English
t If it be argued that such a view of Moksha, as the Life Eternal, as a fait accompli , dispenses with human effort in the matter of attaining the highest good of man, tiaipkara would rebut the force of the criticism in his characteristically ingenious manner. Like a veritable saryasaci, fighting with both hands with equal dexterity, he repels the missiles of the pragmatists on the one hand, and of the adherents of the doctrine of ‘ election * or Divine grace on the other. Uncompromising in his demand, he refuses to give quarter to the pragmatists who delude them¬ selves into believing that they can secure the high- m _____ ^ * • / -e _ *\ r _ ^ ^ * fflw...€uinw twtotctwt i to wwhki TO* junfa irisfli wnmq mr* nfc i t n g qtamurfir: t mwfriflw nwft ra jrcwrSg ijwbi 3*PCTj**nvTr. i 46 362 A systematic study of the vedanta est good by scrupulously following the code of in¬ junctions and prohibitions and performing sacrifices. Following in the footsteps of the Upanishadic sages, Samkara unhesitatingly declares that these are but frail resources like insecure rafts, in the matter of crossing the bar of mundane existence into the land of the Life Everlasting That blessed state, which is, assuredly, the object of a perpetual quest, is not created pari passu with the act of searching after it. The highest good of a man is, for aught we know, something that is not empirical,—neither capable of being produced qrvr.) nor of being modified (faqrnzh), nor of being improved upon , either by way of an accre¬ tion of its excellence () or removal of defects *f).* Here the ingrained real¬ ism ( s r^ pFWPTT ) of Samkara-Veditnta stands it in good stead in respect of a counter-movement to the mystic or pragmatic quest of Good that never is, but ‘evermore about to he.’ Such a good may mas¬ querade as the good of man on a lower plane of exis¬ tence, but it is made grotesque when it is thrust into the place of the supreme. The bonnm ransum- matvm, the supreme Good of man, because it is supreme, cannot be contingent upon anything else, but unconditionally and absolutely is. On the other hand, Samkara was far too securely grounded in the moral point of view to unsettle or discount its influence and importance, and to imperil the efficiency of moral exertions in the matter of attain - Com. on V.S., T. !. iv. THE ETHICS OF THE VEDANTA 363 ing the highest good. Moksha is not a matter of catastrophic attainment, descending from the above upon a man in accordance with an inscrutable Pro¬ vidence, but is a matter of progressive realisation through the steady cancellation of that nescience which has deprived him ah initio of this priceless legacy. Even if it be a fruit beyond all good and evil to be enjoyed, it is the fruit of a tree whose roots are laid deep down in the soil of the moral life of perpetual stress and strain, of ethical aspiration and endeavour. Truly speaking, it is a sphere where ‘ the heart knoweth its own bitterness and a 3 tranger doth not intermeddle with its joys and sorrows.’ Every man, by his own individual exer¬ tions, must carve out his own spiritual destiny; there is no vicai'ious suffering or redemption. Verily, ‘ the soul that sinneth it shall die.’ Such is the solitariness of the moral life—assuredly ‘ a flight of the alone to the Alone.’ Indeed, Samkara was constitutionally incapable of invoking a con¬ summation, which would in any way neutralise or stultify the life of ethical struggles and attainment. The highest good comes, be it remembered, not to destroy but to fulfil. Where, then, is left the room for human activity and exertion in the matter of attaining Moksha ? If moksha is an eternally accomplished fact, there is conceivably no useful purpose served by the perpetual injunction of Havana, manana, and nididhyasana, of Sruti texts and the impulse to all these is paralysed at the very start. Does it then lead to a life of inaction, a laissez faire, or 364 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY 0E THE VEDlNTA encourage a happy-go-lucky sort of life? The Vedanta-paribkasha sets at rest any such implication of the Samkara-Vedanta doctrine of redemption. Moral effort or exertion is not rendered nugatory, seeing that there is room for activity in cancelling the illusion of an unaccomplished moksha, which as identical with Brahman is eternally accomplished.* Even on the empirical plane the need is frequently felt of re-realisation of what has been already realised and the re-rejection of what has been already rejected mmnfOT ft i a qfnr rc fr : i ra teRd Indeed, to possess a thing and not to be conscious of the possession amounts to not possessing the thing at all. Just as a person, oblivious of the necklace round the neck, goes about looking for it and leaves no stone unturned to discover it, and eventually comes into a virgin possession of the thing (%UITHfita mail?!), on being reminded of it, so also here. Similarly, in the case of one who mistakes an en¬ circling garland round his feet for a snake—surely a pathological case—there is the re-rejection, on the testimony of others that this is not a snake, of the snake that is from the very start absent.f This is one of those points, of crucial importance, which justify Max Muller’s characterisation of Vedanta as ‘ the native philosophy of India.’ The plausibility * mrcrcro imswff nwwil:— —Chap. VIII. wfarwinl wfa vtowwr. wumwwq tfhrrx:— Veddnta-paribhdthd, Chap. VIII. THE ETHICS OP THE VEDINTA 365 of the statement is heightened all the more when we find that this tenet of Samkara-Vedanta does not impress the Indian mind with a remote academic aloofness, but it has made its way into the best of our folk-literature, or to rehearse Max Muller’s verdict, has ‘ leavened ’ our language and forms ‘ to the present day the common property of the people at large.’ One need not go far to look for its evidences. This is unmistakably the source of inspiration for the popular saying TOraUf HW ' &>■ ITOT t.e., “ Musk lies in the navel of the musk-deer, how, then, can the animal get rid of its illusion?” Surely, these are words that stick in the memory and help towards a better orientation of our mystic quest. We have seen how Hegel brought himself up, without being, however, conscious of the fact, into a substantial agreement with the Vedantic position of an eternally accom¬ plished, ideal. It is only McTaggart, as one of the most faithful of the neo-Hegelians, who has the sufficiency and intellectual honesty to acknowledge the lead of his master and draw the only reasonable conclusion that one can draw from Hegel’s premises. “ Sub specie cetemitatis ” so he puts it, “ every self is perfect. Sub specie temporis, it is progressing towards a perfection as yet unattained.”* Samkara would heartily endorse this statement, but subject to the proviso that the perfection in question is no # Mind (N.S., Vol. XI, p. 366 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDlNTA other than the cancellation of an illusion which dwells in a mid-region between reality and unreality. Now, it must be admitted that in the light of the central principle of Samkara- Vedanta the whole scaffolding of the Vedantic ethics, together with all the sciences of epistemology, psychology, and all the disciplines of the human mind, theoretical or prac¬ tical, is involved in one common ruin as being infected with, and conditioned by avidya or nescience.* It is true that Samkara himself acknowledges that the authority of all these sciences continues unchallenged until advaitajMna that has the redemptive grace in it dawns upon the soul. But what is, in all conscience, the significance and validity of an Interirnsethik of this kind. Is it not, by the damaging admission of the Advaita-Vedanta with its predilection for the Absolute as the sole reality, driven to a very precarious existence? Does not an all-pervasive relativism of Samkara-Vedanta sound the death-knell of all ethics with its claim to the categorical and unconditional character of its laws? But that would be going too far. To say that the ethical maxims, the code of injunctions and prohibitions are relative to my station in life—rela¬ tive to the embodied existence of my self—is not to invalidate or impair the absoluteness and authority of the moral distinctions. Relativity, it should be noted, is not relativism. When, therefore, Prof. qrira sftftrvT SftwTv u^rrfw * firfwfhSwtomfa— Introduction to the Vedanta-Stitrae. THE ETHICS OP THE VEDINTA 367 Keith alleges that there is not the faintest glimmer¬ ing of ethics in the Upanishads, and that it is people with an initial bias for Absolute Idealism who read an ethical import into the TTpanishadic texts that are non-moral, we have to pause and consider with¬ out being irritated by that kind of criticism. Let us face the issue, fair and square. It is assuredly a grave indictment, but it is an indictment that resolves itself into a more general one—namely, the possibility of there being at all any ethics in a system of Absolute Idealism, Eastern or Western. Now, no one would for a moment entertain the plausibility of the charge as applied to the Hegelian version, for example, of Absolute Idealism. The real moot- point does not lie there. So far as we take our stand on a pure psychological ethics, such sceptical objections must assail us. But a science of ethics must either consummate itself in a metaphysic of ethics or disintegrate into scepticism or relativism which spells the very death of all ethics. What¬ ever Leslie Stephen might think with regard to the function of a science of ethics, ethics is undoubtedly inseparable from metaphysics and it needs no ‘ ingenious sophistry ’ to force them into relation.