Reading section 10

Otherwise (were the soul not eternal) there would follow a failure of requital and a fruition (of pleasures and pains) unmerited. It has accordingly been said (in the aphorisms of Gautama, iii. 25): Because no birth is seen of one who is devoid of desire. That the soul is atomic is well known from revelation--

"If the hundredth part of a hair be imagined to be divided a hundred times,

"The soul may be supposed a part of that, and yet it is capable of infinity."

And again--

"Soul is of the size of the extremity of the spoke of a wheel. Spirit is to be recognised by the intelligence as atomic."

The visible, unsentient world, designated by the term not-soul, is divided into three, as the object, the instrument, or the site of fruition. Of this world the efficient and substantial cause is the Deity, known under the names Purushottama (best of spirits), Vásudeva (a patronymic of Krishna), and the like.

"Vásudeva is the supreme absolute spirit, endowed with auspicious attributes,

"The substantial cause, the efficient of the worlds, the animator of spirits."

This same Vásudeva, infinitely compassionate, tender to those devoted to him, the Supreme Spirit, with the purpose of bestowing various rewards apportioned to the deserts of his votaries in consequence of pastime, exists under five modes, distinguished as "adoration" (_archá_), "emanation" (_vibhava_), "manifestation" (_vyúha_), "the subtile" (_súkshma_), and the "internal controller." (1.) "Adoration" is images, and so forth. (2.) "Emanation" is his incarnation, as Ráma, and so forth. (3.) His "manifestation" is fourfold, as Vásudeva, Sankarshana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha. (4.) "The subtile" is the entire Supreme Spirit, with six attributes, called Vásudeva. His attributes are exemption from sin, and the rest. That he is exempt from sin is attested in the Vedic text: Passionless, deathless, without sorrow, without hunger, desiring truth, true in purpose. (5.) The "internal controller," the actuator of all spirits, according to the text: Who abiding in the soul, rules the soul within. When by worshipping each former embodiment a mass of sins inimical to the end of the soul (_i.e._, emancipation) have been destroyed, the votary becomes entitled to practise the worship of each latter embodiment. It has, therefore, been said--

"Vásudeva, in his tenderness to his votaries, gives, as desired by each,

"According to the merits of his qualified worshippers, large recompense.

"For that end, in pastime he makes to himself his five embodiments;

"Images and the like are 'adoration;' his incarnations are 'emanations;'

"As Sankarshana, Vásudeva, Pradyumna, Aniruddha, his manifestation is to be known to be fourfold; 'the subtile' is the entire six attributes;

"That self-same called Vásudeva is styled the Supreme Spirit;

"The internal controller is declared as residing in the soul, the actuator of the soul,

"Described in a multitude of texts of the Upanishads, such as 'Who abiding in the soul.'

"By the worship of 'adoration,' a man casting off his defilement becomes a qualified votary;

"By the subsequent worship of 'emanation,' he becomes qualified for the worship of 'manifestation;' next,

"By the worship thereafter of 'the subtile,' he becomes able to behold the 'internal controller.'"

The worship of the Deity is described in the Pañcha-rátra as consisting of five elements, viz., (1.) the access, (2.) the preparation, (3.) oblation, (4.) recitation, (5.) devotion. Of these, access is the sweeping, smearing, and so forth, of the way to the temple. The preparation is the provision of perfumes, flowers, and the like appliances of worship. Oblation is worship of the deities. Recitation is the muttered ejaculation of sacred texts, with attention to what they mean, the rehearsal of hymns and lauds of Vishnu, the commemoration of his names, and study of institutes which set forth the truth. Devotion is meditation on the Deity. When the vision of the visible world has been brought to a close by knowledge accumulated by the merit of such worship, the infinitely compassionate Supreme Spirit, tender to his votaries, bestows upon the votary devoted to his lord and absorbed in his lord, his own sphere infinite and endless, marked by consciousness of being like him, from which there is no future return (to the sorrows of transmigratory existence). So the traditionary text--

"When they have come to me, the high-souled no longer undergo future birth, a receptacle of pain, transitory, having attained to the supreme consummation.

"Vásudeva, having found his votary, bestows upon him his own mansion, blissful, undecaying, from whence there is no more return."

