The conception of Brahman which has been the highest glory for the Vedanta philosophy of later days had hardly emerged in the rig-Veda from the associations of the sacrificial mind. Read more »
brahman, devotion, magical formula, purusha, rig veda, shatapatha brahmana, supreme principle, vedanta philosophy, vedas The passage of the Indian mind from the Brahmanic to the Upanishad thought is probably the most remarkable event in the history of philosophic thought. We know that in the later Vedic hymns some monotheistic conceptions of great excellence were developed, but these differ in their nature from the absolutism of the Upanishads as much as the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems in astronomy. Read more »
atman, brahman, one god, principle, rig veda, upanishads, vedic hymns The fundamental idea which runs through the early Upanishads is that underlying the exterior world of change there is an unchangeable reality which is identical with that which underlies the essence in man (1). Read more »
brahman, fundamental idea, man and the universe, psychological functions, samhita, upanishads, visible objects, vital breath It is important for the history of Samkhya philosophy that Caraka’s treatment of it, which so far as I know has never been dealt with in any of the modern studies of Samkhya, should be brought before the notice of the students of this philosophy. Read more »
akasa, atman, auditory sense, cognition, five elements, five senses, illuminations, karma, manas, pleasure pain, purusha, samkhya philosophy, sense of touch, visual sense A word of explanation is necessary as regards my interpretation of the Samkhya-Yoga system. The Samkhya karika is the oldest Samkhya text on which we have commentaries by later writers. Read more »
commentaries, gunas, intelligence, reference to, sutras, upanishads, yoga system The word yoga occurs in the rig-Veda in various senses such as yoking or harnessing, achieving the unachieved, connection, and the like. Read more »
asceticism, bhagavadgita, brihadaranyaka upanishad, highest power, middle path, panini, philosophical ideas, rig veda, sanskrit literature, vow of celibacy, word yoga, yuj The conception of Yoga as we meet it in the Maitrayana Upanishad consisted of six angas or accessories, namely pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana, tarka and samadhi (1). Read more »
ahimsa, anga, asana, dhyana, karuna, niyama, patanjali, pranayama, samadhi, satya, sex control, tarka, upanishad, yoga sutras A question naturally arises, that if the knowledge forms are made up of some sort of stuff as the objective forms of matter are, why then should the purusha illuminate it and not external material objects. Read more »
intelligence, mass energy, notions, purusha, reflection, sattva, transcendent Granted that the interchange of the positions of the infinite number of reals produce all the world and its transformations; whence comes this fixed order of the universe, the fixed order of cause and effect, the fixed order of the so-called barriers which prevent the transformation of any cause into any effect or the first disturbance of the equilibrium of the prakriti? Read more »
cause and effect, equilibrium, faculties, gunas, material objects, mental plane, order of the universe, samsara, subjective experiences, teleology, tendency The question again arises that though purusha is pure intelligence, the gunas are non-intelligent subtle substances, how can the latter come into touch with the former? Read more »
gunas, impurity, inference, intelligence, moral responsibility, purity, purusha, real person, reflection, sattva, self consciousness, transformations, virtue It has been said that buddhi and the internal objects have evolved in order to giving scope to the experience of the purusha. What is the process of this experience? Read more »
abstraction, consciousness, imagination, manas, perception, purusha, sattva, senses, sense data Samkhya and the Yoga, like the Buddhists, hold that all experience is sorrowful. Tamas, we know, represents the pain substance. As tamas must be present in some degree in all combinations, all intellectual operations are fraught with some degree of painful feeling (1). Read more »
