the Undeveloped there is the Person (purusha), the all-pervading, characterless (alinga). Whatsoever knows him is liberated, and attains immortality." Here the Vedāntist commentator assures us that the Great Undeveloped, which the Sānkhyas would claim as their own primary material principle (pradhāna, prakṛiti), is in reality Māyā, illusion (otherwise called Avidyā, ignorance, or Śakti, power), the fictitious energy which in conjunction with the Highest Self (Ātman, Purusha) produces or constitutes the Īśvara, the Lord, or Cosmic Soul, the first emanation of the Ātman, and himself the (fictitious) cause of all that seems to exist. It must remain doubtful, however, whether the author of the Upanishad really meant this, or whether he regarded the Great Undeveloped as an actual material principle or substratum evolved from out of the Purusha, though not, as the Sānkhyas hold, coexisting with him from eternity. Besides passages such as these which seem to indicate realistic or materialistic tendencies of thought, which may well have developed into the dualistic Sānkhya and kindred systems, there are others which indicate the existence even of nihilist theories, such as the Bauddhas—the śūnya-vādins, or affirmers of a void or primordial nothingness—profess. Thus we read in the Chhāndogya-upanishad:[1] "The existent alone, my son, was here in the beginning, one only, without a second. Others say, there was the non-existent alone here in the beginning, one only, without a second—and from the non-existent the existent was born. But how could this be, my son? How could the existent be born from the non-existent? No, my son, only the existent was here in the beginning, one only, without a second."
The foundation of the Vedānta system, as "the completion of the Veda," is naturally ascribed to Vyāsa, the mythic arranger of the Vedas, who is said to be identical with Bādarāyaṇa the reputed author of the Brahma- (or Śārīraka-) sūtra, the authoritative, though highly obscure, summary of the system. The most distinguished interpreter of these aphorisms is the famous Malabar theologian Śankara. Śankara Āchārya,[2] who also commented on the principal Upanishads and the Bhagavadgītā, and is said to have spent the greater part of his life in wandering all over India, as far as Kashmir, and engaging in disputations with teachers—whether of the Śaiva, or Vaishṇava, or less orthodox persuasions—with the view of rooting out heresy and re-establishing the doctrine of the Upanishads. His controversial triumphs (doubtless largely mythical) are related in a number of treatises current, in South India, the two most important of which are the Śankara-dig-vijaya ("Śankara's world-conquest"), ascribed to his own disciple Ānandagiri, and the Śankara-vijaya, by Mādhavāchārya. In Śankara's philosophy[3] the theory that the material world has no real existence, but is a mere illusion of the individual soul wrapt in ignorance,—that, therefore, it has only a practical or conventional (vyāvahārika) but not a transcendental or true (pāramārthika) reality,—is strictly enforced. In accordance with this distinction, a higher (parā) and a lower (aparā) form of knowledge is recognized; the former being concerned with the Brahman (n.), whilst the latter deals with the personal Brahmā, the Īśvara, or lord and creator, who, however, is a mere illusory form of the divine spirit, resulting from ignorance of the human soul. To the question why the Supreme Self (or rather his fictitious development, the Highest Lord) should have sent forth this phantasmagory this great thinker (with the author of the Sūtras[4]) can return no better answer than that it must have been done for sport (līlā), without any special motive—since to ascribe such a motive to the Supreme Lord would be limiting his self-sufficiency—and that the process of creation has been going on from all eternity. Śankara's Sārīraka-mīmāṃsā-bhāshya[5] has given rise to a large number of exegetic treatises, of which Vāchaspati-miśra's[6] exposition, entitled Bhāmatī,[7] is the most esteemed. Of numerous other commentaries Rāmānuja. on the Brahma-sūtras, the Śrī-bhāshya, by Rāmānuja, the founder of the Śri-Vaishṇava sect, is the most noteworthy. This religious teacher, who flourished in the first half of the 12th century, caused a schism in the Vedānta school. Instead of adhering to Śankara's orthodox advaita, or non-duality, doctrine, he interpreted the obscure Sūtras in accordance with his theory of viśishṭādvaita, i.e. non-duality of the (two) distinct (principles), or, as it is more commonly explained, non-duality of that which is qualified (by attributes). According to this theory the Brahman is neither devoid of form and quality, nor is it all things; but it is endowed with all good qualities, and matter is distinct from it; whilst bodies consist of souls (chit) and matter (achit); and God is the soul. On the religious side, Rāmānuja adopts the tenets of the ancient Vishnuite Pāncharātra sect, and, identifying the Brahman with Vishṇu, combines with his theory the ordinary Vaishṇava doctrine of periodical descents (avatāra) of the deity, in various forms, for the benefit of creatures; and allowing considerable play to the doctrine that faith (bhakti), not knowledge (vidyā), is the means of final emancipation. This phase of Indian religious belief, which has attached itself to the Vedānta theory more closely than to any other, makes its appearance very prominently in the Bhagavadgītā, the episode of the Mahābhārata, already referred to—where, however, it attaches itself to Sānkhya-yoga rather than to Vedānta tenets—and is even more fully developed in some of the Purāṇas, especially