Vedanta: The End of the Vedas
As
mentioned last class, Vedanta means ‘end of the Vedas’ and is the
systematizing of the Upanishad wisdom. While the Vedic hymns to the
gods and rituals were kept, the Upanishads suggest again and again that
self-discipline and philosophical insight are the inner meaning of the
outer rituals just as the mind is the inner meaning and essence of the
outer body. This is the true knowledge (vidya) of the ritual, and it is
knowledge rather than ritual that dispels ignorance (avidya). Just as
ritual was thought to please and nourish the gods, the Vedanta schools
taught that knowledge and wisdom are the life’s blood of the cosmos, the
nourishing of the cosmos through the nourishing of the self. As the
self grows in wisdom, the self expands the cosmos and the cosmos expands
the self.
This
implies that the original position of the self is one of ignorance and
darkness that is to be overcome through wisdom and enlightenment. Just
as the Jains and Buddhists share much of an Upanishadic outlook, they
share the idea that the cosmos and self, as it first appears in a
disjointed and articulated state, is ‘maya’ or illusion. Sometimes maya
was personified as a benevolent god (Maya, lord of illusion), sometimes
as a demon as with some early Indian Buddhist schools. In some
stories, Maya is a playful trickster, while in some accounts of the
enlightenment of the Buddha Maya is king of the demons and sends all he
can at the Buddha to prevent him from achieving enlightenment.
There
were several Vedanta schools with their own teachers and teachings.
The two most famous are the monistic school of Shamkara and the
theistic school of Ramanuja. Shamkara pushed beyond the personified
gods towards the monism of the One and All, while Ramanuja criticized
Shamkara by name as well as other ‘liberal worshipers’ like those
admonished in the Vedic hymn we read, for abandoning the gods and Bhakti
devotional worship as inessential to participation in the unity of the
cosmos. For Ramanuja, the gods and darshana are an important and
essential part of rising into the unity of All.
The Vaisheshika School of Atoms & Elements
Kanada,
like the country up North, but with a K, is the founder of the
Vaisheshika school. While there are subtle criticisms of the Vedas in
the Vaisheshika Sutra, it is considered one of the orthodox Hindu
schools of thought. Kanada’s dates are debated. Chinese scholars
sometimes put his texts at 1000 BCE, while our scholars often put them
at 200 BCE or even 100 CE. This is quite political, because the Chinese
tradition comes very much from India and the European tradition comes
very much from Greece. The publisher of this texts says it is safe to
say that Kanada lived and taught by 600 BCE at the latest.
Kanada’s
name means, ‘One who eats grain’, but it could also mean, ‘One who
gathers particulars’. He is also known as ‘The Owl’, or Uluka. Legend
has it that he was so ugly in appearance that he frightened young women,
so he only ventured out at night, sneaking into granaries to eat corn
and rice grains/particles. Another story is Shiva taught him in the
form of an owl. Notice that there are many traditions and versions,
some mixed with the stories of the Vedic gods.
Kanada
began what is known as the Vaisheshika school, and thus his text is the
Vaisheshika sutra. Vaisheshika means particular, but also particle,
atom, particular, special, specific, and distinction. Kanada may have
been the first logician and first atomist in recorded human history.
Gotama’s Nyaya (Logic/Debate) school borrowed much from Kanada in
forming rules and manuals of debate. It is believed that Jainism and
Buddhism took both of these systems and developed them in a skeptical
and relativistic direction. Thus, Kanada and Gotama are positivistic
logicians who are seeking atomic truths (universal, necessary and
certain), and the Jains and Buddhists are skeptical logicians who
criticize positivistic thinking with relativity and skepticism.
The
two schools of Kanada (Vaisheshika) and Gotama (Nyaya) focus on
inherence (how the particular individual is a member of the general
group) and inference (conclusions that can be drawn about the particular
individual when one knows the general group). Two types of inherence
which allow us to make valid inferences include speciation (groups that
have typical qualities) and causation (events in time that lead from one
to another). Kanada set out his Vaisheshika system and its seven
objects of knowledge to understand the world (cosmology or physics, but
in the ancient world this extended to biology and psychology). Gotama,
who we will study next, was concerned with debate and logical argument.
