The Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha Part 20

"Having reached somehow or other the condition of a slave of Mahesvara, and wis.h.i.+ng also to help mankind,

"I set forth the recognition of Mahesvara, as the method of attaining all felicity."

[This aphorism may be developed as follows]:--

"Somehow or other," by a propitiation, effected by G.o.d, of the lotus feet of a spiritual director identical with G.o.d, "having reached,"

having fully attained, this condition, having made it the unintercepted object of fruition to myself. Thus knowing that which has to be known, he is qualified to construct a system for others: otherwise the system would be a mere imposture.

Mahesvara is the reality of unintermitted self-luminousness, beat.i.tude, and independence, by portions of whose divine essence Vish?u, Virinchi, and other deities are deities, who, though they transcend the fict.i.tious world, are yet implicated in the infinite illusion.

The condition of being a slave to Mahesvara is the being a recipient of that independence or absoluteness which is the essence of the divine nature, a slave being one to whom his lord grants all things according to his will and pleasure (_i.e._, _dasya_, from _da_).

The word _mankind_ imports that there is no restriction of the doctrine to previously qualified students. Whoever he may be to whom this exposition of the divine nature is made, he reaps its highest reward, the emanatory _principium_ itself operating to the highest end of the transmigrating souls. It has been accordingly laid down in the Siva-d?ish?i by that supreme guide the revered Somanandanatha--

"When once the nature of Siva that resides in all things has been known with tenacious recognition, whether by proof or by instruction in the words of a spiritual director,

"There is no further need of doing aught, or of any further reflection. When he knows Suvar?a (or Siva) a man may cease to act and to reflect."

The word _also_ excludes the supposition that there is room in self which has recognised the nature of Mahesvara, and which manifests to itself its own ident.i.ty with him, and is therefore fully satisfied, for any other motive than felicity for others. The well-being of others is a motive, whatever may be said, for the definition of a motive applies to it: for there is no such divine curse laid upon man that self-regard should be his sole motive to the exclusion of a regard for others. Thus Akshapada (i. 24) defines a motive: A motive is that object towards which a man energises.

The preposition _upa_ in _upapadayami_ (I set forth) indicates proximity: the result is the bringing of mankind near unto G.o.d.

Hence the word _all_ in the phrase _the method of attaining all felicities_. For when the nature of the Supreme Being is attained, all felicities, which are but the efflux thereof, are overtaken, as if a man acquired the mountain Roha?a (Adam's Peak), he would acquire all the treasures it contains. If a man acquire the divine nature, what else is there that he can ask for? Accordingly Utpalacharya says--

"What more can they ask who are rich in the wealth of devotion? What else can they ask who are poor in this?"

We have thus explained the motive expressed in the words _the method of attaining all felicities_, on the supposition that the compound term is a Tatpurusha genitively constructed. Let it be taken as a Bahuvrihi or relative compound. Then the recognition of Mahesvara, the knowing him through vicarious idols, has for its motive the full attainment, the manifestation, of all felicities, of every external and internal permanent happiness in their proper nature. In the language of everyday life, recognition is a cognition relative to an object represented in memory: for example, This (perceived) is the same (as the remembered) Chaitra. In the recognition propounded in this system,--there being a G.o.d whose omnipotence is learnt from the accredited legendaries, from accepted revelation, and from argumentation,--there arises in relation to my presented personal self the cognition that I am that very G.o.d,--in virtue of my recollection of the powers of that G.o.d.

This same recognition I set forth. To set forth is to enforce. I establish this recognition by a stringent process which renders it convincing. [Such is the articulate development of the first aphorism of the Recognitive Inst.i.tutes.]

Here it may be asked: If soul is manifested only as consubstantial with G.o.d, why this laboured effort to exhibit the recognition? The answer is this:--The recognition is thus exhibited, because though the soul is, as you contend, continually manifested as self-luminous (and therefore identical with G.o.d), it is nevertheless under the influence of the cosmothetic illusion manifested as partial, and therefore the recognition must be exhibited by an expansion of the cognitive and active powers in order to achieve the manifestation of the soul as total (the self being to the natural man a part, to the man of insight the whole, of the divine pleroma). Thus, then, the syllogism: This self must be G.o.d, because it possesses cognitive and active powers; for so far forth as any one is cognitive and active, to that extent he is a lord, like a lord in the world of everyday life, or like a king, therefore the soul is G.o.d. The five-membered syllogism is here employed, because so long as we deal with the illusory order of things, the teaching of the Naiyayikas may be accepted. It has thus been said by the son of Udayakara--

"What self-luminous self can affirm or deny that self-active and cognitive is Mahesvara the primal being?

"Such recognition must be effected by an expansion of the powers, the self being cognised under illusion, and imperfectly discerned."

