4.1  PURUSA

The word Purusa is used to denote the soul (atman). It is used in the Veda (Rg. Yajus, Saman, Atharvan) in connection with the creation and praise of the Purusa (Purusa-sukta). Usually it is translated to mean the embodied being or Personality. Its first use is Cosmic or even transcendent and creation itself is shown to be a kind of Sacrifice of Purusa, Yajna. Later we find that embodiedness or having a body was dropped and the term Purusottama was used by the Bhagavad-Gitacarya, Sri Krsna, to designate the Supreme Creator.Whether it is a body of matter or from which all matter came into being, the Supreme Self of all is called a Person or Purusa.

The word has been derived by some from another word used in the Rg-Veda : Purisa, meaning abundantly filling (pur : to fill and isa, as abundant). Some have tried to derive Purisa from the Pur to mean the city or town and isa to be the lord : the embodied soul is said to the lord of the City with nine gates (navadvara-puri), the human body.

However, it appears that Purusa can be derived also from the root pu : meaning to purify. The Purusa is one who is pure and untouched by all the works of the body or the effects.  It is seen that this conception has been a metaphysical concept in respect of the Purusa in Sankhya and those who follow it.

Purusa means the pure Being. The concept parallel to this is the concept of God as Actus Purus : pure activity. This is the view held by Aristotle of God, who is the opposite of the world wherein impure material mixed activity is available. Indeed the self or soul is utterly free from the material activity and thus its pure nature as inactive is affirmed as a resolute differentiam from matter, even as the word Nirguna is the refutation of the triguna in respect of the soul.

Purusa as actus purus or pure activity which is detached from the triple activity of matter which are darkening and capable of causing suffering is the very nature of the Purusa in sankhya. Indeed one type of activity is granted to the soul which is otherwise stainless or guiltless in respect of matter : it passively looks on and identifies itself with material modifications (vikrtis) and enjoys too. This Saksi-caitanya is its nature and this theoretical on looking is pure in so far as it is not affected by the dances of Nature.

Thus it is suggested that the word Purusa seems to reflect two concepts viz. (i) the pure activity concept as suggested in the word purusa (Ö pu) and (ii) as the self indwelling in the body with nine gates (purisa). But see Brh. Up. I. iv. 1. where  purusa is so called because purvo’smat sarvasmat sarvan papmana ausat tasmat Purusa ausati’. . . He is of all things consumed by fire of all sins. The above suggestions get a peculiarly prominent affirmation from quite an unexpected source. It is the concept of the Person. Person is usually held to be the embodied being : so it has metaphysical and even morphological affinity with the Vedic word Purusa. The use of this term in a technical sense as representing a function or a mask in Greek drama leads us to suspect whether it has not quite a natural origin. Especially the gods have each a representative divine function and this function demands a dress or apparel or form, which goes along with its name. The actors who have to impersonate really, that is, to act as another, have to take up the form suitable to the name. This form-adoption is done by means of making a likeness which will suggest the original. In other words, the persona is an impersonation for an original which is thus suggested when one perceives the impersonating form which is similar to that. By itself without that knowledge of the original this would hardly convey any sense. Indeed it is this that makes drama a mirror of reality which it evokes through suggestion made through masks (forms similar or identical to the original).

In Sankhya philosophy this becomes very luminous indeed because all the processes of prakrti are but masks of the Purusa and ahankara really is the basic mask of the Purusa (impersonation), and it is that which makes one mistake the copy for the original, the persona for the person. This is the basic illusion which has to be transcended. When some philosophers compared our life to a drama it was clear that the function of an enacted drama is to lift the veil of identity between the persona and person, and make us see the person without the veil. This cathartic conception and midwifery conception of drama have been lost sight of and the enjoyment theory is substituted. But real enjoyment consists in this discovery of the duality of persona and person, and transcendence over persona so to attain the person. The purusa and person concepts are so close that it is quite likely that the two were originally from the same root (dhatu).

The denial of the atman whilst accepting the purisa concept in Buddhism throws some light over the struggles with this concept of the embodied self.

Really that which is clear is that there was a time when the self in so far as it entertained creativity created for itself a body (out of elements already existing). The person was a potential enjoyer and created for itself by its activity (which resembled thought or buddhi) sustained by an original desire (trsna) (Iccha) its body or a sequence of bodies : at the beginning sheaths are the intellectual body, mental body, subtle bodies and gross bodies which went pari passu with the worlds of the different elements or its own environment. Then it became what it can call its extension of person or personality. Even now this stage is seen when we claim rights which are defined as personality. Even property is said to be an extension of Personality.

Psychological definitions of personality have this same exterior behaviour pattern. Thus these indicate a person but consider that without these personality-factors the person is a ghost or something like that.

The metaphysical philosopher on the other hand discovered that the person is the eternal witness sustaining the process of creation upto the limit and enjoying the inventiveness that he has. The person discovers his potentiality or personality in creative adventure in evolution.

The Purusa thus is said to sacrifice in creation (yajna) by projection of himself. The whole process of creation is the projection of the personality of the Divine Person. It is his aisvarya, virya, jnana, bala, sakti and tejas that are exhibited at each point.

The individual soul in its person has thus same possibility but due to lack of inward stability of jnana or saccidananda, it identifies itself just as an actor or even as the audience does, and feels intimacy with the created rather than with the creator.

There are two types of persons, those who have finished their creativity for it is shown to be finite, and those who have not. The first type returns to the person from its own personality and the second moves from person to the personality losing consciousness of its own person.

The one which has seen the limits of its own personality yearns no more for it : whereas those who have not progress hoping for an infinite enjoyment of their creation. Of course the latter is bound to discover the limits for it is seen that there is an automatic reverse after reaching the end of the creativity in the organic or material world.

The concept of the Purusa thus is closely linked up with the concept of the Person and as such it is likely that one would be able to discover an Indo-Germanic root which will place them together. The euphonic element also suggests this identification. Person has been derived by some scholars from per = through, son = sound. Thus a person is one who is known through sound. Sound would probably mean talk or language. It seems in drama a character is known through his sound or talk. This derivation is most fanciful. Here we have a case of deriving the meaning from the character. The persona as a mask or garb or make-up for a character to represent a character or person is understandable, though to derive person from dramatis persona is rather a reversal of interpretation.

Therefore it appears that person is the original word, and it closely corresponds to the Sanskrit word Purusa which has had a hoary history.

It appears that the word person or purusa had undergone many changes. One of them at least is that it because paras and later parasu. The great Rama of the Axe (Parasu-Rama) was originally Purusa Rama (Rama Jamadagnya). Waddell has made certain remarks in his Indo-Sumerian studies.

The Vaikhanasa Agama considers that the original Transcendent Godhead is Purusa.

My studies on the correspondences between the Five Nights, Five Daytimes and Five Agnis lead me to the conclusion that the avatara known as Parasurama was in fact the fulfilment of the Fivefold Fires – Bhrgu, Cyavana, Apnuvana, Aurva and jamadagni, who were all discoverers of the five levels of Fire or five different kinds of fire – (my Idea of God : chapter on the Pancaratra Conception of God).

4.2  The Sensory and the Supersensory Perceptions

The recognition of a supersensory perception on the part of scientists has been quite tardy. The physiological scientists could not believe how our ordinary senses-and they are five-could ever grant us knowledge about things as they are in themselves. But they had also to admit that knowledge for man is entirely restricted to the indriyas, organs, mainly because these sense – organs are our instruments of knowledge of objects. Whether the objects stimulate our sense – organs or our sense – organs reach out to them and get stimulated, it is not very much important, for this depends upon the urge from within or pressure from without. Our sense – knowledge then, is our only knowledge of facts or objects and this type of knowledge is what we observe or experiment with, to gain. We do not know exactly what the objects or things themselves are in themselves without these sense – characteristics which they have for sense – dependent and sense – organised beings like ourselves. We have our knowledge of the external world both through the jnanendriyas enumerated as the organs of sight, hearing sound, taste, smell and touch but also, through the karmendriyas known or rather enumerated as vak (mouth and speech) (organ of food), hands, legs, excrement and enjoyment or production of offspring (sex). All these variety of knowledge belongs to the objects of the world which offers goals of satisfaction of organic needs. Our artha – purushartha and kama – purushartha get realised through the knowledge provided by the jnanendriyas and karmendriyas.

