Eternal India Encyclopedia

Eternal India encyclopedia

PHILOSOPHY

which is regarded as one of the sources of the Vedanta philosophy. The Gita mainly epitomises the teachings of Krishna, the eighth in- carnation of Vishnu. Before the advent of Krishna the teachings of the Upanishads had been misinterpreted. The ideal of renunciation of worldly things with which the Upanishads are permeated, not being correctly understood, had led to belief in passivity as the supreme state. Krishna gives the correct interpretation of the teach- ings of the Upanishads to his disciple, Arjuna, who turns to him for counsel. Renunciation, he points out, is renunciation not of the world but wordliness, not of actions but of desires. Karma (literally deed) leads to bondage if it increases the weight of desires and inflates the ego. It leads to freedom if it helps to deny the self or to free one from attachment to the fruits of action. Krishna offers a way of spiritual life in which all can participate according to each person's place in the class system. All men sur- rendering themselves to the Divine will should fulfil their respective duties ( svadharma ) in accordance with that scheme which is designed by God in accordance with the varying propensities and capacities of different people and is not arbitrary. "Better is one's dharma which one may be able to fulfil but imperfectly than the dharma of others which is more easily accomplished. Better is death in the fulfilment of one's own dharma. The dharma of others is perilous..." The Gita teaches that man has a duty to promote lokasangraha or the stability, solidarity and progress of society. The activism of the Gita is not of the common variety. It argues that action, as such, is not detrimental to one's attainment of spiritual goals. It is only one's attachment to the fruits of action that keeps one eternally in- volved in the cycle of birth and death. The Gita teaches the art of acting without being personally involved in the action. The teach- ing of the Bhagavad Gita is summed up in the maxim: "Your business is with the deed, and not with the result." The Gita expounds the various methods of attaining union (yoga) with God. They are jnana yoga , the path of union through knowledge, bhakti yoga, the path of realisation through love and devotion and karma yoga, the path of union through work. A devotee ( bhakta) who surrenders himself to the Divine compels God to become his friend and guide. Krishna states that a true practitioner of the yoga of action ( karmayogin ) also becomes a true devotee for by follow- ing his own duty ( svadharma ), the Karmayogin is doing the will of God. There is no hard and fast line between one way and another. The Gita treats yoga which stands not only for the goal of spiritual life but also for the way leading to it as one organic whole though for purposes of exposition, it often isolates and dwells upon one aspect of it to the exclusion of the others. The Gita achieves a synthesis of various schools of religious thought and various ways and means of spiritual life — such as karma yoga, bhakti yoga and jnana yoga. VEDANTA Vedanta became from the time of Shankaracharya (C. 788-820 A.D.) the dominant philosophy of India. Shankara, a Brahmin bom in Kerala, became famous as the new interpreter of the Vedanta school and propagator of the monistic or non-dualistic Advaita ("allowing no second" i.e. monism) school of Vedanta. Later inter- pretations of the Vedanta were those of the Ramanuja school of qualified nondualism ( Visistadvaita ) and of Madhwa who expounded a more theistic and pluralistic (Dvaita) interpretation of Vedanta.

The exact nature of the relation between the Supreme Being and the individual soul is the central theme in these systems. In the Vedanta Sutras the sages Ashmarathya, Audulomi and Kashakritsna hold different views on this question. The first held that the indi- vidual souls like sparks issuing from a fire were neither different from Brahman nor non-different from it. The second held that the individual souls are different from the Supreme but ultimately become one with the Supreme. The third held that it is the Supreme soul that exists also as the individual soul. Shankara followed the third view, that of Kashakritsna, and expounded the identity of the two, of the individual soul as a state of the Supreme. Shankara main- tained that the world we see round us is an illusion ( maya ), a dream, a figment of the imagination. Ultimately, the only reality was Brah- man, the impersonal World Soul of the Upanishads with which the individual soul was identical. Absolute nonduality, the absolute unity of the individual soul and Brahman, is basic to Shankara's philosophy. All plurality, the world of thought and matter, is seen as unreal and as superimposed upon the absolute unqualified Brahman which is one without a second. When Shankara says that the world of thought and matter is not real, he does not mean that it is non-existent. The world is and is not. It is neither real nor unreal. This paradox simply recognises the existence of what Shankara calls maya. Superimposition ( vivar- tavada ) is inseparably linked with causality. Causal relation exists in the world of multiplicity which is maya. Maya, like Brahman, is without beginning. Ignorance (avidya)as the cause and the appar- ent world as the effect have always existed and will always exist. Similarly, the individual soul, which appears different from other souls and also from Brahman is in fact nothing but the one unitary Brahman. Since ignorance lies at the root of the seeming duality, knowledge alone is regarded as the means to liberation. Religious activities and devotion have only a secondary function. They may direct the mind to knowledge but in themselves can never bring about liberation. Brahman may be regarded as possessing attributes of a personalised God ( Iswara ). Devotion to Iswara purifies the mind and prepares it for the higher knowledge of the unqualified Brahman. Max Muller has said: "Vedanta holds a most unique position among the philosophies of the world. After lifting the self or the true nature of the Ego, Vedanta unites it with the essence of Divinity, which is absolutely pure, perfect, immortal, unchangeable and one. No philosopher, not even Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel or Schopen- hauer, has reached that height of philosophic thought. None of our philosophers, not excepting Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, or Hegel has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storms or light- nings. Stone follows upon stone, in regular succession after once the first step has been made, after once it has been clearly seen that in the beginning there can have been but One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call it Atman or Brahman ." He closed one of his lectures on the Vedanta with these words: "In one half-verse I shall tell you what has been taught in thousands of volumes: Brahman is true, the world is false, the soul is Brahman and nothing else", Ramanuja (C. 1017-1137) stressed devotion ( bhakti ) rather than knowledge as the chief means of salvation and qualified Shankara's non-dualism by declaring that the individual soul was one with God, made by God out of his own essence but yet distinct. The sentient and non-sentient universe constitute the body of the Supreme Being whose chief attribute is intelligence. This latter conception of the