Astika
Darshanas (Introduction and Vedanta Darshana) Part
- 1
VEDANTA continued...
Now we will discuss
something about the Brahma sutra. The Brahma Sutra has been written by Badarayana. It is also considered
as one of the pramana texts for Vedanta AKA Uttara Mimamsa. It begins with “Athatho Brahma jignyasa” , translated as “Thus
the desire to know(Jignasatva) Brahman”.
The word “Athatho” in traditional sutra style means “Now”. It is used as a
auspicious word too. This means that there was something to do prior to this
and thus from “Now” on the aspirant has a desire to “know” Brahman. Now this
word “Know” is loaded and pretty controversial. Each school derives a different
meaning. Will briefly summarize what
“Knowing Brahman” means in each school.
- Advaita
school considers “Knowing” as
removing the misconception or Avidya that we are the body and our
individual soul (Jivatma) is actually brahman. Advaita recognizes
Jeevan mukti or liberation in the body. Thus knowing can mean in the
highest sense attaining Jeevan mukti. Advaita accepts Krama mukti i.e.
Mukti by slow liberation. The soul slowly attains higher worlds and is
liberated at the end of the kalpa. It accepts the following forms of Krama
mukti
·
Salokyam (Same
world): Attains the word of his favorite
relative Ishvara. For Example if after death if one attains Kailasa, he attains
the same workd as Sbiva
·
Sarupyam
(Same form): Attaining the same form as the desired Lord. For example attaining
Shiva's form or Vishnus form
·
Sayujyam (Absorption
into deity): Getting absorbed in a deity. This is the last stage of Krama
mukti. At the end of this the relative Lord also merge into the absolute
brahman.
- Vishishtadvaita
considers “Knowing” means “Understanding
that we all are Sesha jivatmas and subservient to the Seshin(Absolute
master)”. This school does not accept the doctrine of Jeevan Mukti and
says that Moksha can be attained after death alone on reaching parama
padam or Vaikuntam or abode of Vishnu. This can be done only by
sharanagati.
- Dvaita
says that “Knowing” means understanding the differences between Jeeva
and Paramata. And by that surrendering or sharnagati one attains
Krishna(Parabrahmam as per Dvaita).
Now before trying to
“know”, one needs to develop certain qualifications before attempting to “Know”.
Shankara
Bhashya
says the necessary pre-requisites are “An aversion to all pleasures earthly and
heavenly”. As per Shankara one needs to develop the Sadhana chathushyam.
They are Sama (Equanimity),
Dama(Sense control), Titeeksha(Patience), Uparati(Indifference to pain and
pleasure).
All this is to be
developed by unfailing performance of one's Varnashrama Dharma with a spirit of
Desirelesness in the fruits(Nishkamya karma. So as per the Brahma sutra Bhashya
of Shankara, one cannot suddenly drop of the performance of one's
Varnasharama dharma as claimed by neo-vedantins today and suddenly proclaim
“Aham Brahmasmi” and pretend to have attained brahma jnana.
The Brahma sutra Bashya of Shankara is written using
the principles of Tarka (Logic) and Mimamsa.
The general format is something like this. A sutra is stated and then
explained. Then a poorvapaksha (Opposing view) is stated. This is then refuted
using logic and then the Siddhanta or final conclusion is established. It is
difficult to understand the Bhashya without a good knowledge of Tarka and
poorva Mimamsa.
I am not going into the Geeta as it is a well know text.
SANKHYA DARSHANA
The sankhya darshana though not in vogue now is a great
system of philosophy. The word sankhya means enumeration or “Clearly
enunciated” or “quantified”. If not
for this school, Vedanta cannot exist at all. This provides all the necessary
fundamental concepts to Vedanta like the various types of Karma (Prarabda,
Aagami, Sanchita), the gunas, the tattvas, an embryonic notion of evolution
etc. The yoga system completely depends on sankhya for its philosophical and
epistemological basis. Shankara in his Brahma Sutra Bhashya has great respect
for this system and says that “In order to win the wrestling match easily we
need to defeat the chief wrestler (Sankhya) first”. In fact this is the first
Astika darshana that talks about Moksha being the separation of Purusha (Atman)
from the trammels of Prakriti (The precursor term for
“Samsara” used in Vedanta). The highlight of this system is that it is able to explain the creation
of the universe without the help of a supreme god using the theory of
Satkaryavada or theory of cause and effect. We will got into this a bit
later.. Thus this is called a Nireeshvara darshana (Atheistic
in modern parlance). The pioneer of this
system is Kapila Maharishi who has
written the “Sankhya sutras”.
