Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2

It is curious that both the sacred texts—the Veda and the Koran—to which this supernatural position is ascribed should be collections of obviously human, incongruous, and often insignificant documents connected with particular occasions, and in no way suggesting or claiming that they are anterior to the ordinary life of man on earth. It is still more extraordinary that systems of philosophy should profess to base themselves on such works. But in reality Hindu metaphysicians are not more bound by the past than their colleagues in other lands. They do not take scripture and ask what it means, but evolve their own systems and state that they are in accordance with it. Sometimes scripture is ignored in the details of argument. More often the metaphysician writes a commentary on it and boldly proves that it supports his views, though its apparent meaning may be hostile. It is clear that many philosophic commentaries have been written not because the authors really drew their inspiration from the Upanishads or Bhagavad-gîtâ but because they dared not neglect such important texts. All the Vedântist schools labour to prove that they are in harmony not only with the Upanishads but with the Brahma-sûtras. The philosophers of the Sâṅkhya are more detached from literature but though they ignore the existence of the deity, they acknowledge the Veda as a source of knowledge. Their recognition, however, has the air of a concession to Brahmanic sentiment. Isolated theories of the Sâṅkhya can be supported by isolated passages of the Upanishads, but no impartial critic can maintain that the general doctrines of the two are compatible. That the Brahmans should have been willing to admit the Sâṅkhya as a possible form of orthodoxy is a testimony both to its importance and to their liberality.

It is remarkable that the test of orthodoxy should have been the acceptance of the authority of the Veda and not a confession of some sort of theism. But on this the Brahmans did not insist. The Vedânta is truly and intensely pantheistic or theistic, but in the other philosophies the Supreme Being is either eliminated or plays a small part. Thus while works which seem to be merely scientific treatises (like the Nyâya) set before themselves a religious object, other treatises, seemingly religious in scope, ignore the deity. There is a strong and ancient line of thought in India which, basing itself on the doctrine of Karma, or the inevitable consequences of the deed once done, lays stress on the efficacy of ceremonies or of asceticism or of knowledge without reference to a Supreme Being because, if he exists, he does not interfere with the workings of Karma, or with the power of knowledge to release from them.

Even the Vedânta, although in a way the quintessence of Indian orthodoxy, is not a scholastic philosophy designed to support recognized dogma and ritual. It is rather the orthodox method of soaring above these things. It contemplates from a higher level the life of religious observances (which is the subject of the Pûrva Mîmâṃsâ) and recognizes its value as a preliminary, but yet rejects it as inadequate. The Sannyâsi or adept follows no caste observances, performs no sacrifices, reads no scriptures. His religion is to realize in meditation the true nature, and it may be the identity, of the soul and God. Good works are of no more importance for him than rites, though he does well to employ his time in teaching. But Karma has ceased to exist for him: "the acts of a Yogi are neither black nor white," they have no moral quality nor consequences. This is dangerous language and the doctrine has sometimes been abused. But the point of the teaching is not that a Sannyâsi may do what he likes but that he is perfectly emancipated from material bondage. Most men are bound by their deeds; every new act brings consequences which attach the doer to the world of transmigration and create for him new existences. But the deeds of the man who is really free have no such trammelling effects, for they are not prompted by desire nor directed to an object. But since to become free he must have suppressed all desire, it is hardly conceivable that he should do anything which could be called a sin. But this conviction that the task of the sage is not to perfect any form of good conduct but to rise above both good and evil, imparts to the Darśanas and even to the Upanishads a singularly non-ethical and detached tone. The Yogi does no harm but he has less benevolence and active sympathy than the Buddhist monk. It was a feeling that such an attitude has its dangers and is only for the few who have fought their way to the heights where it can safely be adopted, that led the Brahmans in all ages to lay stress on the householder's life as the proper preparation for a philosophic old age. Despite utterances to the contrary, they never as a body approved the ideal of a life entirely devoted to asceticism and not occupied with social duties during one period. The extraordinary ease with which the higher phases of Indian thought shake off all formalities, social, religious and ethical, was counterbalanced by the multitudinous regulations devised to keep the majority in a law-abiding life.

