English
If, as it appears, we are let loose into the ‘ vale of soul-making, ’ to mould our souls through ‘ a chapter of accidents,’ the truer reading of the situation, from the VedSntic point of view, would be that w 7 e are here for a redemptive remaking of the whole personality—for a turning round of the eye of the * Vide Siddhantaleda-sdraearjigraha also on (he point— wi* wfam toxfii mma* sfiiwwi i JIVA AND JAGAT 317 soul—just to regain that peace and perfection which are eternally ours. This is the vein in which the two well- renowned English Absolutists, Bradley and Bosanquet, habitually speak of finite individuals, and of individuality or personality. Bosan¬ quet, for example, sustains with rigid consist¬ ency and substantiates with an armoury of similes and metaphors, the view that ‘ the formal distinctness of selves or souls ’ is an appearance due to ‘ impotence, ’ and Bradley in perfect accord there¬ with, reduces the ‘ this-mine ’ (as the surest index of individuality) to a ‘ frame ’ that ‘ has as such no existence in reality, but only in our impotence.’* It is ‘ the existence in reality ’ of such a ‘ frame ’ as the very conditio sine quA non of finite centres of experience, ‘ from the side of the- Absolute ’ as well, which Prof. Pringle-Pattison defends with passion¬ ate ardour against, what he has not inaptly called, ‘ the adjectival theory of the finite ’ in Bradley and Bosanquet. But his own ‘ Personal idealism ’ is really an ‘ Ethical realism ’ with the veil of words drawn aside. It is an artificial blend of two irre¬ concilable elements—the spirit of logic, of the Whole, or of Idealism on the one hand, and on the other, the irreducibility of the ethical category, of the notion of Personality as something ultimate. In his stainless allegiance to the concept of Personality, he would much rather break with the covenanted service to Logic than acquiesce in the consequential * Appearance and Reality, p. 268. 318 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDlNTA ethical blasphemy with regard to the ‘ final value and destiny of the individual ’— viz., that ‘ it is rather a personality than our personality that is essential.’* This is a crucial point, and our interest in that long-drawn controversy between the Absolutist and the Personal Idealist over individual¬ ity or personality is that it has its counterpart in Vedanta philosophy. The phrasing of the issue in the significant title of the Symposium —“ Do finite individuals possess a substantive or an adjectival mode of being? ”—is suggestive of the difference of Ramanuja from Samkara on the question of individuality. It would be, however, a petulant and perverse folly to give a summary verdict that Saipkara explained away this fact of individuality ) as being inconsistent with his metaphysi¬ cal sympathies. No one is more wakeful to the needs of a moral personality than Samkara himself. He has wrestled with this conception in ever so many places of his commentaries on different Vedantic treatises, presented it sometimes with the force of a metaphysical construction, and, has undoubtedly, for all times, installed it at the apex of the principle of individuation as it embodies itself in a world of riama and rupa, names and forms. But then, like Bosanquet, and unlike Prof. Pringle-Pattison, he did not forget that ‘ philosophy is largely a question of proportion ’ and it cannot be staked on anything ‘ secondary and inferential ’ like personality in a system of metaphysical construction. In strict * Bosanquet : Value and Destiny of the Individual (p. xxxi). Summary oi Chap. IX. JtVA AND JAGAT 319 fidelity to the spirit of the Whole, the Brahman, which has been his abiding inspiration on ‘ the pathway to Reality,’ he has in his philosophy safe¬ guarded ‘ o personality ’ rather than ‘ our personal¬ ity ’ so far as he winds up the controversial topic with the concluding reflection that the finite personal self is proved identical with the Supreme self by way of the denial of all finite, empirical attributes,* that the essential nature of a thing or its individuality being indestructible or immutable, the relation between the finite individual and the Absolute is not like that between a man and a city: but such texts as * (the self) relapses or dies unto itself ’ are to the point as having reference to the veiling of its own nature through the agency of limiting adjuncts,! and that it is impossible, without the admission of a substantive identity (of the finite individual) with Brahman, accessible to knowledge, to secure release or solid singleness of existence for an active and enjoying self, like heat on the part of fire in accord¬ ance with the general rule of the inseparability of its nature (from the thing).! —Com. on V.S., II. iii. 17. t r waft i wfinro- Wiftctom * wra qft—Com. on V.S., ill. ii. 85. HWfrfeq' MWt l fNnn Com. on V.8., IV. iii. 14. A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDINTA So far as the finite or empirical self is con¬ cerned, Samkara is emphatic on the point that it is the ‘ psychological Me,’ the object of self-con¬ sciousness ( ), the active and enjoying self, and not the logical or ideal construct, the Pure Ego of Immanuel Kant, or the witnessing conscious¬ ness which is the presupposition of all finite experience.