History and founders and acharyas.
The history of Kapila is vague as with every ancient
Indian authority. The Bhagavata Purana says that he was the son of Prajapati Kardama and
Devahooti, Swayambhuva Manus daughter.
The Ramayana differs on this. But it mentions sage kapila burnt
the sons of Sagara forcing Bhageeratha to bring the Ganga.
The Mahabharata also describes Bhishma telling Yudhistra about
Kapila and his philosophy (Shanti parva).The Rig Veda also has a seer called
Kapila. But it is not clear from the RV whether it was this Kapila who wrote
the aphorisms. The Shvetashvatara
upanishad mentions Kapila the seer
and the word Sankhya. I forget the hymn number. It must be in the 5th
chapter.
The Gautam Grihya
sutra codifies some rules for an
ascetic life and he names it “Kapila Sannyasa Vidhi”.
The Rishi Asuri is supposed to be a disciple of Kapila. Then there is Panchashika
who actually codified it and widely taught it. Then there is a scholar Ishvara
Krishna who is supposed to have lived
in 4th or 5th century CE. He wrote the Vartikam
for the Sankhya Aphorism of Kapila.
Tenets of the Sankhya darshana.
Let’s get into the fundamental tenets of this
system.
- This
accepts first 3 of the 6 pramanas listed earlier. Since it accepts shruti
pramana, it is an astika darshana.
- The
individual soul is called Purusha here. This is a conscious entity called
Chaitanya technically. It is
absolute and independent and unsullied by defects. Sankhya accepts the existence of multiple purushas,
compared to Advaita which accepts only one Atman.
- Prakriti is the principle responsible
for all creation. It is an unconscious entity or called Jada in Sanskrit
technically. It has three gunas, Satva (Illuminating), Rajas (Causes
action), and Tamo (Causing restrictions or inertia) gunas respectively.
When there is no creation or in Pralaya all the gunas are in equilibrium
here. This kind of un-manifested prakriti is called Moola prakriti.
- Both
Purusha and prakriti are real eternal entities. Thus sankhya is dualistic
as it accepts two realities.
- When creation starts depending on the residual karma for a
purusha the 3 fundamental gunas combine with each other, starting from
moola prakriti to produce 23 tatvas
1.
Mahat/Buddhi(Intellect)
2.
Ahamkara or ego
3.
Manas or mind
4.
The five senses(Jnanendriyas)
5.
The five motor-organs(Karmendriyas)
6.
The five subtle elements
7.
The five gross elements
- Liberation or
Moksha: Suffering is due to the failure to discriminate between
purusha and matter. The
self identifies itself with matter or prakriti. Liberation occurs when the
purusha identifies itself that it is different from prakriti and is not
limited by it. The
Sankhyan approach to Liberation involves examining how perception
operates, in order to reverse the world-generating process and allow pure
Consciousness to be released from its bonds. See how close this view of
Moksha is to the Advaitic school.
- It accepts the shruti as pramana. In fact Upanishads like
Kata, Taittriya etc talks about sankhyan metaphysics at length. The Kata
for example is explicitly sankhyan in nature. It talks about purusha,
various tatvas and so on.
- No god or supreme lord
is accepted in the Sankhya system. Kapila explicitly rejects the need for an Ishvara in his
sutras. He says neither the shrutis adduce the need for ishvara nor is
Ishvara visible with the sense-organs. So he says that a concept that can
not be understood through any means of knowledge is useless for his
purpose.
- When a poorvapaksha is raised as to the many Vedic
statements that talk about a supreme lord who creates and sustains the
world, Kapila rejects this saying that these are just advanced souls and
are closer to liberation. But they themselves are within the knots of
prakriti still though their knots are far more looser than humans and
other beings. More about this later.