First,
we will go over Kanada’s seven objects of knowledge, and then
interesting points in the following chapters Kanada makes that are
important for logic and physics.
1)
Substance (dravya): nine in number (air, water, fire, earth, ether,
time, space, self and mind). These are composed of particles or atoms
that are eternal and uncreated (thus they can’t be created or
destroyed). Newton, like medieval alchemists before him but unlike
modern physics and chemistry, believed in ether, the glue element that
sticks the others together in combinations.
2)
Attribute (guna): quality (color, texture, odor, taste) and quantity
(number, measure, distinction, conjunction, disjunction). Kanada argues
in the text that attributes are not substances, but reside in
substances and can cause substances, other attributes and actions.
3)
Action (karma): note that karma is the physical energy and motion that
makes kicking someone cause pain and also gets the kicker reborn as a
cockroach (most only know of the second as a religious concept, but like
Chinese Chi it is equivalent to physical energy and is often identified
with the element fire in ancient systems). Kanada argues that
substances and attributes can cause actions but actions themselves
cannot produce other actions. He also argues action belongs to one
substance, not many (note that the Buddhist “sound of one hand clapping”
is a counter argument to this point, and that Gotama differs from
Kanada on this also).
4)
General (samanya): the universal or group, such as the general group
(speciation) of all cows or the general event (causation) of a rainstorm
(in which clouds cause rain).
5)
Particular (vishesha): the individual or specific, such as the
individual cow or the individual event of a cloud causing rain.
6)
Inherence (samavaya): the particular being included and conforming to
the general. We can make inferences based on inherences. If we know
that the general group of cows have horns, then we know that this
particular cow must have horns. Likewise, if we know that generally
rainclouds cause rain, then we can infer that this particular rain must
have been caused by clouds.
7) Non-existence or Emptiness (abhava): non-being, nothingness and void.
Kanada
discusses fire as energy. It is interesting that fire was the most
common form of energy seen and used in the ancient world, whereas
electricity is the most common form seen and used in the modern world.
Thus, the Egyptians, Greeks, Indians and Chinese thought of energy as
fire whereas we think of energy as electricity.
Kanada
argues that sound is caused and therefore it is impermanent. Some have
argued this seems to be a subtle critique of the earlier Vedic
tradition (like arguing “paper is perishable” as a safe and subtle way
of suggesting that the Bible must be temporary, not eternal).
Kanada
argues that things move downward naturally, so things must have
additional causes/forces to move sideways or upward (thus, smoke shows
additional force or energy, namely that it has fire in it and fire moves
upward. He also argues thus that water moves upward by sun/fire in it,
then comes downward in cycles. Then, when the water collects in
clouds, it causes the fire to be released as lightning. He argues that
the arrow flies first from cause and then from inherent tendency to
remain in motion, similar if not identical to the modern concept of
‘inertia’.
The Nyaya School of Debate & Logic
Medhatithi
Gautama, who lived sometime about 550 BCE, is considered the founder of
the Nyaya school and the author of the Nyaya Sutra, a textbook and
manual on logical debate. The Nyaya Sutra was not the first Indian text
concerned with logical argument and analysis, but it became one of the
most popular and thus foundational for the Nyaya school. It is believed
that the Jains and Buddhists, who are more skeptical thinkers about
logic but very involved in debate, later took much from the Nyaya Sutra
and school. Nyaya means “right”, “just”, “justified” or “justifiable”,
the same way we use ‘logical’ to mean ‘right debate or speech’. The
school reached its height in 150 CE, but it traces itself back to
Gautama and his teachings.
Gautama
is also called ‘Akshapada’, ‘Eyes in the Feet’, from a legend that he
was so deeply absorbed in thought one day on a walk that he fell into a
well, and God (Brahma) gave him eyes in his feet to prevent this from
happening again. Notice that, like the Vaisheshika ‘particular’ school,
Nyaya is concerned with putting particular things into categories and
relationships. Objects and substances can be called the ‘feet’ of
things, and their families or causes (generalities) the head or mind of
things.