We can have exact knowledge of these objects provided we have developed objective observation without attachment, provided we have sense – organs and motor organs in healthy condition, and provided also we avoid conditions which are likely to distort our sense – motor knowledge. The scientists have prescribed that our scientific sensory knowledge should be as exact as possible, as precise as possible, in order to be true (prama). The development of instruments of scientific knowledge or observation has helped us in providing instruments not only of precision but of depth. Measurement also has been rendered possible of all that host of scientific discoveries in respect of optical and auditory and other kinds of wave – lengths and vibrations and in fact our ever – growing and widening horizons of observation of even the subatomic particles only reveals that there is possibly no end to the dimensions of our sensory knowledge. But all these are not non – sensory and in a sense, the gross senses, unassisted by these inventions, could hardly help us to affirm either their existence or their truth. Thus, broadly speaking, our sensory knowledge is strictly limited in its range but, with the help of instruments, one could extend it very much. These perceptions in a sense, could be called extra sensory if we accept the meaning to be extended sensory knowledge. Microscopes, electronic scopes, tele scopes and etc. are accessory to sense extending the area of perceptions.

The modern writers on Extra-Sensory Perceptions like Prof. Rhine had demonstrated that we can ‘see’ without the instrumentality of sense organs. This has been tested under experimental conditions and with a great deal of probability affirmed to take place. Thus we do have sense – experiences such as seeing forms, hearing talks, or feeling presence of scents and so on, without the help of the physiological organs which are said to be absolutely necessary for the knowledge of objects for the normal man. The whole question is whether this kind of sensory experience (not sense – organ perceptions, indriya – janya jnana) is normal to man or is specially gifted to some persons. We are aware that among animals and birds and bats a high degree of acuity is present in the sense – organs themselves. But there must be some kind of reception of stimuli from objects which these sense organs pick up. Do we have any reason to think that the specially gifted individuals of ESP are possessed of such highly evolved or acute sense – organs? Further in ESP, it is also known that there is interruption of a direct impac or the sense – organ with the object and yet the object is sensed. If this is the case, then the animal or insectual acuity is over – ruled. It is definitely a case of non – sensory sense – experience or non organic sense – experience. This of course opens up the problem whether in fact there can be sensorial experiences without sense organs and if so should we not conclude that objects have senses which are necessarily grasped by sense – organs.

Indian theoretical or metaphysical thinking had concluded that since the sense – organs themselves evolved out of a subtle substance called buddhi (chit) (some have held it is subtle I-activity, ahamkara) these properties of sensory experience which are potentially or subtly and more eminently in it, present us with a subtle knowledge inaccessible to the sense – organs. It is the gross properties that these sense – organs are enabled through their physiologically constructed organs help to gather. Thus man can recover this capacity which undoubtedly operates even under our present  conditions by shutting out the sense – experiences brought to man through his sense – organs. If our sense – organs could only give us present knowledge or knowledge before us now, it is quite possible that the ahamkara or buddhi could present knowledge – sensorial – sensorial of the past and present and future as well, of that which is distant and near and beyond the sense – organ ranges too. Thus buddhi – pratyaksa or aham – pratyaksa is atindriya – beyond sense – organ ranges of comprehension. This may include the ESP. This may be possible for one and all under certain conditions of insulation of the sensory organs or when there happens a tremendous psychic need that enforces the operations of the higher mind and will (buddhi and ahamkara) for the sake of preservation of the individual. Such conditions are precisely those that some teachers train some to enable them to have these buddhi-ja or atma-ja experiences which do have sensory nature but very much subtle and fulfilling or exact.

Yoga pratyaksa has been claimed to be an important supersensory means of attaining experience of the subtle forms of matter, like the atoms and their constituents. In fact the descriptions given of an atom (anu) as having six sides and so on or as having subtle properties are claimed to be got through the yogic pratyaksa or that perception which develops under the yogic states of Sanyama or concentration. The yoga sutras indeed speak of the supersensory means of  knowing the properties of the anus or tanmatras which are the causal states of the gross elements known to us through the respective sensory organs. It is this capacity to be able to perceive the tanmatras or anus that perhaps renders the sensory organs of the yogis super-subtle. In any case, it is well known that even the yogic powers of walking on water and flying in air and so on are super-activities of the motor organs as well. The strict disciplines of yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara and dharana are necessary for this development. Through hathayoga one masters these processes. In fact so advanced is the yogic technique in the earlier periods that the yogic pratyaksa could see how the transformation and re-formation of objects take place by the subtle changes taking place in the atomic structures of the objects. Thus the black brick becomes red brick and with different properties by the introduction of the fire-atoms and the throwing out of the water – atoms and this takes place in either of the two ways, pilu-paka or pithara-paka according to the Vaisesikas who seem to have turned out to be the earliest alchemists in India. This branch of study of the subtle changes or modifications or substitutions and transformations of micro-elements is now a forgotten chapter in Indian alchemy.

The Yoga – ja pratyaksa however shows that we do have the knowledge of subtle tanmatras or ingredients of the objects through subtle sensory organs. However so far as we are aware, though we have mention of the subtle tanmatras or atoms or sub-atoms which are said to be the cause of the gross elements or objects which are composite substances, there is hardly any mention of the existences of the subtle sensory – organs generally in Indian physiological literature. However, there instead, we find mention of the nadis and chakras and which are invisible to the naked eye and which indeed operate to bring up the experiences of the subtle changes in the body to the individual. Here we find Yogic psychology of invaluable help for the supersensory cognitions.

Though we reach up to this level of sensitivity, we are said to be yet in a field wherein there can be much disillusionment or rather we are yet in the region of Maya or Illusion, only more subtle and therefore more invidious than our gross experiences of objects. The fact that an experience is yoga – ja does not ipsofacto make it true or veridical.

Saints therefore did not feel it right to develop these supersensory cognitions of the atomic and sub – atomic elements that are at the bottom of all the changes that we witness in the outer world. It is the province of physical scientists and though excellent as knowledge, these discoveries do not lead to the attainment of the liberated individual. It is however true that, science does give one a sense of liberty from the ignorance about matter and its infinite permutations and combinations of sub-atomic (paramanu) forces which today we are calling nuclear energies. They could be misused for the destruction of man, they could be misused for misguiding man and also for putting the clock of evolution back. Our very knowledge might become an instrument of human torture and misery. Our knowledge of  the technique of creating deceptions based on the laws of light and photographical innovations has been in fact quite a success in two directions : the discovery of the psychological truth that man tries to escape into these deceptions as condition of security against boredom and outer misery and, secondly, as a great phantastic alienating man from his goal.

The supersensory cognitions however showed one thing that they are the field of operations of most pseudo mystics or saviours. The performance of miracles strikes terror as well as induces confidence in those who are witness to these miracles. They are invaluable faith – inducers but nonetheless they have a tendency to arrest the inward aspiration for the higher than the supersensory fields. The supersensory fields are undoubtedly very vast, and indeed, we can hazard the statement that the possibilities of our knowledge of the Cosmos are very definite and within reach. Cosmic Consciousness seems to be very much involved in the supersensory cognitivity. Therefore, it is held that, one sign of the arising of the Cosmic Consciousness in man, is the development of supersensory cognitivity. However it is clear that though one meets with poets of sensitive vision of this Cosmic Consciousness, their awareness of liberty is conditioned by the area of their cognitivity which is not infinite.

The supersensitivity of the cosmic area opens up quite a vast field. The siddhis of the yoga school in fact lead us up to the very knowledge of the creational event or the continuous process of arising and passing of all things. The words of the luminous and the dark are opened up to the cognitivity of the Yogi. Cosmological intuitions seem to be possible at this level. The real difficulty of proving these to be true lies in the subjectivity of these objective realities – there is much mix up of illusion and reality – a dream world illuminated by the psychic light – taijasa – full of tejas, power and light, where at one point there is an inverse relation between them and at another cordinated relation.

The true intuitive consciousness or insight however comes from a still higher level of Being. Though in passing through the sense organs even of the supersensible order (nadis and cakras) they do have both the visual and the auditory qualities, these intuitions sometimes do not bear any such trace. So much so it has been held that these are achromatic and so on and they are purely mental or supramental, only meanings flash into the consciousness or they have the quality of lightning – flash (vidyutva). They illumine the inner consciousness and later on are given imaginative bodies so to speak. This level of consciousness or cognitivity is said to be in terms of ‘ideas’, ‘insights’ ‘intuitions’ and ‘sphota’ (Illuminations). That these are inner auditions and inner visions having no mediations of the subtle or gross sense organs seems to be clear. In so far then as these are beyond the range of the supersensible Cosmic Consciousness (which is about closest to the poetic imagination when it is directed not towards fancy but towards apprehension of eternal cosmic or universal realities), these sphotas or illuminations are of the ideal or Soul-order or spiritual. This means that so far as the cosmic and other visions are concerned, they are all of the material order – prakrtic or maya – order of being. Though omnipotence and power and knowledge are available for this supersensory cognitivity it is not that suffices for the full cognitivity, of the Self of spiritual nature.

