|
Know Your>
5 basic Astro-signs
Daily Astro-guide
Rasi Forecast
Misconceptions
Biorhythms
Brahma
sutras or Vedanta Sutras
Adi
Shankaracharyas commentary
translated by
George Thibaut
The essence of the Upanishads and the Hindu philosophy is captured by the great Vedavyasa,
also called Badarayana, in this great scripture. Vedavyasa is also the one who wrote the epic Mahabharata and he also compiled and re-wrote the Vedas, the Bhagavata Puranana and several other puranas.
Introduction
To the sacred literature of the Brahmans, in the strict sense of the term, i.e. to the Veda, there belongs a certain number of complementary works without whose assistance the student is, according to Hindu notions, unable to do more than commit the sacred texts to memory. In the first place all Vedic texts must, in order to be understood, be read together with running commentaries such as Sāyana's commentaries on the Samhitās and Brāhmanas, and the Bhāshyas ascribed to Sankara on the chief Upanishads. But these commentaries do not by themselves conduce to a full comprehension of the contents of the sacred texts, since they confine themselves to explaining the meaning of each detached passage without investigating its relation to other passages, and the whole of which they form part; considerations of the latter kind are at any rate introduced occasionally only. The task of taking a comprehensive view of the contents of the Vedic writings as a whole, of systematising what they present in an unsystematical form, of showing the mutual co-ordination or subordination of single passages and sections, and of reconciling contradictions--which, according to the view of the orthodox commentators, can be apparent only--is allotted to a separate sāstra or body of doctrine which is termed Mīmāmsā, i.e. the investigation or enquiry, viz. the enquiry into the connected meaning of the sacred texts.
Of this Mīmāmsā two branches have to be distinguished, the so-called earlier (pūrva) Mīmāmsā, and the later (uttara) Mīmāmsā. The former undertakes to systematise the karmakānda, i.e. that entire portion of the Veda which is concerned with action, pre-eminently sacrificial action, and which comprises the Samhitās and the Brāhmanas exclusive of the Āranyaka portions; the latter performs the same
service with regard to the so-called gńānakānda, i.e. that part of the Vedic writings which includes the Āranyaka portions of the Brāhmanas, and a number of detached treatises called Upanishads. Its subject is not action but knowledge, viz. the knowledge of Brahman.
At what period these two sāstras first assumed a definite form, we are unable to ascertain. Discussions of the nature of those which constitute the subject-matter of the Pūrva Mīmāmsā must have arisen at a very early period, and the word Mīmāmsā itself together with its derivatives is already employed in the Brāhmanas to denote the doubts and discussions connected with certain contested points of ritual. The want of a body of definite rules prescribing how to act, i.e. how to perform the various sacrifices in full accordance with the teaching of the Veda, was indeed an urgent one, because it was an altogether practical want, continually pressing itself on the adhvaryus engaged in ritualistic duties. And the task of establishing such rules was moreover a comparatively limited and feasible one; for the members of a certain Vedic sākhā or school had to do no more than to digest thoroughly their own brāhmana and samhitā, without being under any obligation of reconciling with the teaching of their own books the occasionally conflicting rules implied in the texts of other sākhās. It was assumed that action, as being something which depends on the will and choice of man, admits of alternatives, so that a certain sacrifice may be performed in different ways by members of different Vedic schools, or even by the followers of one and the same sākhā.
The Uttara Mīmāmsā-sāstra may be supposed to have originated considerably later than the Pūrva Mīmāmsā. In the first place, the texts with which it is concerned doubtless constitute the latest branch of Vedic literature. And in the second place, the subject-matter of those texts did not call for a systematical treatment with equal urgency, as it was in no way connected with practice; the mental attitude of the authors of the Upanishads, who in their lucubrations on Brahman and the soul aim at nothing less than at definiteness and coherence, may have perpetuated itself through
many generations without any great inconvenience resulting therefrom.
