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Sivagnana Siddhiyar - Parapaksham
of Arul Nandi Siva Chariya
By Mr. J. M. Nallaswami Pillai, B.A., B.L.,
PARAPAKSHAM
INTRODUCTION
THIS is the second of the fourteen Siddhanta Sastras, and its author was the disciple of the Great Meikanda Deva and his best expender. Sivagnana Botham is called the "Muthal Nul" or Revealed Book, and this work is called the "Vazhi Nul" containing the best and the most lucid elucidation of Meikanda Deva's short and concise aphorisms. The author is the second of the Santhana Achariyas in canonized Saints of the Saivas, and his date may be with more or less accuracy fixed at about 1200 A.D. He is author of another short work called "Irupairupakthu" (இருபா இருபஃது), in which he states some of the most puzzling problems in Indian Philosophy in the form of questions addressed to his master, in such a form that the answers themselves are transparent. Arul Nandi Siva Chariya was his name after he met and was initiated by his master Meikanda Deva and his other name was Sakalagama Pandithar, which seems however not to be his real name but one conferred on him for his vast erudition and researches in the Saivite lore. And there can be no doubt that he has displayed in his works all his vast learning and knowledge, and 'Siddhiar' stands out as the bulkiest and most learned contribution in the field of Philosophy in the vast Tamil; and will bear comparison in that respect with the best production in Sanskrit. Umapathi Siva Chariya includes this among the best six books, required for a man to perfect himself in Tamil, namely Tiruvalluvar, with (Parimelalagar's commentary), Devaram and Tiruvachakam, Tolkapiyam, Sekkilar's Periapuranam, Sivagnana Siddhi. Many are the praises sung of him and his work and of these we select two. The author of Sivabogasara says:-
ஆறாறு தத்துவமும், ஆணவனும், வல்வினையும்
நீறாக முத்தி நிலை நிற்போற்குப்-பேறாகப்
பாரவிரித்த நுலெல்லாம் பார்த்தறிய சித்தியிலே
யோர் விருத்தப் பாதிபோகும்.
(To those who desire the path of Moksha, when all their lower Tatwas, Akankara and Karma will be burnt up to cinders, half a stanza of Siddhiar will (if understood) furnish the key for the understanding of all the vast lore of this world).
Our Thayumanavar says:-
"பாதி விருத்த்த்தாலிப் பார்விருத்தமாகவுண்மை
சாதித்தார் பொன்னடியைத் தான்பணிவதெந்நாளோ"
"O for the day when I shall bow down to the feet of him who exhibited the truth in half a stanza whereby I lost the whole delusive world:-
Of all the Siddhanta works, Siddhiar has had the greatest number of commentators, and six of these commentaries are brought out in a most praiseworthy manner by M. R. Ry. K. Shunmugasundara Mudaliar of Chintadripet in his "Sivagnana Botha Press."
Coming to the work in question, it is in two parts, the first part called Parapaksham contains a review of 14 systems of Philosophy beginning with Lokayitha and ending with Pancharathra, in the manner of Sayana's Sarva Darsana Sangraha. The other part called 'Supaksha' elaborates in detail Meikanda Deva's work. The Supaksham is prefaced with a chapter on Indian Logic or Alavei or measure as it is called, a knowledge of which is essential for following the argument of the Indian Schools of Philosophy. We propose to begin with the translation of this chapter and then proceed to Parapaksham and then to come back to Supaksham. Of previous translations, we are only aware of one into German by Graul, about 42 years ago and published in Vol. 8 of the German Oriental Society's Journal.
INVOCATION OF GANESHA
O God, with the elephant head, single-tusked, double eared, triple juiced, with the hanging lip, and five hands, begotten by the Lord with the braided hair, adorned with the Ganges, the crescent moon and the cassia flowers. Thy feet will remove the evil in the hearts overflowing with love, humility, and knowledge night and day without fail. Thy feet will lift such far above the delights of Brahma and Vishnu.
NOTE
Ganesha is called Vinayaka "He who has no Lord above Him" The elephant head, with the single tusk and trunk denote his Pranava form; the triple-juice or secretions denote his powers, will, intelligence and action (Ichacha, Gnana, Kriya). His five hands denote his Panchakirthya (srishti, sthithi, samhara, droupava and Anugraha). The wearing of the Ganges signifies his conquest of Ahankar; and the wearing of the Soma the uplifting of the truly humble; and the cassia (கொன்றை) flower is the crowning Indian Laurel signifying his Lordship, symbol of Pranava (The Manthra Rajam). These symbols have other meanings to the Yogi. The double effect of His Grace in offering Pasatehaya and inducing Pathignana is also well set forth in this stanza.
IN PRAISE OF HIS TEACHER
The Gracious Sun which shining on this universe opened the Lotus bud of the woman hearts, on the opening of which, the bees of the ancient Vedic Hymns hummed about, the fresh honey gushed forth, and the Fragrance of Sivam blowed forth; He, Meikanda Deva, who was living in Tiruvennainallu, surrounded by groves, in full blossom, The Great Saivite Teacher, His golden feet which outrivals the lotus, resting in my head, I shall ever worship.
ALAVEI OR LOGIC
1. Some classify Logical methods into Six (1) Prathiatcha (observation and experiment), (2) Anumana (Inference), (3) Agama (Testimony or Authority), (4) Abava (non-existence), (5) Arthapathi (deduction), (6) Upamana (analogy). Some add the following four to the foregoing, namely (7) Parishesha (Inference by exception), (8) Sambava (co-existence), (9) Ithigam, (Tradition), (10) Svaba Linga (Natural Inference). All these are included in the three first Prathiatcha, Anumana and Agama.
1. The Tamil equivalent of these ten Pramana are (1) காணல், (2) கருதல், (3) உரை, (4) இல்லாமை, (5) பொருள், (6) ஒப்பு , (7) ஒழிவு , (8) உண்மை, (9) ஐதிகம், (10) இயல்பு, Abhava is the mere nagation of a fact and Svabalinga is merely the gathering the meaning of an ambiguous word from the context and there is no inference in either case and they rest therefore and are included under Prathiatcha. Aruthapathi (e.g. He does not eat during the day He is fat, hence he must eat during the night). Parishesha e.g. Raman fought Ravana, Rama won, hence Ravana failed). Sambava (e.g. 50 is included in 100, part in a whole), are all included under Inference, but in many of these there is little or real inference. Ithigam is included under Agama. Upamana occupies a peculiar place and is included in inference but is sometimes (which I think is more correct) classed as a separate method. The essential distinction between Western and Eastern Logic has to be borne in mind, namely, that the former deals with names and propositions and syllogisms (all forms) whereas the latter deals with concepts and real argumentation. Western Logic was till Mill's time all deduction, and induction was barely enough noticed; but the Eastern Logic was more inductive than deductive and was concerned more with the proof of things and the methods of discovering truth by the application of human reason and by the aid of the Highest Testimony. And in this last respect of including Testimony of course, it is broader than Western Logic. Of the ten divisions of proof herein set forth the various Indian Schools, adopt some only or all. For instance, the Indian Materialist (Lokayitha) accepts only Prathiateha. the Buddha and Vaishashika accept this and inference; the Sankaya accepts also Agama Pramana; The Nyayika accepts also analogy; The Jain and Prapapara and to these four 'Aruthapathi'; The Vedanti accepts also 'Abava'; The Pournaik adds to these 'Sambava; 'Tradition.' Each one of these Schools take up Logic as only an instrument for ascertaining the Highest Truth; and the subject is merely appended as in Sivagnana Siddhi, as serving to help them in the elucidation of the postulates and proofs they set forth in their discussion as to the nature of God, Soul and Matter; and each of the two distinctively so called Logical Schools - Vaisheshika and Naika - treat of Logic as such and proceed to discover the Highest Truth whereby alone can any real escape from human pain and suffering can be effected.
"When man shall roll up the sky as a piece of leather
Then shall there be an end of pain without the knowledge of Siva." (Swet. V. 20).
As such, we shall explain certain terms which are used frequently in these discussions. Pramana (Alavei அளவை) is Proof; Prameya (பொருள்) is the thing proved; Paramatha (அறிகிறவன்) is the person who investigates; Pramithi (அறிவு) is the Intellignece cognizing the proof. The term 'Abava' (non-existence) is frequently used in Vedantic discussions. It is divided into Samsargabava (Relative non-existence) and Anyonayabava (ஒன்றினென்றபாவம்), (natural or Reciprocal non-existence) and the former is divided into Adhyantabva (ஒன்று மின்மை absolute non-exostence), Prahbava (முன்னின்மை antecedent non-existence); Pratidwamsabava (உள்ளதனபாவம் - emergent non-existence). The terms Vyapaka, Vyapthi and Vyappia are of very great importance in Logic and in Siddhanta literature. Vyapaka is that which pervades over everything else, the universal, (மேல்நிறைவு) and corresponds to the major term in a syllogism. Vyapthi is what is comprised in the unviersal, the particular (சமநிறைவு) and corresponds to the middle term and Vyappia what is co-inheres to the Vyapthi (ஒன்றின் மிடைதை நிரைவு) and corresponds to the minor term.
2. Prathiatcha is the direct and correct perception of things without doubt and mistake and without the sense of differentation. By Anumana we infer things hidden from certain data by knowledge of their inseparable connection (by succession or co-existence or equality). Agama Pramana will guide us to the knowledge of things unattainable by the foregoing two methods.
3. Doubtful perception is when we doubt a thing seen to be this or that; the mistaken knowledge is where we know one thing to be another; Savikarpa knowledge comprises the knowledge of name, class, attribute, action, and thing. Nirvikarpa knowledge is the knowledge of the thing itself without knowledge of its name, class, attribute and action.
4. Direct Perception or Parthiatcha is classified into four kinds, (1) Perception by means of external senses, (2) by means of internal senses, mind, (3) by the feeling of pleasure and pain and (4) by Yoga or seership. Anumana or inference is divided into two namely (1) Swarthanumana, (2) Parathanumana. Agama is divided into (1) Mantra, (2) Tantra, and (3) Upasana, the words of the teacher (Gnana). The things proved by means of these logical methods are classed as Vishesha, particular (species) and Samanya of General (Genus).
4. The different kinds of Perception are called இந்திரிய or வாயிற்காட்சி, உள்ளக்காட்சி, or மானதக்காட்சி, வேதனைக்காட்சி and யோகக்காட்சி, The different kinds of Anumana are called தன் பொருட்டனுமானம், பிறர்பொருட்டனுமானம்.
Vishesha are called தன்னியல்பு; and Samanya பொதுவியல்பு, The Vishesha man the Infime species or the lowest species of objects and even among them, it seems to mean the class of Differentia more particularly.
5. Vishesha apply to things which exclude from its denotation species of its own class as well as other classes. Samanya applies to class which the thing belongs excluding other classes. These two classes described above will comprise all things.
6. Perception by external senses arises when with the Soul's intelligence, the external senses coming in contract with light, air &c., perceives correctly form sound &c., without the sense of difference and similarity.
Perception by internal senses arises when after such external perception, a mental impression is produced freed from doubt and mistake, involving the operations or retention and reflection and the senses of difference and similarity.
6. The first kind of perception is bare external perception without any shade of thought or operation of the internal senses. The mental perception is in fact the more direct perception so far as the soul is concerned and the external perception is accordingly remote and indirect. This classification of perception is accordingly exact and strictly scientific. Feelings are also classed properly as a source of perception. As regards Perception by Yoga, the western scientist may not admit, but proofs are accumulating which make such knowledge possible. If by the interposition of a few slides and by the arrangement of a few wires, things invisible by distance by intervening matter, &c., can be made visible, why should not the human intellect be so sharpened by practice as to make such knowledge possible. The difference between the Eastern and Western method is in this. The European tries to subjugate external nature to serve his material ends &c., but the Oriental aims at the highest and his mind is always turned on himself. In regard to Yoga, the really gifted are so few and the charlatans and deceivers are so numerous, which latter class are only too much encouraged by the utter stupidity and credulity of the many (we are afraid that we have to include among them, a large section of even the so-called educated), that it is a pity that the practice should be gradually falling itno contempt.
7. Perception by feeling arises when the feelings of pleasure and pain are produced in accordance with the instinct of desire and hate guided by the Law of kala.
Perception by Yoga is the perception by the Yogi seated in one place of all things remote in place and time possible to him by his having destroyed all mala by remaining in Samadhi.
7. Kala (கலா) is one of the higher Tatwas which enables man to experience perceptions, without at the same time reaching Gnanam, by the temporary drawing of the Veil of Anava.
8. Praksham (Propositions) are of three kinds, Paksham (conclusion), Sapaksham, (anlogy) Vipaksham, (negative proposition).
Three are three kinds of Hetu (இயல்பு, காரியம், அறுபலத்தி). Inference is drawn out of the invariable concomitants flowing from these Paksham and Hetu. And the inference is of two kinds, Inference for oneself and inference for others. Inference for others is for explaining the proof to others. And this latter is divided into Auvya, Anumana, and Vyatreka Anumana.
9. The three Pakshams are - Paksham, Sapaksham and Vipaksham. Paksham is the statement comprising the conclusion or Inference. Sapaksham is statement of similar instances. Vipaksham is the negative statement where the thing proved and the antecedent are absent. The first two give the proof by the method of agreement and the last by the method of difference.
10. Hetu or Reason is of three kinds. Reasoning from natural relation (co-existence and equality), Reasoning from casual relation (succession) and Reasoning by means of contraries (Inequality). As for instance, we exhibit the first kind of reasoning when we infer the meaning of "மா" in the sentences "மா பூத்தது" "மா ஏறினான்". The second, when we infer fire from the presence of smoke; the third, when we infer the absence of dew from the absence of cold.
9 and 10. These have reference to purely Logical Methods of Inductive proof. The Text gives here the grounds of all Induction, as based on uniformities in Nature (அவனாபாவம்) as Equality or Inequality, co-existence and causation. And on these depends all Inductive reasoning and the Inference (Paksham) is got at by the methods of Agreement (Sapaksham) and by the methods of Difference (Vipaksham). This is exactly the foundations of Mill's Inductive Logic and Dr. Bain condenses Mill's 6 kinds of predicates into three as here stated and Dr. Bain gives five methods. Method of Agreement, Method of Difference, The joint Method, The Method of Concomitant Variations, and the Method of Residue, of which the first two are no doubt the Primary Methods.
We will state the five laws as given by Dr. Bain
(1) The Method of Agreement - If two or more instances of a phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common that instance is the cause or effect of the phenomenon.
(2) The Method of Difference - If an instance when a phenomenon occurs and an instance when it does not occur, have every circumstance in common except one, that one occurring only in the first; the circumstance present in the first and absent in the second is the cause or a part of the cause of the given phenomenon.
(3) The Joint Method - If two or more instances when the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in common, while two or more instances when it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of that one circumstance; the circumstance wherein alone the two set of instances differ, is the effect or the cause or a necessary part of the cause of the phenomenon.
(4) The Method of Concomitant Variations - Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some other particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of the phenomenon and is connected with it through some bond of concomitance.
(5) The Method of Residue - Sub duct from any phenomenon such part as previous induction has shown to be the effect of certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedent.
11. Anvayi Anumana comprises the argument with Pratigna, Hetu and Instance as in the form: Fire is in the mountain Pratigna. Because smoke is rising from the mountain. (Hetu) Because fire and smoke is both present in oven. (Instance).
Vyathireki argument is of this form: There is no fire in the fountain, because there is no smoke arising from the mountain. For instance, there can be no lotus flowers. There is neither smoke nor fire in the deep tank filled with lotus flowers. Nyayikas and Saivas clearly state the argument with five propositions including Nigam and Apanaya.
12. Purvadarsana Anumana is where we infer a particular flower from a particular smell, from our past knowledge of its connection. Vasanalinga Anumana is where we infer the amount of a man's learning by the words he utters; Agama Anumana is when we infer a man's past Karma from his present experience of pleasure and pain.
Note:- These kinds of inference are to be distinguished from the logical divisions of Prathiatcha, &c.
13. Agama is the word of The Perfect Eternal Being. Of this Agama, the Tantra portion treats of the rituals ascertained without defects and inconsistency and required for salvation; The Mantra portion treats of Upasana required for controlling the senses and contemplation of God; the Gnana Kanda treats of the nature of the Supreme, Beginningless and Endless.
14. Inferential Fallacies are four in number; Fallacies in reasoning (Hetu) are three; These Divide again into 21; Fallacies in agreement or analogy are 18; Fallacies of Nigrahasthan are divided into two and sub-divided into 22; There are 6 other sub-divisions again. On the whole, the Fallacies are 65 in number.
14. We will discuss these fallacies in some future numbers.
INVOCATION
LET my love to Him increase who has neither beginning nor middle nor end, who is Infinite Light, Grace and Wisdom, who unites Himself on the left side to Her who begot the world, who is praised by the world as the crown jewel of the celestials, who dances in that Spreading Light of Chitakas, with his coral braids adorned with the crescent moon falling behind him, and let me lift such lotus feet full with fragrant pollen on the crown of my head.
She, who is the Lord's (Isa) Parasakti, Ichcha Sakti, Kriya Sakti and Gnana Sakti, Droupava Sakti, who actuates all creation, sustentation and resolution, who is form, and formless and neither, who is the wife of the Lord in these Forms, who is all this world and all this wealth, who begets the whole world and sustains them. The gracious lotus Feet of This, our Mother who imparts bliss immortal to souls, and removes their bonds of birth, and who remains seated with our Father in the hearts of the freed, let me lift up my head.
This describes the Supreme who is neither Rupi nor Arupi nor Rupa Rupi, who is neither Saguna nor Nirguna, who transcends all these, and the next verse describes, how He manifests himself to mankind. This gives His condition as Pure Sat, and which could not be anything unless it is Chit and Ananda at the same time.
This shows How God as Light and Love diffuses in all and in everything and manifests Himself.
THE CHARVAKA'S STATEMENT
1. Not having the intelligence nor the grace to understand the trick (real purpose) of the theory promulgated by Indra's Purohit, Brihaspathi, the Charvaka who is tied down to the pleasures of this sea-girt world, and whose person is rubbed with Sandal and adorned with festive wreaths (bases his own case on Brihaspathi's authority) and states as follows.
1. Indra was disgusted with the pleasures of his state, and aspired to something holier and purer before his time and wished to do tapas. His acharya Brihaspati wishing to turn him from his object, and to lead him into his former life, preaches to him the reality of the world's joys and the falsity of all other hopes. This is compared to the object with which Sri Krishna tried to dissuade apparently Arjuna from his resolution not to fight and kill his near kith and kin. The arguments are plausible enough and Arjuna is led on to commit what would be regarded by the world as a Sin. But neither Brihaspathi nor Krishna wished to mislead really their pupils. They simply wanted them by means of sophistry, if necessary, to confine each to his station and thereby do his duty; which if faithfully and unselfishly done as duty will be sufficient for attaining all the Highest ends. It was in the nature of the Highest crime which nothing can excuse that the man should forget the duties of his station. Their Highest ideal was Duty. It is with this High Ideal, man is permitted to live his life in different ashrams, and to work for virtue or wealth or pleasure. But if this ideal is not kept in view, these aspirations will surely degenerate into mere hypocrisy, earth-hunger and grossest licentiousness, and the whole society unhinged. These masters were the builders of society. Not, understanding Brihaspathi, the Lokayitha, despised everything else and took to indulging in grossest forms of pleasure in the same way as false prophets there are who seek to justify their drinking and gluttonous and riotous acts from the maxims of Sri Krishna, saying that when they drink, they drink without any attachment and as such no sin will attach to them. Such is the way the noble teachings of noble masters are dragged to the dust. alas! alas!
2. The only measure of all things is by Perception alone. This perception when united to mind &c., divides itself into six kinds. Inference and Agama are not correct methods of proof. The things proved by Perception are the (four) elements and their inherent natures such as hardness, coldness, heat, and diffusiveness.
2. Three kinds of Katchi are ஐயக்காட்சி, doubtful perception, வாயிற்காட்சி, perception by other senses than the eye; விகற்பக்காட்சி, perception of a thing in its relation to class, species and attributes and action; அந்வயக்காட்சி, perception of fire by the presence of smoke; வியதிரேகக்காட்சி, perception of a flower from its smell; திரிபுக்காட்சி, wrong perception. Anvaya and Vytireka are classed here as direct perception, as involving very little of real inference. The names of the elements believed in by the materialist are given in the next stanza.
3. The names of the (four) elements are earth, water, fire and air; and the quality of the products of each of these respectively are smell, taste, form and touch. These are the great Eternal Entities; and these unite one with the other in regular order.
4. Just as you get various shaped utensils from clods of clay, so by the union of these elements, all forms are produced. Like the bubbles formed in water, Buddhi and other andakarana, and senses and sensation arise also from the union of these elements.
5. If one of the elements is separated from the rest, the senses and sensations and intellect, &c., all die. So do all moveable and immovable objects die. When the effects, as form, quality &c. vanish, they are resolved into their cause, these four elements. And such knowledge constitutes the highest Wisdom.
5. In stanzas 2 to 5 the Charvaka states his own theory and he now proceeds to state the other's case and criticise it and the peculiar note in his manner may better be observed, namely his heart overflowing with pity and kindness for those deluded fools who would not readily appreciate the goods we have but go on hankering after unattainable fancies and he fails not to fling from it and ridicule, against his antagonists, as all false reformers do, but irony and ridicule have never been known to secure one single convert.
6. Against this, there are those who postulate the separate existence of Karma and soul and God. How did the people of this earth offend them? They assert that that the incomparable sterile woman begot a son and the latter got up on the horns of the hare and plucked without fail the flower of the sky!
7. If you assert that the Karma effected in a former birth attaches to one his present life, how is this possible, when we see all the Karma die with the death of the body. Oh, my good Sir. If you say that this Karma lives in sukshuma (subtle) form, then it is like saying that flame can burn apart from the wick of the lamp.
8. If you compare the action of Karma to the dead straw which rotting in the field comes forth again afresh grass, this is possible wherever you manure the field with the straw. This will illustrate the ease of those who wish to derive the excreta of a man who coming tired and hungry was fed with food.
9. O fool, if you say that it is by this Karma, men's bodies and qualities and intelligence do not fit, then, by what sort of Karma, do not all the fingers on one's palm resemble each other. All these differences are due to the proportionate increase or decrease in the constituent elements.
10. If you say that it is by the effect of Karma men endure pleasure and pain, then, tell me, by what sort of Karma, does the body feel pleasure when I am smeared with fragrant sandal water, and feel extreme discomfort when brought in contact with fire. All these are due to the nature of these things.
10. The last three stanzas deny the existence of Karma. The Buddhist (not Esoteric if you will have it) goes a step higher than the Charvaka and to the four elements and their products, he adds Karma. Karma in big capital as his God virtually, the cause of all existence and when you kill this cause you cease to exist.
11. If you assert there is a soul independent of the body, don't make a false assertion. Such a soul must be perceived by one of the six modes of perception. The assertion against the proof furnished by perception is like statements about the length of the hare's horn in the world!
11. Herein is indicated the abhorrence of all good men and true in regard to the arts and practices of the Vamachari and it will be an absurd caricature and blaspheming of real Hinduism to seek to identify this Vamachar with Hinduism. You may as well call this Lokayitha wallowing in the lowest depths of passion and vice, a follower of Hinduism! The bane and curse of Hinduism has been its so-called tolerant spirit and spirit of compromise, to seek to sanction and clothe with its approval, all sorts of opinions, low and false, and partly false. Could we conceive of any country where so many myriads of divergent of faiths and inconsistent practises seek to live and propagate themselves under a spirit of miscalled universal religion and universal truth. Truth can't be so hideous and repellent as in some of these forms. O. for a day when truth will be uncovered in all its Glory and in all its Beauty!
12. If you say that God is Arupi, then He is non-intelligent like the sky. If He is a Rupi, then He is one with the objects of this world. If you say He is Rupa Rupi, then tell me, can you suspend a stone in the sky.
13. Oh! Why should these people follow these various delusive paths, and fall into error and sorrow, when their own Veda asserts that the elements evolve into food and from food arises body, and from the latter mind and the rest and resolve into each other in the same order.
14. O! These fools give up the pleasures to hand in this world, hanker after heavenly pleasures and drown themselves in sorrow. They are like those who feeling thirsty leave the water in their presence and fly after a beautiful mirage, only to die of great thirst.
15. O hail to you, O Vami, give me your hand. You are my real incomparable friend, since you pursue like myself the paths of murder and robbery and vice which the cowards call evil and are the light of an admiring group of girls with lovely braids of hair.
16. Isa, and Brahma, Vishnu and Indra attained their greatness by having associated themselves with their goddesses. If you also wish to attain to such greatness, you will do well also to enjoy life with beautiful women with fragrant locks.
17, 18, 19 and 20. Instead of deriving pleasure the society of women, people die by believing in the shams set up false systems of Philosophy, and by believing in a future existence.
21. Why do you get weary in pursuit of Moksha? Show me one, who had pointed out this way, or had seen it, or had heard of it? With transgressing the laws of the king, earn money and seek pleasure as well as you can.
LOKAYITHA - ITS REPUTATION
1. O Lokayitha! Why do you hold that whatever is seen by direct perception is true and whatever is inferred is false? Tell me, how you know that you had a father and mother, when your father had died before your birth and your mother after giving birth to you? It could only be by inference and not by direct perception.
2. When you assert that when it begins to lighten and thunder and the heavens darken with clouds, it will surely rain, and when you assert that, when the river flood dashes down Sandal and Agil trees, it had surely rained on the mountain ghauts, your knowledge is derived from inference and not by direct perception.
3. If you assert that even such inference is only perception as it is derived from our knowledge of previous direct perception (of observed instances), then, how do you know that intelligence arises from the body composed of the four elements. And if not by inference, how do you know that your intelligence perceives sensations by means of the senses? How do you derive this visible body by the union of invisible elements?