The
Buddha, who also lived sometime around 550 BCE is also called Gautama
or Gotama. Some scholars used to argue that Gautama may have been the
Buddha himself, but in fact they were two different founders of two
different schools who were both from the Gautama region in Northern
India which is how they share the name. Gautama, Buddha and Mahavira
(the founder of Jainism), were also of the warrior caste, the second
class in the Indian caste system beneath the first class Brahmins, the
Vedic priests and scholars. This shows that the period produced new
thinkers with new ideas that were questioning the established Vedic
tradition, and the schools of this period are known to have become very
popular because they were open to people of all castes including the
lowest. A story from the period says that a scholar who gave up on the
Vedas and turned entirely to logic turned into a Jackal. This story was
obviously told by Vedic scholars and priests who found the new systems a
threat to the old established traditions. Like science in Europe,
however, the new ways were gradually added to the old ways, until the
new system was an old standard alongside the Vedic traditions.
The
Nyaya Sutra is one of many debate manuals that was written for Indian
philosophical or cosmological debates. Questions asked included: “Is
the self/soul/mind eternal or temporary?”, “Is the world and its laws
eternal or temporary?”, “Is it better to renounce or indulge in
luxuries?”, “Are there particular things which are sacred or is
everything equally sacred?”, and, a question seen last week in Kanada’s
text, “Is sound (and thus the oral tradition of the Vedas) eternal or
temporary?”. This last question is central to the Nyaya text and
Gautama’s form of proof that we will study.
It
is noticeable that many of these debates are concerned with
distinguishing the eternal from the temporary. In ancient world
cosmology, the eternal was the sacred and the object of true knowledge.
If one could determine which things and laws are eternal, one would
grasp the ways of the cosmos.
Notice
that these debates (vadas) are also all of the form: Is object X in
group Y or group not Y? We will call this the Form of Nyaya Debate or
Nyaya Vada. If one could justifiably claim that all Xs are Ys, one
could then argue for further truths based on the established truths.
Jains and Buddhists also took this form as fundamental. For instance,
the Vedic priests argued that the self/soul/mind was eternal, while the
Jains and Buddhists argued that it is temporary. In Greek thought,
particularly with Plato and Aristotle, this arguing back and forth
between opposite positions is called “Dialectic”. Later, in Buddhist
debates about 200 BCE, just after Nyaya hits its height, three areas of
debate for a proposition were conducted in order: “Is X always Y?”, “Is
X everywhere Y?” and “Is X Y in everything?”.
In
ancient India, a king, authority or rich patron would organize a debate
and banquet, invite participants from various schools of thought to
debate (often the teachers of competing rival schools, like a
competition in a Kung Fu movie). Women were not unheard of as debate
participants, but not nearly as common as male debaters (one can
unfortunately say this of American and British philosophical departments
today).
Debate
manuals like the Nyaya Sutra were designed to introduce students and
scholars to typical forms of argument as well as methods of attack and
defense. They also listed fallacies, types of false arguments that
sound solid but have flaws. The Nyaya Sutra tells us that the best
debater will not take cheap moves, ‘quibbles’ or ‘clinchers’, but one is
free to make them at one’s own risk. The text is surprisingly honest
and insightful on this point. By using deceptive reasoning, you could
win the debate but you could also could lose if your opponent points out
your errors or shortcuts. This is still true of argument today even in
the most casual setting, and a good reason that looking into old Logic
texts like the Nyaya Sutra is still useful today. Aristotle’s Organon,
his ‘Tool’, are six books that cover different areas of debate and
knowledge, similarly dealing with construction of argument and
fallacies. Aristotle also must straddle the sometimes contrary goals of
arguing truth and winning the debate.
The Nyaya Sutra and System
The
Four Sources of Knowledge are Perception, Inference, Comparison, and
Testimony. All of these can potentially give valid knowledge, but there
are problems with each. Perception is seeing or experiencing something
for oneself.
Perception
can only be valid if it tells you something determinate that doesn’t
vary or change. Three examples of false perception given in the text
are confusing smoke and dust, confusing a rope with a snake, and
thinking that the hot earth is wet when in fact this is a mirage.