None of the six Darśanas concern themselves with ethics. The more important deal with the transcendental progress of sages who have avowedly abandoned the life of works, and even those which treat of that lower life are occupied with ritual and logic rather than with anything which can be termed moral science. We must not infer that Indian literature is altogether unmoral. The doctrine of Karma is intensely ethical and ethical discussions are more prominent in the Epics than in Homer, besides being the subject of much gnomic and didactic poetry. But there is no mistaking the fact that the Hindu seeks for salvation by knowledge. He feels the power of deeds, but it is only the lower happiness which lies in doing good works and enjoying their fruits. The higher bliss consists in being entirely free from the bondage of deeds and Karma.

All the Darśanas have as a common principle this idea of Karma with the attendant doctrines that rebirth is a consequence of action and that salvation is an escape from rebirth. They all treat more or less of the sources and standards of knowledge, and all recognize the Veda as one of them. There is not much more that can be said of them all in common, for the Vedânta ignores matter and the Sâṅkhya ignores God, but they all share a conviction which presents difficulties to Europeans. It is that the state in which the mind ceases to think discursively and is concentrated on itself is not only desirable but the summum bonum. The European is inclined to say that such a state is distinguished from non-existence only by not being permanent. But the Hindu will have none of this. He holds that mind and thought are material though composed of the subtlest matter, and that when thought ceases, the immaterial soul (purusha or âtman) far from being practically non-existent is more truly existent than before and enjoys untroubled its own existence and its own nature.

Of the three most important systems, the Sâṅkhya, Yoga and Vedânta, the first and last are on most points opposed: both are ancient, but perhaps the products of different intellectual centres. In one sense the Yoga may be described as a theistic modification of the Sâṅkhya: from another and perhaps juster point of view it appears rather as a very ancient science of asceticism and contemplation, susceptible of combination with various metaphysical theories.

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We may consider first of all the Sâṅkhya.740 Tradition ascribes its invention to Kapila, but he is a mere name unconnected with any date or other circumstance. It is probable that the principal ideas of the Sâṅkhya germinated several centuries before our era but we have no evidence whatever as to when they were first formulated in Sûtras. The name was current as the designation of a philosophical system fairly early741 but the accepted text-books are all late. The most respected is the Sâṅkhya-pravacana,742 attributed to Kapila but generally assigned by European critics to the fourteenth century A.D. Considerably more ancient, but still clearly a metrical epitome of a system already existing, is the Sâṅkhya-Kârikâ, a poem of seventy verses which was translated into Chinese about 560 A.D. and may be a few centuries older. Max Müller regarded the Tattva-samâsa, a short tract consisting chiefly of an enumeration of topics, as the most ancient Sâṅkhya formulary, but the opinion of scholars as to its age is not unanimous. The name Sâṅkhya is best interpreted as signifying enumeration in allusion to the predilection of the school for numbered lists, a predilection equally noticeable in early Buddhism.

The object of the system set forth in these works is strictly practical. In the first words of the Sâṅkhya-pravacana, the complete cessation of suffering is the end of man, and the Sâṅkhya is devised to enable him to attain it. Another formula divides the contents of the Sâṅkhya into four topics—(a) that from which man must liberate himself, or suffering, (b) liberation, or the cessation of suffering, (c) the cause of suffering, or the failure to discriminate between the soul and matter, (d) the means of liberation, or discriminating knowledge. This division obviously resembles the four Truths of Buddhism. The object proposed is the same and the method analogous, though not identical, for Buddhism speaks as a religion and lays greater stress on conduct.

The theory of the Sâṅkhya, briefly stated, is this. There exist, uncreated and from all eternity, on the one side matter and on the other individual souls. The world, as we know it, is due entirely to the evolution of matter. Suffering is the result of souls being in bondage to matter, but this bondage does not affect the nature of the soul and in one sense is not real, for when souls acquire discriminating knowledge and see that they are not matter, then the bondage ceases and they attain to eternal peace.