buddhists, happiness, mukti, pleasures, sacrifice, sacrifices, samkhya philosophy, sorrow, tamas, vedic, worldly experience The Nyaya sutras begin with an enumeration of the sixteen subjects, viz. means of right knowledge (pramana), object of right knowledge (prameya), doubt (samshaya), purpose (prayojana), illustrative instances (drishtanta), accepted conclusions (siddhanta), premisses (avayava), argumentation (tarka), ascertainment (nirnaya), debates (vada), disputations (jalpa), destructive criticisms (vitanda), fallacy (hetvabhasa), quibble (chala), refutations (jati), points of opponent’s defeat (nigrahasthana), and hold that by a thorough knowledge of these the highest good (nihshreyasa), is attained. In the second sutra it is said that salvation (apavarga) is attained by the successive disappearance of false knowledge (mithyajnana), defects (dosha), endeavours (pravritti, birth (janma), and ultimately of sorrow (1). Read more »
apta, atman, body senses, chala, dosha, five senses, inference, jalpa, pain sorrow, perception, pleasure pain, right knowledge, self body, sense objects, tarka, testimony The Nyaya-Vaisheshika having dismissed the doctrine of momentariness took a common-sense view of things, and held that things remain permanent until suitable collocations so arrange themselves that the thing can be destroyed. Thus the jug continues to remain a jug unless or until it is broken to pieces by the stroke of a stick. Things exist not because they can produce an impression on us, or serve my purposes either directly or through knowledge, as the Buddhists suppose, but because existence is one of their characteristics. If I or you or any other perceiver did not exist, the things would continue to exist all the same. Whether they produce any effect on us or on their surrounding environments is immaterial. Existence is the most general characteristic of things, and it is on account of this that things are testified by experience to be existing (1). Read more »
akasha, cosmology, demerit, ear drum, existence, four elements, immaterial, kala, sense of hearing, sense organ, tejas, valid reasons The naiyayikas admitted only the five cognitive senses which they believed to be composed of one or other of the five elements. These senses could each come in contact with the special characteristic of that element of which they were composed. Thus the ear could perceive sound, because sound was the attribute of akasha, of which the auditory sense, the ear, was made up. The eye could send forth rays to receive the colour, etc., of things. Thus the cognitive senses can only manifest their specific objects by going over to them and thereby coming in contact with them. The cognitive senses (vak, pani, pada, payu, and upastha) recognized in Samkhya as separate senses are not recognized here as such for the functions of these so-called senses are discharged by the general motor functions of the body. Read more »
akasha, auditory sense, cognition, cognitive, concrete experience, five elements, motor functions, perception, perceptual process, right knowledge, senses, vak I have pointed out above that Nyaya divided perception into two classes as nirvikalpa (indeterminate) and savikalpa (determinate) according as it is an earlier or a later stage. Vacaspati says, that at the first stage perception reveals an object as a particular; the perception of an orange at this avikalpika or nirvikalpika stage gives us indeed all its colour, form, and also the universal of orangeness associated with it, but it does not reveal it in a subject-predicate relation as when I say “this is an orange.” Read more »
consciously, differentiation, notion, perception, subject and predicate, unification, universals Mind according to Nyaya is regarded as a separate sense and can come in contact with pleasure, pain, desire, antipathy and will. The later Nyaya writers speak of three other kinds of contact of a transcendental nature called samanyalakshana, jnanalakshana and yogaja (miraculous). The contact samanyalakshana is that by virtue of which by coming in contact with a particular we are transcendentally (alaukika) in contact with all the particulars (in a general way) of which the corresponding universal may be predicated. Thus when I see smoke and through it my sense is in contact with the universal associated with smoke my visual sense is in transcendental contact with all smoke in general. Jnanalakshana contact is that by virtue of which we can associate the perceptions of other senses when perceiving by any one sense. Thus when we are looking at a piece of sandal wood our visual sense is in touch with its colour only, but still we perceive it to be fragrant without any direct contact of the object with the organ of smell. The sort of transcendental contact (alaukika sannikarsha) by virtue of which this is rendered possible is called jnanalakshana. But the knowledge acquired by these two contacts is not counted as perception (1). Read more »