Inference
is knowledge of an object produced by perception. This shows Induction
of perception passing into Deduction of inference which is still held
in Philosophy and Psychology today. There are two kinds of inference
that one can have based on perception of associations (like rain always
falling from clouds).
Some
authors have claimed that Aristotle’s syllogisms are deductively valid
but the Nyaya proof is not and based on induction. Actually, Aristotle
has many syllogisms he admits are not deductively valid on their own and
he also believes that one can only argue based on what one perceives
and one can be mistaken exactly like the Nyaya School and Gautama. We
can see induction and deduction working together in both Aristotle’s
syllogisms and Gautama’s form of proof. As can see in the text, there
are five steps but as the Buddhists correctly perceived the first and
second are identical to the fifth and the fourth. To make it easier, I
have boiled it down to two steps. The first is a general rule backed by
an example. The second step is a reason which leads to a conclusion.
The text gives us examples:
Wherever there is smoke there is fire, as in a kitchen.
Because there is smoke on the hill, there is fire on the hill.
Whatever is produced is mortal, as a pot.
Because it is produced, sound is mortal.
Fallacies
are false arguments. Examples include changing the thesis,
contradicting the thesis, meaningless utterance, incoherent speech
(‘colorless sleep furiously green’ is a famous example by Noam Chomsky),
repetition, silence, ignorance (failing to understand typically),
evasion (‘I am called by nature’, ‘I have another appointment’), sharing
the fault (problem with both sides), overlooking fallacies, pointing
out false fallacies. Quibbling is objecting to an argument as a fallacy
when it is not actually a fallacy. If a fallacy is an error, quibbling
is making an error about something being an error. Quibbling can lose a
debate just as surely as giving a fallacious argument. The text gives
three types: Term (ex: Someone claims to have a new (“nava”) blanket,
but this is confused with the claim of nine (also “nava”) blankets),
Genus (ex: Someone claims Brahmins are educated but the opponent objects
that some Brahmins are two years old), Metaphor (ex: Someone claims
poetically, “The scaffolds cry out”, and the opponent objects,
“Impossible, they are inanimate objects”).
The Charvaka School of Skepticism & Materialism
The
Charvaka skeptics believed in perception, like the Vaisheshika and the
Nyaya, but they did not believe in inference or theory of any kind. Not
only did they believe in no gods or spirits or eternal soul, but they
did not believe that the human mind can know things through inference
but rather imagines simplified relations. This imaginary connection is
an illusion. One can use inference as a tool, but it is always an
imaginary illusion. Thus, they are agnostic about theory as well as
theism. Only what is right in front of your eyes is real. This is very
similar to Wittgenstein’s famous opening line of the Tractatus, the
book that began modern truth table logic: “The world consists of facts,
not of things”. The world may be real, but to us it is many imagined
things and constructed facts, not a thing perceived directly.
Other
schools criticized the Charvakas for failing to explain the origin of
consciousness. The Charvaka reply was that consciousness was like the
fermentation of alcohol. When one mixes several ingredients in the
right proportions and gives it time, alcohol is produced. As such,
consciousness is a temporary combination of elements that dissipates
back into the material world from which it arose.
Jainism: Austerity & Perspective
Jainism,
or “Jain Dharma” is still practiced today by four million Jains (not
Jainists as some mistakenly say). There are currently 4 Million in
India today, with many others in communities around the world including
New York and Toronto. Jainism rose just before Buddhism, as Mahavira
(650 BCE), the main teacher and founder of Jainism, lived just before
the Buddha (550 BCE), though all of these dates are still in debate.
Jainism
advocates two principles that are shared with Indian thought but
credited to Jain innovation: anekantavada, the multiplicity and
relativity of reality or “non-one-endedness” and syadvada, the
hypothetical and imperfect nature of perspective and judgment that is
always the fiber of human truth. According to these two principles, all
human beliefs and judgments are temporary and partial views of each
particular thing, including the self, and the cosmos, the greater whole.