Many Ishvaric
versions of sankhya have been written by particularly the followers of the
Vaishnava schools (Vedanta Deshika for example) of Vedanta. These schools propose a supreme
lord or Ishvara. But these later additions force many of the fundamental
tenets of Sankhya to change. Thus these are not popular. Ishvara
Krishna who wrote a vartika to Kapila's aphorisms rejects these
schools as not true sankhya. The true strength of Sankhya lies in its ability to explain the
world and moksha therein, without a need for a god. Because of this one can still
remain astika but need not believe in any deity for moksha. A very
liberating ideal indeed. For me personally this one principle of
Sankhya is a great attraction and enables me to objectively study the
worldly experiences without prejudicing myself with a god and needing to
curse him whenever my prayers are not answered. But unfortunately this is
one of its biggest caveats of Sankhya. We will go into this also later.
- The separation of the prakriti and purusha is practically
achieve through contemplation on the tattvas.
- In fact yoga provides a more algorithmic approach for the
above purpose.
Some more details of the sankhya
system
The theory of satkaryavada or theory
of cause and effect
The sankhya system uses the concept or
theory of “Cause and effect”
or called satkaryavada in sanskrit.
It is assumed by this theory that the effect is already found in the cause in a
subtle form. Thus sat=Exists, Karya=effects.
For example like curd in milk and oil in sesame seeds. If not for this restriction then any cause
can create infinite effects. For example you could extract oil from a stone and
curds from sand. Another corollary of this is you can work backward, given an effect you can find the cause. You
can see how scientific is the approach of sankhya here. But this assumption
that “The effect is already found in the cause” is rejected by Nyaya,
Vaishashika (Atomic theory) and the Baudhas too. Their theory is called
asatkaryavada or Arambavada. We will discuss this in detail when discussing
those darshanas. This theory is also called parinamavada too. Parinama means “Changing or evolution”.
i.e. The cause changes to its effect.
The following are the 5 salient points of this theory.
- What is non existence can't be brought into existence by
the cause. i.e. Curdling of milk can't produce oil.
- One distinct effect produces one cause
- All things cannot come from all things. Oil can't come out
of stone.
- The energy required to produce a cause is visible in it's
effect (A restatement of the law of conservation of energy?)
- Effect and cause not different but only different states.
Whenever creation has to happen, the
equilibrium of the gunas is disturbed in Moola prakriti or pradhana. Then
various permutation combinations produce the various other Tattvas as listed
previously. Each Tattva is briefly
described.
Mahat or Buddhi: The product that evolves directly from
Prakriti with the disturbance of gunas. This can be considered intellect or
buddhi. This is the principle of reflection and discrimination. It is through
the Buddhi that all thing are understood. The Buddhi is involved in the
discrimination of prakriti and purusha.
Ahamkara: The ego or tje “I”ness. This is the principle
from where the desire to experience sense objects arise.
Manas: This is the
principle or the intelligence that takes inputs from the 5 jnanendriyas and
shows like(Raga) and dislike(Dvesha) and so on.
Jnanendriyas: (5 Sense-organs and 5
Tanmatras in brackets)
1.
Eye
(seeing)
2.
Ear
(Hearing)
3.
Skin
(Sense of touch)
4.
Tongue
(Taste)
5.
Nose
(Smelling)
Karmendriyas
- Vak or power of speech
- Hands or power to grasp.
- Feet. Power of locomotion.
- Anus. Power of excretion.
- Sex organs or power of
reproduction.
5 Bhutas
- Akasha (Ether)
- Vayu (Air)
- Agni (Fire)
- Apaha (Water)
- Prithivi (Earth)
Sankhya and
god
As said earlier, the
sankhya system does not accept the existence of a god. The Sankhya sutras
clearly state that god cannot be proved through any means of knowledge and thus
there is not use for such a conception. Some of the arguments for sankhya
against a god are
- If god is
eternal and unchanging and is the cause of the world, then the world too
should be eternal and unchanging because as per sankhya the cause and the
effects are not different. Since we find that the world is eternally
changing as per the theory of Satkarya vada there can be no god and he never
created the universe.
- This is taken from the
Ishvara Krishna's Vartika.
"Why did god
create the world?"