1, 2 and 3. These stanzas show how the world's knowledge is built on testimony and inference and that without these two instruments of knowledge, it will be impossible to know anything. The Lokayitha's sphere of logic is indeed too narrow and his modern representative has certainly advanced beyond him, in this as in not stopping short of only four elements. And he accepts now a fifth element, an ether, and electricity, &c. And the modern materialist has discovered several scores of elements and has reduced the four or five so-called elements into much simpler elements called gases, such as nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen and carbonic acid gas, &c.; and as such the old Indian classification of elements into four or five will therefore seem incorrect. But not so necessarily. The Indians recognize finer conditions of matter; and if we translate the term பூதம் (which does not necessarily convey an idea of a simple substance) into merely a condition or state of matter, then the division of substances into 5 பூதம் (Butha), states of matter, will stand good and they will be, the solids, the liquids, the gaseous, heat and electricity. The Lokayitha has, however, very few who follow his scientific investigation, so far, though the Germ-plasm theory holds sway still among a small section of European Materialists and so-called Idealists. The more respectable of the modern day materialists go by the name of agnostics and positivists and humanitarians. They postulate a mind and matter so far as they are within our cognition and no further; and they are not able to assert positively whether mind is derived from matter or matter is a product of mind. And as regards a future or a past and anything higher than your own mind (phenomenal), they plead complete ignorance; and these was eloquent however on duties to each other and to the whole race and the miseries of mankind and the means of relieving them; and they cry down all religions and institutions as superstitious and conventionalities and lies as intended to cheat and deceive credulous mankind. And it is no wonder that these modern day agnostics and there are some among us like Mr. R. C. Dutt, among whom Buddhism is becoming fashionable. But there is a difference between these and Buddha. Buddha was a strict moralist and his high ideal was Duty and he believed in the darkest pessimism. But the modern day humanitarian believes that the world, as it is, can be bettered and more pleasures and in course of time the highest pleasure can be introduced into society, if only people will be induced, "to see" with Max Nardan, "the civilization of today, whose characteristics are pessimism, lying and selfish egotism, followed by a civilization of truth, love of one's neighbour and cheerfulness." See how vivid is his hope! "Humanity which is today an abstract idea, will then be a fact. Happy the later born generations, whose lot it will be to live in the pure atmosphere of the future, flooded with its brighter sunshine, in this perpetual fellowship; true, enlightened, good and free!" A noble idea and noble future indeed, if it could be realised, by the methods he proposes! How vain these hopes with the history of Buddhism before us. The Singalese disciples of the Renowned Buddha are the grossest beef-eaters in Ceylon, and it is a horrible sight which meets one at every turn, these beef stalls. The Singalese would argue, O the Renowned Buddha only enjoined us not to kill but not to eat dead meat of any kind. And so will everything, the most glorious looking maxim and precept be reduced to a mere letter and a sham, when you deprive one of any higher aspirations than your present phase of existence! Why should I care for my neighbour or for the perpetuation of the race, if I am to be no more tomorrow and why should I not take my utmost share of this world's pleasures, as our ancient Lokayitha asks? If there is misery, the best remedy would be not to undergo all this trouble and vexation but to annihilate the whole world by the most deadly of human means, maxim guns and torpedoes. "The weak should go to the wall" and "the survival of the fittest" are their catch words. "Why should we allow the ignorant and weak nations and principalities of this earth any longer any existence." Nihilism and the so-called Idealism and Positivism and humanitarianism all tend gradually or lower itself down to anarchism.
There is however a lesson which every one ought to learn even from a Lokayitha and which should not easily be forgotten. And that is to learn to test the facts, or inferences or higher testimony, properly and scientifically and not to accept them blind-fold as facts or inferences, the moment it is presented so before us, however patent it might seem to be and however high the authority of the one who appeals to us. There can be no sin greater than credulity in scientific investigation and honest doubt is essential to right understanding. There is the other extreme of turning deaf to everything which may not seem to suit one's fancy and sniffing at well attested facts and we see today even Truth (of Mr. Labouchere) asking for a fair hearing to Mr. Gataker, 'the expert water finder' in these words. "What may be the explanation of his success, and that of other men who work in the same line, I do not know; but it seems to me, as I said before that when a man can show that what he is doing is a commercial success, there is prima facie evidence that he is able to find it. Scientific men ought to be able to tell us how it is done; and if it is all trickery and imposture are performed." And as there is even a tendency in all people to believe in the impossible and the marvellous, and we have reason to suspect that this tendency is growing more upon us, following a blank Atheism and Nihilism the caution conveyed above to test facts and inferences and experiences and not to swallow them wholesale, may not be thought unwarranted
4. Besides, we have seen that the statements contained in the Vedas and other treatises prove true. For instance, we find the remote calculations of Astronomers and Astrologers verified in due time. Besides, Persons are able to discover buried treasure by following the directions given in certain books.
5. Why do you say that matter is imperishable and unchangeable? As its form changes there must be one who causes these changes, in the same way as we infer a potter when we see pots made out of clay. If you say, these need no cause, as the bubbles formed in water, then even then bubbles are formed by the agency of air and not without any cause.
6. And then, the bubble formed of water and air is only of the same kind as its cause; similarly the product of the body, will be similar to the body itself and not like mind which is of a different nature. You may say that the product is dissimilar like the red juice produced on chewing, betel and nut; but then the colour is inseparable from the matter itself and on this analogy, the mind must be inseparable and concomitant with the functions of the body. But we see the life departing when the body is left behind and hence what you say cannot be true.
7. When the betel and nut are chewed together, redness alone results. But by the union of different kinds of matter, senses and sensations and qualities of different grades and kinds result. How could this be? And then, you will have to notice that an agent is required to bring together, betel and nut; and as such you will have to admit plainly that for bringing about material causation, an agent is also required.
8. If you say that the five senses, hungry, sleep, fear and passions are produced from the body, without any other first cause, like the web from the spider, then why don't you produce the web from the sky? As the elements unite only in one way, then differences of sex and gender and different orders of creations will become impossible.
9. If you deny Karma, then the different orders of creation and their different senses, varying in number and intelligence from one to five cannot be. Then again, the mere union of matter, cannot produce learning and enjoyment and qualities. Karma alone can cause these differences.
9. Single-sensed (touch), are trees and grass and vegetable kingdom. Double-sensed (touch, and taste) are of the order of the Mollusca, starfish, snails, oysters, &c., triple-sensed (touch, taste and smell) are white-ants, ants, &c.; four-sensed ((the last three with sight) are beetles, butterflies, &c; five-sensed (with hearing) are devas, men, beast and birds, &c. To these five senses, European scientists add the alimentary canal and the genital organs and the pleasures derived there from but they may be classed primarily as touch. These senses from touch to hearing are in an ascending scale of intelligence, the least intelligent being touch and the sense most intelligent, the sense of hearing; and the sense of sight competing with it for the first place almost. And the orders oc creation possessing only one or more senses are also placed in a lower or higher order of development and intelligence. The lower orders are simply live to propagate its species with no higher purpose (in itself the highest) and as the species are more and more developed they increase in usefulness. And if man in whom the senses are most fully developed and highly intelligent, lives to eat and to procreate, we say of him, that he is vegetating and that he is leading an animal life. Man's pursuits are accordingly high or low in as much as he devotes himself to the purpose of one sense or other. And the man who could use his eyes and ears most and then think out the facts he has observed and proceeds to higher and higher views of life, he alone could be said to have lived his life. The arts, gastronomy, horticulture, painting and music follow the same law of aesthetics in the matter of their appreciation; gastronomy, the lowest as music is the highest. A single morsel can only appetite one man, but a single flower, a single picture, a single note of music, what a large and spreading circle of human beings it can attract and influence. And one principle derived from these has its hearing on Ethics. The highest intelligence is the highest Morality and the highest Benevolence. No man can claim to any intellectuality if his conduct is not consistent with his professions; we rate a most learned man's worth at zero, when he does not give the benefit of his learning to his fellow men and is not useful to them. The greater the man's learning the greater is his sphere of usefulness. Great men and true are the most benevolent; they are the salt of the earth; they are the world's luminaries. They live not for one country nor for the one age. Great musicians, and great sages have breathed their harmony and given their thoughts which live for all time to come and like pollen of flowers leave one brain, and fasten on to another, vivifying and fertilizing and fructifying this other.
Lo! The man of learning puffed up with his own learning and importance, and looking down upon others as beneath him ! A man might take the highest degrees, the University can offer him, and if in the duties of life, set for him, he does not show honesty of sympathy, remembering his sovereign and his God, of what use are his titles? A man might be a great lawyer; what is the use of him, if he is cold and selfish and calculating, unless it be, by the lacs he amasses, he wished to live well and to see others of his line behind him live also? And unfortunately, this sense of 'living' only becomes too predominate in his descendants, and a fortune acquired with so much skill and hair-splitting is easily enough dissipated.
Men are therefore given a choice, unlike other orders of creation to select the lower or the higher and in the wisdom of his choice lies his whole future.
10. If you say that matter causes mind, then, we do not see any mind in earth, air or fire &c. If you say that intelligence can only arise, after the body is formed, then why is there no mind, in the dead body? If you reply that is by the absence of Prana, breath, then why is there no consciousness in sleep?
11. If you say that intelligence is a product of the body, then, in different orders of creation from ant to elephant, intelligence must differ in equal proportion to the respective size of the body. On the other hand, the animal with the biggest body (elephant for instance) is less intelligent than the animal (man) with a small body. Explain this difference if you can.
11. Modern materialist locate the intelligence not in the body but in the brain. And the objection herein pointed out is explained by the fact that the brain is divided into parts which have different functions to perform such as motor and sensory, intellection and will &c.; and in large animals the portion of the brain (medulla oblongata and cerebellum &c, and which has to control the large muscles are largely developed and the brain proper (cerebrum) is least developed. In man, size for size, the frontal brain is larger and more fully developed and convoluted. No doubt there is a considerable correlation between the brain and man's intelligence, but the most mature investigation fails to establish any causal connection between the two, except a correlation. And this is quite consistent with the theory of Siddhanthis, who postulate an eternal connection and correlation between mind and body and who even postulate that even in Mukti, the thripadarthas are not annihilated (முக்தியிலும் மும்முதலும் கண்டு), thereby differing from the idealist and the materialist who postulate only mind or matter as a substance and hold the other as a mere phenomenal product or a shadow or an illusion.
12. If you say that when the elements unite, intelligence preponderates when material components are less gross, and intelligence is less when the material components are more gross, then the respective bodies should neither grow larger nor smaller and they should be stationary as once formed. On the other hand, the bodies grow and decay with time.
13. If you say all these are due to nature, then nature must be uniform and as such you should account for difference of persons being born as male and female. And why should procreation be possible by means of male and female? And as such it will falsify your theory that the natural body is caused by matter. Your theory is illusory. These differences are really caused by one in accordance with each one's Karma.
14. You say that forms are created in this wise. Like pots made out of clay, male and female forms are produced from matter and these in turn create forms. This we refute. The elements by their nature possess opposing qualities. You say these will unite, then tell me if you have seen fire kept unquenched in water.
15. If you say that bodies are formed by the union of different kinds of matter, then why is there any necessity for human love? This human love simply follows the universe law set by the Lord and His Sakti.
16. You queried what Karma it was by which sandal water was cool and heated water was not. From your own example, understand how one thing get possessed of two qualities. In like manner, it is by Karma, men derive both pleasure and pain. And then the sense of this pleasure or pain only appertains to the soul and not to the body.
17. When enjoying pleasure you would assert that all this is nature and not due to Karma, then why do you feel pain in the absence of pleasure. Tell me if you can, how this was derived. This is due to Karma already performed. (Praraptha). Even Karma cannot induce anything by itself. God in his infinite love, has to give to each according to his deserts. The soul, and its Karma are eternal and eternally connected.
17. What the materialist fails to account for by referring all qualities to nature &c., is the factum of consciousness, the thing which becomes conscious of qualities and of pleasure and pain. This has to sort of similarity or connection with the objects perceived and when you begin to analysis it, it lies at the basis of your investigation.
18. If you object that nobody need unite the two (Karma and Sou,. &c.) if they are eternal then hear that Mala, Maya, Karma, Soul and Siva are eternal. When souls perform Karma, Karma cannot of itself consciously give them their forms. The eternally caused bodies being unintelligent cannot unite with the soul of itself. God therefore brings about these unions and enjoyment under an Eternal Law.
19. If by reason of our external senses not perceiving the soul, you deny the soul's existence; then, can the pot see the eye which saw it. It is the eye which sees it, without doubt. In like manner the soul which is conscious of objects and objective senses is similarly imperceptible to the eternal senses. The soul will perceive the senses and the senses will not perceive the soul; from thence, you see the truth of the soul's existence.
19. External senses, internal senses and soul and God belong to different planes and orders of intelligence. In the presence of the higher the lower is non-intelligent and non-apparent (Achit or Asat) and as such it cannot perceive the higher. The eye is intelligent, we might say and it perceives objects but what is its intelligence when compared to mind; and the eye cannot see mind. And similarly mind is non-intelligent in comparison to the soul and cannot perceive the soul, and the soul cannot know God.
20. Fire (oxygen) cannot burn and become apparent unless connected with some substance (carbon). The soul also cannot be active unless attached to a body. The light burns in a lamp filled with oil and wick. So also, the soul eats the Karma, and attaches to a body.
21. If it is objected that the soul dying and being born in bodies and different from the bodies, should possess its intelligence intact, then, can you be conscious in dreams, of dream as a dream and not a reality? Then, is the intelligence of yourself the same as after you are born? As such, pure intelligence cannot be postulated of the soul.
22. If you say that it is impossible that the intelligence which now decays should again be reproduced, then, will you explain how in sleep you are unconscious and in waking you become conscious. If you ask how one body goes and another body is got, then it is like the soul in sleep losing all consciousness of a body and regaining it in waking.
23. If you ask how it is that the senses are lost in death, and are regained in rebirth, then it is like the man who losing all breath and consciousness all on a sudden regains them after a while. The world speak of the moon waning and waxing as its death and birth. Soul's death and rebirth are similar.
24. O my dear Sir, understand that there is an efficient cause, in as much as this material world undergoes creation and destruction. If you say that the body formed like a pot from clay can only be from matter, then even in a such case, we require an efficient cause like the potter.
25. The Lord who was difficult of knowledge by the Devas and the Vedas, walked with his footsteps as a mediator to the house of the beloved of his strong Devotee (வன்றொண்டன் Saint Sundara). As such, he is easy to be approached by his devotees. Therefore approach his Lotus-Feet without fail. He will confer on you even the blessings you desire in this life.
25. To look up to the supreme and to hold that all the benefits we derive are from him, even when we fully recognize that we will reap as we sow, has a high ethical and spiritual value and is the important step in one's sadana of liberation. And then, when we wishing to withdraw the man from indulging in the lowest pleasures, we teach him to believe that he can get better benefit by following a better path, this is only following a well-recognized principle of education and must not be counted as a deception. The highest philosophy of duty and Nirvana will not have the slightest attraction for such a man and cannot wean him for a moment from his practices. The next stanza contains a further step in his conversion.
26. If a rich golden ornament, becomes covered with dirt we do not bear to touch it. So, in fact, we must regard the sexual passion of women, as a thing fit for our giving it up. These females' bodies are composed of blood, urine which are ugly to behold. What benefit do you hope to derive by falling on their bodies?
26. You are first taught to hope for these enjoyments by referring yourself to a superior path; and then gradually is instilled into your mind the uselessness of these pleasures. How many men wreck their whole life by neglecting even ordinary sanitary laws and by most needlessly associating with the most abominable creatures. And these in their turn carry their curse into other wombs and into other generations! How sin multiplies itself and corrupts everything it touches not for one ages but for ages together! Do they who sin bear these things in their mind, or do they know one instance, in which the sinner has come out unscathed? With poverty and want of education and copying of fashions, sexual immorality is only too much on the increase; and a gallant general in his place in the council would even hold that we have no sense of sexual morality! O for a tongue and for a voice, that would stem this tide that is growing upon us!!!
27. O these women, who are praised for their eyes like fish! What are they? Their bodies are composed of skin, blood, flesh, fat, bones and secretions. They are the urine pot wherein, dirt and worms and urine and phlegm only too well are generated! Their bodies are only a mass of dirt without doubt.
28. One's indulging in low women is like the pig wallowing in dirt and enjoying itself. The pleasure we derive by worship of Isa is the blemish less and eternal and pure Ocean of Bliss.
29. People in whom anger permanently dwells do not understand the benefits of Patience. People wallowing in passion do not know the pleasure derived from Passionlessness. Hold on to the Feet of the Supreme Lord of Lords, worshipped by Deva. That instant, an inextinguishable Bliss will rise in your body. This is Truth.
30. You have regarded passion and other vices a pleasure. This is like seeking pleasure in smothering heat in time of winter and in cool water in summer. If you reach the Godly path, you will obtain everlasting pleasure.
31. We read the Sivagama. We declare the truth of the Three Padarthas, Pathi, Pasu and Pasa. We ever praise and worship Isa's victorious Feet. We give up Kama and other low desires and we hold fast to God's Grace. With this our faith, we hope to leave off the stains of the three mala and to unite with the Ninmala God in Mukti.
படிக்கு நூல்கள் சிவாகம்ம் பசு
பாசமோடு பதித்திறம்
எடுத்தியம் புவதீசன் வார்கழ லேத்திடும்
தொழி லென்றுமே
விடுத்திடும் பொருள் காம்மாதிகள் வேண்டிடும்
பொரு ளீண்டருள்
முடித்து மும்மலம் விட்டு நின்மலனோடு
நின்றிடல் முத்தியே.
PARAPAKSHA - (SAUTRANTIKA) BAUDDHA'S STATEMENT
1. The Bauddhas are of four classes who denying the Dharma as set forth in the Vedas, follow the Dharma as set forth in the Pitakas, and act up to five or ten golden rules, and wear the red vesture, and worship the Bodh (Ficus Religiosa - அரசமரம்) tree. Of these four, the Sautrantika Bauddha, who recognises no caste, claims our attention first.
1. The four classes of Bauddhas are Sautrantika (Representationists), Yogachara (Subjective idealists), Madhyamika (Nihilists) and Vaibhashika (Presentationists). The five golden rules are Ahimsa: (1) Satya (2) Astheya, (3) Brahmachariya (4), and Sangraha (congregation), (5) For the ten, we have to add, (6) Being seated in high places, (7) not reclining, (8) not wearing sandal &c., (9) Dislike of song and dance, (10) eating before sunrise. Caste includes Dravya, Nama, Guna, &c.
2. The great sage Buddha is our Lord, who becoming omniscient, hated the five great sins, such as killing &c., and being filled with true Grace, took on himself the sorrows of other beings, and composed the holy Pitaka, Agamas praised by the Gods.
2. (1) To the Buddhist, Buddha is the God, or his saviour and he sets up his images and prays in its presence and anything connected with him, such as his tooth, umbrella, Bo tree &c., has also become objects of fetish worship. The result can't be otherwise. Man always wishes to rest his mind on something higher than himself and when the True One cannot be pointed out, anything that comes in the way supplies its place. While journeying in Ceylon, a Singalese began to preach to us "what you call God, Devadi Deva, Sivadi Siva. Sakradi Sakra, we call Buddha. Buddha is Devadi Deva, Sivadi Siva, Sakradi Siva." We had to point out that such good understanding between the Buddhist and the Hindu was good enough, but the essential distinction between the two conceptions had to be borne in mind nevertheless. What out Singalese friend called Buddha was a man born in Kapilavastu and who attained Buddha hood. As such he could not be the undying and the unborn (இறப்பிலி, பிறப்பிலி) the author of creation, sustentation and resolution, Droupava and Anugraha; One who in the word's of Thiruvachaka is "the oldest of the old things and the newest of the new" ("முன்னைப் பழம் பொருட்கும் முன்னைப் பழம் பொருளே பின்னைப் புதுமைக்கும் பேர்த்துமப் பெற்றியனே") one who was before all the 21 Buddhas put together, one whose Golden crown is where all things and words cease to penetrate ('சோதிமணி முடிசொல்லிற்சொலிறந்துநின்ற தொன்மை,' 'போதார் புனைமுடியும் எல்லாப் பொருள்முடிவே'); One who fills our hearts with grace like water flood, brooking not its banks, ('சிறையறாநீர்போல் சிந்தைவாய்ப்பரயும் சிவனே'). There may be no such God, and no such consummation as we assert and there may be only the five Skandas and their result or extinction as the Buddhists assert, yet the two notions of Siva or Buddha are entirely distinct and can have no connection between them. This does not prevent the Siddhanti from holding that it is only One who appears in every form, and being adopted for worship by mankind, accepts the adoration of the truly penitent heart (யாதொருதெய்வம்கண்டீர் அத்தெய்வமாகி எங்கள் மாதொருராசனார் தாம்வருவர்). The essential difference of these two statements have to be borne in mind that the true God is not every ideal (gross or noble) of mankind but is present in every such form. Compare verse 22 and 23 of Chapter IX of the Gita. 'To those who worship Me, not meditating on another, to those ever harmonious, I bring full security of Yoga," and "They also who worship other Gods, with devotion, full of faith they also worship Me, O son of Kunti; though this is contrary to the ancient rule." In the subsequent verse, Sri Krishna speaks of them such as not know Him in Essence, and that they fall and go to the Gods and pitris whom they worship.
(2) The special acts of grace shown by Buddha are enumerated in Tamil works such as 'Manimekalai' & c., as giving up his kingdom, wife and child, losing his eye, giving his flesh on account of a pigeon, &c.,
(3) The Pitakas are three in number, Vimmaya (Vidya), Sutra (Sutta), Abidharma (Abhidamma).
3. There are two methods of proof, namely, Perception and Inference, accepted by the Pitakas. The things derived there from are subject and object, and these change (die) from moment to moment. The subject and object divide themselves into Rupa and Arupa, வீடு or Nirvana and வழக்கு (belief), and each one of the four divides itself into two, and there are thus eight in all.
3. The change is of 4 kinds - (1) Increase by change, (2) decrease by change, (3) remaining the same after change, (4) destruction by change.
4. Rupa is of two kinds, Butha Rupa (material form, Achaitanya) and Upadana Rupa (Sensory, chaitanya), Arupa is of two kinds, Chitta (mind) and Karma; Veedu or Nirvana, of two, of faults and of Skandas; and belief, of true and false belief.
5. Earth, water, fire and air are Butha Rupa. Hardness, taste, smell and colour form the Upadana Rupa. When these eight combine, we have visible forms. Chitta (Buddhi or mind) perceives sensations through the senses. When the Buddhi perceives such as good or bad, it is due to the effect of Karma.
5. From these eight forms and their actions are derived the five Skandas. From the visible form is derived Rupa Skanda (1) ; From the senses, Nama Skanda (Abstract Ideas) (2); from the Buddhi, Vignana Skanda (3); from Karma, Vedana (4); and Bavana (Tendencies) (5); Rupa Skanda are the four elements and their four Upadana; Namaskanda, the five senses, and Buddhi; Vignana Skanda, the six kinds of Sensations or knowledge perceived by these 6 senses; Vedanaskanda, the knowledge of pleasure and pain; Bavanaskanda, ten kinds of merit and ten kinds of demerit. The ten kinds of merit are (1) Arul or Love, (2) Desirelessness, (3) Love of austerity, (4) Sweet words, (5) Truth telling, (6) Useful speaking, (7) Preaching charity; (8) Humility, (9) Giving to the needy, (10) Performance of austerity. The ten sins are (1) Contemplation of evil, (2) Desire or Lust, (3) Anger, (4) Speaking harsh words, (5) and useless words, (6) and false words, (7) Envy, (8) Thieving, (9) Killing and (10) Doing useless acts. These tem kinds of merit and sin seem to be from the Sutra of 42 sections, translated into Chinese in the first century A.D.
6. Nirvana of faults (குறைவீடு) is attained when the sins of lust, &c. are avoided. Nirvana of Skandas (கந்த வீடு) is attained when knowledge of Rupa, name &c. is lost. Right and wrong belief are divided each into aggreagation (தொகை), succession (தொடர்ச்சி) and annihilation (தோற்ற நாசம்).
7. Right belief of aggregation is when we assert that what we call a man is merely the aggregate of the five Skandas. Wrong belief of aggregation is when we assert that man is an entity different from the aggregate of the five Skandas.
7. The first kind of Right belief is explained by the simile of the chariot and its parts. Without its parts there is not chariot. Without the Skandas, there is no Atma. To assert otherwise is heresy. Buddha denies clearly the existence of an Atma, but he does posit Buddhi, or mind. It must be remembered that, in his days, the Hindu philosophy as represented by the Gita and the Siddhanta was in existence and Buddha was only arguing against such Hinduism - and against Lokaita. The Lokayita postulated the existence and eternality of the 4 material elements. Gautama analysed these into the five Skandas, denied its positive existence and only asserted its phenomenal appearance (தோற்றம்) and claimed that it was capable of annihilation (நாசம்). Beyond these phenomenal appearance, he does assert the existence of mind or Buddhi. This was one of the andakaranas recognized by his opponent. But as for postulating an Atma beyond this mind or Buddhi, Gautama could never consent. According to the Hindu, Atma was different from Buddhi or any one or all of the andakaranas. But Gautama would sometimes identify this Buddhi itself with Atma, or God, as Hindu Idealists identify Atma individual soul with Paramatma. With this essential difference and distinction in mind, the question whether Gautama affirms or denies the existence of a soul will be easily solved. To the Hindu, Buddhi itself was perishable and when Gautama asserted its imperishability, the Hindu called him Buddha, the system Buddhism, which held to the assertion of Buddhi as a Padartha. This will explain also why in the classification of seven principles of man according to Theosophy (or shall we say esoteric Buddhism), Budhi is classed with the three principles above as imperishable. To the Hindu as such, Buddhism is clear Atheism and Denial of Soul ot Atma. Where the definition and analysis of each is clear and distinct, it serves no good purpose to state that all are one. The reliability of the account of Buddhism as herein set forth may be compared with neo-Buddhism as represented by some Theosophists, as the Tamil account seems to follow some of the oldest treatises on Buddhism by Hindu Buddhists both in Sanskrit and in Tamil.