The system is thus founded on dualism, the eternal antithesis between matter and soul. Many of its details are comprised in the simple enumeration of the twenty-five Tattvas or principles743 as given in the Tattva-samâsa and other works. Of these, one is Purusha, the soul or self, which is neither produced nor productive, and the other twenty-four are all modifications of Prakṛiti or matter, which is unproduced but productive. Prakṛiti means the original ground form of external existence (as distinguished from Vikṛiti, modified form). It is uncreated and indestructible, but it has a tendency to variation or evolution. The Sâṅkhya holds in the strictest sense that ex nihilo nihil fit. Substance can only be produced from substance and properly speaking there is no such thing as origination but only manifestation. Causality is regarded solely from the point of view of material causes, that is to say the cause of a pot is clay and not the action of the potter. Thus the effect or product is nothing else than the cause in another shape: production is only manifestation and destruction is the resolution of a product into its cause. Instead of holding like the Buddhists that there is no such thing as existence but only becoming, the Sâṅkhya rather affirms that there is nothing but successive manifestations of real existence. If clay is made into a pot and the pot is then broken and ground into clay again, the essential fact is not that a pot has come into existence and disappeared but that the clay continuously existing has undergone certain changes.

The tendency to evolution inherent in matter is due to the three guṇas. They are sattva, explained as goodness and happiness; rajas, as passion and movement; and tamas, as darkness, heaviness and ignorance. The word Guṇa is not easy to translate, for it seems to mean more than quality or mode and to signify the constituents of matter. Hence one cannot help feeling that the whole theory is an attempt to explain the unity and diversity of matter by a phrase, but all Hinduism is permeated by this phrase and theory. When the three guṇas are in equilibrium then matter—Prakṛiti—is quiescent, undifferentiated and unmanifested. But as soon as the equilibrium is disturbed and one of the guṇas becomes preponderant, then the process of differentiation and manifestation begins. The disturbance of equilibrium is due to the action of the individual Purushas or souls on Prakṛiti, but this action is mechanical and due to proximity not to the volition of the souls and may be compared to the attraction of a magnet for iron.744 Thus at the beginning of the evolutionary process we have quiescent matter in equilibrium: over against this are souls innumerable, equally quiescent but exerting on matter a mechanical force. This upsets the equilibrium and creates a movement which takes at first the form of development and later of decay and collapse. Then matter returns to its quiescent state to be again excited by the Purushas and commence its world-making evolution anew. The doctrine that evolution, dissolution and quiescence succeed one another periodically is an integral part of the Sâṅkhya.745

The unmodified Prakṛiti stands first on the list of twenty-five principles. When evolution begins it produces first Buddhi or intellect, secondly Ahaṃkâra, which is perhaps best rendered by individuality, and next the five Tanmâtras or subtle elements. Buddhi, though meaning intellect, is used rather in the sense of ascertaining or perception. It is the faculty by which we distinguish objects and perceive what they are. It differs also from our conception of intellect in being, like Ahaṃkâra and all the subsequent developments of Prakṛiti, material, and must not be confused with the immaterial Purusha or soul. It is in fact the organ of thought, not in the sense of the brain or anything tangible, but a subtle substratum of all mental processes. But in what sense is it possible to say that this Buddhi exists apart from individuals, who have not come into being at this stage of cosmic evolution? This difficulty is not met by talking, as some commentators do, of cosmic as well as individual Buddhi, for even if all Prakṛiti is illuminated by Buddhi at this stage it is difficult to see what result can occur. To make the process of development coherent we must think of it not as a series of chronologically successive stages but rather as a logically connected series and an analysis of completely evolved beings, just as we might say that bones are covered with flesh and flesh with skin, without affirming that the bones have a separate and prior existence. Ahaṃkâra, which is, like Buddhi, strictly speaking a physical organ, means Ego-maker and denotes the sense of personality and individuality, almost the will. In the language of Indian philosophy it is the delusion or misconception which makes the soul imagine itself a personal agent and think, I see, I hear, I slay, I am slain, whereas the soul is really incapable of action and the acts are those of Prakṛiti.