The reflected illuminations are no substitutes for the original light of self which is perhaps incapable of being equated with the cosmic and terrestrial sensory lights of our understanding of matter. It is an invisible light, inaudible sound and equally intasteable taste, intactual touch and infragrant fragrance, which the upani sadic teachers called brahma – rupa, brahma – sabda, brahma – rasa, brahma – gandha and brahma – sparsa. It is this spiritual cognitivity that is the aim of the true yogi, who is true jnani as well, who knows his own supercosmic awareness to be the sole Reality of his own ultimate nature or God. This is the divya jnana which is also para – jnana of the paraprakrti, that develops into certainties or indubitabilities of the nature of Reality and God and self and Nature in an all – embracing cognizance.

This experience is divya and original got by the Grace of the Ultimate which means, that it is something that is absolutely beyond both the senses and the super-senses and the mind that is tied down or up to these material objects.

The Isa Upanisad says that it is this attainment of  supercognitivity that makes one see reality in all its forms and manifestations in its eternal nature – in its essence or satya. This is what grants liberation from all ignorance and massive delusions and as such, takes one beyond all imperfections and ignorances which bind man to the eternal chain of causes and effects, or desire for continuous next births and deaths for the sake of having new births.

______

Samadhi is not yogic trance which is associated only with the oblivion of physical and mental selves. In samadhi, there is neither oblivion nor knowledge of any object. Forgetfulness and remembrance are with reference to an object and a state of mind’s objective awareness. Samadhi is attainment of absolute Consciousness. In the Absolute, there is no world, of which body is a part. When the world itself has no existence in the Absolute, where is the sense in saying that one forgets the body and the world during the experience of samadhi?

- Divine Mother

Children, for ages, you have wept. Stop weeping. Awake to the consciousness of your divine, blissful nature, and to the ecstasy of devotion. Three types of tears are holy and pure – the tears of mercy, the tears of repentance and the tears of God – love. These tears move the heart of the Almighty to compassion.

- Divine Mother

4.3  PRATIBHA

Pratibha 1 is identified with imagination that throws suggestive light on any subject to which it is directed but mainly in respect of aesthetic enjoyment (rasa). Though it is appropriated to aesthetics there is also a general application of this term.

It consists of a twofold activity (i) the act of imaginative grasping and (ii)  the luminosity that it throws on the object sought to be grasped.

Literally it means the reflected light cast on the mind of the knower or seer from the object – a light that was earlier sent towards the object for knowing it.

Knowing is the process of grasping the object by sending mental light towards the object and get it back. This activity brings back the jnanakara (form or idea or impression) of the object which produces a kind of delight of having got the knowledge. Attainment of knowledge itself yields a kind of pleasure or delight. It may be painful or pleasant – frightful or attractive – but also this is the affective accompaniment to the knowing-process. It is thus a reflected knowledge activity – prati-bha. It throws light of the form on the mind and as such it is said to be a kind of illumination about the object attained by the subject, the knower.

In pratyaksa – perception through the sight – it is the same process: the seeing light in the eye induced by the mind goes to the object and brings back the impression to the mind – a kind of return light – or counter-light or reflected light. All knowledge thus is reflected light from the object, but the knowing light is of the subject knowing and the return light is from the object and is the second stage of the subject-light laden with the impression of the object. This reveals the object to the subject; but it is the subject’s light that is attained now laden with the impression of the object. All knowledge is in this sense a knowing which involves the movement of consciousness to the object and return from it. Since all knowledge is of this kind – idealists hold that the object itself is knowledge whereas all that we can call knowledge is only the impression of the object in the mind of the subject. It is true that it would be difficult to know what the object is in itself, for all that can be known is only its form as received through the knowing-light.

That all objective knowledge is of this order can be fully known by the terms used to signify knowledge activity: we have already referred to praty-aksa: praty-abhijna or memory is also a kind of returning light from memory which is the store-house of all impressions – and is objective knowledge.

Pratyaksa is a reflected knowledge of the object confronting the subject. Pratibha is the reflected knowledge of the object as idea confronting the individual. Pratika is the revelational confronting of the Divine Form to which we grant a special status, and have it as an object of worship. Pratyabhijna is just memory or remembrance of things forgotten – may be of the metaphysical relationship as with God or of the ordinary remembrance of events or of previous life friendships or animosities etc.

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The above section dealt with only the use of the prefix prati. In fact there are other uses such as pratyaya, pratyagat, etc. which are used as words of knowledge activity or attainment.

In Grammar pratibha is used as vakyartha or the meaning suggested by the words or proposition. The word pratibha is not found in the Mahabhasya. But the analysis of the word has led to a two-point view: (i) the meaning from the speaker’s point of view and (ii) meaning from the listener’s point of view; or rather since the above is clumsily stated, we can say that the first is meaning as grasped by the subject or the person uttering the sentence or word or proposition and the second is meaning as grasped by the listner of the same sentence or  word or proposition. A proposition or even a word cannot be without some meaning. In fact it is meaning that illumines the mind and thus all knowledge is meaning. Non-sense words are meaningless so long as they are not given some conventional meaning. In fact we always perceive that we attach meaning to nonsense syllables or words or conjunct sounds arbitrarily too in order to remember them. Experiments in memorizing has clearly pointed out that the very tendency of the mind or intelligence is to give arbitrary meaning or lighting to the sounds that we hear. On this basis some thinkers have universalized or rather generalized the view that all meaning is imposed or conventionalized and made customary usage. Whilst we may grant this view, the study of the origins of language shows that somehow the so-called arbitrary attribution of meaning to sounds, letters, words and even group of sounds, letters and words (idiom) go beyond the human invention theory.

Not only is a meaning just a light thrown or returned from the object perceived or sounds grasped but also it is involved in action. Kamalasila seems to have argued that pratibha is an insight leading to an action. If we remember that all knowledge is also for action, and the verification of knowledge lies in its use in action (arthakriya-karitva) then it would follow that pratibha is basically a dynamic meaning – not a passive knowledge but an active agent for action, either as an obligation or imperative. Thus we could understand why the Mimamsakas emphasized that all propositions entail an imperative (a vidhi or a  nisedha).

All knowledge is also activity, and is intended for activity. They cannot be separated from one another. In fact they are one activity, though distinguishable and separable too in some cases. Jnana and karma are in fact one activity, mutually reinforcing and attaining the result. Isavasyopanisad has given a classic guidance in this matter: vidyanca avidyanca yas tad veda ubhayam saha avidyaya mrtyum tirtva vidyaya amrtam asnute//

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This leads us to one other consideration, namely, the relationship between the buddhindriyas and karmendriyas in Indian psychology.

The evolutionary theory of Samkhya and the Bhagavad Gita are similar except for the fact that ahamkara is earlier than the buddhi in the Gita, whereas it is an evolute of buddhi (mahat)1 in the former. This of course shows that buddhi as universal is earlier to the individuating empirical ego in Samkhya, but in the Gita the buddhi is already an individuated intellection – reflecting the self to itself in its individuated condition. In fact the activity of cognition is clearly one by which the buddhi is reflecting back the consciousness to the ego along with the experiences of objects which it has evolved. Prati-bha at this level is just prati-bimba or reflective knowledge of the objects, or the self itself. This of course entails a distortion or inversion in knowing itself before it reaches the self whose consciousness it is that is thus reflected.

This is not an important fact as much as when we consider the fact that all the five buddhindriyas and the five karmendriyas are arising out of the ahamkara or the manas. In fact the Gita mentions manas sastan indriyani and perhaps excludes the five karmendriyas. But if we examine closely it should be seen that the five buddhindriyas pair with the five karmendriyas and they have also as objects the respective tanmatras which are five and bhutas which are five and these twenty form an integral unity in knowledge. This is not a far-fetched ingenious view at all for it is in fact the way things happen.

       Thus we can see that see that

       Srotra               sabda                akasa                vag

       Caksus             rupa                  tejas                 pani

       Tvak                 sparsa               vayu                 pada

       Ghrana             gandha              prthivi               payu

       Rasana             rasa                  ap                     upastha

The above table will show the corresponding objects and the activities of the karmendriyas in respect of those objects. Knowledge of an object is not complete without the ability to use it. That this activity in so far as it is not efficient or is unadopted may and does lead to failure and sorrow is a fact. But in order that knowledge may be definite and exact it must satisfy both the criteria of virtual action and actual action. If we consider that sense-knowledge is virtual action as Bergson has said, then action-knowledge results in efficient and skilled knowledge that leads to action unconditionally.

