Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/310

Rh 290 SANSKRIT [LITERATURE. approved general introduction to the study of the Mimarnsa is the metrical Jaimintya-Nydya-mdld-viistfira, 1 with a prose commentary, both by Madhava Acharya. This distinguished writer, who has already been mentioned several times, was formerly supposed, from frequent statements in MSS., to have been the brother of fcviyana, the well-known interpreter of the Vedas. The late Dr Buruell* has, however, made it very probable that these two are one and the same person, Sayana being his Telugu, and Jladhavitcharya his Brahmanical name. In 1331 he became the . or spiritual head, of the Smartas (a Vedantist sect founded by Sankaracharya) at the Math of Sringeri, where, under the patronage of Bukka, king of Vidyanagara, he composed his numerous works. He sometimes passes under a third name, Vidyaranya-svamin, adopted by him on becoming a sannydsin, or religious mendicant. Vedanta. (2) The Veddnta philosophy, in the comparatively primitive form in which it presents itself in most of the Upanishads, con- stitutes the earliest phase of systematic metaphysical speculation. In its essential features it remains to this day the prevalent belief of Indian thinkers, and enters largely into the religious life and convictions of the people. It is an idealistic monism, which derives the universe from an ultimate conscious spiritual principle, the one and only existent from eternity the Atman, the Self, or the Punisha, the Person, the Brahman. It is this primordial essence or Self that pervades all things, and gives life and light to them, "without being sullied by the visible outward impurities or the miseries of the world, being itself apart," and into which all things will, through knowledge, ultimately resolve themselves. "The wise who perceive him as being within their own, Self, to them belongs eternal peace, not to others." 3 But, while the com- mentators never hesitate to interpret the Upanishads as being in perfect agreement with the Vedantic system, as elaborated in later times, there is often considerable difficulty in accepting their explanations. In these treatises only the leading features of the pantheistic theory find utterance, generally in vague and mystic though often in singularly powerful and poetical language, from which it is not always possible to extract the author's real idea on fundamental points, such as the relation between the Supreme Spirit and the phenomenal world, whether the latter was actually, evolved from the former by a power inherent in him, or whether the process is altogether a fiction, an illusion of the individual self. Thus the Katha-upanishad 4 offers the following summary : " Beyond the senses [there are the objects ; beyond the objects] there is the mind (manas) ; beyond the mind there is the intellect (buddhi) ; beyond the intellect there is the Great Self. Beyond theGreatOne there is the Highest Undeveloped (avyaktam); beyond the Undeveloped there is the Person (purusha), the all-pervading, characterless (alinga). Whatsoever knows him is liberated, and attains immortality." Here the Vedantist commentator assures us that the Great Undeveloped, which the Stmkhyas would claim as their own primary material principle (pradhana, prakriti), is in reality Mdyd, illusion (otherwise called Avidya, ignorance, or Sakti, power), the fictitious energy which in conjunction with the Highest Self (Atman, Purusha) produces or constitutes the I4vara, the Lord, or Cosmic Soul, the first emanation of the Atman, and himself the (fictitious) cause of all that seems to exist. It must remain doubtful, however, whether the author of the Upanishad really meant this, or whether he regarded the Great Undeveloped as an actual material principle or substratum evolved from out of the Purusha, though not, as the Sdnkhyas hold, coexisting with him from eternity. Besides passages such as these which seem to indicate realistic or materialistic tendencies of thought, which may well have developed into the dualistic Sankhya and kindred systems, there are others which indicate the existence even of nihilist theories, such as the Bauddhas the i&ni/a-vddins, or aflirmers of a void or primordial nothingness profess. Thus we read in the Chhandogya-upanishad 5 : "The existent alone, my son, was here in the beginning, one only, with- out a second. Others say, there was the non-existent alone here in the beginning, one only, without a second, and from the non- existent the existent was born. But how could this be, my son ? How could the existent be born from the non-existent ? No, my son, only the existent was here in the beginning, one only, with- out a second." The foundation of the Vedanta system, as " the completion of the Veda," is naturally ascribed to Vyasa, the mythic arranger of the Vedas, who is said to be identical with Badarayana, the reputed author of the Brahma- (or S&rlraka-) stitra, the authorita- tive, though highly obscure, summary of the system. The most distinguished interpreter of these aphorisms is the famous Malabar Sankara. theologian Sankara Acharya (7th or 8th century), who also commented on the principal Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita, and is said to have spent the greater part of his life in wandering all over India, as far as Kashmir, and engaging in disputations 1 K.lited by Th. GoldstUcker, completed by E. B. Cowell. I. 8, 10; IL 6, 7. 