8. Right belief of succession is the path of holding that events succeed one another as cause and effect without reference to time, past, present or future and that in succession is when we hold that there is one soul or padartha unchanged at all time, in continued succession of cause and effect.
9. To hold that all things that appear will surely be annihilated is Right belief. To hold that things do not die are existent as cause in effect is wrong belief.
10. To this Right belief (Sat-vada) and Wrong belief (Asat-vada) are to be added four other kinds of belief namely, Sat Sat-vada, Sat Asat-vada, Asat Sat-vada and Asat Asat-vada. Sat-Vada is when we assert an actually existing fact as that an elephant has tusks. Asat-vada is when we make statements like that an hare has tusks.
11. To hold that intelligence is born from mere contact is Sat Sat-vada. To hold that if an intelligence dies another cannot rise in its place is Sat Asat-vada. To hold that intelligence can rise without an antecedent cause is Asat Sat-vada. To assert the statement like that hair grows on the palm of one's hand and that there is a rope of hair is Asat Asat-vada.
12. Except our four postulates, we do not understand all that these people assert. Are they not mad in saying that there are Akas and Time, and several cardinal points, and soul and a Lord whom thought and words cannot reach? These things cannot be true.
13. We cannot use Akas in any of our productions. If you can say that Akas holds and gives room to everything else, it cannot do so, as it is formless. If you say that it is the cause of sound, it cannot be, as sound is the product of bodies with form. If you say that it is present inseparably everywhere, there are no such things as this or that. (A thing is mere action and attribute and not substance).
14. If you assert that man has an Atma or Intelligence, then why does he not understand without the senses (internal and external) and sensations and books. If you say that the soul understands by uniting with the senses and by contact of sensations and by permeating into books, then why do you feel doubt as to the colour of the cloth you take out in darkness; as such it cannot so understand.
15. Man cannot know except by the senses. If, as the senses are not intelligent, you say it is the soul that understands in union with the senses, then the soul must, through each one of the senses, feel the same sensation. If you say that the soul understands as it is joined to the senses, then we are mistaken in not knowing you to be a Buddhist. What you say is really beautiful!
16. Is Gnatha, postulated besides Gnana and Gneya by you, sentient or insensient. If the latter, then it is material (Achetana) like earth. If sentient, you postulate one too much beyond Gnana itself, as if a man should say that Dholl rice has Dholl for its curry.
17. If the Atma is formless, then it cannot be attached to a body with form; if of form, it cannot be contained in another body. If it is an anu (an atom) then it will pass away without staying in the body through many of its openings. If it is eternal, then it should not be capable of appearance and disappearance.
17. The following quotations from Kundalakesi, one of the Pancha Kavyas (a lost work) are cited in the commentaries on this stanza.
"பழுதையாலராப்பூண்டு பாழுடம்புபுடைபுடைப்ப வழுதையாவுறுகின்ற வத்தத்துயிரென்பாயேல் இழுதையாவுரைததியே யெருததினாற்காலிற்றாக்க கழுதையார்மூடமாக்க் கண்ட்துண்டாமோ." "ஒருவகையாலருவென்னி லொத்துடம்பினகத்தடங்கா ஒருவகையாலுவென்னி லுடம்போடுகலப்பில்லை யிருவகையுநேர்ந்த்தெனி லெழுகின்றதொழுநோயும் பெறுவயிறுமாயினான் பிணிதீர்ந்தானாவனோ."
18. That the Atma is omnipresent, cannot be true, as our knowledge does not extend everywhere. If Atma is said to pervade the whole body, then it will die with the death of the body. If it is located in any one organ of the body (such as the heart), it cannot have consciousness in any other part of the body as the feet and head.
18. If there should then be any doubt that the Buddhist denies and Atma, the arguments so elaborately set forth from stanzas 14 to 18 both inclusive ought to place the matter beyond all doubt. The commentators quote from works of Buddhist themselves. These texts deny a Gnatha as distinct from Gnana. A Guni as distinct from Guna, an Atma as distinct from Buddhi or other senses. Is there such a thing as Atma distinct from Buddhi or not? If it is, then the Buddhist surely denies its existence. It won't do for him to say that his Gnana and Guna and Buddhi is as good as his Atma and that as such., he does not really deny such an Atma. This is perfectly futile as where we have pointed out above, Buddhi is regarded by the Siddhanti as material and insentient and Atma as non-material and sentient. Look at the following apology of an argument from the learned Editor of the Monist.
"This is plain to everyone who understands that truths are real even though they are not substances or entities. And the same is true of the soul. To deny that Volition, Cognition, and other mental or metaphysical subject, is not a denial of their existence - it is simply the consistent consequence of the community acknoledged truth that they are not material."
And the able Editor accuses Prof. Oldenburg, the greatest Pali scholar, of misunderstanding Buddhist texts. It will be apparent to anybody, in the light of our foregoing observations, who has really misunderstood Buddhism; or rather, the fact is, not that Paul Carus has not understood Buddhism, but that he has not understood true Hinduism better. The quotation from Paul Carus we have given above contains the gist of the grossest idealism. And Hinduism has been till now solely understood in its idealistic form, which according to the opinion of a number of scholars such as Prf. Kunte, Col. Jacob, and as understood by the Hindu schools of Sankhya (Both Nirishwara and Seshwara) was derived from Buddhism. The Professor talks of 'the consistent consequence of the commonly acknowledged truth that they are not material.' Consistent consequence indeed! Need we wonder that the most thorough-going idealists of to-day are also the most thorough-going materialists of the day, and vice-versa. Anybody who knows anything of the social and political condition of today will not fail to be struck with the fact how closely related are Idealism and Materialism and Nihilism and Anarchism of today. What to the Hindu Siddhanthi is immaterial. To the Buddhist is non-existent. What to the former is material, to the Buddhist is not material. And yet Atma and Buddhi are to be held as synonymous!!!
19. How does your Time operate? If it is that, by which all things undergo creation, development and destruction, it will be confused with the objects themselves; and time will cease, when such things cease to exist. To assert that there are three kinds of time and not three kinds of objects is clear wrong belief (Asat-vada).
20. To one standing to the cast of myself, the direction where I stand is west, but to one west of myself is east. Therefore tell me which is the proper direction, I stand in. Your wrong belief in cardinal points is therefore false.
21. You postulate a God who created the earth. If the earth existed before creation, it needs no creation. If it did not exist before, then it cannot be created. If creation means creating the effect from its cause, then the world must be said to exist and not exist.
21. The reference in the last line is to the asti nasti or Sapta Bhangi Nyaya of the Jains, according to which neither existence nor non-existence can be predicted of a thing; and as in the first case it will be mere implication and in the second case not a fact. So, all that can be said is 'asti-nasti,' 'existent-non-existent.' This is a curious conclusion. There is however an element of truth in this, so far as the nature of a logical predicate is concerned. Dr. Bain for instance rejects 'existence' stated by Mill as a predicate and reduces the latter's six classes of predicates to three namely coexistence, succession and equality. The Buddhist apprehension of the theory of causation is entirely erroneous in the light of the modern theory of causation as involving conservation of energy, held by Western Logicians; and this only follows what the two schools of Sankhya (Nirishwara and Seshwara) have always held. Both the Jains and the Buddhists merely quibble about it and there is neither science nor sense in it.+
22. If you say that God creates the world as a potter makes a pot out of clay, where did he stay when He made this world. If you say he stood on the world, then the world should have been created beforehand. If you say he was everywhere, and omnipresent, then 'everywhere,' must have existed before God and given Him birth.
22. The argument is that in as much you cannot separate God from the world, no God can exist as such apart from the world.
23. If you say that God created the world out of nothing, out of his mercy, where is His Grace and mercy, when creating the death-dealing monsters such as lions, tigers and elephants and yama. If He created all these things as He liked to show his might, then you had better worship a madman.
23. A mad man does not know the consequence of his act and God should have known that his creating these terrible animals must produce evil to this other creatures.
24. What is the purpose of this creation? If it is mere play, you Lord is a mere child. If necessitated by Karma performed, then the persons performing Karma must have existed before creation. The truth is, the world is eternal and not created.
25. If God is Rupi, there must be one who created this form. If He assumed Form out of his mere wish then all the world could do so by their mere wish. If each gets his form by his Karma, then the Karma must have existed before him.
26. If God is Arupi, He, like Akas, cannot lift us from our sin. If He is like the shadow of a tree, then the credit is due to those who neared the shelter and as such he is not omnipresent. If He is omniscient, then a Form is necessary which should be lovingly dwelt upon. If there was no such form, no intelligence could subsist.
26. The Akas does not put forth any active powers. It is merely passive. Here the Buddhist is wrong. We now know what amount of force is locked up in Akas or Ether and he modern European research tries hard only to unlock it and even when they sometimes by mere chance, unlock such powers, they are pass their comprehension, as for instance the X rays. As similar to a shadow, God cannot be omnipresent and omniscient, and no credit to Him, except to those who approach Him. This latter view will account for their believing more in a Buddha, a Mukta, as a saviour than in God. According to the Buddhist, no intelligence can be conceived of, except as dwelling in some form.
27. If you say the Vedagamas are eternal and proves the existence of God, then what you say, that nobody gave it forth is really beautiful! You, to say that you know God by the Vedagamas and the Vedagamas by means of God! This is wonderful indeed!
28. The vegetable kingdom (Urpeeja) and all its multitudinous forms grow and die like hair and horns on animal's bodies and hence have no life or intelligence. They exists for the benefit of other creatures with life. (Andaja, Swethaja and Sarayuja).
28. Urpeeja are produced from the earth; Andaja from eggs, Swethaja from sweat and damp, and Sarayujam from womb.
29. You must not kill at all. You can eat always what had been slaughtered already by others, as a slaughtered animal is simply dead like earth. Tell me who gets the merit of the deed, whether one who keeps a water pandal with fragrant drinking water or one who partook of that water?
29. Meat is distinguished to be ot two kinds Kallya (Karpiya) Mamsa, that which can be eatern; and Akaliya (Akrpiya), that which cannot be eaten. Akarpiya is of three kinds, Thrikodi (meat got by direct killing, or express order or implied consent) Shatkodi (last three and by seeing or hearing that it was killed for his own use and by not suspecting the character of the slaughter) Navakodi (the last 6 and by relish of meat, eating too much, praise of the killed meat). Really the distinctions are too nice, but the ignorant cannot possibly understand their niceties and they hold on to the saying that they cannot kill but can eat meat killed by others and in so acting they do not make any distinctions of the meat of any animals that might be slaughtered for their use.
30. To say that the five Skandas are not annihilated but are reduced to their cause is Wrong belief of (தோற்ற நாசம்) and is the cause of birth and suffering. To hold that these are altogether annihilated is Right belief and leads to the Bliss of Moksha, Nirvana.
31. To leave off the sins of Kama, Envy, &c. to hold on to good deeds, to destroy the desires of the senses, and the sense of pleasure and pain, to practice the eight kinds of Right conduct, and to give up all wrong doing and attain to such Gnana is to attain to Imperishable Samadhi or Nirvana.
31. The eight kinds of right conduct are - (1) Right Seeing, (2) Right touching, (3) Right speech, (4) Right action, (5) Right life, (6) Right eneavour, (7) Right principle and (8) Right company.
REFUTATION OF (SAUTRANTIKA) BAUDDHA
1. O Bauddha, you did say without thought that your Lord Buddha knew everything. He could not know everything at all times as the universe is immeasurable. If everything was understood by him one by one, then the universe should not be called immeasurable. If this is possible by his limitless wisdom, then his wisdom is not so capable; he could not know everything as his intelligence dies and is born from moment to moment.
2. If you say that he will know the rest by knowing a few of each kind, how is this possible, as objects of knowledge are innumerable and one divides itself into innumerable other species. Besides, as human knowledge implies perception, similarity and difference, how is knowledge of various objects possible, by comparison &c., when according to you we do not retain the consciousness of each previous moment.
3. If you Lord Buddha gave out his 'Dharma' after attaining Mukti Niravana, then his speech after Nirvana (annihilation of Skandas) is like that of the person who died by eating ghee and honey together, coming to life again to say, that to eat honey and ghee is bad. If you say he died after giving out the Dharma, then the law was given by one who had attained to Mukti and as such it cannot lead one to Mukti. His vain desire is like that of the person who not knowing the depth and breadth of a rushing flood desires to cross and land all the rest on the other side of the river.
3. As Nirvana is merely the destruction of all the Skandas such as Rupa, Nama & c., no speech is possible after Nirvana. Of course, Buddhists will say that Buddha was a Jivan Mukta, but this will be a contradiction in terms, in the view they take of Mukti or Nirvana. If Buddha had not attained to Nirvana, his law cannot proceed from actual experience and cannot be authority. The difficulty arises from the fact of the Buddhists not recognizing a God, who has not to undergo evolution to increase this experience. And the dilemma which in consequence arises is beautifully put. The next stanza follows the same subject.
4. You state that unlike our God who, being present in each as taste in water, effects their preservation, your Lord undergoes the fiery ordeal of miserable birth and getting himself released, saves other mortals. This is like a deer rushing to save his kind already caught in the toils of the hunter's net and being caught itself. This law will only lead to great sin. Your doctrine is really incomparable! If you say that wishing to create Dharma, he was born and he created the Dharma, then this also might be said of every man that is born.
4. This stanza emphasizes that Supreme principle of Siddhanta that God cannot be born in the flesh, for any reason, even for the purpose of saving all mankind; much less of his mere whim, for his own pleasure, for realizing himself, from Karma, for improving himself by successive evolutions. He is the supreme subject and cannot become the object also; which he will be when He is born. If there is however a Vedic text to that effect, it only means to emphasize the fact of God's supreme nature, that independent of Him, nothing can exist; nothing can act and nothing can be owned. God is Sarva Swantara, Swamparaprakasa. Everything else is Paratantra and shines only by reflected light. c.f. Thayumanavar,
"எல்லாமுன்னடிமையே, எல்லா முன்னடைமையே. எல்லா முன்னுடைய செயலே,"
and verse 52 given in last number.
c.f. St. Karaikalammaiyar.
"அறிவானும் தானே யறிவிப்பர்ன்றானே
யறிவாயறிகிண்றான்றானே - யறிகின்ற
மெய்ப்பொருளுந் தானே விரிசுடர்பா ராகாச
மப்பொருளுந் தானே யவன்."
5. If you say that your Lord entered an endless number of wombs for the propagation of Dharma, then his births must have been caused by Karma. Nay, if it is said that this is by his mere will, then the same can be said of every man that is born. If it is said that he was born not like ordinary mortals but came out of the belly, don't mention me the Dharma of one, who killed his mother before he spread his Dharma.
5. Siva is called 'Ayonija.' Buddhists claiming a similar Divine attribute for their Lord, have a story that Gautama's mother on her way to her mother's house was taken with premature pains in the beautiful forest of Lumbili (Lumbini) but the foetus could not be brought out in the ordinary way and the belly had to be cut open to remove the child from the womb. The mother died after the seventh day. Even today, we hear in Tibet, the child intended as the future Lama is taken out similarly. This is a mere travesty of the noble truth.
6. When the Lord Buddha incarnated himself as beasts of prey, did he forget virtue and kill men and animals with pleasure? If he did not kill and eat their flesh, did he feed on straw to appease his hunger? You say he took on himself the sorrows of others. Really his acts of grace shown to the woman who had lost her husband and to the bird-catcher are beautiful to behold!
7. Before you discover an idea and find words to express the same and put the same in writing, your intelligence would have changed ever so often. How can you therefore have any authoritative treatise. If you say the words follow one another, then the same words must get repeated. You say by the change, the intelligence which it succeeds is superior to the preceding one. No, it cannot increase, as its duration is only momentary. A true book must be consistent throughout. Is your book of this character?
7. Association of ideas (சாந்தாண வழி) is of 4 kinds, Lamp from lamp (தீப சந்தாணம்), air from air (வாயு சந்தாணம்), light from star (தாரா சந்தாணம்) Pipilika (பீபிலிகா சந்தாணம்). These are several kinds of illustrations to show the passage of living beings from one body to another and for their final extinction:
The simile of the lamp is as follows:-
'Theepaka Santhana.' The life of man, to use a constantly recurring Buddhist simile or parable, is like the flame of an Indian lamp, a metal or earthenware saucer in which a cotton wick is laid in oil. One life is derived from another; as one flame is lit at another; it is not the same flame, but without the other, it would not have been. As flame cannot exist without oil, so life, individual existence depends on the cleaving to low and earthly things, the sin of the heart. If there is no oil in the lamp, it will go out though not until the oil which the wick has drawn up is exhausted and then no new flame can be lighter there. And so the parts and powers of the perfect man will be dissolved, and no new being will be born to sorrow. The wise will pass away, will go out like the flame of a lamp, and their Karma will be individualised no longer!
'Tara santhana.' Stars, long ago extinct, may be still visible to us by the light they emitted before they ceased to burn, but the rapidly vanishing effect of a no longer active cause will soon cease to strike upon one's senses; and where the light was, will be darkness; so the living, moving body of the perfect man is visible still, though its cause has ceased to exist: but it will soon decay, and die, and pass away; and as no new body will be formed, where life was, will be nothing. Again the five Skandas, the bodily and mental properties and tendencies are like a tree. The tree produces a seed, a fruit, from which will spring another tree; but if the tree be cut off at the root, it will be visible a little while only whilst it decays, and will not produce any further seed.
'Pipilika santhana.' Again, Trishna, the yearning thirst, is compared to a creeper which grows like a parasite on the sala trees, and eventually destroys that on which it was nourshied? (Dr. Rhys David's Manual of Buddhism).
8. You said that your Lord performed various virtuous acts in the beginning and became omniscient, and out of Grace gave out the Pitakas to enable mortals to attain Moksha. If so, who determined what was virtue and vice, before your Lord performed virtue. If one like himself who taught this predecessor of his; as such you will get no one who gave out the law in the beginning; as such, whom do your hold as your God in your school? The fallacy of having no begninnig (அனாவத்தை) is present in your argument.
9. If you hold the Lord Gautama as your God and Saviour, then who was his Lord whom he worshipped? Where is the sanction of his Guru's words for the law he set forth? We do not find such sanction anywhere. If you ask for our final authority, our Parameshwara, beginning less and of endless knowledge, self-existent when everything else is destroyed at the last day, He it was who gave out our law, which is comprised in our Vedas and Agamas. The sages who follow this law also advise control of passions and performance of tapas. Your law enjoining eating before sunrise without washing and eating of flesh was made by a glutton.
10. Authorities are of three kinds, the authority of the Ninmala God (முதல் நூல்), the authority of the sage who provides explanations and exceptions not inconsistent with the original authority (வழி நூல்), the authority of the successor who following both authorities, gives his own opinion from experience also (சார்பு நூல்). Could you say to which class of authorities, your law belongs? As it cannot come under any of these, your law cannot be true.
11. Bauddha, whom do you praise as Buddha who had attained Nirvana, and why? If you say that the rituals performed in honour of the dead will confer benefits on the living, then the beings must be eternal. And we require a God who will appreciate your good acts and confer benefits. But you do not assert so. Your honouring the dead is like supplying oil and wick to a lamp that has been completely extinguished.
12. You say that to know the contents of a book is as good inference as when we infer an author when we find a book written by him. Well, the existence of a hell and heaven you postulate could not be ascertained except from some book. Otherwise tell me. But this knowledge of hell and heaven could not be inference. This alone is possible by believing in Agama Pramana. As you do not postulate Agama Pramana, your Pitakas themselves cease to be authorities.
13. You state that all things will suffer annihilation. Is this annihilation possible to beings on non-beings or being-non-beings? If to the non-being, then it is ever non-existent; If to the being, it could never cease to exist; If to the last, from its character of being a being, it could not cease to exist. If you ask me to point out an object which is not capable of destruction, what you see undergoing changes birth, growth and death is the Sthula body (and not the Sukshuma body).
14. If you say that things die and are reborn by mere change of form, as the sprout is produced from the seed, then you have forgotten your postulate of Sarvam-nasti and hold on to the Asti-nasti doctrine of the Jains. If you say I misunderstand you, and explain that, what appeared as sprout, leaves, tree are not stable but are capable of destruction, then hear, that it is not the visible form that is destroyed but changes are wrought on it by reason of its youth, maturity and old age; and after such changes, the subtle (Sukshuma) body remains, though the Sthula Sarira is destroyed.
15. If you say bodies are formed from the mixture of the four elements, then these cannot unite as their natures are opposed to each other. If you say they are formed by the union of blood and semen, then account for toads being found in the heart of rocks and worms in the heart of trees. If you say the real cause is good and bad Karma, then these, being opposed, cannot join and form bodies. If food is the cause, then the food which in youth develops the body is not capable of preventing decay in old age. If intelligence is the cause, then that which is formless Chaitanya cannot assume Achaitanya (non-intelligent) form. If you assert that bodies are formed from nothing, then we could cull flowers from the sky.
16. If you say that forms can be produced from nothing as the tree from the seed, then we assert that the tree was already in the seed. If you object that we do not find the tree in the seed by actual observation, then the fact that a paddy seed does not produce a palm tree but only one of its own kind requires explanation. As one species of tree do not grow out of another species of seed, what does not exist cannot be produced. The seed is the cause and the tree, the effect. You also forget what you before asserted that forms (as effects) are produced from their cause the five Skandas, as the Moon is formed by beams of light.
17. If you say that the bodies are formed by means of the four elements and their causes, then these cannot unite, as their natures are opposed to each other; and each of the elements cannot be limited to the nature of all other elements. Understand also that these elements and their causes are all objects of sensation.
18. If you say that it is matter, in its eight various forms that forms the body, becoming subtle, as the extracts of medicinal herbs in medicated oil, then we require a God who could bring about this creation, as the Physician who prepares the oil. If matter alone is the cause, then all forms must be of the same nature. But, as their natures are different, you have not really understood the drift of your words. Then again, show me if you can the four causes of the four elements, which are Guna (attributes), apart from the four elements themselves.
19. If you say that intelligence dies at one moment, and at another moment is born again then what is dead cannot give rise to a new product. Then the new intelligence cannot know objects and perform functions which the former intelligence knew and performed. If you say that the old intelligence ceases to exist after creating the new intelligence, then two such intelligence could not exist at the same moment. If you say that the old intelligence does not die wholly before creating the new, then the sentience becomes Sat-asat, and your assertion that it is Asat cannot be true. If you instance the case of old straw used as manure becoming new straw, to prove that the old sentience dies and is reborn, then know that the old straw does not die altogether but is only reduced to its subtle condition and from this condition, is produced forth as new straw.
20. If you say that sentience is generated by association of ideas, then this association must be eternal. If you instance the flow of water in a stream to illustrate your position that the moment one sentience dies another takes its place, then, as the things in solution in the first flow of water will flow away with it alone, then all the Good, Bavana &c., attaching to the old sentience will die with it and will not become united to the new one. If you say there is no break in knowledge as there is no break in the water flow, then this knowledge cannot be momentary but must be eternal.
21. Is this Santana (association) the cause or the effect or the cause-effect? In either of these cases, it must be eternal. If you say that succession involved in causation is the intelligence, even then it must be held to be eternal, as it is ever recurring. If the intelligence is separate, then it is different from the external senses and as such it will become an eternal object. The consequences will be that instead of our understanding the intelligence as subject, and the rest as objects, the senses must be regarded as subject and intelligence as object. Consider deeply the absurdity of this position.
22. If creation and destruction take place at the same moment of time, then these two functions must be the same. If Time is merely the change in the conditions of things, then why do you speak of present, past and future Time. If this is so spoken, as things undergo the successive changes, then you must not speak of it properly as the present, past and the future and all the activities of things must be one and the same. If all the different activities are comprised within the same point of Time, then this point of Time is capable of division into three kinds of Time, as for instance, when a needle is passed through a pack of 100 lotus-petals, though the time taken up is ever so short, yet the succession of time can very easily be perceived.
22. We are bound to say we are not convinced by these arguments. No doubt there is succession in Time, but whether there is a distinct entity like Time apart from things and actions succeeding one another, that is a matter of doubt altogether. It is an abstraction like many other notions such as space, &c. If there is no perception of succession, there will be no perception of Time. If there is no perception of co-existing objects, there will be no perception of space. But that the Buddhist who believes in so many airy nothings such as his Karma, his Nirvana &c., should dislike time is wonderful indeed! C.f. The following passage from Dr. Rhys david's Manual of Buddhism.
"Strange is it and instructive that all this should have seemed not unattractive these 2,300 years and more, to many despairing and earnest hearts - that they should have trusted themselves to the so seeming stately bridge which Buddhism has tried to build over the river of the mysteries of sorrows of life. They have been charmed and awed perhaps by the delicate or noble beauty of some of the several stones of which the arch is built; they have seen that the whole rests in a more or less solid foundations of fact; that on the one side of the key-stone is the necessity of justice, on the other the law of causality. But, they have failed to see that the very key-stone itself, the link between one life and another, is a mere word - this wonderful hypothesis, this airy nothing, this imaginary cause beyond the reach of reason - the individualized and individualizing force of Karma?
23. According to you, one sentience is produced from another sentience; this cannot be, as the sentience you postulate suffers momentary death. Sentience if it dies once, in its course once, cannot survive. If the body, as the cause of sentience makes another sentience, then the body must manifest active intelligence even in deep sleep. If the bodily senses are the cause of intelligence, then as the senses are always active, the intelligence also can be eternal (non-momentary).
