¬ voiced, but none the less clearly suggested. Avoid¬ ing alike the aberrations, on the one hand, of devotionalism which imports a self-abasement up to the liminal intensity of a •* creature-consciousness ’ or a ^ feeling of absolute dependence,’ and, on the other, of egoism which, by a misplaced emphasis, easily slips into the egotism, that is at the farth¬ est remove from the attitude of worship, Samkara brings to light the edifying implications of the cult of spiritual worship when he sums up his comments in the forceful words : * Moreover, I do neither beg of thee in the manner of a slave or a mendicant. 1 ’*' Cryptic and negative as it is in formulation, the statement is clearly symptomatic of a profound change in outlook—-a change that may truly be said to serve as a landmark in the history of Yedic culture. Figuring as the dividing-line between the Itgvedic and the Upanishadic age, the change in question bespeaks a momentous influence in the religious history of mankind—a spiritual renaissance in ancient India that compares, not unfavourably, * * ’ *t g t namrtf i ig A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA with the no less significant transition from the bond¬ age of the Leviticus unto the freedom of the Gospels. What is specially noteworthy in this spiritual awakening is that there is no more the paralysing spectacle of the human worshipper being awed into submission—no more of coaxing and cajoling, peti¬ tioning and propitiating beings that are alike credited with benevolent as well as malevolent im¬ pulses. In place of stupefying admiration that thrives by working upon the baser instincts—fear of retribution and hope of reward—one has here that elevating trust in the spiritual dignity of man, which is the best ministration to religious worship. The cult of spiritual worship must necessarily be in a minor key where man shrinks into the compara¬ tively insignificant position of a bare point on the circumference, bereft of the central importance he is by nature entitled to. On the contrary, a cosmic expansion of the soul of the worshipper, an identi¬ fication of it with the spirit behind this mighty frame of nature, is the surest way to kindle those higher emotions and aspirations that possess the specific flavour of worship. Such is, indeed, the meaning, plain and implied, of a a free man’s worship ’—a phrase which by a mere abuse of langu¬ age is made to typify; as in Bussell, the uninspiring outlook of ‘ a weary but unyielding Atlas ’ with its faith pinned to the gospel of ‘ unyielding despair.’* But, in point of fact, the gospel of ‘ unyielding despair,’—if such there be one at all,—should be more fittingly styled the gospel of the bondslave , * Russell, Mysticism and Login and Other Essays, p. 57. iNTROtmanoN 1$ rather than of the free man. It may have an austere beauty ’ to recommend itself; but its austerity turns out, on closer inspection, to be mere 4 sham heroism, ’ and its beauty only a borrowed glory. Indeed, the gospel of 4 unyielding despair ’ is but a melancholy mimicry of what man has, during the ages past, understood by religious faith and worship. For, what is exactly missing here is that Promethean spark that can, by a miracle, as it were, transform the gospel of 4 unyielding despair - into an evangel of elevating hope—a hope that has potency enough to re-create itself out of its own wreck. The free man, according to Samkara does not confess to an indigence of this kind. He does not appear as one, craving a kind condescension, but as one asserting his birth-right with a neophyte’s fervour and vehemence. This is what invests his pronouncement with an authority and importance all its own. It is all the more important in view of the complete change of front it evinces in the history of Vedic thought and culture. 4 -‘ Samkara presents to us,” as also observed Prof. Radhakrishnan,* 44 the true ideal of philosophy, which is not, so much knowledge as wisdom, not so much logical learning as spiritual freedom.” It is, however, a freedom that does not come within the range of the cheap criticism, namely, that it means nothing more than that there is freedom outside the prison-house —a gospel that ‘comforts while it mocks ’ those that lie imprisoned. It is, forsooth, a freedom that broods 4 like the day, a master o’er a slave, A * ♦ * Indian Philotophy, Vol. II, p. 447. |4 a systematic study oT The vedImTA presence which is not to be put by ’—a freedom that greets even those brows that languish behind the prison-bars, provided they would enter into a con¬ scious participation in a birth-right that is eternally theirs. The orient light that once shone forth still shines undimmed with the passage of time that makes history. And the voice that once spoke, hushed as it is to eternal silence, still cries out from its own ashes: “ Seek ye first this autonomy of the Spirit and then all else shall be added unto youl ” • It is customary for every writer of a treatise on Vedanta philosophy to dwell at length on the etymo¬ logical as well as the conventional meaning of the term * Vedanta.’ While it is true that no departure need be made in the present case from what looks like an established tradition, it is instructive to note that much ingenuity has been, and can be, displayed in this direction.