But in the long run two causes must have acted with ever-increasing force, to give an impulse to the systematic working up of the teaching of the Upanishads also. The followers of the different Vedic sākhās no doubt recognised already at an early period the truth that, while conflicting statements regarding the details of a sacrifice can be got over by the assumption of a vikalpa, i.e. an optional proceeding, it is not so with regard to such topics as the nature of Brahman, the relation to it of the human soul, the origin of the physical universe, and the like. Concerning them, one opinion only can be the true one, and it therefore becomes absolutely incumbent on those, who look on the whole body of the Upanishads as revealed truth, to demonstrate that their teaching forms a consistent whole free from all contradictions. In addition there supervened the external motive that, while the karma-kānda of the Veda concerned only the higher castes of brahmanically constituted society, on which it enjoins certain sacrificial performances connected with certain rewards, the gńānakānda, as propounding a certain theory of the world, towards which any reflecting person inside or outside the pale of the orthodox community could not but take up a definite position, must soon have become the object of criticism on the part of those who held different views on religious and philosophic things, and hence stood in need of systematic defence.
At present there exists a vast literature connected with the two branches of the Mīmāmsā. We have, on the one hand, all those works which constitute the Pūrva
Mīmāmsā-sāstra or as it is often, shortly but not accurately, termed, the
Mīmāmsā-sāstra and, on the other hand, all those works which are commonly comprised under the name Vedānta-sāstra. At the head of this extensive literature there stand two collections of Sūtras (i. e. short aphorisms constituting in their totality a complete body of doctrine upon some subject), whose reputed authors are Gaimini and Bādarāyana. There can, however, be no doubt that the composition of those two
collections of Sūtras was preceded by a long series of preparatory literary efforts of which they merely represent the highly condensed outcome. This is rendered probable by the analogy of other sāstras, as well as by the exhaustive thoroughness with which the Sūtras perform their task of systematizing the teaching of the Veda, and is further proved by the frequent references which the Sūtras make to the views of earlier teachers. If we consider merely the preserved monuments of Indian literature, the Sūtras (of the two Mīmāmsās as well as of other sāstras) mark the beginning; if we, however, take into account what once existed, although it is at present irretrievably lost, we observe that they occupy a strictly central position, summarising, on the one hand, a series of early literary essays extending over many generations, and forming, on the other hand, the head spring of an ever broadening activity of commentators as well as virtually independent writers, which reaches down to our days, and may yet have some future before itself.
The general scope of the two Mīmāmsa-sūtras and their relation to the Veda have been indicated in what precedes. A difference of some importance between the two has, however, to be noted in this connexion. The systematisation of the karmakānda of the Veda led to the elaboration of two classes of works, viz. the Kalpa-sūtras on the one hand, and the Pūrva Mīmāmsa-sūtras on the other hand. The former give nothing but a description as concise as possible of the sacrifices enjoined in the Brāhmanas; while the latter discuss and establish the general principles which the author of a Kalpa-sūtra has to follow, if he wishes to render his rules strictly conformable to the teaching of the Veda. The gńānakānda of the Veda, on the other hand, is systematised in a single work, viz. the Uttara Mīmāmsā or Vedanta-sūtras, which combine the two tasks of concisely stating the teaching of the Veda, and of argumentatively establishing the special interpretation of the Veda adopted in the Sūtras. This difference may be accounted for by two reasons. In the first place, the contents of the karmakānda, as being of an entirely practical nature, called for summaries such as the Kalpa-sūtras, from which all burdensome discussions of
method are excluded; while there was no similar reason for the separation of the two topics in the case of the purely theoretical science of Brahman. And, in the second place, the Vedānta-sūtras throughout presuppose the Pūrva Mīmāmsā-sūtras, and may therefore dispense with the discussion of general principles and methods already established in the latter.
The time at which the two Mīmāmsā-sūtras were composed we are at present unable to fix with any certainty; a few remarks on the subject will, however, be made later on. Their outward form is that common to all the so-called Sūtras which aims at condensing a given body of doctrine in a number of concise aphoristic sentences, and often even mere detached words in lieu of sentences. Besides the Mīmāmsā-sūtras this literary form is common to the fundamental works on the other philosophic systems, on the Vedic sacrifices, on domestic ceremonies, on sacred law, on grammar, and on metres. The two Mīmāmsā-sūtras occupy, however, an altogether exceptional position in point of style. All Sūtras aim at conciseness; that is clearly the reason to which this whole species of literary composition owes its existence. This their aim they reach by the rigid exclusion of all words which can possibly be spared, by the careful avoidance of all unnecessary repetitions, and, as in the case of the grammatical Sūtras, by the employment of an arbitrarily coined terminology which substitutes single syllables for entire words or combination of words. At the same time the manifest intention of the Sūtra writers is to express themselves with as much clearness as the conciseness affected by them admits of. The aphorisms are indeed often concise to excess, but not otherwise intrinsically obscure, the manifest care of the writers being to retain what is essential in a given phrase, and to sacrifice only what can be supplied, although perhaps not without difficulty, and an irksome strain of memory and reflection. Hence the possibility of understanding without a commentary a very considerable portion at any rate of the ordinary Sūtras. Altogether different is the case of the two Mīmāmsā-sūtras. There scarcely one single Sūtra is
intelligible without a commentary. The most essential words are habitually dispensed with; nothing is, for instance, more common than the simple omission of the subject or predicate of a sentence. And when here and there a Sūtra occurs whose words construe without anything having to be supplied, the phraseology is so eminently vague and obscure that without the help derived from a commentary we should be unable to make out to what subject the Sūtra refers. When undertaking to translate either of the Mīmāmsā-sutras we therefore depend altogether on commentaries; and hence the question arises which of the numerous commentaries extant is to be accepted as a guide to their right understanding.
