English
There is hardly any room for in¬ genuity in the mechanical carrying out of the mean¬ ing that readily follows from the etymology of the term ‘ Vedanta ’( = ‘Veda’ + ‘anta,’ a compound of the two component words yielding by euphonic com¬ bination the term ‘ Vedanta ’ and meaning literally * the end of the Vedas ’). The literal rendering of the term ‘ Vedanta * has thus an obvious reference to the body of doctrines set forth in the concluding sections of the Vedas, otherwise known as the Upanishads. This, its primary reference is staked, however, not merely upon the external fact of its position or grouping, but based on internal evidences 0,i a growing maturescence, a continuous develop¬ ment of thought from the earlier to the final part of INTRODUCTION 15 the Vedas. Having regard to these last considera¬ tions, one would be justified in claiming a wider latitude than what is strictly sanctioned by a literal interpretation of the phrase ‘ end of the .Vedas.’ It is but common knowledge that the engrossing concern of the Vedas is with ritualistic practices and sacrificial cults—of prayer and worship, of penance and propitiation and the like performances of everyday life. With the gradual abandonment of the nomadic existence of our Vedic ancestor, and the steady evolution of a natural, a social, and a cultural milieu, there was brought into active play the theoretical impulse which had been engulfed in the satisfaction of the brute necessities. It is only illustrative of a universally accredited fact of human history that life or practice always anticipates a criti¬ cism or theory thereof, and as a question of principle it has its justification a priori. What is the more important consideration here is that the chronolo¬ gical priority in question has a logical counterpart in reality and is no mere freak of historical acci¬ dents. It is instructive to compare the parallel change of emphasis that came about—in due course but for different reasons—from the merely chrono¬ logical and etymological meaning of the Aristotelian pcraTa<f>v<ruca (- after the physics ■’) to the logical and conventional sense invariably associated with the term * metaphysics ’ as understood at the present day. Accordingly, those who swear by the exclusively chronological aspect in the meaning of the term 1 Vedanta -’ miss entirely the deeper, the more important, that is to say, the dynamic element' in the fulness of its meaning. What lends counts- 2$ A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA nance to the much-needed re-orientation of the whole, and concentration on this aspect of the meaning, is the light that proceeds from the dis¬ covery of a radical affinity and perfect equivalence of meaning between the Sanskrit word ‘ onto ’ and its English counterpart ' end ’ in the rendering of the term L Vedanta ’ as the • end of the Vedas.’ Starting alike from the meaning of a ‘ last or ex¬ treme point - that readily follows from their common root, and following the dynamics of a meaning- particle through a variety of kindred and parallel meanings, the two converge towards what seems to be of central importance for both—namely the ‘ aim, purpose or essence ’ as the moving spirit of the whole revealing itself by stages in a process, without surrendering its own integrity. Indeed, the category of End. construed philoso¬ phically, means nothing but the insight that the end is not the final stage of a process that merely succeeds or supersedes its predecessors, but that it is the informing spirit of the whole, distilled, as it were, into its successive phases, all and sundry. It is by a figure of speech, therefore, that the End or the moving spirit of the whole comes to signify the end or limiting point; for, it is only in the last terto that is adequately revealed the nature of the principle which is operative throughout. In other words, the End is essentially a dynamic category ,* accordingly, every phase in a process of growth or development is to be studied as much in the light q! the whole process, as in that of its last term. (Thus, the End, truly viewed, is a matter of what may be called progressive, and not merely catastro- INTRODUCTION 17 phic attainment—a matter of progressive realisation in the process as a whole and not merely one of sub¬ stantive existence descending as a finale on a sphere apparently complete by itself. Hence, the End in its interpretative function is as much operative at the very start or beginning as at the de facto end of anything. Verily, the first shall be the last and the last shall be the first! Thus alone ifc wisdom justi¬ fied of all philosophical explanation which, in doing strict justice to the category of End, must neces¬ sarily look to the end that serves in the double capacity of the last part or term as well as of the drive or nisus of the whole. This is precisely what the Aristotelian idea of reXos or End imports on a judicious rendering of it. Therefore, it is not mere¬ ly by a rhetorical device but by close-knit arguments that is secured the larger and more important sense of 4 end ’ in the phrase 4 the end of the Vecja3.’