English
* With added emphasis Sarpkara further elaborates his contention towards the conclusion of his comments on this topic : “ The-texts bearing on * creation,’ etc., aim *i wrfowi— Com. on V.fe., II. 1.88. I8VABA AND BBAHMAN 20? at establishing oneness-of being. By the analogies of ‘ day ’ and the like, the scriptures demonstrate the reality of one integral Being, Brahman, and. the unreality of all transformation thereof and as such cannot import creation, etc.,.Thus from the Sruti texts on creation inculcating the oneness (of Brahman and the world), we realise that Brahman is not to be credited with diverse powers.”* Thus, it was more or less in the nature of a permissive legislation whereby he suffered the theistic position to retain an ad interim efficacy and meaning in the context of an all-engulfing Absolutism with ‘ its insistence and emphasis on an all-pervasive relati¬ vism.’ As a conclusive proof—if further proofs were necessary—reference might be made to the crusade he carried on against the hypothesis of an Efficient Cause or Lord (qfo) of the universe in the Pdhpata system of theism. It is instructive to note that the same defensive arguments, which he manipulates in disposing of the charges of inequality, partiality and malice urged against his ‘ I Avar a ’ {vide Com. on V. S., II. i. 35), serve as weapons of offence in his polemics against the Pdhpata ‘ Thera ’ or Lord (vide Com. on V. S., II. ii. 37). On a closer scrutiny and comparison of the trend of argu- pjent pursued in both, it would not be unfair to suspect a double personality in their common author, or a prevarication of judgment in his own behalf, nr* ***r ww* flnrwst *apr* aftanpramt uftjjr <Jgg A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OB' THE VEDiNTA so far as the hypothesis of * beginninglessness ( V T Tf^grn ) which affords a way of escape from the alleged ‘ vicious circle ’ or ‘ logical see-saw ’ in his own case, proves unavailing as a cure of the logical flaw which is eventually pressed against the Pa&upata position. In justifica¬ tion of Samkara’s way of dealing, rather differently with the same problem in the two cases, it may, however, be contended that there is a crucial differ¬ ence between the Samkarite and the PaJupata pre¬ sentation of the theistic position, and that explains or accounts for the differential treatment that is meted out by Saipkara in the two cases. According to Samkara, self-conscious Brahman or Isvara is both the efficient and the material cause or creator of the world or the manifold through the co-operating condition of Maya, co-eternal with Ihara, but dependent on, or lodged in, Him as a power, neither real nor unreal in its own nature; while, according to the PaSupata, Uvara or the Lord is only the efficient cause for the superintending agency and not the material cause of the world of Prakrti and Purusha, which has a measure of independence and, as co-eternal with Uvara, limits or finitises Him. In the one case there is an emphatic denial of ‘ two- ness,’ dualism, or even of a relation between God and the world; in the other case there is a de facto relationship between God as the efficient cause ( fafaWTOiq ) or the superintendent ( nftsTtlT) and the world of Prakrti and Purusha as the causa matcridis the constitutive factors •of the world of individuals. One is a system of IdVAKA AND BRAHMAN m Panentheism or Theism proper, while the other, a system of Dualism, or Deism. The extemalism of the treatment whereby the Fiidupata Iivara —veri¬ tably like the Platonic Demiurge, or the classic Deus ex machina, or even the Kantian God in the adminis¬ trative capacity of a grand Paymaster—is forced into relationship with the world of individuals, acts as an ‘ original sin,’ and prevents it from enjoying the privilege which the other does ceteris paribus. Although so, much is implied in the indictment pressed against the Patupata system, this vulner¬ able point has not been brought into prominent relief, and held directly responsible for this compara¬ tive disqualification. LECTUBE IX. I£vara as Creator and Creation as Lila • The Theism of the Vedanta. There are thinkers who have sought to make capital out of the doctrine Lila (9ttair) as being illus¬ trative of the theism of the Vedanta. But once we track out the so-called theistic view of creation im¬ ported by lild, and dissect or analyse it,—which we usually refrain from doing because of its artistic appeal and suggestiveness—we discover it to. be the pseudo-logical explanation of creation it is. It merely restates the fact of One becoming Many, of world-appearance ( fmpiqy ) but does not offer any satisfactory solution of the age-long problem as to why the One should be Many—‘ this main-miracle,’ as Tennyson puts it,* * that thou art thou.’ Verily like m&ya, it is meant to be, and professedly is, a description, and not an explanation. For, what does it amount to, after all? It amounts to saying in so many words that God creates the world, because it is His nature to create. This is supposed to constitute a final and satisfactory answer; for the tendency to pursue the regress further with an in¬ sistent * why ’— e.g., ‘ why is it that God cannot help creating? —has been regarded, by Saipkara, an illegitimate question ( vrfnro:) and placed under a * De Profundia, ISVARA AS CREATOR AND CREATION AS LILA 371 perpetual ban (*i * m q&yfaj WRl).* Granted that it is so, the creative activity qud activity must be motived or determined by an ‘ end ’ or ‘ purpose ’ tca^taPl)^ and thus it argues back to an imperfection or indigence in a "Being who has been invariably represented as eternally satisfied, self- sufficient, or of realised purpose (ftwngjnf, HfWIIHH ) in the scriptures—a clear case of incompatible asso¬ ciation. Thus Samkara disqualifies ‘ purpose ’ as a principle of cosmic teleology on the score of its being, in the words of Prof. Bosanquet, * a psychological, temporal and ethical idea ’j and lays down definite¬ ly, as Prof. Bosanquet has done, that ‘ a Teleology cannot be ultimate’—meaning thereby ‘ the teleology of finite consciousness.’ The hypothesis of motived creation or purpose in an ultimate or cosmic refer¬ ence being irrelevant or inapplicable, the only other alternatives that remain are, in Samkara’s owto words, either total suspension of any activity, or random, automatic or unmotived action (as that of the insane)—which, however, are flatly contradicted by Sruti texts relating to ‘ creative act ’ and ‘ omni¬ science ’ of God (vfegfh Driven to this impasse, Saipkdra es¬ capes between the horns—' motived ’ arid 1 ‘ un¬ motived ’—of the dilemma of the creative act, by ♦Com. on V.S., II. 1. xsxiii. t Com. on V.S., II. 1. xxxii. X Principle of Individuality and Value, p. 217. § Com. on V.8., II. 1. xxxiii. 272 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDINTA postulating a tertium quid, the more comprehensive category of Lila or creative spontaneity, and con¬ strues it as an explanatory principle of creation. It is interesting to note that Prof. Bosanquet also, subsequent to the period of his Gifford Lectureship, so far veers round as to retract or rather modify his original assertion that ‘ a teleology cannot be ulti¬ mate.’ In an instructive symposium on ‘ Purpose and Mechanism, ’* Prof. Bosanquet makes the inter¬ esting discovery that there is a third category dis¬ tinct from ‘ Purpose ’ and ‘ Mechanism,’ from the ‘ teleology of finite consciousness ’ on the one hand and * the teleology below consciousness ’ on the other, and this may be called the ‘ teleology above finite consciousness ’ or ‘ Providence ’ or, 3imply ‘ Teleology,’t provided we take care to divest the term ‘ teleology ’ of its finite, temporal incidents before it can be, in any legitimate sense, conceived ‘ as a character applicable to the universe.’ Samkara lays a similar emphasis on the initial need of subli¬ mating this conception of Lila before it can acquire a cosmic signification. It is admittedly one of the „ highest concepts that can be commandeered from . the human end, from the resources of our finite experience; but, Samkara thinks that the notion of Lite as drawn from our experience, must first be purged of the last vestige of anthropomorphism before it can with any semblance of justification * Published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Boeiety, 1911-12. t Principle of Individuality and Value, pp. 146, 158-54. ISVAEA AS CEEATOB AND CEEATION AS LILA 273 refer to divine creativity.* The force of this radical de-anthropomorphizing seems to be whittled down so far as Samkara tries to substantiate his point with reference to a telling example : “ Just as in¬ haling and exhaling, etc., go on spontaneously with¬ out reference to any extraneous end, so it may well be that God’s activity in the form of mere play or sport realises itself from its very nature without subserving some other end.”f It is useless to speculate whether Samkara chose the analogy from organic life advisedly ; but the epithet ‘ extraneous ’ ( yr iW ) as occurring in this context raises a strong presumption in favour of an internal or immanent teleology (implicit in the ectype as well as the proto¬ type), which Samkara does not deny, although deny¬ ing unambiguously the working of an external teleology in both the cases. That he did recognise the operation of a teleology or fulfilment of a need, in an ever so subtle, attenuated or sublimated form, in all cases of Ula or ‘ play ’ that we know or meet with in our experience, is clearly evidenced by his studied refusal to fashion the Divine ‘ play ’ or ‘ Ula ’ after the human model on that very ground. What is the point, then, of instituting an analogy Com. on V.S., II. 1, xxxiii. t nm vnsl wtanurt jnrPwfwft— Loe. eit.