Preceptors of Advaita
13
VIMUKTATMAN
by
P. K. SUNDARAM
M.A., Ph.D,
Madhusudana Sarasvati, at the end of his great classic Advaita-siddhi, refers to three Siddhi works, viz. Ishta-siddhi, Naishkarmya-siddhi, and Brahma-siddhi. The Brahma-siddhi of Mandana may be said to devote itself to the definition (lakshana) and testimony (pramana) of Brahman indicated in the expression, Brahmajijnasa, the that of the desire to know. The Naishkarmya-siddhi of Suresvara is interested in showing the how of Brahman-knowledge, i.e., whether it is by knowledge alone or by action that release is secured. The Ishta-siddhi of Vimuktatman engages itself rather in the question of the why of Brahman-knowledge, enquiring into the nature and cause of error, that is, the world. In short, ontology, ethology and epistemology may be said to be the respective contents of these three Siddhis.
Summary of the chief points discussed in the Ishta-siddhi
The various theories of error are enumerated by Indian philosophers as follows:
atma-khyatir-asat-khyatir
akhyatih khyatiranyatha
tatha-anirvachana-khyatir-ity-
etat-khyati-panchakam.
These five can be classified into two broad categories, viz., sat-khyati and asat-khyati. Atma-khyati of the Yogachara Buddhists, akhyati of the Prabhakara Mimamsakas and anyatha-khyati of the Bhattas and Naiyayikas fall under the first category, and the asat-khyati of the Madhyamika Buddhists falls into the opposite camp. The doctrine of anirvachaniya-khyati adopted by the Advaitins tries to show that the object of illusion is neither real nor unreal but indeterminable.
Akhyati
Akhyati or non-discrimination is the explanation that the Prabhakara offers to the problem of illusion where there are two knowledges, each of which taken in isolation is not false. The failure to discriminate that there are really two jnanas leads to error. In other words, bheda-agraha or asamsargagraha is the cause of error. This position of the Mimamsakas is the result of their realism. Knowledge is self-valid and what is shows up is valid and true. If error arises, it is a subjective short-coming. Knowledge itself can never be doubted. There is no question of the defective senses presenting positive illusion.
Vimuktatman argues that the theory of the self-evidencing character of knowledge adopted by the Prabhakara rebels against his theory of error. For, if he is consistent he will see that the two separate knowledges (of the shell and silver in the illusion where the shell appears as silver, for example) must present themselves as separate in which case there is no question of their not being discriminated.
If truth, as the Prabhakaras hold, is that which succeeds in yielding the expected results, Vimuktatman points out that there are instances where knowledge issues in no practical activity at all. To be sure, knowledge does lead to activity, but this is only incidental.
Again, non-discrimination is said to be the cause of error, but Prabhakaras at least cannot hold this doctrine for they do not accept negation as a category at all. For them there could be no absence of knowledge as in non-discrimination.
Anyathakhyati
The Bhattas hold that in error the object appears otherwise than what it is. But it remains to be asked, whether the object in error becomes other than what it is, or the knowledge becomes other than what it is, or the knowledge shows the object as other than what it is. The first two alternatives are rejected on the grounds that the object cannot become something else if it has a nature of its own, and that knowledge cannot suffer a change without reference to the object, for knowledge is object-dependent.
Thus it is the third alternative that is discussed elaborately by Vimuktatman. To the Bhattas, what appears in illusion is not unreal. But what is unreal is the samsarga or identity of the appearance with its basis. Defects in the sense-organs contribute positively to the production of error. While to the Prabhakaras, error is bheda-agraha, to the Bhattas it is abheda-graha.
All the time, the Bhattas protest that they are realists. In that event, it is not obvious how they can bear the introduction in error of a subjective element which brings about the mistaken identity between two real objects. This subjective element does not have any corresponding reality.