"Is he
a baddha (Bonded person within prakriti) or mukta? If he is a baddha but
created
the world he is no good from any other baddha, except for his
supernatural powers. If he is a mukta he has no use for creating the world. If
he is beyond both he again does not need to create the world.
- If
it is stated that god created the world for jivas
to experience their karma, then he is not omniscient or
omnipotent as he is acting on behalf of some other superior power
compelling him to create. Thus again this kind of god has no use.
- If
he created the world as sport as most
puranas claim, then he is a cruel being and not merciful as is claimed.
Even if an earthly mother(Human or animal) can show so much mercy on her
children and god is considered to be a parent(Jagan mata or pita, he
leave's much to be desired, as the world he created is full of death,
disease and poverty"
Some problems with Sankhyas non acceptance of god.
Creation of the world needs a material cause and efficient cause
or a intelligence. Now as per Sankhya the material cause is prakriti. There is no efficient cause. So non
acceptance of a god causes a problem in that there is no efficient cause. Sankhya
does not answer this. But Yoga an allied darshana postulates an Ishvara. This
can be found in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. There the Ishvara postulated is
just an efficient cause. He is also eternal like prakriti and purusha, but not
their overload as postulated in later Vedantic schools and Puranas.
There is so much more but that would take up a separate article
for sankhya alone. So with this, i think we can conclude our discussions on
Sankhya and proceed to its allied darshana, which is a practical application of
Sankhya, Yoga.
YOGA
There is no system that is as popular as yoga all around the
world. It is more popular than Advaita Vedanta in the west. But Yoga as a
Darshana as envisioned in the Patanjali Yoga Sutra and what is being practiced now is totally different. Surely the original yoga system did not
postulate Advaitic self realization or attainment of moksha of any other
Vedantic school. Yoga shares Sankhya metaphysics. But differs from
Sankhya with respect to the acceptance of god. We will go over this later
quoting the relevant sutras. But first now a history of the yoga Darshana.
History
The oldest references to yoga can be found in the Veda itself.
The Taittriya Samhita in Kanda 4 Prashna
1 says
"युञ्जते मन उत युञ्जते धियो विप्रा विप्रस्य बृहतो विपश्चितः"
“The Rishis unite(The word Yunjatee, the verb derived from the
root Yuj “To unite”, again Yoga is the verb derived from the same verb root
yuj) the mind and intellect.”
Thus the concept of Yoga has existed since time immemorial
though not in the present form. In the Taittriya Upanishad there is a reference
to the word, the statement being “Yoga Atma| Mahafpucham pratishta”. “Yoga is
the self and Mahat is the tail of the bird that is vijnana” Note the use of the
Sankhya Tattva Mahat in the Upanishad. Various other Upanishads like the Katha,
Brihadaranyaka Shvetashvatara etc have discussions about it. Especially the
last one has very detailed one and discusses
yoga in tandem with sankhya philosophy.
Apart from this we can see references to Yoga in other
darshanas. Kanata in his Vaisheshika sutra 5.2.15-5.2.16 states that
“Pleasure and pain results from contact of soul, sense, mind and
object. Non-origination of that follows when the mind becomes steady in the
soul. After it, there is non-existence of pain in the embodied soul. This
is that Yoga.”
In the Nyaya sutras of Akshapada
in chapter 4 sutra 2 we see the following discussions.
“We are instructed to practice meditation in such places as a forest,
a cave or a sand-bank. Such possibilities [the opponent claims] may occur even
in release. It is, we reply, not so, because knowledge must spring up only in a
body already in the state of formation. And there is absence of a body in our
release. For that purpose, there should be a purifying of our soul by
abstinence from evil, and observance of certain virtues, as well as by
following the spiritual injunctions gleaned from Yoga. To secure release
[moksha], it is necessary to study and follow this treatise on knowledge
[Yoga], as well as to hold discussions with those learned in that treatise.”
Both the above translations are taken from Wikipedia. Thus we
see that other schools also recognize Yoga as a practical path to their
metaphysics and theory.
Finally coming to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, even Vyasa is supposed
to have authored a Bhashya on it. There
are other books and commentaries like those of Bhojha, Hemachandra etc.
To be continued....