According to you again, Karma is the cause of sentience. Then any particualr act performed must be intelligence itself. It is not a fact that any such acts are so.
24. If you say that Karma begets sentience and sentience begets Karma, then as memory in an attribute of sentience, Karma must also possess memory. As Karma is non-intelligent, one cannot produce the other. As everything is momentary, one cannot produce the other and then die. If sentience after being produced form Karma, destroys Karma, as fire produced from a piece of wood destroys the firewood, then this is fallacious, as Karma is destroyed the moment sentience is born, and one cannot produce or destroy the other in succession. The fire born of the firewood, though it can destroy the firewood, cannot produce another piece of firewood.
25. You assert that that there are dwellers in astral and Devachanic planes (Devils, Celestials, Brahma &c.) and that these have bodies but not born of a father and mother; as a body is merely a product, there must be a cause for the same. If the cause of this body, sentience, or the finer matter (8 kinds of them), or Karma, or was it produced by some other person. The Truth is causation is of three different kinds, first cause, (நிமித்தம்), material cause (முதல்), and instrumental cause (துணை). To perceive this is real wisdom.
26. O Bauddha, you assert that except the product of the five Skandas, there is no separate entity like Atma (soul). You also assert that there is no being who understands the five Skandas separate from himself. It is Buddhi that perceives those Skandas. Then, who it is, who has knowledge of this Buddhi? If Buddhi knows itself and other objects, as the lamp makes its own presence felt, while it illumines the eye and other objects; then understand from the same simile, that there must a soul who is conscious of Buddhi and other senses and objects, as the eye perceives the lamp, and other objects.
26. C.f. 4th Sutra and notes, in my Sivagnana Botham.
27. You loudly assert that your Ego is merely your body and senses and mind (andakarana). The body does not know in sleep. The external senes are also dormant in sleep, and, besides, are not able to perceive the sensations of each other. As your mind, be only momentary, it cannot perceive the past and the future and the present. So the real Ego is the intelligence which, perceiving the body, senses and mind and their functions, discriminates itself from these, and becomes conscious of objects in contact with the mind, through the channel of the senses, and performs actions with the body.
28. You say that there is no soul independent of the mind as the latter perceives objects; when it is born again after momentary extinction. Then when I say, 'I said so,' what does the 'I' mean? Is it merely the mouth that uttered the words? Clearly it means a person different from the mouth &c. Just so, that which says after knowing everything possible to be known by all the senses (internal and external), 'I know,' this 'I' is the soul, the true Ego. That which perceives with the mind, utters with the mouth, acts with the body and at the same time is the support of mind &c., is the true Ego, Soul.
29. You say that the Chitta born of the external senses, and the Chitta born of the mental senses are of two and one is born after the death of the other. If so why don't people feel the same in dreams, as in their waking state; and vice versa? Besides, the man born blind has no knowledge of form and colour. If you say the defective sense is the reason of the defective knowledge, then it must follow, that when the senses, and knowledge, in waking and dreaming are all stilled in deep sleep, nothing will remain to bring these senses &c., back again to life. The True Ego is the real cause of man's volitional, mental and bodily activities (இச்சா, ஞான, கிரியை) and perceives both in waking and in dreaming states.
30. If according to you, a sentient act arises in one external sense at one moment only, then, the sound perceived by the two ears could not be perceived by one ear. Besides it is a fact that at one and the same moment, a person sees another with his two eyes and hears his words with his two ears and knows him. The five external senses can no more perceive anything when dissociated from the mind. Each of the senses can only perceive objects one by one. The mind too cannot perceive all the sensations together. Besides, each sense will not perceive what the other perceives. This is what is done by mind. That which understands everything by means of the senses, internal and external, is the True Ego.
31. If as you say, the five senses with the formless as the sixth, become conscious in each organ after undergoing change every moment; then, as the mind is formless it cannot unite with the body and undergo change of youth, maturity and old age. When a man wakes to consciousness when his body is disturbed in sleep, where does his consciousness proceed from? If you say from mind itself, no, it cannot so proceed by becoming conscious through the senses; and the senses and sound and air cannot rouse the mind, as these are Asat (objective). The light proceeding from the wick will vanish when the wick is exhausted and will not flash up again from the earthen lamp. Tell me also where consciousness dwell when a man is unconscious.
31. The commentator gives an another illustration of the Buddhist. A lame man and his crutch cannot cross the river each by itself. But the one with the other could. So consciousness does not arise when, the mind, and senses and air &c. act together. The reply is that a boat is necessary and even with the boat, the lame man and his crutch and the boat cannot reach the other shore without a boatman. In the illustration of the lamp, light is consciousness, wick is the soul, the body is the lamp, mind and senses are the ghee and oil.
32. Desire and hate, pleasure and pain, intelligence and action are all qualities of the soul. Desire is the liking we feel for an object, say a fruit. Hate is the reverse feeling; and the other qualities also imply similar previous experience. As its experience thus refers to the past and future, the wise postulates an eternal soul and disagree with your theory.
26-32. These verses controverts the position that there is no separate entity called soul, apart from the body and the senses and the Andakarana. As definition is the most important thing, in these respects, to avoid all misconceptions and confusion in thought and argument, the attention is drawn to the way these various senses and organs are distinguished one from the other. For further information on the subject, reference may be made to Sutras 3 and 4 and the notes thereon in my Edition of Sivagnanabotham. Atma is something other than Buddhi and other Andakaranas, senses and the body: There may be no such thing. It will be useless to confound these one with the other. The arguments herein given tend to show that the phenomena of existence cannot be fully and adequately explained without this postulate. The test of a true hypothesis consists in that the theory ought to cover all facts and explain them without any self contradiction. Stanza 32, controverts the opponent's theory that desire is the cause of sentience.
33. Akas (Ether), supports and affords room and is in inseparable union with everything, is neither darkness nor light and yet gives room to both. Its attribute is sound; air and fire and other elements are produced forth from it and reduced into it. We have already explained our position about the soul. Time is divided into morning, noon and evening, days - past, present and future - and is ever changing and is productive of good and evil. The cardinal points are four, East and West, South and North - and are eternal in their nature and invariable and productive of good and evil.
33. Akas may mean space, in which case it is an abstraction no doubt or ether when it is a padartha. The word is used in both senses and is then often the cause of much confusion. As regards time, the belief is an old one and quite conventional. Compare the passage from Mahabharata.
"No one can leave the way marked out for him by Providence. Existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain, all have Time for their root. Time createth all things and Time destroyeth all creatures. It is Time that burneth creatures and it is Time that exinguisheth the fire. All states, the good and the evil, in the three worlds, are caused by Time. Time cutteth short all things and createth them anew. Time alone is awake when all things are asleep indeed. Time is incapable of being overcome. Time passeth over all things without being retaeded. Knowing as thou dost that all things past and future and all that exist at the present moment, are the off-springs of Time, it behoveth thee not to abandon the reason."
34. As the world is a product like a pot, we require a first cause like a potter. Vedas and Agamas are the most ancient works in Sanskrit, teaching our duties in regard to the gour great Purusharthas and they enlighten our understanding and action. As these words had at first been promulgated by the greatest gods and seers, a properly qualified teacher should be found to teach their meanings. We require a witness for attesting the truth of the Vedas themselves. Such a person and author of the Vedas is the Supreme Siva.S
35. You said that trees (Vegetable kingdom) are lifeless. They have life, as they fade when they are not watered and grow when they watered. If not, even dead trees must grow by watering them. It is the nature of bodies with life that they grow with food and decay without it. If you say that the trees have no life as they have no external organs, you forget that eggs and spawn which contain life have no sense organs. If you say that when the eggs are hatched at least, the animals come out with organs, but we do not see this in the case of trees, know that trees have flowers and fruits, they have organs and life.
35. We know that the Buddhist's logic and Psychology were faulty enough but never knew ere this, that their Biology &c., was also faulty. Hindu philosophers class the vegetable kingdom with living organisms possessing only one sense, namely touch. European scientists have now no doubt about the point and the characteristics of plant life are most analogous to animal life, and they are most varied and curious, nay, they manifest such adaptations to conditions and circumstances, displaying the greatest intelligence. And if we want to study God's handiwork, we could not find a better and more beautiful subject than plant-life. The root and fibre and bark in plants correspond to the alimentary canal in animals; the leaves to the respiratory organs; flowers (containing - the Pistil (ovary, style and Stigma), and stamens (filaments and anthers) to the reproductive organs. Most flowers contain both organs in each flower. In some plants the male and female flowers are different, the commonest example of which are supplied by the gourd species, (சுரை, பூஷிணி, பீர்க்கம்) &c). There are also separate male and female plants, as the female and male palmyra. Of all the flower shrubs, the orchids are the most wonderful in creation, possessing every variety of form and adaptation to needs. There are some most beautiful specimens in the Ooty Governement gardens one of which is of the exact shape of an insect மழைப்பூச்சி which is itself a mimic, but in most gorgeous colours. These flowers mimic birds, doves, pigmies, &c., &c.
36. If you ask, whether one life divides itself into many, as when we cut the branch of a tree and transplant it, no; souls enter into seeds, roots, branches and the eyes of trees, as their womb and are born. If you say that oviparous and filth-born animals have the power of locomotion after birth and the trees have not, then why don't lame men and animals walk. The variations in creation are infinite.
37. O Bauddha, you assert that it is no sin to eat killed meat. Does not the sin attach on your account to those who kill animals, knowing that you will eat their meat? If you were not known to eat, nobody would kill animals and offer it to you. If you again say that it is only those who kill are blameable, where is your charity when you earn sin for your own kind host. Why don't you offer meat to your God? When you despise your own body as unclean, where is your sense when you eat the flesh of lower animals?
38. If you say that sentience is again born as the shade of an umbrella and the image in a mirror, then know, these shadows will disappear with the umbrella or thing itself. So, when your five Skandhas die, the sentience will also die and not be born and there will be none to attain Nirvana. If you say that the sentience is again generated from the embodiment of Karmic memory as the walking intelligence after dream sleep: then, the spawn and the eggs and the blind man will indeed attain Moksha after losing their vitality. Hence, the soul will never be separate from the body.
39. O Bauddha you defined your Mukti (Nirvana) as the annihilation of the five Skandhas and their associated sentience and the burning up of desire and sorrow as lighted camphor. We ask who it is then that attains Nirvana? You reply that there is none. Then who feels the Bliss of Nirvana? If it is the sentience born of the five Skhandhas then it cannot die, and cannot lose its body, and you will never release yourself from Bandha nor attain Moksha.
40. Hear our idea of Mukti. Our Parameshwara, who is eternally pure, the supreme, the immutable, all intelligent, all-powerful, and all-beneficent, appears as the Divine Guru to him who is balanced equally in good and evil, (இருவினையொப்பு) and grants his Grace (சத்தினி பாதம்) after burning up all his evil by his Eye of Gnan, destroying thereby his external and internal senses, and showing them the four paths of adoring Him, lifts them by his hand of Grace, out of slough of birth, into eternal Bliss.
அநாதிமுத்த னாய்ப்பானா யலனாகி யெல்லாம் அறிவுதொழில் அனுக்கிரக முடயவரன் கன்மம் நுனுதிகமற் றொத்தவிடத் தேசத்திநிபாத நுழைவித்து மலங்களெல்லா நுங்கநோக்கி மனாதிகர ணங்களெல்லா மடக்கித்தன்னை வழிபடுநல் லறிவருளி மாக்கருணைக் கையால் இனாதபிறப் பினினின்று மெடுத்துமாறா இன்பமுத்திக் கேவைப்பன் எங்கள்முத்தி யிதுவே.
YOGACHARA BAUDDHA'S STATEMENT
1. The Yogachara, not throughly learned in Philosophic lore, states that it is Buddhi that is evolved as the senses and the forms of perception and that this intelligence is manifest only when in union with the sense experience (Vadana) and that intelligence is formless, and affirms therefore that the world is a dream and intelligence (Buddhi) is alone Sat.
HIS REFUTATION
1. You asserted the existence of Buddhi and something else which you called sense experience (Vadana). They must be different according to you. If not, say that Buddhi and sense experience are one and the same. If so, know, that Vadana is the renewed activity displayed by the Buddhi when induced by Raga (desire), it once unites with sound, light &c. Dreams arise in the mind after an original perception.
2. If you say that Intelligence is the body, then must exclaim 'I am the body.' These are different. If you say they are different and the intelligence stands apart from the body and the universe no; when the body is united to the intelligence, the intelligence will not be apparent, as the crystal is lost in the colours reflected in it.
2. The Yogachara is the follower of the 'Mahayana School and called as such Mahayanikan in Tamil works. The founder of this School was Asanga on Vajra Satwa and it was introduced into China from Ceylon about 720 A.D., by Vajrawati whose great pupil was Amoga, Pu-kung. This is called the Tantra School and they borrow their rituals from Brahmanism and Shaivism combining with the doctrine of Dhyana Buddhas (of Nepal) and the Mahayana Philosophy. (Edkins).
Vadana is what is usually miswritten as Vedana in Buddhist Text books.
The statement and its refutation of this school is very brief, as this school virtually accepts all that the Sautrantika affirns and any recapitulation is therefore unnecessary. The points wherein they differ are alone set forth here. According to the Sautrantika, Buddhi is a product and not independent of the senses. The Yogachara is inclined to think that it may be independent of the senses but links it in a peculiar manner with sensations (Vadana). Any how this is an advance on the Saurrantika who is a thorough Sunyavada and Mayavadi.
MADHMIKA BAUDDHA'S STATEMENT
1. It is the ten senses that appear as the body. When the senses perish, we cannot point to anything else as body, and as such there is no body at all (as a substance). As there is no body (substance) there is no such thing as Intelligence united to the body. Such are the ridiculous statements made by the Madhmika.
1. Madhmika is called Madhyamika in Buddhist Text books. He seems to be a thorough-going Nihilist altogether. This school was originated by Nagarjuna (B.C. 43) of the Tibetan Mahayana school. Hardy says "The philosophers in India had taught either a perpetual duration or a total annihilation with respect to the soul. He chose a middle way, hence the name of this sect." The work which bears his name in China is called 'Central Shastra" (chung-lun) and was translated into Chinese in the fifth century after Christ. This system reduces everything to bald abstractions and then denies them. The soul has neither existence nor non-existence. It is neither permanent nor non-permanent.
Vaibhashika literally means Viruddha Bhasha, (absurd language), one who rejects every other view except his own as absurd, a school which seems to have only too many followers even now.
HIS REFUTATION
1. The parts or attributes (அவயவம்) present in a pot are not present in a cloth and vice versa; that which is present in each, saving its identity, is substance (அவயவி). These two form the substance or the body, as such not only is there a body, but also an intelligent soul.
2. (In Sushupti) though the senses and sensations and objects are ever present yet no perception (knowledge) is possible as the soul is not in union with the senses. When the soul unites with the senses (internal and external), then perception is possible. As such both Soul and its Intelligence is Sat.
VAIBHASHIKA BAUDDHA'S STATEMENT
1. As redness results when saffron and lime are mixed together, so the visible world arises when the perceptive intelligence and objects of perception unite. This is Gnana Darsan. Those who perceive this clearly will attain Nirvana without doubt. So asserts lovingly the Vaibhashika.
HIS REFUTATION
1. The objects are external and the mind internal, as such these two cannot unite. The mind is besides formless (Arupa) and the objects have form. As such too, they cannot unite. The Vaibhashika who asserts otherwise has no more to say.
GENERAL REMARKS
Thanks to the labour of European scholars, the books relating to Buddhism occupy considerable space in any oriental Library and no religion has received so much attention in Europe and America and in India, in recent times as Buddhism. It has attracted the fancy of large classes of European who emerging as they do from a form of gross materialism and not being prepared to believe in a future life or God yet wish to have a beautiful fantasy to toy with, for the moment. We won't believe in a Soul or God. We will believe in man, in perfected man; Perfected Humanity shall be our goal. In current modern European thought, the national ideals of the European and Gautama are different. Gautama's countrymen have always considered life a burden, 'all is Pain, Pain,' and they wait for the first occasion when they can free themselves from the bonds of birth and death. On the other hand, the European would not consider his life worth living if there was not some ray of pleasure to be eked out at all events; and his whole aim is in fact to seek and add to the sum mum of Happiness, and we find Max Narday preach the new and true Gospel of Humanity, according to which everybody shorn off of all lies, shall enjoy the maximum of pure unalloyed pleasure, by means of song and dance and music and other social organizations. This is a modern evolution out of the old Lokayata and Buddha, and the place of Buddhism placed next to the Lokayata by all Hindu writers is easily perceived. The order is not a chronological one but purely a psychological one. And it will be useful to remember here generally that though our Hindu books old and new very often neglect to record historical dates and events, yet they are valuable, as no histories of any other nations are, in recording the mental history and evolution of the race and of an individual man. Same writers have also been misled by the mere order in arranging the six systems of Philosophy that one school is older than the one succeeding it. It will be certainly older if we are to count man's age backwards and not forwards as we do. It is old age that is second childhood. The Lokayata is the gluttonous and selfish child, and the Bauddha the thinking and generous youth; when life's troubles and temptations beset, it remains to be seen whether he will break or grow into robust manhood retaining his generosity and purity. The youth rashly vows that he will remain pure and true, when he does not know what the strength and allurements of vice are. But unless he does, at that very stage, sow in himself good seed, and what is most important, allow them to take firm root in good soil, all his labour will be lost.
We now turn to the personality of Buddha, and we may be allowed to offer our humble homage at his sacred feet. We have the greatest respect for the purity and unselfishness and nobility of his life. What is often forgotten by his admirers and opponents is that he was a Hindu, and a Hindu of Hindus, and as Dr. Rhys Davids puts it, he was the greatest and wisest and best of the Hindus. In his own time, he was honoured by the princes and peoples all alike. They did not care what doctrines he preached, provided his character was pure and answered to their ideal of righteousness. Sri Krishna places the Nirishwara Sankhya, Kapila, among the first of Sages. Is it because he approved of his theory? No, he often takes trouble to refute it. Jamini was an errant atheist, and he was a great Maharishi. And today, we see the same trait in the Hindu. It does not matter whether he is a Mahomedan or Christian, if only he leads a saintly life, we know how the Hindus will flock round him. And what capital, do not impostors make out of this by donning a Kashaya and sitting in ashes, and by pretending mounam, though they cannot read and write a syllable. Need we wonder therefore if Buddha Gautama was also regarded as a great Rishi, who had a particular mission to fulfil in life? The story goes it was Vishnu who incarnated as Buddha to preach his doctrines to the Tripura Asuras. In his own days Buddha was not considered as a heretic by the Hindus, nor did he regard himself as any other than a Hindu, just so as in the case of the revered Galilean, Jesus Christ. It was in the days of his followers and after the various councils, they seceded completely from the Hindus. Buddha was indifferent as to what they ate and when they drank and how they dressed, provided they cleansed themselves of desire, likes and dislikes, and when this இருவினையொப்பு is obtained, no one need consider what to go to or attain next. But Gautama calculated without his host when he constructed his beautiful structure on such slender basis. Could any religion be stable which is not built on the rock of a future life and that Rock of Ages? What was the result? The noble brotherhood, so fondly thought of, fell into dissensions even in his own days, and controversies raged hot subsequently on such questions as to the time of eating, kind of food, kind of dress, place of ordination, owning of property &c. &c., and the followers of each school called the others heretics and followers of Mara, and hurled denunciations on their heads. And in spite of Buddha's denunciation of rituals and priest craft, a close and rigid hierarchy with elaborate rituals came into existence and they have invented more heavens and more hells and Gods than are to be met with in the stories of all other nations put together. And the system had become so corrupt even in its birthplace that it had to be removed out of the country, root and branch. Dr. Rhys Davids says, "We hear of no persecutions till long after the time of Asoka, when Buddhism had become corrupt." And we won't say that there were no persecutions in India. But people should not go off with the idea that a persecution in India was at all anything like the ones we hear of in European History. It was quite a tame affair. It was more social than political. And a religious revolution was in a sense much more easily accomplished in those days than now. From several Periyapurana incidents, it would seem that both on the part of the Buddhists and the Hindus, the sole aim was to convert the king of the country, and when that was accomplished, they say the whole people had also been converted. So in either way the conversion could not at best be more than nominal. Our own belief is that the people, the laity, not those who clustered in Monasteries, had never been converted into Buddhism. The king turned a Buddhist and all the people styled themselves also Buddhists. This will account for the boasted spread of Buddhism in all India. However, the conflict came at last, and it is in Southern India, we have authentic accounts of such conflicts from the 1st century after Christ, though European Scholars know very little about it. The southern kingdoms were very powerful in those days and they were extending their arms north and south. Inscriptions record the conquest ofVatapi, the modern Badami in Bombay Presidency, and Ceylon was conquered more than once. And Buddhism seems to have been introduced into Southern India from Ceylon. And if we take the period of Manickavachaka as the first century after Christ, in his life indeed we meet with first conflict between Hinduism and Buddhism. And the fight was won by the miraculous cure of the dumb daughter of the King of Ceylon at Chidambaram. The account is given in full detail in Tiruvadavurar puranam, to which reference can be made. In our recent visit to Ceylon we found that the tradition of the cure of the dumb Princess is well known to have been on the ascendant, and the Tamil Saint Appar was a prominent Jain before his reconversion, and was styled as Dharma-sena. After his reconversion, he was himself bitterly persecuted by the King of Pataliputra, at the instigation of the Buddhist (Jain) monks. His contemporary was the Great Gnana Sambandha and he reconverted the King of Pandi, Kun Pandya, by performing various miracles, and gave a complete route to the Buddhists. This occurred in the early years of the sixth century, and in addition to the arguments adduced by the late Professor Sundram Pillai and Mr. Venkayya, we may point to the fact that the Chinese traditions and history point to the fact that in A.D. 526, Bodhi Dharma, who was a native of Southern India, and laboured long there, had to leave it for China, and the reason is assigned to be persecution at the hands of the Brahmans. And it is also related in his life that he was more a Jain than a Buddhist, though he promulgated a much modified form of it in China. And neither Buddhism nor Jainism ever reared its head again in Southern India, though the few who remained were never molested, but, on the other hand, were honoured with grants by kings even in much later times. The stories of Sankara and Ramanuja having routed out Buddhism are more apocryphal than true; they could not have been more than dialectical feats at any rate. There is reason to think however in the case of Sankara that he might have got hold of the few remaining seats of Buddhism in Northern India and established his own Mathama in imitation of the Buddhist Monasteries. We hear of no Mathams before the days of Sankara at all.
The morality of Buddhism has received very high praise from high quarters. Professor Max Muller says - 'The moral code of Buddhism is one of the most perfect the world has ever known." But the Buddhist moral code is feebleness itself when compared to the Confucianist. But its sanctions are very weak; and its power for good on various peoples has not been proved. Except in the case of Burmah, it has not improved the moral condition of the people. In China, says Dr. Edkins,"What virtue the people have among them is due to the Confucian system." Col. Olcott's own statistics show that the morality of the Singalese is much inferior to that of the Hindus, and a visit to Ceylon will amply demonstrate the fact. Even in Burmah, Dr. Edkins remarks, "The power shown by Burmese to win the faith of the Burmese , I should rather trace to the superiority of the Hindu race over the mountain tribes of Indo-Chinese Peninsula.... The superiority of Hindu arts and civilizations helped Buddhism to make this conquest." Bishop Bigandet says: "The Burmese want the capability to understand the Buddhist metaphysics. If the Buddhist moral code in itself has the power to influence a people so far as to render them virtuous and devotional independently of the element of intellectual superiority, we still lack the evidence of it."
And after all, what was Buddhism, but the child, the product of Hinduism? And "so far from showing," remarks Dr. Rhys Davids, "how depraved and oppressive Hinduism was, it shows precisely the contrary: for none will deny that there is much that is beautiful and noble in Buddhism."