Thus though it is argued by some that action is an extraneous test of truth, yet in another sense it is intrinsic to all truth that it can be used to bring about a result. This fact is realised in the explanation of the Nyaya’s so-called paratah-pramana but it is really intrinsic svatah pramana according to Mimamsa. It is when we do not see the integral oneness of knowledge and action, vidya and avidya, we begin to think that avidya will lead to bondage and knowledge alone will lead to freedom. This is not true, for knowledge guiding action or towards knowledge is the proper direction towards freedom and efficiency or skill, whereas action not so guided but guiding knowledge may lead to bondage for it is the reverse method.

Returning to Pratibha, we can see that in true insight that is dynamic the two are not separated – knowledge guides through the light that it has secured all action. Meaning in a proposition thus is rendered dynamic for action as well as expression, and freedom is achieved and this grants real pleasure or aesthetic pleasure (rasa). It is in fact a great truth that real rasa is only possible when it has both the characteristics of light and being (sat and cit – sat typifying existence (activity) and cit exemplifying light – pratibha).

IVtc "IV"

Naturally the problem of pratibha is connected by certain thinkers with the concept or experience of sphota or flashing illumination of meaning whenever one sees anything. This involves the view that every object does illumine our consciousness even before we try to see it. This kind of knowledge is stimulated or given by the object as a self-revelation, not something that is got by the effort of the individual’s consciousness or cognitive activity to get the jnanakara (formal idea) of the object. The view held is that every object is a unity of name and form (namarupa), and when we perceive the form (rupa) the name is flashed back and when the name is heard the form is flashed back. This is an original synthesis in creation. In our conventional language- patterns the form and name are in the form of conditional reflexive unity. The ancient view is that though the modern conventional language is arbitrary, if we look sufficiently back we will find that there is an original name-form unity. It is to this unity that Poet Kalidasa refers in his famous sloka: vagarthav iva samprktau. In fact I have tried to show2 that the usual method of explaining the six-fold contact in all perception given in the scholastic textbooks on Indian Logic have bungled all along. The contacts are stated to be (i) samyoga – the contact between the indriya (manas) and the object (dravya): (ii) this gives rise to the knowledge of the quality of the ‘that’ (dravya), and since this quality is inherent in the dravya this contact is called samyukta samavaya: the (iii) contact is with the samanya (generality) which is inherent in the quality (guna), and this is called samyukta samaveta samavaya: The next (iv) is said to be the perception of hearing or sound and since sound is said to be the quality of the ether in the ear (srotra-akasa) it is stated to be samavaya: But it is here that we meet with a difficulty. It is not then a sound that is objective but subjective and therefore it is impossible to concede that this is any real perception of an objective sound with which the ear should be in contact. Thus really this is a case of samyukta-samavaya or mere samyoga with the sound. But suppose we take it that this sound comes from the thing or dravya with which it is inherent then it would be a case of samyukta samavaya – the name being in the same status as the form (quality) and thus a dravya now gets both a name and form, and this is a complete knowledge than an unutterable (anirvacaniya) form – experience. Of course  (v) this sound can only be meaningful in the context of a universal language or that language block and also the complete knowledge of a thing would not only include name and form but also location in space and time. The (vi) contact thus is with respect of the existence of an object in space and time expressed in terms of reciprocal existence-non- existence (visesana and visesya and abhava). Sphota as illumination is a natural power but when it is sought to be made into a mysterious power of each letter and each sound or even half sound, and when it is further sought to be made into a Godhead or the final Godhead (Brahman), the Vedantic thinkers rejected it in that form as an ultimate reality. Rightly too.

If sphota is the original sound (vibration) illumining the object with meaning – then its objective reality is something that is grasped in relevation. We have enough examples even in the Upanisads to show that meanings are given to sounds or individual sounds and these are not conventional at all: they look arbitrary and conventional symbolic language – and they called it mantrika meanings: that which transcends thought as human beings know it. But these mantra – sphota are also known through pratibha so far as the individual is concerned.

These are twin-concepts and to deny the one whilst reducing the other to the aesthetic sphere is to have lost sight of the basic integrality of experience as both name and form and not easily to be equated with the empirical knowledge alone. The yogic knowledge reveals the importance of both and makes mantra meaningful as also attain the goal of realisation (tantra).

If sabda or sruti is the meaningful means towards real and true knowledge of Brahman, it follows that in a sense the knowledge of sabda in all its fullest capacities should be got. The illuminative character of sabda is not capable of being had by the mere ratiocination of the texts without the luminous light of the sphota and pratibha mingling to make one enter into the sanctum of Reality. That we worship the Veda as the sabda-brahman only shows that the really valuable sabda that can straight lead us to insight into Brahman is this incomparable Veda Sabda. It is not an independent Brahman, claiming a separate allegiance but an altogether valuable means to the Ultimate Brahman who is the illuminator of all these and illumined by these reflexively so to speak and is the sac cid ananda.

4.4  THE DOCTRINE OF THE PARAKIYA

The doctrine of parakiya has been interpreted in various ways-we can distinguish the right interpretation from the wrong interpretation by a consideration of the purport of this concept. Kalidasa, the eminent poet of India, has stated the view about parakiya in his Sakuntala:

            Artho hi Kanya Parakiya eva

            tamadya sampresya parigrahituh

            Jatmamayam visadah prakamam

            Pratyarpita nyasa ivantaratma.                       (III)

The girl belongs to another (not to the parent) and has to be returned to him even as one places oneself at the feet of the Suprems Self (of all) by way of returning one’s treasure to him real owner.

In this profound analogy Kalidasa illustrates the fact that the returning of God’s treasure to him is the act of nyasa (offering or placing) the soul (the individual soul) to its owner, God. This was so well known in his time that he uses it as the upamana whilst making the returning of a girl to her husband is the upameya. Here it is legitimate and legal and profoundly social. It would certainly be wrong to suggest that since a girl is another’s or man’s she could be given to any other man as his legally wedded wife. Such cannot be the meaning that Kalidasa gives. He always showed the path of dharma of righteous conduct.

The upamana is interesting from the metaphysical point of view. The soul is compared to a kanya - one who is of the age of marriage or one who has come to the state of having chosen marriage or married  whose business or urgent need is to go to her husband. The Supreme Being or God is said to be the real master and support of the souls and the urgency of the soul is its maturity of knowledge that it is no longer its own (svatantra) but that of another (partantra). The Other in this case is God alone, the Transcendent being known as the Para-ultimately transcendent. The choice of the Ultimate Being has been intimated by such phrases as Original (Adi) Source (Mulam). The Pancatatra makes out that though there are vyuha, vibhava, harda and arca as the other or lower statutes of the Godhead the soul should seek para-sayuja etc rather than vyuha, vibhava, harda and arca-sayuja . Thus the alvar says that the supreme Narayana speaks of the granting of the Para (Final or Ultimate Being) rather than the more familiar and other forms of vyuha, vibhava, harda and arca. (Narayanane namakke parai taruvan; Goda’s Tiruppavai).

Thus it is to be known the one ultimately belongs to and should be supported by, enjoyed by and determined by the Supreme Para, the truly other than every other soul or status of God Himself.

The Visnu Purana speaks of the souls being female and the Divine Lord alone as the only male and therefore all females should wed the One Deity. All these will show that the Divine the Para has to be surrendered to or offered oneself to as one’s own Self one’s own(svakiya).

The problem of love has been one of the most baffling problems in the history of mankind. It means indeed the assumption that one cannot be truly one’s own but that one needs another for completing one’s existence. The need for another felt and yearned after is one of the baffling problems of sex-biology. The biological need for another is for the sake of the progeny - a biological arrangement for the continuance of the species or race or community or some such institution. The biological unfortunately is not the main factor in human evolution. We find that this need that is felt for another of one’s own sex or the other sex is not at all based on the biological need for continuance of the species or kind but personally as a sense of completeness of one’s life through another. This non-biological need is the human development of need for another. That this cuts across the biological makes many think that this is an abnormality and it is well known that D.H. Lawrence used to portray this abnormal type in his novels. He called this a blood craving or need, and this breaks all the conventions that man has made for the biological need. This ‘human need’ of another for the sake of another or more precisely for the sake of completeness of perfection of one’s own personality through integration or union with another male or female is said to be what one should aim at in social reconstruction.

This concept of union not for the sake of progeny or the survival of the species but for the completion of one’s personality can be called the principle of marriage in human society; and perhaps its efficacy will be emphasized by its being consciously opposed to the biological sexual relations which depends on the principle of survival of race.

