English
’ and whatever we may choose to call him, ‘ the sin of unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,’ in the matter of critical thinking, can by no means be imputed to him. His frequent insistence on jijMaH (a sifting enquiry), victim (ratiocination) and mimdmsa (critical investigation) surely admits him into the rank of philosophical inquirers of all ages and of all climes. What, however, decides once for all his claim to be reckoned a critical thinker, in the modem sense of the term, is an epoch-making pronouncement of his with regard to the status and function of victim or rational criticism in the matter of attaining unto the highest bliss of mankind. Entrenched, as he was, in a rigid orthodoxy, Samkara had yet the hardihood to assert with all the emphasis he could command that a man. who somehow espouses a creed without a prior dis¬ cussion or critical reflexion, is debarred from beati¬ tude and incurs evil.* For an orthodox thinker of' Samkara’s eminence, this must be pronounced to be a remarkable verdict—which is, however, hardly ever given the prominence it deserves. In thus —Com. on V.S. I. 1. i. (THE CtXiTUBAti VALUE OF THE VEDlNTA g§7 formulating the rights of private judgment (fturo) in the face of Sruti or Agama, that is, Authority, Samkara may be said to have shuffled off the anti¬ quated badge of medievalism and taken on that of modernism. His critical apparatus or dialectical machinery may not have approximatel to the modem standard, but it is the rational mood or temper that prompted this verdict of his which is to be regarded the sole arbiter of his claims. Hence the apologetic strain, in which we sometimes speak of the claims of Samkara as a philosophic thinker, is altogether uncalled for and unjust. Now, we are in a position to take stock of our findings, from the cultural standpoint of the Vedanta, in our retrospective review of the fore¬ going lectures. The first lecture started with the admission of what seems to be of central importance in the Vedanta—namely, the message of a lull- fledged autonomy of the Sjjirit which, although brooding on us perpetually like ‘a presence which is not to be put by, ’ is only the legacy of the privi¬ leged few who have realised in their own experience the oneness of their being with the spirit behind the mighty frame of nature, symbolised by that dyna¬ mical sublime, the P&shan or Sun-god in the sky. Accordingly, the well-known invocation to Sun-god in the Iiopanishad *—“ 0 thou all-sustaining, solitary, all-controlling Sun, descended from the Lord of all creatures, do thou restrain and centralise * irora ** mm i a* im romri 3 gg A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA all the streaks of light that I may envisage thy bliss¬ ful countenance; forsooth, I am the very Being that abides in thee ”—may be taken as symptomatic of the Vedanta as a whole, and the cult of spiritual worship it has prescribed. It is the realisation of this oneness of spirit that alone can afford a sense of security and peace that man is ever hankering after. So runs the testimony of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad among many others : “ xrth $ qprar Ufljftsfa.” But no man in his senses would claim that this realisation of oneness of Being,—this priceless legacy of the ancient world—sprang per¬ fect into existence, like Juno from the head of Jupiter, and could be found in a full-fledged form in the Hymns of the Rgveda, which, by common consent, mark the germinal beginnings of Vedantic thought and culture. While fully subscribing to the principle that the Vedanta, and in particular its essence, Advaitism, is implanted in the Veda one need not, and indeed must not, construe the principle with a literalness that strikes at the very root of all notions of development. In fact, it is not possible within the meaning of the law of development, to have the flower along with the fruit, for the simple reason that the decay of the flower is the condition of the appearance of the fruit. The attempt, on the part of these well-meaning apologists of Rgvedic thought, is symptomatic of the absolutist’s Absolute, which, on Bradley’s own showing ‘ has no seasons, but all at once bears its t Chap. IV. Brahma^a ii. 4. THE Cl'LTUKAIi VALUE OF THE VEDANTA 389 leaves, fruit and blossom.’ But the question of a steady development of thought from the Rgveda to the Upanishads, as we may conveniently note here, may itself be challenged and repudiated as being only a favourite dogma of the modernist. Indeed, it has been seriously maintained that the trend of reflective thought from the Rgveda to the Upani¬ shads exhibits a steady degeneration, rather than an evolution in respect of ‘ the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of tire gods.’ The plea is, therefore, trotted out for an occultist treatment of the hymns of the ^Rgveda as in the case of ‘ the historical Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries ’ of ancient Greece. To seek to stem the tide of approved scholarship and widespread accept¬ ance is sure to be laughed out as mid-summer mad¬ ness on the part of its author. But the sponsor of this peculiar hypothesis stands in a class apart, and his name is a sufficient guarantee against summary rejection or any other disrespectful treatment. But the superior claim that he has upon our regard gives him no immunity from criticism when he enters the arena of polemics and pleads, in a confessedly rational manner, for a preferential treatment of things that are supposed to be above and beyond reason in its normal functioning. Such an esoteri- cism or aristocratism to say the least of it, is funda¬ mentally at variance with the native absolutism of the human intellect which squares, paradoxically enough, with the democratic temper of our age. Indeed, the effort to take shelter behind a supra- rational Authority is a discredited relic of Mediaeval- 390 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY 0E THE VEDlNTA ism and pseudo-mysticism, and is unquestionably a glaring instance of historical anachronism in this age of rationalism and free thinking. Without revert¬ ing to discussion on the thorny problem of Authority ps. free-thinking, it may be safely laid down that the endeavour of the mystery-mongers and high- browed esoterics fails to uphold the cause of either— to command authority in the one case and indues conviction in the other. It is too late in the day to learn that truth is one organic whole, just as reason, as the Only availing guide in our search after truth, is also unitary in character, and that, therefore, in the republic of the Vedanta we can acknowledge no other authority except that of reason. It is un¬ doubtedly, a question of principle, and not merely one of modernism or spirit of the times ( Zeitgeist ). For, it is preposterous to suggest that truth is to be obtained by a counting of heads. Truth does not, and most certainly did not, as the history of human civilisation clearly shows, depend on a majority of votes to enforce its acceptance. It rules everywhere by its own inherent right. When the historic martyr to truth stood up, like another Athanasius contra mundum, in defiance of the universally accepted creed and the impending persecution staring at him, and exclaimed: “ still it moves ” (eppur si muove), the principle was amply vindi¬ cated. Nor is this radical breach in the nature of reason—from which alone the distinction between the esoteric and exoteric truth derives all its plausi¬ bility—conducive to the best interests of the ‘ spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race‘ THE CULTURAL. VALUE OF THE VEDANTA 3<)| which the scholar-mystic holds a brief for. If this so-called sacred and secret knowledge had to thrive upon this breach in human nature and had no other locus standi to count upon, it would have stood upon a precarious foundation indeed. If truth be really what it is represented to be, then reason and un¬ reason cannot equally abide therein ; for, unreason in aught is unreason in all. If reason in its analytic function is pressed, as it needs must be, into the service of this mystical knowledge, it must be all in all or never be at all. For, the spectre of reflec¬ tive thought once summoned to our aid cannot con¬ veniently be laid in its grave. Indeed, those who seek to gain a Pyrrhic victory for the cause of esoteric or mystical knowledge by thus antagonising it to the clear deliverances of reason seem to be hard¬ ly conscious of the dangerous precedent they are thereby creating. For, such a procedure has its inevitable Nemesis in that common ruin which awaits all the hard-won findings of an occult or mysterious organ of the soul. In point of fact, mysticism does not enjoy such a precarious eminence. Anti-intellectualism or anti-rationalism is the plea of the pseudo-mystic only. It is in reference to these pseudo-mystics that Plato made the remark in the Phcedo : ‘ Many are the thyrsus—bearers, but few are the mystics.’ The mystic, forsooth, is one ' who believes in spiritual apprehension of truths / beyond the understanding.’ The name /*v<rnjs would originally be given to ‘ one initiated ’ or to a priest of secret rites of divine worship. This affords an instructive comparison with the radical meaning 392 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA of the term * Upanishad,’ which, as derived from the root \/ (‘ sad’=to sit) with the prefixes of VI (‘Upa’) and fi| (‘ni’), means—Samkara’s inter¬ pretation notwithstanding— 4 that which is im¬ parted to the (initiated) disciple when he sits close to his preceptor:—hence, a secret doctrine or mystery * fyfcTS*?:, TOWf, bTT fw) and so forth.