McClelland, Hardin T.

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RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN ANCIENT INDIA.BY HARDIN T. MCCLELLAND.(Concluded)V. JAINS AND LOKAYATIKANS.THERE were also two sects not included in the list of orthodoxsystems, but which yet exercised a very noticeable influenceupon the readiness with which those systems were received into theminds of later generations. In religious heterodoxy (so-called bythe major religions) the foremost was the Jain sect founded byMahavira an older contemporary of Buddha. Like early Buddhismit was a monastic religion which denied the authority and moralsufficiency of the Xedk traditions ; and yet its greatest "heresy" wasits difference with the Buddhists on the point of the soul's real ex-istence, for the Jains emphasized that the soul's permanence in thecosmic frame is all that will enable it to still be a soul when it hassurvived this earthly vale of ignorance and the latter's incurredbondage of worldly illusion. This phase of positive psychology, aswell as the defense of free truth against logical necessity (Xyaya),was, it seems from the Jainist practice commonly made, the primebusiness of their philosophy. It appeared in practically every argu-ment favoring the Tattvika, the "real possession" or "true prm-ciples", which advocated their notion of what constituted absolutefreedom of inquiry into a preconceived Reality (which, by the way,when compared with our western standards, seems about two-thirdsirrational) A good philosophical account of the principlesand practices of the Jains may be found in Alfred F. R. Hoernle s"Uvasagadasao", published in Calcutta, 1890.But with the Lokayatika, "those who turn to the world ofsense", the foundation as well as most of the procedure was alto-gether different. Our sense-experience of Nature does not qualifyus to hypothesize any sort of spiritual or psychic Over-Soul; evenf>22 THE OPEN COURT.individual .>^ouls are little else than tenuous postulates. The doctrineof empirical sentiency may have been less easily nullified or adequate-ly opposed by the orthodox systems, but by arranging it into aphilosophical and systematic form the materialists had a seeminglytenable position and the purely speculative intellectualism commonlyheld by the other Hindu thinkers was put to a more than merelynegative exertion to refute it. The great majority of so-calledrefutations amount to no more than arguing that the Lokayatikanmaterialists must be considered Tarkikas, sophists or sceptics.Another name for these materialists is Charvakas, after amythical ogre in the Mahabharata on whom is placed the respon-sibility for this maddening heresy. But I think it is probable thatsome real historical character by that name lived about the timethe doctrine took shape and perhaps shared in the ideas if not theestablishment of this teaching. Nevertheless, it is claimed that infounding this school of philosophical materialism (presumablyabout three centuries before Kanada's time) Charvaka had thecapable collaboration of Urihaspati. chai)lain to the Vedic godssomeone tells us, but at least a scholarly man whose doctrines aresupposed to have been collected together and edited in the Barhas-patya Sutra, a document long lost except for a few scattered quota-tions in not-ahvays-reliable commentaries on the rival darsanas orschools. It is perhaps only an etymological account of the school'sname.How'ever, it remained for the most part a negligible movementuntil the advent of Makkhali Gosali. "the Sage with the HairyCoat", who was possibly a contemporary of Patanjali. If the num-erous accounts are reliable Makkhali was an intellectual paradox;a sort of Timon who had faith in the efficacy of douljt, and whosecynicism was not grounded so much on vicarious ]K\iorism as on thecrbve-coeur underlying all self-culture. The burden of practicallyall his inconsistent notions is given in one of the few rcinarks whichhave been j)rescrved to us: "The human soul, as the Brahmanssay. may ver\- well be of an individual nature; but is no more thruithe best form to which our material parts have so far felt inclined.There is nf) such thing as j)ower or energy, or humanstrength or vigor Beings are essentially material structm"csand are bent this way and that by their fate (Daiva. organism) andby their individual nature (Atmanya. selfhood)".This .•-cei)tical sage was in no way ambitious to be a ciistosinoriiiii among his fellows, InU admitted himself to be simply a Loka-RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN ANCIENT INDIA. G23yatikan or "sense-world devotee". y\nd yet in his doctrine thatreligion had its orioin in the imposed notions of a few cunningpriests, there was a two-thousand-year anticipation of an almostidentical point of view remarked upon by the encyclopedic deistsDiderot and d'Holbach in their theological doctrines.VI. KRISHNA AND THE BHAGAVaD—GITa.Early in the first part of the second century B. C. when Asoka'sethical laws had become widely adopted into the customs of north-ern India and the Samkhya-Yoga philosophies were coming intovogue, that singularly inspirational poem called Bhagavad-Gita or"Song of the