Again, how can the silver, in the silver-illusion that is presented in immediate perception, be denied particularly when the Bhattas hold it to be real? If silver is denied, then illusion will have to be accepted and realism must be given up. If silver is not denied, there will be no question of illusion at all. Either that the silver is remembered or that it is presented here and now. But what is denied in the judgment ‘nedam rajatam’ is the silver presented actually and not the remembered one. It was already stated that the presented object cannot be the content of negation without damage to the professed realism of the Bhattas. Nor can the remembered one be the object, for the negation of the remembered silver cannot affect the presented one and thus illusion would never have been negated. Hence, we cannot have both the remembered and the presented as factors in illusion.
If it is said that what is denied here and now of the shell, viz., silverness, characterizes really another object existing elsewhere and that this is the intention of the negative judgment, in that case, it is the silverness that will be denied and not silver. But in illusion we are concerned with the particular silver, and not with a universal.
Again, the negating judgment, nedam rajatam, is supposed to make only the predicate false, but not the this, or the relation ‘is’. Why should one alone of the three factors in “this is silver” be false? Moreover, the fact that while the ‘this’ element is reaffirmed by the negating judgment “This is not silver”, the silver-element is denied clearly demonstrates that of the two elements, ‘this’ and ‘silver’, silver is less real than the ‘this’, which, in the example, is the shell, or at any rate, not real in the same sense. But this conclusion will militate against the pluralistic realism of the Bhattas.
Atma-khyati
The Yogachara Buddhists hold that there are no external objects at all. What exist are only the cognitions. One proof for this is the togetherness of object and thought, sahopalambhaniyama. Even in an illusion, what we see as silver outside is only our own cognition. It is the mind that splits itself up as subject and object, as in dreams. To these Buddhists, silver is real only as a mode of cognition. What the negative judgment “This is not silver” does is to negate, not the supposedly external silver (there is no such thing) but the appearance of its externality.
Vimuktatman thinks it is useless to reduce the object to a mode of thought. While thought or knowledge is constant, objects are specific and shifting. The constancy of thought cannot be explained if it takes shape into objects. And there can be thought without objects.
What is said to be sahopalambha-niyama by the Buddhists is really sahopalabhyatva-niyama and there can be no such niyama between the drk and the drsys, for the drk is not seen. Nor is it sahopalabhitvam for the object is not and cannot be the seer. Moreover, the very notion of externality will be impossible to explain when there is no external object at all. bahyatvasya asatah khyati-rasangaccha.
Again, how can one cognition which is momentary according to the Vijnana-vadin be the cognizer of another cognition? Both of them cannot co-exist, asatvat, kshanikatvaccha. Lastly, one cognition cannot reveal itself and at the same time be revealed by another, and to the Vijnanavadin, cognition is self-luminous. The silver being a mode of cognition must be at once apparent, in which case there is no occasion for error at all.
Asat-khyati
In error, the asat-khyati-vadin argues that that which is non-existent appears as existent. The negating judgment “This is not silver”, establishes the non-existence of the perceived silver in the silver-illusion.
If, either in the error or by its cancellation, the existent were known it will be tantamount to admitting that there is no illusion at all since there is no possibility of error or its cancellation when the content is the existent sat. That which is existent can be cancelled neither by the knowledge of the existent, nor of the non-existent. Nor does the knowledge of the existent cancel the knowledge of the existent or that of the non-existent. As then, the relation of the sublating and the sublated cannot subsist between two cognitions of the existent, and as a sublation is actually perceived, it is fair to conclude that it is the non-existent that appears as the existent in error.
To the argument that the merely non-existent cannot be perceived, the asadvadin replies that the negative judgment points to the fact that the non-existent can be experienced. Even when one urges the perception of non-existent tuchchha as error, one accepts it as presented in error. Even Advaitins must accept the perception of tuchchha, because in maya, which is of the nature of inexplicability, silverness and reality are perceived in error. Both of them are thus tuchchha and perceived.