Jains, like Buddhists, believe that things may or may not be as they
seem and may or may not be expressible as they are. Jains, much like
the Buddhist Logician Nagarjuna we will read soon, believe that there
are seven points of view of each and every thing. Each thing, including
the cosmos and the self:
somehow is in a way that is describable
somehow is not in a way that is describable
somehow simultaneously is and is not in a way that is describable
somehow is indescribable
somehow is in a way that is indescribable
somehow is not in a way that is indescribable
somehow is and is not in a way that is indescribable
The
Buddhist Nagarjuna’s four categories are how a thing is, is not, both
is and is not, and neither is nor is not. Notice his addition of the
‘neither’, and one could say one dimension of how things are and are not
is how they are and yet are not describable. However, the fourth Jain
mode of simply ‘indescribable’ says neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not’. While
other schools, including Nyaya logician/debaters, claimed that Jains and
Buddhists are at fault for contradicting themselves and seeing
contradicting views in things, the Jains and Buddhists argue that one
only falls into problematic contradiction if one makes one-sided claims.
This is a classic duel between all/none logic and some/some-not logic,
between the absolutist and the relativist. The absolutist says the
relativist does not have certain truth and contradicts themselves
because they are on all sides of the issue, and the relativist replies
that the absolutist does not have the full truth and contradicts
themselves because they are NOT on all sides of the issue.
Jain
texts use the example of hot and cold. An absolutist would argue that a
thing cannot be both hot and cold at the same time, but a relativist
would argue that a thing is always somewhat relatively hot and somewhat
relatively cold. To say a thing is simply hot ignores how cold it is,
and to say it is simply cold is to ignore how hot it is. We could
supply the example of a refrigerator, which cools on the inside by
heating up in back and drawing the heat out of the inside. A
refrigerator is simultaneously hot and cold, and it could not be cold in
one part unless it is hot in another.
Jains
also, much like the wheel of Lao Zi in chapter 11 of the founding
Daoist text, the Dao De Jing, use the example of a pot being solid and
empty, there and not there. In one part, it is, and in another part, it
is not. They use another example of a multicolored cloth, which is and
is not many colors all over. Notice that each thing one can say about
anything is true in some ways, but false in others, a very critical way
that things are and are not as they are described yet are never fully
describable. Jains argue that one sees and argues for the side of
things that one wants to see, that one wants to be true. This is yet
another example of attachment and desire carving the One into many,
shining light on some and plunging others into darkness and ignorance.
Jains
note that, because human views and descriptions are always one-sided,
it is perfectly alright to understand the whole yet lead people in one
direction as opposed to another, just as ignorant arguers do, if one
sees all of what one is doing. Jains and Buddhists would see Jain and
Buddhist teachers and saints in this light, as always telling what
cannot be fully told, as leading us towards what is in all directions to
begin with. It is only a low and ignorant mind that thinks such
leading is impossible because it is contradictory.
Jains
use the image of a tree, with the absolute view (naya) as the trunk,
what one joins after being fully liberated, and the particular view as
the branches and twigs. Notice that the trunk is and is not the twigs,
just as the absolute and all-encompassing view is each particular view
as a sum of them all but is not each particular view in that it is
everything opposed to each particular view as well.
Similarly,
Jains argue (like Hegel, who considers seeing being, non-being and
becoming simultaneously in things as the first leap of philosophy and
associates it with the ancient Greek skeptic Heraclitus) that things
simultaneously are and are not because they are being birthed/generated,
stable/still, and decaying/transforming at the same time at all times
that they are. Each of these views are false if they are considered
independently true as opposed to their opposite, but in conjunction with
their opposites they are the whole truth of each particular thing and
of truth as a whole. Notice that the union of stability with
transformation as a single whole view is entirely similar to the
orthodox Hindu union of Vishnu, the preserver/savior, and Shiva, the
destroyer/transformer, in Brahma, the personification of all.
Jains
were also early proponents of the idea that the cosmos works in cycles:
like the physical rising and setting of the sun, consciousness rises,
then sets. People start to become awakened teachers and develop
religion in the rising era, and people lose religion in the setting era.
This is endless, like the cosmos. The cosmos becomes enlightened to
its own self through us, and then loses consciousness of itself through
us. The Hindus and Buddhists share a similar picture of the cosmos, and
the Indian golden age of philosophy, which includes the birth and
teaching period of Mahavira and the Buddha, is seen as the apex, the
high noon, of this current cycle. Unfortunately, we currently live in
an era of dimming religion and consciousness according to most Jain and
Hindu teachers (the Hindus following the Jains in this picture).