And again--

"The continuance of all living creatures in this transmigratory world lasts as long as their respiratory _involucrum_; knowledge and action are accounted the life of living creatures.

"Of these, knowledge is spontaneously developed, and action (or ritual), which is best at Kasi,

"Is indicated by others also: different from these is real knowledge."

And also--

"The knowledge of these things follows the sequence of those things:

"The knower, whose essence is beat.i.tude and knowledge without succession, is Mahesvara."

Somanandanatha also says--

"He always knows by ident.i.ty with Siva: he always knows by ident.i.ty with the real."

Again at the end of the section on knowledge--

"Unless there were this unity with Siva, cognitions could not exist as facts of daily life:

"Unity with G.o.d is proved by the unity of light. He is the one knower (or illuminator of cognitions).

"He is Mahesvara, the great Lord, by reason of the unbroken continuity of objects:

"Pure knowledge and action are the playful activity of the deity."

The following is an explanation of Abhinava-gupta:--The text, "After that as it s.h.i.+nes s.h.i.+nes the all of things, by the light of that s.h.i.+nes diversely this ALL," teaches that G.o.d illumines the whole round of things by the glory of His luminous intelligence, and that the diversity or plurality of the object world, whereby the light which irradiates objects is a blue, a yellow light, and the like, arises from diversity of tint cast upon the light by the object. In reality, G.o.d is without plurality or difference, as transcending all limitations of s.p.a.ce, time, and figure. He is pure intelligence, self-luminousness, the manifester; and thus we may read in the Saiva aphorisms, "Self is intelligence." His synonymous t.i.tles are Intelligential Essence, Unintermitted Cognition, Irrespective Intuition, Existence as a ma.s.s of Beat.i.tude, Supreme Domination. This self-same existing self is knowledge.

By pure knowledge and action (in the pa.s.sage of Somanandanatha cited above) are meant real or transcendent cognition and activity. Of these, the cognition is self-luminousness, the activity is energy constructive of the world or series of spheres of transmigratory experience. This is described in the section on activity--

"He by his power of bliss gives light unto these objects, through the efficacy of his will: this activity is creativeness."

And at the close of the same section--

"The mere will of G.o.d, when he wills to become the world under its forms of jar, of cloth, and other objects, is his activity worked out by motive and agent.

"This process of essence into emanation, whereby if this be that comes to be, cannot be attributed to motiveless, insentient things."

According to these principles, causality not pertaining either to the insentient or to the non-divine intelligence, the mere will of Mahesvara, the absolute Lord, when he wills to emanate into thousands of forms, as this or that difference, this or that action, this or that modification of ent.i.ty, of birth, continuance, and the like, in the series of transmigratory environments,--his mere will is his progressively higher and higher activity, that is to say, his universal creativeness.

How he creates the world by his will alone is clearly exhibited in the following ill.u.s.tration--

"The tree or jar produced by the mere will of thaumaturgists, without clay, without seed, continues to serve its proper purpose as tree or jar."

If clay and similar materials were really the substantial cause of the jar and the rest, how could they be produced by the mere volition of the thaumaturgist? If you say: Some jars and some plants are made of clay, and spring from seeds, while others arise from the bare volition of the thaumaturgist; then we should inform you that it is a fact notorious to all the world that _different_ things must emanate from different materials.

As for those who say that a jar or the like cannot be made without materials to make it of, and that when a thaumaturgist makes one he does so by putting atoms in motion by his will, and so composing it: they may be informed that unless there is to be a palpable violation of the causal relation, _all_ the co-efficients, without exception, must be desiderated; to make the jar there must be the clay, the potter's staff, the potter's wheel, and all the rest of it; to make a body there must be the congress of the male and female, and the successive results of that congress. Now, if that be the case, the genesis of a jar, a body, or the like, upon the mere volition of the thaumaturgist, would be hardly possible.

On the other hand, there is no difficulty in supposing that Mahadeva, amply free to remain within or to over-step any limit whatever, the Lord, manifold in his operancy, the intelligent principle, thus operates. Thus it is that Vasuguptacharya says--

"To him that painted this world-picture without materials, without appliances, without a wall to paint it on,--to him be glory, to him resplendent with the lunar digit, to him that bears the trident."

It may be asked: If the supersensible self be no other than G.o.d, how comes this implication in successive transmigratory conditions? The answer is given in the section treating of accredited inst.i.tution--

"This agent of cognition, blinded by illusion, transmigrates through the fatality of works:

"Taught his divine nature by science, as pure intelligence, he is enfranchised."

It may be asked: If the subject and the object are identical, what difference can there be between the self bound and the self liberated in regard to the objects cognisable by each? The answer to this question is given in a section of the Tattvartha-Sa?graha--