English
That is why the towering figures in the arena of Indian philosophy announce themselves as the mere exegetes or com¬ mentators ( bhashyakaras ) on the original siitras and redeem, with the strictest fidelity, their initial pledge at every stage of their career, without surren¬ dering in the least their rights of private judgment (vicdra or mlmarjisa) or fettering their decision in any way. In the words of a distinguished Vedantic scholar “ exegetical interpretation here inevitably shades off into philosophic construction; and this need not involve any intellectual dishonesty.”* This is exactly the plea, with which Samkara enters upon his career. ‘‘ For this reason,^ says he “ by * K. 0. Bhattaoharya, Studies in Vedantism, Intro¬ duction. iNTBODUCHotf 2t way of enquiring into Brahman there is being under¬ taken as an exegesis of the Vedanta texts, having for its materials arguments conformable thereto, and for its final end—beatitude.”* If the vocation of the philosopher is to be, in the language of Plato, “ a spectator of all time and all existence,” he must have the eye to discern in time “ the moving image of eternity.” This clearly reveals an attempt to take time seriously; and it is with reference to the sfitras in their con¬ stant conjunction with bhashyas or commentaries, that the philosophers of the Vedanta school have achieved a much-needed solution of the standing conflict between the timeless or unhistorical and the temporal or historical character of truths. If truths ‘ wake to perish never,’ neither antiquity nor modernity can either add to, or detract from the validity of these. Mr. Bertrand Russell’s dictum that the recognition of the unimportance of time is the one gateway of wisdom surely has its force in this regard. Accordingly, the feverish passion for antiquity, matched by an equally frenzied zeal for a comparative recency, that is generally displayed by scholars, both in the East and in the West, with regard to the historic emergence of Indian philo¬ sophy, and the V eddnta-sutras in particular, seems to be altogether uncalled for, and what is more to the point, unphilosophical. What the sutras seek i—Com. on Vedanta-Sutras, I. 28 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDANTA to emphasize is just this interplay of timelessness as well as historicity of truths—this dance of eter¬ nity before the footlights of time—and the guarantee that all our finite strivings after truth survive in the sutra, ‘ when eternity affirms the conception of an hour.’ The mission of the sutras is to authenticate the fact of the immemorial past interpenetrating, and energising the present and thus to justify the double role in which truths appear—ever constant, ever new. The uniformity or identity in question is more akin to the self-identity of a ‘ continuant ’ than to the bare identity of a ‘ recurrent ’ character, to adopt the phraseology popularised by Mr. Johnson in his framing of the issue concerning universality. In point of fact, all historically conditioned systems of philosophy, Indian or European,—whether deter¬ mined by the sutras or otherwise—appear to the discerning student to be, not so many thoughts, but rhythms in thinking. Nothing serves as a more apt illustration of the case than the analogy of the Indian rdga with its structural invariability as con¬ joined to an infinite variety in composition.* In an intelligent survey of Indian thought, specifically, of Vedanta philosophy, two extremes are to be avoided. In the first place, in a region where philosophic construction has invariably ushered itself into existence by way of exegesis o> scholium, the selection of a faithful and reliable commentator is too apt to become a question of first * Vide Dr. Urquhart, The Vedanta and Modem Thought, p. 10, in. INTRODUCTION 29 rate importance and initial settlement. But sucli selection, in spite of allowances being made for temperamental bias for personal equation and the like, should never be made to wear the appearance of individual choice or arbitrary preference. When, for example, a statement is made to the effect that ‘ the philosophy ofSamkara.is the Vedanta par excellence,’* such advance labelling of the Vedanta comes perilously near the ipse dixit of a dogmatist or propagandist. Admittedly there is some force in the contention that one is a born Samkarite or a born Ramanujist, just as one is a born Platonist or a born Aristotelian. Nor need it be disputed al¬ together that a philosophic creed has, after all, its roots not so much in intellectual satisfaction as in the demands of the emotional and volitional sides of a man’s nature. But, then, in a case like this no question of preferential treatment does or need arise. Commentators of the Vedanta-siitras there have been —and their number is a legion—such as Srikantha, Bhaskara, Ramanuja, Nimvarka, Madhva, Vallablia, and Baladeva among others—who have, by adopting a policy of pick-and-choose, of stressing a point here and dropping a point there, of straining and twisting the resources of logic, sought to cater to demands that are extra-philosophical and thus win the day. But the great never stoop to conquer. They develop their peculiar thesis with a vertical and unrelenting consistency, regardless of the conse¬ quences ,such a procedure might have on collateral issues. The authoritativeness of any of these com- * P. N. Sen, Philosophy of the Vedanta, p, 6. 