6 V j. "2, 1. "^ Rama. nuja. with teachers whether of the Saiva, or Vaishnava, or less orthodox persuasions with the view of rooting out heresy and re-establishing the doctrine of the Upauishads. His controversial triumphs (doubtless largely mythical) are related in a number of treatises current in South India, tho tvo most important of which are the &ankara-dig-vijaya ("Sankara's world-conquest"), ascribed to his own disciple Anandagiri, and the Sankara-vijaya, by Ma- dhavacharya. In Sankara's philosophy 6 tho theory that the material world has no real existence, but is^i mere illusion of the individual soul wrapt in ignorance, that, therefore, it has only a practical or conventional (vydvahdrika) but not a transcendental or true (pdramdrthika) reality, is strictly enforced. To the question why the Supreme Self (or rather his fictitious development, the Highest Lord, or cosmic soul) should have sent forth this phantasma- gory this great thinker (with the author of the Sutras 7 ) can return no better answer than that it must have been done for sport (Hid), without any special motive since to ascribe such a motive to the Supreme Lord would be limiting his self-sufficiency, and that the process of creation lias been going on from all eternity. Sankara's Sdrlraka-mimdmsd-bhdshya nas given rise to a large number of exegetic treatises, of which Vachaspati-misra's 8 exposition, entitled Bhdmatt, is the most esteemed. Of numerous other commentaries on the .Brahnia-sutras, the Srl-bhdshya, by Ramanujfi, the founder of the Sri- Vaishnava sect, is the most noteworthy. This religious teacher, who probably flourished during the first half of the 12th century, caused a schism in tho Vedanta school. Instead of adher- ing to Sankara's orthodox advaita, or non-duality doctrine, he put forth the theory of vttishtddvaita, i.e., non-duality of the (two) distinct (principles), or, as it is more commonly explained, non-duality of that which is qualified (by attributes). According to this theory the Brahman (which is identical with Vishnu) is neither devoid of form and quality, nor is it all things ; but it is endowed with all good qualities, and matter is distinct from it ; bodies consist of souls (chit) and matter (achit) ; and God is the soul. "With this theory is combined the ordinary Vaishnava doctrine of periodical descents (avatdra) of the deity, in various forms, for the benefit of creatures. In Ramanuja's system con- siderable play is also allowed to the doctrine of faith (bhakti). Bhakt This phase of Indian religious belief, which has attached itself to the Vedanta theory more closely than to any other, and the origin of which some scholars are inclined to attribute to Christian influence, seems first to make its appearance very prominently in the Bhagavadgitd, the episode of the Mahdbhdrata, already referred to, and is even more fully developed in some of the Puranas, especially the Bhagavata. In'" the Sdndilya- (Bhakti-) vdtra, 10 the author and date of which are unknown, the doctrine is systemati- cally propounded in one hundred aphorisms. According to this doctrine mundane existence is due to want of faith, not to ignorance ; and the final liberation of the individual soul can only be effected by faith. Knowledge only contributes to this end by removing the mind's foulness, unbelief. Its highest phase of development this doctrine probably reached in the religious creed of the Bhaktas, a Vaishnava sect founded, towards the end of the 15th century, by Chaitaiiya, whose followers subsequently grafted the Vedanta" speculations on his doctrine. A popular summary of the Vedanta doctrine is the Veddnta-sAra by Sadananda, which has been frequently printed and translated. 11 (3) The Sdnkhya, or " enumerative " system, probably derives its name from its systematic enumeration of the twenty-five principles (tattva) it recognizes, consisting of twenty-four material and an independent immaterial principle. In opposition to the Vedanta school, which maintains tho eternal coexistence of a spiritual principle of reality and an unspiritual principle of unreality, the Sankhya assumes the eternal coexistence of a material first cause, which it calls either mUla-Prakrili (fern.), "chief Originant" (Nature), or Pradhdna, "the principal" cause, and a plurality of spiritual elements or Selves, Punisha. Tho system recognizes no intelligent creator (such as tho t&vara, or demiurgus, of the Vedanta) whence it is called niriSvara, godless ; but it conceives the Material First Cause, itself unin- telligent, to have become developed, by a gradual process of evolution, into all the actual forms of the phenomenal universe, excepting the souls. Its first emanation is buddhi, intelligence ; whence springs aharjikdra, consciousness ; thence five elementary particles (tanm&tra) and eleven organs of sense ; and finally, from tho elementary particles, five elements. The souls have from all eternity been connected with Nature, having in the first place become invested with a subtile frame (linga-, or s&kshma-, iartra), consisting of seventeen principles, vi2., intelligence, consciousness, elementary particles, and organs of sense and action, including Sunkh 4 P. Deusscn, Das System de Veddnta, 1883. A. E. Gongh, The Philosophy of the Uprtnithadi, also follows chiefly Sankara's interpretation. 7 BrahmasOtra, Hi. 1, 32-34. 8 Prof. Cowell assigns him to about the 10th century. DibJ. Ind. 10 Text, with Svapneivara's commentary, edited by J. R. Ballantyne; transl. by E B. Cowell. u Last by G. A. Jacob. ' 2 E. Rijer, Lecture on the SdnJchya Philosophy, Calcutta, 18-M ; B. St Hilaire, Mfmoire $ur le Sdnthya, 1852.
 * Vamta-brAhmai}a, Introd. ' Ktha-panlshd. ii. 5 11-13