Page:The World's Parliament of Religions Vol 1.djvu/353

 The other Sankhya, more popularly know as the Yogo-Darsana, accepts the whole of the cosmology of the first Sankhya, but only adds to it a hypothetical Isvara and largely expands the ethical side of the teaching by setting forth several physical and psychological rules and exercises capable of leading to the last state of happiness, called Kanivalya—life according to nature. This is theistic Sankhya.

The two Mimansas'next call our attention. These are the orthodox Darsanas par excellence, and as such are in direct touch with the Veda and the Upanishads, which continue to govern them from beginning to end. Mimansa means inquiry, and the first preliminary is called Purva-Mimansa, the second Uttara-Mimansa. The object of the first is to determine the exact meaning and value of the injunctions and prohibitions given out in the Veda, and that of the second is to explain the esoteric teachings of the Upanishads. The former, therefore does not trouble itself about the nature of the universe or about the ideas of God and soul. It tells only of Dharma, religious merit, which, according to its teaching, arises in the next world from a strict observance of the Vedic duties. This Mimansa fitly called the purva, a preliminary Mimansa, we may thus pass over without any further remark. The most important Darsana of all is by far the Utra or final Mimansa, popularly knowns as the Nedanta, the philosophy taught in the Upanishads as the end of the Veda.

The Vedanta emphasizes the idea of the All, the universal Atman or Brahman, set forth in the Upanishads, and maintained the unity not only of the cosmos but of all intelligence in general. The All is self-illumined, all thought (gnosis), the very being of the universe. Being implies thought, and the All may in Venuanta phraseology be aptly described as the essence of thought and being. The Vedanta is a system of absolute idealism in which subject and object are rolled into one unique consciousness, the realization whereof is the end and aim of existence, the highest bliss—Moksa. This state of Moksa is not anything to be accomplished or brought about —it is in fact the very being of all existence, but experience stands in the way of complete realization by creating imaginary distinctions of subject and object. This system besides being the orthodox Darsana is philosophically an improvement upon all previous speculations. The Nyaya is superseded by the Sanhya, whose distinction of matter and intelligence is done away with in this philosophy of absolute idealism, which has endowed the phrase "life according to nature" with an entirely new and more rational meaning. For in its ethics, this system teaches not only the brotherhood but the Atma-hood Abheda, oneness, of not only man but of all beings, of the whole universe. The light of the other Darsanas pales before the blaze of unity and love lighted at the altar of the Veda by this sublime philosophy, the shelter of minds like Plato, Pythagoras, Bruno, Spinoza, Hegel, Schopenhauer in the West, and Krisna, Vyasa, Sankara and others in the East.

We can not but sum up at this point. Hinduism adds one more attri