(b) The non‑ enlightened soul
is unable to look through and beyond Maya, which like a veil hides from
it its true nature. Instead of recognizing itself to be Brahman it blindly
identifies itself with its adjuncts Upadhi ‑ the fictitious off springs
of Maya, and thus looks for its true self in the body, the sense‑organs
and the internal organ Manas, i.e., the organ of specific cognition.
The soul, which in reality is pure intelligence, non-active, infinite, thus
becomes limited in extent, as it were, limited in knowledge and power, an
agent and enjoyer. Through its actions it burdens itself with merit and
demerit, the consequences of which it has to bear or enjoy in series of future
embodied existences, the Lord‑as retributer and dispenser‑allotting to each
soul that form of embodiment to which it is entitled by its previous actions.
At the end of each of the great world periods called Kelp, the Lord
retracts the whole world, i.e. the whole material world is dissolved and
merged into non‑distinct Maya while the individual souls, free for the
time from actual connection with Upadhi, lie in deep slumber as it
were. But as the consequences of their former deeds are not yet exhausted they
have again to enter an embodied existence as soon as the Lord sends forth a
new material world, and the old round of birth, action, death begins anew to
last to all eternity as it has lasted from all eternity.
(c) The means of escaping from
this endless Sansara, the way-out of which can never be found by the
non-enlightened soul, are furnished by the Veda. The Karmkand
indeed whose purport it is to enjoin certain actions cannot lead to final
release, for even the most meritorious works necessarily lead to new forms of
embodied existence. And in the Gyankand of the Veda also two
different parts have to be distinguished, viz. firstly those chapters and
passages which treat of Brahma in so far as it is related to the world and
hence characterized by various attributes, i.e. of Ishwar or lower
Brahma, and secondly, those texts which set forth the nature of the highest
Brahma transcending all qualities and the fundamental identity of the
individual soul with that highest Brahma. Devout meditation on Brahma as
suggested by passages of the former kind does not directly lead to final
emancipation; the pious worshipper passes on his death into the world of the
lower Brahma only, where he continues to exist as a distinct individual soul
although in the enjoyment of great power and knowledge‑until at last he
reaches the highest knowledge and through it final release. That student of
the Veda, on the other hand, whose soul has been enlightened by the
texts embodying the higher knowledge of Brahma, whom passages such as the
great saying 'That art thou' have taught that there is no difference between
his true self and the highest self, obtains at the moment of the death
immediate final release, i.e. he withdraws altogether from the influence of
Maya and asserts himself in his true nature which is nothing else but the
absolute highest Brahma. This is the teaching of Shankara.
4. According to Ramanuja, on
the other hand, the teaching of the Upanishads is a little different.
(a)
a. He says: There exists only one
all‑embracing being called Brahma or the highest self or the Lord. This being
is not destitute of attributes but rather endowed with all imaginable
auspicious qualities. It is not intelligence as Shankara maintains but
intelligence is its chief attribute. The Lord is all‑ pervading, all‑powerful,
all knowing, all merciful; his nature is fundamentally antagonistic to all
evil. He contains within himself whatever exists. While according to Shankara,
the only reality is to be found in the nonqualified homogenous highest Brahma
which can only be defined as pure being or pure thought, all plurality being a
mere illusion, Brahma according to Ramanuja's view comprises within itself
distinct elements of plurality which all of them lay claim to absolute reality
of one and the same kind. Whatever is presented to us by ordinary experience,
viz. matter in all its various modifications and the individual souls of
different classes and degrees, are essential, real constituents of Brahma's
nature. Matter and souls Achit and Chit constitute according to
Ramanuja's terminology the body of the Lord, they stand to him in the same
relation of entire dependence and subservience in which the matter forming an
animal or vegetable body stands to its soul or animating principle. The Lord
pervades and rules all things which exist‑ material or immaterial‑ as their
Anteryamee the fundamental text for this special Ramanuja's tenet‑ which
in the writing of the sect is quoted again and again‑ is the so called
Anteryamee Brahman, which says that within all elements, all sense
organs and lastly within all individual souls there abides an inward ruler
whose body these elements, sense organs an individual souls constitute. Matter
and souls as forming the body of the Lord are also called modes Prkar
of him. They are to be looked upon as his effects, but they have enjoyed the
kind of individual existence, which is theirs from all eternity and will never
be entirely resolved in Brahma. They however exist in two different
periodically alternating conditions. At some time they exist in a subtle state
in which they do not possess those qualities by which they are ordinarily
known, and there is then no distinction of individual name and form. Matter in
that state is non-evolved Avyakt individual souls are not joined to
material bodies and their intelligence is in a state of contraction Sankoch.
This is the Prley
State, which recurs at the end of each Kalpa, and Brahma is then said
to be in its causal condition Karn.avastha. To that
state all those Vedic passage refer which speak of the Brahma or self
as being in the beginning one only without a second. Brahma then is indeed not
absolutely one, for it contains within itself matter and soul in a germinal
condition; but as in that condition they are so subtle as not to allow of
individual distinctions being made, they are not counted as something second
in addition to Brahma. When the Prley state comes to an end, creation
takes place owing to an act of volition on the Lord's part The primary
non-evolved matter then passes over into its other condition; it becomes gross
and thus acquires all those sensible attributes, visibility, tangibility and
so on, which are known from ordinary experience. At the same time the souls
enter into connection with material bodies corresponding to the degree of
merit or demerit acquired by them in previous forms of existence; their
intelligence at the same time undergoes certain expansion Vikas. The
Lord together with matter in its gross state and the expanded souls is Brahma
in the condition of effect Karyavstha. Cause and effect are thus at the
bottom the same; for he effect is nothing but the cause, which has undergone a
certain change Parin.am. Hence the cause being known, the
effect is known likewise.