This is of course to be substantiated by the metaphysical discussion as to the basic relationship fundamental to the existence of sexual relationships in human society or higher rational society - which is conceived more and more as a-sexual or supra-sexual.

The Bhakti schools of India had postulated that the individual soul in so far as it seeks, yearns and devotes itself to finding out that ‘Other’ which can complete it or perfect it or fulfil it is basically of the nature of a female, dependent on one superior to it. But this is not of course the only relationship which is that of dependence for in a deeper sense one’s body can be considered to be dependent on the soul than a woman on her husband or male. Still others have raised the dependence to the level of power or sakti on the owner of power, just as the rays depend on the Source of light more than the body is dependent on the soul. These analogies had supplied degrees of dependence as capable of being visualised. The Upanisads have indeed held these views. The need for the ‘Other’s or God is in fact the entire aspiration for realization, perfection, salvation etc, Yajnavalkya has expressed this in his most inimitable manner na va are patvuh kamaya paith priyo bhavaty atmanastu kamaya paith priyo bhavati; na va are jayayai kamaya jaya priya bhavaty atmanasti kamaya jaya priyo bhavati ...

Thus every thing becomes objects of love or affection because of the Self or the ‘Other’ (Para) by whom everything lives and moves and has its being.

He has also stated that everything is His body* - utterly dependent on Him for their existence, continuance and emancipation or release; though none of them knows to be so; All are His body, individually and collectively. That is the nature of the Inner Self (antarartma) to which Kalidasa makes reference. It is clear that this antaratma is also the Para the transcendent Person know as the Purusottama, or Uttama Purusa, who is other than (anyah) the other purusas, know as the Ksara and Aksara in the Gita.

The individual soul in society attains several types of relationship and the most intimate is said to be that of husband and wife. This relationship though conceived and fomented by the desire for progeny ultimately at the human level is that which culminates in the desire for each other. This is said to be the nature of Sringara and of all the sentiments (rasas) this sentiment of love ¾ the need for the other ¾ is said to be the most dramatisable and productive of greatest happiness or joy. It is not necessary at this point to refer to the sophistication that has developed this representation of this sentiment into a formal method and an art. That might be truly a decorative method (alamkara) for communication of what the nature of emotional stimulation of this sentiment should be like. Bhakti as a Rasa has been claimed to be capable of being represented and dramatized and made into a technique with whom God as hero and the souls as heroines seeking union with God. The sentiment of devotion when mixed up with Sringara or love seeking union with the Para has been represented by the Alvars as legitimate ontologically sanctioned by the concept of relationship of the souls with God as similar to that of the bride to the bridegroom rather than of lover to the beloved though the former contains the latter.

There has always been an attempt to make the illegitimate relation or extra-marital relationship enjoyable and exciting than the legitimate. It is this tantric twist that lead to the supreme expression of love as most effective when it is illegitimate love for another who is not one’s husband or one’s wife. It is one which has relationship with the pancamakaramaithuna being one of them ¾ a sexual relationship with one who is other than one’s own legally accepted and recognised. The utilisation of Radha for this motif among the tantrically inclined has given slant to this most holy of existential relationships between God and soul. The love of the soul to God is personified in Radha; love it is that sustains the soul (dhara) in its relationship to God and it is the reciprocal love of God for the soul that makes him the supporter (dhara) of the entire universe of souls. Since he bears the burden of the entire universe He is the bharta, supporter, bearer and therefore husband of the entire universe of souls, whose number is mystically in numerology put as 16,000, sixteen being the number for fullness or perfection or completeness.

The soul in so far as it has love in fact is the power which compels so to speak the Divine reciprocity of love and union of the soul with God is the greatest play of the world-creation-nitya-lila which is nitya-kalyana. This in fact is the nityotsava of God-soul relationship.

The soul’s love of God has led to certain assumptions namely it means the giving up of the relationship of any kind with any other souls. Thus father, mother, children, husband or wife etc, are all asked to be given up ¾ this being perhaps one of the meanings given to the famous sloka of the Bhagavad Gita-Sarva-dharman-parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja ¾ giving up all duties (to all other individuals, relations etc) seek me alone as your own dharma, Svadharma a sole dharma, eka dharma. This is in fact the meaning of sannyasa renunciation or tyaga of everything other than God (the Para), and as such it is a doctrine of Parakiya. The love of God is said to demand this total or integral self-giving by which all social and other ties are severed. Thus the giving up of one’s wife or husband for the sake of God-love is counselled and admired. This choice of God is even when one has married another and in preference to the socially recognized and accepted husband or wife is admired by all. But this parakiya is not wrong though perhaps it is not really what is intended by the integral love that loves God and through that pure Godly love enriches the love towards one’s husband or wife or children or parents. The counsel of Yajnavalkya seems to suggest that the sole love of God in fact enhances and increases the love of one’s husband or wife or relations rather than otherwise as is usually thought of. God may be jealous in certain religions but in the Bhagavata and the Upanisads He is the inner Self of all and the love of Him increases and enhances one’s love for all others too. Thus one loves all more rather than less by God ¾ love.

The parakiya of the illegitimate kind unfortunately treats of the test of love as the giving up of all conventions or breaking up of them in order to show an utter disregard for all of them ¾ a kind of perverse egoism (viryam) that results in fouling the love that is pure and can be pure. God alone can truely be loved and God alone loves without jealousy. It is this that makes bhakti a play of love of all in and through God, it is that which completes one and perfects one by union with one’s transcendent counterpart onself the inner ruler Immortal. Parakiya Bhakti is illegitimate whereas parakiya priti or prema or sexual love is illegitimate, The reason is obvious; bhakti or devotion of two persons husband and wife, to God is possible for both acknowledge the primary duty of serving God in every way. Their unity in mind and speech and body is forged by the sprit of devotion to God, and they grow nearer to one another as comrades or companions or friends (sakha). But when God is reduced to the level of another man or human being sexually attracted as in the case of certain kinds of bhaktas then it becomes very difficult to bring about a unity of minds. The competitive or jealous mechanism or complex is set up and the two persons loved by a woman become rilvals so to speak, though God does not claim to be the exacting lover who demands the discarding or divorce of the human partner. However the entire story of rasa-krida is riddled at least in the minds of the less informed and badly mysticised minds so that the whole dramstization savours of the undivine. Whilst the attempt has to be sublimate the carnal, what has resulted was the carnalisation of the sublime. The Bhakti cults of Krisna thus degenerated into the carnal sensual love of a humanized Godhead and hardly in popular minds exalted itself to the level of divinisation of the sexual love. No wonder it was firmly rejected by those who have always thought of pure transcendent love ¾ a love that is the result of the metaphysical realisation of man’s relation to God the supreme Self of all, through whom alone such transcendent love, acosmic even, for all can flow forth in supernatural abundance. Truly therefore whilst the great acharyas of the Radha-Krisna cult ¾ Rupa Sanatana and Jiva avoided mention of the parakiya ¾ bhava in their writings, though they seem to have given rise to the divine concept of the parakiya rather than the humanised concept of the parakiya. (Dr Sushil Kumar De in his Early history of the Vaisnava Faith and Movement of Bengal), has noted this clearly (p.350*) and he noted however that their followers Yadunandan and Syamananda and Srinivasa had made popular the concept of Parkiya. However the reason for this doctrine seem to be not so much to exalt the (vyabhichara) as to show that really the Para (or God or Krisna as the adulterous dramatization in most cases leads to the degeneration and transcendent not as the avtara) is the Self (one’s own atman or antaratma) and the love of man or woman is in fact metaphysically a vyabhichara staying unless the Divine Para is accepted as the real counterpart of the soul, Whereas the so-called Parakiya is indeed svakiya ¾ the sadachara. However dramatization in most cases leads to degeneration and alamkaric use of the Divine concept leads to perversion. The saintlies celebates however avoided this pitfall which lesser men have failed to avoid.

To conclude the parakiya doctrine meant the doctrine of belonging of oneself to another as in the case of a girl and bride, and in the case of the soul. Just as the soul is to be returned to the Divine Inner Ruler Immortal by the mind so too the parent of guardian should return the girl to her husband.

The metaphysical relationship between the soul and its Lord is shown to demand the return of the soul to God. Considered as such the ‘return’ (nivritti) is the natural relationship whereas the straying away from one’s Lord is (pravritti or vyabhichara.)