After laying up all this in his heart, leaning upon the teaching of the great Upanishad, and finding the gloss on the Vedánta aphorisms by the venerated Bodháyanachárya too prolix, Rámánuja composed a commentary on the Sárírakamímánsá (or Vedánta theosophy). In this the sense of the first aphorism, "Then hence the absolute must be desired to be known," is given as follows:--The word _then_ in this aphorism means, after understanding the hitherto-current sacred rites. Thus the glossator writes: "After learning the sacred rites," he desires to know the absolute. The word _hence_ states the reason, viz., because one who has read the Veda and its appendages and understands its meaning is averse from sacred rites, their recompense being perishable. The wish to know the absolute springs up in one who longs for permanent liberation, as being the means of such liberation. By the word _absolute_ is designated the Supreme Spirit, from whom are essentially excluded all imperfections, who is of illimitable excellence, and of innumerable auspicious attributes. Since then the knowledge of sacred rites and the performance of those rites is mediately through engendering dispassionateness, and through putting away the defilement of the understanding, an instrument of the knowledge of the absolute; and knowledge of sacred rites and knowledge of the absolute being consequently cause and effect, the former and the latter Mímánsá constitute one system of institutes. On this account the glossator has described this system as one with the sixteenfold system of Jaimini. That the fruit of sacred rites is perishable, and that of the knowledge of the absolute imperishable, has been laid down in virtue of Vedic texts, such as: Scanning the spheres gained by rites, let him become passionless; Not wrought by the rite performed, accompanied with inference and disjunctive reasoning. Revelation, by censuring each when unaccompanied by the other, shows that it is knowledge together with works that is efficacious of emancipation, in the words: Blind darkness they enter who prefer illusion, and a greater darkness still do they enter who delight in knowledge only; knowledge and illusion, he who knows these both, he passing beyond death together with illusion, tastes immortality by knowledge. Conformably it is said in the Pañcharátra-rahasya--

"That ocean of compassion, the Lord, tender to his votaries,

"For his worshipper's sake takes five embodiments upon him.

"These are styled Adoration, Emanation, Manifestation, the Subtile, the Internal Controller,

"Resorting whereto souls attain to successive stages of knowledge.

"As a man's sins are worn away by each successive worship,

"He becomes qualified for the worship of each next embodiment.

"Thus day by day, according to religion, revealed and traditional,

"By the aforesaid worship Vásudeva becomes propitious to mankind.

"Hari, when propitiated by devotion in the form of meditation,

"At once brings to a close that illusion which is the aggregate of works.

"Then in souls the essential attributes, from which transmigration has vanished,

"Are manifested, auspicious, omniscience, and the rest.

"These qualities are common to the emancipated spirits and the Lord,

"Universal efficiency alone among them is peculiar to the Deity.

"Emancipated spirits are ulterior to the infinite absolute, which is unsusceptible of aught ulterior;

"They enjoy all beatitudes together with that Spirit."

It is therefore stated that those who suffer the three kinds of pain must, for the attainment of immortality, investigate the absolute spirit known under such appellations as the Highest Being. According to the maxim: The base and the suffix convey the meaning conjointly, and of these the meaning of the suffix takes the lead, the notion of desire is predominant (in the word _jijñásitavya_), and desired knowledge is the predicate (in the aphorism, Then hence the absolute must be desired to be known). Knowledge is cognition designated by such terms as meditation, devotion; not the merely superficial knowledge derived from verbal communication, such being competent to any one who hears a number of words and understands the force of each, even without any predication; in conformity with such Vedic texts as: Self indeed it is that is to be seen, to be heard, to be thought, to be pondered; He should meditate that it is self alone; Having known, let him acquire excellent wisdom; He should know that which is beyond knowledge. In these texts "to be heard" is explanatory, hearing being understood (but not enounced) in the text about sacred study (viz., _shadangena vedo'dhyeyo jñeyascha_, the Veda, with its six appendages, is to be studied and known); so that a man who has studied the Veda must of his own accord, in acquiring the Veda and its appendages, engage in "hearing," in order to ascertain the sense by examining it and the occasion of its enouncement. The term "to be thought" (or "to be inferred") is also explanatory, cogitation (or inference) being understood as the complementary meaning of hearing, according to the aphorism: Before its signification is attained the system is significant. Meditation is a reminiscence consisting of an unbroken succession of reminiscences like a stream of oil, it being revealed in the text, in continuity of reminiscence there is a solution of all knots,--that it is unintermittent reminiscence that is the means of emancipation. And this reminiscence is tantamount to intuition.

"Cut is his heart's knot, solved are all his doubts,

"And exhausted are all his works, when he has seen the Highest and Lowest,"

because he becomes one with that Supreme. So also in the words, Self indeed is to be seen, it is predicated of this reminiscence that it is an intuition. Reminiscence becomes intuitional through the vivacity of the representations. The author of the Vákya has treated of all this in detail in the passage beginning Cognition is meditation. The characters of this meditation are laid out in the text: This soul is not attainable by exposition, nor by wisdom, nor by much learning; Whom God chooses by him God may be attained. To him this self unfolds its own nature. For it is that which is dearest which is choice-worthy, and as the soul finds itself most dear, so the Lord is of Himself most dear, as was declared by the Lord Himself--

"To them always devoted, who worship me with love,

"I give the devotion of understanding whereby they come to me."

And again--

"That Supreme Spirit, Arjuna, is attainable by faith unwavering."