NOTE OF NIRVANA
And I need not go much into Buddhist metaphysics as that has been already done in the text. However, a word or two about the Buddhist ideal of Nirvana. Learned men have discussed at great length as to the precise meaning of this conception and they are all at logger heads. Professor Max Muller and Dr. Rhys Davids, however, say that this cannot mean the extinction of a soul. "It is the extinction of that sinful, grasping condition of mind and heart, which would otherwise, according to the great mystery of Karma, be the cause of renewed individual existence." The definition is so far correct but I beg leave to ask, if Buddha did postulate the existence of a soul and a future state or not. No doubt, latterly, as among the Chinese the conception was thoroughly materialised and votaries waxed eloquent about the beauties of the paradise. But the question remains, according to Buddhist metaphysics, was there a soul or not? Our own opinion is that Buddha did not go to affirm or deny a soul, though later Buddhists made him deny a soul and Iswara. (vide page, 60. Paul Carus quoted by Mr. Ramasami Aiyar ante). He contented himself with the fact that the cessation of all desire and suffering and birth must be the sole aim, and nothing further need be thought of. The other side represented by Hinduism was altogether ignored. In fact as we shall show, Buddha only took one side of Hindu metaphysics forgetting the rest. The idea of Nirvana as defined above is a purely Hindu idea. The word occurs in the Gita (V. 24, 25, 26) and in the Saivite rituals, Nirvana Diksha is the highest mystery. The word, literally means non-flowing (the same root as in vayu vahini), Achala, steady, peace; and as this peace was to be obtained by casting off desire, it has come generally to mean extinction (c.f. Nirvana in Tamil meaning - nude and Nirvani - nude person. The Arhat (அருகன்) is represnted as nude). All these words - Nirvana, Mukti, Veedu mean therefore casting off or giving up sonething. What is that which has to be cast off or given up? It is man's egoism (the feeling of I and mine), the feeling of like and dislike, desire, the cause of birth and death, and suffering and sorrow; and until man's egoism, his separate personality was destroyed, annihilated, no suffering and birth can cease. But this egoism is different from man's innermost soul; and that can never be destroyed and is never destroyed. This lives, clothed in Glory and Bliss and in a Higher Existence and is never conscious, and could not be conscious of its existence. Gnanis, Muktas both in the body and outside (there is no inside or outside) are dead to the world practically. He enjoys Ananda but is never conscious of such enjoyment. The meaning will be plain when we pause to consider the difference and distinction between a feeling and a consciousness of such feeling. In the union with the Supreme, there is no duality. The duality will be present only, if the soul in Mukti is conscious. In the absolute, both the subject and object merge, though the object is present, it ceases to exist as it were, by reason of cessation of object consciousness. Buddha never cared to go into these deeper mysteries or as some would have it, did not want to throw these pearls before swine. But the mischief has been done, and what he openly gave out has been crystallised into a system, and it holds in its thraldom millions of mankind. There is always a danger in proclaiming and emphasizing an half truth, however wholesome it may be at times. The Hindu himself meant to emphasize by the use of the words Nirvana, Mukti, Veedu, the supreme importance of giving up desire as the supreme means of Salvation, but he does not ignore as Buddha did, the entry of the soul into a Blissful state of existence. Though these conditions follow one another as cause and effect, yet these are two distinct experiences, and the latter condition depends on a Higher Will, than man's puny efforts; another condition precedent to it, is, that man must own his allegiance to the Higher-Self and melt himself into love of Him. I have elsewhere illustrated the difference of these conditions by the simile of the blind man. The blind man when operated on, in a dark room, does lose the defect, by casting off the film that covered his personality; but can that alone be his Goal. The Buddhist ideal will lead the Arhat only so far. He might regain his sight but he will still have to remain in darkness. It will do no good but this may be in itself a satisfaction so far. But with only such a motive, man cannot proceed far. Who will think it worth his while to go to an expert doctor and pay him a high fee and undergo some suffering too, if after regaining his eye-sight, the same doctor should prescribe that he should never see light. - Much better it would have been if his cataract had remained as it was. There are some other schools among as also which go by much more dignified names which would land us in the same difficulty. Some of these latter postulate utter annihilation of the soul at the moment of attaining Mukti and others again assert that there is no anubava at all. These views are met by Sage Meikanda Deva in his commentary on the 11th Sutra of Sivagnanabotha; and the connection between this Sutra and the foregoing one illustrates the point I have been discussing above. The tenth Sutra treats of Pasatchaya, removal of Pasa, or bonds, "இறைபணிநிற்க, மலமாயை தன்னொடும் வல்வினையின்றே." (In submitting to the Will of the Lord, Mala, Maya and Karma are all removed) and the 11th Sutra treats of Pathignana, Anubava, the entering into the Blissful condition, அயராஅனபின் அரன்கமல் செலுமே'. (with undying live it will enter the feet of Hara). The following appeared in the 'Notes and Comments' in the July number of this magazine, which I beg permission to quote.
"A reviewer in the April Number of the Asiatic Quaeterly Review, on Dr. Dhallman's work on Nirvana, points out that according to the learned Doctor, who is a great authority on Mahabharata, Nirvana is a pre-Bhuddhistic idea, borrowed neither from the classical Vedanta nor from the classical Sankhya but from an older system, in which Nirvana means Brahma-Nirvana, and entering into the Absolute-Brahman and that this system, is to be found in the Mahabharata and Gita. This is no new news to the Siddhanti, who jubilantly sings.
"ஊன்கெட்டுயிர்கெட்டுணர்வுகெட்டுன்னுன்ளமும் போய் நான் கெட்டவாபாடித் தெள்ளேணம்கொட்டாமோ." "Let me sing, 'I' am lost, my mind is lost, my sense is lost my body is lost." "நாமொழிந்து சிவமானவாபாடித் தெள்ளேணம் கொட்டாமோ." " Let me sing, I lost my 'I' and gained "Sivam"
These quotations are from Saint Manikavachaka's Thiruvachaka and to these I will add another quotation, which I hope by this time your readers have got by heart. I refer, of course, to stanza No. 7, in 'The House of God,' printed at page 51.
இன்றெனக்கருளி யிருள்கடிந்துள்ளத்
தெழுகின்ற ஞாயிறேபோன்று
நின்றநின்றன்மை நினைப்பறநினைந்தே
னீயலாற்பிறிது மறறின்மை
சென்றுசென்றணுவாய்த் தேய்ந்நுதேய்ந்தொன்றாந்
திருப்பெருந்துறை யுறைசிவனே
யொன்றுநீயல்லை யன்றியொன்றில்லை
யாருன்னை யறியகிற்பாரே.
This day in Thy mercy unto me thou didst drive away the darkness
and stand in my heart as the rising sun.
Of this Thy way of rising-there being naught else but Thou, -
I thought without thought.
I drew nearer and nearer to Thee, wearing away atom by atom, till
I was One with Thee, O, Siva, Dweller in the great holy shrine.
Thou art not naught in the universe, Naught is there save Thou.
Who can know Thee?
The simile contained in this Hymn may be drawn out in the following manner to illustrate the meaning. The Sun rises on the horizon and proceeds to the zenith of its glory; and we have to watch a man and his shadow from early morning to midday. At the point of rise, the shadow is the longest, and when the Sun is just overhead the shadow vanishes altogether and the shadow is seen to decrease as the Sun mounts higher and higher up in the heavens. Man might fancy that the Sun is coming nearer to him, when in fact he is going nearer to the Sun; but the other also in fact; for, but for the influence and attraction of the Sun itself, the earth itself could not revolve on its axis. In the place of the Sun, place God; and in the place of man, his soul, and for shadow, his egoism, his anava, his imperfections, lies sin, As he nears his God, and gets nearer and nearer ('சென்று சென்று') with the thought past thought that there is naught but God ('நீயலாற்பிறிது மற்றின்மை நினைப்பறநினைந்தே'), his evil, his shadow gets thinner and thinner (தேய்ந்து தேய்ந்து) when finally all is removed, and naught else remains but the One Supreme Light which covers and swallows him in Its mystic folds.
ஆனாஅமுதே யயில்வேலரசே ஞானாகரனே நவிலத்தகுமோ யானாகியவென்னை விழுங்கி வெறுந் தானாய்நிலை நின்றது தற்பரமே. "O Thou Inexhaustible Ambrosia, Thou King with the sparkling spear, O Thou Ocean of Intelligence, can I speak it? Swallowing fully what I call my 'I', The Supreme stands One, alone, without a second" ---- Arunagiri Nathar.
In that short book of his Kandaranubhuti, consonant with the title of his book, how often does not Saint Arunagiri Nathar emphasize the same truth.
"யெல்லாமறஎன்னையிழந்த நலம்."
"The good of my having lost myself, forgetting all."
குறியைக்குறியாது குறித்தறியும்
நெறியைத்தனி வேலை நிகழ்த்திடலும்,
செறிவற்றலை வோடுரை சிந்தையுமற்று
அறிவற்ற்றியாமையுமற்றதுவே.
"The moment my Lord showed me the way of knowing the mark
without knowing it, I lost my bonds,
I lost my mind involved in worldly converse,
I lost my intelligence and ignorance."
அறிவொன்றற நின்றறிவாரறிவில்
பிறிவொன்றற நின்ற பிரானலையோ
செறிவொன்றற வந்திருளே சிதைய
வெறிவென்றவரோடுறும் வேலவனே.
"Art thou not the Lord who inseparably dwellest in the
thought of those who think of thee without thought?
Thou dwellest with those who have lost their madness
by losing their bonds, and their darkness."
"ஆசாநிகளம் துகளாயினபின் பேசாஅனுபூதி பிறந்த்துவே."
"After the rope of desire is cut asunder into atoms,
the unspeakable Anubava came into being."
These last two lines puts in the Buddhist's and Siddhanti's position in clear juxtaposition. One says "ஆசாநிகளம் துகள் ஆக்கு" and stops with it and the other does not stop with it and proceeds to postulate a higher state of knowledge and enjoyment. With the foregoing, both in language and in sentiment may be compared the following verses from the Kural of Saint Thiruvalluvar, especially as he is credited to have been a Buddhist or a Jain. For one thing, Saint Thiruvalluvar believed in a Soul and God and a future life and there could be no doubt about it and he does not make it a secret. He postulates with Buddha that desire, tanha, is the cause of birth.
"அவாவென்ப எல்லாவுயிர்க்கு மெஞ்ஞான்றும் தவாப்பிறப்பீனும் வித்து" "Desire is the unfailing cause (seed) of birth, always, to all living beings."
And in the nest verse, he says that this much desired freedom from birth is possible only by desiring the cessation of desire. And yet in other preceding chapters, he lays down that the bonds of birth are cut asunder, when desire is lost, "பற்றற்ற கண்ணே பிறப்பறுக்கும்," that for attaining this means of salvation, the desire of love of the Perfect Being is essential.
"பற்றுகபற்றற்றான் பற்றினையப் பற்றைப் பற்றுகபற்றுவிடற்கு."
The difference of Pasatchaya and Pathignana are also well brought out in the following verse with the familiar simile of light and darkness.
"இருள்நீங்கி யின்பம் பயக்கு மருணீங்கி மாசறுகாட்சி யவர்க்கு." " The seer of the spotless vision, after losing his defects, obtains Bliss, shorn of darkness."
The similarity between மருள் நீக்கம் and இருள்நீக்கம் on the one hand, மாசறுகாட்சி and இன்பம் பயத்தல் on the other, and the difference between these two are what should be noted particularly in this and in verse 5, in Chapter I and the whole chapter itself.
இருள் சேரிருவினையுஞ்சேரா இறைவன் பொருள் சேர்யுகழ்புரிந்தார் மாட்டு.
If we turn to the Gita, for a moment and read again chapters 4 and 5, we will find how word for word, these repeat themselves. As an eminent Indian once observed, we have to read the Gita from backwards, and then the connection of 5th and 4th chapters will be apparent. Chapter 5 treats of Karma Sannyasa-yoga and chapter 4 of Gnana-yoga and the same distinction of Pasatchaya and Pathignana is brought out to the full, by the use of the words and the same figures as in the Tamil passages quoted above. "He who acteth, placing all actions in Brahman, abandoning attachment, is unpolluted by sin as a lotus-leaf by the waters (V.10) (c.f. இறைபணி &c.) "The harmonised man, having abandoned the fruit of action, attaineth to everlasting Peace; the non-harmonised, impelled by desire, attached to fruit, are bound . (c.f. ஆசாநிகளம் &c. above). Verses 14 and 15 by the way, meet the common fallacy that God is the cause of our material nature and is the author of the evil, and that all evil and good should be ascribed to him. Nothing can be a greater mistake than this. Nature, Maya, explains the universe of mind and matter and action. Ignorance, Anavamala covers the naturally pure human spirit. "Verily, in whom Agnana is destroyed by Brahmagnan or Pathignana, to them is revealed the Highest, Shining as the Sun." 'Thinking on That, solely devoted to That, they go whence there is no return, their sins dispelled by Wisdom. (Verse 16 and 17 c.f. "இனறெனக்கருளி)." "He whose self is unattached to external contacts, finds joy in God" (Verse 21 c.f. பாசம் கழன்றால், பசுவுக்கிடம் பதியாம்). "The Rishis obtain the Brahma Nirvana, their sins destroyed, their duality removed; their selves controlled, intent upon the welfare of all beings." (Verse 25) Having known Me, as the Enjoyer and Rewarder of Yagna and Tapas (Medapatim), the Maheshwara of all the worlds, as the Lover (Suhirtha, Sankara) of all beings, he goeth to Peace (Santi Nirvana- Brahmananda) (Verse 29). Mr. Kuppusami Aiyar, following the commentators translates the word Brahma Nirvana into Brahmalaya, Brahmananda and Moksha, which no doubt is true. But this double trouble to bring out, is this the same, as the Buddhist view of Nirvana? Where is the meeting between the two? No doubt both follow the same route and meet at the famous statue with the shield; but the one will only look at the one face of the shield, lying on the shady side and refuses to go over and look up to the other face, exposed to the Full Effulgence of the Radiant Sun, and which blinds him with Its unspeakable Light and Glory, the very moment he looks up (a second blindness and death surely, but one where the craving for light and birth is all lost). When, therefore, in all seriousness, and in all humility and in the cause of truth alone, the inadequacy of Buddhism, and its one-sidedness (this one-sidedness producing evils as it filters down to the masses and in its actual working, which we could not conceive, who have in its actual working, which we could not conceive, who have no means of judging of its practical effect on the life and instincts of man, and who but look upon its as a mere theory, a beautiful vision) are pointed out, what is the good of our being referred to a beautiful moral code, whose beauty nobody denies? We will admit the correctness of the definition of Nirvana, we quoted at the beginning of this article that it is the extinction of that grasping condition of mind and heart. Mind and heart! Is the mind and heart at least a positive factor which rests in Peace and Bliss? Is there no higher thing than mind (Buddhi) and heart? Is there no such thing as Soul and God? Or, is it true, that even according to the so-called Hinduism and Brahmanism the notion of a Soul and of a God are also mere phantoms of the brain? Surely, the saying of the Lord is as true as ever. "Whatsoever a great man doeth, (sayeth) that other men also do (say); the Standard he setteth (the opinions he holds) by that the people go." There is a fashion in opinions as in dress, and Buddhism is the latest fashion of the day; and he who runs counter is indeed a guy and a gawk.
JAINISM :- NIKANDAVADI Sect
1. Let us state the views of the Jains of the Digambara sect, who worship the Asoka tree laden with sweet-scented flowers, covered with bees, who, in the performance of Tapas, inconsistent with the Vedic Dharma, go about without clothes, and with dust covered body, remain ascetics abjuring family life, and feeding sumptuously, carry about with them mats and peacock feathers.
1. Nikanda means literally without clothes and these are otherwise called Digambaras, which means clothed with sky; and the secondary meaning Nirvana also means a naked person. Digambara and Nirvani are both names of Aruga and Siva.
2. Our Lord is the Immortal Aruga, full of glorious attributes, praised by the Gods, who, leaving all the eight evil qualities, is clothed with the eight immaculate virtues, as the full moon clothed in coolness.
2. The eight virtues (எண்குணம்) are Anantagnan - endless Intelligence, Ananta Darsanam - Limitless vision, Ananta Viryam - endless power, Anantasukam - endless joy, namelessness, sectlessness, (Gotra), agelessness, and Immortality. The eight evil qualities எண்குற்றம் are Ignorance, Defective Vision, Belief in the Vedas, Sensuality, Possessing name and Gotra and sorrows arising from age and bodily pains. The glorious attributes (சீர்) are Perfection, Omniscience, Benevolence to all sentient beings, Joyfulness, Activity, Being possessed of the fourteen wonders, Being seated in Devaloka & c.
3. Our Lord filled with austerity, has rid himself of the evil senses and know in an instant what takes place in all places and in all time, and is gracious to those who worship him and worship not. His other good qualities will be further described.
4. Leaving the evils of hunger, thirst, fear, envy, liking, lust, thinking, abusing, disease and death, sweating, surprise, pride, wondering, eating, and birth, and sleep and being covered with the eight good attributes, and being seated in the Highest Heaven above this world, He imparted his 'One word' to the host of Siddhas who surround him.
5. Following that one word, the Siddha composed several treatise called Charana, Yoga & c. so that mankind may not be misled. The gist of these books is that Time, space, Dharma body and Adharma body, Punyam (virtue) and Papam (sin) Atomic bodies, Atma Bandam and Moksha are all eternal verities.
6. Of these, Time spreads over the past and the present and the future, and comprise all the three kinds of Time in one moment; Atma, which is limited by this Time, is present in a body and fills it wholly, passes through periods of youth, adolescence and age, undergoing various changes, and is intelligent and eternal.
7. The Dharma Body causes the Astral body (பூதகாயம்) to die, so that it may not develop again. The Adharma body causes the permanence of the Astral body. Virtuous acts (Punyam) is conducive to the Dharma body and evil doing (Papam) is always the cause of Adharma Body. Space gives room to everything. We will state the nature of the material Body (புற்கலம்).
8. Material bodies are all objects with forms like iron, stones, trees, &c., which have a power of their own and are present everywhere. The six kinds of perception, such as sight, taste &c. which cause evil constitute Bandha. Good Karma or Tapas is performed when we are losed from the control of these senses. This Tapas will bring about good births. When we get rid of both Punyam and Papam after eating the fruits thereof by repeated births, we attain to Moksha.
REFUTATION OF JAINISM
1&2. If you say that your God Aruga is associated with good qualities as the moon and its coolness, then the comparison is not true. His evil was in him before and as such he belongs to the order of men, (His good was not inherent as coolness in the moon but only associated and acquired). If you say that God Aruga attained perfection by his virtue, then it implies the existence of one who laid down the rule of virtue for the purpose of effecting salvation and someone who followed it to attain salvation. As such we will have to postulate a Being who is above your God who is worshipped by those who do not kill. Therefore which of these will you accept as God?
3. You asserted that your God sees and knows everything without the intervention of the bodily senses, and yet you assert that his body is immortal. If so, his mind and other senses cannot leave him, and without these and his body he cannot understand. He cannot know all time at once either.
4. All those who get rid of their evil qualities such as anger &c. cannot attain Mukti as your Aruga is a Jiva in a body. If you compare him to a King who bestows benefit on mankind, then why should he dwell in the City with the golden walls?
4. If like a King, he must dwell on earth and punish the wicked and reward the good, but God Aruga is said to be good, to the wicked and the virtuous.
5. If you say that the perfected Arhat derived his teaching from the one word of the Eternal Aruga, and gave it out to mankind, then as you do not postulate his having senses and mind &c., and give it out again. This is like the dumb teaching the dumb.
6. The Aruga dwelling in the Blissful Regions cannot know the sorrows of this world and so cannot come as a teacher to remove it. If he can know, even from where he is, then he has experience of sorrow and the Blissful Heaven ceases to be such, and I have really no answer to give you.
7. You asserted that the Soul fills the whole body. If so, where any portion of the body is defective, then the Soul must be defective in proportion. Besides this body will die, and when it dies, the soul must die also, as the water is lost when the pot is broken.
8. You say that both the Dharma body and Adharma body elevates and depresses man, in the same body at the same time. This cannot be. If you instance the case of beetles and birds which fly and sit their actions are not simultaneous.
9. If you say there is no God who knowing the good and bad Karma of Mortals, makes them eat the fruits thereof, then there will be no undergoing the joys of heaven and the pains of hell. If you reply that virtue and sin attaches to a person of their own force as an arrow shot from a bow, then your simile implies a person who shot that arrow and we require a God like the Bowman.
9. Both Karma and man have to be actuated by a superior power and without It, there will be merely inert. Man cannot choose his own good and bad and cannot foresee the far reaching consequences of his Karma and guide his own conduct thereby.
10. You said that bodies like iron, stone &c., have Souls with one sense. But all life is seen to be destroyed, but we never see stones and metals die. Besides if these have souls, they must attain Moksha also. You are alone in asserting life of such lifeless things as stones &c.,
11. You say that Tapas is performed when the six kinds of perceptions are lost. But no wealth can be acquired in trade unless wealth is invested in the trade. (So action is necessary for Tapas). If you say that Tapas is reached by the fruits of past Karma, then the same Karma explains the growth and extinction of the evil perceptions. So you cannot reach Tapas except by action.
11. Mere inaction or Passivity cannot prevent one's rebirth and give him eternal bliss. If so, then all inanimate things can attain Moksha; and man himself will be reduced to a condition of a log or stone. It is opinions like these promulgated by the Jains, that mere inactions is virtue that accounts for the often unwarranted slur that is cast upon the Hindu System of Ethics. The misfortune is that some of the phrases and words have become so common that they are used by everybody and anybody whether with meaning or without meaning, whether appropriate or inappropriate and hence arises a great deal of confusion, And then these little systems having each had their day, have not altogether ceased to be and they have left their marks in the public mind and morals. If the fact be true that Jainism was dominant in South India for several centuries and all the best literate and moralists of the period were Jains, it is no wonder some of these fallacies have still lingered among them. Jainism preached a life of rigid asceticism and morality and was thoroughly exclusive. And the 6 kinds of evil actions were considered to be cultivation, mechanical industry, writing (Being in office), trading, teaching and sculptures. This was against the very genius of Hinduism whose ideal was the four Dharmas - Virtue, Wealth, Pleasure and Bliss. Hinduism though preaching control of the senses, and cessation of all desires, only does so, so that it may reach higher spheres of activity. " செயற்கரிய செய்வார் பெரியர்" (The great sage does actions, impossible for others) says Saint Thiruvalluvar in his chapter on "நீத்தார் பெருமை" (The greatness of Freed Beings). That real asceticism does not mean merely giving up family and children and is possible in one and all the various ashrams was exemplified in the life of this very Sage, who lived with his wife, and continued to live by his spindle. In Siddhanta works, wherever the greatness of these seers are described, their entire benevolence and love of all God's creatures is invariably set forth. Says Saint Thiruvalluvar in the same chapter,
"அந்தணர் என்போர் அறவோர்மற் றெவ்வுயிர்க்கும் செந்தண்மை பூண்டொழுக லால்"
"The sage is called Anthana, as he is full of virtue, and is full of kind actions to all sentient beings." Says Saint Umapathi Sivacharya, in his similar chapter on 'அணைந்தோர் தன்மை' in his 'Light of Grace,'
கள்ளத்தலைவர் துயர்கருதி தங்கருணை வெள்ளத் தலைவர் மிக.
"Out of the depths of their love, they are troubled and tossed about for the sorrows of their erring kind."
Saint Thayumanavar also devotes a chapter to the same subject of "The path of Bhaktas" (அன்பர் நெறி) and he says
"எவ்வுயிரும் தன்னுயிர்போ லெண்ணுந் தபோதனர்கள் செவ்வறிவை நாடிமிகச் சிந்தைவப்ப தெந்நாளோ."
"O for the day when I will think of the Wisdom of those ascetics, who consider all life as they would regard their own life." Compare also Gita V. 25.
But different people and nations have different ideas of what is good for themselves and for others. A Christian missionary remarks that "all this time the philosophy of quietism has been sound asleep or with its eyes fixed on the point of its nose,' according to the directions of the Gita, it has been thinking itself out of its wits;"and puts such things as the want of Railways and Telegraphs, prohibition against widow marriage, want of education and civilization and good Government, evils of caste &c., to the discredit of Hinduism (vide page 99. Selections from the Upanishads by Dr. Murdoch). One might as well retort and ask if all Christian countries are free from all vice and wickedness and social evils. If Railways and Telegraphs are such great boons, why were they not invented by the founder of Christianity. There are more Godless among scientists and inventors than among other classes of people. There are more unredeemed and God forsaken slums in London alone than in all India put together. St. Paul's first advice to widows is that they should not marry. Count Tolstoi's views on Christianity (which we believe is the true view) is condemned by other Christians as thoroughly impractical and unfit for public acceptance and public Government. Regarding the views of Gita itself, they are unmistakable. Over and over again, Lord Krishna says that action is necessary. Such action covers the whole field of Chariya (சரியை), Kriya (கிரியை), and yoga, no doubt, and any of these acts performed with an object and for purely selfish ends are condemned in the strongest terms by Lord Krishna and other Siddhanta writers (vide chapters on சரியைக்கழற்றி, கிரியைக்கழற்றி and யோக்க்கழற்றி in ஒழிவிலொடுக்கம் of Kannudaya Vallalar). The 64 charities (அறம்) enjoined on the Hindu cover a larger field of usefulness than those known to the Christian Missionary. The charity of the Hindu is proverbial. In his fasts and feasts, he remembers the poor and the helpless. We require no poor and famine, you cannot, imagine a more contented and happy and hopeful individual. If he does not rise against oppression and tyranny, should that also be put down to the discredits of Hinduism. The strong hold of Hindu Loyalty is his Religion. Be it said also to the credit of Hinduism that its ideal of a holy man is not that of a sport-loving Missionary whether the sport be dancing, acting, tennis or cricket-playing, fishing or hunting. The ascetic and saintly life led by the early Christian fathers of the church does not commend itself to modern day Christian and Dean Farrar is forced to write an apology for them almost, though the tradition is well-preserved by the modern Catholic church.
12. You say that subjecting one's body to great privations is the greatest Tapas. Then you must assert also that persons undergoing the greatest agonies from bodily disease are the first to get to your heaven. If you reply that to desire vainly Moksha is itself undergoing bodily pain, then you had better cut off your nose in view to your securing Imperishable Bliss.
12. Mere physical privation could be no object unless it is undertaken in the service of God or your fellow creatures. Bhakti and Gnana and cessation of desire alone can lead one to Moksha. The commentators add that the worship of Jivas, like God Aruga (Arhat) though by their Karma they have become powers, and principalities and Devas, cannot secure this object and the Love and service dedicated to the Supreme One alone who was never subject to births and deaths, who is Anadi mukta and Nirmala, will be of avail.
13. You say that we can reach the golden city after the fruit of past Karma have been eaten up. As Karma is endless, what certainty is there that you will finish eating them. If you do succeed, even then, when your Karma ceases, your body and its senses (begotten of Karma) also cease. Your case is like the cat waiting to eat the fish after the Southern Ocean dries up.
14. Your trying to reach Heaven, without a God (a First Cause) is like the attempt of the pot at the bottom of the well to reach of itself the top. As one at the top has to lift the pot out, so be wise, and own your allegiance to Siva.
JAINISM: - AJIVAKA SECT
1. We will now state the case of the Jains of the Swetambara sect, who though professing to be filled with grace to all creatures, as to one's own self, yet prescribe such austerities to all mankind, productive of immense pain, similar to their own suffering, when they pull the hairs out of their head.