30 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA mentaries on the Veddnta-sutras is not to be judged by the greatest common measure of agreement it affords among its rivals. The greatness of Saipkara, at least, does not lie there. He overrides others by the sheer force of his greatness—by the compelling greatness, in particular, of his logic of absolutism, or what is the same thing, his logic of comprehen¬ sion. The whole host of other commentators exhibit in their interpretation what may be called thoughts of arrested development; and whether of the form of qualified monism ( visishtadvaita) or of dualism ( dvq,ita ), they all point, by force of their unconscious logic to Advaita-Vedanta of the Saapkarite type as their natural culmination. They are the people who make a premature compromise with findings that are not, in any sense, far-reaching or of foundational importance, and thus come under the category of those that have not felt the drive or ‘ the arduousness of reality.’ Indeed, there is nothing sacrosanct about any commentary, how¬ ever august be the name associated with it as its author. Its claims to supremacy, if there be any, must be heard before the bar of individual reason; for, in the republic of the Vedanta, we recognise no alien government except that of integral Experience as a self-legislative authority. From Authority to Freedom, from Sruti to Anubhuti, from Revelation to Experience in its integrity and back again-—that is the systole and diastole of the life of the Vedanta. As it has been wisely observed,* the scriptural texts, * For example by Dr. Tagore in the Introduction to his Sddhani. INTRODUCTION 81 such as those of the Upanishads are to be endlessly explained by the commentary of individual lives, and as placed in such a context, they acquire an individual meaning, awaiting, as it were, for their confirmation, the special testimony of each one of us. Thus is evidently secured that universality of appeal which the Upanishads can reasonably claim for themselves. The other extreme to be avoided in a systematic rendering of the Vedanta, and of Indian thought in general, is that intemperate passion for historical scholarship which, instead of keeping within the legitimate bounds of Indology has invaded the domain of Indian philosophy. The historical treat¬ ment of the problems of Indian Philosophy is too apt to succumb to this temptation, and thus signally fail of its purpose, forfeiting eventually its title to this designation. In the matter of compiling a History of Philosophy, mere historical and even philological scholarship have undoubtedly their respective use. But they are made grotesque, if they are thrust into the forefront and made to do the duty of what a philosophic evolution of thought- types primarily stands for. In a History of Philo¬ sophy it is not merely facts and events that we look for, but the underlying meaning and import of these, as they appear in their historic succession. The Baconian comparison of the respective functions of the ‘ ant ’ and the ‘ bee ’ has not evidently lost its force for us even to-day. Indeed, accumulation of facts is one thing, and illumination quite another; where many are the accumulators, only a few are torch-bearers. If, the proverbially good-souled (?) 32 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDANTA ass, that would of yore usually be employed to carry the fuel with which fire was lighted, were suddenly to take it into his head in a fit of contagious logic, that he was the author and source of al>l illumina¬ tion, he would, inspite of his specious argument from agreement in presence and in absence, be held up to ridicule. Surely, the benevolent ass—may his tribe increase !—has rendered himself indispensable to us ; but he has to be reminded pretty often of his station in life and the duties incidental thereto. It is Hegel, the typical philosopher of the Restoration, who has laid down in the clearest possible manner what he conceives to be the main objective of a History of Philosophy in the ‘ Introduction ’ to his own ‘ History of Philosophy.