English
school does not believe in the atomicity of matter, it endows the elements with distinctive qualities or rather equates them therewith (g w nUT faB From these subtle matters or sdkshma bMtas originate gross ones, i.e., sthulabhUtas or mahdbhMas. All these fine subtle elements enter into the composition of the gross matter which is made up of the varying combination in different propor- * aw i vrowmn ww: earn: i vmramg: i awWv: i wwtw: t vfWt i 336. A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA tions of the subtle matter—the process of this materialisation being unknown as Pahchlkarana. The gross substance akdia manifests sound vayu or air, sound and pressure ( tejas or fire, sound, pressure and heat or light dp or water, sound, pressure, heat or light and qualities of taste prthivi or earth, sound, pressure, heat or light and the qualities of taste and smell ( ). This is the order obeyed by the evolution of the universe. The process of Panchlkarana, five-fold combi¬ nation or ‘ quintuplication ’ requires some explana¬ tion and justification in the face of conflicting opinions among Vedantists on that point. The doctrine of quintuplication has its earliest indica¬ tion and. anticipation in the Chandogya Upanisliad where a process of triplication of the three elements of ‘ Tejas,’ ‘ Ap’ and ‘ Prthivi,’ is specifically mentioned. But the Taittinya by implication understands it as a theory of quintuplication adding ‘ aka&a ' and ‘ vayu ’ to the list of the three men¬ tioned in the Chdndogya Upanishad. It has been authoritatively accepted in such later works on Advaita-Vedanta as the PahcadaM and Vedanta- paribhashd as against the theory of ‘ triplication ’ to which Vacaspati Mi6ra, and the author of the Kalpataru stick in a spirit of rigid orthodoxy out of regard for the letter of Sruti texts. The Veddnta- . paribhdshd, however, clearly affirms that ‘ the texts bearing on triplication imply quintuplication,’* JTVA AND JAG-AT 337 quoting it with approval from Sad&nanda Yati. Now, what this doctrine of Pnitcklkarana imports is that the five elements soon after origin are dis¬ integrated into parts and seek to re-combine in the form of the makdbhMas. Having bifurcated (each) into two equal parts, of which again, one part is divided into four equal parts, and re-combined each of these four equal parts with the other four halves of the sAkshma-bMtas, we have the five sthUlfl- bMtas or mahabhdtas* We can schematise tfye process of quintuplication thus: Gross (Sthftla) 5kS6a=>$ SkS£a + i (t v&yu+i &p+i tejas+i prthivl). Gross (Btheia) ap=| ap+ i (i vayu+i aka£a+$ tejas+i PFthivi). Gross (Sthftla vayu=J vayu + £ ($ prthivl + J aka£a + i tejae+| ap). Gross (Sthula) tejas=>$ tejas + i (i vSyu + J aka£a + | ap +-J tejas). Gross (SthAla) prthivl=| prthivl + i (i vayu + $ ak&£a + i ap+J prthivl). Thus we oan conceive a kingdom of created things arising out of the matrix of apara-prakfti by a process of quintuplication. • fkv fvm 44* vgi? si* s*i; sshrdtitarHN’Mui W 4 Vidytrapysk 48 LECTtJRE XI The Ethics of the Vedanta If creation, as the foregoing metaphysical in* quiry has unmistakably shown subserves a moral purpose,* if the world of finite individuals or Jlvas is in literalness of fact, a 1 vale of soul-making,’ then, assuredly, the life of every finite self or indivi¬ dual is ipso facto one of ethical aspiration and endeavour. The standing paradox of the ethical and religious life—indeed the very keynote of a spiritual life—consists in a ceaseless ‘ dying to live,’ and it is by such perpetual self-transcendence that the self actualises its infinite potentiality and reality, and justifies its title thereto. Thus self-hood or indivi¬ duality is essentially an ethical or dynamic category. Herein is to be found the truest explanation of the Advaita ( doqtrine of the immanence of the Divine in the human. But it is a sheer travesty of this doc¬ trine of metaphysical oneness to construe it—as the average Western thinker invariably does (even some Oriental scholars of the eminence of Deussen not excepted)—in an unethical reference, that is to say, as a fait accompli dispensing with the necessity of the process of achieving that oneness, which must needs be a matter of aspiration and striving rather than one of attainment and enjoyment to begin with. Critics conveniently ignore the fact that the doctrine * Ooo>. o& VtdUnia S&trat, THE ETHICS OE THE VEDANTA 339 pf oneness to which the Advaita Vedanta stands pledged, the Vedantie God-in-man, is a task as well as a fact, is as much a problem as a possession. Man’s distinctive prerogative as man consists just in this that he cannot be put in a line with ‘ low kinds ’. that are in point of fact so many * finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.’ Man is finite-infinite in so far as he is a spiritual being— ‘ for ay removed from the developed brute: a God though in the germ.’ The prolific source of misdirection oh the part of these critics lies in their unreasoned acceptance of the view of self-hood or human personality sponsored by institutional Christianity. The basic dualism, whether ingrained or inherited, that separates the world of created beings from the Creator by the whole diameter of being, is one of the vital strands of orthodox Christianity and', as such necessitates Divine mediatorship and vicarious redemption of all by such a Mediator. Thus, for orthodox Christianity the entire realm of ethics is staked on the maintenance of this ineradicable dualism together with the status quo of the indivi¬ dual. It is no wonder, therefore, that people nurtured in such an atmosphere should fall fold of Advaita Ved&nta on the score of its alleged unf ethical monism of the most uncompromising, type which, in chasing away the last vestige of dualism or distinction from its schema of reality, necessarily impairs the validity of the so-called eternal and immutab le laws of morality. Nevertheless, it is sheer perversity to stick to this lineofcritjeisniin 340 A SYSTEMATIC -STUDY OF THE VEDANTA the face of clear enunciation by Samkara of his own view regarding the place and function of ethics in a philosophical rendering of the world. What Samkara, however, has been all along contending against is the finality of the ethical categories con¬ strued in an absolute metaphysical to use Samkara’s own words, reference While con¬ sistently conceding, and in fact insisting on, the (empirical or practical (ttn'SwJta*t) reality of these. Believing, as he does, in self-hood as a process, .rather than a state, Samkara has no difficulty in establishing the episodic character of ethical distinc¬ tions, and vindicating their emergent and relative reality in the pathway to liberation (#v:), which is the crowning achievement of all intellectual and ethioal disciplines. This is a .point of first-rate importance in any intelligent understanding and faithful presentation of flajpkara-VedSnta position. While fully uphold¬ ing the inviolability and majesty of the Law of Karma and therewith the validity of the distinction df good and evil or merit and demerit () Which form the very basis and fulcrum of a Divine govettunerit* of the world and of ethical theism in general, he never yet loses sight of that finale of perfected 'Selfhood, that bliBB of the unitive life, beyond good and evil, of whioh, as the seers of the Upanisha&s iestify.f -it is the exclusive privilege of * Com. on V*8„ n. i. 64. t ***** vmr. we* em u *rMKw p frto VptoithW, HI. i.Vertrt. *HE ETHICS OF THE VED4NTA 341 the wise to be the legatee. Thus, it is in the attain¬ ment of an absolute oneness of being, which is at once the completion and raison d'etre of the life of ethical endeavour, that the requirements of the ideal of holiness are satisfied. Without such a monistic crown, any progressive scale of moral perfection must ever remain truncated and devoid of a ground¬ ing in reality. An ideal as ideal fails to furnish the dynamic of moral life, unless it is known to have been realised in toto in some integral experi¬ ence. Not doing but being in an ultimate reference —that should in all .conceivability be the ideal of ethical conduct, and it is only Samkara-Vedanta that has the sufficiency to envisage fully the ideal of •perfection and pursue, with vertical consistency to its logical conclusion, the implications of the injunction : ‘ Be ye perfect ’—an injunction which is more often sinned against than sinning in the European construction of it. Accordingly, in the .place of a placid contentment with the European side-view, what is needed in this respect is a more courageous and conscientious orientation of the maxim—an adventure of faith, so to speak. Hence no mere outward conformity to a rule of conduct will ensure the attainment of the ideal of moral perfection: nothing short of the regeneration of the whole man will bring about that holiness or purity of motives which is the fiital demand of the perfec¬ tionist ethics of A d e tita # e ri flato . •: & Thus, to map out the course of: moral progress, the i veryentrairee to ; thfeifW^^ie|^?the quickening of that life according to ruop mMch must neees- 342 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY 01’ THE VEDANTA sarily break with that life of unreflecting acquies¬ cence in that satisfaction of mere animal wants, characteristic of the life according to nature, which exhibits itself in its purity in the brutes, man alone having the distinctive prerogative of looking ‘ before and after ’ and attaining unto a vision of the Life Eternal in and through things temporal.