the Bhāgavata. Some scholars would attribute this doctrine of fervid devotion to Christian influence, but it is already alluded to by Pāṇini and in the Mahābhāshya. In the Śāṇḍilya- (Bhakti-) sūtra,[8] the author and date of which are unknown, the doctrine is systematically propounded in one hundred aphorisms. According to this doctrine mundane existence is due to want of faith, not to ignorance; and the final liberation of the individual soul can only be effected by faith. Knowledge only contributes to this end by removing the mind's foulness, unbelief. Its highest phase of development this doctrine probably reached in the Vaishṇava sect founded, towards the end of the 15th century, by Chaitanya, whose followers subsequently grafted the Vedānta speculations on his doctrine. In opposition both to Śankara's theory of absolute unity, and to Rāmānuja's doctrine of qualified unity—though leaning more towards the latter—Madhva Āchārya, or Pūrṇaprajna (A.D. 1118-1198), started his dvaita, or duality doctrine, according to which there is a difference between God and the human soul (jīva), as well as between God and nature; whilst the individual souls, which are innumerable, eternal, and indestructible, are likewise different from one another; but, though distinct, are yet united with God, like tree and sap, in an indissoluble union. This doctrine also identifies the Brahman with Vishṇu, by the side of whom, likewise infinite, is the goddess Lakshmī, as Prakṛiti (nature), from whom inert matter (jaḍa) derives its energy. Here also bhakti, devotion to God, is the saving element. A popular summary of the Vedānta doctrine is the Vedānta-sāra by Sadānanda, which has been frequently printed and translated.[9]
3. The Sānkhya[10] system seems to derive its name from its systematic enumeration (sankhyā) of the twenty-five principles (tattva) Sānkhya. it recognizes—consisting of twenty-four material and an independent immaterial principle. In opposition to the Vedānta school, which maintains the eternal coexistence of a spiritual principle of reality and an unspiritual principle of unreality, the Sānkhya assumes the eternal coexistence of a material first cause, which it calls either mūla-Pṛakriti (fem.), "prime Originant" (Nature), or Pradhāna, "the principal" cause, and a plurality of spiritual elements or Selves, Purusha. The system recognizes no intelligent creator (such as the Īśvara, or demiurgus, of the Vedānta)—whence it is called nirīśvara, godless; but it conceives the Material First Cause, itself unintelligent, to have become developed, by a gradual process of evolution, into all the actual forms of the phenomenal universe, excepting the souls. Its first emanation is buddhi, intelligence; whence springs ahaṃkāra, consciousness (or "conscious mind-matter," Davies); thence the subtle elements of material forms, viz. five elementary particles (tanmātra) and eleven organs of sense; and finally, from the elementary particles, five elements. The souls have from all eternity been connected with Nature,—having in the first place become invested with a subtle frame (linga-, or sūkshma-, śarīra), consisting of seventeen principles, viz. intelligence, consciousness, elementary particles, and organs of sense and action, including mind. To account for the spontaneous development of matter, the system assumes the latter to consist of three constituents (guṇa) which are possessed of different qualities, viz. sattva, of pleasing qualities, such as "goodness," lightness, luminosity; rajas, of pain-giving qualities, such as "gloom," passion, activity; and tamas, of deadening qualities, such as "darkness," rigidity, dullness, and which, if not in a state of equipoise, cause unrest and development. Through all this course of development, the soul itself remains perfectly indifferent, its sole properties being those of purity and intelligence, and the functions usually regarded as "psychic" being due to the mechanical processes of the internal organs themselves evolved out of inanimate matter. Invested with its subtle frame, which accompanies it through the cycle of transmigration, the soul, for the sake of fruition, connects itself ever anew with Nature, thus, as it were, creating for itself ever new forms of material existence; and it is only on his attaining perfect knowledge, whereby the ever-changing modes of intelligence cease to be reflected on him, that the Purusha is liberated from the miseries of Saṃsāra, and continues to exist in a state of absolute unconsciousness and detachment from matter. The existence of God, on the other hand, is denied by this theory, or rather considered as incapable of proof; the existence of evil and misery, for one thing, being thought incompatible with the notion of a divine origin of the world.
The reputed originator of this school is the sage Kapila, to whom tradition ascribes the composition of the fundamental text-book,
- ↑ vi. 2. 1.
- ↑ Die Sūtras des Vedānta, text and commentary translated by P. Deussen (Leipzig, 1887); English translation by G. Thibaut, S.B.E.
- ↑ P. Deussen, Das System des Vedānta (1883). A. E. Gough, The Philosophy of the Upanishads, also follows chiefly Śankara's interpretation.
- ↑ Brahmasūtra, iii. 1. 32-34.
- ↑ Translated by G. Thibaut, S.B.E.; German, P. Deussen.
- ↑ Professor Cowell assigns him to about the 10th century.
- ↑ Bibl. Ind.
- ↑ Text, with Svapneśvara's commentary, edited by J. R. Ballantyne; translated by E. B. Cowell.
- ↑ Last by G. A. Jacob.
- ↑ E. Röer, Lecture on the Sānkhya Philosophy (Calcutta, 1854); B. St Hilaire, Mémoire sur le Sānkhya (1852); R. Garbe, Sānkhya Philosophie (Leipzig, 1894); Sānkhya and Yoga (Strassburg, 1896).