desire, direct contact, jnana, perceptions, pleasures, pleasure pain, senses, virtue, visual sense Inference (anumana) is the second means of proof (pramana) and the most valuable contribution that Nyaya has made on this subject. It consists in making an assertion about a thing on the strength of the mark or linga which is associated with it, as when finding smoke rising from a hill we remember that since smoke cannot be without fire, there must also be fire in yonder hill. In an example like this smoke is technically called linga, or hetu. Read more »
asat, assertion, inference, linga, perception, satta, shastra, testimony It may not be out of place here to mention that in later Nyaya works great emphasis is laid on the necessity of getting ourselves assured that there was no such upadhi (condition) associated with the hetu on account of which the concomitance happened, but that the hetu was unconditionally associated with the sadhya in a relation of inseparable concomitance. Thus all fire does not produce smoke; fire must be associated with green wood in order to produce smoke. Green wood is thus the necessary condition (upadhi) without which, no smoke could be produced. It is on account of this condition that fire is associated with smoke; and so we cannot say that there is smoke because there is fire. But in the concomitance of smoke with fire there is no condition, and so in every case of smoke there is fire. In order to be assured of the validity of vyapti, it is necessary that we must be assured that there should be nothing associated with the hetu which conditioned the concomitance, and this must be settled by wide experience (bhuyodarshana). Read more »
inference, kanada, linga, necessary condition, opposition, smoke fire, validity, valid reason The third pramana, which is admitted by Nyaya and not by Vaisheshika, is upamana, and consists in associating a thing unknown before with its name by virtue of its similarity with some other known thing. Thus a man of the city who has never seen a wild ox (gavaya) goes to the forest, asks a forester - “what is gavaya?” and the forester replies - “oh, you do not know it, it is just like a cow”; after hearing this from the forester he travels on, and on seeing a gavaya and finding it to be similar to a cow he forms the opinion that this is a gavaya. This knowing an hitherto unknown thing by virtue of its similarity to a known thing is called upamana. Read more »
cow, inference, observation, perception, realists, right knowledge, testimony, validity, vedas, virtue, visual sense The problem of negation or non-existence (abhava) is of great interest in Indian philosophy. In this section we can describe its nature only from the point of view of perceptibility. Read more »
cognition, existence, indian philosophy, inference, intuition, manam, negation, notion, visual perception Nyaya seeks to establish the existence of Ishvara on the basis of inference. We know that the Jains, the Samkhya and the Buddhists did not believe in the existence of Ishvara and offered many antitheistic arguments. Nyaya wanted to refute these and prove the existence of Ishvara by an inference of the samanyato-drishta type. The Jains and other atheists held that though things in the world have production and decay, the world as a whole was never produced, and it was never therefore an effect. In contrast to this view the Nyaya holds that the world as a whole is also an effect like any other effect. Read more »
atheists, buddhists, existence, inference, order of the universe We have just said that knowledge arises by itself and that it could not have been generated by sense-contact. If this be so, the diversity of perceptions is however left unexplained. But in face of the Nyaya philosophy explaining all perceptions on the ground of diverse sense-contact the Mimamsa probably could not afford to remain silent on such an important point. Read more »
inference, notion, objective facts, perceptions, senses, validity, virtue There are two kinds of perception in two stages, the first stage is called nirvikalpa (indeterminate) and the second savikalpa (determinate). The nirvikalpa perception of a thing is its perception at the first moment of the association of the senses and their objects. Read more »
buddhist view, cognition, consciousness, determinate, genus, individuality, percept, perception, senses Shabara says that when a certain fixed or permanent relation has been known to exist between two things, we can have the idea of one thing when the other one is perceived, and this kind of knowledge is called inference. Kumarila on the basis of this tries to show that inference is only possible when we notice that in a large number of cases two things (e.g. smoke and fire) subsist together in a third thing (e.g. kitchen, etc.) in some independent relation, i.e. when their coexistence does not depend upon any other eliminable condition or factor. Read more »