(b) Owing to the effects of
their former actions the individual souls are implicated in the Sansara,
the endless cycle of birth, action and death, final escape from which is to be
obtained only through the study of the Gyankand of Veda.
Compliance with the Karmkand does not lead outside the Sansara.
But he who, assisted by the grace of the Lord, cognizes and meditates on him
in the way prescribed by the Upanishads reaches at his death final
emancipation, i.e. he passes through the different stages of the path of the
Gods up to the world of Brahma and there enjoys an everlasting blissful
existence from which there is no return into the sphere of transmigration. The
characteristics of the released soul are similar to those of Brahma; it
participates in all the latter's glorious qualities and powers, excepting only
Brahma's power to emit, rule and retract the entire world.
5. The chief points in which
the two systems agree on the one hand and diverge on the other are these: Both
systems teach Advaet i.e. non‑duality or monism. There exist not
several fundamentally distinct principles, such as Prakriti and
Purush of the Sankhya, but there exists only one all‑embracing
being. While, however, the Advaet taught by Shankara is a rigorous,
absolute one, Ramanuja's doctrine has to be characterized as
Vishishtadvaesh i.e. qualified non‑duality, non‑duality with a difference.
According to Shankara, whatever is, is Brahma, and Brahma itself is absolutely
homogeneous, so that all difference and plurality must be illusory. According
to Ramanuja also, whatever is, is Brahma, but Brahma is not of homogeneous
nature, but contains within itself elements of plurality, owing to which it
truly manifests itself in a diversified world with its variety of material
forms of existence and individual souls is not unreal Maya but a real
part of Brahma's nature, the body investing the universal self. The Brahma of
Shankara is in itself impersonal, a homogeneous mass of objectless thought,
transcending all attributes; a personal God it becomes only through its
association with the unreal principle of Maya, so that, strictly
speaking, Shankara's personal God, his Ishwar, is himself something
unreal. Ramanuja's Brahma, on the other hand, is essentially a personal God,
the all‑powerful and all wise ruler of a real world permeated and animated by
his spirit. There is thus no room for the distinction between a Pram
Nirguna. And Apram Saguna Brahma, between
Brahma and Ishwar. Shankara's individual soul is Brahma in so far as [it is]
limited by the unreal Upadhi due to Maya. The individual soul of
Ramanuja, on the other hand, is really individual soul of Ramanuja, on the
other hand, is really individual; it has indeed sprung from Brahma and is
never outside Brahma, but nevertheless it enjoys a separate personal existence
and will remain a personality for ever. The release from Sansara means
according to Shankara the absolute merging of the individual soul in Brahma,
due to the dismissal of the errouneous notion the soul is distinct from
Brahma; according to Ramanuja it only means the soul's passing from the
troubles of earthly life into a kind of paradise where it will remain for ever
in undisturbed personal bliss. As Ramanuja does not distinguish a higher and
lower Brahma the distinction of a higher and lower knowledge is likewise not
valid for him; the teaching of the Upanishads is not two fold but essentially
one, and leads the enlightened devotee to one result only.
6. As Shankara's views are
mostly considered to be true, we will follow him in some details as to what he
says in his comments on the Vedanta aphorisms. The whole work is
divided into four parts, each part containing four parts, each part containing
four chapters. We will deal with them in order.1
(a) In the first chapter he
deals with certain passages from Upanishads referring to the word Brahma. We
will consider only that part wherein the word Brahma is defined. Brahma is
that from which the origin, subsistence and dissolution of this world proceed.
Shankara explains this definition by saying that omniscient omnipotent cause
from which proceed the origin, subsistence and dissolution of this world‑
which world is differentiated by names and forms, contains many agents and
enjoyers, it the abode of the fruits of actions, these fruits having their
definite places, times and causes, and the nature of whose arrangement cannot
even be conceived by mind‑that cause is Brahma.2
(b) Vedanta philosophy
then rests on the fundamental conviction of the Vedantistss that the
Soul and absolute Being or Brahma is one in their essence. In the old
Upanishads this conviction rises slowly; but when once it was recognized that
the Soul and Brahma were in their deepest essence one, the old mythological
language of the Upanishads was given up; for instance the passage representing
the soul as travelling on the road of the fathers Pitryan or the road
of the Gods Devyan. We read in the Vedanta aphorisms that this
approach to the throne of Brahma has its proper meaning so long only as Brahma
is still considered personal and endowed with various qualities but that when
the knowledge of the true, the absolute and unqualified Brahman, the Absolute
Being, has once risen in the mind these mythological concepts have to vanish.
" How would it be possible," Shankara says, " that he who is free from all
attachment, unchangeable and unmoved, should approach another person, should
move or go to another place? The highest oneness, if once truly conceived,
excludes anything like an approach to a different object or to a distant
place."