The parakiya doctrine was expertly used by the Mystics for the purpose of sublimating carnal love. Their yearning for God was clothed in sexual symbology in order to help transforming the same into one of divine love ¾ atma-kama or divyakama. But its use is extremely governed by restraint of all lower impulses and carnal suggestions. The Rasa-krida of the Bhagavata is a very symbolic and in reality an ontological depth can only be appreciated by those who have loved God and in a supreme transcendental way. It is the transmutation of human nature in terms of divine relationship that is the essence of this science of divya-sringara.

It is hazardous to practice this for its emanations are very much difficult to control except under except guidance. Sri Chaitanya therefore recognized its value no less than its dangers but he had shown in his own life how it is to be practiced with saintliness and chastity.

Kalidasa however it may be stated hinted the practice of this parakiya in his triology of dramas¾by inventing the ‘Other’ woman† in the triple forms of Mala vika: Sakuntala and Urvasi. But there is hardly the real transformation effected though Kalidasa felt that the higher the stature and nature of the ‘Other’ woman the more profoundly transformative of the male is She. But this almost inverts the male psychology and provides the efficacy of the female principle which is also conceived as the Ultimate Divine. This does not provide for the sringara motif or rasa but it is sometimes held to be possible and permissible.

†    cf. My paper on: Kalidasa and Mysticism and Sri Aurobindo.  The Mother: Suvenir p. 36 ff. Symposium published by Sri Aurobindo Bangavani Nabadwip. W. Bengal 1960.

4.5  MIND THROUGH THE AGES

(The Logical Phase of Mind)

The evolutionary theory of life has been able to trace the growth of mind in three well-defined stages: the tribal or mythopoetic, the logical and the present realistic. The tribal horizon of man was deeply concerned with the magical and religious means or action for averting harm, or securing the benefits of power. It was conscious of the inherent but inscrutable power behind nature; and though vaguely conscious of its universal presence in all Natural objects, it was definitely  ‘concretistic,’ and particularistic, and its highest flights of imaginative fancy were definitely expressed by mimesis and dramatization. It did not use abstractions. But the transition to the logical phase was developed even during the mythological phase because the fundamental expression of even the mythical demands a profound understanding of symbolism and its distinctive patterns of correlation with things. Though the symbolical pursuit was strictly confined to the interpretation and even to the building up of myths, it made for the liberation of mind from the confines of the purely sensory experience, and ‘fear’ of Nature.

The transition from the mythological age to the logical age was in one sense the tradition from the sensory and emotional reaction to Nature and tribal society to the intellectual and impersonal reactions to the self-same Nature. This transition in the history of the human race was achieved generally gradually due to the growth of reflection on the phenomena of life. But as Prof. John Murphy stated we find that the tribal was succeeded by the revolutionary prophetic horizon, about B.C. 4000. This was helpful in making man the master of nature in respect of his food and general wants. Closely following prophetic horizon, the logical mind ‘intolerant of contradiction within itself and making no compromises with untruth in any sphere ‘initiated the modern’ epoch. Nature was de-peopled of its gods and all the sense of awe and the ‘numinous’ and inscrutable were removed from it. The dethronement of the ‘idols of the crowd’ was followed by a return to actual experience available to man. Conceptual thought or abstraction from a host of concrete instances led to the formation of concepts of Matter, Space, Time, Change, and permanence; and even concepts pertaining to the sphere of ethics such as justice, truth, goodness and other values came into being. Thus the first philosophers of India, Greece, and China were materialists. This interpretation of Nature was from a purely secularised and antisupernaturalistic causal explanation. The mythologists of course had their own ways of explaining causally but it was not impersonal, formal truth or scientific. Causal explanation, which is the clearest indication of the activity of the intellect, was made to rest not on the whims and fancies of the unknown spirits or Chance, but on the discovery of laws that governs the relations between things, laws that exhibit necessary connections between things. It is essentially relational ; it unites the disparate or manifold things of nature. It is predictable or deduceable-relationship that intellect or reason demands. Further it also sought the One Unitary reality, substance, system, Absolute, from which all things, all types of relationships and multiplicities could be shown to be deducible. Polytheism yielded place to monism through the monotheism of the prophetic intuition. In due course, the discovery of the unitary substance led to the affirmation of the nature of the ultimate category of existence as Reason or Idea. Mathematical accuracy and self-evidence of axioms became the ideal of knowledge. The structure of reality was made more and more to conform to the ideal of necessity in thought, and much time was taken to define the terms of thought. And laws were discovered in almost every sphere of life, morals and politics, and art and psychology. But this experiment with Nature with the help of intellect or reason was not successful all at once. But the step was taken, the irrevocable step towards the liberation of mind from the bondage of myths and superstitious veneration and blindness. Clarity of intellect, the precise perception of interrelations between facts based on the absolutely verifiable necessary laws was firmly established. Though the intellect was made to depend upon sensory experiences, it was not made to become subordinate either to their content or to their demands. Intellect conferred order on the chaos, and granted permanence to the transitory. Indeed at a most critical period in the history of modern thought when empiricism and rationalism were competing with each other, it was pointed out by Kant that it was thought or mind that imposed order on sensory data, and not that thought was discovering order in the   sensory data. Mind gave order. Indeed without Mind Nature could not exist at all. The discovery of this magnitude was rendered possible by the fact that man began to discover that without a seeing mind or seer there is nothing seen, and all that is seen is indeed dependence on the mind of matter or the phenomenal universe ultimately resulted in a demand for a new approach to the problem of metaphysical truth. Whether we could even make any distinctions between the primary sensations like touch and the secondary sensations like colour, smell, and taste, was a question of great importance and it was held that since both of them were sensations dependent upon the seer or mind, they too must be referred to the activity of the mind itself. But thought or reason was not content with this declaration of the omnivorousness of mind. Esse est percipi (to exist is to be perceived) was too patently unacceptable to the ordinary man, but it was too irrefutable to be challenged. It was clear then to both the empiricists and the rationalists that a new methodology of thought was necessary. A new logic was essential. Consciousness was to be defined in a somewhat different way. It was dynamic ; it was universal as reason. Its higher form rested on the dynamic activity of its two-fold activity as Nature on the one hand and as Mind that confers or discovers or exhibits the unity and system in the manifold or multiplicity of Nature on the other hand. The goal of this process of development or evolution of thought was the realisation of the Ideal or Absolute that was working in and through the differences, It was the identity in Nature as well as in Mind, that is leading towards the rich and concrete System or Reality. Indeed the process of the explication of the identity in and through the multiplicity gave mind an objective reality as it operated by a process of dialectical opposition, between being and non-being leading to the synthesis of becoming. This dialectical process being a logical process was necessary as the basis of the reality and realisation of the Absolute.  This Absolute is ideally and necessarily present in all the stages and epochs of development. Any philosophy of Nature ultimately is the reality of the Absolute, and History is also governed by the dialectical process. The State is the visible manifestation of the Absolute on the plane of society. But then it was a type of philosophy that left things very much in the same state as before. The theory that reality or the Absolute operates as a unity in opposition or in and through opposition was fruitful in giving dynamic content  to the Absolute’s self-impelling and self-manifesting quality. The logical mind thus, while saving itself from the inanities of static conceptuality, emerged as the one all-embracing statement of the nature of Reality that is inner-connected in a coherent and non-self contradictory manner and is a unity, universe, identity. It was described as organic too in its structure in the sense that none of its parts could have reality apart from it. The logical mind left nothing to chance; all chance was ignorance, irrational. The business of the logical mind is to extend the frontiers of knowledge and bring all irrationality into the sphere of knowledge by transforming it into elements of rational knowledge.

This process meant a complete abstractification of reality, though it was pointed out that the Absolute was more concrete with meaning than the sensory experiences which were only concrete in the sense of being sensible, but otherwise dumb, inchoate; yet the logical intellect only gave concepts or the conceptual world. The two aspects of logical thought, one in the direction of the discovery of the laws of Nature, uniformities and identities in the behaviour patterns of phenomena, psychical and physical, and the other in the direction of evolving a system or universal order based on the principles of non self-contradiction, have facilitated the simultaneous growth of the logical mind. Today we have in the apparent opposition of empirical and positive sciences with their realistic trends, to the absolutistic, abstractionistic and idealistic constructions a full picture of the path traversed by the logical intellect, the path of affirming unity in opposition, of identity in difference. This has been the guiding pattern of the intellect or logical reason.

I have so far sketched very briefly the development of the logical mind in the West leaving out the string of names that have made its developments possible. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Des Cartes, Spinoza, Berkely, Kant and Hegel have all had the honour of contributing to the building up of the logical mind. The names are unimportant but the tendency has been continuously at work during the past two thousand years and more.