2. The word of the Lord Aruga, with endless Intelligence declares that there are five atoms or entities which fill everything. They are the earth, the water, the fire, the air, and the Jiva. If we are to describe the nature of these five, then, the earth is hard, the water is cold, the fire is heating, the air is flowing, and the soul is intelligent.
3. Earth and water have a downward tendency to spread. Fire and air spread upwards. And the Jiva enters bodies formed of these, and these atoms individually. When it enters bodies, it obtains the nature of the particular body to which it is united. This is the way these atoms act.
4. The first four atoms cannot know each other; neither can one atom change into another atom. One atom will not enter and abide in another atom. Yet they will unite in the living body. These never come into being newly; nor do they die by lapse of time. They always unite together and not one by one; and they never change their nature.
5. These atoms (அணுக்கள்) as such never undergo creation, development, destruction or resolution, can neither be eaten, nor swallowed nor digested nor spit out; neither made nor unmade. These pass beyond the vast worlds, and enter all bodies and forms. These spread always and everywhere and are of the same unvarying nature.
6. The Jiva cannot be seen by the eye (is formless) Induced by Karma, they are born in bodies with form; and even then, the Jiva cannot be seen by mortals, but can be seen by the Immortal Gods. We will describe the way, the other four atoms mix among themselves.
7. Neither any three of these nor any two of these will be found united together. But with earth, all the four will be united together; with water, the other two (fire and air) will be found together; with fir, air will be found together; and air will stand alone. This is the way these four mix among themselves.
8. There are six colours, namely, white, golden, red, blue, green and pure white. Of these, pure white is the colour pertaining to the Heavenly regions. The other colours are found in earthly forms and are perceived by the soul by touch, perception &c.
9. Wealth and Poverty, pain and pleasure, living in one's own country and going abroad old age and death, all these become attached, by the result of previous Karma to the Jiva, in the womb itself. And the world moves on subject to the laws of Karma.
10. Our Lord has further declared that with Punyam and Papam, these are entities in all. Those who understand this to be wisdom will reach the Highest Heaven.
REFECTATION OF AJIVAKA JAINA
1. From moksha, there is no return. As such there can be no return of your Lord to the earth to reveal his word; and hence there can be no authoritative book for you. As the five atoms cannot reach your heaven, your Lord can have no body. He cannot be omniscient for all time nor can be know all things at one time.
1. The commentator here asks "How do you know your Lord is omniscient? If you say, it is because he has attained to the condition of mona, then you say that all dumb men and animals &c., are also perfect. Besides, if he ever remains in mona, of what use is he to mankind? He will be merely an useless sinner.
2. You say that Arhats are of two classes, called Mandalar (beings of earth) and Sembothakar (the perfect) and that the Mandalars return to the earth and reveal the teaching. Then these Mandalars become indistinguishable from the jivas of the earth. They cannot partake both the earthly and divine elements in themselves.
3. You state that the soul becomes intelligent by contact and full union with the body. The soul is not so, when a person is not intelligent or when he is an infant. As such your statement is false.
4. If as you say, of the four atoms, some two spread below some two above, they cannot form any one body. If they can form one, then the atoms will undergo destruction. If they don't unite, there must be interstices in the body between these atoms. As such they cannot unite into one body. They will be so various and there won't be any harmony and coordination.
5. If you say that these various bodies are made possible by there being innumerable atoms, yet as these cannot unite, they cannot form one united body. As these atoms spread in different directions and are contrary in nature, they cannot conduce to the soul being present in them. Your theory is ridiculous. Even a thousand sticks cannot form one pillar.
6. The atoms themselves cannot unite to form bodies as they have no intelligence of their own. If you say that air unites all the other atoms with the soul, the air cannot know the other atoms and the souls to be united, so as to enable it to unite them. If you say Karma effects this union, it cannot be, as it is also non-intelligent and cannot know the person to whom it has to be united. Therefore learn to know the One who brings about the union of these various atoms into bodies united to each soul according to its Karma.
GENERAL REMARKS
Indian writers, both Sanskrit and Tamil, place Jainism usually after Buddhism, in their general retrospect or review of the various Schools of Indian Philosophy and we have once more to call attention to the fact that this is not altogether an historical or chronological order. The caution would be unnecessary but for the fact that eminent writers chiefly European, have been misled and have concluded that Jainism had no independent beginning and that it was a mere offshoot of Buddhism and as such have failed also to grasp its essential differences, and have therefore bestowed very little attention to this system and its Bibliography. And in consequence, this School of Philosophy has not attained to that amount of importance in the European and Indian minds of today, as Buddhism has. But for all that, so far as South India is concerned, it has played a greater part and for a longer time than Buddhism and its effect on the South Indian People and their literature has been much more beneficial and lasting. Jains are still found all over South India, and they hold quite a respectable place in society, whereas not a Buddhist can be found anywhere even as a sample. Long after Jainism received its death blow in the hands of the Great Saint Sambanthar, its professors were allowed to remain unmolested by the people, nay, their kings and nobles encouraged them openly by grants of land and endowments for their temples &c. There were many things in them which commended them to the other classes. They were very strict moralists and they led exemplary lives. At one time, all the learning of the land, in the departments of literature and grammar and ethics and the learned sciences was in their hands and it could not be in better safekeeping. Some of the best classics in Tamil, most of the Ethical treatises, and that excellent grammar Nannul, and lexicous were composed by Jains. Added to this, in their works, they never went out of their way to be unnecessarily offensive to the other classes of the people and in their life they conformed to the life of their neighbours as much as possible. If the outer man can be a fair index of the inner mind, you have only to compare a Jain and a Buddhist and a Hindu in their externals. The Jain could be hardly distinguished from his Hindu neighbour. Even in Buddha's days, his followers have debated and differed as to, what sort of animal food can be eaten or not eaten, though they say Buddha taught kindness to all creatures, (one European writer goes to say that the Hindus never even had this doctrine before his days!) and his followers of today (the mass of them) are gross flesh eaters all over the world; but in the case of Jains, they were throughout and are even down today rigid abstainers from all kinds of fish, flesh or fowl. This was such a marked trait in their life and character that their neighbours and successful rivals tried to excel them in their good trait, that Brahmans of all classes in South India, unlike their neighbours in the West and in the North are rigid abstainers; and the more civilized and intelligent classes of the non-brahmin classes are also rigid vegetarians - Saivites - we were going to say. Among the Vellalars, there are certain sections of them, who by birth are vegetarians and call themselves Saivites. Our Pundit friend once shrewdly suggested to us that these Paramparai Saivas, (vegetarians for generations) must be descendants of ancestors who were once Jains and subsequently reconverted. And Saivaism today is so rigidly vegetarian, that the words are almost used synonymously by all classes; and some of the Saiva Vellalars, though since converted to Vaishnavism are still rigid vegetarians and call themselves Saivas. We may trace also to the influence of Jainism the stopping of all animals sacrifices in all Hindu shrines in South India, though they are still in vogue in some of the North Indian Temples. The general disfavour with which all Wajapeya (Vedic) sacrifices are looked upon by the people must also be due to this Jain element. The general mildness of the character of the South Indian people, their extreme docility, piety and modesty may all be traceable to their influence also. In their Psychology and Metaphysics too, there was much greater affinity between the Jain and the Saiva than between the Buddhist and the latter. We today add the opinion of Dr. H. Jacobi, the learned translator of the Jaina Sutras, as to what Buddha taught in regard to the postulates of Soul and God, believed in by the Hindus and the same passage contrasts the views of the Jains on this point. He says in his inroduction (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 23 p. xxxiii), "Whatever Buddha may have taught and thought about the state of Nirvana, whether he went the length to identify it with absolute non-existence, or imagined it to be an existence, different from all we know or can conceive, it is beyond doubt, and a striking feature of Buddha's philosophy that he combated the Brahmanic theory of A'tman, as being the absolute and permanent soul, according to the pantheist as well as the monadic point of view. But the Jainas fully concur in the Brahmanic theory of the A'tman, with only this differences that they ascribe to the A'tmans a limited space Anu, while the Brahmans of the Sankhya Nyaya and Vaisheshika Schools contend that the A'tmans are con-extensive (vubhu) with this universe. On the other hand, the Buddhistical theory of the five Skandas, with their numerous sub-divisions have no counterpart in the Psychology of the Jainas." The learned Doctor also proceeds to point out, what seemed to us as very curious in the theory of the Jains also. "A characteristic dogma of the Jainas which pervades their whole philosophical system and code of morals, namely, the hylozoistically theory that not only animals and plants, but also the smallest particles of the elements, earth, fire, water and wind, are endowed with souls (jiva). No such dogma on the other hand is contained in the philosophy of the Buddhists." Our own opinion seems to be, if we may judge from some of their rules for drinking water by straining &c., that the Jain Philosophers seemed to recognize the presence of active life-germs quite invisible to the naked eye, and which are ever present all about us, in the very dust that we tread, in the very water that we so scrupulously drink, and in the very air we breathe; and much more largely in all our articles of diet; and which are now revealed to the microscopic eye of the European Scientist who raises them up all around us in such numbers as almost to strike us with terror. We take the liberty to quote the following passage also, as they exactly square with our own conclusions on the subject."
"To Indian philosophers the various degrees of knowledge up to omniscience are matters of great moment. The Jainas have a theory of their own on this head and a terminology which differs from that of the Brahmanic philosophers and of the Buddhists. Right knowledge, they say is fivefold: (1) Mati, right perception; (2) Sruta, clear knowledge based on mati; (3) Anadhi, a sort of supernatural knowledge; (4) Manah-paryaya, clear knowledge of the thoughts of other; (5) Tavala, the highest degree of knowledge consisting in omnisciences. This psychological theory is a fundamental one of the Jainas, as it is always before the mind of the authors of the sacred books when describing the spiritual career of the saint. But we search in vain for something analogous in the Buddhist scriptures. We could multiply the instances of difference between the fundamental tenets of both sects, but we abstain from it, fearing to tire the reader's patience with an enumeration of all such cases. Such tenets as the Jainas share with the Buddhists, both sects have in common with the Brahmanic philosophers, e.g., the belief in the regeneration of souls, the theory of the Karman, or merit and demerit resulting from former actions which must take effect in this or another birth, the belief that by perfect knowledge and good conduct man can avoid the necessity of being born again and again &c. Even the theory that from time immemorial prophets (Buddhas or tirthakaras) have proclaimed the same dogmas and renewed the sinking faith, has its Brahmanic counter-part in the Avatars of Vishnu. Besides, such a theory is a necessary consequence both of the Buddhistical and the Jaina creed. For what Buddha or Mahavira had revealed was, of course, regarded by the followers of either as truth and the only truth. This truth must have existed from the beginning of time, like the Veda of the Brahamans; but could the truth have remained unknown during the infinite space of time elapsed before the appearance of the prophet? No would answer the pious believer in Buddhism or Jainism, that was impossible; but the true faith was revealed in different periods by numberless prophets, and so it will be in the time to come. The theory of former prophet seems, therefore, to be a natural consequence of both religions; besides, it was not wholly unfounded on facts, at least as regards the Jainas. For the Nirgranthas are never spoken of in the Buddhist writings as a newly risen sect nor Nataputta as their founder. Accordingly the Nirgranthas were probably an old sect at the time of Buddha, and Nataputta only the reformer of the Jaina church, which may have been founded by the twenty-third Tirthakara, Parswa."
His conclusions are (1) "that Jainism had an independent origin from Buddhism, that it had a development of its own, and did not largely borrow from the rival sect; (2) that both Jainism and Buddhism owed to the Brahmans, especially the Sannyasins, the ground-work of their philosophy, ethics and cosmogony;" and in the proceeding pages he proves that how all the ethical rules of both Jains and Buddhists were both copied from the older Bodayana and Apastamba and Gautama Sutras.
The learned German Doctor has stated the Psychological difference in somewhat general terms. We will proceed to state them more fully. Hindu philosophers generally classify all tatwas or categories into 36 or 96, of these the lowest 24 are the elements (5), Tanmatras (5), Karmendrya (5), Gnanendrya (5), Antakarana (Chitta, Mana, Ahankara and Buddhi). As it is, the 24th is Buddhi-tatwa.
It is this Tatwa which the Buddhists affirm as the only truth and as the highest truth. Beside and beyond this there is no other reality higher or lower. All the 23 that are below the 24th tatwa are only phenomenally or momentarily true. If anybody were to assert that there was anything higher than the Buddhi tatwa, the Buddhist would regard him as telling an untruth, as suggesting a fiction. In his table of Skandhas, Vignana-skandha is one of them; but this Vignana-skandha is merely the six kinds of sensations or knowledge perceived by the 5 external senses and Buddhi as the 6th sense. As such this Vignana is only derived from Buddhi and what would be regarded as born of Maya or matter. To confound therefore this material Vignana with the Vignana of the Upanishads as meaning the non-material Atma is highly unscientific. Passing beyond the 24th tatwa, the Hindu postulate Guna which means attribute or quality. This is the quality of the Moolaprakriti. This guna is divided into Satwa, Rajas, and Tamas and when the soul is clothed with these 3 gunas it attains its distinctive individuality. Though this guna gives him the peculiar individuality, the soul in its own nature is distinct from the 3 gunas. But the Jains would seem to hold that this individuality, apart from anything like a soul or A'tma behind it. And it is this individuality which the Jain would call an A'tma in his turn, just as the Buddhist would call the Buddhi itself an A'tma if need be. It follows therefore why the Jain could not postulate omnipresence (co-extensiveness with the universe) to his jiva, but only a limited condition, (Anuthvam and not Vyapakatvam). According to the Sankhya and the Siddhanti, the Soul (A'tma) in its own nature is a Vibhu and not an Anu* [*Ramanujas assert that the soul is only an Anu and not a Vibhu and the Vedantins that it is only a Vibhu and not an Anu.]; but it becomes limited (Anu) by its assuming the coat of the gunas. As it is, the A'tma postulated by the Jain is not exactly the same thing as the A'tma, postulated by the Sankhya or the Siddhanti, but as this guna personality persists in the Sakala condition of the soul, and undergoes various transformations as -
"Grass, herb, worm, tree, animal of sundry kind, Bird, snake, rock, man, devil, angel, titan, Of evil might, sage, godling, - These and all else in this wide universe! Have I been born, and I am weary O Lord." (Tiruvachakam).
and many more, the Jain's belief is not in actual conflict with that of the Hindu. Popular Hinduism does not carry ordinarily its idea of the highest felicity (Bliss in Moksha) further than the regions of the Gods, Indra, Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra. According to the Siddhanta these mightiest Gods Indra to Rudra are only regarded as the ordinary souls (Jivas) of the last class called Sakala. We recognize higher orders of souls called Pralayakalars and Vignanakalars who are not clothed with either the Tamas, Rajas, or Satwa guna and who are yet far from having reached the final goal from which 'there is no return,' 'there is not return.' The highest condition of felicity thought of by the Jains is also a god-hood similar to the condition of these Devas. We therefore understand why the Jains also believe in the Hindu gods as beings who have attained to A'rhatship. We thus see how the Jain's position is much greater in advance and a more positive one from the stand point of the Hindu over that of the negative postulates of the Buddhist. The coming chapters in Siddhiar will show how other schools of Indian thinkers have gone in advance of the Jain view.
It only remains for us to add that the founder of this sect Mahavira is regarded by Dr. Jacobi as a distinct historical personage who flourished at or before the time of Gautama Buddha himself.
BHATTACHARYA'S STATEMENT
1. We here set forth the doctrines as now extant in this sea girt earth, of Jamini Bhagavan as expounded by his disciple Bhattacharya, to the effect that the Vedas alone are true and there is no God and that by performing Karma heaven will be reached.
2. The souls have lust and other Gunas (attributes). If the Veda are given out by man, they cannot be accepted as true: as he is educated, he becomes intelligent and without education he will be something like a baby or a dumb man. (So it is impossible man himself could have given out the Vedas).
3. If you say that he who made the Vedas is God and He is not a man, when He attains a body He must be a man only and his measure of knowledge is as he is educated. If He gets no visible body, then he can have no (mouth to utter) and mind to think.
3. This last stanza proves that no man could have been the author of the Vedas as man derives all his knowledge from the Vedas themselves. And no God could have revealed it either, which if true, he must have a mouth and mind and senses like man to utter the Veda - in which He is reduced to the condition of man and the former objection again applies. So it is not only among those who disbelieve in the Vedas there are atheists but those within the fold also.
4. All the Devas, Sages and Siddhas and elementals, and everybody else assert that they never heard that the Vedas were revealed by anybody. This is what was been imparted from generation to generation. It could have no human author either, as it treats of future births and states.
5. In the Vedas are comprised all the six angas and the three Upa-Vedas. All knowledge is centred in it. It is eternal, having neither beginning nor end. It is ever consistent and in constant usage.
5. The six angas, are Numbers, Nirukta, Grammar, Chandas, Astronomy, and Kalpa. The three Upa-Vedas, Ayur-Veda (medicine) and Thanur-Veda (science of warfare) and Gandarva-Veda (music).
6. It contains rules and prohibitions, and the description of the true paths and the various mantras and their respective Devas, and the description of the various sacrifices are contained in the Vedas and as such they cannot be all similar. When people understand all the past, present and future, the Vedas appear in some form in all its truth.
7. Observing faultlessly the rules of dividing the words of the Veda, the rules of pronunciation, the Karma prescribed by the Veda should be performed. Then the great boon of Moksha will be secured and all bonds (Pasa) surrendered.
8. The vast universe has neither beginning nor end and is not caused by anyone and is eternal and filled with souls, inseparably united to Karma and manifests itself in the tatwas from earth etc.
9. The Soul is eternal and is omnipresent and is intelligent and is united to Buddhi and other Karanas and is pure and formless and attains bodies in accordance with its previous Karma and understands through the senses.
10. As grass and other leaves used as manure in the fields reproduce themselves, so the past Karma will attach itself to the soul in its next birth and produce frutis.
11. The daily rites performed by a man according to the law will secure happiness. He will secure all kinds of boon he desires, by peforming Agnihotra. By performing Vedic sacrifices (yagnas) he will attain liberation.
12. By means of both the Gnana-kanda and Karma-kanda, a man can liberate himself. By pursuing Gnana marga alone one giving up rituals becomes an out-caste (sinner) and the Vedas themselves do not prescribe any rule of salvation for such a person.
12. Here Gnana marga simply means the belief in the Veda as eternal and uncaused.
1. Of course by inference and by Agama pramana it is proved that the Veda was revealed by God. The Agama praman, comprise the 28 Agama revealed by Siva Himself. Lord Siva has Five faces (Panchanana); from the lower 4 faces the 4 Vedas were uttered and from the upper one the 28 Agamas.
13. The Vedas declare that performance of sacrifices by killing pasu is virtue; following this precept as true if one recites the indestructible mantras he will derive happiness as one, hungry, removes his craving by eating.
HIS REFUTATION
1. Except your words there is no authority in the Veda itself that the Veda is uncaused (Swayambhu), if there is, you had better show me. The great Mahabharata itself is an example. In the same way the Mahabharata has an example. In the same way the Mahabharata has an author and in the same way as we infer from the presence of things made of earth and cotton, that they were made by potters and weavers, so we infer that Veda was revealed by an author. And the Lord with the crescent moon is also the authority for the Word that the Vedas were revealed by Him.
2. If you say that the Veda was act revealed by God, then they will be merely noises like those heard from the sky without any meaning. And as such they will be faulty. If you say that the Veda spreads its light and makes itself known like a lamp then it must be limited in its nature. This is also what sage Kapila says. Then it must follow what he also says that they have a beginning and an end. How do you prove also that the Veda was formless at one time and became clothed in form at another time? What you have said is simply foolish.
3. You say the Vedas will appear united to a person, as you don't describe the person, even a frog is likely to utter your Veda. If you say that the Vedas do not mention a particular person as its vehicle, that it will be conveyed to a proper person who is proper and fit to receive it, it cannot be. Even when we receive clothes from distant islands we infer there must be a person who manufactured those clothes even though we have not seen them. So there must be an author for the Vedas.
4. You say the Vedas are uncaused as people of different countries speaking various languages accept the Vedas as true. So also are similar pots made in various countries. Hence there must be an author who understanding the words and their meaning reveals those words without fault. If you say the words and meanings become naturally combined as the flowers and their fragrance in a garland even then there must be a person who must choose the words, otherwise they will be merely like the unmeaning roar of the sea.
5. In the same way as we are united to our body so God dwelling in the universe as His body graciously revealed to us the Word or (Vedas) and having been revealed by the eternal uncaused Being, it has been the usage to call also the Veda as eternal and uncaused, in the same way as people regard any letter containing the command of the king as திருமுகம் ( Royal presence itself).
6. If you say that the three higher castes of Brahmans etc., speak the language of the Vedas, then explain how the astrologers who come from the 4th caste learned their science and how is it also that in the North no caste is prohibited from reciting the Vedas. To say that the Veda containing everything in itself is of the nature of sound and that it has no author is to say that persons came to being without a mother.
7. If you say that the soul is intelligent as it is united to the body, then it will be destroyed as the body is destroyed. If you say that the bodily organs themselves become united to the soul, then it has no such power. They became united by the intelligent action of a creator. Plants sprout from seeds in the rainy season and they all die out in the hot weather so the body also dies. Hence the word cannot be said to be eternal.
8. If you say that the soul is omnipresent, then it cannot pursue the paths of virtue enter heaven and be born again. Or if you say it fills the body as the fragrant smell a pot then it will follow that as the body decays the soul must also decay, but you are aware of Yogis leaving one's own body and entering another. As you have not understood the meaning of the Veda in full, your ideas are so confused.
9. As the acts performed by a man die with this body, how do you say that the past reproduce themselves. If you instance the case of manure, then you can as well say that the food eaten every day having been reduced to mere excrement, the excrement can again produce food. As the acts die with the body they cannot of themselves be united to the body in a future birth. There is a Gracious Lord who unites each to eat the fruits of his proper Karma as persons who employ labour give each man his wages according to the work turned out by him.
10. If you say that by performing sacrifices and knowing that the Veda is true you can attain final liberation, but this very performance will induce desire for wealth etc. which will in turn prevent your securing higher knowledge and thus lose all chances of final liberation. The more a man enjoys pleasure by securing wealth the more will his desire be to secure more wealth again. Similarly the desire to perform sacrifices to attain heaven will only induce the desire to perform Karma more and more.
PRAPAKARAN'S STATEMENT
1. We will state to the world wherein Prapakara differs from Bhattacharya in the exposition of the Doctrines held by that austere ascetic Jaimini Bagavan from a diligent study of the Vedas.
2. Such a thing as Apurva arises after a man has performed austere sacrifices, and it (Apurva) again produces fruits, (in the next birth) after its past Karma has been performed by the body in conjunction with the intelligent Soul. When the Soul has attained to a condition of freedom from all action and results, and remains quiet like a block of earth or stone, then it is that the soul has attained Mukti. This is his statement.
HIS REFUTATION
1. The Vedas assert that it is the past Karma that produces fruits and you now set up against the authority of the Vedas some new thing as Apurva. If the fruits are not the result of the past Karma but derived newly from Apurva, then we may assert that the flowers of the sky acquired their fragrance, after they were worn on the head.
2. The Vedas speak of Ananda in Mukti, and what you state therefore is erroneous that cessation of intelligence and action is Mukti. As well could you say that the man in a swoon is in Mukti. Fire deprived of its redness (heat) loses its identity. Your assertion that the soul can subsist in Mukti after it loses its intelligence cannot be admitted by us.
2. The Prapakara sets up a new postulate calling it Apurva to explain the Karma being undergone in one's life time, and he does not try to explain it as the effect of past Karma. Apurva means something which did not exist before. The explanation is as much no explanation at all, and naming such notion is like explaining the effects of opium by saying that it is due to its somnolent power.
SABDA BRAHMAVADI'S STATEMENT
1. It is Sabda (Sound) which is delusively understood as the Universe. The substance postulated by the ignorant, (as different from sound) is a mere myth The right understanding of this doctrine is real Mukti. So says the Sabda Brahmavadi, without a proper study of the nature of the Universe.
2. This delusive perception is caused by the differentiation and increase (Parinama of Sabda); and this results in the seen Universe. As such the only real entity is Sabda. What is called the substance (meaning) is merely the product of Sabda. If you assert otherwise, then no substance does exist without sound name.
3. In two such words 'பூ' and 'ம' meaning respectively flower and Lakshmi at one time and earth and animal at another time, the words (sound) remain the same though the meanings differ. As such it is the words (Sabda) that we lovingly utter that contains the concept meaning different things. This is similar to rice becoming fried rice.
4. It is after we utter a word, we become conscious of the substance; as such, understand that the word (sound) is the only real substance. If you say that the word and its meaning are related together conjointly, then, even when you give the meaning, it is a word.
HIS REFUTATION
1. If you say the Universe was formed by the delusive differentiation of Sabda, then you had better admit also as a substance this delusive differentiation. If believing in Sabda as a reality is itself Mukti, then you conflict in this matter with the express teaching of the Vedas which insist upon the performance of rites and the attainment of knowledge as the means of salvation.
2. As the Sabda is formless, it could not think of attaining forms when becoming the Universe. If you compare this change to the change of milk into curds, then curds could not become milk and the world could not be reduced back to sound, and your Sabda (sound) will perish.
3. When you predicate change (by Parinama and Vivarthana) of Sabda you must admit at the same time that Sabda is perishable, as the substance indicated by sound is everywhere, the words (sound) become merely the symbols of the things when we wish to know them.
3. Says a commentator : If the thing is the Parinama of sound, then which we utter the name 'fire,' fire must be produced. If the thing is Vivarthana then when we utter the name fir, our tongues must be scorched." As such the thing cannot be derived from Sabda by either mode. The word is a mere symbol or mark (குறிப்பெயர்), by which we have learnt to call the thing.