Now, against the theory, Vimuktatman asks: How can the non-existent appear as existent, when it cannot even appear as non-existent? Again, since there is not possible distinctions of time in the sunya, the earlier appearance and the later sublation have no meaning and consequently both the error and its cancellation will be there always; and if this is not desired, never at all, because of distinctionlessness itself. Since there is not restrictions of space in sunya either, it is not possible to suggest that silver that exists elsewhere appears in the shell. Moreover, the usage in illusion is: “This is silver” and not “negation is silver.” Even the “This” does not appear in the form of negation. There is no such apprehension of the “This” as “this is not.”
Anirvachaniya-khyati
When the theories of the sat and the asat as presented in error cancel out each other, what we are left with is the fact that the object in error is characterisable neither as real nor as unreal nor as both. Khyateh nasat, badhat na sat iti anyonyapaksham nirakurvadbhih vadibhireva rupyasya anivachaniyatvam sthapitam.
There can be no knowledge without an object. In error, then, we seem to have an object which belongs to an order of reality different from the normal. Silver, the product of nescience, like nescience itself cannot be an object of any valid means of knowledge. Likewise, its negation, too, is not open for knowledge by means either positive or negative. Does the effect of nescience exist and come into being or is it non-existent? Does nescience also existing in the same form become otherwise, or does it change and become otherwise? Does it, existing, perish or being non-existent perish? Is this destruction a negation or a positive entity? Questions like these are relevant only with reference to either positive or negative entities, and not to the inexplicable illusion. That the inexplicable should appear as existent is precisely the illusion. And it is not asat-khyati because there is no evidence for the unreality of that inexplicable form. As is silver, so is everything in this world.
Nescience
Ajnana or nescience is the material cause of all illusion. Just as a single principle continues to manifest itself both in the seed and the sprout, the earth and the pot, one beginningless persistent cause produces all the empirical existence. There is no necessity that when the cause is present, the effect is necessarily present. Otherwise, since ajnana is always present, the illusion will constantly be present.
This ajnana is beginningless. Though the shell in illusion has a beginning, its ignorance is beginningless. This is because this ignorance is not located in the shell but in the Intelligence–Self, even as the knowledge of the shell is. Nescience is established only by Self-Intelligence, and not by pramanas.
The non-apprehensibility by pramanas is, however, not the reason why nescience is indeterminable, but its destructibility by knowledge. (jnana-matra-apanodyatvat). For, non-apprehensibility is found even in determinable categories like knowledge, pleasure, etc. Nescience of specific objects are many, though the mula-ajnana or primordial nescience is one. In fact, there are as many nesciences of, say, a shell as there are shell-cognitions. All cognitions, in other words, have the hitherto unknown for their content. Everytime an object is cognized, the nescience concealing that object is removed.
Nescience is not just absence of knowledge. If it were, it will be known by a negative means, abhava-pramana; one reason for this is that it is located in the Self. Ajnana cannot be of the nature of mutual negation, because mutual negation has for its substrate the object, while for nescience it is the Self. Nor is it posterior non-existence for which beginning is accepted and nescience is beginningless. Again, while nescience is removable pradhvamsa is not.
Ajnana is like darkness which is not mere antecedent non-existence of light. It is positive. Otherwise, it will be difficult to explain how a lamp taken from one place to another dispels darkness there. Ajnana is called so either because of its conflict with knowledge or because of its being other than knowledge.
Removal of Nescience
Destruction of nescience does not conform to any of the known categories, existent, non-existent, both, and indefinable, but belongs to the fifth alternative; panchamaprakara. One has, as Prof. Hiriyanna suggests, to speak of it thus by the fact of the actual removal of nescience which is indefinable. But in the last chapter of the Ishta-siddhi, Vimuktatman seems to take the view that the destruction of nescience is indefinable with this difference that while ajnana is removable by knowledge, ajnana-nivritti is not. He also says that Atman alone is ajnana-nivritti. Jnanottama writes that Vimuktatman agrees to the suggestion of some among the Advaitins that Atman alone is the removal of ajnana in so far as it does not conflict with non-dualism.
