A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1, Surendranath Dasgupta [ebook reader with android os .txt] 📗

(yogyatâ) that it is interpreted as the experience of the puru@sa. This explanation of Vâcaspati of the situation is objected to by Vijñâna Bhik@su. Vijñâna Bhik@su says that the association of the buddhi with the image of the puru@sa cannot give us the notion of a real person who undergoes the experiences. It is to be supposed therefore that when the buddhi is intelligized by the reflection of the puru@sa, it is then superimposed upon the puru@sa, and we have the notion of an abiding person who experiences [Footnote ref 1]. Whatever may be the explanation, it seems that the union of the buddhi with the puru@sa is somewhat mystical. As a result of this reflection of cit on buddhi and the superimposition of the buddhi the puru@sa cannot realize that the transformations of the buddhi are not its own. Buddhi resembles puru@sa in transparency, and the puru@sa fails to differentiate itself from the modifications of the buddhi, and as a result of this non-distinction the puru@sa becomes bound down to the buddhi, always failing to recognize the truth that the buddhi and its transformations are wholly alien to it. This non-distinction of puru@sa from buddhi which is itself a mode of buddhi is what is meant by avidyâ (non-knowledge) in Sâ@mkhya, and is the root of all experience and all misery [Footnote ref 2].

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[Footnote 1: Tattvavais'âradî and Yogavârttika, I. 4.]

[Footnote 2: This indicates the nature of the analysis of illusion with Sâ@mkhya. It is the non-apprehension of the distinction of two things (e.g. the snake and the rope) that is the cause of illusion; it is therefore called the akhyâti (non-apprehension) theory of illusion which must be distinguished from the anyathâkhyâti (misapprehension) theory of illusion of Yoga which consists in positively misapprehending one (e.g. the rope) for the other (e.g. snake). Yogavârttika, I. 8.]

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Yoga holds a slightly different view and supposes that the puru@sa not only fails to distinguish the difference between itself and the buddhi but positively takes the transformations of buddhi as its own. It is no non-perception of the difference but positively false knowledge, that we take the puru@sa to be that which it is not (anyathâkhyâti). It takes the changing, impure, sorrowful, and objective prak@rti or buddhi to be the changeless, pure, happiness-begetting subject. It wrongly thinks buddhi to be the self and regards it as pure, permanent and capable of giving us happiness. This is the avidyâ of Yoga. A buddhi associated with a puru@sa is dominated by such an avidyâ, and when birth after birth the same buddhi is associated with the same puru@sa, it cannot easily get rid of this avidyâ. If in the meantime pralaya takes place, the buddhi is submerged in the prak@rti, and the avidyâ also sleeps with it. When at the beginning of the next creation the individual buddhis associated with the puru@sas emerge, the old avidyâs also become manifest by virtue of it and the buddhis associate themselves with the puru@sas to which they were attached before the pralaya. Thus proceeds the course of sa@msâra. When the avidyâ of a person is rooted out by the rise of true knowledge, the buddhi fails to attach itself to the puru@sa and is forever dissociated from it, and this is the state of mukti.

The Cognitive Process and some characteristics of Citta.

It has been said that buddhi and the internal objects have evolved in order to giving scope to the experience of the puru@sa. What is the process of this experience? Sâ@mkhya (as explained by Vâcaspati) holds that through the senses the buddhi comes into touch with external objects. At the first moment of this touch there is an indeterminate consciousness in which the particulars of the thing cannot be noticed. This is called nirvikalpa pratyak@sa (indeterminate perception). At the next moment by the function of the sa@mkalpa (synthesis) and vikalpa (abstraction or imagination) of manas (mind-organ) the thing is perceived in all its determinate character; the manas differentiates, integrates, and associates the sense-data received through the senses, and

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thus generates the determinate perception, which when intelligized by the puru@sa and associated with it becomes interpreted as the experience of the person. The action of the senses, ahamkâra, and buddhi, may take place sometimes successively and at other times as in cases of sudden fear simultaneously. Vijñâna Bhik@su differs from this view of Vâcaspati, and denies the synthetic activity of the mind-organ (manas), and says that the buddhi directly comes into touch with the objects through the senses. At the first moment of touch the perception is indeterminate, but at the second moment it becomes clear and determinate [Footnote ref 1]. It is evident that on this view the importance of manas is reduced to a minimum and it is regarded as being only the faculty of desire, doubt and imagination.

Buddhi, including ahamkâra and the senses, often called citta in Yoga, is always incessantly suffering changes like the flame of a lamp, it is made up of a large preponderance of the pure sattva substances, and is constantly moulding itself from one content to another. These images by the dual reflection of buddhi and puru@sa are constantly becoming conscious, and are being interpreted as the experiences of a person. The existence of the puru@sa is to be postulated for explaining the illumination of consciousness and for explaining experience and moral endeavour. The buddhi is spread all over the body, as it were, for it is by its functions that the life of the body is kept up; for the Sâ@mkhya does not admit any separate prana vâyu (vital breath) to keep the body living. What are called vâyus (bio-motor force) in Vedânta are but the different modes of operation of this category of buddhi, which acts all through the body and by its diverse movements performs the life-functions and sense-functions of the body.

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[Footnote 1: As the contact of the buddhi with the external objects takes place through the senses, the sense data of colours, etc., are modified by the senses if they are defective. The spatial qualities of things are however perceived by the senses directly, but the time-order is a scheme of the citta or the buddhi. Generally speaking Yoga holds that the external objects are faithfully copied by the buddhi in which they are reflected, like trees in a lake

"tasmims'ca darpane sphâre samasta vastudrstayah imâstâh pratibimbanti sarasiva tatadrumâh" Yogavarttika, I. 4.