The commentary here selected for translation, together with Bādarāyana's Sūtras 1 (to which we shall henceforth confine our attention to the exclusion of Gaimini's Pūrva Mīmāmsā-sutras), is the one composed by the celebrated theologian Sankara or, as he is commonly called, Sankarākārya. There are obvious reasons for this selection. In the first place, the Sankara-bhāshya represents the so-called orthodox side of Brahmanical theology which strictly upholds the Brahman or highest Self of the Upanishads as something different from, and in fact immensely superior to, the divine beings such as Vishnu or Siva, which, for many centuries, have been the chief objects of popular worship in India. In the second place, the doctrine advocated by Sankara is, from a purely philosophical point of view and apart from all theological considerations, the most important and interesting one which has arisen on Indian soil; neither those forms of the Vedānta which diverge from the view represented by Sankara nor any of the non-Vedāntic systems can be compared with the so-called orthodox Vedānta in boldness, depth, and subtlety of speculation. In the third place, Sankara's bhāshya is, as far as we know, the oldest of the extant commentaries, and relative antiquity is at any rate one of the circumstances which have to be
taken into account, although, it must be admitted, too much weight may easily be attached to it. The Sankara-bhāshya further is the authority most generally deferred to in India as to the right understanding of the Vedānta-sūtras, and ever since Sankara's time the majority of the best thinkers of India have been men belonging to his school. If in addition to all this we take into consideration the intrinsic merits of Sankara's work which, as a piece of philosophical argumentation and theological apologetics, undoubtedly occupies a high rank, the preference here given to it will be easily understood.
But to the European--or, generally, modern--translator of the Vedānta-sūtras with Sankara's commentary another question will of course suggest itself at once, viz. whether or not Sankara's explanations faithfully render the intended meaning of the author of the Sūtras. To the Indian Pandit of Sankara's school this question has become an indifferent one, or, to state the case more accurately, he objects to its being raised, as he looks on Sankara's authority as standing above doubt and dispute. When pressed to make good his position he will, moreover, most probably not enter into any detailed comparison of Sankara's comments with the text of Bādarāyana's Sūtras, but will rather endeavour to show on speculative grounds that Sankara's philosophical view is the only true one, whence it of course follows that it accurately represents the meaning of Bādarāyana, who himself must necessarily be assured to have taught the true doctrine. But on the modern investigator, who neither can consider himself bound by the authority of a name however great, nor is likely to look to any Indian system of thought for the satisfaction of his speculative wants, it is clearly incumbent not to acquiesce from the out set in the interpretations given of the Vedānta-sūtras--and the Upanishads--by Sankara and his school, but to submit them, as far as that can be done, to a critical investigation.
This is a task which would have to be undertaken even if Sankara's views as to the true meaning of the Sūtras and Upanishads had never been called into doubt on Indian soil, although in that case it could perhaps hardly be entered
upon with much hope of success; but it becomes much more urgent, and at the same time more feasible, when we meet in India itself with systems claiming to be Vedāntic and based on interpretations of the Sūtras and Upanishads more or less differing from those of Sankara. The claims of those systems to be in the possession of the right understanding of the fundamental authorities of the Vedānta must at any rate be examined, even if we should finally be compelled to reject them.