The five subtle elements are the essences of sound, touch, colour, savour and odour conceived as physical principles, imperceptible to ordinary beings, though gods and Yogis can perceive them. The name Tanmâtra which signifies that only indicates that they are concerned exclusively with one sense. Thus whereas the gross elements, such as earth, appeal to more than one sense and can be seen, felt and smelt, the subtle element of sound is restricted to the sense of hearing. It exists in all things audible but has nothing to do with their tangibility or visibility. There remain sixteen further modifications to make up the full list of twenty-four. They are the five organs of sense,746 the five organs of action,747 Manas or mind, regarded as a sixth and central sense, and also as the seat of will, and the five gross elements—earth, water, light, air and ether. The Sâṅkhya distinguishes between the gross and the subtle body. The latter, called lingaśarîra, is defined in more than one way, but it is expressly stated in the Kârikâs748 that it is composed of "Buddhi and the rest, down to the subtle elements." It practically corresponds to what we call the soul, though totally distinct from Purusha or soul in the Sâṅkhya sense. It constitutes the character and essential being of a person. It is the part which transmigrates from one gross body to another, and is responsible for the acts committed in each existence. Its union with a gross body constitutes birth, its departure death. Except in the case of those who attain emancipation, its existence and transmigration last for a whole world-period at the end of which come quiescence and equilibrium. In it are imprinted the Saṃskâras,749 the predispositions which pass on from one existence to another and are latent in the new-born mind like seeds in a field.

By following the evolution of matter we have now accounted for intellect, individuality, the senses, the moral character, will, and a principle which survives death and transmigrates. It might therefore be supposed that we have exhaustively analysed the constitution of a human being. But that is not the view of the Sâṅkhya. The evolution of Buddhi, Ahaṃkâra, the subtle body and the gross body is a physical process and the result is also physical, though parts of it are of so fine a substance that ordinary senses cannot perceive them. This physical organism becomes a living being (which term includes gods and animals) when it is connected with a soul (purusha) and consciousness depends on this connection, for neither is matter when isolated conscious, nor is the soul, at least not in our sense of the word. Though the soul is neither the life which ends at death (for that is the gross body) nor yet the life which passes from existence to existence (for that is the subtle body) yet it is the vitalizing element which renders life possible.

The Sâṅkhya like Jainism regards souls as innumerable and distinct from one another. The word Purusha must have originally referred to the manikin supposed to inhabit the body, and there is some reason to think that the earliest teachers of the Sâṅkhya held that it was infinitely small. But in the existing text-books it is described as infinitely large. It is immaterial and without beginning, end, parts, dimensions, or qualities, incapable of change, motion, or action. These definitions may be partly due to the influence of the Vedânta and, though we know little about the historical development of the Sâṅkhya, there are traces of a compromise between the old teaching of a soul held in bondage and struggling for release and later conceptions of a soul which, being infinite and passionless, hardly seems capable of submitting to bondage. Though the soul cannot be said to transmigrate, to act, or to suffer, still through consciousness it makes the suffering of the world felt and though in its essence it remains eternally unchanged and unaffected, yet it experiences the reflection of the suffering which goes on. Just as a crystal (to use the Indian simile) allows a red flower to be seen through it and remains unchanged, although it seems to become red, so does the soul remain unchanged by sorrow or joy, although the illusion that it suffers or rejoices may be present in the consciousness.