4. You said that the substance has no form except from sound and that therefore sound is the real substance. The word (sound) அரி has two meanings 'Vishnu' and 'monkey'. Then can you say that Vishnu is monkey if sound be the real substance?
5. Rice requires fire to become fried rice (so the analogy is fallcious). As a number of meanings is united in a word, the learning to know the meanings is knowledge of Sabda; and real knowledge consists in learning to know the distinct Padarthas (things). As such the knowledge of things (substance) is of greater importance than the knowledge of Sabda.
6. The name indicates the thing we have already perceived or about to perceive. As such the substance is really the thing perceived and not the name (sound). Where did you learn to say that Sabda is substance and not the thing.
7. Perecption (knowledge) of a thing is induced when the soul is in conjunction with the internal and external senses and their cause (Prakriti) and the thing perceived and the light of God. In such a perception or knowledge there is no name but only the thing or substance.
8. As a lamp lights the things lying in darkness, so Sabda is an instrument or aid for understanding the substance. The Sabda is not eternal; it will perish. This Sabda was produced by the Almighty God and as such the Sabda cannot be God.
NOTES
As thus explained and exposed, it might be thought that the system deserves very little consideration, that this represents an effete and obsolete system. But the fallacies inherent in this system are so deep-rooted that they can be detected in many a subtle reasoning today. Many of the word-juggles existing in the Vedanta philosophy can be traced to the influence of this system, such as the myth of the Nama Rupa Prapancha, as illustrated by the simile of the sea and the wave and the foam and in many another argument. The names or sounds are themselves taken for things and hence the confusion in thought. It is forgotten that a name is 'merely a mark attached to a thing to enable it to be spoken about,' and that there may be knowledge without language and things without names. Says Dr. Bain, "The knowledge that guides the lower animals is unconnected with language. They observe by their senses the things about them; and the observations are remembered in sensible forms. The brush that gives shelter the herbage for food, the animals to be preyed upon, are known and sought after, by the sole guidance of sense impressions."
"Human beings have numerous experience of the same kind involving the order of nature, without being connected with words. The child has a large stock of sense-knowledge before it can understand and employ language. The skill of the artisan consists, for the largest part, in associations between sensible appearances and movements; so the stone polisher the sight of the surface at once suggests the next blow. Even in a highly intellectual profession, as the practice of Physic, the consummation of skill requires a large sense of knowledge passing beyond the scope of language. The physician learns from books, everything that can be expressed in words; but there are delicate shades of diagnosis that no language can convey, stored up without verbal expression, in the eye, the ear and the touch." "And there are numerous sources of error, pitfalls and snares in the use of names, and mostly in the abuse of abstract names, which is exemplified in the almost irresistible tendency they have to suggest the existence of things in the abstract." The other branch of the Sabda Brahmavadis, believe in the Vedic mantra (sound) as all powerful and that no higher power like God is at all necessary to explain the existence and origin of the Universe and that Sabda is itself God. There are believers in the Veda like Jaimini and his pupils and in the efficacy of Vedic rites and ceremonies, and yet who believed in no God. Among the modern day Brahmins, many may be found who strictly adhere to the belief that the Vedic mantra alone is all powerful and Siddhis &c. can be acquired by the power of the mantra without belief in God. The phrase 'Mantric Power' embodies the fallacy of the whole system, as opposed to Divine Power. Consider the following quotation from Barth, "Sacrifice is only an act of preparation, it is the best of acts, but it is an act and its fruits consequently perishable. Accordingly although whole sections of these treatises (Upanishads are taken up exclusively with speculations on the rites, what they teach may be summed up in the words of the Mundaka Upanishad, 'Know the Atman only and away with everything else; it alone in the bridge of immortality.' The Veda itself and the whole circle of sacred science are quite as sweepingly consigned to the second place. The Veda is not the true Brahm; it is only its reflexion. And the science of this imperfect Brahm, this Sabda Brahm or Brahm in words only is a science of a lower order. The true science is that which has the true Brahm, the Para Brahm for its subject." The Rishis of Tarukavana were votaries of the Sabda Brahm and they believed that they could effect their salvation by the Vedic Mantra alone and thought, like Indra and Agni of old noticed in the Kena Upanishad that they required all their powers by their own will and independent of the Divine help, and became thoroughly filled with Egoism (Ahankara). This Ahankara had to be destroyed. Their power and sanctity had to be put to the test. Their power was so frail that their sanctity left them the moment they and their wives saw the form of Mohini and Bitchadana. Then they tried their powers to destroy these மான்மறை chiefly as the sound uttered by it is supposed to resemble the Vedic chant and the Rishis created a gigantic deer and sent it out to kill Siva. It raised such a tremendous bleat as to reach the uttermost regions and yet it affected not the Supreme; and the One took it in its hands and held it quite close to its ear. This allegory truly illustrates the principle that however loud we may shout out the name of God, we cannot reach him and know him, unless we do it in all love and in all spirit. One other remark and we close our notes. In regard to Bhattacharya's system, that the Veda is unrevealed (Swayambu) it will be interesting to note that of the present day Hindu systems, except Saivism, all the other schools hold to this doctrine and Saivism alone believes in the Veda as revealed and God as the revealer. If other schools, hold that the Veda is not revealed, it is because the Beings they believe in are not expressly mentioned in the Veda itself as the revealer or they have not ascended to the true idea of God as the revealer of all knowledge out of His Infinite Grace. In any view, it cannot be true that the Veda was self-caused. It must either have an human author or a Divine author and it can only be an euphemism to call it Swayambu.
MAYAVADI'S STATEMENT
1. We will state the system promulgated by the Mayavadi himself, who incorrectly believing that he is himself God and all the world is a whirl car, and yet dwelling in the body, professes to initiate other Jivas in his path.
1. Some uncomplimentary epithets are applied to the Mayavadi, as he mistakes the Jiva subject to karma, birth and death and suffering, who has no independence (Aswatantra) and is of imperfect intelligence with the Being, who is eternally free and intelligent, and omniscient, self-dependent (Swadavne) and self-luminous (Swamprakasa) and all powerful; and the inconsistency of his position is brought out that while he professes to be himself God he could not avoid dwelling in this body of sin and sorrow and while he professes to reject the whole world as delusive, he believes in the authority of the Vedas and the rules prescribed therein.
2. This Brahman is the cause of all the worlds, the limitless bliss and intelligence, is formless, omnipresent and eternal, is true and pure, free from all marks and attributes, and is the measure of the Vedas, and is without distinction of Gnathuru and Gnana.
3. As the one Sun shining in numerous pots of water leaves its reflection in each and yet passes beyond, so this one God lives in each body and yet is imperceptible to the senses and andakaranas. Accordingly God cannot be known by the 6 kinds of proof such as observation &c.
3. The 6 kinds of logical proof admitted by the Mayavadi are obeservations inference, Agama, Upamana, Aruthapatti and Abava.
The being above the andakaranas is God, Jiva being also above the andakaranas Jiva and God are identical. Professors of this school however quibble and differ a good deal about the precise meaning of the Jiva or Atma or Purusha or soul. One learned Swami defined it as a combination of Brahman's shadow, a bit of andakarana and a bit of Avidya! Another talented lady when we asked for a definition, and we expected more light from her, gave an answer of the type of the old school master's definition, 'refer to the dictionary' and we were told to refer to the Gita and Brihadaranyaka. We will discuss these definitions and others later on.
Will any Sanskrit Pundit tell us in which of the 108 Upanishads this illustration occurs? Whether it occurs in any of the 12 Principal Upanishads?
4. The rope appears as snake in darkness. When light dawns, the rope appears as rope and the snake disappears as a delusion. Similarly, the world appears as Sat when deluded; in spotless wisdom, the true Chit appears as Sat; and all the world's allurements will appear mad.
5. The world appears derived from the Nirvachana Brahman. If not, it cannot come into being at all. If it is an independent material cause, it must exist for ever. (The reason why it changes is) because is a delusion. When both the shell and the silver piece are thrown into the furnace the silver comes out bright but the shell is destroyed. So, in paramarthika, the changeless God appears as true and the world disappears as false.
6. The material cause of the world is the Sat. As the spider produces from itself the thread and works it into a web and then takes it back into itself, so God, originates the world as real, and sustains it and when he resolves it, it becomes unreal again. Looking to its place of origin, the world and all its appearances are also Sat.
7. The course of evolution is this. From Brahm was produced Akas, from Akas air; from air fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; and from these elements, plants, and from plants food, and from food, the body and its six component parts.
7. The 6 parts are skin, bone, blood, nerves, flesh, and semen.
8. The above mentioned six parts constitute annamayakosha; when the air vitalizes these, they constitute the pranamayakosha; with the manas, they form the manomayakosha; with buddhi and gnanendriya they constitute the vignanomayakosha; with the above and karmendriyas, they constitute the anandamayakosha.
8. Kosha means an organ or part.
9. This Brahman appears united in this visible body composed of the above mentioned Panchakoshas. The way in which he so appears is similar to the rays of the Effulgent Sun which is difficult to be reached in the sky becoming reflected in several pots of water. Yet God does not become tainted by such contact, as Pasa cannot bind God.
9. If so, we have asked, to whom is Bhanda, birth and death, sin and sorrow to whom is moksha? Do all these happen to the Atma or to the body? If to the body, and the soul does not suffer, why care we to attain freedom from death and birth? What reek we if the body suffers all this? Are we really seeking moksha for the flesh and not for the soul? Are all these things delusions merely? If so will not the attempt to free one from delusion be itself a delusion? And then why should it not remain in eternal delusion? Are there any defects attached to remaining in this state of delusion and what are they? These question and more have been asked again and again, and except the honest reply that they are nor answerable, no reply has ever been forthcoming. And yet the tide rolls on forever and how many get plunged under its blinding waves?
10. As the same thread strung through countless beads of different colours appears also as parti-coloured, so the one God dwelling in different bodies appears as different beings and appears as undergoing different kinds of enjoyments without in fact undergoing such.
10. To whom does he appear as different and as undergoing different experiences. To himself or to others? If to others, who are they
11. The one Brahman is known by different names by its union in different bodies and appears to undergo enjoyments of pleasure and pain. It undergoes in the body the four avasthas, Jagra, Swapna, Sushupti and Thuriya. In Jagra it is in conjunction with the organs; in Swapna with four; in Sushupti one; and in Thuriya all these organs, and the resulting enjoyments vanish.
11. The five external senses, eye, ear &c., and the five sensations sabda &c., and the four andakaranas are the fourteen organs active in Jagra; the four active in Swapna are the four andakaranas; and the one in Sushupti is chitta.
12. To identify all the bodily organs as the self is Bhanda; when this false knowledge is destroyed, mukti is attained. The seed of Bhanda is in avidya; and by its acts, maya and its products attach to the Brahman. When avidya is destroyed, maya also vanishes, when this happens, (gnana) is secured, and Butha knowledge disappears.
13. By practice of Karmic rites andakaranas get purified. This purification will induce Gnana (wisdom). This Gnana will induce the knowledge of 'Aham Brahmasmi' 'I am God.' When this 'Ahambrahma' knowledge attains perfection, the self can be perceived in maya as the Moon's reflection is seen in still water.
13. Who attains Gnana, Brahman or something else? Is this attainment real or false? Why should this be possible by the purification of bodily senses? Cannot the Brahman see his form except in Maya and before he attains Mukti?
14. Brahmagnana is knowledge that the Ego is Brahman. And when the self becomes self, and enjoys the self in the self, and when such things as body, senses, prana, lose their form and name, when the great elements are destroyed and the self remains unchangeable, this knowledge is possible.
15. When we understand the Mahavakyas such as 'Tatva masi' &c., enshrined in the Vedas, they teach us no more truth that that thou art God. Those who do not attain this knowledge perform worship on the five Asanas (postures) and eight kinds of yoga, for the purpose of attaining this soham knowledge.
15. The five asanas are Kurmasana, Anantasana, Sihmasana, Padmasana, and Yogasana. Eight minds of Yoga are Iyama, Nyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyakara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
MAYAVADI'S REFUTATION
1. The confusing statement of the Mayavadi that he is god and that jivas should attain Mukti by attaining Ahambrahma gnanam does not explain the true meaning of Soham Bavana and Mokshananda. His statment is like that of one who says that the barren crow picked a piece of rock flesh, and with it fed its young ones, to satisfy their hunger and thirst.
2. If it is true that the Veda states that there is only One, (without a second Padartha), then as the same Veda states that there are gnathuru, gnana and gneya the statement that there is only one becomes refuted. Besides the statements being contradictory, the value of the Vedic authority will suffer (or that statement of Ahambrahmagnanam is inconsistent with the Vedic doctrine of 'Tatvamasi'). As you do not postulate an intelligence as the soul, separate from God, Anubhuti (enjoyment) in Bliss is rendered impossible.
2. Gnathuru or the knower is the soul. Gnana is the chit sakti of God whereby the soul knows. Gneya, the known is God. Anubhuti implies both perception, knowledge and enjoyment. Unless difference lies at the root, such perception or knowledge is not possible.
3. Your postulate of the only one Existence cannot be true, as, following the analogy of one Sun shining in many pots of water, the one (God) is formless (unextended) and it cannot unite with a body with form (extended) and cannot produce reflexion (extended form); and no reflexion is also possible, as there is no second thing in which the reflexion can be formed; and as it also follows that someone else is required to see the reflexion of the Sun (God) formed in the water (body).
3. Other objections are taken as follow. How can the limitless and formless and eternal Being originate in a finite and changeable and extended body? The sun is limited and extended, its reflection is further limited and extended, and the pot of water is also limited and extended. What is reflected is not the sun but one only of its countless rays. There is as such division of the one God involved. And no one mistakes the reflexion itself for the sun.
4. The being dwelling in the body does not understand except in conjunction with the different senses external and internal, shastras also support such view; and yet you assert like the man who asserts the existence of hare's horns, that the One Brahman in union with the body knows by itself. And then the Brahma Gnana said to be attained by your One Being cannot be of much real import. Difference does exist between the Supreme spirit and the human spirit.
4. In this verse, a fact is appealed to as proof, besides authority. The fact is that human intelligence is found to be possible in manifestation only when in conjunction with the bodily organs. Between the human mind and the body there is an exact correspondence, correlation and connection and the one rises or falls with the development or decay of the bodily organs. If this being is a vibhu, the bodily powers tend to limit this intelligence and it becomes an anu (அனு). This fact is either real or not. If real, it requires an explanation. Which is the being which is so limited by the body or which grows or decays with the growth or decay of the body itself? Which is it therefore which is in Bhanda? We point to a being which is in Bhanda; and which is this Being? It cannot be God or Brahman, as the very idea of God is opposed to all sense of limitation, growth and decay. What else is it that is in Bhanda? The Siddhanta view that it cannot be God and that it is the soul different from God that is actually in Bhanda becomes irresistible. If the soul is not postulated, the Bhanda will and must surely be ascribed to Brahman. If the idea of Bhanda is itself declared unreal, then the idea of seeking liberation from it, the usefulness of Tapas, Sadana, Sadushtaya and Yoga and Gnana the idea of moksha are also delusions and we will be landed in a practical absurdity, and moral suicide. We need not quote more than verses 36 to 38 in Gita chap. 3, to strengthen the position that man is really dragged into the mire and made to commit, as it were by will constrained (Sankara explains as a servant by the king) and Avidya and Maya becomes the Kind as the Jiva becomes the servant. (See the whole note in pp.24 to 32 in my edition of Light of Grace). What can it else be but blasphemy to call 'this' that a smoke-enveloped and rust-covered and sin-subjugated, as the one Supreme Light which is 'Svampara Prakasa,' 'Svadavhne,' and 'Sva Yasase,' 'Siva, Svahan' and 'Sva Yasya'?
The brilliance in the ruby is only a separable accident. In darkness it has no brilliance. The brilliance is really derived from external light. As God is nirguna, His relation to the soul or world as guni and gana cannot be postulated. The Mayavadis would deny to God, Will, Intelligence and Power, his authorship of the world and would interpose a lower brahman, who possesses these attributes; and South Indians who belong to this school regard this lower brahman as asat or no Brahman at all, whereas those in the north of Swami Vivekananda school (the editor of the Light of the East asks why should we distinguish between Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra because all these are only asat) fully identify the two, saying the distinction is without difference. Some in the South again would deny that this one is Satchidananda, while those in the north admit it to be such. Under any system of theistic philosophy Indian or foreign, the only proof we have of God is because we require an intelligent and an all powerful Being who is the author of the origination, sustentation and resolution of this world and possesses neither gnana and kriya, the position of the Lokayitha is only thereby strengthened and we cannot prove the existence of such a god. We have elsewhere states our reasons why the brahman referred to in the second of the Brahma Sutras, cannot be regarded as the lower one in addition to the reasons pointed out by Dr. Thibaut.
5. If you compare the oneness to the unity of the ruby and its brilliance, you only destroy the oneness. Besides, the ruby and its light are related as guni and guna. If you deny even the attribute of Ghaha, Gnana and Kriya to the One, then the One cannot create this world and It cannot be intelligent.
6. You state that the world is produced from sat as when the straw sticking out of an ant-hill is fancied with great fear to be snake. If so, the person, becoming so deluded must also be the Vikara or modification of your Brahman. Such doctrine will only induce deluded knowledge and you will never attain Divine Bliss.
6. The fallacy in this simile is in omitting the seer in the Prameya to whom God appears falsely as the world. There being merely God it is unintelligible how any betha knowledge will arise at first unless the one himself became a Vikari modified by delusion. When He clothes himself in delusion the world would result, when he did not choose, the world will not result. As such, maya becomes a real Bhanda of Brahman? Fancy how it looks that this Brahman should forget himself and mistake himself for what he is not. In our human experience and in the illustration of rope and snake, it always happens that when such illusions are caused, the very thing involves the existence of two real things and of these two one is mistaken for the other. Both snake and rope are real things. Both of them we know independently. We mistake the rope for the snake. Why? Because our eyesight is dimmed by darkness or weakened by some nervous condition of the system. With perfect vision and in light, we will never make the mistake. The real cause of the mistake is thus traced to an imperfect intelligent mind and does not exist in the rope or snake itself. So the question resolves itself into this. Why is the human mind imperfect? If it was ever perfect, why did it become so? This question is fully discussed in the article 'Another Side printe in No.3 of Vol. I of this journal and need not therefore be discussed by me at length here.
That the simile involves a real difference of padarthas combined with a mistaken similarity is well pointed out by Sri la Sri S. Somasundara Nayagar in his numerous works. The two things will not be mistaken for each other if there were no points of similarity between the two. The snake will only be perceived in a rope twisted as a snake is. It will not be perceived in a piece of rock or clay, or shell or silver or any other dissimilar thing. The snake perceived will be of the same dimensions as the original rope. Are all these circumstances present in the Prameya. God is Sat, Intelligent and Ananda. The world is asat, unintelligent and sorrow producing. Is there any point of contact between the two?
7. How do you make out that the world is Nirvachana? Can any fool talk of a thing which is existing and not existing at the same time? If it has an origin, then it must have an existence. If it does not exist, it will never come into being. When we, however, ordinarily speak of its non-existence, we simply refer to its resolution into its invisible primordial cause.
8. If you say that God and the world bear some resemblance to each other though different like the shell and silver, then we may mistake the world also to be God or an illusion. If you say that Maya was only real when we mistook it for God but became unreal when we saw otherwise, this cannot be. The world in spite of its changes remains unchangeable. Earth cannot become air or fir or vice versa. So the world is real both in Vyavakara and Paramartha.
8. The argument contained in this verse is more pithily expressed in the following couplet.
"இருபொருளுமுண்டேல் எழும்விபரீதம்
ஒருபொருளிற் றேன்றாதென்றேர்."
"If both things exist, then will arise illusions;
Not, when one alone exists."
For an illusion to be called an illusion, there must be a reality underneath the illusion. When all are illusions, the dividing line between an illusion and a reality is destroyed, and the illusion itself becomes a reality. So it is that the Mayavadi is able to perform the remarkable somersaoult, that while he loses no moment, no opportunity to call everything but his Egosim - we beg pardon - his Ego to be false, he is as much rooted to the things of this earth as anybody else.
9. If you state that the false world arises out of Brahm as the threads which came out of the spider, then it must follow that (the changeless and formless) Intelligence becomes changed and formed into the visible world and corrupted and deluded. If you reply that the spider is not caught in the toils of its own web; but, (then the change would otherwise be impossible), as no cloth can come out of mud.
9. These two quoted by Gnanapragasar contain the same arguments in simpler language.
"சிலம்பி நூல்போலச் சகம்பரத் திற்றேன்றின்.
மலம் பரத்துண் டேமதி."
"If as web from spider, from God the world appear,
Sin is present in God, it is clear.
இன்றேற் சடமண்ணிறுவாய்ப் பரத்தெழா
இல்றே படமண்ணிலே;
"If not, the achit world will not from God arise
As cloth from mud you can't in any way surprise.
Of course, some belonging to this school, possessed of a 'sharp intellect and bold understanding do not pause to assert the identity of God and Maya, but we need not be forced into such absurdity if we understand the simile aright. The Mayavadi understands the spider to produce the web which did not exist before or to produce from the same substance as itself. If, however, we distinguish the spider into its life principle, the being with intelligence, volition, judgment &c., and its body, from the shapeless secretions of which the beautiful web is designed, no better simile can be thought out for describing God's creation of the world. The world and creatures stand to God as the body to the soul. From out of His body, from out of the shapeless Maya, He wills that these worlds should arise. The intelligence and design apparent in creation is all his own and can no more be due to Maya, than the beauty and design and judgment displayed in the web can that of the web itself. The material fo the web was neither non-existent before nor after. And it cannot be said to be of the same nature as the spider's life principle. So all this material cause of this world was neither non-existent before nor after and cannot be of the same nature as God's . But as in popular language we always identify the soul and body together, our poets and philosophers always sing of the identity of the worlds and God; though they at the same time take care to assert their difference. Even the insignificant spider has a purpose in making its web; but by denying the existence of the separate souls, Mayavadi's would deny to God that He has any purpose in creating and resolving these worlds. c.f. Sweta Upanishad vi 10. "May the One God who, spider-like, enwind's Himself with threads spun from Pradhana, following His nature's law, may He bestow on us regression into Brahm."
10. You say that God manifests Himself in different bodies. If God, is so present, then why does He not manifest Himself when the body undergoes various avasthas, such as Swapna, Sushupti, &c., (or in dead bodies). If you explain, that it is so, as manas and other karanas are not active, then, it must be, that either God became non-intelligent at times, or with all His presence, the senses became dead.
10. The Purvapakshi cites as an example the presence of Akas in different pots. To this, the following objections are taken. Why does Brahman leave the dead body? Even when Brahman is present, why do the senses become active and inactive? If the same Being is present in all bodies, why do you hate some people and love others? Why is one of different thinking from another? Why is one an athiest, and another a theist? Why does one undergo misery, when another undergoes pleasure? Is the person suffering in hell, the same as one entering Moksha? Are the King punishing, the felon punished, and their respective capacities the same?
11. You assert that Brahman is present in these bodies, without any attachment. Yet this Brahman, would not leave the body even when it becomes sinful and deceased by old age &c., and shudders at the very thought of such leaving! Though you are fully aware that your Brahman, soul is attached, it is your vain hope that it be not so.
12. You spoke of the beautiful beads strung on one string, and of these beads being different and yet resting on the same string. You are no doubt correct in comparing the different worlds to the beads and the one unchangeable God to the string. So the worlds change but God remains unchangeable; but that does away with your doctrine of Abetha.
12. The Siddhanta accepts the simile, and no wonder, because the simile occurs in the Gita a non-mayavada work. "There is naught whatever higher than I, O Dhananjaya. All this is woven in me, as multitudes of jewels on a string." (viii. 7)
13. Hear O, madman, who say that God is covered by aviddei and maya in union with the body and undergoes pleasures and pains, and yet at the same time assert that He has no attachment. This only appears from your statement that the doctrine of non-attachment cannot be true. If not, why do you undergo pleasure and pains from attachment in actual life. If you say that this is only a bavana of the Jiva, then you must have really no shame to say that the Brahman has no attachment and that the Supreme is past thought and speech and that this Supreme Being is yourself.
14. If the A'tma fills each and everybody entirely then it cannot undergo the avastas, and become inactive. If you say that it is not the A'tma but the andakaranas that undergo the avastas, then where did your God who was present in the body hide himself? If God was present, the Karanas could not become inactive. If you compare God's action on the andakaranas to that of the magnet on a piece of iron, then the same analogy does not explain how the andakaranas become inactive.
15. If we can see today a sun veiled by darkness, then may a Brahman exist veiled by ignorance mistaking its body and senses for itself. The statement that the soul having its ignorant covering, attains knowledge by clearly perceiving itself to be God, and enters moksha, where the soul becomes itself the only Sat, can only be ridiculous as it involves the proposition that the amala (Pure) God can, at the same time, be impure, to necessitate its removal.
16. Purity cannot become an accident of the Supreme Praram. It is an eternal attribute of Him. You ascribe impurity to the chit (soul) derived from Brahman, and in consequence, you impute impurity to its cause, Brahman also. You do not understand the nature of the soul and mala and karma and maya and their First Cause, the Supreme God. If you instance the analogy of fire latent before and now manifest in wood, this only applies to the case of body and soul, and implies duality.
17. When you speak of the self enjoying in the self, duality is clearly involved. If you say that you do not perceive yourself on the enjoyer, then the person enjoying himself is gone. If you say that Moksha is merely removal of ignorance, even then there will be sentience present. If you deny this sentience and say that conscious sentience is only Maya then your Brahman itself can only be all Maya and be therefore destructible.