. Such is unmistakably the drift of the statement that occurs in one of the comparatively obscure Upani- shads, called the Muktikopanishad, where Rama- chandra, as the very embodiment of the Supreme Spirit, is represented in the rdle of the redeemer, inculcating on his devoted attendant, the Mdruti, the gospel of redemption in words to the following effect: 44 A great multitude of Vedas proceeded as so many exhalations from me, the all-pervasive being; verily like oil in the sesamum-seeds, the Vedftnta is securely lodged in the Veda.”* The Ml iiwW IX, 8 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA *3 analogy that the statement in question draws upon in this regard is at once forceful and instructive ; it is clearly illustrative of the fuller meaning of the word ‘ end ’ on which such vital issues are staked. Hence, it may be safely asserted that the Vedanta is the main objective and final aim, the cream and essence, the guiding spirit and shaping force,—in a word, the nisus formativus of the Vedas. That is one way of settling the connotation of the “ Vedanta ”—so far as it is possible to do by way of a judicious concentration on the derivative meaning of the term ‘ Vedanta.’ It may not have confessedly carried us very far, but it has most certainly succeeded in the recovery of some stable ground or halting station for further advance in this direction—in the recovery, namely, of that dynamic sense of the term ‘ Vedanta ’ which was elicited in the course of our foregoing enquiry. The problem that now stares us in the face is that of a corres¬ ponding uncertainty in respect of what the Vedanta denotes or directly stands for. In view of the dis¬ tracting varieties of commentaries— Sutras, Kdrikds, Bhashyas, Anubhashyas, Varttikas, Vrttis, Tikas, Saras, Samgrahas and the like,—alike claiming to constitute the literature qf the Vedanta, a solution of this problem is all the more imperative. Now, the Vedanta, as the age-long tradition would have it, refers primarily to the Upanishads, the Bhajavad- qtya, and the Brahmasutras (otherwise known as the VedSntasutras or Sarirakasutras, from the fact of their dealing with the embodied self or spirit) con¬ stituting in point of their authoritativeness what may be called .thecanon ’ pf.the Vedanta, It is INTRODUCTION 19 this accredited trio that has acquired the designation of ‘ the three institutes of the Vedanta ’ ( prasthdna - tray am) —the Upanishads marking the institute of revealed knowledge (Srutiprasthanam) , the Bhaga- vadgita, that of traditional knowledge ( Smrtipras - thdnam) and the Brahmasutras that of philosophical knowledge ( Nyayaprasthdnam). The relation that subsists between these three prasthdnas is one of organic interdependence yielding a perfect concord or harmony among the constituents of the Vedanta. But a rift in the lute is inevitable, if we choose to stress one or the other of the two of these— the Upanishads and the Brahmasutras —in their com¬ peting for recognition as the Vedanta par excellence . Accordingly, in sponsoring the view that the V edantasutras ‘ form the original authoritative work of the Vedanta,’ one would be only introducing an unhappy breach into the entente cordiale and abet¬ ting a domestic quarrel among the members of the otherwise happy family, and thus undermining the family solidarity. Nor is it a view that can stand a closer scrutiny. The sol.e raison d’etre of. the Sutras in question consists, as Samkara clearly puts it, in threading together the flower-like texts of the Vedanta ( Veddntavdkyakusumagrathanarthatvat sutrdnarfi ),* these being no other than the texts of the Upanishads (upanishadvakyas) . Developing the point of this analogy, one would be justified in contending that the sutras, taken by themselves, have as much reality or- substantiality, as the rosary has apart from the beads, or varying the analogy a * Com. on V.S., I. I. i. :J A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA little, the sutras by themselves would be more or less in the position of a soul without a body as its mani¬ festing agency. Those who make an apotheosis of the sutras would be prepared even for that contin¬ gency, but surely such a problematic functioning of the disembodied soul is a thing on which the Psy¬ chical Research Society has yet to impress its seal of authority. Even at the most modest computa¬ tion, the minimum requirement of the case would be a transmissive organ, such as the human brain.