Jain
teachers and saints are known as Tirthankaras, “one who makes a ford”
(cutting through water as order over chaos, as land becoming firmament
in the chaotic waters). Mahavira (also Mahavir), the founder of
Jainism, is understood by Jains to be the 24th Tirthankara. Like others
of his time, Mahavira was a practitioner of austerities that are aimed
at detachment from desire and multiplicity of the world: fasting,
standing in jungles, going without food or luxuries for extended periods
of time. Statues of Mahavira and other Tirthankaras show vines growing
up their legs and bodies, as vines grow several feet in the jungle a
day and so would grow up your body if you practice standing austerities
for days at a time. Jains believe that these practices purify the
self/soul/mind.
Here,
we come to THE critical difference between Jainism and the other
schools of Indian thought. In Hinduism and Buddhism, karma can be
positive (merit and blessing) or negative (demerit and sin). Thus,
karma can either help you up or drag you down. For Jains, karma is
always bondage, always weight that keeps you down, always division or
blockage between you and the ALL. Thus, one tries best to avoid
accumulating karma and to destroy the karma one has already accumulated.
While
there are kinds of karma and attachment that make ourselves and others
happy which the Jains call good, they are hindrances to be overcome if
final liberation is to be obtained. If you really, really like waffles,
this is fine but to become one with all you must be as indifferent to
waffles, neither loving nor hating waffles, as the cosmos. Jains
believe that “good” karma, such as that which causes pleasure when
helping others out of compassion, matures and falls off naturally along
with the body. It is easier to get rid of “good” karma which only
affects the body, but it is still to be left behind.
Jains
are famous for their doctrine of the negativity of attachment and the
radical nonviolence that follows from this principle. Jains wear masks
to prevent insects from flying in their mouths, sweep the ground to
avoid killing insects (even though the killing would be unintentional,
it would still be an accumulation of karma), influenced other Indian
thought in promoting vegetarianism, and even don’t eat root vegetables
as it kills (up-roots) the whole plant rather than that plucked from the
plant. Like Buddhists, Jains believe that one should be disciplined
and practice austerities and meditation not just for one’s own
salvation, but for compassion and salvation for all living beings.
The
best way to understand the dual practice of avoiding karma AND
shredding karma is the Metaphor of the Leaky Boat: You ride in a boat
across water to a distant shore (Nirvana). Notice that water represents
chaos and desire, and the land represents the firm and the enlightened.
The boat is leaky, and water is pouring in. You have to BOTH plug the
leaks (preventative principles like vegetarianism that prevent bad
karma from getting IN you) and bail out the water that has already
inside the boat (shedding karma, practicing austerities like fasting or
standing in postures to get the karma you already have in this life OUT
of you). Jains believe that it is only by this two-pronged strategy
that the individual can be fully liberated and join back together with
the cosmos and thus gain eternal life rather than round after round of
rebirth.
From the Tattvarthadhigama Sutra, a central Jain text:
“There
is a stoppage of inflow of karmic matter into the soul. It is produced
by preservation, carefulness, observances, meditation, conquest of
sufferings, and good conduct. By austerities is caused the shedding of
karmic matter…Liberation is the freedom from all karmic matter, owing to
the non-existence of the cause of bondage and to the shedding of the
karmas. After the soul is released, there remain perfect right-belief,
perfect right-knowledge, perfect perception, and the state of having
accomplished all.”
Jains
argued as logicians (debaters, in the ancient world) with the other
competing schools of Indian thought such as Vedanta, Nyaya, Buddhists,
and Charvakas. As mentioned, Jains argued against Hindu orthodox
schools such as the Vedanta and Nyaya that there is no immortal
soul/self after total release and liberation, against the Buddhists
about karma, heavenly realms and other dogmatic differences, and against
the Charvakas that there is no liberation of consciousness. They also
argued passionately for the principle of anekantavada against the
doctrine of many other schools that there is one essential nature
outside of any perspective (‘naya’), a position the Jains call
‘ekantavada’ as opposed to their own ‘an-ekantavada’.