Holy One" was first inscribed. The Vedantism whichis now to be found here and there in its lines is the result of laterinterpolations, the last of which being made possibly about 200A. D. Nevertheless it remains to us a poetic summary of the bestand noblest teachings, consolations and exhortations to be derivedfrom all the preceding religions and speculative philosophies fromthe earliest Upanishads to the latest Yoga Sutras. Garbe's Germantranslation brings out the pure monism of its philosophy while SirEdwin Arnold's English translation emphasizes the almost Christiantone of its rehgion and ethics.However, its clearest value lies in the sturdy yet tender char-acter of its great expositor and instructor, Krishna "the AdorableOne", who takes human form and appears in time of dire need toArjuna chief of chariots under the blind king, Dritarashtra. WithKrishna, a man in the moral whirlpool of war is in most urgent needof philosophic and righteous instruction ; he must be taught andcautioned to see things in their true perspective, be faithful todivine truth and considerate of his highest ethical relations andduties. With Krishna, the doctrinal foundation for this instructionis to be had in the Samkhya's advocacy of an ontological dualism,of a mutually independent pair of realities, Brahma and Prakriti;and in the Samkhya-Yoga's two-fold manner of knowing truth—first, by the subjective means of the renunciative aljility and im-mutable calm of Brahma ; and second, bv means of the meditationand concentrative intelligence of Purusha (individual soul) dealingobjectively with Prakriti (external universe).And yet on this latter point Krishna held that the Purusha andthe Prakriti are but two elements in a more profound and real unityof the Cosmos. The philosophic foundation was that this monisticargument leaves no room for Purusha as an actual reality in theG24 THE OPEN COURT.universe, nor docs it countenance any finite source of activity asadequate to attain any knowledi^e of truth nor hence any actual re-demption from the misery of Hfe. Purusha, as individual mind, isfinite both in structure and in function : it operates in the limitedzone of the conditional and relative; its whole art and apparatusis subject to the empirical laws of time and space, whence it becomesalso subject to the Maya of sense-phenomena and the Avidya oftrusting- in their deliverances. In such case the Prakriti exercisesthe superior action ; it acts on and tyrannizes over the Purusha whichis thus rendered inferior, passive and weak when considered in re-lation to any real knowledge, practice of virtue, worship or free-dom. The Purusha then is a fit ground for illusion and error. It isopen to all manner of affection and disaffection, acting both irra-tional and immodest. It is perhaps so thoroughly affected by thewonders of the phenomenal world that it will try to ''rationalize" itserrors and illusions into a (specious) system of truth:—a pointvery shrewdly brought out in a philosophical play by Krishna'sfamous namesake, Krishna Mishra who flourished about 1150 A. D.In this play, entitled Prabodha Chandrodaya or "Moonrise of In-telligence", King Error gives out results of mental illusion as pointsof philosophy, and is refuted only when the wisdom of Pjrahma isshown superior to the Ilinyana ( w()rldl\- wise) lUiddha and theHatha (materialistic) Yoga.lUu in the 15hagavad-riita Krishna is the "]nire-tongued""spokesman who reaches far beyond this finitude of individual mind,looks through the sense-presentations of things and reads pro-foundly the deeper principles which underlie the i)luralisni of ap-])arent reality. As against the notions of the Sarvastivadas or niain-tainers of all existent realities (one of the four Ruddhistic \'ail)-hasliikas. a sect of ''vernacular intcrjjreters" supi)ose(l to have beenfounded by Pahula, son of Sakyanumi ) a Krishna sees in thesesuper-finite principles the one eternal I \ pe of Divine Reality su-])remc o\er the separateness of individuality and the relationalfoist of human intellect. This Supreme Reality is tlie ultimate factof all being (Astit\a, uni\ersal is-ness") ; not only of the real ex-istence of the actual l'ni\erse as an (>iiuii])rcsi'nt monistic root likethe Paraniatman of the Iswai'a-phildsophcrs. Inn al>o of human lac-ings and the imaginar\- l)fiiiL;N wliirh art' snp])(>sc'(l to inhabit theintermediary realms.Ever since the time of the Samkhya i'rarjichana or the "Sam-khva philoso])hv ])recniincntl\' establisluMl" ( six lectures by TswaraRELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY IN ANCIENT INDIA. 