It appears that already at a very early period the Vedānta-sūtras had come to be looked upon as an authoritative work, not to be neglected by any who wished to affiliate their own doctrines to the Veda. At present, at any rate, there are very few Hindu sects not interested in showing that their distinctive tenets are countenanced by Bādarāyana's teaching. Owing to this the commentaries on the Sūtras have in the course of time become very numerous, and it is at present impossible to give a full and accurate enumeration even of those actually existing, much less of those referred to and quoted. Mr. Fitz-Edward Hall, in his Bibliographical Index, mentions fourteen commentaries, copies of which had been inspected by himself. Some among these (as, for instance, Rāmānuga's Vedānta-sāra, No. XXXV) are indeed not commentaries in the strict sense of the word, but rather systematic expositions of the doctrine supposed to be propounded in the Sūtras; but, on the other hand, there are in existence several true commentaries which had not been accessible to Fitz-Edward Hall. it would hardly be practical--and certainly not feasible in this place--to submit all the existing bhāshyas to a critical enquiry at once. All we can do here is to single out one or a few of the more important ones, and to compare their interpretations with those given by Sankara, and with the text of the Sūtras themselves.
The bhāshya, which in this connexion is the first to press itself upon our attention, is the one composed by the famous Vaishnava theologian and philosopher Rāmānuga, who is supposed to have lived in the twelfth century. The Rāmānuga or, as it is often called, the Srī-bhāshya appears to be
the oldest commentary extant next to Sankara's. It is further to be noted that the sect of the Rāmānugas occupies a pre-eminent position among the Vaishnava, sects which themselves, in their totality, may claim to be considered the most important among all Hindu sects. The intrinsic value of the Srī-bhāshya moreover is--as every student acquainted with it will be ready to acknowledge--a very high one; it strikes one throughout as a very solid performance due to a writer of extensive learning and great power of argumentation, and in its polemic parts, directed chiefly against the school of Sankara, it not unfrequently deserves to be called brilliant even. And in addition to all this it shows evident traces of being not the mere outcome of Rāmānuga's individual views, but of resting on an old and weighty tradition.
This latter point is clearly of the greatest importance. If it could be demonstrated or even rendered probable only that the oldest bhāshya which we possess, i. e. the Sankara-bhāshya, represents an uninterrupted and uniform tradition bridging over the interval between Bādarāyana, the reputed author of the Sūtras, and Sankara; and if, on the other hand, it could be shown that the more modern bhāshyas are not supported by old tradition, but are nothing more than bold attempts of clever sectarians to force an old work of generally recognised authority into the service of their individual tenets; there would certainly be no reason for us to raise the question whether the later bhāshyas can help us in making out the true meaning of the Sūtras. All we should have to do in that case would be to accept Sankara's interpretations as they stand, or at the utmost to attempt to make out, if at all possible, by a careful comparison of Sankara's bhāshya with the text of the Sūtras, whether the former in all cases faithfully represents the purport of the latter.
In the most recent book of note which at all enters into the question as to how far we have to accept Sankara as a guide to the right understanding of the Sūtras (Mr. A. Gough's Philosophy of the Upanishads) the view is maintained (pp. 239 ff.) that Sankara is the generally recognised expositor
of true Vedānta doctrine, that that doctrine was handed down by an unbroken series of teachers intervening between him and the Sūtrakāra, and that there existed from the beginning only one Vedānta doctrine, agreeing in all essential points with the doctrine known to us from Sankara's writings. Mr. Gough undertakes to prove this view, firstly, by a comparison of Sankara's system with the teaching of the Upanishads themselves; and, secondly, by a comparison of the purport of the Sūtras--as far as that can be made out independently of the commentaries--with the interpretations given of them by Sankara. To both these points we shall revert later on. Meanwhile, I only wish to remark concerning the former point that, even if we could show with certainty that all the Upanishads propound one and the same doctrine, there yet remains the undeniable fact of our being confronted by a considerable number of essentially differing theories, all of which claim to be founded on the Upanishads. And with regard to the latter point I have to say for the present that, as long as we have only Sankara's bhāshya before us, we are naturally inclined to find in the Sūtras--which, taken by themselves, are for the greater part unintelligible--the meaning which Sankara ascribes to them; while a reference to other bhāshyas may not impossibly change our views at once.--Meanwhile, we will consider the question as to the unbroken uniformity of Vedāntic tradition from another point or view, viz. by enquiring whether or not the Sūtras themselves, and the Sankara-bhāshya, furnish any indications of there having existed already at an early time essentially different Vedāntic systems or lines of Vedāntic speculation.
Next >
|