cause and effect, existence, infer, inference, rohini, smoke and fire Shabda or word is regarded as a separate means of proof by most of the recognized Indian systems of thought excepting the Jaina, Buddhist, Carvaka and Vaisheshika. A discussion on this topic however has but little philosophical value and I have therefore omitted to give any attention to it in connection with the Nyaya, and the Samkhya-Yoga systems. The validity and authority of the Vedas were acknowledged by all Hindu writers and they had wordy battles over it with the Buddhists who denied it. Read more »
carvaka, philosophical value, sutras, vedas Mimamsa has to accept the existence of soul, for without it who would perform the Vedic commandments, and what would be the meaning of those Vedic texts which speak of men as performing sacrifices and going to Heaven thereby? The soul is thus regarded as something entirely distinct from the body, the sense organs, and buddhi; it is eternal, omnipresent, and many, one in each body. Prabhakara thinks that it is manifested to us in all cognitions. Indeed he makes this also a proof for the existence of self as a separate entity from the body, for had it not been so, why should we have the notion of self-persistence in all our cognitions–even in those where there is no perception of the body? Read more »
consciousness, existence, going to heaven, pleasure pain, sacrifices, sense organs, true reason, vedic texts Gaudapada’s work is divided into four chapters: (1) Agama (scripture), (2) Vaitathya (unreality), (3) Advaita (unity), (4) Alatashanti (the extinction of the burning coal). The first chapter is more in the way of explaining the Mandukya Upanishad by virtue of which the entire work is known as Mandukyakarika. The second, third, and fourth chapters are the constructive parts of Gaudapada’s work, not particularly connected with the Mandukya Upanishad. Read more »
advaita, ananda, atma, deep sleep, dream state, extinction, mandukya upanishad, oneness, prana, shivam, theories of creation Vedanta philosophy is the philosophy which claims to be the exposition of the philosophy taught in the Upanishads and summarized in the Brahma-sutras of Badarayana. The Upanishads form the last part of the Veda literature, and its philosophy is therefore also called sometimes the Uttara-Mimamsa or the Mimamsa (decision) of the later part of the Vedas as distinguished from the Mimamsa of the previous part of the Vedas and the Brahmanas as incorporated in the Purvamimamsa sutras of Jaimini. Read more »
brahmanas, brahma sutras, commentaries, hindu, ramanuja, shankara, upanishads, vedanta philosophy, vedas The main idea of the advaita (non-dualistic) Vedanta philosophy as taught by the Shankara school is this, that the ultimate and absolute truth is the self, which is one, though appearing as many in different individuals. The world also as apart from us the individuals has no reality and has no other truth to show than this self. All other events, mental or physical, are but passing appearances, while the only absolute and unchangeable truth underlying them all is the self. Read more »
absolute truth, advaita, akara, appearances, brahman, cognition, comprehension, duality, macrocosm, microcosm, objective truth, passions, preceptor, sensations, vedanta philosophy, world consciousness The world is said to be false - a mere product of maya. The falsehood of this world-appearance has been explained as involved in the category of the indefinite which is neither sat “is” nor asat “is not.” Here the opposition of the “is” and “is not” is solved by the category of time. The world-appearance is “is not,” since it does not continue to manifest itself in all times, and has its manifestation up to the moment that the right knowledge dawns. It is not therefore “is not” in the sense that a “castle in the air” or a hare’s horn is “is not,” for these are called tuccha, the absolutely non-existent. Read more »
appearance, asat, brahman, castle in the air, conch shell, expression, manifestation, maya, perception, right knowledge The world-appearance is not however so illusory as the perception of silver in the conch-shell, for the latter type of worldly illusions is called pratibhasika, as they are contradicted by other later experiences, whereas the illusion of world-appearance is never contradicted in this worldly stage and is thus called vyavaharika (from vyavahara, practice, i.e. that on which is based all our practical movements). Read more »