625Krishnana on Kapila's Samkhya Sutras), the great problem of hu-manity has been reduced to the single question of how to do awaywith the subtle difference, implied herein, between consciousness(which is finite and mutable) and being (which is super-finite andindestructible). The sure-footed manner of answering this ques-tion is perhaps the honest if not the only true reason why Krishnahas been habitually considered by the old theopathic Vedists to bethe eighth incarnation of Vishnu "the Worker" god of the ancientHindu trinity.Nevertheless, as we read the noble Song itself, we find thatKrishna takes on the form of a charioteer in Dritarashtra's armyand lays down to the immediate attention of Arjuna a practical solu-tion which aims to free humanity from its vicious circle of physicalbondage and make the finite self-soul of man one with the bound-less Soul-Self of Brahma. Like Vardhamana (c. 490 B. C), oneof the first Jain disciples and reputed successor to Mahavira, teach-ing his true followers (the so-called Svetambara Jains who werereally "white-robed" Brahmo-Buddhist ascetics) the ceaseless prac-tice of stern resistance to the six leading obstacles to human free-dom: Kama, lust; Krupa, anger; Maddha, pride; Matsara, vindic-tiveness ; Lokanyana, worldliness ; and Lopa, greed ;—Krishna alsolaid down the laws according to whose keeping mankind may beredeemed from its gross worldly pledge, the illusion, ignorance andpassive error of individual existence. And by constant conformityto this functional redemption the soul of man may be rendered onewith the positive activity of Brahma's universal Reality, hisImmutable Goodness and his Self-Realizing function of control,balance, peace, perfection, and creative harmony in both the humanand the divine realms. This condition or state of being is calledNirvana (non-void), the absolute equilibrium of Brahma himself;and yet it is a state of being which is quite possible of human at-tainment, for (in the eleventh and fourteenth songs) does notKrishna identify himself with the highest Brahm with an "I am it"revelation ? Surely here was Jaimini's Sabdasruti personified.Furthermore, Krishna might very well qualify to replaceVaruna who, from the earliest Vedic times and long before thequasi-rationahsm of the Upanishadic speculations, had been con-sidered the most celestial god in the Hindu pantheon, the founder ofthe mundane moral order, its preserver in the conscientious hea;rt ofman, and the detector and forgiver of human error and transgres-sion. It was in a similar capacity that Krishna served the practicalG26 THE OPEN COURT.guidance of mankind in \ icw of the i)(issil)ilit}' of the apotheosis ofsoul, of the identification of human and di\ine Intelligence. This pos-sibility is founded on the three principal paths of human aspiration ;positive action, faithfulness (love or devotion) and meditation-with-out-seed. Each of these paths is in turn to be directed and qualifiedby its degree of control, simplicity, and concentration of all ourenergies, physical, mental, and spiritual. Whence, with the properapplication of attention and industry, these three paths are sufficientto lead the Seeker to the Holy Truth, the Divine Goodness, and theSpiritual Beauty of the Cosmos. Only in the efficiency of theirconstant pursuit do they become a means adequate to our gloriousdestiny.Like Bharata (the poet-sage of old who by his pious life andpenance won the generosity of Sarasvati, wife of Brahma, goddessof speech and music, and inventress of the Dcvanagari Sanskrit),Krishna rated tlie ])ractical as more primarily important than thetheoretical. He emphasized the point that to gain the positive ])owerof the Paramatman or Supreme Soul-Self, the seeker must haveceaseless and tireless control over his pettv, personal aims, desiresand motives ; that to attain the blissful state of Spiritual Love,lirahmabhakti or devotion to the Deity, the aspiring seeker must besimple and humbly pure of heart and mind, not self-assertive, lux-ury-loving nor possession-grasping, which are the worst perhaps ofall human \ices. In a nut-shell Krishna made it a practical neces-sity of the moral life that in order to be enabled to reach the highestideal, the plane of Divine Wisdom and Spiritual Being, the aspirantmust renounce totally and absolutely the oblique demands of theManas or lower mind and its sensuous imagination. lie must irre-vocably turn away from this lower mind and embrace the higher,the Path of the Three Reasons, Triyatarkadharma ; like the trueJnanayogi he must constantly meditate on the eternal truth ofBrahma's Realty, and concentrate all his energies to a focu^ on this'hreefold ])ath to Divine Wisdom.This is the life of .Nirvana and Immutable IMiss as Krishnadescribed it and to which he exliortcd Arjuna in one of the world'sgreatest documents of religious iiiNtruction—the Bhagaviid-Gita.As the \'e(lanta-Mimam<a system had been empliasized as ihe pal-tern for the only religio-philosophical life, so Krishnaism was soonlooked u])on as its peer, for here were practical ctlu'cal laws to sup-plement the bare theoretical chronicle of Keality. Where the Vedantahad been founded upon the hymnal aspiration of the \ edas and theRELICTON AND PIITLOSOPITY IN ANCIENT INDIA, 027Upanishadic speculations, Krishna adopted the ground estabHshedby the Sutra writers and the ascetic sages of old, and based his re-ligious education of man. not on mere ceremonial priestcraft and idlepresumptions of finite acquisition, but on honest ethical construction,practical religious eil'ort. and true ennoblement of soul.

Religion and Philosophy in Ancient India.

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Religion and Philosophy in Ancient India.

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