* Thus all agency belongs to the Self or Atman so far as it is limited or individuated by a world of objects, and not intrinsically, t This investiture with the upadhi of buddhi accounts for personal identity and continuity which are com¬ paratively in a state of abeyance and potentiality in deep sleep and bodily death, but resume their actuality or activity on waking and rebirth.}: Now the various analogies employed to set forth the nature of the Jtva or individual in relation to the Absolute —although, in point of fact and metaphysical refer¬ ence, there is no de facto relationship between the alleged two beings, for the simple reason that there is only one Being—led in the post-Samkarite YedSnta to the formulation of different theories of that relation on the basis of the analogies employed by the master. As for Samkara who is securely * •wwiwflofawflTsqftiiqijto finrra a q ut fwta uygfiw; Twt ftfiwrtt t—Com. on V.8., I. i. 4. t wnra r vrmif^r-—Com. on V.S., II. iii. 40. X Com.: on V.8., m. ii. 8-10. JIVA AND JAGAT 321 entrenched in the conception of oneness of conscious¬ ness as integral in its essence, there was scarcely any need felt to make excursions into fruitless, if not gratuitous, formulation of theories about the relation of Jlva and Brahman or Jlvatma and Paramatma, when there is, in point of fact, no relation at all. Just to satisfy our curiosity, we shall very briefly advert to the three broad classes under which these different views might be summed up, instead of following them up in their minuter ramifications : (1) In the first place, we might refer to the theory known as abhasavada or the theory of reflec¬ tion, maintained and justified by the authors of the Vdrttika and Samkshepa tiarlraka on the basis of the simile of reflection, according to which Brahman reflected on avidyd is Tsvara, while the same principle as reflected upon intelligence or conscious¬ ness in general ( buddhi) is Jlva. Both Hvara and Jlva are reflections ( abhdsas ) and as such belong to the realm of ' appearances ’ as Bradley also would say. (2) Secondly, reference might be made to the theory known as Bimba-pratibimba-vada or the theory of the reality of appearances (closely akin to the first theory) which is sponsored by Praka§dt- ma Yati, the author of Vivarana. As illustrative of the distinction between the two theories, the following text from Brahmananda's Ratnavall, is instructive. The theory which regards reflection in itself as false is designated Abhasavada, while the Pratibimbavdda of Vivarana, so called for its main- 41 322 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA taining the reflection to be the reflection of a true original, holds that the reflection as reflection is false, but is true in essence.* (3) Lastly, we might allude to the theory known as Abacchedavada or the theory of modifica¬ tion established by Vacaspati Miha, according to which Jlva is not a reflection but a modification of consciousness through the cosmic nescience or avidya which is manifold and seated in the Jlva. Thus the consequential Subjective idealism to which Vacaspati Mi6ra stands, committed by this doctrine has, strictly speaking, no room for Ihara. The author of Kalpataru, however, rallies to Vacaspati’s side and makes room for Ihara by importing a dis¬ tinction into avidya : Jlva is consciousness modified by avidya units while Ihara is Brahma-caitanyam, as modified by the totality of, or the primal, avidya. In such a case Ihara will be consciousness witness¬ ing the sum-total of avidya and as such one over against the plurality of Jlvas or finite subjects that build up worlds of their own through the indivi¬ duated avidya,. This naturally leads up to the question of Maya or avidya as one or many with the resulting doctrines Ekajlvavada and Anekajlvavada together with the various conception of Sakshin or the witnessing consciousness in the Vedanta philosophy. In the first place, Samkara does not lend countenance to * to: towto:, toto: llwwW Ww mnvWTflm TOSl IWwIW RilrtW- TOflftlftf Batnfivall, p. 114, JtVA AND JAGAtf 323 the view that the Jiva is one, or that there is only one finite individual, empirically speaking, just as maya or avidya which is the principium individua- tionis is not many but one in essence. But in later’ Advaita differences arise.