The task of the soul is to free itself from illusion, and thus from bondage. For strictly speaking the bondage does not exist: it is caused by want of discrimination. Like the Vedânta, the Sâṅkhya regards all this troubled life as being, so far as the soul is concerned, mere illusion. But while the Vedânta bids the soul know its identity with Brahman, the Sâṅkhya bids it isolate itself and know that the acts and feelings which seem to be its own have really nothing to do with it. They are for the soul nothing but a spectacle or play originating in its connection with Prakṛiti, and it is actually said,750 "Wherefore no soul is bound, or is liberated or transmigrates. It is Prakṛiti, which has many bodily forms, which is bound, liberated and transmigrates." It is in Buddhi or intellect, which is a manifestation of Prakṛiti, that the knowledge of the difference between the soul and Prakṛiti must arise. Thus though the Sâṅkhya reposes on a fundamental dualism, it is not the dualism of good and evil. Soul and matter differ not because the first is good and the second bad, but because the first is unchangeable and the second constantly changing. Matter is often personified as a woman. Her motives are unselfish and she works for the liberation of the soul. "As a dancer after showing herself on the stage ceases to dance, so does Prakṛiti cease when she has made herself manifest to the soul." That is to say, when a soul once understands that it is distinct from the material world, that world ceases to exist for that particular soul, though of course the play continues for others. "Generous Prakṛiti, endowed with Guṇas, causes by manifold means without benefit to herself, the benefit of the soul, which is devoid of Guṇas and makes no return."751 The condition of the liberated soul, corresponding to the mokska and nirvâṇa of other systems, is described as Kaivalya, that is, complete separation from the material world, but, as among Buddhists and Vedântists, he who has learnt the truth is liberated even before death, and can teach others. He goes on living, just as the wheel continues to revolve for some time after the potter has ceased to turn it. After death, complete liberation without the possibility of rebirth is attained. The Sâṅkhya manuals do not dwell further on the character of this liberation: we only know that the eternal soul is then completely isolated and aloof from all suffering and material things. Liberation is compared to profound sleep, the difference being that in dreamless sleep there is a seed, that is, the possibility of return to ordinary life, whereas when liberation is once attained there is no such return.

Both in its account of the world process and in its scheme of salvation the Sâṅkhya ignores theism in the same way as did the Buddha. Indeed the text-books go beyond this and practically deny the existence of a personal supreme deity. We are told752 that the existence of God cannot be proved, for whatever exists must be either bound or free and God can be neither. We cannot think of him as bound and yet he cannot be free like an emancipated soul, for freedom implies the absence of desire and hence of the impulse to create. Similarly753 the consequences of good and evil deeds are due to Karma and not to the government of God. Such a ruler is inconceivable, for if he governs the world according to the action of Karma his existence is superfluous, and if he is affected by selfish motives or desire, then he cannot be free. It is true that these passages speak of there being no proof of God's existence and hence commentators both Indian and European who shrink from atheism represent the Sâṅkhya as suspending judgment. But if a republican constitution duly describes the President and other authorities in whom the powers of government are vested, can we argue that it is not unmonarchical because it does not expressly say there is no king? In the Sâṅkhya there is no more place for a deity than for a king in a republican constitution. Moreover, the Sûtras endeavour to prove that the idea of God is inconceivable and self-contradictory and some commentaries speak plainly on this subject.754 Thus the Sâṅkhya-tattva-kaumudi commenting on Kârikâ 57 argues that the world cannot have been created by God, whether we suppose him to have been impelled by selfishness or kindness. For if God is perfect he can have no need to create a world. And if his motive is kindness, is it reasonable to call into existence beings who while non-existent had no suffering, simply in order to show kindness in relieving them from suffering? A benevolent deity ought to create only happy creatures, not a mixed world like the one we see.755

Arguments like this were not condemned by the Brahmans so strongly as we should expect, but they did not like them and though they did not excommunicate the Sâṅkhya in the same way as Buddhism, they greatly preferred a theistic variety of it called Yoga.

The Yoga and Sâṅkhya are mentioned together in the Śvetâśvatara Upanishad,756 and the Bhagavad-gîtâ757 says that he sees truly who sees them as one. The difference lies in treatment rather than in substance. Whereas the Sâṅkhya is mainly theoretical, the principal topic of the Yoga is the cultivation of that frame of mind which leads to emancipation and the methods and exercises proper to this end. Further, the Yoga recognizes a deity. This distinction may seem of capital importance but the god of the Yoga (called Îśvara or the Lord) is not its foundation and essence as Brahman is of the Vedânta.758 Devotion to God is recognized as one among other methods for attaining emancipation and if this particular procedure, which is mentioned in relatively few passages, were omitted, the rest of the system would be unaffected. It is therefore probable that the theistic portions of the Yoga are an addition made under Brahmanic influence. But taking the existing Sûtras of the two philosophies, together with their commentaries, it may be said that the Yoga implies most of the Sâṅkhya theory and the Sâṅkhya most of the Yoga practice, for though it does not go into details it prescribes meditation which is to be perfected by regulating the breathing and by adopting certain postures. I have already spoken of the methods and discipline prescribed by the Yoga and need not dwell further on the topic now.