But devotion (or faith) is a kind of cognition which admits no other motive than the illimitable beatitude, and is free from all other desires; and the attainment of this devotion is by discrimination and other means. As is said by the author of the Vákya: Attainment thereof results from discrimination (_viveka_), exemption (_vimoka_), practice (_abhyása_), observance (_kriyá_), excellence (_kalyána_), freedom from despondency (_anavasáda_), satisfaction (_anuddharsha_), according to the equivalence (of the definition), and the explication (of these terms). Of these means, discrimination is purity of nature, resultant from eating undefiled food, and the explication (of discrimination) is From purity of diet, purity of understanding, and by purity of understanding the unintermittent reminiscence. Exemption is non-attachment to sensuous desires; the explication being, Let the quietist meditate. Practice is reiteration; and of this a traditionary explication is quoted (from the Bhagavad-gítá) by (Rámánuja) the author of the commentary: For ever modified by the modes thereof. Observance is the performance of rites enjoined in revelation and tradition according to one's ability; the explication being (the Vedic text), He who has performed rites is the best of those that know the supreme. The excellences are veracity, integrity, clemency, charity (alms-giving), and the like; the explication being, It is attained by veracity. Freedom from despondency is the contrary of dejection; the explication being, This soul is not attained by the faint-hearted. Satisfaction is the contentment which arises from the contrary of dejection; the explication being, Quiescent, self-subdued. It has thus been shown that by the devotion of one in whom the darkness has been dispelled by the grace of the Supreme Spirit, propitiated by certain rites and observances, which devotion is meditation transformed into a presentative manifestation of soul, without ulterior motive, as incessantly and illimitably desired, the sphere of the Supreme Spirit (Vaikuntha) is attained. Thus Yámuna says: Attainable by the final and absolute devotion of faith in one internally purified by both (works and knowledge); that is, in one whose internal organ is rectified by the devotion of works and knowledge.

In anticipation of the inquiry, But what absolute is to be desired to be known? the definition is given (in the second aphorism). From which the genesis, and so forth, of this. The genesis, and so forth, the creation (emanation), sustentation, and retractation (of the universe). The purport of the aphorism is that the emanation, sustentation, and retractation of this universe, inconceivably multiform in its structure, and interspersed with souls, from Brahmá to a tuft of grass, of determinate place, time, and fruition, is from this same universal Lord, whose essence is contrary to all qualities which should be escaped from, of illimitable excellences, such as indefeasible volition, and of innumerable auspicious attributes, omniscient, and omnipotent.

In anticipation of the further inquiry, What proof is there of an absolute of this nature? It is stated that the system of institutes itself is the evidence (in the third aphorism): Because it has its source from the system. To have its source from the system is to be that whereof the cause or evidence is the system. The system, then, is the source (or evidence) of the absolute, as being the cause of knowing the self, which is the cause of knowing the absolute. Nor is the suspicion possible that the absolute may be reached by some other form of evidence. For perception can have no conversancy about the absolute since it is supersensible. Nor can inference, for the illation, the ocean, and the rest, must have a maker, because it is an effect like a water-pot, is worth about as much as a rotten pumpkin. It is evinced that it is such texts as, Whence also these elements, that prove the existence of the absolute thus described.

Though the absolute (it may be objected) be unsusceptible of any other kind of proof, the system, did it not refer to activity and cessation of activity, could not posit the absolute aforesaid. To avoid by anticipation any queries on this point, it is stated (in the fourth aphorism): But that is from the construction. This is intended to exclude the doubt anticipated. The evidence, then, of the system is the only evidence that can be given of the absolute. Why? Because of the construction, that is because the absolute, that is, the highest end for man, is construed as the subject (of the first aphorism, viz., Then thence the absolute is to be desired to be known). Moreover, a sentence which has nothing to do either with activity or with cessation of activity is not therefore void of purpose, for we observe that sentences merely declaratory of the nature of things, such as, A son is born to you, This is not a snake, convey a purpose, viz., the cessation of joy or of fear. Thus there is nothing unaccounted for. We have here given only a general indication. The details may be learnt from the original (viz., Rámánuja's Bháshya on the Vedánta aphorisms); we therefore decline a further treatment, apprehensive of prolixity; and thus all is clear.[110]

A. E. G.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 107: Cf. "The argument in defence of the Maxim of Contradiction is that it is a postulate employed in all the particular statements as to matters of daily experience that a man understands and acts upon when heard from his neighbours; a postulate such that, if you deny it, no speech is either significant or trustworthy to inform and guide those who hear it. You may cite innumerable examples both of speech and action in the detail of life, which the Herakleitean must go through like other persons, and when, if he proceeded upon his own theory, he could neither give nor receive information by speech, nor ground any action upon the beliefs which he declares to co-exist in his own mind. Accordingly the Herakleitean Kratylus (so Aristotle says) renounced the use of affirmative speech, and simply pointed with his finger."--Grote's Aristotle, vol. ii. pp. 297, 298.]

[Footnote 108: Cf. the dictum of Herakleitus: Making worlds is Zeus's pastime; and that of Plato (Laws, Book vii. p. 803): Man is made to be the plaything of God.]

[Footnote 109: "Whose body nature is, and God the soul."--_Pope._]

[Footnote 110: For further details respecting Rámánuja and his system, see Wilson's Works, vol. i. pp. 34-46; and Banerjea's Dialogues, ix. The _Tattva-muktávalí_ was printed in the _Pandit_ for September 1871; but the lines quoted in p. 73 are not found there.]

CHAPTER V.

THE SYSTEM OF PURNA-PRAJNA.