appearance, brahman, consciousness, illusions, perception, right knowledge, sattva, true reality, vedanta This ajnana rests on the pure cit or intelligence. This cit or Brahman is of the nature of pure illumination, but yet it is not opposed to the ajnana or the indefinite. The cit becomes opposed to the ajnana and destroys it only when it is reflected through the mental states (vritti). The ajnana thus rests on the pure cit and not on the cit as associated with such illusory impositions as go to produce the notion of ego “aham” or the individual soul. Read more »
aham, antahkarana, appearance, brahman, ego, illumination, intelligence, jiva, luminosity, madhava, manifestations We have already seen that the indefinite ajnana could be experienced in direct perception and according to Vedanta there are only two categories. The category of the real, the self-luminous Brahman, and the category of the indefinite. The latter has for its ground the world-appearance, and is the principle by which the one unchangeable Brahman is falsely manifested in all the diversity of the manifold world. Read more »
brahman, diversity, existence, infinite reality, infinite variety, maya, objective world, perception, principle, true knowledge, vedanta The Vedanta philosophy looked at the constantly changing phenomena of the world-appearance and sought to discover the root whence proceeded the endless series of events and effects. The theory that effects were altogether new productions caused by the invariable unconditional and immediately preceding antecedents, as well as the theory that it was the cause which evolved and by its transformations produced the effect, are considered insufficient to explain the problem which the Vedanta had before it. Read more »
cause and effect, definition of cause and effect, manifestation, phenomena, transformations, vedanta philosophy We have many times spoken of truth or reality as self-luminous (svayamprakasha). But what does this mean? Vedanta defines it as that which is never the object of a knowing act but is yet immediate and direct with us (avedyatve sati aparoksavyavaharayogyatvam). Self-luminosity thus means the capacity of being ever present in all our acts of consciousness without in any way being an object of consciousness. Read more »
anubhuti, appearance, consciousness, manifestation, self luminosity, vedanta, world experience Jiva or individual means the self in association with the ego and other personal experiences, i.e. phenomenal self, which feels, suffers and is affected by world-experiences. In jiva also three stages are distinguished; thus when during deep sleep the antahkarana is submerged, the self perceives merely the ajnana and the jiva in this state is called prajna or anandamaya. In the dream-state the self is in association with a subtle body and is called taijasa. In the awakened state the self as associated with a subtle and gross body is called vishva. So also the self in its pure state is called Brahman, when associated with maya it is called Ishvara, when associated with the fine subtle element of matter as controlling them, it is called hiranyagarbha; when with the gross elements as the ruler or controller of them it is called virat purusha. Read more »
antahkarana, brahman, caitanya, deep sleep, dream self, dream states, ego, gross body, jiva, maya, personal experiences, purusha, right knowledge, subtle body, world experiences We have already seen that the Mimamsists had asserted that all knowledge was true simply because it was knowledge (yatharthah sarve vivadaspadibhutah pratyayah pratyayatvat). Even illusions were explained by them as being non-perception of the distinction between the thing perceived (e.g. the conch-shell), and the thing remembered (e.g. silver). Read more »
illusions, perception, presence, vedanta The drift which I have so carefully described and you, I hope, have inspected in your own mind, is not a bad thing nor a disorderly one. It is the relaxed condition of the mind, and we can use it for resting when we are mentally tired. In the course of prolonged study involving mental effort we may stop awhile to rest and recuperate by simply leaning back, closing the eyes, relaxing the body — especially the neck — and quietly watching the mental drift. Read more »
contiguity, four roads, memory training, mental effort, mental relaxation, remembered things, sensuous experience Examples:
1. Milk — baby; pen — hand; ship — sea; spade — garden; fatigue — sleep; gluttony — indigestion.
2. Animal — dog; view — landscape; chair — table; red — blue; heat — cold.
3. Car — wheel; tree — root; house — door; root — branch; arm — leg.
4. Earth — round; coin — silver; ice — cold; ink — fluid; lemon — yellow. Read more »
concentration, conjunction, mental picture, precise reason We may now turn to the first exercise: Read more »
concentration, four roads, mental health, recall WE have studied the first process of thought — the way in which every idea opens out in many directions. We have now to consider the second process — the way in which our attention passes on from one idea to another and forms a flow of thought. It is a matter almost of common knowledge that our attention travels among thoughts very much in the same way as our body moves about among things. So close is the similarity that we may say that the attention seems actually to walk on two-feet from one mental image or idea to another. Read more »
body moves, common knowledge, consciousness, memory, mental image, one moment, subconscious, unity It remains to be said that we can deliberately cultivate a mood by concentrating upon it, and thus can predispose the mind to certain associations of thought, so that whatever may turn up in the world or in the mind will lead on to our purpose. This is the way in which concentration leads to success in our chosen vocation or avocation. It makes almost everything you meet a co-worker of yours. Read more »
chosen vocation, concentration, predispose I HAVE already spoken of relaxation and muscle balance, and their relation to the practices of concentration and meditation. These are necessary so that (I) the body may not be injured by the mental efforts and (2) the mental work may not be spoiled by bodily discomfort. Thirdly, we have to remember that bodily attitudes are associated with states of feeling, such as lying down with sleep, and kneeling with prayer. That has to be taken into consideration when you are selecting a posture, but there is no objection to your lying down to concentrate or meditate, so long as you find that it does not conduce to sleepiness. Read more »
attitudes, concentration and meditation, lying down, mental efforts, muscle balance, posture, relaxation, sensations SOMETIMES when we are engaged in study or writing a visitor arrives; he may be a welcome friend at any other time, but at the moment he is a trouble. So also when we are engaged in an attempt at concentration, “visitors” throng in upon us, some welcome and others unwelcome. What is it that brings them here so inopportunely, and by what means can we persuade them to take their leave? Read more »
camel, companions, concentration, considerations, emotion, emotions, feelings, particles, resentment, tendency Although I have said that one should learn to concentrate even in a bus or train — anywhere and on any occasion which does not call for vigilance or response on our part, and when no one is talking to us — so that we may be positive and strong in our policy of life, I do not say that we should ignore the conveniences of quietude and non-interruption in our times of special practice. We must be strong enough to face and overcome difficulties, but need not deliberately make or seek them. Read more »
concentrate, concentration, difficulties, interruption, servants, surroundings, telepathy, vigilance Another form of contemplation, in great favor in the school of Shri Shankaracharya, is the contemplation of one’s own true nature. Look at the body and consider its various parts. Gaze at the hand; look at it intently as mere dissociated form, until you realize that “such a queer thing cannot be I”. Read more »
contemplation, inner man, inner search for yourself, Shri Shankaracharya The atma, by its association with the upadhis has three states of consciousness - namely, the jagrat, or waking state, when through the sense organs are perceived objects of sense through the operation of manas and buddhi. It is explained in the Isvarapratya-bhijna as follows - “the waking state dear to all is the source of external action through the activity of the senses.” The Jiva is called jagari - that is, he who takes upon himself the gross body called Visva. Read more »
atma, causal body, conscious, dreamless sleep, dream state, gross body, jiva, karana, macrocosm, manas, objectification, sense impressions, sense organs, sound sleep, states of consciousness, subtle body, yoga sutra Many writers on the subject of Metempsychosis have devoted much time, labor and argument to prove the reasonableness of the doctrine upon purely speculative, philosophical, or metaphysical grounds. And while we believe that such efforts are praiseworthy for the reason that many persons must be first convinced in that way, still we feel that one must really feel the truth of the doctrine from something within his own consciousness, before he will really believe it to be truth. Read more »
consciousness, logical necessity, memories, metempsychosis, philosophical