The development of logical thought in the East ran on parallel lines. Buddha’s logical method, anticipated though it was considerably by the Upanishadic meditations, was utilised for the purpose of emancipation. His break away from the Vedic thought was due to a variety of reasons, the primary reason being of course the need to understand all process with the aid of the omnipotent causal principle. The Brhaspati school of materialism was also the first scientifically directed effort to lay down the instrument of knowledge as perception. The Schools of Kanada and Gautama depended upon logical thought of unravelling the mystery of the constitution of matter and relations. So also the Samkhyan school of Kapila undertook the investigation into the psycho-physical relationship between Matter and Mind, Subject and Object. The supremacy of the subject over the object was firmly established by Kapila. Buddhist thought developed almost parallelly the representationalist, solipsist and nihilstic schools. In all the above schools it could be found that authority was scarcely indented upon for the proof of the nature of the world. The atheistic trend was emphasized by some of these more than the others, their atheism consisting  mainly in the disregard for the sacred revelational authority qua authority. The Mimamsa schools which came into being to lay down the principles of canonical interpretation in respect of Vedic directions and prohibitions were able to lay excellent fundamental principles of deduction. In the direction of Sciences, Alchemy, the father of modern chemistry, was studied. Ayurveda was built up; great engineering efforts were undertaken. We have silpa-sastra, ganita-sastra, gola-sastra and other sciences. Indeed the rules laid down in these sciences are even today considered to be excellent principles and valuable. The Vedanta sought to explain the whole of reality on the basis of Upanishadic thought which very early in the history of Indian Philosophy released itself from the bondage to the natural and the supernatural mythology of the Vedic-Brahmanic horizon. But here we find a departure from the tradition of Western development Instead of becoming realistic, it has tended to become alogical; logical thought now initiated the process of transcendence. Unlike Buddhistic thought and Jainism, it sought to explain the place of nature and the supernatural and the logical in the integral structure of supralogical experience. Logical thought sandwiched between the two limits of concrete private experience and concrete universal absolute or Divine experience, had sought to systematise these in the unity of its canons and principles. Confronted with the disclosures of a higher experience than  the perceptual, it had to transcend its own earlier preoccupation with the perceptual and immitigably private experiences with which it had dealt with considerable success, in order to evolve systematic knowledge. By this inevitably necessary adaptation or orientation of itself it had paved the way for the mergence or manifestation of the supralogical concrete, universal, transcendent Intuition. The mind was prepared by Vedanta for the third step of the evolutionary transformation by the mystical disclosures of the Universal Consciousness (supramental Saccidanada), which more completely than even the logical consciousness conforms to the pattern of Unity in and through Multiplicity which exceeds and transforms the logical unity in opposition.

Thus the Mind has for the past three thousand years been passing through the logical phase. Roughly these three thousand years have led to the emergence of mind from its primitive phase to the state of abstract thinking in terms of the universal values of truth, beauty, goodness and others. But thanks to the emergence of great figures of religion, the third phase had not been lagging far behind. For mind is a unity seeking an integral manifestation of itself in its triple being as mythological, logical and supralogical Experience. In the realisation of the definite pattern of the higher and integral consciousness consists the possibility of the survival of Mankind.

4.6  STUDIES IN SAMKHYAN PHILOSOPHY

I      Samkhyan Theory of Knowledge

1.    The most important problem of any school of thought is the problem of how and by what means one knows. Four important factors are involved in any act of knowing: (i) the subject who knows or wills to know and who gains knowledge for himself (ii) the object of knowledge, which may be other than oneself or even oneself; and (iii) the means of knowing - the consciousness of the self which relates the subject with the object and brings the knowledge of the object to the subject and lastly (iv) the knowledge of object. There is lot of confusion in the minds of many who equate the third and the fourth but it is clear that there is difference between the content of knowing and the act of knowing.

2.    Knowing is an all-comprehensive term that can be visualised or recognized as (i) direct - the subject without the mediation of the sense-organs or other organs of intellect can know the object. But this kind of knowing is possible only when there is the subject as consciousness. However this consciousness is different from or the original of the consciousness that we have when we perceive any sensory object through the senses. Indeed to most people consciousness itself is a resultant of sensory or other stimulations (internal or external): so much so one school of thought has affirmed that the soul is subject only when its sense-organs or motor organs are stimulated by objects. This view of course is materialistic but it stems from the real distinction between the consciousness that is supersensory and the consciousness that is sensory and vital: thought it is the same consciousness in so far as knowing is concerned the contents that it brings forth are different in kind. If consciousness then is the instrument of knowing it is seen that the subject of this activity of consciousness is also in a sense the source and ground of consciousness and remains both the subject and means. However it is clear that whatever may be the nature of the soul, it is only when it is subject that its consciousness functions as knowing and brings knowledge of objects. The question is whether the soul when not subject(when it is no longer knowing the object, prakrti) is conscious or not. Samkhya here says that in this condition the soul is having itself as object and thus the object and subject become one and knowing is knowing oneself - the object-subject identity in self-consciousness is different from the object-subject difference in external knowing and knowledge. The attempt to claim that in self-consciousness the subject and object disappear is of course to affirm consciousness as the stuff of both subject and object and is an ontological extension. Samkhya does not go to this point. It recognizes that the soul is consciousness because it has consciousness and the identity between the two is clear, though its own explanation of knowing entails that the consciousness itself is objectified in knowing the object, and the subject though knowing is not so objectified.

The Object known is known through three ways: if it is the Subject it is only known through Aptavachana or svanubhava: for the subject (soul) is not either a cause or an effect. Objects are either causes or effects or both causes and effects. This general assumption colours the division of the pramanas: the Cause is known through inference or reasoning from effects the effects are known through perception or observation. The effects for the most part are the elements of nature (bhautika) and the sensory and motor organs. Even manas is known through observation or introspection but in relation to its causes. The basic knowing then is closely linked up with the causal theory in so far as objects are concerned. It is true that whilst generally causes can only be known through inference (sesavat anumana) it is also possible to arrive at the Cause through a direct awareness. But of this there is no mention. Speaking about the characteristics of Buddhi, it is stated that it is jnana, dharma, vairagya and isatva. The cognitive point is clearly jnana or knowledge rather than an activity of consciousness or knowing when conceived not as an activity or instrument of activity, since activity is equated with causality.

The whole apparatus of Prakrti is intended to be instrumental to knowing or acquiring knowledge and for the preservation of knowledge: for inspection rather than itself being knowing.

The conception of causality will explain why it must be that knowing and knowledge are indeed differentiated and the one is put on the object side and the other on the subject.

Usually there are recognized there kinds of causes: the material (upadana or samavaya), the efficient (nimitta) and the instrumental (asamavaya) and a fourth is recognized as the prayojana (final cause of Aristotle), the purpose of the creation or effectuation. In Samkhya we can clearly recognize that the material cause is Prakrit, the nimitta cause is the nearness (Sannidhya or samyoga) of the Purusa, and the purusa is not involved in the cause nor in the effect but has to be near for the creative evolution to take place, the instrumental causes are the karanas, buddhi, ahamkara, tanmatras which are at once made up of prakrti but are not present in the effects except in so far as they are made up of by the prakriti of three gunas. This point of course is to be considered seriously on the parallel of the naiyayika version where only the material cause is present all through, but not the instruments like stick, wheel and so on, or the Godhead or carpenter or potter who are the efficient cause. The final cause or prayojana is patently the enjoyment of the soul or use or utility.

If knowing is said to be a kind of causality then there is serious difficulty, in respect of the involvement of subject in knowing. Even sannidhya is a kind of causality but it is not immanent causality or satkarayavada. It is asat-karyavada if we have to say it, the effect is not in the cause (immanently) but it is causality in the sense of being necessary for the process of creativity to take place.

3.    Another important point we have to consider is whether we should not make a distinction between having and knowing: We have knowledge but we know the object: the knowing gets the knowledge of the object but is not itself knowledge:

Ancient psychologists did have this distinction in mind when they distinguished between cit and jnana. Cit is the consciousness and is knowing whereas jnana is the having of the form of the object or artha-jnana. Thus whilst Brahma is called Sat cit ananda it is something different from Satyam jnanam anantam Brahma. The Samakhyan attributes jnana to buddhi and not to the purusa and as such jnana cannot be the attribute of the purusa. That it can be knowing cit rather than having knowledge is clear. If this view is accepted then it follows that the purusa is not having jnana form the beginning, except in the case of Isvara or Kapila the founder and those souls or persons perfect form the very beginning, but gain this knowledge. Thus it is clear that only souls which have cit but not jnana or ajnanis who fall under the spell of prakrti and her evolution, and their engagement in the perceiving or seeing or witnessing of the drama of prakrti results in its getting rid of ajnana and attaining jnana. Thus we see that the souls have to be of  three kinds, the ever-free Kapila like or Isvara, and the freed souls who have gone through the witnessing of the drama, and ajnanis. Thus we find it is stated in the Upanisads - isaanisaujnaajnau - the lord and not lord, the knowledge possessing one and ignorant (non-knowledge ajnana). This is consequent on the very process of describing the founder and the freed ones, his disciples, Jnana then is something that arises from the experience: it is perhaps therefore a derivative of Ö­ ja: to be born. Knowledge is a growth in and through experience and it is that which abolishes the ignorance which is the condition of non-knowledge. That is why we pass from ajnana to jnana - though ajnana is usually equated with works like avidya it is clear that our knowing is a doing - an activity and vidya arises as a consequence of knowing.