But the difficulty that if Atman is the remover of ajnana how there was any bondage at all is felt by Vimuktatman. He suggests the alternative view that avidyanivritti is the absence of any other than Atman. And Advaita is not opposed to the non-existence of anything other than Atman. Moreover, if Atman were not opposed even to the presence of nescience, how can it be opposed to its absence? Here the abhava is only the removal.
Jivan-mukti
Vimuktatman does not accept the theory that the continuance of the body after realization in the case of a jivan-mukta is due, not to ajnana itself, but to its latent, impressions, (samskaras). Latent impressions are nothing apart from nescience. In the case of the rope-snake illusion, it is suggested that fear, trepidation, etc., are present even when one knows that there is only the rope and not the snake, and that, similarly, the samskaras alone are responsible for the continuance and maintenance of the body of a jivan-mukta. But this is a mistaken view. Fear, trepidation, etc., do not constitute the body of nescience. Only the snake-illusion does. And when that is over, nescience at that place is removed. If the samskaras themselves causing fear, trepidation, etc., were part of the sukti-ajnana, they will be enough to produce the sarpa-bhranti at any time. But that is not found to happen.
It is, then, reasonable to suppose that in the jivan-mukta there is a residuum of ajnana in the form of the prarabdha-karmas which is responsible for the continuance of the body. There is no conflict between prarabdha and the origination of redeeming knowledge. In principle, actions bestow their fruits only without conflict with the results of other actions that have commenced yielding their consequences. Actions of great merit like the Horse-sacrifice wait for their operation for the exhaustion of the prarabdha-karmas. Similarly, actions which pave the way for the rise of true knowledge will yield their results only in the body which is the locus of experiences brought about by other activities, without conflict.
Knowledge then does not militate against experience and vice versa. This shows that though inhabiting a body, a mukta is not a baddha. The body should be there for the released soul so that he can transmit the knowledge to others. If wisdom and death were simultaneous, there will be no one to pass the wisdom on to others and with the first wise man, his wisdom would be buried. The actions which lead to knowledge, says Vimuktatman, preserve the body for sometime for this purpose.
vidvachchariram paripalayantyeva vidyarthanyapi karmani
kimchit kalam yavata vidya-samtatyucchhedo na bhavet
Indeed, without the teacher and his instruction, mere activities, however correct according to scriptures, will never lead to permanent good.
Means to Release
The intuition into the oneness of Reality alone can remove avidya completely. For this intuition, sravana, manana, and nididhyasana are the means. Calmness and equanimity are prescribed till renunciation of all actions takes place. Even sacrifices indirectly help this process by creating purity of mind. The asambhavana (the notion of improbability) and viparita-bhavana (the notion of contrariety) with regard to the real nature of Brahman are removed by the scripture by means of explaining the nature of Atman beginning with astitva and ending with freedom from hunger and thirst. (See Chhandogya Upanishad). The Upanishad repeats nine times the declaration: tat-tvam asi, dispelling every time an illusion about Reality.
If sravana or hearing once only without these aforesaid means could bring about intuition, they would be futile. When the mind is sufficiently pure to receive the final illumination mellowed by these disciplines, then sravana of the Vedanta texts results in the intuition, removing the specific illusion every time it is repeated. Here too, Vimuktatman does not see eye to eye with the school of Mandana which holds that mediate knowledge arising from sravana needs to be transformed into immediacy by repeated meditation. He, on the contrary, suggests that from sravana itself, intuition takes place, provided it comes at the top of all spiritual equipment.
na cha paroksham vastu paroksha-jnanaireva abhyasyamanaih
aparokshibhavet……… tasmat sravanadini abhyasyamanani
aparoksha eva atmani anekaprakaran bhraman nivartayati-
santi sakshat darsanarthani bhavanti (p. 64). *
* The number within bracket refers to the page number or the Adhyaya number in Ishta-siddhi edited by Prof. Hiriyanna in Gaekwad Oriental Series, Baroda.
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