The buddhi assumes the form of the object which is reflected on it by the senses, or rather the mind flows out through the senses to the external objects and assumes their forms: "indriyânyeva pranâlikâ cittasancaranamargah taih samyujya tadgola kadvârâ bâhyavastusûparaktasya cittasyendryasahityenaivârthakarah parinâmo bhavati" Yogavârttika, I. VI. 7. Contrast Tattvakaumudî, 27 and 30.]

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Apart from the perceptions and the life-functions, buddhi, or rather citta as Yoga describes it, contains within it the root impressions (sa@mskâras) and the tastes and instincts or tendencies of all past lives (vâsanâ) [Footnote ref 1]. These sa@mskâras are revived under suitable associations. Every man had had infinite numbers of births in their past lives as man and as some animal. In all these lives the same citta was always following him. The citta has thus collected within itself the instincts and tendencies of all those different animal lives. It is knotted with these vâsanâs like a net. If a man passes into a dog life by rebirth, the vâsanâs of a dog life, which the man must have had in some of his previous infinite number of births, are revived, and the man's tendencies become like those of a dog. He forgets the experiences of his previous life and becomes attached to enjoyment in the manner of a dog. It is by the revival of the vâsanâ suitable to each particular birth that there cannot be any collision such as might have occurred if the instincts and tendencies of a previous dog-life were active when any one was born as man.

The sa@mskâras represent the root impressions by which any habit of life that man has lived through, or any pleasure in which he took delight for some time, or any passions which were

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[Footnote 1: The word sa@mskâra is used by Pâ@nini who probably preceded Buddha in three different senses (1) improving a thing as distinguished from generating a new quality (Sata utkar@sâdhâna@m sa@mskâra@h, Kâs'ila on Pâ@nini, VI. ii. 16), (2) conglomeration or aggregation, and (3) adornment (Pâ@nini, VI. i. 137, 138). In the Pi@takas the word sa@nkhâra is used in various senses such as constructing, preparing, perfecting, embellishing, aggregation, matter, karma, the skandhas (collected by Childers). In fact sa@nkhâra stands for almost anything of which impermanence could be predicated. But in spite of so many diversities of meaning I venture to suggest that the meaning of aggregation (samavâya of Pâ@nini) is prominent. The word sa@mskaroti is used in Kau@sîtaki, II. 6, Chândogya IV. xvi. 2, 3, 4, viii. 8, 5, and B@rhadâra@nyaka, VI. iii. 1, in the sense of improving. I have not yet come across any literary use of the second meaning in Sanskrit. The meaning of sa@mskâra in Hindu philosophy is altogether different. It means the impressions (which exist subconsciously in the mind) of the objects experienced. All our experiences whether cognitive, emotional or conative exist in subconscious states and may under suitable conditions be reproduced as memory (sm@rti). The word vâsanâ (Yoga sûtra, IV. 24) seems to be a later word. The earlier Upanis@sads do not mention it and so far as I know it is not mentioned in the Pâli pi@takas. Abhidhânappadîpikâ of Moggallâna mentions it, and it occurs in the Muktika Upani@sad. It comes from the root "vas" to stay. It is often loosely used in the sense of sa@mskâra, and in Vyâsabhâ@sya they are identified in IV. 9. But vâsanâ generally refers to the tendencies of past lives most of which lie dormant in the mind. Only those appear which can find scope in this life. But sa@mskâras are the sub-conscious states which are being constantly generated by experience. Vâsanâs are innate sa@mskâras not acquired in this life. See Vyâsabhâ@sya, Tattvâvais'âradî and Yogavârttika, II. 13.]

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engrossing to him, tend to be revived, for though these might not now be experienced, yet the fact that they were experienced before has so moulded and given shape to the citta that the citta will try to reproduce them by its own nature even without any such effort on our part. To safeguard against the revival of any undesirable idea or tendency it is therefore necessary that its roots as already left in the citta in the form of sa@mskâras should be eradicated completely by the formation of the habit of a contrary tendency, which if made sufficiently strong will by its own sa@mskâra naturally stop the revival of the previous undesirable sa@mskâras.

Apart from these the citta possesses volitional activity (ce@s@tâ) by which the conative senses are brought into relation to their objects. There is also the reserved potent power (s'akti) of citta, by which it can restrain itself and change its courses or continue to persist in any one direction. These characteristics are involved in the very essence of citta, and form the groundwork of the Yoga method of practice, which consists in steadying a particular state of mind to the exclusion of others.

Merit or demerit (pu@nya, pâpa) also is imbedded in the citta as its tendencies, regulating the mode of its movements, and giving pleasures and pains in accordance with it.

Sorrow and its Dissolution [Footnote ref 1].

Sâ@mkhya 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. Moreover even in states of temporary pleasure, we had sorrow at the previous moment when we had solicited it, and we have sorrow even when we enjoy it, for we have the fear that we may lose it. The sum total of sorrows is thus much greater than the pleasures, and the pleasures only strengthen the keenness of the sorrow. The wiser the man the greater is his capacity of realizing that the world and our experiences are all full of sorrow. For unless a man is convinced of this great truth that all is sorrow, and that temporary pleasures, whether generated by ordinary worldly experience or by enjoying heavenly experiences through the performance of Vedic sacrifices, are quite unable to

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[Footnote 1: Tattavais'âradî and Yogavârttika, II. 15, and Tattvakaumudî,
I.]

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eradicate the roots of sorrow, he will not be anxious for mukti or the final uprooting of pains. A man must feel that all pleasures lead to sorrow, and that the ordinary ways of removing sorrows by seeking enjoyment cannot remove them ultimately; he must turn his back on the pleasures of the world and on the pleasures of paradise. The performances of sacrifices according to