The Purusa is thus characterised by jnatrtva: knowing capacity and activity, and bhoktrtva: enjoying capacity or activity which are described as saksitva : witnessing the drama. But activity is the most important thing – for it is that which reveals the necessity for iksatva: desire to know, to perceive, to observe the objective world. Kartrtva or activity is precisely what is involved in the two other modes of consciousness or cit, and all the three lead to jnana or its arising. But kartrtva is omitted from the functions of Purusa and referred to prakrti. The reason is not far to seek, it arises from the postulate again of satkarya vada: the cause must contain the effect: the final knowledge must already be present in the cause – kartriva or karta – and the result is that one is jnani from the very beginning and never an ajnani – and threrfore liberated from the very beginning. The prakritic drama is either a lila for itself or not existent at all. Non-creationism ajatavada alone can result. Gaudapada or Vaisnavism will result with a difference that Vaishnavism considers that it is the play of the Divine for the Divine by the Divine who is the Master of Prakrti and its self.

The postulate of inactivity (passivity) and activity respectively in respect of Purusa and Prakriti is open to serious objections. Indeed almost all the Vedantas seem to assume that to be conscious or is cit to be passive rather than active. This original assumption brings about the divorce between the theoretical and the practical: vidya and avidaya – when the former is assumed to be the passive realisation of the Self and the latter an activity that takes one away from Self. But activity need not be directed outside oneself – and then it might be called caitanyata rather than jnana – and the externalised activity might well be called jnana that is arrived at through activity. This postulate of contradiction between vidya and avidya or theoretical knowledge and practical activity has been accepted without question by most samkhyan exponents. However this is manifestly wrong: for jnana develops out of karma or action and that is clear even in this system. The Buddhi in its tamasic aspect is said to have the attributes of viparyaya (delusion, illusions etc., adhyasa too perhaps of the Advaita Vedanta), disability, contentment which are obviously the first fruits of contact between the Purusa and the Prakrti, that leads the soul downward into involvement and enjoyment through the wondrous powers revealed by prakrti. But it is indeed this anubhava of its depths that leads to knowledge which releases the soul from its identification(akhyati). Thus in respect of  bond souls it follows that activity of identification is a kind of jnatrtva that leads through suffering to knowledge ultimately. The pravrtti is followed up by nivrtti – a descent is followed up by an ascent. The claim made by some that one must have experience of evil so that one can discern the good and conversely that nothing is good which is not known and chosen as such and evil therefore is fully to be known and guarded against is clearly on the postulate that total knowledge included both the descent into evil and ascent towards the Good. But then whilst it is inevitable, in a sense it is something that has to be known from a seer who knows the totality of the process of Good and the evil; the former is valuable and the latter unworthy. Therefore the teachers of wisdom comprehending both the paths – the devayana and the asuryana – taught the blind seekers of pleasure in the downward and external path that the Good is to be chosen – and the good is that which will set one free from suffering and darkness – the tamasa and andhatamisra, the moha and the mahamoha and the tamas that are the five forms of error (viparyaya).

Thus knowing is an activity, it may be external and that leads to identification with object when it tries to bring the knowledge (jnanakara – ideas) of the object to the subject. This may be wrong –for they are not the self at all. This may lead to activity(karma) and kalpana imagination and active participation. Ahamkara is this stage of involvement and identification. But to separate the theoretical from the practical activity is to make the very process of knowledge; and the arising of knowledge from activity impossible.

The Upanisad rightly has stressed that avidya or activity (karma)leads to darkness, but knowledge can also lead to greater darkness as it were. Therefore knowing this that though the results of activity are one thing and that of knowledge another, one should practice both of them, so that one result of all activity, conquest over death as also attain the immortal. Death being the result of all activity, conquest over death would mean to know how of the process of descent and the ascent through perfect acquaintance of the Nature, and thus gain the state of being utterly free from its effect and delusive possibilities (viparyaya). (of Isavasyopanisad).

Activity (kartrtva) alone cannot be relegated to Prakrti whilst retaining jnatrtva and bhoktrtva to the purusa. Theoretical activity is as much activity as enjoyment also is an activity. The Purusa thus is impoverished but that is because it was felt that activity is always involvement and disinvolvement is what is aimed at in Moksa. The path of reflection and renunciation being negative activity it may be considered that that it is contrary to outward activity. Samkhya however is assuming that every effect must be found in the cause, and since activity is of the nature of causal activity it must already possess potentially the effect. This postulate of sat-karya-vada vitiates its whole conception of knowing, knowledge, activity and enjoyability.

Thus the theory of knowledge of Samkhya suffers from causal presupposition and the process of knowing and knowledge are confused and riddled with contradictions.

We have discussed about the nature of the knower. Turning to the nature and process of knowing it must be clear that there are at least four ways for knowing:

(i)    The direct knowing by the Purusa which arises at the last when it is capable of saying ‘I know prakrti.’ This is not mediated even by Buddhi for this is also discarded at that stage being a material instrument (karana).

(ii)    The kind of knowing that arises when the purusa perceives the modifications of prakrti through its first evolute buddhi. Buddhi is said to be the instrument of knowing and the cause of anubhava of prakrti. Nyaya too considers that buddhi is the karana for anubhava and describes that it is capable of being our source of knowledge. Buddhi alone can be used to perceive but such a knowledge can fall into either intellectual knowledge which is non-sensory  or of the form of reasoning based on the sensory (anumana). Sabda obviously does not fall into this category.

(iii)    The knowing that happens through the mediation of manas is sometimes said to be a kind of manasa-pratyaksa different from indriyagrahya jnana which is sensory knowledge.

(iv)    The sensory knowing which is had through the mediating of the sense organs. These can be considered to be four levels of knowing:-

(i)     Caitya arising from cit of the Purusa.

(ii)          Buddhigrahya

(iii)        Manograhya

(iv)        Indriyagrahya

It must be remembered that all are involved in the fourth kind of knowing: three involved in the third, two involved in the second and only one in the first. Thus the purusa knows through buddhi, manas and indriyas in indriyagrahya jnana. It is clear that the higher types of objects cannot be known by and through the lower. Sense-organs cannot grasp objects relevant to buddhi or manas, though manas and buddhi can grasp the object of the senses. Further the knowledge got through them may be considered to be truer but of this there is no mention. However the falsity of a thing is rendered possible when there are too many intermediary instruments.

We have omitted one karana namely ahamkara - there is a kind of knowledge that is got from and through ahamkara - which is more like ‘doing’ rather than passive knowing though there is hardly a doctrine of passive knowing in Samkhya (&Nyaya). The individuative principle of ahamkara isolates the knowledge as personal and particular and unique. (Ahamkara is the cause of individuation into atomic particles in tanamatra). It is said to be perceived only in yogajanya jnana or manasa-pratyaksa. Ahamkara has kalpana or imagination as function or that which is divisive consciousness or knowledge.

Thus the instruments which help knowing are buddhi, ahamkara, manas and indriyas. These give mediate knowledge of jnana. The faults of the instruments will infect the nature of knowledge granted, by them. The object knowledge becomes erroneous due to faults of the instruments.

Samkhya does not mention except broadly about Nature Pakrti. It has three qualities, gunas, that it is inconscient, acit, that it is in a state of avyakta and becomes vyakta owing to the disturbance of the state of equilibrium by the sannidhya or nearness of Purusa. The Samkhyan knowledge is true when it is found that buddhi is disinterested (vairagya), and capable and can lead to dharma or right conduct.¹  Thus if the Buddhi is satvika knowledge will be true and capable and good, otherwise knowledge will be delusive, incapable and leading to wrong conduct. Thus much weight is attached to the quality of the buddhi, and ipso facto of the ahamkara and manas and the indriyas which have all to get purified by the sattva-B