18. Understand well the meaning of the Vedic Text 'Tatvamasi' (Thou art that). Knowing well the distinction between yourself and the Supreme Cause, practice Soham bavana. To approach the Feet of the Lord difficult to be thought of by the Gods, practice the beautiful Sadanas and attain Yoga and Gnana.
PARINAMA VADAM
1. Though agreeing with the Mayavadi in regarding the Veda as Swayambu yet he differs from him in regard to the end of the Veda, and postulates both betham and abetham of Brahm. This philosophy we will expound herein.
2. It is Chit that evolves by Parinama into this world and Jivas, so Sat (Brahm) is all. The Vedas declare the means whereby the bliss of Moksha can be secured. If these means are followed, the Jiva will lose his separateness and become One with Brahm. So the Parinamavadi states.
HIS REFUTATION
1. Brahm cannot become this world, as the same entity cannot become matter and yet be separate from matter. If you instance the salt present in union with sea-water, even then, the nature of salt is quite distinct from the water and the subject cannot divide itself into subject and object. Why do you confuse yourself whose intelligence is so ponderable!
2. If you assert that this world forms only a fractional part of God, then this part becomes destroyed in time, and is reproduced from maya. If you say that it resolves into Brahman itself, then this portion of Brahman becomes mere insentient matter only, by reason of this origination and dissolution. And as you yourself evolve with this world, your intelligence aspiring to soham cannot itself be real and cannot but be insentient matter.
2. The seed and the tree, gold and ornaments, sea, and salt produced from sea are the familiar analogies of this school.
3. You instanced the seed as the Brahm and the true as the world. Then your describing God as Eternal and unchangeable cannot be true and your Brahm will change into insentient matter and die out again as such. Besides, when the seed develops into the tree it has the support of the earth (for nourishment etc) but whence does your Brahman derive support.
O you, who have become Brahman, you will be ridiculed by the world as mad.
4. If you say that as from gold is produced all kinds of ornaments, so all the world is God, then it must follow that there must be a person who created this world and persons for whom this world was created, as we infer from your analogy, persons who made the gold ornaments and persons who wear them.
5. The Jiva cannot reach the Heaven of Moksha, if its intelligence and volition die out. Yet you say, he can reach Brahman by losing his intelligence and volition. If this individual intelligence &c. die out, then there is nothing to unite with God. If without such annihilation, you can reach bliss, then why don't you enjoy it in this body, but instead, try to rid yourself of it and subject yourself to all sorts of mortification.
5. Mula or Root is here identified by our commentators with Chitta or Intellect, in which case what Mr. Davies says cannot be correct. He says, "The mental physiology of Kapila is imperfect. The 'intellect' (buddhi) merely represents sensational ideas in a complete form to the gaze of the soul and the soul never acts. It does not appear therefore how abstract ideas are formed or by what means a course of reasoning can be carried on. The Vedantists add a fourth faculty called Chitta, the thinking or reasoning faculty." We are not sure also if he is correct in translating buddhi as intellect and chitta as reason. See pp.48 and 49 Sivagnanabotham for our definiton of these terms Puriashtaka comprise Manas, Buddhi and Ahankara and the five tanmatra, sound, sight, touch, smell and taste. Vikriti are the gross elements and senses, ----- namely, five elemetns, five organs of sense, the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue and the skin; the five organs of action (Karmendriya) the voice, hand, the feet, the anus and the organs of generation. The Sankhya Karika gives a slightly different classification. Prakriti (mula) is not produced. Prakriti in this sense is the Tamil word Pakuthi (பகுதி). That which is produced is Vikriti, same as Tamil (Vikuthi) (விகுதி). Mahat or Buddhi, and Ahankara and the 5 tanmatras are both Pakuthi, (பகுதி) as they are producing and Vikuthi (விகுதி) as they are produced from Mula Prakriti. The rest 16 are Vikuthi (விகுதி) only (including the 5 elements and 5 senses and 5 organs of action and manas). The five tanmatras are produced from Ahankara. So the number of tatwas (Prakriri) is variously given as 24 or 19, when we include the 5 tanmatras or omit them in the enumeration. Including Purusha, the total number is 25. The Siddhanta classification, as will be seen from the table printed in No. 11, Vol. I of this Magazine, accepts these 25 tatwas and postulates 11 more, c.f. Vayusamhita, Purva 25, Ch. 15.
"Sankhya yoga prasiddhani tatvanyapi kanichit
Siva sastra prasiddhani tatonyaniyapi critnasah."
Prakriti is called Mula as it is the root of all the 24 tatwas, and as it is the first cause and is causeless it is called Param. The Puriashtaka form the Sukshuma Sarira. The gross body, Stula Sarira is formed of Manas, Buddhi, and Ahankara, 5 tanmatras, 5 senses, and 5 organs of action. Mula Prakriti or Pradhana is called Vyakta or manifest. The manifested or seen is Sat, and the manifested is Asat (unseen). The soul or Purusha or Buman is unmanifested or Avyata. Asat is explained as அப்பிரகசமாய் நிற்றல் or விளங்காமல் நிற்றல் or முனைத்திடாமை by Saint Meikandan and Saint Arul Nandi and that this is the original and true meaning and not unreal or non-existent or illusory will be apparent from the learned note on 'Sat and Asat' from Mr. J. A. Davics M.A., which we take the liberty to extract today. We stated elsewhere how this misreading and misunderstanding and incorrect translation have been the parent of so much confusion and tortuous reasoning. The phrase 'Sat and Asat' and 'neither Sat nor Asat' occurs very frequently and always in conjunction as a phrase in the Gita, Mahabharata and Upanishads and Vedas; and when it is said of God or Soul that it is 'neither Sat nor Asat' the meaning is intelligible enough if the phrase (Sat and Asat) means only Prakriti (both unmanifest and manifest), but it is quite unmeaning if God is spoken of as neither existing nor non-existing, neither real nor unreal. The mistake consists in reading into these primitive words mistaken notions developed in quite medieval times. The original meaning is still preserved in popular language when a man states what he saw with his own eyes and saw with his own ears, that is Sat and Satyam (truth) and the rest is not Satyam. A hearsay evidence might be as much of a truth by itself as direct testimony, and yet the latter is alone truth, though a witness giving hearsay evidence is not a liar. The word Sat originally meaning seen and latterly meaning truth, and from truth to permanency, and the only thing permanent, thus it came to be applied to Soul, and God and as distinguished from them, Prakriti was called Asat, and when the word Sat has been more often confined to God, the word Satasat has been brought into use to mean Soul or Purusha. The same changes can be traced in other words also, as in the word Atma, which beginning to mean mere life, living things, animals, living body, manas, soul and going up to God has been latterly confined to mean Soul and God, and necessity arising to distinguish between these two 'Atmas, the words Paramatma and Atma have come into use. In the Tamil language these last meanings have become fixed. Atma meaning only Soul or Purusha and not God; and Paramatma meaning God, though owing to the recent Sanskrit revival, some thoughtless writers of Tamil are again trying to confuse these words vide - Chudamani Niganta.
NOTE ON THE MEANING OF SAT AND ASAT
There is a general misunderstanding of these terms as used in the philosophy of the Hindus, especially in the system of Kapila, Sat is supposed to mean existence and Asat is therefore represented as its logical opposite or rather contracictory, the negation of being, or non-existence. Thus Dr. Mule writes: 'These ideas of entity and non-entity seem to have been familiar to the Vedic poets and we find it thus declared (R. V. X. 72, 2, 3), that in the beginning non-entity was the source of entity. 'In the earlier age of the gods entity sprang from non-entity in the first age of the gods entity sprang from non-entity (asat).' In the Atharva Veda (X.7.10) it is said that 'both non-entity and entity exist within, the god Skambha;' and in V.25 of the same hymn, 'powerful indeed are those gods who sprang from non-entity. Men say that that non-entity is once the highest member of Skambha.' The Taittiriya Upanishad also (p.99), quotes a verse to the effect: 'This was at first non-entity. From that sprang entity (Sat0." And in a note he adds" "This phrase is also applied to Agni in R.V. X.5.7, where it is said that that god, being 'a thing both Asat, non-existent (i.e., unmanifested), and Sat, existent (i.e., in a latent state or in essence), in the highest heaven, in the creation of Daksha, and in the womb of Aditi, became in a former age the first boon of our ceremonial, and is both a bull and a cow." (Progress of the Vedic Religion, Journal A. S, 1865, p. 317). So also Professor Max Muller writes: "Some of the ancient sages, after having arrived at the idea of Avyakrita, undeveloped, went even beyond, and insted of the Sat or To on, they postulated as Asat, To my on as the beginning of all things. Thus we read in the Chhandogya Upanishad "And some say in the beginning there was Asat (not being) alone, without a second; and from this Asat might the Sat be born" (Sans. Literature, P. 324). There is occasionally some confusion in the minds of Hindu writers, especially the later ones, about the meaning of Sat and Asat; but, with Kapila and his exponents, Sat denotes the existence of things in the manifold forms of the external world, the Daseyn of Hegel, the Natura naturate of Spinoza, and Asat is the opposite of this or the formless Prakriti, the mind-matter from which all formal existence has sprung. Sat corresponds in each separate form to the "being-this" of Hegel, and Kapila argues, as the German philosopher, that "by virtue of its predicate of merely being this, every something, is a finite." and therefore it is an effect, because otherwise we could only conceive it as absolute being, and therefore unlimited. Soul was something different from both. So in the Satapatha Brahmana (X, 5, 3, 1) it is said, "in the beginning this universe was, as it were, and was not, as it were. Then it was only that mind. Wherefore it has been declared by the rishi, 'There was then neither non-entity (asat) nor entity (sat); for mind was, as it were, neither entity nor non-entity." The meaning is that mind is neither the primal matter (Prakriti), (which Kapila assumed to be the source of all formal existence), nor the sum of existing things. The Vedantists taught that this primal matter was the Sakti, or productive energy of Brahma. So says Sankara Acharya 'We (Vedanthists) consider that this primordial state of the world is dependent upon the Supreme Deity, (Parameswara) and not self-dependent. And this state to which we refer much of necessity be assumed, as it is essential for without it the creative action of Supreme Deity could not be accomplished, since if be were destitute of his Sakti, any activity on his part would be inconceivable." (Comm.) on the Brahma Sutras, Muir's Sans. Texts IV. 164). The full development of the Vedantist's doctrine made the external world to be only maya, illusion. There is nearly neither Sat nor Asat, but the Supreme Spirit is absolutely the All. Nature is only the projection of the One, or, as Hegel thought, for he was essentially a Vedantist. "The idea in its externality, in having fallen from itself into a without in time and space," but this is only a manifestation of the absolute. "The Absolute, the being-thinking (the ultimate synthesis of existence and thought, of object and subject), passes through the three periods, and manifests itself as idea in, and for itself (thinking); secondly, in the being otherwise, or in objectiveness and externality (nature) thirdly, as the idea which from its externality, has returned itself, (mind)." (Chalybaus, Hist of Spec. Phil. Eng. ed. P. 362). As Mr. Morrell has expounded his views and correctly, I may add, "With him God is not a person, but personality itself, i.e., the universal personality which realises itself in every human consciousness, as so many separate thoughts of one eternal mind... God is with him, the whole process of thought, combining in itself the objective movement as seen in Nature with the subjective as seen in logic, and fully realising itself only in the universal, spirit of humanity." (Mod Phil. II. 189). Pure Vedantism? though Hegel, if he were alive, would protest, against such a statement. But Kapila, was not a Vedantist. With him, the aggregate, of existing things, and each separate existence (Sat), and the formless Prakriti from which they issued (Asat), were objectively real and eternally distinct from Soul, though both Soul and Prakriti are eternal, and uncaused. Dr. Muir, however, refers to the commentators, on the Rig-Veda, who explain Asat as meaning, "an undeveloped state" and adds that if we accept this statement, there will be no contradiction Asat does not mean simply an undeveloped state but the state of pure or formless existence, of the primal substance from which all forms have sprung. It is clear, however, that if Asat means, an undeveloped state then Sat must mean, not the essence of anything, but a developed state, the development of the existing world as Kapila uses it. The writer of the Vedic hymn (R. V. X. 57) meant to say that Agni was Asat, but, became Sat in the birth. (Janman), of Daksha and in the womb of Aditi. It is clear also that Kapila, in this part of his system, incorporated, an older theory, in which Asat denoted, at least the undeveloped state from which existing things have been developed. Sat was the whole of existent things. In Rig-Veda I 96, 7, Agni is called Sat as gopa, the guardian of that which has a present being. There is also the germ of another part of his system in a hymn of this Veda. (X. 129). "There was then neither Asat nor Sat." There was only the one Supreme Spirit dwelling on self-existence. "Desire, then, in the beginning, (agree) arose in It, which was the earliest germ of mind, and wise men there behold in their heart, not being ignorant, that this is the bond between Asat and Sat." In the system of Kapila, it is an unconscious impulse on the art of Prakriti, or instinctive desire to set the soul free from matter which causes the emanation of Prakriti into the manifold forms of developed life (Sat). This latter was, in Kapila's view, an effect, because developed, and implying therefore a developing cause.
HIS REFUTATION
1. If the Purusha's intelligence is pure, Prakriti cannot envelope it. As such, even after Moksha, he will become covered again. As we cannot get rid of the evil effects of Prakriti by perceiving them to be evil with the aid of the Supreme Intelligence (Parasakti or Divine Arul); he can never attain Moksha. To the Pure Being (God) there is no veiling by Mulaprakriti.
2. When the Purusha is united to Prakriti, the Purusha's intelligence becomes cleared up a little and with this it guides the dark Prakriti and eats the fruits therefof, as does the lame man seated on the back of the blind man guides the latter, so the Purusha is not the Lord (God). He who unites both and actuates their intelligence and activity is no other than teh Ninmala (Hara).
3. The Purusha is not self-luminous. Prakriti is insentient. Know that there is a First Cause who evolves these two. If mukti is attained by knowledge (that you are not prakriti) no, you cannot get it by such knowledge. For removing the bondage, the help of the person who brought about the union is required. This bondage will be removed by the Grace of God. By following the fourfold path of Sariya, &c. secure the Grace of the Ninmala God, and remove your physical bondage.
PANCHARATRI'S STATEMENT
Note:- [It may be distinctly understood that we do not want to open any sectarian controversy on the subject matter of this chapter. We would fain have omitted it altogether but it would spoil the completeness of the work under translation. This chapter closes the Parapaksha, and God willing, we would enter on the colossal work, composing the Supaksham of Siddhiar.]
1. Mayan (Vishnu) who is the Beginning, the Formless, the Indivisible, the omnipresent and the Wisdom-Light, took a form of his own free will, and from out of his just grace, slept in the midst of the vast ocean and gave out the Pancharatra Agamas; so begins the Pancharatri his statement.
2. Producing Brahma from his navel and creating the worlds through him, and creating Hara to destroy these worlds and becoming Himself the Protector for such worlds, He is thus the author of creation, destruction and protection.
3. The Pancharatri states further that his Lord out of His great mercy has incarnated in this world as the Fish, the Tortoise, the Boar, the Man-Lion, and the Vamana, Parasurama, Rama and Balarama and Krishna and will incarnate still as Kalki and He is the God of Gods also.
4. Our Lord had borne the seven seas in his gill, (as the Fish) and the great mountain on his back (as the Tortoise) and discovered the earth which became submerged, (as the Boar), and split the body of Hiranya (as the Lion), and measured the three worlds (as Vamana) and became the king of kings (as the three Ramas) and had thus protected the earth by destroying the wiles of the Asuras. He will even become the Horse in future.
5. When that elephant was caught between the tooth of the crocodile and was unable to get home and cried out 'O my father, my Lord, O the first cause,' who else but our Lord whom we worship for our salvation, ran with rapid strides to his help and killed the fierce crocodile and gave Moksha to the elephant.
6. Our Lord of Illusive Powers churned the ocean and distributed the ambrosia to the Devas, destroyed the evil doing Asuras and protected the worlds, and gave out the true meaning of all the Shastras to his Bhaktas out of His grace, and thus became Supreme.
7. Our Mayan, is himself, the Maya, himself the Jiva, himself the product of Maya, himself the Maya that binds the mortals, and this Maya bandham cannot vanish except by his aid. Full of this conviction, if a man worships Mayan, his Maya will vanish and he will be taken into the Vaiguntam, by Mayan.
HIS REFUTATION
1. If he was the Beginning, this beginning will have an end. So the Vedas say he has neither beginning nor end. If he is Light and Wisdom, then he cannot unite with Maya (darkness). If his body is formed of indestructible Intelligence, then it cannot be formed of the Subda-Datu.
2. That he possessed the elements of the human body (such as flesh, blood, &c) is evidenced from the episode of Sankara going and begging for sacrificial food. When Vishnu opened out his head, was it not his blood that flowed out and from loss of which he fainted and fell down. Our Lord raised him from his fit and he who slept on the waters walked behind Him.
3. If Hari can assume form of his mere will, then why did he not make good his own head, on that day when he went to eat at the great sacrifice and lost his head by the fearful act of Virabhadra. At the entreaty of his devotees our Lord gave back Narayana his head.
4. You said that Mal (Vishnu) gave out the Vedas and explained their meaning. Who but our Lord, taught the great truths from under the Banyan tree, when the whole world lay confused through ignorance of the Vedas. He it was who is the real author of the Vedas.
5. You said that Hari begot Ayab (Brahma). He was not able to create the (fifth) head of Brahma nipped off by Rudra. And is it not therefore false to assert that this Brahma begot Rudra. Understand therefore without mistake that all are Siva's acts.
6. You assert that he is God and incarnated of his own will to protect the world, him who was born like ordinary mortals from the wombs of a few individuals! The Lotus-born Brahma unable to create, prayed to Hara, and the Lord of the Vedas burst forth from Brahma's forehead and taught him the act of creation.
7. As Narayana begot Brahma and Brahma created Narayana, so each is the cause of the other. The first cause of both is the Lord who cleaved the body of the elephant-Asura, is asserted by the Veda. As such indeed, Vishnu and Brahma became merged on either side of Hara.
8. You said that the world is destroyed by the FIAT of Hari. But he cannot stay his own destruction which comes at the end of time; and the Relics of Vishnu's frequent deaths, are worn by Rudra. So too is destroyed the assertion that by the fiat of Hari everything is destroyed. The Destroying Siva, it is He, who also creates and develops the world.
9. You stated that Mayan protected the three worlds. He, to cleave the body of Salandara of whom he was afraid, prayed to our Lord for the Discus, and on obtaining it he killed the Asuras and protected the world and this episode is well-known everywhere. As such Sankara it is, that protects.
10. When Mal assuming the form of a fish carried the seven seas in its grill and threatened the whole world with destruction, presuming that he was the Lord of Samharam, the Lord of the trident speared the fish and severing the gill and eyes, put them on the trident as an ornament.
11. When Vishnu assuming the form of the tortoise bore the mountain Meru as a supporting piece of Rock he became puffed with pride and asserted that he was the support of the whole world. And the devas kept silent without supporting or repudiating his claim. And Hara, looking on, broke the tortoise open and put on the shell as an ornament.
12. As the Boar, he cleaved through the seven worlds and bore them on his tusk, and put himself forward as the only Adorable Light of the world. Then did the Lord who delights to dance in the Burial ground, tear out the boar's tusk, felling him down crying.
13. When Hiranya asked if Vishnu was in that pillar and struck it with his foot, Vishnu appeared as the man-lion and catching him cleaved his body and assumed the God. Then did Hara appear as the Saraba Bird and subdue the man-lion.
14. Begging for alms, and obtaining the three foot of earth, and taking the Heavens also, he took a mean advantage and imprisoned the giver Maha Bali. Such as he, cannot be the Lord. They are not the best of men who injure their benefactor.
15. You would make him as the Lord of Maya, him who not knowing the illusive deer as a deceitful creature, was caught in the toils of the Rakshasa and thus lost his wife. Becoming bewildered (from the loss of his wife), he went and killed the Rakshasa and to purge himself of the sin of killing, worhipped the divine Father (at Rameshwaram).
16. Parasu Rama, a devotee of Parameshwara, conquered all the race of kings, and for freedom from the consequent sins, he again performed austere penance and worshipped Parameshwara. Bala Rama again stood in Yogic contemplation by meditating on Uma's Lord adored by the whole world.
17. When Maharishi Upamanyu bestowed his gracious look, on Vasudeva (Krishna) and touched his head with his hand and made him a vassal of Parameshwara, do you know that the said Vasudeva dedicated his body and soul and wealth to the service of his teacher and fell down and worshipped him.
17. The Anucasana Parva of Mahabarat gives the full account of Lord Krishna's initiation.
18. You said that as a horse (Kalki) Vishnu will become incarnate in the future. If he does, we do not know what will befall him from our Isa. You have learnt what happened during the previous avatara. Nothing but the glory of the Lord whose crown is adorned with kourai (cassia) flowers did shine everywhere.
19. Simply because the elephant cried out "O First Cause,' should God Vishnu be held therefore as such. When any one cries out "justice! justice! O king," does the King himself run up to him. This act of the Lord of Protection is like that of the City Magistrate who renders justice.
19. Both derive their power from a Superior Power, which to all appearance is invisible and inscrutable and lateout: but the moment the inferior power begins to misuse or abuse its authority, then will the Power of the King and Master be brought into certain play.
20. Besides, the elephant was a vassal of Vishnu, and if it called its master "Adimulam,' the latter does not thereby become so. For instance, your own slave calls you 'my Lord,' and hence you are not to compare yourself to your Lord Vishnu.
21. You said the Devas partook the ambrosia by the aid of Vishnu who swallowed the earth. When the fearful poison arose from the sea, and Vishnu and other gods fled to the supreme king and cried "Save us O Lord from this untimely death", then if the Supreme Pasupathi did not swallow the poison, how could the gods have partaken of the ambrosia?
21. This story is given in Valmiki's Ramayana. This story is the aptest illustration of the nature of the supreme being as defined in the Kural " வேண்டுதல் வேண்டுவமாரிலன்"
22. When Vishnu fled from fear of the Asura Sura Padma, the latter was killed by God Kumara, the Son; Asura Tharuka was killed by Sakti Kali; the three forts of the Asuras were burnt down and Jalandhara was smashed. Did not Ishwara protect the world by all these mercies?
23. When Partha (Arjuna) seated on the car saw the assembled hosts and all of them his kinsmen and he refused to slay them with his sharp arrows and reign as king after their death, the wily words uttered by Vishnu to induce him to fight, you accept as your high authority. Why don't you also accept the words of the Buddha Avatar of Vishnu, propagated for the conquest of the Tiripura Asuras.
23. God Vishnu is said to have taught Buddhism to the Tirupura asuras, to prepare them for their defeat, on the principle laid down by the Mahabharat "The man for whom the gods are preparing defeat is deprived by them of understanding; he sees everything pervertedly." Dr. Muir also quotes the parallel lines from Latin and Greek.
"God deprives of reason those whom he wishes to destroy." But when the God brings evil upon a man, he first injures his understanding" and he cites from the Bible also passages containing the same sentiment.
24. Maya cannot become souls; nor souls maya. Mayan cannot become these last nor they, Him. These padarthas, Pasa, Pasu and Pathi are eternal. He being omnipotent He appears as the All in all; (and cannot become these).
24. It is this nature of the union of souls and matter and God that people would not understand. This union is advaita and is not dualistic nor external and internal nor Parinama nor Vivarta. Have any of the schools of modern Hinduism compared the simile of vowels and consonants postulated by the Siddhanta, with the similes of rope and snake, gold and ornaments &c. &c. Everything is in Him and He is in everything. God is imminent in all nature and yet he is beyond all. Light is in darkness and yet beyond it on. God has no opposite. In his Presence everything else is naught. "ஒன்றும் நீயல்லை அன்றியொன் றில்லை" Says Saint Manickavachaka. In this single sentence is exhibited the Highest Doctrine of Pure monism or Advaita.
25. When the pure Agamas assert that mukti is obtained by the soul ridding itself of its Pasa and uniting itself to the Pathi and when you would senseless say that your Immaculate Vishnu will become ignorant and the ignorant soul, will not the wise feel ashamed and leave this confounded theory to yourself.
25. The novel doctrine sometimes broached is that the so called God though clothed with three gunas (the substance of Prakriti) as any other mortal is, is not contaminated by it. The Puranic traditions we possess of these Gods only prove the contrary.
26. When Brahma and Vishnu fought for each other's superiority as the Supreme Brahman, and the Supreme looked on and stood in their midst as a Pillar of flaming fire, He was not understood by the fighting Gods. Such Vishnu you say is the Supreme!
27. He cannot be God who in his fight with the Maharishi Dadichi was vanquished by the latter.
28. He cannot be God who was punished by the Rishi Durvasa; and from the scar left on his chest, is he not called Tirumarumarbhan, ' He with the scar in his chest'?
29. When Maharishi Brigu found marks of violence left on his wife's body by Mal, and swore on the strength of his true allegiance to Isa, that such a violator of women's chastity should undergo ten evil births, Mal fell down shuddering.
30. When in fear of this curse, he prayed to the Supreme (Para) the latter appeared and comforted him and asked him what he wanted and when he preferred his prayer that he should be rid of Bhrigu's curse, the Lord replied that Bhrigu was his Bhakta; and when he further prayed that he should be redeemed at every one of his births, the Lord of the world promised to do so.
31. He cannot be the Ninmala God who bound by the curse of Bhrigu was born ten times and endured sorrow and pain. As such be assured Hari cannot be divine. Be advised and worship the lotus feet of the Blue-throated God of gods.
31. The unfortunate part of it is, that in such an orthodox and philosophic Vaishnava treatise as the Tatvatrayam, the truth of this story is accepted, and the explanation offered that the God only sought this curse as an excuse to be born and do good, certainly cannot commend itself to the intelligent.
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